That’s how Sidney talked and that’s how Sidney behaved. But Sidney was not really a rascal. Beneath all the huff and puff he was a gentleman. He never pushed his musicians or his women any further than they wanted to be pushed. And he was rewarded for his good manners with all the affection he needed, on stage and off.
And so Sidney was just being Sidney that night at Jericho’s when he encountered David Delarosa’s darker instincts. It was after his third set. He’d just finished a twenty minute version of Glenn Miller’s “Little Brown Jug” which, to everyone’s enthusiastic finger popping approval, didn’t sound a bit like Glenn Miller’s “Little Brown Jug.” He jumped off the stage and started hugging the women, purring in their ears about how gone they were, suggesting they disappear out the back door with him for little impromptu love-orooni.
He propositioned his way through a half-dozen women before reaching our table. “How’s my happy little tribe of egg heads tonight?” he asked. He orbited the table, as he always did, slapping the men on the back and pulling the women to their feet for a hug. He hugged Gwen and Effie and then danced to the side where I was sitting between Chick and David. He bent over me and cooed in his easy bebop way: “How ’bout a squeezaroo, Dolly?”
I didn’t mind Sidney’s attention at all. It was all in good fun. But David Delarosa for some reason did mind. He yanked Sidney’s hand off my shoulder. “Save it for your horn, sonny boy,” he said. There was beer foam on his upper lip.
Sidney figured David was just kidding. We all did. He laughed and put his hand back on my shoulder. But David wasn’t kidding. He yanked Sidney’s hand away again. “I said save it!”
Sidney kept smiling but his eyes narrowed with anger. I’m sure he wanted to knock David on his ass. And even though David was a wrestler, Sidney could have done it. But the fire in his eyes quickly dimmed to fear. Maybe he was Sidney Spikes, local bebop god, but he was also a black man playing in a white man’s club. He held up his hands in surrender. “We’ve got no problem, man,” he said.
David stood up. Sidney waved his hands. David threw a punch. It landed square on Sidney’s mouth. Sidney wobbled a little then stepped back. He checked his lips for blood. “We got no problem,” he said again. David cocked his arm for another punch. But he didn’t throw it. Sidney went back to the stage and played like a demon for two hours without taking another break.
When the detectives questioned me that day in my kitchen, I didn’t say boo about the trouble between David and Sidney. The only thing I was thinking about that afternoon was that goddamned poppyseed kuchen. But somebody must have told them about it. Sidney Spikes spent two miserable nights in a holding cell.
“About this woman Sidney was ensconced with?” I asked Dale. “Did the police reports say who she was?”
Dale fed the last piece of Styrofoam into Big Bertha. He grinned devilishly. “It was an old friend of yours. Fredricka Fredmansky.”
“Effie? Well heavens to Betsy! Of course it was Effie!”
While Dale and I were leaning on Big Bertha, yakking about David Delarosa’s murder and a dozen other things, the police were slowly evacuating the people in the apartment building. Then inch by inch, a SWAT team moved down the fifth floor hallway toward Kurt Depew’s door. They didn’t exactly knock. A battering ram tore the door off its frame. Tear gas canisters were fired in. We heard their woosh. Then we heard three quick shots.
Dale would learn later that the first of those shots was fired by Kurt Depew. It struck Sargeant Brian Boyle’s metal-plated Kevlar vest and caused no more damage that a doughnut-sized bruise on his spongy belly, which he proudly showed to everyone he could before it faded. The second and third shots were fired by the police. One shot made mincemeat out of Kurt Depew’s hip. The other made mincemeat out of his heart.
Chapter 10
Friday, March 30
It was Friday, a day I usually coast a little more than usual. But that Friday I couldn’t wait to get to the paper. I took a quick shower. Left my hair damp. Made instant oatmeal.
You can understand why I was in such a hurry. Dale had dominated Page One most of the week. His Wednesday story had detailed Kurt Depew’s fatal shootout with police. His Thursday story had dug deeper into the possible link between the Depew brothers and Congresswoman Zuduski-Lowell’s brother. His story in today’s paper was going to knock a lot of politically sensitive socks off. I wanted to be there to see them fly.
According to well-placed sources, after weeks of pressuring police to speed up their investigation into her brother’s death, the congresswoman was now warning them to move slowly. I’d stayed around long enough Thursday night to see the story before it went to press. The headline was wordy but wonderfuclass="underline"
Zuduski-Lowell To Police:
“Don’t you dare embarrass me”
I’d caught Dale just as he was getting into the elevator. “This well-placed source wouldn’t happen to include a certain detective of Scottish heritage, would it?” I asked. He’d done his best to speak in a brogue: “Now lassie, behave,” he croaked, poking the elevator button. “You know darn well that’s something I’ve got to keep under me kilt.”
So that morning I ate half of my oatmeal and left the rest to harden into cement. I threw on my coat and headed for the garage. And wouldn’t you know it the damn phone rang. It was Eric Chen. “I think I lost my truck keys,” he said.
“You think you lost them?”
“Well, I know I lost them. Just not how thoroughly.”
So instead of zooming straight downtown, I had to zigzag north through the morning traffic to the old Cedar Hill apartments where Eric lived.
“You should have a second set,” I snarled when he got into my Shadow with his daily six-pack of Mountain Dew.
“That was my second set,” he said.
I fought my way over to Cleveland Avenue and started south through an exasperating gauntlet of traffic lights.
Eric took my cursing at the red lights personally-which he was smart to do-and did his best to get my mind on something else. “Any of that toxic waste stuff I gave you panning out?” he asked.
“Too early to tell,” I said. “But I have confirmed that eighteen drums of toluene are still out there somewhere. And I did learn that Gordon was involved with the original EPA investigation. And that the Wooster Pike landfill was one of the suspected sites. And that Kenneth Kingzette was paroled in November.”
Eric added another and. “And you think he killed Sweet Gordon before he could find those other drums?”
The light ahead of us turned red. “I think it’s a possibility,” I said.
It was only eight-thirty on a very chilly day, but Eric couldn’t resist the temptation. He twisted the cap off one of his Mountain Dews and took a long chug of the green goop. “How would Kingzette even know Gordon was digging out there?” he asked. “He’s been in prison for several years, right?”
“In prison in Lucasville, not on the moon,” I said.
“You ever been to Lucasville?”
I jabbed my finger at the canvas bag crowding his feet and told him to find the folder marked ROWE/DIG. “You remember that day at the bookstore when you called me a sweet potato?” I asked.
He pulled the bag onto his lap and dug through the thick stack of folders. “I think you called yourself a sweet potato, Maddy.”
The light turned green, but not long enough for me to get through it. “I guess it was me,” I admitted. “But only because you were already thinking it. I don’t know why you think I’m incapable of doing a computer search on my own.”
He found the folder and opened it. “Fifteen years of empirical experience-whoa!”
He was looking at the printout of a story written by Doris Rowe. Read the headline: GORDON’S GOLD MINE