The door had been battered in to hang on one hinge, the living room charred and smoke damaged, water dripping from the ceiling. Carl went in the kitchen past a blackened dining table, came back and said, "The kitchen's a mess, all tore up."
Art said, "What's this room, pretty nice? Look at that TV hanging on the wall. That cost some money."
"All they do in the weed business is make money," Carl said. "You think we ought to look into it?"
Art said, "Shit, I don't mind. This guy's out of business, we could take over his customers. You suppose there's any in the house?"
"What?"
"Weed. I think I got some Zig-Zags," Art said, getting his raincoat open to pat his jeans. "Yeah, I got a book of one and a halfs. If we get lucky."
"Cops've been through the place," Carl said.
"Avern said something like a hundred pounds were delivered by the guy got chopped up. But what'd he say to look for?"
"You was sitting there."
"He told you about it first. I'm on the phone with Smokey." He said, "Hey," looking past Carl and out the front window. "A colored guy's coming to the house. The hell's he want?"
"I doubt he's a looter," Carl said. "He ain't hesitating or looking around, is he? No, he could be coming back for something stashed-what do you think?-and knows where it is. Let's step out of the way."
Jerome already had a wanted sheet folded in a pocket of his cargoes he was wearing with a Tommy ski jacket and a black watch cap pulled down over his ears. He ripped down another sheet-Orlando's profile on it, his rows, his shitty beard with the bare spots in it-from the wall next to the bay window and went inside, into the living room and stopped.
Two white guys standing in the dining room were holding nines on him.
But not saying a word. Not telling him to freeze or do any of that shit cops told you to do. Jerome looked at their black no-style coats, at their regular shoes and said, "Don't shoot," raising his hands in the air, one hand holding the wanted sheet, "I'm on your side. I'm checking this place out for Sergeant Frank Delsa. He's on the police Homicide and my name's Jerome Jackson, I'm a C.I."
They still didn't say anything. Not telling him to go on, get outta here, nothing.
"Y'all are Homicide, too, aren't you?"
Carl said, "You know what we are, but we don't know what you are."
"Man, I told you, I'm a C.I. working for Frank Delsa, Squad Seven. I came over to have a look around."
Art said, "For what, weed?"
"There wouldn't be no dank in here now."
"What're you looking for then?"
"I'll know when I see it," Jerome said.
Art said, "You getting smart with me?"
"You never heard that? I start looking for phone numbers. You look on the wall," Jerome said, "where a phone was somebody ripped out. A man that don't mind messing up his walls."
Carl said, "What's that you got?"
He came over and Jerome handed him the sheet saying, "Twenty thousand reward, man, for Orlando Holmes, but y'all can't collect on it, can you, being with the police."
Art said, "What's he talking about?" and now both the guys were reading the sheet.
Jerome said, "Frank Delsa gave me one. Y'all haven't seen it? They some more stuck on the front of the house."
Art said, "Jesus Christ, we put him away we could score thirty each."
Jerome didn't know what he was talking about but didn't ask. The other one said to him, "See, we been on our vacation, only got back today. We're helping out here till we get, you know, assigned to some squad needs us." He said, "But you can collect this money, huh?"
"Since I ain't on the police, only working for 'em, yeah."
Carl said, "What if we help each other?"
"I don't know," Jerome said, "I guess." He wondered should he ask to see their badges. He said, "Even if you don't get any of the reward we find him?"
"It's all yours," Carl said. "As you say, we can't touch any part of it."
19
Delsawasn't worried about taking down Montez. He believed that once he did, Montez would see he had to deal and give up the two white guys, the shooters. No, Delsa's problem was Kelly Barr. He couldn't stop thinking about her and there was nothing he could do about it, no one he could talk to. Jackie Michaels would roll her eyes at him. "You've known her, what, three days and you're in love, huh? Baby, you need to get laid's all."
It wasn't about getting laid.
It was about her.
It was the cool way she looked at him as she smoked the Slim. It was the confidence she showed in her underwear shots, the low-rise thong and the low-rise v-string, the demure way she crossed her arms to cover her breasts.
It kept getting harder to treat her like a witness. Lying in bed in the early morning, the house still, he would think of reasons to call her.
At his desk later in the morning he punched her number on his phone. He had a real question to ask and it worried him a little.
Wendell Robinson walked in the squad room, came right to Delsa's desk as Kelly's voice said hello.
"Listen, I'm gonna have to call you back. This is Frank Delsa."
She said, "I know who it is."
"I'll get right back to you."
She said fine.
He hung up and Wendell said, "The guy that was shot thirteen times :? You know I gave it to Four when you started losing people. They identified the complainant as Henry Mendez. Street name, Fatboy," Wendell said, "a big P.R. kid twenty years old nobody liked much, but had a '94 Cutlass with nice rims. Last month Fatboy and three homies held up a party store on Springwells. Shots were fired, the manager and the clerk went down behind the counter, nobody was hit. Fatboy, we find out later, waited in the car. The next day he's dead, with all those bullets in him."
"I saw him," Delsa said, "lying in the weeds back of the cemetery. That was three weeks ago."
"That's right, and now just the other day," Wendell said, "three white boys are I.D.'d on the robbery and picked up. Wayne and Kenny, both twenty, and Toody, eighteen, all three on LEIN for B and E, assault, felony firearms. It's this Toody that steps up, the smartest one, and asks can he cop to something else and get a pass on the armed robbery. Toody says all he did was wait in the car with Fatboy. He said it was Wayne shot him. Fatboy was complaining about his cut and Wayne was afraid he'd give them up."
Delsa said, "Who's working it?"
"Eleanor Marsh. You know Eleanor, big, good-looking white woman. Came to Four from Vice about a year ago. She's working with you now. Jackie's got her checking with the Crime Lab on Paradiso and the girl."
"Jackie told me," Delsa said.
"Fine-looking woman," Wendell said. "I know working Vice she liked to get out on the street in a little skimpy playsuit and white boots. You'd see her over on Cass hustling the johns."
"Eleanor and Maureen were good friends," Delsa said. "She'd come over and hang out."
"Well, Eleanor took what Toody said and asked Kenny what he knew about Fatboy getting hit, waving a plea deal on the robbery at him, and Kenny jumped at it. He said they went down by the cemetery looking for a crackhead Fatboy could shoot to prove himself, get off the hook. Only Wayne tells Kenny to give Toody the gun, the Ruger. Kenny's the gun guy. He picks them up different ways, some doing burglaries and sells them. Wayne tells Toody to shoot Fatboy, but he can't do it. He hands the gun to Wayne and Wayne empties it into Fatboy, shoots him seven times in the head, six in the body. So then it's Wayne's turn to be questioned. Eleanor asks him where he was that night. Oh, he was visiting his girlfriend in Clawson. Took her to dinner at the National Coney, Fifteen and Crooks. Wayne stays with that, won't budge, even though his prints are on the Ruger and all over the car, the Cutlass."