“Hell of a security system you’ve got in this place,” I said, waving my hand around the room. “Two interior cameras, one exterior. I’ve been in banks that had less coverage than that.”
“This ain’t Brecksville, boy,” Jerome Huggins said. “We got kids out there with big guns in their hands and small brains in their heads. Got to be prepared.”
“How long you had those cameras up?” I asked.
“Two years,” Huggins answered, chewing on the toothpick now with enough pressure to make his jaw muscles bulge.
I leaned on the counter, my face close to his, and smiled.
“Jerome,” I said, “you are full of shit.”
He wiped his sweaty jowls with one hand and spit the toothpick onto the floor at his feet.
“’Scuse me, boy?”
“Those cameras are almost brand-new, Jerome. I’d be willing to bet if we pull them down and have someone from the manufacturer come here and take a look, we’ll find out they were made in the last year. I’m guessing they haven’t been up for more than a month.”
Joe took a few steps to the side and stood peering up at one of the interior cameras, seeing what I already knew.
“I suggest,” Jerome Huggins said, “that you boys be getting the hell out of my store now.”
I shook my head. “Not yet, Jerome. Not till you tell us when those cameras went in and who told you to put them in.”
“Kiss . . . my . . . black . . . ass,” he said slowly, straightening up on his stool.
“You really buy those two years ago?” Joe said, voice casual.
Huggins looked at him with distaste but nodded.
“Where’d you get them?” Joe asked, still friendly.
Huggins’s chest rose as he took a deep breath. “From a catalog.”
“Any chance you’d have a receipt?” Joe said.
“Get out,” Huggins said. “Now.”
I put my palms on the counter and leaned in to him. “You’re a lying piece of shit, Jerome. Those cameras are new, and you put them up because somebody told you to do it. Isn’t that it?”
“I put them up because I like my security.” His hand dipped under the counter. “Same reason I keep this.” He brought out a small Smith & Wesson revolver, wrapped his fat fingers around the stock, and rested it gently on the counter, pointed my way. “I think it’s time for you to go home.”
I stayed where I was and stared at him. I stared at him for a long time. Long enough for him to begin to concentrate on it, to focus on meeting my eyes. When it seemed he was properly absorbed with that, I swept my left hand across the counter and knocked the revolver out of his fingers with one sharp, swift motion. He came up off his stool and swung at me clumsily. I avoided the blow and reached across the counter to grab him by the throat. Joe swore and put his hands on my shoulders, pulling me back.
“Tell me if it was like I said, Jerome.” I tightened my grasp on his throat and he gagged, his eyes wide and white, his hands tugging at my fingers, trying to free himself.
“Get off him,” Joe said, his hand finding a pressure point between my neck and shoulder as he pulled me back. I released Jerome Huggins’s throat and stepped away from the counter. He stood still, rubbing his neck and breathing heavily.
“Yeah, you best get him off,” he said to Joe. “This boy here got crazy eyes, man. Crazy eyes. I see ’em come in here like that sometimes, ready to kill over something ain’t nobody else even understands. I see ’em. And you know what they get next? They get dead, my man. Dead.”
“Who told you to put the cameras up, Jerome?” I said. “You tell me that, and we’re gone.”
He shook his head. “You’re already gone, brother.”
I wanted to say more, but Joe was pushing me toward the door.
We went outside and across the street. Joe unlocked the car but didn’t get inside, choosing instead to lean on the hood and stare at me.
“The cameras are new, Joe,” I said. “They set Ed up.”
The wind came across the empty lot and blew his tie up in his face. He smoothed it down and kept staring at me, silent.
“You know I’m right,” I said. “You saw the cameras, and you heard Huggins, and you know what it means.”
“I’ll tell you what else I saw. I saw you lose control, Lincoln. Fast.”
“You call that losing control? Please. That was pretty damn restrained. If I’d lost control, I would have broken every bottle of booze in that asshole’s store and then put him through the window.”
“Macho,” Joe said. “Cool.”
“Go to hell.”
For a minute he was quiet. Then he said, “You know what I would’ve put in my report if we were still on the force? I would’ve written that my partner needed to be removed from the case because of an excessive emotional involvement. I would’ve written that your judgment could not be trusted on this case, that you were a liability to yourself and everyone around you.”
I put my hands on the car roof and leaned against it, meeting his eyes.
“We aren’t on the force anymore, Joe.” “That doesn’t mean you can do that,” he said, pointing across the street at the Liquor Locker.
“These bastards set my friend up for a murder, and then they killed him!” I said, my voice tight and loud, my hands pressed hard against the car. “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do. I’m here to settle the damn score, okay? And if I’ve got to settle it by kicking in doors and slapping a piece of shit like Jerome back there around, that’s what I’m going to do. You don’t like it, then get the hell out of here and go home. I’ll finish this alone.”
“You think this is the way to go about it? You’re even shouting at me now. There’s a way to investigate—”
“They set my friend up for a murder and then they killed him!” I screamed it this time and punched the roof of his car. “You want to talk about protocol and manners? Are you kidding me?”
Joe stood up straight, every muscle rigid, his eyes flat and small. He did not speak.
“I don’t need to hear about what you’d write in your damn report if we were still on the force,” I said, my voice softer now. “We’re not there anymore, and this isn’t a case somebody dropped on my desk. This is the best friend I ever had, Joe, and he’s dead. Don’t tell me to treat it like it’s another day at the job. It’s not.”
He took a deep breath, moved his eyes to the street, but stayed silent.
“You want to go home, go home,” I said. “I’m going to see Alberta Gradduk.”
He stayed where he was. I turned and walked away from him, east down Train. It would be a long walk to Ed’s old house, but I had plenty of fuel to burn.
I’d gone maybe three blocks when Joe pulled up beside me and stopped, the motor idling. I looked in at him. He didn’t turn to face me, just kept his eyes on the street while he popped the door locks open and waited for me to get inside.
Her face had taken on a grayish cast that reminded me of the Cuyahoga on a cold March morning. Her eyes were rimmed with red lines and her breath was stale with cigarette smoke and bourbon. I stood on the steps and stared at her, tried to remember her as she’d once been, an attractive woman who rarely drank and didn’t smoke. It wasn’t easy.
“I told you,” Alberta Gradduk said, “to go away. I didn’t want to see you back here. Why won’t you leave us alone?”
“It’s not ‘us,’ anymore, Mrs. Gradduk,” I said. “Your son is dead. And I don’t give a damn what you think of me, or where you want me to go, or how much you want to be left alone. I’m here to find out what really happened to Ed, and I’m not leaving.”