“Thanks,” I said. “Could we just talk about Vend? Is that his address?”
“Why? You don’t plan to go there.”
“Why not? I just want to ask him a few questions.”
“At his house? Gus. This isn’t the business beat. Vend isn’t some pasty-faced guy in his sixties who thinks hitting a squash ball makes him a badass. People who piss this guy off pay for it.”
“Got it.”
“You said there was a bombing up north?”
“Yeah. Nobody got hurt, though.”
“Nobody was supposed to get hurt. It was a warning. What’s-her-name must have known something she wasn’t supposed to know.”
Build it and they will die, the note said. Whoever had sent it clearly intended it for public distribution. But why would Vend or anyone else outside of Starvation care about a new hockey rink? And who would send something so crude and obvious?
“Gracie,” I said. “But he already-she’s already dead.”
Mich stopped to think. “Well,” she said, “maybe somebody else there knows something they shouldn’t.”
“Yeah, well, it ain’t me.”
We sat in silence for a bit, Mich smoking, her eyes wandering around the diner, me spreading grape jelly on my toast.
“Hey,” she said. “I hear your old ambulance chaser buddy is up there now.”
“Who? Oh, Haskell.” I put the knife down and noticed Mich looking directly at me. She had been with me when I’d had my unfortunate encounter with Haskell in Detroit. “Yeah. His son’s a hockey hotshot. Haskell’s trying to build a rink. I don’t think he has the money.”
She leaned slightly forward. “How could he not? The guy’s made a pile.”
“I don’t know. But he’s not paying his contractors. Work’s come to a stop. And now he’s trying to shake the town down for a hundred grand.”
“Huh. Have you written about it?”
“A few stories. Ticked everybody off.”
“Of course. How’s old Laird?”
“Same. Like you said about Vend. Slippery as an eel.”
“Yep.” She gathered up her purse and shimmied out of the booth. She seemed to be in a hurry. “Gotta meet a guy.”
I started to stand but Mich raised a hand that said don’t bother.
“Thanks,” I said. “Let’s stay in better touch.”
“Tell Ray Price.”
I finished my toast while checking my two phone messages. One was from Philo, who told me Kerasopoulos was not happy that I’d skipped out of our meeting, but I should call anyway for some other information. Darlene’s message was merely, “‘Apparent suicide’? What happened, Gus?”
I left two dollars on the table and walked to the cash register. One side of the register was covered with school photos of smiling little girls in plaid jumpers, white bows in their hair, front teeth missing.
“Those your grandkids?” I said
“Yes, sir,” Fred said. He craned his head around to admire the pictures as if he’d never seen them before. He smiled. “Four of them, sir. I am very proud.”
He popped the register drawer open, slipped my bills in, handed me my change. “It is very good to see you again.”
“You too, Fred.”
I was stepping through the door when he called after me.
“Sir,” he said. “Excuse me for-I couldn’t help but hear.”
“Yes?”
“Please, sir. Be very careful.”
I pointed my truck down Michigan Avenue toward Melvindale. I thought of the scar on the neck of the man at the motel. I thought of the blood coursing from the other man’s nose. I wondered what the hell I was doing.
fourteen
The one time Gracie and I had seen each other in Detroit, I was in my third year at the Detroit Times. We had set several dates previously for drinks or dinner, and each time Gracie had canceled or failed to show. My mother kept pushing me to invite her out, telling me my second cousin was struggling with life just like me.
“Just like me?” I said. “Mother, I’m working sixty-five hours a week. I’m paying rent. I bought a car. They’re thinking of sending me to Japan for some stories. I’m doing just fine. I got some school loans to pay off but-oh, right, Gracie doesn’t have those because she got a freebie.”
“All the more reason, honey. She needs a big brother.”
“I’m not her brother. She ought to talk to whoever dragged her down here in the first place.”
Still, I promised to try again.
This time I was late. My computer had crashed-ten minutes before deadline, of course-and I had to redo an entire story about Chrysler threatening to shut an assembly plant in Wisconsin. The Red Devil, a beer-and-pizza joint on the west side, was almost empty on a Monday night. But there was Gracie filing her nails at one of the Formica-topped tables near the bar. Melting ice cubes and a cherry impaled on a plastic spear sat at the bottom of a glass. I could just barely hear “Sweet Child O’ Mine” playing on the jukebox.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “Computers.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said, without looking up. “Don’t have one.”
“Did you order?”
She dropped the nail file in her purse. Her perfume wafted across the table, cutting through the garlic and oregano on the air. She looked at me. Her eyes seemed to have trouble focusing. They were on me, then looking behind me, then on me again, then on the table, rolling around like marbles in a bowl. I wondered if the empty glass was only her first drink.
“No,” she said. “I was waiting for you.”
I signaled for the waiter.
“This place,” she said. “It’s so… so you, Gus.”
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, you know. Low lights, but not romantic. Peeling vinyl seats. The whole fake unpretentious shtick.” She looked at me and giggled.
“You must frequent much classier places.”
“Maybe I do,” she said. “It’s charming. And it would be even more charming if…” She whipped her head around toward the bar. “Hey,” she shouted, “is my drink ready yet? I’m not used to being ignored.”
“He’s coming,” I said.
“He better fucking hurry.” She picked up her glass, shook the ice around. “Sorry. Don’t want to cause any trouble. How’s Bea?”
“Fine. I haven’t talked to her in a week, the job’s been so busy.”
“The job, the job, the job,” Gracie said. “You need to get your priorities straight, boy. Call Bea.”
“When’s the last time you called her?”
“I’m calling her tomorrow.”
I grinned. “Do you even have a job, Gracie? Or priorities?”
She gave me a dreamy smile. “I have my priorities. I just don’t happen to have them all in order.” Then she laughed, a little too loud.
A spindly young man in a white button-down shirt, shiny black slacks, a skinny black tie, and an apron smeared with spaghetti sauce shambled over to our table. The plastic name tag pinned to his shirt said he was Randy. He set a full glass in front of Gracie. Her usual gin and Squirt.
