'Same reason I don't bet on three-legged horses.'
'I was trying to keep our hands in Nelson's case. That's where the break'll come from.'
Harry flung his hand up, thumb and index finger touching. 'You came about a shit-hair's distance from getting us kicked off everything, that's what you did.'
'Squill wouldn't do that.'
'He's doing it right now, you're just too dumb to see it.
He pokes, you squeal, he runs and tells Hyrum you're an insubordinate pain in the ass who got lucky once but who's now upsetting the applecart. Hyrum nods and says, 'Do what you have to do, Terrence.'
'We can nail this if he'll give us room to move.'
Harry rolled his eyes. I said, 'What? Squill doesn't want it solved?'
'On his terms and putting the glory on him alone. Here's surprising news, Cars, you're not the only detective in the department.'
'It's a Piss-it case, Harry. It's ours.'
'Did those pretty birdies come with your crib? The ones spinning above your head? Grow up, Carson, what's ours is what Squill tells us is ours.'
'The manual says '
'If the manual said it was going to rain pussy at noon, you'd be out there with a net, wouldn't you?'
I opened my drawer just so I could slam it shut. Harry had his phone on speaker and the desk clerk announced a call. 'Says his name is Jersey, Harry. Said you wanted him put through.'
Harry clicked off the speaker and turned away with his hand cupping the phone. I figured Harry was talking to old Poke Trenary, a janitor at City Hall. Several times while in that citadel of mirrors I'd seen Harry glide the slow- mopping Poke to a quiet corner for a fast milking.
Harry put down the phone and whispered, 'Damn.'
'Damn what? Yankees? The torpedoes?'
'I was thinking because Hyrum retires in September the chief decision would be in September. I forgot about get-ready time. The commissioners decide early, then work on transition crap. The decision'll be made at the next executive session, when they get to close the door. They won't vote or anything, but they'll weigh the input, and make the decision, and it'll hold until the official announcement in a few weeks.'
'And this unofficial coronation will be when?'
'Eight days from now.'
'Eight da No wonder we keep getting cut off at the knees.'
'You got it. Squill's gonna keep us bottled and throttled until then.
After that it doesn't make a bit of difference. He'll either be a deputy chief or not.'
I asked, 'How's Poke putting the odds?'
Anyone with a jones for political intrigue suffers a touch of paranoia.
Harry glanced around the room to make sure no microphones were aimed our way. 'No one hears about this,' he whispered.
I slapped my forehead. 'Shit. Dan Rather's offering fifty grand to hear what Poke gets from sc ruffing through trash bags at City Hall.'
Harry sighed. 'Tell Danny-boy odds are running about five to three in favor of Plackett… and that Squill guy hanging off his tit.'
'For nine days we're gonna be shoved away from Nelson? Just so we don't get lucky and break the case, maybe making the chief decision an even race at best?'
'Squill's set to make a two-level jump, Cars. He doesn't want even money.'
'Tell that to the next guy looking Mr. Cutter in the knife.'
Harry went to fetch a coffee. I watched him walk slowly through the maze of desks, giving himself time to think. He returned three minutes later, hard resolution in his eyes.
'It's looking more and more like we're gonna have to nigger this case, brother. Do most of the work for none of the credit. You cool with that idea?'
'It's what we're doing now,' I said, standing and rolling up my sleeves. 'Let's surf 'em and turf 'em.'
Harry shook his head sadly.
'That don't mean a damn thing, Cars. They got to mean something.'
Apartment manager Briscoe Shelton wasn't thrilled about being pulled from his TV viewing, a fuck opera by the sounds through his door, bass-heavy synthetic music and moan-inflected ululations. I'd returned, unsatisfied after yesterday's toss of the place got chopped short by Squill's meeting. Harry was pounding pavement, revisiting Deschamps's contacts. He did what we were supposed to do, I did what we hoped would work, making one final run before Wally hippoed through.
If Squill found out, I'd be humping an oil rig, handing Harry tools.
'How's about you folks git through looking at this place so's I can rent it,' Shelton whined after the key-flip bit again.
'How's about you get your sorry ass back in your office and continue your jack-off session?' I replied. Screw public relations, sometimes it's just not worth it.
It was a steam room inside. I hit the misnamed High button on the wheezing window AC and looked for fresh ground to plow. The contents of the aluminum box hadn't magically returned, so I turned to Nelson's junk drawer, where all the orphan crap goes to die. For Nelson it was matchbooks, broken combs and brushes, bent tweezers, a couple of screwdrivers, pliers, cracked candles, matchbooks, a half roll of duct tape, and a stack of menus.
I crouched in the tepid wind of the AC and flipped through the menus.
Pizza. Sandwich shops. Gumbo joints. Rib shacks. More pizza. Lots of delivery menus. Made sense; judging by the paucity of gear in the kitchen, Nelson hadn't apprenticed at Spago. I was set to move on when I noticed a room-service menu from the Oaks Hotel in Biloxi, part of the sprawling High Point gambling complex.
A woman friend and I had stayed at the Oaks a few months before, though we'd started at the Day's Inn. After an afternoon of cheddar on Triscuits and experiments in fluid dynamics, we'd sashayed to High Point's casino to try the blackjack tables. A well-timed jack had left me staring at over a thousand dollars. We'd shifted our experiments to the Oaks and left the cheese and crackers for some lucky housekeeper.
Two nights at the Oaks turned my windfall to vapor. Or, more romantically, to memories. I remember a bed large enough to confound a surveyor, a spa with gold-plated fixtures, and an honest-to-gosh bidet, which continues to perplex me. Though the experience was a kick, I was relieved when we left, like I'd reached some sort of limit.
So the question was, what was a sidewalk-level hustler with a small wallet and big dreams doing at the Oaks, if he indeed really had been there? I flicked the menu with my thumbnail and remembered back to the casino, how the one-eyed jack winked when I lifted the edge of the card.
Maybe it was time for a little more luck.
'I'm busy here, bubba,' the flat voice growled over the phone. 'You get one minute.'
Ted Friedman was assistant director of security at the Oaks Hotel, an unhappy guy with a flat midwestern accent, Detroit maybe, or the hard side of Chicago. He spoke around a cigar. I laid out a sketch of what I hoped for and heard keystrokes in the background.
'If your boy was a hotel guest in the past year I can tell you. Lessee … Nalen, Naughton, Navis, Naylor…'
While Friedman talked I pictured a scowling, boiler-chested guy in a fog of stogie smoke, scrolling through a screen of guest names, the walls of his surrounding room filled with security monitors peeking down hallways and into elevators.
'… Nebner, Neddies, Neeland, Neeler, Neffington, Nekler, Nelson.
Three Nelsons in the past year. Linda Nelson from Opeleika, Russell and Patricia Nelson from Green Bay, and John and Barbara Nelson from Texarkana. That's it, bubba. Any help?'
'Not what I wanted.'
'Nice talking to you, bye.'
I recalled Nelson's affinity for aliases. 'Wait a minute, Mr.
Friedman, my man's got a thing for reshaping his name.' Time s up.
'Two minutes, Mr. Friedman. Five at the max.'
