behind them was a dark sedan, Buick maybe. I turned and walked that way, hands in my pockets. There was a bright smile on Funk Fan’s face, but the other man’s face looked somewhere between fight and flight. When I was a half dozen steps distant, Funky sashayed sideways.
I said, “Whatcha need, bud?”
The driver of the vehicle laid on the horn, a piercing blast. I grimaced. Funky laughed and backpedaled faster. I looked into the face of the curly-haired man and immediately knew him from somewhere. He recognized me at the same split-second. I saw motion at his waist, the grip of an automatic in his left hand, the hand beneath his jacket. The gun had a pig snout, a suppressor. The hand began to move. The gun emerged.
He’s going to shoot you! my mind screamed as the gun arced upward. My weapon was shoulder-holstered under my left arm. Useless. I had one motion: Go for his legs. I dove, hands outstretched, saw legs scrabbling away as I rolled, grabbing at air, at nothing. A door slammed, tires screeched. The stink of burned rubber filled the air. No shot was fired.
Then Harry was beside me, kneeling.
“What the hell’s going on, Carson?”
“That guy. In the car. He had a gun. With a damn suppressor.” The words were in a voice not mine, a trembling voice.
Harry helped me to my feet. My knees wouldn’t hold and I sat back down.
“Who the hell was he?”
I spun my head, looking for Funky.
“The other guy, Harry, where’d he go?”
“I didn’t see any other guy. I was inside and heard a car horn blare, came out to check. I see you laying on the ground, a blue sedan smoking its tires down the street, a guy pulling the door shut.”
“The other guy was a funk fan, talked to Haley earlier. Haley didn’t know him. The guy was talking about Taneesha, the station. I was checking cars. Funk Fan yells my name and I see him standing by a hard-looking guy with curly blond hair. I walk over as Funky splits, and I see Curly’s got a suppressed pistol in his hand. I think he was debating whether to crank off a round. The horn blew, like the driver was saying, Screw it, let’s run. I jumped for the gunman, ended up eating grass.”
“I didn’t see any of that. Just you on the ground and the peeling-out vehicle.”
“Funky used me,” I said. “I was diversion for his escape.”
An older woman walked by on the sidewalk and shot us a nervous glance, a big black guy kneeling beside a slender white guy reclining on the lawn of a funeral parlor. I stood on improving legs. Harry and I followed the path Funky had taken. We turned a corner and saw a pillow in the middle of the sidewalk.
“This Funky,” Harry said. “A chubby guy, right?”
“Not anymore, obviously.”
We returned the way we came, tossed the pillow in the cruiser. It had a cotton case, soft, not a fingerprint surface.
I ran the scene through my head again, came to one conclusion.
“Funky’s our boy, Harry. Taneesha’s killer. He came in disguise. And he’s got someone else after him.”
“Could you ID him again if you saw him?”
I shrugged. “It’s the gun-toting guy that’s bothering me, bro. I knew him. And I’m sure he knew me. Problem is, I got no name, no place. I just know the face from somewhere.”
Harry said, “We’re never far from a surveillance camera anymore. Whole goddamn world is growing eyes. Let’s go see if any were watching.”
The parlor had security cams, but not out front. There was a service station a half block down the street. The chances its security cams saw anything usable from this distance were nil. Still, it had to be verified. We walked down the street toward the station, passing a ten-foot-wide storefront grocery flanking the parlor’s lot. Harry grabbed my arm, pointed at the grocery’s window.
“Looky there, Carson.”
I turned to the window and saw a sign proclaiming, HAM HOCKS $1.89/ POUND.
“You’re hungry?”
“Look inside. Right up there.”
I looked past the sign. Mounted behind the window in a corner was a small security camera pointing out to the street.
“Odd direction for a camera,” Harry said. “Let’s check it out.”
A bell jingled our arrival. Behind the counter a tall and slender black man in a white apron was cutting slices from a wheel of cheese. He shot us a glance. I put him in his late fifties, a touch of gray in his short natural. Another camera behind the counter watched over the twin rows of shelves running back into the store.
Harry flashed his badge over the counter. “You the owner, sir?”
The guy concentrated on slicing. “Naw, I’m the floor show. The owner don’t get here for another hour.”
Harry waited it out. Finally the guy turned to us, rolled his eyes.
“Hell yes, I’m the owner, Oliver Tapley. Who else gonna be stupid enough to work here?”
“That camera by the window, Mr. Tapley. Odd placement.”
Tapley showed us his back again and continued sawing cheese.
“Mr. Tapley?” Harry prompted.
Two more cheese slices fell. Tapley said, “I talk better when interruptions turn into customers.”
Harry pulled his wallet. “Give us two ham and cheese on rye. Hot peppers on both, brown mustard on one.”
Tapley lifted a baked ham from the cooler and set it on the counter. “I got two parking spaces out front. Designated just for this store, sign on the pole says so. People run in, get what they need, run out.”
Harry said, “But other people use the spots, right?”
Tapley scowled. “Funeral people, mostly. Fifty-six goddamn spaces in the parlor’s lot, and where do people park? On the street in front of my store.”
“So you keep an eye out front as well as in the store…”
“If they ain’t coming in here, I give ’em a cussin’ until they move.”
“Does the camera out there record?”
Tapley studied the ham like there was something fascinating on its surface. Harry sighed. “I guess we need some drinks, Mr. Tapley; a root beer and a Dr Pepper.”
Tapley whittled at the ham and assembled sandwiches. He nodded to a monitor beside the register. We had to lean over the counter to see it: a split screen, half showing the store interior, half Tapley’s prized parking slots. The cameras were a cheap setup with low image quality, like the lenses were covered with gray cheesecloth. The image didn’t extend to the area where the incident happened.
“You shoo anyone out of your spots in the last couple hours?” Harry asked.
Tapley wrapped paper around the sandwiches, set them on the counter.
“Maybe an hour back. A big-ass car pulled into my spot like it pays the rent on this place instead of me. I chased the bastard off.”
“Do you recall what kind of car it was?” Harry asked.
“A blue box, Detroit iron, I think; Buick? Olds?”
“You keep the tapes, Mr. Tapley?” Harry asked, barely concealing the excitement in his voice. Tapley turned away and pulled a jar of pickles from the case. He inspected it carefully, turning it round and round.
Harry spun to a shelf at his back, grabbed an armload of items at random, threw them beside the register.
“We’ll take this stuff, too.”
Tapley went to the rear and returned with a videocassette. He racked the tape to the approximate time frame, handed us the control, then wandered off to fetch items for an elderly woman. I thumbed fast-forward. On the in-store side of the screen, customers came and went in comedic jitters. Outside the spaces stood empty, vehicles blurring by in the traffic lane.
“There,” Harry yelled. “Pause it.”
I stopped, rewound. Hit play. Empty spaces in front of the store, an occasional car passing. The blue sedan, a
