Dead Street

though, would bring the cavalry on the run....

I didn’t mind a long surveillance. I’d done it enough times, and for every splashy shoot-out the papers had written up from my so-called exploits, there were a hundred days of dull damn tedium. If pressed, I’ll admit my bones and muscles did some complaining. With sixty looming up ahead like a speed limit sign, I was bound for a little discomfort.

Luckily I’d been able to improvise. A few abandoned items of furniture were to be found in Bessie’s building, including a well-worn lounger that a thrift shop would’ve junked, but it still allowed me to sit looking out that window at the Padrone building like I was watching football or an old movie on the tube.

As the guy who was throwing this party, I had brought along a Styrofoam ice chest filled with Cokes and Millers. Also a grocery bag filled with bags of chips and four plastic-bagged sandwiches — Swiss cheese and pastrami from a good deli. Wanted to do right by my pals helping me out, plus I had to eat, too.

I spoke to Bettie by cell phone in the morning and she reported nothing suspicious. On the other hand, nothing got past her — she was aware that I had Darris Kinder and Joe Pender keeping an eye on her.

“Darris stopped by yesterday morning,” she said, “and Joe came by in the evening — just saying hello, seeing if I needed anything. But it’s more than that, isn’t it, Jack?”

“Yes,” I said. “Something’s about to happen.”

“What?”

“Tell you the truth, I’m not exactly sure. I know the New York end is coming together. That young computer tech at Credentials, twenty years ago — he was a kid named Bucky Mohler.”

“I wish I could say that name means something to me.”

“That’s a stray piece that may float back yet. But it was him, all right — your friend Florence said the computer tech had a ‘cowboy’ name. Well, when I was a kid, there used to be a cowboy actor called Buck Jones.”

“Who?”

“Before your time, kitten. Before your time even twenty years ago... but not Florence’s, and that’s what she meant, I’m sure. Buck. Bucky.”

“Jack... you say twenty years ago, this Bucky worked where I worked, at Credentials, on computers. But what does that have to do with today?”

“I’m not sure. I think the answer is right here in the big city.” I looked out the window at the Padrone building, old and not quite proud. “And when I get it, I’ll fly home to you.”

“Fly fast, Jack.”

“Baby, I won’t even need a plane.”

Phone calls broke the monotony of the stakeout. Some I made, some were incoming, like the one from police scientist Paul Burke.

“Got something on that carved ivory hash pipe, Captain.”

“Great! Don’t tell me you actually got a print off that thing?”

“I actually got a print off that thing — a partial. But that was enough to make a match through other means. The print likely belongs to a convicted drug dealer, a sterling citizen name of Romero Suede.”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“Oh? He’s got a rep as a mean one. Questioned on several murders, but never charged. Served his drug-bust time, no outstanding warrants — but also no current address.”

I knew what Romero Suede’s current address was: Garrison Properties, Florida.

“How I know this partial is likely Suede’s,” Burke was saying, “comes from a letter in his file. The warden commending Suede for his ‘artistic endeavors’ — wood and ivory carving.”

“The guy is carving out hash pipes in stir and the warden commends him for it?”

Burke chuckled. “Well, Jack, the prison system is trying to get its charges ready for the outside world again.... By the way, there were traces of high-quality hash in that pipe.”

“Thanks, Paul.”

“Always happy to help a retiree enjoy his sunshine years.”

“And you could stick it where the sun don’t shine, buddy.”

He laughed, so did I, and we rang off.

That afternoon, between cold Millers, I spoke to Captain Kinder.

“You got Bettie covered, Darris?”

“Damn straight. Working the dayshift myself, Jack. And Joe is on nights. Plus, we have every ex-cop on your street, and the street behind you, alerted that something may go down and soon. All they do is nod. They don’t even ask what.”

I grinned at the cell. “Old firehorses just need to hear the bell, Darris. They don’t ask where the fire is, just follow the smoke.”

“One thing I’m keeping a close eye on, Jack, is our friendly neighborhood ice cream trucks. We’ve had two trolling Sunset today.”

“How much ice cream does a retirement village need, anyway?”

He grunted. “It’s not so suspicious that I can collar ’em or anything. We’ve always got a lot of grand-kiddies visiting down here, and for the Golden Age crowd, there’s nostalgia value in buying ice cream goodies off an old- fashioned truck. These guys really do have plenty of customers to justify their presence.”

“I think you’ll find those trucks are hauling more than ice cream.”

“What, drugs? You don’t think our fellow ex-coppers are buying their prescription drugs on the black market, do you? Weed for glaucoma patients, maybe?”

He sounded like he wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not.

“That’s not what I was thinking, Darris. Garrison Properties, right on the ocean there, is a convenient spot to offload narcotics from South America.”

“Yeah.... And with a housing development populated by retired mobsters and their families going in, who’s going to police that little action?”

“Nobody,” I said, “and nobody. Also, our favorite ice-cream salesman, Romero Suede, is probably at least using drugs if not selling.”

“That’s probably a reasonable assumption, Jack — but how did you make it?”

I told him about Paul Burke tying the hash pipe I’d found at Garrison Properties to Suede.

“I don’t suppose that hash content is enough for us to bust his ass,” Kinder said.

“No. What with lab work done unofficially for us in New York, and only a partial print. But it confirms we’re correct in giving Mr. Suede our full attention.”

Kinder grunted his agreement, assured me Bettie was under his watchful eye, and signed off.

Later I checked in with Kinder’s helper, Joe Pender.

“Your wife getting on your case, Joe, about you getting back in temporary harness?”

“Hell no,” he laughed. “I think she likes having me out from underfoot. Gets the whole damn double bed to stretch out in, plus a pass for a few nights on my snoring.... Listen, can I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“After nightfall, why don’t we move Bettie out of her place, and into yours? If we manage to do that without anybody unfriendly spotting it, that puts any home invaders invading the wrong home.”

“Not a bad idea. And the layout of both houses is pretty much identical, so she won’t have too much trouble getting her bearings.”

“Jack, you better call her and suggest this. Kinder and me, we haven’t clued her in that we’re watching her. That, you know, we think trouble’s brewing.”

I laughed. “Joe, she’s way ahead of all of us. But I’ll call her.”

Through that morning and afternoon, I went through a single sandwich and two bags of chips and three Millers. The water in the building was off, but the toilet in Bessie’s apartment didn’t protest when I took the occasional piss. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t catch myself starting to doze off a couple of times, and one of those times was at dusk.

And just as my body did that little startled dance after you fall asleep for a second, I came fully awake to see a late-model Buick, light blue, nothing special, pull in at the Padrone tenement.

And by pull in, I mean literally. The driver came up and on over the sidewalk and across the ground and