Hunter held the key turned, his foot mashing the accelerator. “Fucking car…”
Raymond waited patiently. He thought back, reviewing the conversation with Mr. Sweety, pleased. Then said, “I think I left the envelope on the bar,” and patted his breast pocket. “Yeah, I did.”
“You need it?”
“From Oral Roberts,” Raymond said. “No, I’ll probably be hearing from him again.”
A HAMTRAMCK POLICE DETECTIVE by the name of Frank Kochanski picked up his phone and said to Toma, “Where you been?”
“I’m still at the hospital.”
“This character you’re looking for’s at the Eagle. We saw his car by there and I give Harry a call. Harry says yeah, he’s in there having a few pops, making phone calls.”
“The Eagle?” Toma said, surprised that the man was still in the vicinity of Skender’s apartment, little more than a mile from it.
“The Eagle, on Campau,” Kochanski said. “How many Eagles you know?”
Toma called the bar. Harry said, “Yeah… no, wait a minute, he’s picking up his change…”
Toma walked down the hall to the third-floor visitor’s lounge where the male members of the Lulgjaraj family were waiting. They watched him unfold a city map, study it for a few moments, then place it on the coffeetable and draw a circle with his finger to take in, roughly, Hamtramck and the near east side of Detroit. He said, “He’s somewhere in here. But he stays most of the time downtown; I think he’ll go there. If he knows how, he’ll take the Chrysler. If he doesn’t, he may take McDougall.” Toma paused. His finger began tracing the line that indicated East Grand Boulevard. “But he could go this way, too, from Joseph Campau. We don’t know him, so we have to look for him all these places.”
About forty minutes later Skender opened his eyes to the beeping sound. It stopped and Toma was standing close to him, touching his face.
“Go back to sleep.”
At the public phone Toma called his service, was given a number and dialed it.
“Where is he?”
“In a house on Van Dyke Place. We’re at the corner of Van Dyke and Jefferson,” the voice said in Albanian.
“Wait for me,” Toma said.
“But if he comes out…” the voice began.
“Kill him,” Toma said.
“I think what happens to niggers is they come up here and find out they can talk back to you,” Clement said, “so all they do then’s argue. I tole your nigger woman I know she’s upstairs. I called her office enough times they finally told me she’s home. So what’re you arguing with me for?”
“I’m never home to clients,” Carolyn said. “I’ll see you in my office or, more likely, the Wayne County Jail, but not here. So, Clement, you’re going to have to leave.”
“All you’re doing’s reading. You sick? I see a person in their bathrobe the middle of the day I figure they work nights or they’re sick.”
Carolyn took off her glasses, brought her bare feet down from the hassock and placed the glasses inside the book as she closed it on her lap. “I’m going to argue with you, too, if you don’t leave,” Carolyn said, “and I promise you’ll lose.”
Clement didn’t seem to hear her. He was looking around the room, at the abstract paintings, at the bar, his gaze moving past Carolyn sitting in the bamboo chair in a beige and white striped caftan, to the beige couch that was covered with pillows in shades of blue. He walked over and let himself fall back into it, his boots levering up and then down, hitting hard on the Sarouk carpet. He pulled a pillow out from behind him, getting comfortable.
“Shit, I’m tired. You know it?”
Carolyn watched him, curiosity soothing impatience, calming her as she studied the man half-reclined on her couch, his head bent against the backrest cushion, fingers shoved into tight pockets now. The Oklahoma Wildman. Born somewhere between fifty and one hundred years too late.
Or a little boy she could hear saying, “I don’t have nothing to do.” Kicking at the Sarouk, at the ripple, with the heel of his boot, trying to flatten it.
“That carpet you seem determined to destroy,” Carolyn said, “cost fifteen thousand dollars.”
“No shit?” He looked down at the blue oriental pattern.
“No shit,” Carolyn said. “It’s worth much more than that now.”
“Why don’t you sell it, get the money?”
“I enjoy it. I didn’t buy it as an investment.”
“How much you make a year?”
“Enough to live the way I want.”
“Come on, how much you make?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“You don’t keep any money in the house, do you?” Clement grinned at her. “I know, it’s all in visa cards. That shit’s ruining me, you know it?”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
“No, but you could write me a check.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You know why.”
“Clement, you’re a terrible extortionist.”
“I know. But there was that chicken-fat judge dead and nothing to come of it. Seemed a shame. Then I see your phone number in his book and I commenced to scheme.” Clement squinted. “How come he had your number?”
“He called a few times, wanted me to go out with him.”
“Jesus, you didn’t, did you?”
“No, Clement, I didn’t.”
“You ain’t a young girl, but I know you can do better’n that.”
Carolyn said, “This chat’s costing you money, Clement. If we’re getting into your situation there’s a twenty-five-hundred-dollar retainer to think about. If we go to trial, I’ll need another seventy-five, in advance.”
Clement blinked and squinted. Carolyn watched his act indifferently-Clement shaking his head now.
“First thing you must learn in school, I mean lawyers, is how to turn things around. I come up here to get a check and you tell me you want ten thousand dollars.”
“If I’m going to represent you.”
“For what? Shit, they’re dickin’ around, they’re never gonna have a case. I’m pulling out, going down to Tampa, Florida, for the winter. But I don’t have the stake I thought I was gonna. That’s why I need you to write me a check.”
Carolyn sat low in the chair studying Clement, her elbow on the arm, her cheek resting against her hand.
“You never cease to amaze me.”
“I don’t?”
“Always seem so calm. Never upset. How do you manage that?”
“Thinking good thoughts,” Clement said. “Go get your checkbook.”
“What do you need, a couple hundred?”
Clement squinted at her again. “Couple hunnert?” He had come seeking no particular amount. She had mentioned a ten-thousand-dollar fee and that didn’t sound too bad. Nice round number. But now-shit, looking at him like he was the janitor, waiting for him to leave so she could open her book again-he doubled the amount and said, “Twenty thousand oughta do it.”
Carolyn didn’t say anything. She didn’t move until he said, “You’re pretty calm yourself.” Then watched as she came out of the chair, laying the book on the hassock, and went to the desk in the bay of front windows.
With her profile to him, leaning over the desk, she said, “I’m doing this against my better judgment,” opening a business-size checkbook and writing now.
Clement was surprised. He’d expected her to give him an argument. He could see the curve of her fanny against the robe. She tore a check from the book and walked across the room, right past him, not looking at him until she was standing in the doorway that opened on the upstairs hall. Clement could see the railing behind her and now she was offering him the check.
“Here. Take it.”
Something wasn’t right. Clement stared and watched her move out into the hallway now and hold the check over the railing.
“All right, then pick it up on your way out,” Carolyn said. “But if you take it, please don’t expect me to ever help you again, in or out of court. Understood?”