“He’s a bastard. Nasty. Mean. Crazy.”
“Did he know Rufus Coltraine?” I said.
“He sure did. I always wondered about them. They never seemed to fit.”
“How so?”
“Rufus was easygoing, laid back; he had his music. Larry was the opposite. A tried-and-true Detroit boy with a chip on his shoulder, something to prove, always looking for trouble,” Puhy said. “And he was a sneak too. Any little way to bend a rule, or even just plain ol’ break it, Larry was the guy.”
“So were the two of them buddies or something?” I said.
He thought about it for a moment. I could almost hear him scratching the stubble on his jaw. “I wouldn’t say they were buddies exactly,” he said. “More like guys who maybe had something in common in here, but outside, would never hang out.”
“Was Grasso into music? Did he play?”
“Not that I know of,” Puhy said. This was a mild surprise to me. “He seemed to like Coltraine’s music, but he didn’t play anything himself. ’Cept probably the skin flute.”
Prison humor—it gets me every time.
“So what the hell were they doing together?”
“Talking mostly. Sometimes, just sitting and listening to Coltraine’s music.”
How quaint, I thought.
“I don’t know,” Puhy said. “I wish I could tell you more. Maybe I could ask around, see if anyone knows anything. Be like a consultant for you.”
Like a bonefish on the flats, I heard the sound of bait hitting the water.
“Would you?” I said. “That would be great—maybe I could come up with a finder’s fee or something.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Puhy said in a tone of voice that indicated I should very, very much worry about it.
We said our goodbyes, and I hung up. What a pisser. Two guys with nothing in common hanging out in prison together. Both get out, and one tries to kill me while the other one is being killed and possibly framed for the murder of Jesse Barre. So was it Grasso who killed Jesse? Why? Did he have some score to settle with Coltraine—and was Jesse just in the wrong place at the wrong time? That didn’t make sense. After all, Jesse was building a guitar for Grasso’s ex-wife. Somehow the two were connected. Maybe Coltraine was in on it with Grasso. Maybe Coltraine really did kill Jesse. Maybe he wanted one of her guitars for recording purposes, knew he couldn’t afford one, and killed her for it. And then maybe he stole Shannon’s guitar, and Grasso went and ripped off his old prison mate. It didn’t sound too convincing. And if I wasn’t convinced, I knew Ellen wouldn’t be either.
I started to get a headache. Too much thinking did that to me.
Still, the idea that I was closing in, that I was just a connection or two away from cracking this thing, got my blood going. It was time to find Laurence Fucking Grasso. Since my sister hadn’t called, I figured she wasn’t having any luck.
But I had an idea.
•
I could rule out all the things my sister would be checking on. Past acquaintances. Family. Places of employment. Former landlords. The cops would check out the logical places. Whether or not they would have any luck, I had no idea. So far, Shannon Sparrow’s shit-for-brains ex had proven to be crude but effective.
There was really only one place I might have an edge.
And that was the non-logical aspect of the hunt for Laurence Grasso. I tried to put myself in his shoes. I’m out of prison. I’m running around causing the kind of trouble I love to create. It’s what I do. For some reason, I’m sticking around. I’m not running off to Canada. So there’s still something I need. I’ve got to stay close but can’t go entirely underground.
Where would I be?
My mind grazed over everything I’d learned about Mr. Grasso. I thought back to what Joe Puhy had said, what the police record had shown, and what I knew about him from when he’d chased me and tried to kill me.
I wondered if he would try to go back to Shannon Sparrow. No chance. She wouldn’t have anything to do with him at this point in her life. Still, it would have to be pretty powerful for a guy like that. To think he’d once been married to, had slept with, had shared everything with someone who was now a celebrity. Who was now on the covers of half the magazines in the world.
It reminded me of a joke. A guy and Cindy Crawford are stranded on a deserted island. After a long time, they start sleeping together. They do anything and everything, sexually speaking, exhausting all possible positions and breaking every taboo known to man. Finally, one day, Cindy says to the guy, “Whatever you want, whatever your greatest fantasy is, I’ll do it.” So the guy has her put on a hat and one of his shirts. He then sidles up next to her and whispers, “Dude, I’m sleeping with Cindy Crawford!”
Illustrative of the minds of many men. I had the feeling that Grasso was mean and violent but also arrogant. It made sense he might want to spend a little time gloating over the “good old days.”
So where would he go to revel in his past yet still feel safe? I dug around for the stack of articles I’d used to study up on Shannon. After a half hour or so, I finally found the one in which she admitted being abused, where she opened up a little bit about her first marriage.
I skipped down to the section I was interested in. “I met him at a bad time in my life,” she said in the article. “I was dancing at this hole called the Lucky Strike.”
The name didn’t ring a bell with me. It had probably gone through a few dozen name changes since then. But it was obviously a place Grasso had frequented in the past. Why wouldn’t he go down there now and see if he could find anyone who might remember Shannon? Maybe buy ’em a beer and start bragging about how he’d bedded the great Shannon Sparrow.
Flimsy, I knew. But there was video of Cuban refugees making it to Miami in boats even less sturdy than my big idea.
What the hell.
I was sure the Lucky Strike would be worth the effort.
•
I didn’t consider it any kind of noble statement to say that I’d never been a big fan of strip clubs. Or titty bars, as the boys liked to call them. As a young man, I’d been to my fair share of them. Gotten the ol’ boobs-slapped-in-the-face treatment. Nothing high and mighty about it. I still noticed if an attractive woman walked by.
All these lofty thoughts were on my mind when I pulled up against the curb just past the Lucky Strike. As it turned out, the club wasn’t actually called the Lucky Strike. There just happened to be a giant plastic Lucky Strikes sign, probably from the ’50s or so, hanging above it. It didn’t look like the club itself had a name. Like the vast majority of clubs in Detroit, it was located on 8 Mile Road, the great divider between the city of Detroit and the suburbs to the north. It also happened to be a few doors down from a giant Home Depot and a Burger King. Nice. Stick dollar bills in G-strings then swing next door for sandpaper and a bucket of paint, followed by some chicken wings and fries.
I locked up the Sunbird, thinking that only a moron would steal it. But I didn’t want to have to walk home just because I’d run up against a thief with no sense of style.
The door was heavy, wooden, and painted red. I pulled it open, worried about the germs that probably coated the handle, having been grasped by a group of men who would buy ten-dollar, watered-down beers for the chance to watch a naked teenager dance. Occupational hazard, I told myself, trying not to think what these guys do with their hands.
Inside was a beautiful marble foyer with a long mahogany bar and waiters in tuxedoes. Kidding, of course. It was actually just what you’d expect. A stage running down the middle of the place with a bar at one end and a curtain at the other. Small groups of tables surrounded the runway, with some chairs right up against it for those fifty-yard-line kind of spots. For the guys who liked to get right in on the action.
There was a girl dancing on the stage. She had on a fishnet body stocking, or what was left of it, anyway. Her breasts poked out of two holes and sat unnaturally high. Judging by the three or four guys who sat watching her, they probably didn’t care if they were looking at a plastic surgeon’s handiwork. I moved to the end of the room where the bar was and ordered a beer in a bottle. Six bucks. Ah, that good ol’ naked-girl surcharge.