air from a prone position. It had happened that fast.
Barry Stackpole, an old friend, drove the six-hour round trip to bring me home after my release from Grayling, and drove it again a month later to retrieve my Cutlass when I had enough strength in my leg to work the pedal. Since one of his legs was man-made and he had a steel plate in his skull, I didn’t complain about my infirmity, just the loss of work. He offered a loan, which I declined. One of the advantages of living so close to the poverty level is you’re never paralyzed worrying about money. It’s just like being rich, only without the good Scotch and cigars.
“I can swing something your way,” he said when we were cruising between two solid banks of motels with vacancies along the strip outside town; one month earlier they’d been booked to the roofs. “I’m negotiating a ghost job on the memoirs of a Korean mobster currently in the witness-protection program. He says. I want his background checked.”
Barry’s a freelance crime reporter, the author of several books on the Mafia and all its franchises, and a long-standing speed bump in the road to ill-gotten gains. That’s how he got the leg and the hubcap in his head.
I said, “I didn’t know there were Korean mobsters.”
“These days they come in all colors. This one says he swung asylum from the Justice Department after he ratted out some fellow racket guys in Seoul. He could be a mob plant to find out what I know about a couple of parties I steered into witness protection.They’re all pretty much scum, but I’m not going to turn finger for a six-figure deal and a spot on the Book Channel.”
“Check him with Justice.”
“That would be awkward. They don’t know I know what I know. If they suspect, I might have to join the program myself. The government boys play for blood since nine-one-one.”
I plucked out a cigarette. Before I got it lit, he had the window down on my side. Barry was on a health kick: no liquor, no secondhand smoke, fresh box of condoms first of every month even if he hadn’t used up last month’s supply. I threw the match into the slipstream. It froze my fingers on contact. “I don’t know how you keep it all straight.”
“That’s because you keep company with a different class of crook.” He buzzed the window back up partway.
I’d told him about Starzek. We hadn’t any secrets from each other except when one of us was working. “There are crooks and crooks,” I said. “This one never stole a dollar or an election.”
“I’d keep my distance. Cigarette smugglers have terrorist ties. I read it in
USA Today.”
“That’s just a dodge to shame people into paying the tax.”
“Either way it’s heat. Where’s the impound?”
He’d stopped for a light at the main four corners. There were sporting-goods stores in both blocks with survival gear in the windows and a concrete movie house playing one feature three days each week. Everything had the trod-on look of a neglected dog. Strip malls are called strip malls for a reason.
I got out the paper with directions and read them off. We went there and I paid my fee and found him still sitting behind the wheel when I came out of the office. He was driving a brand-new maroon Lincoln that year, shaped like a cough drop. It would be registered to someone else. He was a professional sociopath, never left a paper trail.
When he opened his window I leaned on the sill. “Thanks for waiting. Also the ride. Can I let you know about the godfather of Seoul?”
“Sure. I can always stall him by demanding an ‘As Told To’ credit. If he’s legit he’ll never agree to it.”
“In that case, you might not need the background check.”
He gave me his slow easy smile. “Well, once you’ve been blown up, you tend to double-team.”
I gave him back a wave and limped around to the garage side. Behind me I heard his engine start and when it didn’t explode this time he drove off.
Nothing came of the
Barry Stackpole, an old friend, drove the six-hour round trip to bring me home after my release from Grayling, and drove it again a month later to retrieve my Cutlass when I had enough strength in my leg to work the pedal. Since one of his legs was man-made and he had a steel plate in his skull, I didn’t complain about my infirmity, just the loss of work. He offered a loan, which I declined. One of the advantages of living so close to the poverty level is you’re never paralyzed worrying about money. It’s just like being rich, only without the good Scotch and cigars.
“I can swing something your way,” he said when we were cruising between two solid banks of motels with vacancies along the strip outside town; one month earlier they’d been booked to the roofs. “I’m negotiating a ghost job on the memoirs of a Korean mobster currently in the witness-protection program. He says. I want his background checked.”
Barry’s a freelance crime reporter, the author of several books on the Mafia and all its franchises, and a long-standing speed bump in the road to ill-gotten gains. That’s how he got the leg and the hubcap in his head.
I said, “I didn’t know there were Korean mobsters.”
“These days they come in all colors. This one says he swung asylum from the Justice Department after he ratted out some fellow racket guys in Seoul. He could be a mob plant to find out what I know about a couple of parties I steered into witness protection.They’re all pretty much scum, but I’m not going to turn finger for a six-figure deal and a spot on the Book Channel.”
“Check him with Justice.”
“That would be awkward. They don’t know I know what I know. If they suspect, I might have to join the program myself. The government boys play for blood since nine-one-one.”
I plucked out a cigarette. Before I got it lit, he had the window down on my side. Barry was on a health kick: no liquor, no secondhand smoke, fresh box of condoms first of every month even if he hadn’t used up last month’s supply. I threw the match into the slipstream. It froze my fingers on contact. “I don’t know how you keep it all straight.”
“That’s because you keep company with a different class of crook.” He buzzed the window back up partway.
I’d told him about Starzek. We hadn’t any secrets from each other except when one of us was working. “There are crooks and crooks,” I said. “This one never stole a dollar or an election.”
“I’d keep my distance. Cigarette smugglers have terrorist ties. I read it in
USA Today.”
“That’s just a dodge to shame people into paying the tax.”
“Either way it’s heat. Where’s the impound?”
He’d stopped for a light at the main four corners. There were sporting-goods stores in both blocks with survival gear in the windows and a concrete movie house playing one feature three days each week. Everything had the trod-on look of a neglected dog. Strip malls are called strip malls for a reason.
I got out the paper with directions and read them off. We went there and I paid my fee and found him still sitting behind the wheel when I came out of the office. He was driving a brand-new maroon Lincoln that year, shaped like a cough drop. It would be registered to someone else. He was a professional sociopath, never left a paper trail.
When he opened his window I leaned on the sill. “Thanks for waiting. Also the ride. Can I let you know about the godfather of Seoul?”
“Sure. I can always stall him by demanding an ‘As Told To’ credit. If he’s legit he’ll never agree to it.”
“In that case, you might not need the background check.”
He gave me his slow easy smile. “Well, once you’ve been blown up, you tend to double-team.”
I gave him back a wave and limped around to the garage side. Behind me I heard his engine start and when it didn’t explode this time he drove off.
Nothing came of the
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