THE IMPALA PUTTERED up Montrose Road, cruising past bungalows and strip malls clinging like barnacles to major intersections. The Immigrant Song chugged out of the stereo system, fuzz-soaked downstrokes beating the relentless rhythm of a war galley’s oars. It was a hard song not to speed to, and David forced himself to ease up on the accelerator.
“You’re gonna hang a left a little past Thorold Stone Road,” Walter explained.
Interviewing Frank Ballaro had been on their to-do list since they’d first IDed Eddie, but the man could be hard to reach, especially if you wore a badge. The intended flavour of the meeting had changed a good deal since David had first planned it, given the events at the Jupiter Motel. It was bound to be a whole lot tastier given that particular addition—but also more apt to be poisonous for all involved. Ballaro was a cautious man, but dangerous. David and Walter would walk out of there untouched, no question, but if they left a sour taste in Ballaro’s mouth when they did, any number of misfortunes might befall them down the road.
“So tell me a little about our shooter,” said David.
“You mean you’ve never heard of Derek McCulloch?”
“Should I have?”
Walter shook his head. “You embarrass yourself, kid. The mope’s from your neck of the woods.”
“Toronto’s a big city, Walt. We don’t get on first-name basis with every scumbag who comes through central processing. This guy got a serious record or something?”
“Nah, the usual dickhead bullshit. Grand theft auto, a few burglaries, bar fights. The guy’s rap sheet ain’t what makes his name. It’s his reputation.”
David smiled. “What, he’s a good lay or something?”
“We find him, you’re welcome to see for yourself. I don’t know how well he fucks, but he’s a goddamn Da Vinci of fucking people up.”
“So he’s an enforcer?”
Walter seesawed his hand back and forth in a so-so gesture. “Hitman, mostly. Freelance. Puts bullets in people when a payin’ customer feels a certain someone lacks enough lead in their diet.”
“How many people are we talking?”
“No one we can prove, but enough to build a bit of a legacy on the street. Some of the newer stories are probably bullshit, you know how these things go. Guy pulls a few hits and doesn’t get caught, he turns into Paul Bunyan, so big his footsteps make lakes.”
David nodded, contemplating. “You’re thinking this Derek guy did Eddie Ballaro?”
“I’m thinkin’ daddy Ballaro thinks as much. The timing’s suspicious, I admit.” Walter smoothed his moustache against his lip, pulling the hairs taut enough to stretch the skin. “First Stanford Acres burns, then Eddie gets hamburgered, now two wise guys gunned down in a fleabag motel. This whole fucking city’s going to the dogs.”
“I suspect it’s as good or bad as it ever was. We’re just seeing it a little more clearly.”
Walter smirked, his eyes rekindling their sardonic glitter. “You’re a fucking poet, Dave.”
“You’re a fucking asshole, Walt.”
“Hey, best to play up your natural talents, am I right?”
Walter guided David along a winding street lined with oversized McMansions aping styles from more prestigious ports of call: faux-Tudor, faux-Mediterranean, faux-Victorian, they stood cheek by jowl in their cookie-cutter splendor, gaudy peacocks preening for some unseen mate. Marble fountains sat atop carefully manicured lawns, hosting alabaster cherubs pissing rainwater. David couldn’t for the life of him understand the rich. Did money corrode taste?
They rounded a bend, coasting past BMWs and Mercedes parked nonchalantly on the curbside, chrome fixtures flashing in the sun. Walter pointed to their left. “This is it. Pull over.”
David whistled. Even by the elephantine standards of the neighbourhood, Ballaro’s house stood out. Not just in size, but in class. A Georgian façade offered symmetrical splendor, a symphony of geometry playing in its lintels and mullions and eaves. Marble columns quadrisected the manor’s width. A granite staircase funneled visitors to a pair of oak and iron doors, its splayed fan shape creating an illusion of greater distance between columns two and three. This wasn’t faux-Georgian; this was an homage. Every surface glimmered with the impossible whiteness of a Hollywood actor’s teeth. David guessed that Ballaro had the walls power-washed on a monthly basis to maintain that kind of shine.
“Jesus. We can’t nail this guy on tax evasion?”
Walter snorted. “Please. Ballaro ain’t a stupid man. His dirty money don’t flash. That house is all paid for on the level, taxed and squeaky clean.”
“Seriously? How?”
“Dude owns half of Clifton Hill, about ten hotels, and two dozen properties besides. You ever been to Scream Manor? Twenty-six bucks for forty minutes walking through a dark hallway while some kid in a costume plays grab-ass with your girlfriend. Thing’s a fucking money factory.”
David licked his teeth, studying the house. “If the guy’s got so much money, why’s he still in the game?”
“Why’s an alcoholic keep drinking after he sees blood in his piss?” Walter rolled down the window, spat on the roadside, rolled the window back up. “Ballaro’s old-school mafia, goin’ back to when his granddaddy stepped off the boat. That shit don’t just wash out.”
A burst of sunlight stabbed through a chink in the clouds. It glanced off the marble columns, leaving parallel scars of brilliant white.
“How’re we going to play it?” David asked.
“I’ll lead. Ballaro and me go back a ways.”
“That a good thing or a bad thing?”
Walter’s hand seesawed. “Depends. We’ll get what we can about Eddie first, swing it ‘round to McCulloch once the udder runs dry.”
An iron ring hung from a grinning bronze face set in the center of the door, its lowest arc bulbous and rounded where it was poised to strike a raised metal circle. Walter lifted the ring and let it fall. Assisted by nothing but gravity, the knocker still made a considerable bang. He gave it another two goes for good measure and waited, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. Anonymous shapes whirled behind panes of frosted glass. The shapes coalesced into a single grey-black figure and opened the door.
The man who greeted them was serious business. David could see it in the way he held his shoulders—back and squared, as if harnessed to a heavy burden that he was more than a match for—and the jutting cast of his jaw. He was fortyish, clean-shaven, black hair slicked back against his skull, a few threads of grey visible among the roots. His suit hung trim on a muscular frame, complementing his proportions intelligently. No off-the-rack number, this—a tailored job if ever there was one. He stood dead still save for his eyes, which flicked from Walter to David and back again.
“Yeah?” He neither frowned nor smiled, as if suggesting that whatever direction this conversation took rested squarely on his visitors’ shoulders.
Walter extended a hand. “Detective Walter Pulaski. This here’s my partner, David Moore. We’re here to talk to Frank Ballaro. You must be his boy. Vincent or Joseph?”
The man pursed his lips, prodded his teeth with his tongue. “Hey papa,” he called, his eyes still set on Walter. “You know a Detective Pulaski?”
“This ain’t a social call. But yeah, he knows me.”
The man continued staring as if Walter hadn’t spoken. Footsteps made their way to the door, punctuated with the sound of heavy breathing.
“Quit bein’ a hard ass and let the detectives in, Vinnie. Show some hospitality.”
Frank Ballaro had Vinnie’s large stature and impressive shoulders, but he bore them both with slinky confidence, as if his joints were looser than his son’s. A few more pounds had settled around his neck and middle, sheathing his muscular frame in fat. His hair, ashen grey, had retreated to the top of his skull, where it maintained a peninsular stronghold against his encroaching baldness. His fingers glittered with rings. They jingled one against another as he shook Walter’s hand.
“Forgive the boy, detective. We’re on raw nerves around here these days, you understand. Good to see you.”
“Nothin’ to forgive. I understand. This here’s my partner, David Moore. Been with the force goin’ on two years now. Came to us from the big leagues up in Toronto.”
Frank displayed a flawless set of teeth. “Must seem awful sleepy down here.”
“We keep busy,” said David. “May we come inside?”
“Of course, please, follow me. Leave your shoes on. Mare-mare! We’ve got guests!”
Frank led them into a long but cozy parlor, walled with brick and granite along its exterior walls, pine and maple accents on its interior. He took a seat in a red wingback chair. Walter and David sat across from him on either end of a couch. An oak coffee table straddled the gap between Frank and the detectives.
A woman entered carrying coffee. She was fit and top-heavy with silicone, her skin blanched and tucked with the usual bulwarks against time’s inexorable tide. Youth’s veneer wore thin around the eyes, where the first cracks of age broke through the Botox and makeup. David pinned her at mid-forties—same age as Vincent Ballaro, give or take. Frank’s daughter-in-law, maybe? Her tomato-red nails danced up Frank’s arm as she passed him his coffee, lingering at the nape of his neck. Eddie Ballaro’s impertinence haunted her hushed smile, and the picture fell neatly into place. Second wife of long standing, mother to Eddie and stepmom to Vincent. Frank patted her hand and nodded his thanks for the coffee. He extended an arm to David and Walter.
“Sweetheart, these are detectives Pulaski and Moore. Detectives, my wife Mary-Anne.”
She offered them a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. David’s first thought was an inherent dislike of policemen, but her indifferent greeting seemed unconscious rather than deliberate. Grief hung like leaden weights from her extremities, made every movement slow and shaky. He would bet any money that she’d already forgotten both of their names.
“Can I get you a coffee? We’ve got a whole pot. You boys take cream or sugar?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” said Walter. “A cup after noon and I’ll be up pissin’ and jitterbuggin’ half the night.”
“We’ve got decaf, too,” Mary-Anne said.
“Thank you, but I’m good.”
Frank turned to David. “What about you, Junior? Surely you don’t got a bum prostate like gramps here at your age, eh?”
“A coffee’d be great, thanks. I take it black.”
“That’s my boy. Mare-mare, what’s say we break out the espresso for the kid, eh? Give him a taste of the old country. You mind?”
“Not at all.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” He watched the door swing for a moment after she’d gone, ribbons of steam rising from his coffee. He sipped it, smacked his lips.
“We’re real sorry for your loss, Frank,” Walter said. “I know us cops weren’t Eddie’s favourite people, but ain’t a man alive deserves to go out like that.”
“Can’t say I agree, but I thank you for your sympathies.” His gaze drifted back to the kitchen door. “I ain’t about to claim I’m doin’ fine just yet, but it’s harder on her than me. Vinnie and Joey are like sons to her, and Bernice is closer to her than me half the time, but Eddie’s the only one drank at her breast. He had her looks, her temper too. Maybe we coddled him too much, who knows? Boy liked to throw dice, whore around. He ruffled his share offeathers.”
“It’s them ruffled feathers we’re here to talk to you about. Dave and I drew your boy’s case. We saw the scene, and I’m sorry to say it don’t offer much in the way of firm leads. No witnesses to speak of, no security footage, no shell casings or explosives residue. We’re pretty well on a ledge with our dicks flappin’ in the wind. You turn us onto anyone mighta harbored a grudge against Eddie, it could help us track the bastard down and get you some justice.”
Frank smiled. “You policemen and your justice. You reach for it, but it’s always just beyond your grasp, eh? In the old country, we knew what justice was. Someone wronged you, you wronged ‘em right back. None of these lawyers and courts and due process.”
“What old country is that, exactly? Way I heard it, you were born down the road at Greater Niagara General.”
Frank shrugged. “Italy gets in the blood, detective. I’m a wop same as my nonno and his nonno before him. You work your job in this town as long as you have, you should know that.”
“Funny. We Polacks couldn’t give a fuck about the home country. Must be all that sunshine down there, makes you people sentimental.”
“What can I say? We’re poets, you’re peasants.”
Mary-Anne returned carrying a miniscule cup of coffee on a saucer. Islets of foam floated on a tiny black sea. David took the cup gingerly, as if afraid he might pinch the handle too hard and snap it off. “Thank you. This looks great.”
“My pleasure. You boys need anything else?”
“We’re fine. Thank you, ma’am.”
She left, her heels marking each footstep with a crisp tap. Her exit was polite but prompt; David sensed she was keen to avoid hearing more than she had to about the circumstances of her son’s death. He could hardly blame her. Frank waited until she was well out of earshot before continuing.
“I could give you a dozen names before my coffee cools, detective, and think up another dozen before lunch. All will mean less than nothing. Ballaros have enemies. Niagara is a town of little ambition, full of weak, squalid, envious people. My Eddie enjoyed their company. Why, I’ve no idea. I think to remind himself how big he was, since the rest of us made him feel small.”
“There’s no shortage of scum on the streets, I’ll give you that. But what happened to your boy, it weren’t no tweaker or second-rate pimp did that. It ain’t my intent to upset you, but I’m sure you know enough about what happened to know it was messy. Twenty-five years baggin’ and taggin’, I’ve never seen somethin’ like that before. You factor in the means as well as the motive, you might be able to narrow things down a little.”
Frank tapped his finger on his chin like he was thinking about it, eyes turned up to the ceiling. He exhaled through closed lips. “’Fraid not. I’ll be sure to let you know if anything comes to me.”
David took a sip of his espresso. Its rich bitterness flowed across his tongue. He nodded his head approvingly. “Very nice.”
“Enjoy it. We don’t skimp on coffee in this house.”
I imagine you don’t skimp on much. David let his eyes take a quick tour of the room, soaking in the delicate patterns inlaid along the moulding, the teak and mahogany furniture, the watercolours—originals, not prints—on the walls, depicting scenes of urban and pastoral Italy. Everything arranged to be refined without feeling stuffy, roomy but not sparse. Money could buy taste in the form of a big-name decorator, but David thought the arrangement was a Ballaro original. It had a personal touch belying the detachment of a professional, evident in the few tacky but charming quirks—a ceramic Ziggy statuette, a slab of the Berlin wall purchased from a German tourist shop, a saucy plaque reading “Tact: The ability to tell someone to go to hell and make them feel happy as they go on their way.”
“Okay,” Walter interjected. “We’ll move on. Next question: you have any idea what Eddie was doin’ at the Sundown Lounge that night?”
“Proselytising, I suspect. Goin’ up to the strippers and sinners and askin’ them if they’ve found Jesus. What do you think he was doing?”
“Could be he was there to meet somebody.”
“Sure. Probably a bunch of bodies. But I doubt he had much to do with them beyond tradin’ cash for skin.”
David studied the interplay between Walter and Frank. The two men looked casual enough, both of them sitting back in their chairs, arms draped over armrests or folded in their laps. Yet David sensed a coiled alertness beneath these facades, the spry, balls-of-the-feet tension of pro tennis players. Whether they were playing doubles against an unseen opponent or singles against each other, however, David had yet to determine.
“Easy, Frank. We gotta check all the angles here. How often did Eddie go to the Downer? He a regular?”
“I didn’t keep the boy on a short leash. What he did on his own time was his business. I know he liked the clubs, but what I heard, he preferred Mints to the Downer. A little classier, higher calibre of dancer. You want a good ballpark figure, I’d ask the manager.”
They already had, of course, but there was no sense in bringing that up. Walter jotted something in his notepad—probably just scribbles; the pad was as useful as a prop as it was at recording information—and gestured for Frank to continue. “And leading up to the night in question, did Eddie act strange at all? Maybe seem nervous, angry, like there was somethin’ on his mind?”
Frank shook his head. “Eddie was just Eddie. He wasn’t one to sweat the small stuff. I loved the kid to death, but he was a bit of a layabout. Comes from bein’ the youngest, I guess. Vinnie and Joey, I made sure they knew the ins and outs of the business. Bernice could always take care of herself, so she didn’t need much shepherdin’ from her mother and me. Eddie came along, didn’t seem so important I had an heir. Why not let the kid get his rocks off how he likes? We got the money.”
“So basically, this whole thing is totally out of the blue? No precursors, signs, even in hindsight?”
“You don’t wake up expectin’ your baby boy to be torn to bits in a strip club parking lot. I can’t think what kind of sign you might find for that, ‘cept maybe rainin’ frogs or the Niagara River turnin’ to blood.” Frank’s voice stayed calm, but his tension showed in the stiff way he held his coffee, elbow and shoulder rigid as soldered joints. Walter noticed it too, for he dropped the subject and moved on to their next round of questions—albeit on a subject not likely to make Frank any less tense.
“While I’m here, I’d also like to ask you a few questions ‘bout Derek McCulloch.”
Frank raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“You know Mr. McCulloch, correct?”
“Sure I know him.”
“You mind me askin’ how?”
“He works for me.”
David nearly choked on his coffee. Frank’s less-than-legal activities were an open secret among the three of them, but admitting to employing a hired killer—even a non-convicted one—seemed exceptionally candid.
Walter continued his questioning as if merely ticking through a telephone survey. “Doing what, exactly?”
“Odd jobs. He fixes games at my arcade, makes sure all the spooks and scares are workin’ in my haunted houses, that sort of thing. Boy’s good with his hands, has whattayacall, mechanical aptitude.”
“So he’s an employee of yours?”
“More like a contractor. I call him when I need him.”
“On the books, of course?”
Frank smiled. “Certainly. Payin’ under the table’s a crime, ain’t it?”
“Not the kind is any of our business. Pour everything you got into the Cayman Islands for all I care. I just do bodies. Which is what makes me ask about Derek.”
“Something happen to Derek?” Frank asked, sitting forward in his chair. A cloud of concern passed across his face. David all but knew it for a lie, but still felt himself convinced of its sincerity. Christ, this guy should be in Hollywood.
“Not that we know of. He seems to have disappeared. He’d rented a room from one of them divey joints out on the Lane, one called the Jupiter Motel.”
“Hey, hey there. A few of those divey joints, as you call ‘em, paid for this house.”
“Fine. Divey cash cows. Happy? Anyway, seems a couple of guys showed up to Derek’s room a few hours before he did. There’s some commotion, shots fired, and next morning the two men are dead and Derek’s in the wind. Poof, gone.”
Frank scratched a piece of freckled skin beneath his lower lip. “Jesus. I hope the kid’s okay. I haven’t heard a peep from him in weeks. He reaches out to me, I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”
“I don’t think that’s likely to happen. Our best guess is the kid’s on the run. See, the two guys we found in Derek’s room are also on your payroll—or were, anyway. Louis Perone and Joseph Santino.”
Frank crossed himself and muttered a small prayer in Italian.
“I take it this comes as news to you?”
“Of course. I don’t keep tabs on the men work for me.”
“Still, they’d worked for you a long time. It says here . . . ” Walter flipped through his notepad, struggling to find a page David knew for a fact he could pinpoint in half a second if the situation warranted it. “Okay. Lou since ’89, Joey since ’84. Management of Horror Hill and the Sleep EZ Motel, respectively. Positions like that, you musta put some trust in them.”
“I don’t hire a guy ‘less I trust him. But there’s different sorts of trust. I’ve known all sorts of guys who do good work but can’t keep their noses clean. Some guys have a need eats them up, makes them useless for anything but nabbing the next fix. Others live whole lives showin’ up for work on time, doin’ a good job, then goin’ home and getting baked on smack or whorin’ their way from here to Windsor. Man’s personal business ain’t no business of mine.”
“Sure. So you didn’t have any sense that they might be up to something, I guess you’d say . . . unsavory in their personal lives? Any clue as to what this meeting might’ve been about?”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. Drugs? Prostitution? Protection racket?”
“Please. What would I know about any of that sort of thing?”
“You tell me.”
Frank smiled. “No. I can’t say I knew anything about it. But that’s different than saying I’m one hundred percent surprised. Lou and Joey were their own men. What choices they make off the clock, I can’t be responsible for ‘em. Joey does surprise me, I admit—he seemed like a straight and narrow sort of guy, good head on his shoulders—but Lou and Derek I can see cookin’ up the kind of scheme ends with people getting’ shot. Lou, God bless him, was too damn thick to see the risk in such a thing. You flash some dollar bills in front of the guy, he forgets what he might have to do to earn ‘em.”
“And Derek?”
Frank stared into his coffee mug, swirling the liquid in a slow gyre of foam. “When it comes to work, Derek’s a real pro. Diligent. Professional, Thorough. You give that boy a job and he sees to it it gets done right. But in his personal life, he’s reckless. Given to vices, bad choices. Am I saddened to hear he’s gotten himself in that kind of trouble? Absolutely. Am I surprised?” Frank bobbed his head from side to side. “Some crashes happen blink of an eye, like. Others you see comin’ a mile off. It don’t mean you can stop them. Derek’s a ‘live fast, die young’ guy if ever there was one. Kid has a James Dean thing about him, sort of guy courts danger with an eight inch hard-on, gonna bang it or die trying.”
“So you’re sayin’ whoever hit Lou and Joey might’ve been after Eddie all along, simply caught the other two on an off chance?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me, but I ain’t sayin’ it’s the only option, either. Could be Derek and the boys had a falling out, one owes the other, things come to a head. I’d like to think better of all three of ‘em, but I’m a realist. Or could be any number of other things happened, too. You’re the detectives, not me. I ain’t got no crystal ball.”
“Neither do we. But what you’re sayin’ is, whatever Lou and Joey were doin’ in that motel room, it weren’t bein’ done on your behalf.”
“I send a guy to do a job, detective, rest assured it gets done. Whatever business was goin’ on in that room, sounds to me like it was unfinished.”
“So you don’t think Derek had anything to do with what happened to Eddie?”
“If I thought he did, believe me, I wouldn’ta sent someone to him on my behalf. I woulda dealt with that business personally.”
Walter flipped his notepad with a quick jerk of his wrist. He tucked his pen into the spiral binding and slipped the pad into his jacket pocket. “Thanks for your time, Frank. We’ll let you know soon as we find anything.”
“Always a pleasure, Walter.” They shook hands. Frank extended a hand to David next. His grip was firm, his palm callused and dry. He gave three sharp pumps and withdrew, all business. “And nice meeting you, son.”
“Likewise. Please, thank your wife again for the coffee.”
“I’ll be sure she gets the message. Keep up the good work, gentlemen. Ciao.”
Back in the car, Walter lit a cigarette. “Well there. You’ve met Niagara’s big cheese. Was it everything you’d dreamed it would be and more?”
“Sublime, certainly.” David lit a cigarette of his own. He never used to smoke in vehicles, but Walter couldn’t make it a block without lighting up, and even with the windows down the smell beckoned him incessantly. The old guy really was a bad influence. “They’re holding up pretty good, considering.”
“Ballaro’s all about pride. It wouldn’t do to go blubberin’ in front of the law. But yeah, he’s a tough nut. You don’t survive in his business for long, bein’ overly emotional.”
“I didn’t expect tears and chest beating or anything, but the guy was just so . . . relaxed. His son’s dead, and it’s like he’s over it already.”
Walter smiled around his cigarette. “Don’t let him fool you. Frank is anything but over it.
Ballaros are the only family in the country south of Toronto with a name that means a damn, and they got that way by bein’ the biggest, baddest, meanest motherfuckers on the block. Frank’s shrewd, but that don’t make him a lightweight. He keeps the body count low ‘cause he knows too much blood’ll raise the heat on his operations. But when the man’s got a point to make, he makes it. It’s best you don’t forget that.”
“So you expect a point’s forthcoming?”
“I’d be shocked if it wasn’t. Unless it has already, and we just didn’t see it.”
David puffed on his cigarette, reflecting. “And what about McCulloch? You buy he didn’t know anything about it?”
Walter raised his eyebrows. “You have to ask?”
“I’m trying not to make any assumptions here. This mob business is a little out of my depth.”
“He knew. Lou and Joey would’ve never made that kind of move without his say-so. Joe Santino was way too cautious for such a thing. Lou Perone was a dim bulb, I’ll grant that, but even he’d know enough not to try and cut in on any side business without Frank’s express consent, unless he’d developed a sudden urge to be parted from his balls. No, they were there on Ballaro business, and shit went south. Question is, what’d they botch? A hit, or just a bring-him-in-for-questioning thing?”
“Does it matter?”
Walter took a final rolling drag on his cigarette and flicked the butt out the open window. It landed on the curb, spewing sparks over the sodden leaves and road grit. “At the time, maybe. Not now. All I know is, that moke McCulloch better pray we find him before Ballaro does.”
“We got half our patrol keeping an eye out for him.”
Walter waved the point aside. “He’s long gone, man. Scurried back to some familiar hole. If he’s got half a brain cell in his skull, he won’t show his face in this town again anytime soon.”
David tapped his lip with his index finger. “You said he hails from Toronto, right?”
“That’s the word we got on ‘im. No family to speak of, though, no one we can lean on. Guy’s a classic lone wolf.”
David fished his smartphone out of his pocket and flicked through his contact list. He clicked the dial button and listened to the digitized sound of ringing. The third ring cut out early, replaced by a woman’s voice.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned. David Moore. That really you, or some perp knock you off and take your phone?”
“It’s me all right. How you doing, Wanda?”
“How am I doing? That all you got to say to me? If you have the nerve to try a booty call after I ain’t heard from your ass in going on two years—”
“I was up there six months ago.”
“Been six months too long, then, huh?”
David smiled. “Call it seven. Now, really, how are you?”
Wanda dropped the sass from her voice as if tossing off a pair of brass knuckles. “I’m good. Been a hell of a summer, gangbangers lightin’ each other up like a bunch of dope-dealin’ birthday candles, but it keeps me busy. How’s life down in tourist town?”
“We’ve been keeping pretty busy ourselves.”
“I heard about the fire. Nasty business. And that body outside the strip club. You catch that one?”
“’Fraid so.”
She whistled. “Got any leads?”
“One second, let me ask my partner.” He held the phone to his chest, turning the receiver out so she could hear. “Hey Walt, would you say we got any leads on the Ballaro case?”
Walter rubbed his chin in contemplation. “Well, I got my dick in my hand and my thumb up my ass, so I’d say we’re making progress.”
“You hear that?” David asked, back on the line. “Wheels in motion.”
“Sounds like you got a crack squad down there.”
“No doubt. But even the pros need help every once in a while.”
Wanda clucked her tongue. “Typical man. Only call when you want something.”
“Why would anyone call anyone else, unless they wanted something?”
David could practically hear her eyes roll at that. “Lay it on me, partner.”
“How are you guys stocked for CIs these days?”
“Pfffff, up to our elbows, boy. Condo construction’s shot, Labor Ready’s turnin’ people back left and right. Half the city’s itchin’ for a quick payout, seems like.”
“Well, you put the word out that there’s a new sugar daddy in town.”
“You say the word, honey,” Wanda said. “Who we looking for?”
David told her.