Snow is falling
but in the cemetery
fresh flowers abound—Soezi
Twilight gloom pervades the Miracle Mile pawnshop. Nevertheless, the broker recognizes me and seems surprised to see me.
“Not many come back to redeem their stuff, is all,” he says. “Gunning for the guy that stung ya, huh?”
“What makes you say that?”
“I notice you’re not asking for your camping gear back,” he says.
“Look, do you still have the Beretta?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah, I think so. In the back, maybe. I’ll go dig it out.”
In the back? That figures. He really shouldn’t display the gun for sale until the loan matures.
He unlocks a wrought iron security door to a room behind the counter, leaving me to busy myself by perusing what he’s got in the case. No guns at all, which is odd. Instead there are cameras, knives, watches, rings, other jewelry. One item in particular catches my eye.
Clanking keys announce the broker’s return.
“Here’s your piece.” He slides the Beretta and its holster across the counter in exchange for my money and receipt.
I buckle it on. “Can I see this?” I ask, pointing.
“Hope you got big bucks, I ain’t giving that away.” He unlocks the case with yet another key and takes out the large gold and gemstone ring that caught my notice. The cut green stone in its center glitters in the blue light of the overhead fluorescents. It appears to be a twin to the emerald ring the irate customers brought into Facets, the one I just this afternoon checked into Property at the station, the one that reminded me so much of Nikki’s. Is it? For that I’ll need an expert opinion.
“Hold this for me,” I tell him. “Promise me you won’t sell that to anyone else.”
He leans forward, elbows on the counter. “Look, I don’t got no layaway plan here. I’m selling that to the first person who comes in with four grand. If that ain’t you that ain’t my problem.”
“I don’t have that much on me.”
“Come back when you do.” He moves to return the ring to the case.
“Wait!” I show him my ID. “I really need that ring. It’s in connection with a case.”
The broker scrutinizes my identification card. “You get that phony I.D. from Benny the Pen? Like they say, guy’s an artist. Looks almost real.”
“It is real!”
“But I thought you were ...” The broker’s body stiffens and he puts some distance between us. With a raised eyebrow, he says, “If you’re a cop, then you know I don’t have to give you nothing without some kinda warrant.”
“True. But you’ll sell it to me?”
He gives me an eager smile. “I said I’d sell it to the first person who meets my price.”
“Fine. Let me use your phone.”
“What for?”
“To call my lieutenant, get him down here with some cash.”
“Your lieutenant,” he echoes. “You’re serious.”
“Oh yes.”
He drums his fingers on the counter. “Phone’s busted,” he says finally.
“I see. Guess all I can do is hope for your cooperation. Maybe you’ll come around. I’m a patient man, I can wait.” I cross my arms over my chest, let my jacket fall open just enough so my badge will show, and make myself comfortable against the counter.
“Suit yourself.” With a smile, the broker places the ring on its shelf and slides the case door shut.
“And when the guy you’re selling the guns to comes by, you just go about your business, pretend I’m not here,” I add.
Slowly, he turns the key in the lock and straightens. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” He putters around the shop with occasional furtive glances to see how I’m holding up but he needn’t worry. I’m quite happy to stand here and do nothing. I practice doing nothing.
Having a cop standing around can’t be any good for business, however, and the broker becomes more agitated. When there’s a commotion at the rear of the building he says, “All right, take the damn rock. Just get out of here!” He starts for the gate to the room behind the counter.
“Make out a receipt and I’m gone.”
“Receipt?”
“I told you, this is all on the up and up.”
“All right, all right!” He scribbles a few lines in a padded receipt book and tears out a copy for me. “Now will you beat it?”
“One more thing.”
“What!” His eyes slide to the room behind him.
“Who sold you the ring?”
“Goddam!”
“Come on. Either you’ve got a bill of sale, which I can get a warrant to see anyhow, or you don’t, in which case you’re in even worse trouble.”
“Hey, I told you, I ain’t no fence. I got a bill of sale.”
I grab a fist full of his shirt, pull his face closer to mine. “You got it from Nikki Saint Clair, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
“Shit. Well, I guess it don’t matter, she’s flown. Yeah, it was Nikki.”
“Have you gotten other pieces from her?”
“You said ‘one more thing’,” the pawnbroker wails. He tugs to get out of my grasp but I hold firm.
“Tell me!”
“Yeah, a few.”
“Starting when?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Four weeks ago, six, something like that. Then nothing until this.”
About that time, according to Carlotta Trephino, Hector dropped out of the Cuban cigar club and took up with Nikki.
“Now go on, get out of here,” the pawnbroker whines.
I get because suddenly I am out of time. The pawnbroker said that Nikki had already left town but if I hurry, maybe I can pick up her trail before it cools. The emerald ring is more than a compromising lump in my pocket, it’s a millstone around my neck. There isn’t time for a detour to stow it in Old Paint much less take it to the station. I jam it onto my left pinkie and turn the stone toward my palm to make it less conspicuous.
Though night has tightened an icy grip on the Miracle Mile I work up a sweat beating feet to the Metro. Urgency fuels me with an energy exhibited by few others on this street.
At the Metro, the bouncer stops my advance on the dressing room. “Where you think you going, fool?” he asks.
“To see Nikki—”
“I don’t think so.” He clamps my shoulders in two meaty paws and spins me in the direction I’ve come from.
“You don’t understand,” I dig in my heels but he has me off-balance.
“Let him go,” says a female voice from behind.
The bouncer loosens his grip and we both turn. It’s the cigarette girl.
“Better hurry,” she says. “Nikki’s on her way out.”
Nikki hasn’t flown, but flight is definitely in her immediate plans. She’s wearing clothes, all over her body. A suitcase stands in the middle of the room. An outer garment is draped over the armchair. A black cape. With a hood.
“Will, sugar, come on in,” she says. “Nikki was just about to have herself a drink. Pour one for you?” In her haste she knocks over a perfume bottle and a lilies-of-the-valley fragrance fills the air. She holds out a glass of creme de menthe.
The memory of how sickening the green stuff is turns my stomach. Still, a little nip might help me cope with the Nearvana jones. I drink the stuff down. “Where you going, Nikki?”
“Going? Places, Will. Somewhere better than here. Atlantic City, maybe. Or Vegas, where it’s warm. Nikki’s retiring.”
“Where’d you get the money to give up all this?” With a sweep of my hand I include the dressing room cluttered with costumes, street clothes, makeup cases, and props.
She squares her shoulders. “Made it the old-fashioned way: earned it,” she says in a misguided parody of an investment firm’s slogan. “You see the kind of money Nikki pulls in. They can’t throw it at her fast enough.”
“Sure. You wouldn’t also happen to do a little private dancing on the side?”
She pouts. “Nikki has a few fans who are willing to pay for a personal performance.”
“Was Hector Waltann one of them?”
“Who?”
“Did he pay you with jewelry from his store?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play stupid with me, Nikki.”
“All right, Nikki knew him. So what? No one got hurt. It was a consenting adult thing.”
“One of those adults is now dead.”
She plants a hand on a tight hip. “Well, of course he’s dead, sugar. Why else would you be asking about him?” She shrugs. “But Nikki can’t help you. Nikki certainly didn’t kill him. Nikki hasn’t even seen him in a while.”
“Define ‘a while.’”
“Weeks.” She pours fresh glasses of creme de menthe. “Have another, sugar.”
I sip this one more slowly. “You’re lying, Nikki. You’ve been fencing the stuff he gave you and you sold a piece just the other day.” Which is now burning a hole in my fist.
“Nikki didn’t fence it, she pawned it. Hector gave Nikki the ring ages ago.”
She steps up to me and rests her forehead on my chest. Quickly, I estimate her height to be just about right to match the mystery woman’s description. Just about right to stab a man in the gut.
“But Nikki doesn’t see Hector anymore. He left her. For another.” She repositions herself to look up with big sad eyes while pressing her body against mine. This sandwiches the Beretta between us, but she doesn’t comment.
“So you killed him.”
“Don’t be silly. Why kill him? He was one of Nikki’s best johns. Nikki wants him back, not dead.” She grinds against me more insistently. “Can’t you leave it alone? Nikki didn’t hurt anybody.”
“I think you’d better come with me.” And we’d better go now, while I’m still standing.
“Nikki has a better idea. Why don’t you come with her?” She gives me the bump-and-grind I saw her give the pole on stage.
“No thanks.” My body is finding it difficult to resist joining this tango.
“Be a better life than what you’re living now. Nikki would see you would never want for anything. We could party all night, do whatever we want during the day. Or nothing, just take it easy. The good life.”
She fondles me. For a moment I indulge in the fantasy: days spent in languid inertia or dazzled in casinos whiling away the hours, nightlong orgies of mindless indulgence. No work, no stress, no fear, no hunger. Every need satisfied or drugged out of existence. Such a life did the Devil’s own three daughters offer the Buddha to divert him from finally achieving release from suffering. He was not swayed, but I am no Buddha.
She takes my fists and places them on her breasts. “Come on, sugar. You know you want to.” With thumbs she pries my hands open. “Hey, what’s this?” she asks. “It’s Nikki’s ring! Where’d you get Nikki’s ring?”
“You know where.”
She peels herself away. The absence of her body leaves me chilled. She steps to the vanity and returns with two glasses of emerald liquid.
“How ‘bout one for the road?”
“No thanks.” I’ve had enough. The stuff has gone to my head. Can it really be garden-variety liqueur? With blurry eyes, I spot the bottle still sitting on the vanity next to the booze and cough syrup bottles. Cough syrup. Prescription cough syrup. With codeine? Which would be difficult for a dupe to detect if disguised by equally sweet, syrupy creme de menthe? Aw, dammit, Nikki!
“That’s too bad,” says a gruff voice from the corner behind the dress rack. “It would have been easier for us if you had.”
A shotgun barrel pokes out from between two feather boas. The garments part and Marvin Overshort emerges, pink feathers draped across one shoulder.
My head spins from the shock, the alcohol, and the codeine.
“He’s armed,” Nikki tells Overshort.
“Take it away from him!” Overshort replies. “And get his handcuffs. Cuff ‘im.”
She frisks me, which under other circumstances I would have enjoyed. “He doesn’t have any,” she wails.
“No handcuffs? What the hell kind of cop? ... ” Overshort looks disappointed. “Well, find something else to tie him up with. Nylons. You got nylons, dontcha?”
“Of course,” Nikki says, and rummages around in a corner.
“Hands and feet. Tie him up. Hands behind his back, you moron,” Overshort says. “You. Sit,” he tells me, and with the weapon shoves me into Nikki’s vanity chair.
Not the Beretta automatic he had at the Hunt Club, this is a short-barreled, pump-action Winchester. I think I know what kind of game he hunts with this one. In these close quarters, Overshort wouldn’t even have to be a good shot to hurt me, so I comply. My knees were about to buckle anyway.
Nikki’s chair is low to the ground. Seated with my knees higher than my hips, I feel like a fractious schoolboy sentenced to the corner. Like the hero in some kinky bondage flick I sit in a pink vanity chair while a voluptuous woman at my feet binds me with black fishnet stockings. They make a strong rope—it’s not for nothing we use nylon ties as restraints on the force—and Nikki gets me trussed up good, the bindings tighter than they need to be.
“He’s got my ring,” Nikki says. She points to my hands.
Overshort peers over my shoulder. I keep my fists clenched. The show of petulance only gets me cuffed in the head with the shotgun barrel.
“Get it off him,” Overshort says.
On her knees again, Nikki tugs at the ring.
“It won’t come off!”
“Shit!” Overshort taps his foot in annoyance. “You got a knife, scissors, something like that?”
Nikki gets to her feet and digs around on the vanity. “Will these do?” She holds up a pair of craft scissors.
“Have to. Cut it off him.”
“The ring? With these?”
“Not the ring, dimwit, his finger. Cut it off!”
A plug forms in my throat as I picture myself slumped in this pink chair, blood spurting from my mutilated hand like water from a hose.
“Nikki can’t do that!” she says. “You cut it off.”
“I’m holding the gun! All right, I’ll get it later.”
I don’t like the sound of that “later.”
“Now get Quince,” Overshort says. “I’m gonna need both of you.”
His words penetrate the codeine fog. Heidi help? Overshort’s hold over her is that strong?
“Now wait just a minute, sugar. Nikki was on her way out of town when the pawnbroker called. You said, ‘Hold him till I get there,’ and Nikki’s done that. So, see ya around.”
“I said Quince and I could handle him if you got him drugged up, but you didn’t. Now you’ll have to help get rid of him. Don’t screw with me, Nikki. The sooner we take care of him the sooner we can all disappear. Now go get Quince!”
Nikki pulls on her cape and takes off as fast as her high heels will carry her. Overshort stands spread-legged, shotgun pointed at my chest. I don’t want to look at it but I can barely hold up my head. The nylons are so tight they’re cutting off the circulation to my hands and feet. I can feel them tingle. There might be a chance later. Overshort won’t do me here. He means to move me, and maybe I can make a break for it in the process.
I shift in the chair. My cramped position has set off waves of pain in my thigh. “Just what exactly is the game, Overshort? Fake jewelry?”
“Yeah, fake jewelry. I buy crap, sell it for serious cash. Easy. Yeah. I do the ordering, I handle the books. Both sets.”
There’s a knock on the door and Overshort admits Heidi. She strides toward me with the same confidence I saw in her that first time when she crossed the Facets lobby to greet me. Gone is the elegantly dressed delicate female who clung to me, the damsel in distress, if she ever was. Instead, garbed in a black jacket, slacks, and sturdy shoes she stands with chin up, shoulders back, and looks down her nose at me.
“The chumps aren’t any the wiser,” Overshort says. “They get paper certifying the junk is the real thing from our gemologist here.”
“You were in on it all along?” I ask Heidi. My speech sounds slurred.
She smiles. Her green eyes are hard as glass.
To Heidi I say, “You set me up at the bookstore. You told him I’d be there.” And to Overshort, “It was you in the Eterniti.”
“Ah, the Eterniti. That was a stroke. Didn’t want to use my car, or Quince’s, in case someone saw me. Even if they made the Eterniti, so what?”
“I warned you about looking for Hector,” Heidi says to me. “I begged you to quit.”
“Before I got wise to what you two were up to, the way Hector did.”
Overshort laughs. “Are you kidding? Hector didn’t have a clue. He was so busy fucking himself up he didn’t know what was going on. It was his boy, Terry, I was worried about. He really was a gemologist. But all I had to do was fire him. He didn’t even fight to keep his job. No backbone. Like father, like son.”
“Marvin, do you really have to tell him all this?” Heidi asks.
He can’t help it, he’s a braggart. If I keep stroking him, I can probably get the whole thing. And if I keep talking, maybe I can keep from passing out. “Having a spare remote for the car helped, I guess.”
“Found it Hector’s desk when I moved into his office. Enough of this yak. Time to go. Get up.”
The struggle to stand on cramped legs and bloodless feet insensible as blocks of wood brings me to my knees.
“You fuck!” Overshort says. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Feet fell asleep. Can’t walk. I think I broke my ankle trying to stand.”
“I’ll untie him,” Nikki offers.
Yes!
“Not a chance!” Overshort says.
Damn!
“And just for insurance ...” He swings to whack me in the head with the gun barrel. I see it coming and turn my face, take it on the ear instead of the temple. It rings my bell but good and I keel over.
In a codeine-and-concussion stupor, I hear Overshort as if from a great distance. “We’ll have to carry him out to the car. Heidi, hold the gun on him. Shoot him if he moves. Nikki, take his feet.” Overshort grabs me under the arms. Nikki grasps my feet and gets tangled up in her cloak.
“Dammit, Nikki, ditch that stupid rag.”
“It’s cold outside.”
“Then find something else.”
The tall, red-headed figure of Nikki hunts through the clothes on the rack and selects a blue Windbreaker and matching cap. The Pizza Boy at Hector’s condo?
Overshort and Nikki get me horizontal. They carry me out the back door, Nikki tottering on her high heels, to the waiting Eterniti.
“Put him in the trunk?” Nikki asks, panting.
“Nah. I want him where I can keep an eye on him. In the back seat. Get in the back with him. “Keep that gun of his on him.”
Won’t do her any good. Not loaded.
“Quince, you drive. I’ll tell you where.” Overshort directs her north, away from the Mile, onto Forbes Road.
Forbes Road. Jade Pagoda. Scott Corcoran. Monetta. Me, next?
“I owe that pawnbroker for tipping us off,” Overshort says.
I am back in the pawnshop, where the pawnbroker claims the phone is busted. I see myself leave, see him call Nikki and Overshort, give them the head’s up. Next I picture my first visit to the Metro. Nikki asks for five minutes alone in her dressing room. While I wait, Overshort leaves her dressing room, gets in the Eterniti, fires on me in the alley.
“Nikki’s been good to him,” she replies.
Overshort says, “You’re a tight little bunch, you Miracle Mile folks. Share everything, dontcha: news, drugs, lovers?”
“Now you shut your mouth about that,” Nikki says.
Overshort laughs. “He’s gonna miss that good Facets merchandise you were fencing for Hector.”
It would be so easy to succumb to the pain and intoxicants. I struggle to hear and understand. Hector was ripping off his own place? Did he commit the theft? No wonder it looked like an inside job. And no wonder Overshort discouraged the insurance company and the police from taking a close look.
“Well, if Hector’s dead, that kind of shuts off that supply, doesn’t it?” Nikki says.
Facets’ cleaning woman and security officer ... did they catch Hector in the act? Did Hector kill them, making the murders look like a carjacking and a suicide? Between his personal assets and Facets’ inventory, Hector has run through a lot of cash. That must have been some heroin habit.
“Got shut off the minute I stopped buying genuine stones. Funny thing, that dealer Hector was scoring from never noticed,” Overshort says. “Wonder what Hector’s latest squeeze is gonna do for dope now that Sugar Daddy is gone.”
“Like Nikki cares.” Her tone is sour.
Oh, so the Nearvana wasn’t all for Hector. Carlotta did say he was buying enough for two. So who was this lover?
“Don’t this heap go any faster?” Overshort asks. “Let’s get there already.”
There? Where? I open my eyes a crack. The sky is dark. Gone is the neon brightness of the Miracle Mile, the daylight-yellow glow of the city’s sulfur lamps. We’re somewhere rural.
“With Hector dead, it’s sort of the end of that gravy train for us, too,” Nikki says.
“Yeah, whoever wasted Hector did me no kind of favor. Now I gotta deal with Marybeth and his insurance people, not to mention this dude. What do I need with that noise? ‘Bout time we got out of town anyway, the way Mansion’s been poking into those little personnel actions we had to take.”
Personnel actions? Does he mean the cleaning lady and the security officer? Did Overshort kill them? He said “we.” He and Nikki? He and ... Heidi?
“Put a lid on it, Marvin, for God’s sake,” Heidi hisses. Her voice is full of menace.
“What?”
“Mansion’s hearing every word.”
Overshort twists to eye me over the back of the seat. “Mansion’s out cold. Even if he’s not, it don’t matter. He won’t be telling anyone. OK, turn here.”
“Here?” Heidi echoes.
I share her befuddlement. We don’t seem to be anywhere, just a cul-de-sac off Riverside Drive. Heidi stops.
“Get us down closer to the river,” Overshort says.
“Be serious. There’s no pavement. From here’s it’s just graded. This isn’t an off-road vehicle.”
“Do it!”
After a moment’s hesitation, Heidi takes us at a crawl over rough terrain. After a few yards she stops again.
“I didn’t say ‘stop,’” Overshort yells.
“If I go any farther, we’ll get stuck,” she replies firmly.
“Great. We’ll have to carry him the rest of the way,” he says. “Quince, guard him. Nikki, take his feet.”
Nikki and Overshort lift me up as before and tramp through the underbrush, Heidi close behind with the shotgun. Nikki stumbles in her high heels, drops my feet. Overshort swears, demands her shoes, and tears the heels off.
A few yards later, the river comes into view. They mean to drop me in and I tell myself this is good, I’m a decent swimmer. I don’t mention it will be cold, I’ll be weighed down by my clothing, and hampered by the restraints. The chance that I’ll get very far, very fast is slim, but I’ll take it. Before I can imagine what my first move should be when I hit the water, Overshort stops. He and Nikki dump me, not in the river but in the grass.
“What?” Nikki asks.
“I’m just thinking. He might come to in the water. Maybe we should plug him first,” Overshort says. “Nikki, where’s that gun of his?”
Good idea. Shoot me with an unloaded gun. That would give me a chance to run–-if I weren’t trussed like a turkey, if I weren’t numb from codeine and creme de menthe. If I could feel my feet. I’ve got to get him to untie me.
Overshort pulls the trigger. The gun makes an unproductive click. “Shit,” Overshort says. “What the fuck’s the matter with this? Nikki, take this piece of shit. Heidi, give me the shotgun.”
He jacks in a round, something I’ve done to impress an offender with my seriousness. It works. I cringe; my head goes light.
“Shit, he’s awake,” Overshort says. He nudges me with his foot. “Mansion, you awake?”
“Yeah, Overshort. What are you going to do? Shoot me here in cold blood, Great White Hunter?”
“Oh, I forgot,” he replies, a sneer in his voice. “That wouldn’t be sportsmanlike. Ok, have it your way. Stand up.”
This time I don’t have to feign impairment. I can get to my knees but can’t get to feet I can’t feel.
“Stand or I will shoot you right here!”
If I look up it will be into the barrel of a shotgun and then I will lose it entirely, so I keep my head bowed.
“Nikki, untie his feet.”
Nikki kneels down beside me and tugs at the bindings. As the ties loosen, I wriggle and shift to make the process of freeing me take as long as possible, buying time to get some circulation back in my feet.
Finally, Nikki announces success and waves the nylons in the air. Slowly I raise a knee and put weight on one foot. What must be gallons of blood rush all at once into parched vessels. My legs threaten to explode. Savage pins-and-needles make me whimper.
Overshort says, “Get up, you fucking wimp!”
Still moving a muscle at a time, I struggle into a crouch, the pain so crippling it threatens to topple me again. On screaming legs I rise to a standing position which brings my chest up against the muzzle of Overshort’s gun.