A match cracked and flared yellow, illuminating only the broad planes of a great slab of face. Something slid with a grating sound and the sharp stench of kerosene pierced my nostrils. Greasy orange light spread from an oil lamp, forming a lopsided circle a foot and a half in diameter. The glass chimney grated back into place over the burning wick.
Stan Kopernick blew out the match, dropped it on the floor, and puffed on his cigar. The smoke was silvery in the meager glow. The light didn’t quite reach the brim of his hat, leaving a strip of shadow there with his eyes glistening through. He was sitting in a mohair-upholstered armchair with stuffing billowing out of it like steam from a locomotive.
“You took your own sweet time getting here.”
I took the Ruger off cock and put it away. “Not so sweet,” I said, “and not my own. I sold it to a client. I had to hire a time machine to find the place. Where’s yours?”
“Around the corner, under a light. Those unmarked units are candy to carjackers. You’ll be lucky if yours is still waiting for you.”
“That’s why I camouflage it with dents and rust. Why here? Siberia too far?”
“That ain’t just rotten wood and rat turds you’re smelling. It’s history. They ought to put a brass plaque on the place. What do you know about the Black Legion?”
I lit a cigarette. The stink of history was getting to me. “Klan offshoot,” I said, stepping on the match. “Thirties or thereabout. They burn a cross here or what?”
“Nothing so gaudy. They tried a guy for being colored without a license: Set up a table for the judge’s bench, folding chairs for the jury, Confederate flag, the works. Twelve bad men and false deliberated without leaving the room. The bailiff and the sergeant-at-arms drove the poor son of a bitch clear out to Melvindale and shot him by the salt mines. Those days there weren’t as many empty lots as now.
“Even yellow-bellies had some guts,” he said. “They set up court right here in the middle of the Black Bottom; what the locals called Paradise Valley. That’s like organizing a Nazi bund rally in Tel Aviv. Not that brass balls did them any good when they stood trial for real. Doing life in Michigan can make you beg for the chair.”
“Charming story. You should be a tour guide. The urban explorers would want to know about this place; they love to play Indiana Jones. I don’t see you for the part. Why meet here, and not the Second? I left my cloak and dagger at home.”
“It’s practically the only place in town without a working surveillance camera or a busybody next door.” He blew a ragged ring of smoke. “I got a call from Chester Goss a couple of hours ago.”
I dropped the butt and crushed it out. “You and I only got hitched this afternoon. His pipeline into the department must be top-grade copper. Excuse the play on words.”
He let that one slide. It wasn’t that good anyway. “Who needs a pipeline? Plumbing’s already full of holes. He offered me a job: consulting expert, assigned to his show with a personal service contract, benefits and all.”
“He can be charming,” I said after a moment. “When we met he told me all about how he’d looked up his heritage and took up a sport connected with it. Then when he found out what I was there for he threw me out. What I’m saying is he might not be the best boss in the world.”
“Thought you’d try to talk me out of it.”
“I’m nobody’s guardian angel; just figured you’d like to know the facts, one working stiff to another.” I rolled a shoulder. “Congratulations. He could’ve saved himself a bundle with just an envelope of cash.”
He drew on the cigar, hard enough for the end to spread its glow to his hat brim. It might have been responsible for the angry flush; you can’t be sure where a man like Kopernick’s concerned. Anyway when he spoke his tone was even. “I got a job I like. This one sounds like there’s a lot of reading involved.”
“Turn it down?”
“Told him I’d talk it over with the wife.”
“You surprise me.”
“That a lowlife like me don’t jump at the easy buck?”
“That you’ve got a wife. I thought you lived in an efficiency apartment with a direct line to Escorts R Us.”
“She’s a trooper. When the chief threatened me with a month’s unpaid suspension for that thing in the casino, I had to talk her out of marching downtown with a rolling pin. She probably wouldn’t be so loyal if I told her I dropped an investigation in return for a warm spot on a windowsill. I bought some time to let you know. You and me promised each other we’d come running whenever something broke.”
I dealt myself another butt. I didn’t want it; one of the few advantages of being a tobacco addict is all the business involved gives you time to access your brain cells. I’d invested too much time in hating Detective First-Grade Stan Kopernick to start just disliking him now.
Unless he was running the tired old game. I hadn’t the energy to work out the odds. I flipped a mental coin. It stood on end.
“He’s scared,” I said; “Goss is. I call that progress.”
He blew a plume of smoke and tapped a half-inch of ash onto the floor. It had seen worse, if what he’d said about the Black Legion wasn’t just theater. “Putting aside the possibility that I impressed him with my skills as a cop,” he said, “I’m inclined to agree. He knew about all my better moments; gave them to me chapter and verse. Flattering as all hell.” The cigar-end traced an incendiary circle in the dark, like a July 4th sparkler. “I gotta say I didn’t put any store in that old ‘innocent man’ stall; I wanted to tag along with you to make sure a good verdict didn’t go down the drain on account of a road-show Robin Hood like you: You said it yourself when I threw in. Now the situation’s starting to stink like this shithole. Got an opinion?”
“Take the job.”
“I thought you’d say that, now that I know what to expect. So now I’m a double agent. You know what happens to them.”
“You’re a grown man, Kopernick. But assuming you survive, I’d owe you one.”
He stabbed out the stogie against a leathery palm; an old G.I. trick, but not exclusive to the military. I’d used it myself, when I was too scared to show fear. After all this time the scars look like liver spots.
He got up, extricating himself from a chair with worn-out springs, as smoothly as a camel rising from its knees; no grunts, no cracking of bones, and without using the arms for support. I envied that, but it surprised me less than when he closed the distance between us and stuck out a paw the size of a dinner plate. I was two blocks gone before I could feel my fingers.