39

When I emerged onto Maryland Street I was no longer anyone’s personal nightmare. I was just a private eye with a sore hand who was carrying a flat tire around in downtown Indianapolis.

I was still angry. Of course I was, but I was elated too. I’d taken on something vague and general, and I’d made it specific.

I still didn’t know what was going on in Fountain Square or who was involved. But I’d made my point and a promise to someone who did. I hoped for his sake that Tom Thomas understood that I’m a man of my word. Otherwise he was in for some hard times.

It’s not that I was trying, personally, to prevent Thomas and his cronies from doing whatever they had it in mind to do. I cared, and probably wouldn’t like it, but I’m only one resident with one opinion. The rest could care or not, express or not. Maybe the Posse would mobilize community opinion. Maybe they already had. It’s not like I knew a fraction of what they’d been up to in the last few years. Yet.

The world we live in here says people can buy and people can sell and people can build and people can tear down. What I do feel passionately about is that the process should be an honest one. Say what you want, and then get it or not. But no bullying. Especially not of the weaker, the poorer and the older.

Does being against bullies make me a revolutionary in capitalist America? If so, my revolution will be restricted to Fountain Square. Cities get big but communities don’t.

My hand hurt a lot. Had I really pounded on the top of a car with broken hand? Funny how when you’re revved up ordinary things get lost. Adrenaline, the pain-killer of choice.

And now I was hurting, walking down the street in the middle of the day, carrying a flat tire.

Coming out of Ames, Kent, Hardick I’d turned east. It wasn’t part of a plan. I was just trying to get away from Tom Thomas as fast as I could. But I saw that I was now in sight of the City-County Building. Home of IPD. Maybe my subconscious guided my steps. Well, who was I to ignore my subconscious? A lot of times it seems to be about all the conscious I got.

When I got to the main entrance, I asked for Proffitt. He came down to escort me up himself. In the elevator he said, “We arrested Robert Hicksen this morning.”

“Who’s Robert Hicksen?”

“Rochelle Vincent’s nephew.” As that sank in, he added, “We expect to arrest the owner of the motorcycle sometime today.”

Well well well. “That means I’m a hero, right?”

“It means I’m going to let you off the hook for leaving the scene.”

“Gracious just isn’t the word for you, Proffitt. Where’s all that southern charm shit you lay on for the ladies?”

“Funny you should mention… Hicksen shat himself during the interview.”

“Before or after he gave you the name of his friend?”

“He gave us that before we finished reading his rights. He was shaking from the moment he answered the door. He couldn’t give up his friend fast enough. He says he never wanted to harm his aunt. He says his friend suddenly went nuts.”

“Remind me to cry.”

We got out of the elevator and seemed to be heading for the same interview room we’d used before. I said, “Homer, are you not even going to ask me why I’m here?”

“To give your statement. What else?” He stopped outside the interview room door. “I left a message.”

“I haven’t been home for what seems a lifetime.” I looked at my watch. I’d been out for considerably less than two hours.

“Well why did you come in?”

“I thought you might reinflate my spare, what with you being full of hot air and all.”

“I saw you’re carrying a tire.”

“Can’t slip anything past you, can I, Lieutenant?”

“What’s it for? You saving up for a whole car?”

In the interview room he took out the form for taking witness statements.

I said, “I don’t want to talk about last night yet.”

“Don’t screw around, Albert. I am not in the mood. I got very little sleep.”

“That Adele, she’s a hottie.”

He stood up. “I’m going to get someone else in here to do this.”

“It’s you I want, Homer. Nobody else will do. But before we talk about the past I want to talk about the future.”

“What kind of game are you playing now?” He glared down at me.

“The one where the vandalism in Fountain Square suddenly stops.”

“What?”

“I solved your murder for you yesterday. So I had time to sort this out for you today. I am on a roll, Homer.” Although it was possibly a moot point whether a guy carrying around a flat tire can be on a roll.

With a deep sigh he sat. “Make it simple. Make it direct.”

“I’ve just had a chat with a guy. If he wasn’t behind the malicious damage himself, I believe he knows who was.”

“For Christ’s sake, Albert, if you have evidence about who—”

“I don’t have the kind of evidence that would make anybody shit his pants. But for various reasons I think there’s a good chance that my persuasive arguments and cogent reasoning convinced this guy to make sure all the bad stuff around Fountain Square stops.”

Proffitt shook his head slowly.

“But I need to know if the bad stuff doesn’t stop, Homer. That’s why I came in, to ask you to let me know if there are more incidents in the neighborhood. It’s important. So important that I came to see you even before I got my tire fixed. Did you notice my tire? It’s flat.”

I made my statement and signed his form. Usually I’m fussy about giving a witness statement. Sometimes the interviewing cop changes what I say, thinking he’s making it clearer. The result is language I would never use. I mean, it’s my statement, right? It ought to be in my words.

But today I made nicey nicey. There was something else I wanted Proffitt to do. “I’ve got a favor to ask you,” I said when I gave his pen back.

“Is that a joke?”

“You owe me. I put you on course to arrest a couple of murderers.”

“We’d have gotten them anyway.”

“But not so quickly. Last night you had your nose pointed in the opposite direction.”

He leaned back with a long-suffering expression on his face. I wondered if God’s looked the same when He, or possibly She, settles down to work through a backlog of prayers. “What?”

“My mother is very upset about what happened to Rochelle Vincent. Would you call her and tell her you’ve arrested one guy and know who the other one is?”

“That’s the favor?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Thanks.” We stood. I picked up my tire. “You don’t happen to know where there’s a garage around here, do you?”