Bloody River Blues: A Location Scout Mystery Page 13

  The script in Pellam’s mind now called for the cop to ask what he had come here to ask: Could Buffett please call up his detective buddies and ask them to stop ruining his life.

  But he couldn’t ask. Pellam wondered what stopped him. He believed it was not the fact that Pellam was going to leave in a moment with a pretty woman beside him and go back to his job. Nor was it Buffett’s face, which no longer looked so healthy as Pellam had thought—mouth hanging loose, eyes darting, filled with a fear that he perhaps thought he was concealing.

  No, what stopped Pellam was simply that he stood and Buffett lay.

  As simple as that.

  “We better be going,” Pellam said. “Just wanted to stop by.”

  “Yeah.” Buffett nodded. “Good seeing you.”

  “What do you read?” Pellam asked. “I’ll bring you a magazine next time I stop by.”

  “I don’t read. I don’t like to read.” The mystery that Pellam had brought on the first visit sat prominently unopened under the bedside table.

  “You got any hobbies?”

  “Yeah, I got hobbies.”

  “What?”

  Buffett looked from the square of the TV screen to the box where Pellam had pitched the hypodermic needle. “Basketball, softball, jogging, and hockey. Those’re my hobbies.”

  AT THE MAIN desk of the hospital, downstairs, Pellam remembered that he had met Nina when she was visiting her mother. He now asked if she wanted to see the woman.

  She shook her head. “I visited her this morning. Twice a day is a little much. She can be a dear, but . . .” They stepped outside. The day had grown overcast and chill. She asked, “Your parents both alive?”

  “Just my mother. She lives in upstate New York. I don’t see her that often. We run out of things to talk about after three days.”

  Nina took a scarf from her pocket, a long one covered with blotches of brilliant green and yellow. She began to tie it around her neck. He watched the flimsy cloth cover the pale skin at her throat.

  She said, “I’m really enjoying that job you got me. Everybody’s really nice.”

  “Making movies is fun at a certain level. You get much higher up than location work or makeup and it’s a pain in the ass.”

  “The only yucky part is special effects. All that fake blood and those gunshot wounds.” She closed her eyes and shivered. “Why does Mr. Sloan make such violent movies?”

  “Because many, many people pay money to watch them.”

  “Why,” she asked, “are you looking around so much?”

  “Am I?”

  “Yeah. It’s like you think somebody’s following you.”

  “Naw. Always working. Looking for locations. In fact, that’s where we’re going right now. Find a big field. I need the help of a local.”

  “I’m not a local, remember. I’m from Cranston.”

  “You’re more local than I am.”

  “Is that the reason you want me to come along?” A faint smile on her frosted pink lips.

  “Well, scouting isn’t as easy as it looks. I sense you’re a natural at it.”

  “Me?”

  “I need a big field next to the river. And a road running through it. How would you go about finding one?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I guess I’d just drive along a road beside the river until I found a field.”

  “See what I mean. You’re a born location scout.”

  They both laughed.

  “All right. But I have to be back at seven. I’ve got a call then. See, I can talk movie. Call. Oh, I didn’t want to ask on the set but what’s the difference between a gaffer and a grip?”

  “The most-asked question in the movie business. Gaffer’s an electrician and lighting guy. Grips are workmen who do rigging and other nonelectrical work.”

  They approached her car.

  “Another question.”

  Pellam preempted her. “The best boy is the key grip’s first assistant.”

  “No,” Nina said, tossing him the keys. “I was going to ask if you knew any casting couch stories.”

  PETER CRIMMINS WAS a member of the Ukrainian Social Club in St. Louis.

  He could easily have afforded to join the elite Metropolitan Club or, although he was a bar-sinister Christian, the Covington Hills Country Club. Yet this was the only social organization he belonged to. The club was in a shabby, two-story building, greasy-windowed and grimy, nestled between vacant lots filled with saplings strangled by kudzu. The inside, smelling of onions and cigarette smoke and mold, was one large room, filled with broken tables and chipped chairs. The club seemed locked in a time warp dating to the year it had opened—1954.

  This afternoon Crimmins was sitting at a table with Joshua, his driver and security chief. They drank tea that had been brewed in a cheap samovar. There were four or five other men in the club who would have liked to sit with Crimmins but who tended not to when Joshua was with him. The bodyguard’s presence made them uncomfortable. They, of course, knew all about Crimmins. They read the Post-Dispatch as well as the Ukrainian Daily News, which reported, respectively, on his criminal activities and on his social, ethnic, and professional endeavors. The latter did not interest them in the least; any fool can give away money. But a successful criminal is hot stuff. So they sat around him, basking in his dangerous presence. Crimmins gave them status. John Gotti had gone to his social club in Little Italy in New York; Peter Crimmins went here. They believed the nearby streets were safer because of him.

  Crimmins and Joshua had been drinking tea for ten minutes when a broad-shouldered man wearing a blue denim jacket and jeans entered. His shirt was dirty. He was squat, though he moved with a certain elegance. Crimmins did not approve of the common clothes, but this sort of man might be a foreman or carpenter in addition to being what Crimmins was now hiring him for.

  Joshua said, “Tom Stettle. Mr. Crimmins.”

  “How do you do, sir.” Stettle’s eyes swung one way then the other, settling on Crimmins’s mole of an eye for a moment.

  “Stettle, is it?”

  “Yeah,” the voice said. “Yessir.”

  “Sit down.”

  He did. The Samsonite folding chair creaked under his weight. Crimmins let the silence run up for a moment. Rather than feeling uncomfortable, Stettle grew more at ease and gazed back at Crimmins pleasantly.

  Finally Crimmins said, “Joshua talked to you?”

  “Yessir.”

  This was not the safest way, meeting Stettle face-to-face. The identification issue later, if it all went sour, but Crimmins liked to see the people who worked for him. You could have a better conversation with someone when you knew what he looked like. You could pick up on his mannerisms, match them to his words. That helped you decide if he was telling the truth, if he was dependable, how much he could be bought for.

  “You’ve been following him? Pellam?”

  Stettle nodded.

  “The police have been, too, I know. Have you seen anyone else? Anyone from Peterson’s office?”

  “Some. Off and on. It’s funny. It’s like, hey, we got the budget for it today but not tomorrow. They’re not there more than they’re there.”

  Crimmins had an urge to remind the man that he was making fifteen thousand dollars for this job. But he said nothing. Another of his basic rules, like providing for the family, was: Don’t jerk leashes until you need to.

  “Stick with him.”

  “This being the country, pretty much, it’s harder, you know what I’m saying? In the city, with a lot of people around, there are more ways to get away, like cabs and subways. You can set up a hit a lot faster.” The measured and respectful tone of Stettle’s reply made Crimmins feel comfortable. He was pleased that Stettle was giving a frank appraisal. Crimmins himself would have guessed it was easier to do this sort of thing in the country.

  “All right. Keep at it. Joshua knows where to get in touch with you?”

  Both men nodded.

  “Thanks for stoppi
ng by. You want some tea? Some pastry?”

  “No, sir.”

  Stettle left the club, glancing around him with studious eyes. Crimmins supposed he was surveying the shoddy paneling job and thinking he could do better.

  Crimmins said to Joshua, “Is he good with it?”

  “With what?”

  Crimmins forgot that some people did not think as quickly as he did. “A gun.”

  “That’s not really the question. All’s I know is he’s got one and he doesn’t mind using it. Maddox’s got a mandatory sentencing thing and a lot of guys have a problem with that. He doesn’t.”

  Crimmins rose and poured both Joshua and himself two more glasses of tea.

  Chapter 11

  “S’IL VOUS PLAÎT, est-ce que vous avez un . . . guest, Monsieur Weller?”

  The crackling of the eight thousand miles of cables and airwaves filled the phone.

  “Non, monsieur.”

  “Well, est-ce qu’il a une réservation?”

  The crash behind Pellam nearly made him drop the cellular phone. He spun around. He saw the fist knock on the camper door again. Pellam leaned forward and looked outside with a sinking heart. Them. For some reason he could remember the names of the FBI agents more easily than he could those of the Italian cop and the WASP cop. Bracken and Monroe.

  “Just a minute!” he called. “I’m on the phone.” More knocking. “Just a minute. I’m on the phone to Paris. Répétez? S’il vous plaît . . . He’s not? Okay. I mean, merci.”

  Damn.

  Marty Weller had left London six hours ago, supposedly bound for Paris. He was not, however, at the Plaza Athenee—where he always stayed (or where he told everyone he stayed)—and Pellam had no idea where he might be. Pellam was trying to make nice for the missed appointment with Weller and Telorian.

  He dropped the phone in its cradle and opened the door. He nodded solemnly but did not invite them in.

  “How you doing, sir?” Monroe said.

  Silence.

  Bracken, looking much less scruffy today, asked, “Mr. Pellam, you mind if we come in?”

  “I think I would mind that, yes.”

  “It won’t take very long.”

  Pellam asked, “I really don’t—”

  “We’d just like to ask you a few more questions. Our discussion—”

  “Discussion?”

  “—the other day wasn’t very productive.”

  “Last night I told the cops in Maddox exactly what happened. For the second time. Maybe the third. Don’t you people talk to each other?”

  Monroe remained as pleasant and persistent as a door-to-door salesman. “We apologize for the other day. We’ve been under incredible pressure. You know how it is.”

  Pellam waited a few seconds and said, “Come in.”

  Inside, both agents sat on chairs, scooting forward to keep their posture perfect. The cuffs of their light-colored slacks were hiked high above their ankles. It was funny, Pellam thought—they didn’t have the frisky presence of the city cops. There was something anonymous about them.

  They complimented him on the tidiness of the camper and Bracken said enviously he hoped to get a Winnebago himself one day. Drive up to Minnesota for muskie and pike.

  So far the game was good cop, good cop.

  “The fact is Maddox hasn’t been cooperating with us. They don’t much care for federal officers.”

  Wonder why.

  “We’d really appreciate it if you could tell us whatever you can remember. You’ve got to understand, Mr. Pellam, Mr. Gaudia’s death means that two years of work could be in jeopardy.”

  Pellam wanted to reward them for being polite. He told them the facts one more time. In as much detail as he could remember. The beer, the Lincoln, the guy who bumped into him, bending down and looking through the window, the car pulling away, the cop. Pellam was getting pretty good at telling the story by this time.

  The agents were unemotional. No eyes were rolled, much less lapels grabbed and windows broken. They just nodded and did not complain. And they didn’t call him a GFY either. They just asked questions.

  Finally Pellam realized that they had been here for an hour. He was growing bored. He felt like a hooked pike. He almost mentioned this to Bracken the fisherman.

  “Tell us again . . . just one more time. Promise, just one.”

  “Okay. Once more.” Pellam recited the story.

  Monroe wrote it down. Pellam wondered what they were getting paid and how much tax money was being spent to record an incident of car window glare.

  Then they began to ask questions that seemed to have nothing to do with the killing. Why was he going to get so much beer? Tell them about this poker game, would he? Did he know who Vincent Gaudia was? Had he ever seen the policeman before?

  “No.”

  “Was it true that you gave something to the policeman just before the shooting?”

  “Well,” Pellam said, “I did.”

  “You seemed surprised just then. Why were you surprised?”

  “When I gave him the bag?”

  “No. Just now. When we mentioned it.”

  “Well, I didn’t think anybody knew I gave him anything.”

  Their eyebrows perked. “And what was it?”

  “You think it was a bribe?”

  “We’d just like to know what it was.”

  “It was a doughnut.”

  “A doughnut?”

  “Whole wheat,” Pellam offered. “It seemed healthier.”

  “Yessir.”

  More questions, another half hour passed.

  “Did the driver,” Bracken asked, “have a cup caddy?”

  “Are you serious?” Pellam asked. He looked at his watch.

  Finally they stood up, in unison, as if his answer to their question (“Did you know Vince Gaudia before he was killed?” “No.”) was the exit cue.

  He walked them to the door. They thanked him for his time then Bracken turned to him and said, “You weren’t thinking of leaving town soon, were you, sir?”

  There was something in the tone. He was not a bad cop yet but he was no longer a good cop either. “I’m staying until the film’s finished. But—”

  “How long will that be?”

  “A week, tops.”

  “Well, you should know—we have an intelligence report that Peter Crimmins—the main suspect in the Gaudi killing—has been speaking to associates out of state. Chicago, we think.”

  Pellam didn’t know what to make of this news bite.

  “That often happens,” Bracken continued, “when a mob boss is going to hire some muscle. They don’t like to use anybody local.”

  “Oh.”

  “I just say that so you’ll know to be careful.”

  “Right. Well, I appreciate you telling me that.”

  As they walked out the door, Monroe thanked him again and added, “You know, sir, we have men at all the local airports.”

  “All the airports?”

  “Amtrak, too.”

  And they left him to wonder if that meant they’d be looking for hit men or that Pellam himself should book a seat on Greyhound if he wanted to escape the long tentacle of the law.

  THE NURSE NOTICED his bloody thumbnail.

  “What?” she asked. “Whatsat?”

  She was Filipino, short and broad. She had kind eyes but the wispy mustache and broad purple lips made her face look dirty, which in turn gave her an impression of cruelty or, at best, indifference.

  The nurse pulled two clear plastic gloves off a roll. She put them on and lifted his hand, studying the red stain distastefully.

  “I don’t have AIDS,” he said miserably.

  She held his hand in a solid grip and twisted it as she examined the digit. God, she was strong. He detected a meaty smell coming from her.

  “Where you do it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where you stick yourself?”

  Abruptly she yanked the sheet and blanket off
of him and began with his midthigh, probing her way up, turning him, pushing his numb legs. Buffett thought of dough. Bread dough, kneading it. This made him want to cry.

  “I’m all right. Could you just leave me alone, please?”

  “You make it worse. You people make it worse.”

  Fingers he could not feel were searching along his skin. He closed his eyes. He made it a test—even now, in his humiliation and anguish, he tried to sense the fingers. He thought he could tell where she was probing but when he opened his eyes, her hands were not near where he had imagined her touch. He couldn’t feel a thing. . . .

  Then she saw the tissue, stuffed in his boxer shorts. She lifted it out, the wadded Kleenex, blotched with dark blood. Buffett’s face burned. Sweat broke out on his face.

  The nurse’s cruel or indifferent mouth tightened. She dropped the Kleenex into the wastebasket and bent and spread apart his pubic hair. She studied the small gash next to his penis. It wasn’t long or deep but it had bled a lot. The hair was matted and there was a red stain on the catheter.

  The nurse sighed then took short, shiny scissors and trimmed the thick hair back. She washed the cut and put gauze over it, then taped the gauze to the spot with white adhesive tape. She pulled the gloves off and threw them out.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just . . .”

  Her dark lids lowered knowingly. “You wanted to see if you could feel something.” Her tongue clicked. “People like you. . . . You make it worse. You make everybody’s job worse.”

  Buffett watched her go. His eyes then slipped to the medical waste box, where his precious syringe had been. He looked up at the blank TV screen, hands in his lifeless lap, and stared at the ceiling, waiting for tears that never came. Finally he reached up and in fury began tugging at a jump rope, which was hung over a traction bar above his bed. After he had spent the entire morning—7:00 A.M. to noon—having tests done Buffett had asked an orderly to rig a rope over the bar so he could work on his arms. He would grip the handles hard, pulling against himself, first letting the right arm be the weak one, then the left. The orderly watched him with approval. “Man, I ain’t gonna arm-wrestle you.”