Deadline for Lenny Stern, Peter Marabell [sneezy the snowman read aloud .TXT] 📗

investigative tactic is to look for the most obvious lead, then eliminate it before looking for the next most obvious lead.”

“Obvious around here is Joey DeMio,” Sandy said.

“I’d like to know if the guys in Harbor today were Joey’s,” I said.

“So would I,” Henri said.

“You weren’t sure last time, Russo,” Fleener said. “Make sure this time.”

Henri and I both looked at Fleener. “What?” he said.

“You okay with us doing that?” Henri said.

Fleener scratched the side of his forehead. “Lot of paperwork on my desk.”

I paused for a moment, glancing at Henri.

“Just do it quick,” Fleener said.

“Can you find Joey?” I said to Henri.

“He’s at Ristorante Enzo,” Sandy said. “At least he was a few minutes ago.”

“How do you know that?” I said.

She reached for a sticky note. “His attorney, Harper, called just before you got here. Joey wants to see you. Didn’t say why.”

“Check and see if he’s still there,” I said.

She nodded, walked into my office and closed the door.

“Just take it easy with DeMio, will you?” Fleener said. “I don’t want to get a call you’re in another police station.”

“Do my best.”

Sandy returned to her desk. “The lawyer said he’s still there.”

I looked at Henri. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

“That’s my signal to leave,” Fleener said, moving toward the door. “I’ll see if we got anything on the Cavendish Company.”

“Hold on, Marty,” I said. The fog in my head was lifting.

“The plate,” I said.

“‘RC 44.’ What about it?”

I turned to Henri. “That day at the Side Door. Didn’t the guy have a tattoo?”

Henri froze for a moment. “On his arm, a ‘44.’”

“That’s too bizarre a coincidence even for me,” Sandy said, with more than a touch of sarcasm.

“A gang tatt?” Henri said.

“Could be,” Fleener said. “Got a guy in Lansing I’ll talk to.”

“Thought all that was in the NCIC database?” Henri said.

“It is, but this guy’s a walking institutional memory when it comes to gangs in Michigan.”

“I think we finally have a lead,” Sandy said.

26

After Fleener left the office, I picked up my iPhone to tell AJ I’d be late. I didn’t look forward to the call. Tension in our relationship was a recent arrival. We both felt it. It didn’t feel good.

“I have to see Joey DeMio.”

“I suppose you’re going to the restaurant alone again,” she said. The resentment of the other night lingered. I heard it in her voice, in her assumption of how I’d do my job, of not being careful.

“Henri’s going along,” I said. He nodded from the other side of the desk.

“Glad to hear it,” she said, not sounding all that pleased.

“Okay,” I said.

“Let me know you’re all right after.”

We said good-bye, edgy and uncomfortable.

Sandy said, “You all right? Is everything okay?”

I took a deep breath. “Sure.”

“Boss, if …”

“Let it go, Sandy.” That was too sharp.

She nodded and kept quiet. But the look on her face? She didn’t buy it.

“Come on, Henri. Let’s go see the man.”

We started down the street for the two-block walk to Joey’s restaurant. The late afternoon sun had shifted itself behind some of the taller buildings just enough to drop a bit of welcome shade on our side of the street.

“Joey might get testy, you tagging along.”

“Don’t care if he does,” Henri said. “Besides, when’s the last time you saw Joey go anywhere without one of his gunmen nearby?”

We went through the front door of Ristorante Enzo. Big band music of the 1950s shared the air space with the clatter of dinner prep in the kitchen. A tall man with chubby cheeks, very little hair, and a white apron shifted glasses behind the bar.

Even in the muted ambiance, I spotted Joey’s gunmen, Jimmy Erwin and Roberta “Bobbie” Lampone leaning on the bar, looking serious. Both of them stepped away from the bar when they spotted Henri.

Jimmy took two more steps, toward me.

“No gun,” I said, putting my arms out. It would have been foolish to try to conceal a gun from these guys anyway.

Henri pulled back his nylon jacket, revealing his handgun. “How you doing, Jimmy?” he said.

Erwin nodded.

“Let ‘em go,” Joey DeMio said from the back of the restaurant. He sat at a four-top with his legal eagle, Donald Harper. They occupied two chairs, with their backs to the rear wall. The cautious seats.

I went up to the table. Henri stopped at the end of the bar, a few feet away from the table. He could survey the entire floor.

“You inviting me to dinner, Joey?” I said, smiling.

“This is business,” Harper said. “I told the broad this was important business.”

I took a step closer and put my hand out, index finger pointing up. “Listen. You hear that?”

The music had eased into the vocals of Frank Sinatra. “That’s why the lady is a …”

“I wouldn’t let Mr. Sinatra call Sandy a ‘broad,’ Harper. You don’t get to either.”

Harper stiffened. “Now look, Russo …”

“Don,” Joey said. “He’s yanking your chain. Forget it.”

Harper stayed quiet, but his icy stare told me he didn’t like it. Good.

“Sit down, counselor,” Joey said. “We have to talk.” Joey still remembered I was actually a lawyer.

I took a chair across from them. “What’s so urgent?”

“You want a drink?” Joey said. “What about you, LaCroix?” Joey paused. “Gianni,” he said to the bartender, but Henri waved him off.

“No, thanks,” I said. “Why the phone call?”

“Think of it as protecting my interests,” Joey said.

“What interests would those be, and why should I care?”

Joey leaned forward, arms on the table. “Heard you had some trouble in Harbor Springs.”

“Word travels fast.”

Joey shrugged. “I make it my business to know.”

“What happened in Harbor threatens your interests?”

Joey nodded. “Everything around here’s my business, capisce?”

“So you are involved in this?” I said. If I sounded surprised, I was.

“I told you last time … you sat right there,” he said, pointing at me or the chair. “I told you those teenagers weren’t my men. Told you I didn’t know what you were talking about.”

“Convince me otherwise.”

“I hire men, serious men, experienced men, to work for me,” Joey said. “Not schoolboys.”

“What about