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

“I wasn’t following you,” he said, drawing out the word “following.”

“No?”

“Checking to see if you were being followed.”

Didn’t expect that. He had me curious now. Was he moonlighting, picking up a few extra bucks?

“Why do you want to know if I’m being followed?”

“Mr. DeMio wants to know,” he said. “Told me to keep an eye out, see if anyone’s on you.”

Joey DeMio was not a generous man. His interest in my welfare had little to do with me. This was something else.

“You know what’s going on?”

Jimmy shrugged.

I thought for a minute. “People will blame Joey if another body turns up.” I sipped some Oban. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Jimmy shrugged again.

“Yeah, that’s it,” I said. “He doesn’t give a shit about Lenny Stern or me. He just wants to avoid trouble.”

Jimmy moved the Labatt’s bottle around in a circle, but he didn’t take a drink.

“So, I’ve got myself a bodyguard?” I said. “You going to shoot a guy who tries something?”

“Only if I have to,” Jimmy said.

The couple on the patio finally called it a night. They slowly ambled away toward Howard Street, dad holding the baby, mom pushing the stroller.

“How long you going to hang around, Jimmy?”

“When Mr. DeMio says stop, I stop.”

“And you’ll stay in the shadows, right?”

“Easier to spot trouble that way.”

The bartender delivered two more fru-fru drinks. The women raised the glasses, laughing their way through a toast.

“Got a question for you, Jimmy.”

He waited, still moving the beer bottle around.

“That story, the one about you and some gunman in Gary.” Jimmy Erwin had cut his teeth on the streets of northwest Indiana and Chicago’s south side.

“Cal Hawley,” Jimmy said in a dismissive tone. “Wore a black eye patch. Thought it made him look tough. He was stupid tough.”

“Tough and dead,” I said.

“Nah,” Jimmy said. “Stupid and dead.”

According to Martin Fleener, Hawley, a street punk older but not wiser, drew down on Jimmy Erwin one night in Gary, middle of East 8th. Real western movie. Jimmy put two in Hawley and walked away. Officially, no one saw or said anything, not that the cops spent much time on it.

Jimmy glanced in my direction, but remained quiet. He seemed to be examining the colorfully labeled liquor bottles neatly lined up behind the bar.

“Lot of stories on the street,” he said. He shook his head slowly, lost in thoughts all his own. “Especially those streets … Gary, Chicago.”

He slowly lifted the Labatt’s and took a drink. He might have finished half the bottle. Cautious.

“Remember,” Jimmy said after he put down the beer. “I’ll be around until Mr. DeMio says I’m done.”

“I heard you the first time, Jimmy.”

“The memorial service, tomorrow in Indian River?” he said.

“You’ll be at the church?”

Jimmy nodded. “Got to keep an eye out.” A thin smile appeared for a moment.

I waved the bartender away when she gestured regarding another round of drinks.

“Why are you being so generous, Jimmy, telling me this?”

“You’d have caught on sooner or later. Could’ve gotten ugly, you and LaCroix don’t know why I’m hanging around.”

Jimmy hesitated, looked straight at me. “I owe you,” he said. “You got me out of that mess with Mr. North, probably kept me alive.”

Jimmy Erwin worked for Conrad North in Petoskey a couple of years back. Henri and I tracked North and his gunmen to a back street in a deserted section of town. Only intervention by the State Police Tactical Unit stopped an ugly, bloody showdown.

“You don’t owe me a thing,” I said. “You were in handcuffs that night, last time I saw you. Henri’s the one who got you out of there, Jimmy, not me.”

“Same thing,” he said. “Cops had me. Next thing I know, a lawyer shows up and takes care of it.”

“And now you work for Joey.”

“For Mr. DeMio, yeah.” Jimmy slid off the barstool, giving the room another quick once-over. “Thanks for the beer.”

I watched Jimmy move across the patio and up the block. He was smarter than I gave him credit for when he worked for Conrad North. But smarter didn’t guarantee a longer life. His world was filled with dangerous people and short lives.

I signed the check, put down a tip, and left for home. My apartment was around the corner on Howard. I walked past my front door to the edge of the grass, looking over Little Traverse Bay. The sun was trying hard to drop below the horizon on the other side of the water.

I took out my phone and thought about calling AJ. I wanted to talk to her, to hear her voice, but last time hadn’t gone well.

I took a deep breath and called Henri instead.

“How about we meet at the office at eight-thirty?” I said when he came on.

“Kate’s memorial service at ten?”

“Yeah. You’ll pick up Lenny first?”

“And Tina,” he said, and clicked off.

There’d be time to tell him about Jimmy Erwin in the morning.

29

I waited by my car in the lot behind the office and sipped coffee. The sun was hot as it hung above the buildings. I was finally acclimated to steamy days. Never thought I’d say that. Northern Michigan drew you in with its pleasantly warm days and refreshingly cool evenings that often required a sweater. Those evenings seemed like a charming memory.

I’d run the neighborhood streets early to avoid the worst of the heat, but it was anything but relaxing. I spent too much time thinking about AJ, about the disquiet that had slid between us. A morning run usually cleared my head of stress or helped me brainstorm a particularly thorny case. This morning’s run did neither. Henri’s concern that I wasn’t focused on the job was more real than I cared to admit.

It was still too early for retail shopping in Petoskey, but a few people wandered the streets or headed to Roast & Toast for coffee. Henri’s SUV came around the corner, pulled into the lot and stopped. The tinted passenger window slid down.

“Morning, Russo,” Lenny Stern said. His skinny black tie was cinched tight, his