The Car Bomb (The detroit im dying Trilogy, Book 1) (20 page)

“
First, tell me how this meeting with Judge O’Bryan and your attorney Sam Dworkin was arranged.”

“
Okay, well, like I said, I told Dworkin I got the fifty grand, all in twenties and such—like he said the judge wanted. But I said I won’t do the deal less I can give it to the judge myself. And with him there too.”

“
You mean Dworkin.”

“
Right. The judge and Dworkin. Cause I said I need to see the judge take the money and say I’m getting’ off. And Dworkin I wanted so I’m not accused by the judge of tryin’ to bribe.”

“
And they agreed to this?”

“
Yeah, well, first they said no. No way. I should put the cash in a bag and bring it to Dworkin’s office. So I says then no deal. I’ll just be takin’ my chances and get me a different attorney. Cause I’m innocent of this shit anyway.”

Frank’s face did a quick grimace. “Again, Anthony, I know this is emotional stuff for you, but if you can avoid using the vulgarisms, we won’t have to bleep you and we’ll both be better off.”

Peoples nodded. “Sorry.”

“
So anyway, you said no deal, and they changed their mind?”

“
Yeah, they changed it, but not right away. Took about two weeks, and Sam kept sayin’ the case against me was strong, was gonna put me away for good, never see my family again, all kinda bullshit.” Peoples shook his head. “I mean lies.”

Frank grinned. “It’s okay, Anthony. In the meantime you’re talking with the prosecutor, Mr. Gant. And he’s telling you what?”

“
Well, Gant, he already told me there’s no good case on me. And he says, just hold on, their greed is gonna get ‘em. They are just too greedy to pass on fifty grand.”

“
Okay, so tell me something, Anthony. Why did you do this? Why agree to cooperate with Gant?”

Peoples shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

“
I mean you were putting yourself in some jeopardy. And as it turned out, you lost your family over this. So why do it?”

The grooves in his black face getting blacker, Peoples twisted a bit in the chair. “I dunno. Maybe
I
got greedy.”

“
Greedy?”

“
Yeah. Cause Gant said he would get me a job, a good one.”

“
What kind of job?”

“
He said investigator for the prosecutor’s office.”

“
So you did it for the job, to support your family, for the security that a good job would mean.”

“
Yeah, well, Juanita, my wife had a job. She was workin’ at the bank and doin’ okay. She was basically supportin’ us. And I couldn’t find much of nothin’ in this town.”

Frank looked into the black man’s face, those haunted eyes staring at the floor. “So anyway, Anthony, the judge finally agrees. What happened at this meeting?”

Peoples looked up finally and gathered himself. “Well, I go to the courthouse like they said, with this bag fulla cash. Gant said it was all marked and all. And I went to the judge’s courtroom and the bailiff, you know, the po-lice that works with the judge there, he put me through the metal detector they got for the courtroom.”

“
To make sure you’re not armed or wired or something. So then what happens?”

“
So then he takes me through the courtroom to the judge’s office, off the hallway in the back there, behind the courtroom. And we did the deal.”

“
Okay, before we get to what everybody said, tell me how this was videotaped.”

“
Yeah, well, Gant, he figured the judge wouldn’t want any place but his own chambers, like in his office there. And Gant knew about this janitor’s closet off the hall and right next to the judge’s office. And in the middle of the night, I guess, they hid this little TV camera in there and cut this little hole in the wall.”

“
And they were able to get what happened with you and the judge and Dworkin on tape?”

“
Yes, sir, that’s what they did, just like you saw.”

At the back end of the Ramada lot, the fellow wearing the hooded sweatshirt over a ball cap slouched in the black Taurus. With the seatback lowered so only the top of his hood was visible, he could still look through the steering wheel at the Viper, the unmarked Channel 5 van, and the entrance to Room 17. The electronic buzz of a car phone cut the silence.

“
Yeah. (pause) They’re still in there. (pause) If they come out together, I could... (pause) Yeah, the rent-a-boys are still here. But anything we do now’s gonna be messy. You shoulda let me do him last night. (pause) Okay.”

He clicked off the phone, put it down and thought, yeah, very messy indeed. Last night was the time, even with the rent-a-boys there. But he and the judge were not on the same page. Maybe there’d still be a chance to do the newsboy on his way back to the station.

Of course, it was only dumb fucking luck they were in this fix at all. The idiot Peoples was supposed to have his family out of town, and the pea-brained big mouth Byrd should have been at the bottom of the river a long time ago.

Still, he had the exit plan. Just head for his little 21-foot runabout at the marina in St. Clair Shores, buzz across the lake to enter Canada unnoticed by docking at a friend’s cottage, and then drive the old clunker he kept there into the wilds of the north woods. With a pile of cash and new ID documents good enough to let him globe trot anywhere he wanted.

But the fact was, with another few years to feed the kitty in the Caymans, he’d then be in a much better position to keep himself comfortable into a pleasant old age. So if there was any chance to keep the current deal working, he had to take it.

Picking up the binoculars, he moved them in a slow scan past the Viper and the van, and just as he got to room 17 and the guards smoking, the door opened and Frank came out carrying the garment bag.

The guards apparently wanted to shake his hand, and Frank obliged. As he walked to the Viper, he looked around, but his gaze slid right past the Taurus.

Opening the Viper’s driver side door, he tossed the bag inside and climbed in. A reach under the seat produced the keys. Backing out of the parking space, he headed for the driveway. By the time he reached the street, the Taurus was moving.

Quickly on his car phone, he traveled a busy surface street leading away from the airport and heading for I-94.

“
Fay, I’m 20 minutes away. You won’t believe what I’ve got to show you. (Pause) Yeah, we’re gonna blow this old town wide open. (Pause) Look, I didn’t want to say anything until I was absolutely sure of it. And I’m not saying anything now, the way these phones broadcast. It’ll have to wait ‘til I see you. Just tell Dennis I’ve got a wet dream with Peoples. I’ll need at least the first two blocks, maybe three.”

He moved the Viper onto the eastbound ramp to I-94, at the moment more focused on this phone conversation than on anything else in his world, and oblivious to the Taurus keeping pace two cars behind.

In the freeway’s light traffic both cars were soon moving past the 70 mph speed limit, the Viper sailing down the middle lane.

“
No, this story can’t wait.” (pause) “No, believe me, there are lives at stake here.”

For some reason—perhaps the echoing import of what he had just said—he glanced at the right-side mirror and was shocked to find a black sedan racing up so fast, it would be on him in a second or two. Turning back over his right shoulder, he saw the black Taurus pulling even and in its open window, pointing directly at his face, was the barrel of a large black handgun,

”
Shit!” he screamed, dropping the phone, ducking and jerking the wheel to the left just as a hooded guy with black wraparounds fired the gun, and the Viper’s passenger side window exploded. Tires screeched, a second shot cracked and metal screamed against concrete as the Viper glanced off the median divider. Wrestling with the wheel, he barely managed to keep the car on four wheels as it swerved wildly between lanes and the Taurus was forced to back off.

Finally, pointing the Viper’s nose down the freeway, he jammed the accelerator to the floor, and the roadster roared away. For a few seconds, as he glanced in the rear view mirror, the Taurus looked almost as if it were parked.

“
Jesus Christ, Fay, are you there?” He glanced at the glass shards in his lap and spotted the phone on the floor in two pieces, the battery dislodged from its impact against the dash.

Within seconds there were vehicles ahead to deal with, two sedans and a pickup in the left and center lanes and a semi in the right. All of them were doing no more than the limit. A look in the mirror showed the black Taurus closing the distance between them, so he swerved to the right, used the paved shoulder to pass the semi, then floored it again as the trucker blared his horn.

“
Yeah, I know, buddy.”

His heart was still pounding in his chest, but for two minutes he had nearly clear sailing, easily blowing past several cars and trucks, the speedometer pegged past 130. With an exit coming, a glance in the mirror told him that the gunman in the Taurus, though quite a ways back, could still see him leaving. The freeway seemed the better bet.

But where the hell were the cops when you needed them, the blue state police bubbletops or those sneaky black unmarked jobs that were always lurking on the median or behind a bridge abutment? How about a flasher or a siren right now?

No such luck.

What about the phone? As he tried to reach for it, he knew he’d have to slow considerably to grab and put it back together. Forget it.

Another glance at the mirror showed the Taurus just a speck back there, but just as he started to breathe more easily, he sailed around a curve, and, suddenly, not far ahead he was staring at a heart-stopping collection of taillights. Braking hard enough to squeal and lose rubber, he tried to sit tall to gauge the size of the jam. It looked massive.

“
Fuck!”

Swinging hard to the right, he flew recklessly up the shoulder past row after row of jammed vehicles, for at least a half-mile. Then ahead he saw others who had tried this same tactic, and their taillights were beginning to flash. With a glance in the mirror he saw several vehicles that were following him up the shoulder. Then stomping on the brake pedal, he got the Viper to a sliding, screeching halt, barely avoiding the rear end of the last in a line of five now stopped on the shoulder by a bridge repair project. Twisting for a look back, he spotted the Taurus also skidding to a stop on the shoulder, maybe six cars back.

Frozen for a second, considering his options, he finally bolted. Running between cars and trucks he looked back to find the guy with the wrap-arounds and black hood climbing out of the Taurus and heading after him. A knife point of panic stabbing at his chest, he raced ahead, trying to run flat out for the first time in how long? His body felt awkward and strange—the muscle memory remained from years ago, but the execution seemed stiff and labored. One more backward glance showed the black-clad guy gaining on him.

“
Move!” he screamed at himself, and finally, after more than a minute, his lungs on fire, his running mechanics on the verge of break down, he spotted open freeway ahead of the jam. Cops! Of course, cops would be working to free the jam and ready to help him avoid the intention of the asshole in black.

But after several more strides, there were no flashers, no bubble tops, no cops! Just a few helpful citizens trying to direct the removal of a couple of lightly dented sedans to the shoulder. They had just about made it as he reached the head of the jam, and the impatient drivers in front were already beginning to move.

He headed for the left lane, but it was moving the fastest, and the drivers, intent on escape, hardly looked at him. Fear clutching him, he wheeled and found himself face to face with a bearded fellow in construction garb behind the wheel of an ancient Ford pickup. The guy was grinning at him through an open window, lit up with recognition but cool, as if it was an everyday occurrence to find his favorite local TV anchor stranded in the middle of a busy freeway.

“
Hey, Frank, you’re my guy!”

“
Well, buddy, how about a lift?”

“
Really? Sure, man. Hop in.”

Frank was already moving around the front of the truck to the passenger door. He yanked it open and hopped in, yelling, “Hit it, pal, there’s a guy back there trying to kill me.”

He slammed the door, his new best friend floored it, and they squealed away. With a glance back, he saw the hooded asshole running hard but still three cars back, his hand beginning to emerge from under his sweatshirt. Within seconds, it sounded like the old pickup had backfired, but the rear window was shattered and its windshield badly cracked. The two new friends were covered with glass.

“
Holy fuckin’ christ!” screamed the driver, still jamming the accelerator to the floor. “You weren’t kidding!”

“
No, I wasn’t,” said Frank over the speeding truck’s weird, throaty roar. Sneaking another look back, he saw the asshole, engulfed in traffic now, stowing the gun under his sweatshirt.

“
Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the windows.”

“
Christ, Frank, how about a new fuckin’ truck!”

Only a handful of people were in the WTEM newsroom at this hour. Dennis and Francine were eating sandwiches and drinking Cokes. Holding up a Detroit News, she read the headline aloud. “‘Frank is...Frank!’ Yeah, brilliant. So clever.”

Dropping the paper, she picked up the Free Press. “‘TV Anchor Tells All. Well, Not Quite.’ Barnes is so awful, quoting this woman who’s supposed to be his mistress.”

Dennis swigged his pop. “Hey, Frank scooped Barnes on his own story. There’s nothing he can do to hurt Frank now.”

“
I guess.”