American Nocturne Read online

  “Have you seen a dog?” he said.

  The woman curled her mouth into an expression he didn’t quite grasp but said nothing. She started to move toward the door. He didn’t wait. He stepped off the porch and crossed the yard.

  It was hard to tell just how new the doghouse was in the gloom, but even by moonlight he could tell it wasn’t old, not by any stretch. He looked over at the pile of lumber nearer to the garage. Maybe. The shingles were all in place on the roof, and the clapboard siding was intact and not crudded over with grime or dirt. The small structure was about waist high at the center ridge. Les squatted in front of it, looked through the doorway. The shadows couldn’t hide the fact it was empty.

  Not all that old. Homemade. No dog.

  He stood and put a hand on the edge of the roof, gave it a stiff push. Heavy, but he could feel it give. He moved to the side and put both palms beneath the eave. With a bit of effort he got the whole thing to tilt up; shoved harder until it reached its tipping point and toppled away from him onto its side.

  There it was. A shallow hole, shoveled out of the dirt, maybe ten inches wide, a little over a foot long.

  “What did you find?”

  He hadn’t even noticed she’d approached. He didn’t look at her, though knowing she was there made it seem like he could feel her shadow. He crouched onto his haunches, reached down and retrieved what was in the ground

  One of the items was obvious. A key. Long and ribbed along each edge with small, seemingly identical teeth. The other thing he had to stare at for a few beats before realizing it was a canister. A metal film-reel case, shaped like a disc.

  “Well?”

  “Some kind of movie,” he said. “And a padlock key.”

  “My, this has the makings of quite the little mystery, doesn’t it? A body, a hiding place, clues leading to more clues.”

  “So glad you’re enjoying yourself. If the clock wasn’t ticking so loudly, you’d better believe I’d be coming down on you until you started spitting out more answers than a game show contestant. But don’t let the fact I haven’t yet, make you start thinking you’re off the hook, ’cause you’re not.”

  “Perish the thought, Detective. Where to next?”

  Les pushed on his knee, straightening and brushing off his trousers. He held up the key. “I don’t suppose you know where the mate to this is?”

  “I brought you this far, can’t you figure the rest out yourself?”

  “More games. But that’s okay.” He gave the key a little toss and snatched it into his fist. “Because I’m pretty sure I do.”

  * * *

  “What makes you think it’s here?”

  Les circled the large brick buildings, making his way toward a fenced-off area tucked behind a baseball field.

  “Nifong has a brother. One time, he ratted out a guy on the lamb for kiting checks in exchange for getting him off of a D&D.” After a pause, he added, “Drunk and disorderly.”

  “And?”

  “His brother is, or was, a maintenance guy here at the school. I remember seeing his rap sheet. Said he worked out of this physical plant right here.”

  “Makes sense,” she said, her inflection indicating she wanted it to be known it most definitely did not make sense. “Is that all?”

  “When we busted him, he was wearing a set of coveralls. After he sobered up in the drunk tank, he asked if we’d take him back to his locker to get his clothes so he could change because he’d shit his pants.”

  “Did you? Let him get his clothes, I mean.”

  Les squinted one eye at her as they walked. “What do you think?”

  “I think you probably asked him what it was worth to him, or something like that.”

  That crack bothered him, but they arrived at the fence before he could think about it. It was chain link, about eight feet high. No barbed wire. The gate was wrapped shut with chain and lock much larger than the one his key would fit. A squat, square cement-block building with a metal roof sat behind it.

  “Wait here,” he said, studying the fence and then hooking his fingers into some links just above his head.

  “Aren’t you worried I’ll sneak off? Or are you such a gambler you’re willing to bet I won’t?”

  “I think you know I’d find you again, and I think you’re enjoying this way too much, anyway.”

  He pressed his foot against the wire, wedging into one of the links, and heaved himself up. He grabbed the top of the fence with one hand, then the other, and as soon as he was high enough swung one leg over the top. He pulled the other over and dropped to the ground on the other side.

  The woman stepped closer to the chain link. “Just for the record,” she said. “I don’t enjoy this nearly as much as you think.”

  He crunched his way over gravel to the short walkway and stopped at the door. The building was old and strictly utilitarian, the door sturdy but lacking much security. The only lock was on the knob, which looked like it hadn’t been replaced in over a decade.

  No key for that, so he reached into his pocket and retrieved his pocket knife. He glanced from one side to the other, an instinct too ingrained to override, and slid the blade into the crack of the door, tip down, and felt for the latch. He tilted the handle down until the blade caught on the curve of the plunger just enough to push it back against the spring. He pressed down on knife until the door was loose and he gave it a nudge. It swung open with a faint squeak.

  The inside was dark. He waited for his eyes to adjust, and after some searching found a chain hanging from an overhead fixture.

  A small desk along the back wall, stacked with papers and binders. To the left, a large set of shelves with bottles and jars and brushes and sponges. Several buckets with mops.

  And, to the right, three metal wall lockers.

  Les pulled the key from his pocket. The farthest locker had a combination lock, so that wasn’t it. The middle one had no lock at all.

  He pulled on the lock closest to the door, giving it a tug. The key wouldn’t go in at first, so he turned it over. With a little coaxing, it sunk all the way. At first it wouldn’t turn. He pulled it out a bit, tried again. Finally, he gave it a twist while pushing the body against the shackle, and the key rotated with a click and the shackle practically sprang open.

  His fingers rested on the latch handle, but didn’t move.

  “Scared of what you might find?”

  “Jesus,” Les said, flinching. “You ought to wear a bell. How did you get back here?”

  She arched a brow. “You didn’t exactly scour the perimeter to check for another way in.” She jutted her chin. “Are you going to open it?”

  Les stared at the locker another moment, wondering why he had hesitated. He pulled up on the lifter and opened the door.

  “What’s in there?”

  He reached in, pulled out a sack. He had to study it for a second before it dawned on him what he was looking at. A black velvet bag, drawstring. He hefted it in his palm, feeling its weight.

  “Diamonds,” he said, sticking a finger in the top and pulling one out. “A lot of them.”

  “So, now are you going to call it in? Write it up?”

  He rolled the small gem between his thumb and forefinger. He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t, huh?” she said, barely concealing a chuckle. “Why don’t you explain it, then?”

  “If I don’t find out who’s behind this, I’m going to be taking a big fall. Someone, probably another badge, has decided I’m the guy who should go down for this.”

  “And you can’t take what you know to your superiors? It seems like you’ve got your hands on some rather strong evidence already, not to mention a body tied to it. You’d think they’d give you a commendation.”

  Les shook his head, rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “The stuff with Nifong, these rocks, this goes way up. I can’t just walk in to the department and turn them over. Nifong crossed the wrong people, wouldn’t play
ball, and look what happened to him. If they find out I have this, and learn about the film...”

  “So, you’re just trying to do the right thing, huh? Lone hero, battling a corrupt system.”

  “I’m trying to do the only thing I know how. Survive.”

  “I see. What’s the next step on your road to survival, then?”

  Les stared at the sack in his hand, thinking it almost didn’t seem real. But he could feel its weight, its bulk when he squeezed it. He reached his other hand into the lower outside pocket of his suitcoat.

  “Next, I guess...” He held up the round film canister. For reasons he couldn’t quite articulate, he was more concerned about it than the bag of diamonds. “We fire up the projector and see what Tommy died for.”

  * * *

  Les stood the projector on the small breakfast table in front of his kitchen, next to the living room. He had to clear it of junk first – ripped envelopes and unfolded papers and empty beer cans. He swept everything aside, letting it all fall to the floor.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Haven’t had a chance to do any cleaning lately.”

  “How much do you think all that’s worth,” she said, pointing to the bag he set down.

  “Getting ideas?”

  She smiled, but not in a way that suggested she found the question funny. “I’m curious as to what people are willing to kill for, corrupt themselves over.”

  “On the street, uncut like that, wholesale price would be... well, let’s just say worth enough you’d have to be crazy to trust anyone. Enough to bring out the worst in people.”

  “Surely, there has to be someone you could give this to. The DA? The state police? The FBI?”

  “Lady,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t quite savvy how these things work. When the wrong people start getting nervous, the story starts to bend, the pointy fingers start to find the expendable link in the chain. Favors get tapped, chits get called in. Before you know it, everyone is looking to come down on me for breaking a few rules, covering their own asses.”

  “That’s how it is, huh? Then why bother with what’s on this? What does it matter?”

  He shrugged, picking up the film canister. “Because, sometimes you just have to know. Even if you don’t want to.”

  The projector hummed when he pressed a button, making a few noises as it warmed up. He loaded the film and got it started.

  The picture was out of focus, almost pitch black. There was a rustling, scraping sound, a microphone being overwhelmed. Then the angle drew back and scene came into view. The open trunk of a car; a man standing over it. He was thick, jowly, with dark shiny hair combed straight back and large sunglasses obscuring much of his face.

  “Money,” the man said, the audio muffled a bit, the camera shaky.

  A black duffel bag appeared, the arms holding it coming from the side of the frame. Les leaned a bit closer to the screen. Hidden camera, he told himself.

  The dark-haired guy spread the bag open and peered into it. He seemed to be doing a mental count.

  “It’s all there,” a voice said. Then a louder voice, one much closer to the microphone, said, “Hey, you know I wouldn’t short you, Carlo.”

  The guy grunted something unintelligible, made a gesture with his chin. The camera shifted and another guy came into view, this one holding a sawed-off shotgun. Pump action, large bore. He was taller, leaner than the first guy. And completely bald. Sunglasses, too, though not as big as Carlo’s. Bald guy was circling away from the side of the car, moving behind whoever was doing the filming. The camera swung back to the trunk, where Carlo stepped away, out of frame. The picture held still there for a moment, then wobbled, going in and out of focus, tilting to look into the trunk.

  The picture went dark. A voice said something inaudible. Then a hand and arm appeared, reaching down and lifting the door to a spare tire compartment. Instead of a spare, there were five cellophane wraps, bound in packing tape. The contents were a dull rose-gray.

  “This was supposed to be uncut,” a voice said.

  The camera jostled, moving back. It swung to show Carlo as he said, “You know someone with purer shit, buy from them. You can always leave it where it is. Money goes with us either way.”

  “It’s fine, right?” a louder voice said, the one Les could tell was hiding the camera. “Tell him it’s fine.”

  The picture swung around, flashing over the tan jacket of someone else, stopping on the bald guy with the shotgun for an instant, then whirling back to Carlo.

  “I mean, we’re all done here, aren’t—”

  A loud report rattled the speaker, like a sudden clap of thunder. The camera shook and spun and the wobbly picture was now of the chrome bumper of the car, the weedy cracked pavement beneath it. Another loud crack, then another. The camera dipped lower, shuttering. Carlo’s face popped into view as his head hit the concrete. His sunglasses were almost sideways, angled over his forehead. One lens was missing. The leaking orbital socket below it was a sludgy pool of blood and pulp, with nothing that qualified as an eye left.

  “Holy shit! Holy shit!” a voice screamed. The camera panned wildly, sweeping from Carlo to the bald guy who now lay in a heap, back to Carlo again, passing across a pair of jeans as it cut back and forth. “What the fuck? Holy shit!”

  “Shut up, Tommy,” the other voice said. The camera was showing the ground now, with sounds of heavy breaths and groans close to the mike. “Grab those out of the trunk then help me lift these two cocksnots.”

  The picture shook, dipping then rising, showing the trunk, the sky, the trunk again, then Carlo.

  “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus... I... you were supposed to... where is everybody?” The camera view swung back across the trunk, out over the overgrown parking lot, toward a rusty gate. “I mean, the others? Weren’t you—”

  Something jolted the camera and the image spun. It stopped facing another man, a close up of a shirt and open jacket. One arm was extended, reaching past the side of the screen, the other arm was holstering a weapon into his beltline. The picture jumped several times.

  “You better pull your shit together, Tommy,” the voice said, the other arm reaching out and extending past the other side of the screen. The picture shook some more. “I’m not kidding, you hear me? Grow the fuck up, find a set of balls, and do what I tell you to do.”

  “There... there wasn’t ever going to be any arrest, was there? Oh Christ Jesus!”

  The guy let go of him, shoving him back a bit. The image spun, the shot sinking to the man’s shoes, then jumping up, framing his head and torso.

  White guy, brown hair, slight cleft to his chin. Familiar face.

  “I think I may know this guy,” Les said, pausing the film. “He’s on the force.”

  “Really?” The woman moved behind him from one side to the other. “You think so?”

  “Maybe. Could be with the Sheriff’s department. But I’m sure he’s a cop.” He stared at the image a few more moments. He looked over to the woman, her eyes close to his, probing. “Then again, I could be wrong. He might just be posing.”

  “Posing. Yes. A pretender. Look again, see if you can make him.”

  Les shook his head. “No need.”

  “Look again, Detective. You know him.”

  The gray of her eyes seemed to be sparkling more purple in this light. Les wanted to keep looking into them, didn’t want to let them go. But they seemed to be nudging him, coaxing him. He turned his head, eyes lagging, keeping the connection as along as he could.

  “Watch some more,” she said.

  Les stared at the face on the screen. “This is as good a shot as there could be.”

  “More, Lester.”

  He felt himself reach forward to start it running, watched the picture begin to move again. More camera wobbling, more voices talking, shots of hands removing things from the trunk.

  “I told you, that was as good a shot of the guy as you could want. Probably won’t get another.”

 
; The woman made a grunting sound, something like a tire losing air, and bumped him aside with her body. She stopped the picture, rewound for a moment, then started it again.

  “Listen,” she said. The voices were talking, repeating what he’d already heard, one of them expressing shock and disbelief, distressed at what had just happened.

  Les started to object.

  “Just listen.”

  Same line he had heard moments earlier: “There... there wasn’t ever going to be any arrest, was there?”

  The man let go with the little shove, and the camera shot settled on his upper body again, his face clearly visible.

  “Was there?” the voice repeated. A few seconds passed in silence, the camera shifting from the man to the bodies to the sky to the trunk. “Oh, God... what are we gonna do? What happens to me now?”

  “What happens is, you stop acting like a little bitch and help me clean this up. Then, if you manage to quit pissing me off, I let you keep one of those bricks. Beyond that, I don’t give a fuck what you do.”

  “But,” the closer voice dropped to a whisper. “They’ll kill me now! Over what? A fucking key? Is that what you decided? My life was worthless? We had a deal. You promised. We had a deal.”

  Les cocked his head to look at her. “Okay, so the guy who owned those diamonds had a motive. Didn’t have to hear him say it to know that.”

  The woman snorted, wagging her chin. “Listen again. Close your eyes this time. Shhh. Just do it.”

  Sighing, Les watched her rewind it once more then let his eyelids fall shut.

  “—managed to quit pissing me off, I let you keep one of those bricks. Beyond that, I don’t give a fuck what you do.”

  “But... they’ll kill me now! Over what? A fucking key? Is that what you decided my life was worth, Les? We had a deal. You promised. We had a deal.”

  Les’s eyes popped open. He stared at the screen, the room suddenly feeling alien.

  “Finally,” she said, stopping the recording. “The look I’ve been waiting for. Under different circumstances, I’d be impressed someone could hold out this long.”

  Several words tried to form in his mouth, but the only one that came out was, “No.”