Tom Piccirilli - The Cold Spot

Pressing the towel to Lefferts’s nose induced another cry of pain, but at least it roused him from his stupor. Chase propped Lefferts onto the couch and gave him a minute to wake up.

“Jimmy,” Chase said. “Hey.”

“Oh Christ, my face-”

“Jimmy, listen to me now. I’ve got a question to ask you. And I’d appreciate your honesty here. It’s very important to me.”

“Oh God,” Lefferts said, choking on his blood.

“I can’t breathe, I can’t think.”

On display in one of the high glass-door cabinets were two bottles of Chardonnay. Chase opened one and poured some into a fancy wine-glass.

“Here,” he said, “have some of this.”

“Is that the Chardonnay?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you let it breathe?”

You had to hand it to him. Blood and upchuck aside, he was as finicky as ever. “Just drink it.”

Lefferts drew the dish towel away and tried to sip. It made him gag and he started to moan. “I can’t taste anything except blood! My nose-”

“You’ll be fine. They’re going to have to break it again anyway, eventually.”

“Lord, no-”

“Now, Jimmy, you listening? Seriously, I need you to pay attention here.”

“What? Who are you?”

“I want the names of the crew you were working with.”

“The what?”

Chase had the box of naughty porn on one of the end tables and pulled out some of the magazines. “I wonder what the feebs will think of this stuff. I wonder what they’ll find on your computer when they take it in.”

“The who?”

“The FBI. You can delete stuff and rewrite over it on your hard drive and they’ll still be able to pick it up. I wonder how many lists your name is on in Czechoslovakia. These child brides that you buy from the former Soviet Union, they know English already or do you have to teach them?”

“You’re crazy.”

“Do you have any idea who I am, Jimmy?” Chase asked. “If you knew who I was you might understand the lengths I’m willing to go today in order to get the information I want.”

“I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you!”

“You want me to punch you in the nose again, is that it?”

“Fuck no!”

“I’m the husband of the police officer murdered outside your place of business.”

Jimmy Lefferts’s eyes widened, but it wasn’t with fear. It was simply with an even greater confusion. “So what the hell do you want from me? What are you doing? Why are you here?”

“I want to know who killed my wife.”

“I don’t know anything about that! How would I know anything about that ?”

Chase got in close, his nose two inches from Jimmy Lefferts’s misshapen schnoz, the bloom of blood wafting so pungently, such a painfully human stink. He looked deep and read the man’s face. The confusion, the ineffectual anger, the willingness to please, but the uncertainty of not knowing how. Chase finally had to admit that he believed him.

“Okay, Jimmy, I’m leaving now.”

“You are?”

“And I can trust you to keep this little conversation between just the two of us, right?”

“Absolutely!”

“I’m sorry about knocking you around, really I am. But if you call the cops or tell anybody else at all about this I’ll make sure the feebs come breathing down your back.”

“All of my erotica is completely legal! You can’t hurt me with that!”

Chase toed through the magazines and thought maybe Jimmy was right. He kneeled, rolled up one of the zines, got it nice and tight and swatted Jimmy Lefferts across his mashed nose. Jimmy screamed and a new stream of blood started running into his mouth.

He waited for Jimmy to focus, pressed a finger to the man’s red lips and went, “Then I’ll just come back and kill you in your goddamn bed one night.”

H er name was Marisa Iverson and she lived only a few miles across town from Jimmy Lefferts. Similar small home but she went in for a pretty high-tech alarm system. It gave Chase some pause while he tried to remember the proper way of tricking it out. Took him a lot longer than he expected. By the time he was finished he was bathed in sweat.

The system hadn’t been wired to a security service or the police. Chase wondered about that.

Once inside he made a careful search of the home. A wide living room opened into a dining area, and behind that you had to go through a swinging door to the kitchen. The place was tastefully furnished. She went in for soft blues and paisley, modern lightweight furniture and lots of potpourri and handcrafted wares.

Candles everywhere, a huge CD collection, lots of DVDs held in a large oak bookcase. Mostly guy movies-action blockbusters, shoot-’em-ups, Westerns. The fridge held a lot of beer. A fancy liquor cabinet was filled with a row of half-empty bottles of Jameson, Dewar’s, Wild Turkey, and Jack Daniel’s. Looked like Marisa Iverson entertained the dudes.

It took him ten minutes to find a Browning 9mm, safety off, buried way at the back of the breakfront behind some fake china and cheap crystal.

Like you’re having a holiday dinner with the whole family and somebody says they don’t like the soup, so you make like you’re going for the gravy bowl and put two in his head.

He pocketed it.

In the bedroom, clipped behind the head-board, he found a.22. He could just see how she’d use it. Lure the mark into bed, take charge and get on top, ride him until he was an incoherent mess, then reach over and yank the little squeaker up, press it to the guy’s forehead, pull the trigger. Hardly any blood to clean up. Wouldn’t even have to throw out the sheets. A heavy cotton cycle would do it.

He’d have to send some flowers and a get-well card to Jimmy Lefferts. Marisa ran with the crew.

Maybe she didn’t trust the string that much. So she kept them lulled and contented with booze and sex and cowboys and Indians. Did she fear a double cross? Did she plan one herself?

He pocketed the.22 as well, walked out onto the front stoop, and went through the mailbox. Nothing but bills and a real estate flyer claiming home sales in the neighborhood had doubled in the past eighteen months. Chase could believe it.

He continued combing through the house, looking for anything to tie her to the crew that had scored the ice. An address book lay open on her desk. Not many names, most of them local businesses. A dry cleaner’s, a carpet steamer service, a local Chinese restaurant. The diamond merchant’s office. There was James Lefferts.

Chase figured almost any of the entries could be code and she might be hiding the crew’s contact number out in plain sight.

He got on her computer and found a bunch of password-protected files. He tried “diamond,” “rock,” “ice,” and a dozen other words. Driver. Wheelman. Python. Before long a feverish buzz was reaching through his skull. By the time he typed in “Lila” he knew he was starting to uncoil and had to get a grip.

At the back of her bottom desk drawer he found the paperwork for the house. Turned out she was only renting the place and had only been here four months out of a one-year lease. All the blue and paisley and tacky modern furniture belonged to the true owners, cheapo crap left behind for their tenant.

Four months. Just enough time to establish her identity. He doubted she’d been working at the diamond merchant’s for any longer than that. He realized then how close he’d come to missing the crew entirely. She wasn’t an inside woman at all. She was part of the crew and would be packing up soon to join them.

He stood in her kitchen and checked the dishwasher. A couple of dirty plates, a handful of utensils, one glass. Exactly what you’d expect from a woman living alone. He looked in the fridge again and counted four different brands of bottled beer. He thought the booze was left over from a recent party. She entertained but didn’t live with anyone, had nobody dropping by on a nightly basis. Wherever the crew had gone to ground, they weren’t near enough to stop by much.