Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

The kid beamed. Brewer lowered his National Enquirer, gave me a look that said I was the world’s biggest sucker. But that was all right. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

Later that afternoon I walked into the Alligator, a Union Avenue dive with pretensions of being a sports bar, and found my former homicide partner hunched over a mug of draft beer at a small table near a pinball machine. The day shift had just given way to the night at the Midtown precinct. Young patrol officers with crew cuts, swollen biceps, spotless uniforms, and freshly shined shoes shot pool, flirted with dyed-blond waitresses, ordered pitchers of draft beer, and gunned shots of tequila with the good-time abandon of college frat boys. Older plainclothes cops from Robbery — Homicide and Vice sat in smaller groups, their cheap suits rumpled and smeared with ash or damp with spilled beer. They were quieter than their younger colleagues, and both their eyes and their rare smiles seemed hard and weary. Nate Randolph, who’d recently been promoted to lieutenant, sat by himself, his dark brown forehead beaded with sweat, his eyes bloodshot, his posture that of a hungry bear protecting a fresh kill from scavengers.

I crossed the room, elbowing my way through the crowd, ignoring the stares. For most of the cops in the Alligator, their hostility wasn’t personal. I was just an outsider who’d blundered into their world. But there were a few who remembered me, and their expressions were a mixture of contempt, pity, and barely restrained anger. In a lot of ways, quitting the police force is like leaving a cult. Your walking away isn’t just a personal decision, it’s a repudiation of everything your former brothers are willing to die for.

I took a chair at Nate’s table without waiting for an invitation. “Let me buy you a drink.”

“Leave a five-dollar bill and I’ll send you a thank-you note tomorrow.”

“It’s good to see you’ve developed a sense of humor. It isn’t much of one, but at least it’s a start.”

He tried glaring and then glowering, finally gave up and settled for looking morose. I flagged a waitress, ordered a round of beers, asked how his wife was doing. Mistake. They’d divorced a year and a half ago. I apologized; he grunted.

“What do you want, Raines?” he asked after he downed a quarter of his beer in a single swallow. “Spit it out and then get out of here.”

“You’re grumpier than usual.”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I’ve pulled two double shifts in the last three days. The one damn chance I get to have a drink in peace, you show up like a mangy dog begging for scraps.”

“Mark McAllister.”

He raised his head a little, smiled. “The kid who killed his long-lost father. You got egg on your face on that one.”

“What do you know about his case?”

He belched, winced, washed down his indigestion with another drink of beer. “You lose your ability to read people or are you so hard up for cash you don’t bother to check out your clients anymore?”

“I bought his line.”

He emptied his mug, slapped it hard on the table, and raised his eyebrow. I took the hint, waved at the waitress, and held up two fingers for another round.

“Your boy went to his father’s house, punched him around a little, stormed off. Sometime later, he came back with a .22 automatic, shot dear old dad four times at close range, and took off again. Neighbor heard the original commotion, got your boy’s license-plate number, phoned it in. Next morning he was found in a whore’s motel off the I-40 loop, still half drunk, beat up, with blood and puke on his clothes. When officers searched his Firebird, they found a half-dozen .22 shells scattered in the floorboard under empty beer cans and cigarette packs. End of story.”

“I read the police report.”

He accepted another beer from the waitress and brought it to his lips without letting it touch the table. “Then why bother me?” He stifled a belch. “What do you care?”

“I’m curious by nature.”

“You want the God’s honest truth? I don’t give a damn about your curiosity or McAllister or his old man. Last week and a half, four of Little Vinnie Montesi’s bagmen have been robbed and killed, one of them at three in the afternoon in a public park.”

I mumbled a wow because that was all that I could think to say. Little Vinnie Montesi ran the mob in Memphis. He’d replaced his uncle, Fat Tony, a couple of years ago. Fat Tony had been tough, ruthless, as dangerous as a Bengal tiger when someone infringed on his territory, but essentially a rational and loyal man. I’d had an occasion to work with him once and owed him my life. But he and his nephew had little in common other than their last names. A coke-head with the facial tick and the megalomania that plagued long-time addicts, Little Vinnie was known for being smart, high-strung, and relentlessly vicious.

“Last thing we need in this town is a gang war with a bunch of Elvis-loving tourists caught in the middle. That happens, the chamber of commerce, the mayor, and the police chief are going to be as unpleasant as wasps on crank.”

“Wasps use speed?”

He glared at me. “A figure of speech. What I’m saying is, I got my own problems to worry about. You want to know anything about your boy, ask the guys working his case.”

He turned his chair, bellowed for Elswick and Johnson to join us. They were a little younger than Nate and I, but I remembered Elswick as a rookie uniform. He was tall, blond, broad-shouldered, and sunburned. His partner, Johnson, was a whip-thin black man with a thick moustache and razor bumps on his jaws.

“You guys know Charlie Raines?”

Johnson stroked his moustache like a guy who hadn’t had it long. “By reputation.”

“We know one of your clients.” Elswick smirked, took a sip from a glass of what looked like bourbon and water. “We had a few questions for you.”

“Ask away.”

“No need now,” Johnson said. “We figured out the answers.”

“And?”

“We’ve got his prints, a witness who put him at the scene, blood on his clothes, shells in his car, a motive for murder. We also got him on record as telling one of his buddies up in Missouri that he was going to find his father in Memphis and might have to stick around long enough to help put him in the ground.”

“You still working for him?” Elswick asked.

“No.”

He ignored my answer. “The best thing you can tell your client is to cop a plea. If he’s lucky, the D.A. might settle for murder without premeditation.”

“Did you find the weapon?”

“None of your business,” Johnson said.

“You check any other suspects?”

“Again, none of your business,” Elswick said.

“I’m not trying to undercut your case.”

“This conversation is already an unpleasant memory,” Johnson said, turning towards Nate. “We’ll send you a drink over, Loot. Join us when you’re ready.”

I gave up, threw a five-dollar bill in front of Nate. “Thanks for your help.”

He took a deep breath and let it out through his nostrils. “Your boy’s guilty, Charlie. But if you’re looking for other suspects, check out Don McAllister’s private life. Who knows? You might find something to help you.”

“His private life?”

“Memphis is an old-fashioned place. Once you get out of the pink zone downtown, life can be hard for a middle-aged fairy.”

“Don McAllister was gay?”

“Arrested back in the mid ‘nineties for lewd behavior. Evidently, McAllister and a truck driver were getting amorous outside a nightclub on Summer Avenue.”

“I owe you one.”

“You and the rest of the world.” He drained the rest of his beer and picked up the crumpled, beer-soggy five I’d thrown on his table. “The problem is, all you bastards want to repay me on an installment plan.”