Elmore Leonard - City Primeval

He ate the fried steak with sliced tomatoes and onions and a can of Strohs. He wasn’t tired. He hadn’t slept since yesterday morning, but he wasn’t tired. He thought about going out. The prospect still gave him a strange feeling after twelve years of married life. He thought about the girl from the News . He thought about Sandy Stanton and wondered how he might run into her somewhere. He thought of girls he had met at Pipers Alley on St. Antoine, the Friday after-work place, girls who came with toothbrushes in their purses. He thought of girls and saw glimpses of pleasure in strange apartments, chrome lamps turned down, macrame and fringed pillows made of wool, drinking wine, performing the ritual to the girl playing coy or seductive, giving him dreamy eyes, saying undress me and getting down to the patterned bikini panties, wondering why none of these girls wore plain white ones, most of them big girls, bigger than the girls he remembered in college sixteen years ago, the girls acting coy all the way to bed then accepting the decorator-patterned sheets as a release point and turning on with moans like death-throes and dirty words that took some getting used to, though girls in bars said fuck all the time now and when the girl would say do-it-to-me, do-it-to-me, he would think, What do you think I’m doing? Never ever completely caught up in it, but aware and observing, giving it about seventy percent… He remembered the girl from the News saying he was old-fashioned-no, old-timey; but it probably meant the same thing. The girl who knew everything…

The phone rang.

The woman’s voice, quiet, unhurried, said, “Lieutenant, this is Carolyn Wilder. I understand you’re looking for a client of mine, Clement Mansell.”

Raymond saw her in a courtroom, slim in something beige, light-brown hair-and had recognized her voice-the goodlooking lady with the quiet manner who defended criminals. He said, “How about if you bring him in tomorrow morning, eight o’clock.”

“If you don’t have a warrant, why bother?”

“I’d like to talk to him,” Raymond said.

There was a pause, silence.

“All right, you can talk to him in my office, in my presence,” Carolyn Wilder said. “If that doesn’t suit you, get a warrant and I’ll see you at the arraignment.”

He asked her where her office was. She told him the 555 Building in Birmingham and asked him to please come within an hour.

Raymond said, “Wait, where’d you get my number?”

But Carolyn Wilder had hung up.

“SEE, A BLACKJACK’S THE BEST,”Hunter said. “Put it in your pants pocket, you know, right against your thigh. You don’t have a blackjack then you move your gun around, stick it in front by your belt buckle. You start dancing close with the broad, watch the look on her face.”

Raymond said, “You horny tonight?”

Hunter said, “What do you mean, tonight? I’ve always wanted to try one of these broads out here. Husband’s a vice-president with General Motors, bores the shit out of her… Look-it that one, fucking outfit on her.”

They were in Archibald’s on the ground floor of the 555 Building-shoulder to shoulder with the after-work cocktail crowd, the young lawyers and salesmen from around the north end and the girls that came from everywhere-Hunter with visions of restless suburban ladies looking for action, waiting to be dazzled by the homicide dick with the nickel-plated 9-mm Colt strapped to his belt.

Raymond said, “You know how old the bored wife of a GM vice-president would be?” He finished his bourbon and placed the glass on the bar. “I’m going up. Clement parked across the street. Tan Chevy Impala, TFB seven-eighty-one.”

“Probably stole it,” Hunter said.

“The phone’s over there by the men’s room.”

“I saw it when I came in.”

“Clement leaves before I do, I’ll call you.”

Raymond walked out of the bar, edging past the secretaries and young executives and took an elevator up to seven, to Wilder, Sultan and Fine, celebrity names around Detroit Recorder’s Court, criminal lawyers venturing into the corporate world now, out seventeen miles from downtown, into contracts and tax shelters and a brown leather lobby with copies of Fortune and Forbes on glass tables.

He went in past the row of clean secretary desks and covered typewriters to an office softly lighted where Carolyn Wilder and Clement Mansell were waiting-Clement watching him, beginning to grin, Carolyn Wilder saying, “Why don’t you sit down.”

He concentrated on observing, noticing Clement’s shiny blue and red tattoo on his right forearm, Clement in a sport shirt sitting at one end of the couch with his elbows drawn back, limp hands in his lap, a faded denim jacket on the couch, next to him. Raymond saw a file folder on the coffee table, a pair of glasses with thin dark frames. He noticed the line of Carolyn Wilder’s thigh beneath a deep red material, one leg crossed over the other, the criminal lawyer and her client sitting away from the desk at the other end of the room, the lawyer relaxed but poised in a leather director’s chair, open white blouse with the dark maroon suit, tailored, soft brown hair with light streaks almost to her shoulders… brown eyes, saying nothing now… somewhere in her mid-thirties, better looking, much better looking, than he remembered her.

She said, “You don’t seem especially interested, Lieutenant. Are you bored?”

It was in his mind: Pick Clement up and throw him against the wall, hard enough to put him out, then cuff him and say to her, No, I’m not bored.

Get it done.

Raymond didn’t say anything. He looked from Carolyn Wilder to Clement, who was staring, squinting his eyes at him.

Clement said, “I don’t recall your face.”

“I remember yours,” Raymond said and stared back at him, looking at a point between Clement’s half-closed eyes.

“I should know you, huh?”

Raymond didn’t say anything. He heard Carolyn Wilder sigh and murmur a sound and then say, “This is in connection with the Guy murder?”

Raymond nodded, turning his head to her. “That’s right.”

“What have you got?”

“Witnesses.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“A car.”

Clement said, “Shit, he ain’t got any witnesses. He’s blowing smoke at us.”

“The racetrack and the scene,” Raymond said.

Carolyn Wilder turned to Clement. “Don’t say anything unless I ask you a question, all right?” And to Raymond, “Are you going to read his rights?”

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Raymond said.

Carolyn Wilder looked at him a moment and then shrugged. “He’s not going to say anything anyway.”

“Can I ask him a question?”

“What is it?”

“Was he driving around in a Buick Riviera last night, license number PYX-5-4-6?”

“No, he’s not going to answer that.”

Clement looked from his attorney to Raymond, enjoying himself.

“Can I ask if he’s seen Sandy Stanton lately?”

“Is it her car?” Carolyn Wilder asked.

“A friend of hers.”

“I don’t think you can put together even circumstantial evidence,” Carolyn Wilder said. “And he’s not going to say anything, so why bother?”

Raymond looked directly at Clement now. “How you doing otherwise?”

“Can’t complain,” Clement said. “I’m still trying to place you. You have a mustache that time-what was it, three years ago?”

“I just grew it,” Raymond said and was aware of Carolyn Wilder staring at him.

“You were heavier then.” Clement began to nod. “I remember you, the quiet fella, didn’t say much.”

“It wasn’t my case. I don’t think I ever spoke to you directly.”