Johnny Temple - USA Noir - Best of the Akashic Noir Series

The story was continued on page 5A with pictures. I could tell already the whole thing smelled, but when I turned to the photos I nearly fell off my stool. There was the dead woman. She was fiftyish, nicely coiffed, but not with long black hair that brushed the top of her ass. She was a little on the chubby side, matronly even. Not at all the kind of figure a pair of thong panties would enhance.

If the article was correct, she’d been in the Big Apple when Kid had been given that delicate little sexual appetizer. So, if Christine Coyer didn’t give it to him, who did?

During my college days, my clothing came from the Salvation Army. I shopped there in protest against consum­erism and conformity. I shop there now out of necessity. For ten bucks I picked up a passable gray suit, a nearly white shirt, and a tie that didn’t make me puke. I washed up in the men’s room of a Super America on 7th, changed into the suit, and hoofed it to the address on Summit Avenue given in the newspaper story.

Like a big park , Kid had described the place. His perspec­tive was limited. It was the fucking Tuileries Gardens, a huge expanse of tended flower beds and sculpted shrubbery with a château dead center. The cosmetics business had been very good to Ms. Coyer. And to her husband, no doubt. So good, in fact, one had to wonder why a man would do any of the dirty landscape work himself. Or hire someone like Kid to help.

I knocked on the door, a cold call, something I’d often done in my days as a journalist. I had my notepad and pen out, in case I needed to pretend to be a reporter.

A woman answered. “Yes?”

I told her I was looking for Christine Coyer’s husband.

“He’s not here,” she informed me. “Do you have an appointment?”

No, just hoping to get lucky, I told her.

“Would you like to leave a message?”

I didn’t. I thanked her and left.

I headed back to the river thinking the woman’s accent was French, but not heavily so. Quebec, maybe. Her black hair when let down would easily reach her ass. And that body in thong panties would be enough to drive any man to murder.

What to do?

I could go to the police. Would they believe me? If I produced the panties, they might be inclined to look more skeptically on the rich man’s story.

I could go to an old colleague. I still knew plenty of press people who’d take the story and dig.

But the influence of money should never be underesti­mated. Everybody’s integrity is for sale if the price is right. So I knew that turning the information and the panties over to anybody else was risky.

I realized I was probably the only shot Kid had at jus­tice.

I sat by the river, smelling the mud churned up from the bottom, but also smelling the perfume of the black-haired woman as it had come to me on the cool air from inside the big house. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what she wore under her dress. I could understand completely why Kid had been so eager and had disregarded the obvious dangers.

For a long time, I’d been telling myself I was happy with nothing. Give me a bedroll and a place to lay it, a decent meal now and then, and a few bucks for a bottle of booze, and what more did I need?

But the circumstances of Kid’s death suddenly opened the door on a dark, attractive possibility.

I thought about the lovely house and its gardens.

I thought about that fine, beautiful woman inside.

I thought about the deceased Christine Coyer and all the money she’d left behind.

I thought about all that I didn’t have, all that I’d fooled myself into believing I didn’t care about—a set of new clothes, a soft mattress, something as simple as a haircut, for God’s sake, nothing big really, but still out of my reach.

I was a starved man looking at the possibility of a feast. In the end the choice was easy. After all, what good did justice do the dead?

I got the telephone number from a friend still employed in the newspaper business. I kept calling until the rich man answered.

I identified myself—not with my real name—and told him I was a friend of Lester Greene.

He scraped together a showing of indignity. “I can’t imagine what we have to discuss.”

“A gift,” I told him. “One your wife gave to him. Only she wasn’t really your wife. She just pretended in order to lure Lester to your house to be murdered.”

“I’m hanging up,” he said. But he didn’t.

“Ask the woman with the long black hair,” I urged him. “Ask her about the gift she gave to Lester. Here’s a hint. It’s black and silky and small enough to be an eye patch for a pygmy. Ask your beautiful friend about it. I’ll call back in a while.”

I hung up without giving him a chance to respond.

When I called back, we didn’t bother with civilities.

“What do you want?”

Justice for Kid is what I should have said. What came out of my mouth was, “One hundred grand.”

“And for one hundred thousand dollars, what do I get?”

He sounded like a man used to wheeling and dealing. According to the paper, he was a financial advisor. I advised him: “My silence.” I let that hang. “And the panties.”

“You could have got panties anywhere,” he countered.

“She’s beautiful, your mistress. Who is she, by the way? Your secretary?”

“Christine’s personal assistant. Not that it’s important.”

“But it is important that she’s not very bright. She took the panties off her body and gave them to Lester. A DNA analysis of the residual pubic hair would certainly verify that they’re hers. I’m sure the police would be more than willing to look at all the possibilities more closely. Do you want to take that chance?”

“Meet me at my house,” he suggested. “We’ll talk.”

“I don’t think so. Your last meeting there with Lester didn’t end well for him. We’ll meet on the High Bridge,” I said. “I get the money, you get her panties.”

“The panties I can verify. What about your silence?”

“I talk and I’m guilty of extortion. Jail doesn’t appeal to me any more than it does to you. The truth is, though, you have no choice but to trust me.”

“When?”

“Let’s make the exchange this evening just after sunset. Say, nine o’clock.”

I wasn’t sure he’d be able to get the money so quickly, but he didn’t object.

“How will we know each other?” he asked.

We’ll have no trouble, I thought. We’ll be the only cock­roaches on the bridge.

The High Bridge is built at a downward angle, connecting the bluffs of Cherokee Heights with the river flats below Summit Avenue. Although it was after dark, the sodium vapor lamps on the bridge made everything garishly bright. I waited on the high end. Coming from the other side of the river, the rich man would have to walk uphill to meet me. I found that appealing.

The lights of downtown St. Paul spread out below me. At the edge of all that glitter lay the Mississippi, curling like a long black snake into the night. The air coming over the bridge smelled of the river below, of silt and slow water and something else, it seemed to me. Dreams sounds hokey, but that’s what I was thinking. The river smelled of dreams. Dreams of getting back on track. Of putting my life together. Of new clothes, a good job, and, yeah, of putting the booze behind me. I didn’t know exactly how money was going to accomplish that last part, but it didn’t seem impossible.

The evening was warm and humid. Cars came across the bridge at irregular intervals. There wasn’t any foot traffic. I thought for a while that he’d decided I was bluffing and had blown me off. Which was a relief in a way. That meant I had to do the right thing, take the evidence to the cops, let them deal with it. Kid might yet get his justice.