Peter Leonard - Voices of the Dead

Hess said, “Is Harry there?”

“Who’s calling please?”

“This is Ray Meade.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Levin’s out of town. Sir, what did you say your name was?”

“Ray Meade, darlin’. When do you expect him?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. He’s driving back from Pittsburgh.”

Hess hung up the phone.

Fifteen minutes later he was parked on Lothrop near 14th Street in front of a brown two-storey brick house, the address Rausch had received from their contact at police headquarters in Munich. Hess was looking at a black-and-white photograph of Cordell Sims taken the night he was arrested. A big American sedan passed by him, moving slowly, three Negros in the front seat all turning, studying him.

He opened the door, stepped out of the Malibu, walked to the house and knocked on the door. Hess waited several seconds and knocked again. He peered in one of the front windows on the left, saw the decrepit condition of the interior and wondered if anyone was living there. He knocked on the door again and this time it opened. A hostile black woman, whose age he would have guessed at fifty, stared at him before she said anything.

“What do you want, get me out of bed I’m trying to sleep?”

“I’m looking for Cor-dell,” Hess said. The Southern accent to his ear sounding effortless, authentic.

“Ain’t here. You the dude he met over to Germany?”

“I am,” Hess said, using the information to his advantage. “Do you know where I can find him?”

“No, but he gonna come back later get his things and go.”

“Tell him Harry Levin stopped by, will you?”

“Yeah, you the dude he was talking about. Jewish fella, huh?”

“That’s me,” Hess said, smiling.

“Where you from with that accent?”

“Chattanooga, Tennessee originally.”

“Dint think they had no Jews livin’ down there.”

“There are a few of us.”

“Man name Harry Levin come by lookin’ for you,” Cordell’s momma said, wearin’ her stained light-blue robe, curlers in her hair.

“Harry Levin, you sure?” Harry didn’t know where he lived.

“That’s what the man said. You think I’m making this up?”

“What’d he want?”

“Asking for you. Did I know where you was at?”

It was strange. They’d only been back a few days, why would Harry be lookin’ for him? Cordell opened his wallet, took out Harry’s card, went in the kitchen, called the number and got the answering machine. A lady’s voice said, ‘You have reached S&H Recycling Metals. Our office hours are Monday through Friday seven a.m. to four p.m.’ He left a message.

Cordell went upstairs, got his things, put the shoebox in his duffel, told his momma he was leavin’. He’d picked up a Dodge Dart at a used car lot on Gratiot earlier that afternoon. Paid cash. $1,500. Ran like a top.

She said, “Leavin’ for where?”

“Don’t know that yet.” But in the morning he was going to head toward Chicago. Start over.

The Negro, Cordell Sims, got out of a dark-blue automobile at 6:30 that evening. He entered the house on Lothrop and came out ten minutes later carrying a green military duffel. Hess followed him on Woodward Avenue to the Pontchartrain Hotel. Sims went in with the bag and appeared thirty minutes later. It was 7:20 p.m.

The next stop was Sportree’s Bar. After that, a nightclub called the Parizian on Linwood. Hess parked across the street, watching the blacks, reminding him of an African tribe with their bright-colored clothing, high Afros, neck chains and jewelry. He watched them strut around like peacocks. Groups of them standing outside, men and women, smoking and talking, shaking hands in some ritual motion. A parade of automobiles stopping, two or three at a time, Negros getting out, moving toward the door, and when it opened he could hear the high-pitched scream of a trumpet or the thumping of drums.

Cordell Sims entered the club at 9:30 and came out at 11:15, escorting a woman with an Afro, short dress accentuating her long legs. Hess opened the door and got out of the Malibu, waited for traffic to clear, crossed the street and followed them, the sidewalk deserted. He saw them get into Cordell’s dark-blue Dodge. Hess drew the weapon, holding it at arm’s length down his leg, approaching the car from behind, crouching along the driver’s side, looking through the window. Cordell and the woman were kissing. He brought the Walther up and fired five times through the windscreen, shattering the glass.

Headlights were approaching. He slid the gun in his pocket and crossed the street.

Harry got back from a meeting with his US steel client in Pittsburgh at 3:30 in the afternoon, stopped at the yard on his way home. He walked in the office and Phyllis told him there was a message for him on the answering machine.

“Here, want to listen to it?” She pressed the button.

“Harry, Cordell. What’s going on? I hear you came by. Miss me already? I’ll get back to you.”

It was Cordell’s voice but Harry had no idea what he was talking about, had expected him to call back but he didn’t.

“And some guy named Ray Meade,” Phyllis said. “Southern accent.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He sounded like you were friends.”

“That’s what salesmen do.”

That evening, Harry was going through the main section of the Detroit News and saw a one-column article with a headline that said:

The article went on to explain how the victims, Cordell Sims, twenty-one, and Rochelle Campbell, twenty, both from Detroit, had walked out of the Parizian nightclub on Linwood Avenue, entered Mr. Sims’ 1970 Dodge, and, according to witnesses, were shot by a lone gunman. Ms. Campbell was dead on arrival at Henry Ford Hospital. Mr. Sims remained in critical condition. Police were investigating.

Harry figured the shooting might be payback for something in Cordell’s past, his days selling heroin. Still, it made him uneasy. Made him think of Hess. He took the Colt out of his coat. Walked around the house checking the windows and doors, making sure they were locked. Looked out at the front yard from his bedroom. There was a Chevy he’d never seen before parked on the street. It wasn’t one of the neighbors’. Was he being paranoid?

He checked the back of the house, glancing down at the patio, and the back yard that had a five-foot-high wooden fence around the perimeter. It was too dark to see anything. He went downstairs, moved through the dining room to the French doors and saw someone on the patio, looking in the kitchen windows.

He drew the Colt, went out the side door on the driveway, came around the back of the house and saw Galina in a trench coat, warm September night. He lowered the gun, she hadn’t seen it, slipped it in his pants pocket. “Galina, what’re you doing?”

“I want to surprise you, Harry.”

“You did.”

She stepped toward him, wrapped her arms around him. He stood rigid.

“What’s the matter? I think you would be happy to see me.”

“I thought you were a burglar.”

“Harry, you don’t even lock your door.” She frowned. “And you are not glad to see me. I can see it in your face.”

He wasn’t in the mood. “I have something I have to do tonight. Can I call you tomorrow?”

She opened her trench coat and flashed him. “What you are missing.”

He knew what he was missing. He watched her walk across the backyard. She went through the gate in the fence and disappeared. He walked back around the house to the front, scanned the street. The Chevy was gone.

Harry decided it was time to call Joyce, tell her what was going on. He dialed the number Stark had given him.