Peter Leonard - Voices of the Dead

“This is not like Harry. He should be home by now.”

Hess, smiling, said, “Don’t worry. He will walk through the door any minute. Have another cocktail.”

“One more,” she said. “But you must join me.”

Hess took her glass and filled it with ice, poured vodka almost to the top and handed it to her. He refilled his glass with Canadian Club whisky.

She frowned staring at the drink.

“Ray, you trying to get me drunk?”

“I am enjoying your company. Promise me you will not leave until Harry arrives.” He couldn’t let her leave, and hoped the alcohol would relax her.

“Did Harry tell you about me?’

“He spoke of you in the most complimentary way.”

Her face lit up. “What did he say?”

“You are a remarkable woman,” Hess said. “I can see that myself.”

Now she was smiling. “Harry say that, really?” She sipped her drink, and glanced at the clock on the oven. The time was 8:45. “I don’t want to, but if he is not coming here in fifteen minutes I have to go.”

“Do you have children?” Hess said, trying to change the subject.

“Two girls‚ teenagers. Visiting their father in London.” She paused to drink her vodka and said, “You are married?”

“Twenty-two years.” An eternity, Hess was thinking. Married in name only. They slept in separate bedrooms, rarely socialized together. What had he seen in Elfriede, a big unpolished, unsophisticated farm girl? He had married her because the sex was good and, at the time, he didn’t know any better.

She finished the vodka and glanced at the clock again, slid off her chair, and stood leaning against the counter. She seemed intoxicated, unsteady.

“Tell Harry I was here. Brisket is in the oven. Nice to meet you.”

“No one is expecting you. Why do you have to leave?”

At 1:22 a.m., Hess was in his car creeping along West Jarvis Avenue, a quiet tree-lined street in Hazel Park, a middle-class community with small cookie-cutter houses built in even rows. He found the address he was looking for, parked on the street and walked to the rear entrance of the house. The sliding glass door was unlocked. He entered a small room with mismatched furniture, empty pizza cartons and beer cans on a coffee table, an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. He walked through the house checking the rooms. Buddy was asleep on a mattress on the floor of a small cluttered bedroom that smelled of cigarettes and stale beer. The money he had given him was on top of the dresser still in the envelope. He picked it up and counted the bills. One was missing. He folded the money and slipped it in his shirt pocket. There was a beer can on the dresser next to car keys, billfold and cigarettes. He shook the can and heard beer slosh inside.

Buddy was on his back, snoring. Hess stood over him, pouring beer on his face. Buddy thrashed and flipped over, and sat up rubbing his eyes.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Surprised, angry until he saw Hess standing over him. “Mr. Klaus, that you? Jesus H Christ, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Were you successful?”

“Was I successful?” He smiled. “Let me put it this way — there’s one less coon you got to worry about.” He yawned, rubbed his jaw. “What’re you doing here in the middle of the night? Got another job you need done?” Buddy coughed. “Hey, hand me my smokes, will you?”

“You don’t have time.”

“Yeah. Why’s that?”

Hess raised the Walther and shot him in the chest.

The sun was coming up when Hess arrived at the scrap yard. Levin’s silver Mercedes was parked behind the building. He drove past the yard and parked on Luce, a side street, and crossed Mt. Elliot. He walked through the entrance past the scales into the empty yard. A semi rumbled in behind him, turning around, backing up next to the mountain of scrap metal.

The door to the building was unlocked. He opened it and walked through the entryway and through another door, and down a short hallway, two small cramped offices on one side, an office and toilet room on the other side. There was another office at the end of the hall, this one appreciably larger than the others. It had a desk and furniture grouping behind it. The room was dark, shades drawn over the two windows. His eyes adjusted and he noticed someone asleep on the couch. Hess pulled the Walther, flipped the safety off, crossed the room and stood over Harry Levin on his stomach, asleep. He heard a car drive by, raised the weapon, finger squeezing the trigger.

A woman’s voice startled him. “Harry, what are you doing here so early? Harry—”

It came from the intercom on the desk behind him. Hess walked out of the office and moved down the hall. He heard the woman’s voice again and stepped inside the toilet room. He heard footsteps in the hallway and ducked against the wall, and saw the woman walk by. He closed the door, opened the window and hoisted himself up and through it to the ground.

Hess was in the car when he heard the siren.

“My God, Harry. I thought it was you,” Phyllis said when he came in the office, 6:30 in the morning.

“What happened?”

“Somebody shot Jerry.” Phyllis started crying. “He wanted to be you, Harry. Even dressed like you.” She dried her eyes with a tissue. “What was he doing with your car?”

“We traded. Jerry was supposed to take it in for a tune-up. Lives right near the dealership. He was doing me a favor.”

“Police want to talk to you, the Eye-talian detective with the hair.” There were two Detroit Police cruisers and an unmarked Plymouth sedan in the lot when he pulled in, wondering what the hell was going on. Phyllis handed him a black coffee. He sipped it and walked down the hall, two uniformed cops standing outside his office. Went in, shades up, bright sunlight coming through the window on the east wall. Somebody was taking photographs of Jerry Dubuque dead on the leather couch, blood pooled on the beige industrial carpeting under him, two shell casings on the floor. Harry felt bad, he liked Jerry, felt responsible. Knew Hess had done it. Who else?

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you were the intended victim, Mr. Levin,” Detective Mazza said, standing on the other side of his desk in the tan wash-and-wear suit he’d had on last time.

“You sound disappointed,” Harry said.

“You going to tell me what’s going on?”

“If I could,” Harry said.

“Why don’t you try.”

“Want me to make something up? ’Cause that’s what I’d be doing.”

“First an acquaintance of yours, Cordell Sims is shot and now one of your employees.” Mazza took a pen out of his shirt pocket, squatted and picked up a shell casing with it, holding it up so Harry could see it. “But you don’t know anything.”

Mazza smelled like a smoker and had nicotine stains on the index and middle fingers of his right hand.

“What was Jerry Dubuque doing in your office?”

“By the look of it, sleeping one off,” Harry said. “It’s happened before. Jerry occasionally hits the bars in Hamtramck after work. Has a few too many, comes back to the office. It’s the only couch in the place. I’d rather have him sleep here than get on the road.”

“Mr. Dubuque have a drinking problem?”

“He did, he doesn’t any more,” Harry said.

“No sign of forced entry.”

“Jerry wouldn’t have worried about locking the door. Wouldn’t have crossed his mind. The gate out front is locked at night. I’ve got a security man who keeps an eye on the yard, sits in his car and listens to music.”

“What’s his name?”

“Columbus Fletcher. Phyllis, Miss Wampler can tell you how to get in touch with him.”