Shoot the Woman First Read online

  “Good-looking kid. He live with you?”

  She nodded, couldn’t face him.

  “That’s too bad.” He put everything back into the purse, dropped it at her feet. “It must be rough, growing up with a mother who’s out selling her ass every night.”

  She reached for the purse, and he looked down the front of her dress, caught a flash of black lace bra. He thought about taking one of those condoms, pulling her out of the car, doing her facedown over the hood. But he couldn’t be sure someone wouldn’t come along, use the lot to make a U-turn, see them there.

  When she reached for the phone, he slapped her wrist. “No.”

  She flinched, drew back.

  “Ask you a question, Lou Ann. How come I’ve never seen you around before? Was a time I knew every girl working every hotel in Detroit. Even the ones over the bridge in Windsor. But you’re a new face.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You haven’t been in the Life long, have you? I can tell. Look at it this way, I’m doing you a favor. You’ll be smarter next time. Now take your shit and get out of here.”

  She fumbled to close her purse, couldn’t get the catch to snap.

  “Next time I run into you, though … hey, look at me or I’ll crack you again … Next time I run into you, you better have more green to cough up than you had this time. This is my city, honey. You want to run with the big dogs, you have to pay.”

  He got out the Newports, lit one, nodded at her door. “Git.”

  “My phone.”

  “Don’t push it. Go on, get out of here. I’m sick of that perfume.”

  She held the purse to her chest, pulled at the door latch. As she got out, he leaned to his left, brought his right foot up and shoved. She tumbled out onto the blacktop.

  Her license had fallen onto the floor. He picked it up, scaled it out after her. “Don’t forget this.”

  She was on her hands and knees, trying to get to her feet, sobbing softly, but not wanting him to see it. He leaned over, pulled the door shut, started the engine. She backed away from the car, tripped and fell again, sat there on the blacktop, crying.

  He swung the Impala around, pulled out of the lot and back onto Gratiot. Two blocks later, he powered down the window, tossed out her phone.

  Two hundred in his pocket, and the night was young. He could go back to the hotel, try his luck at craps again, maybe a few hands of blackjack, see where the night took him. But he was restless now, didn’t know if he had the patience.

  The cell phone in his coat pocket began to vibrate. He got it out, looked at the number, pushed SEND, and raised it to his ear. “Yeah.”

  On the other end of the line, Marquis Johnson said, “We need to talk.”

  If Marquis was calling, it meant he had trouble he couldn’t handle on his own. And that kind of trouble meant money.

  “You at the place?” Burke said.

  “Yeah.”

  “On my way,” Burke said, and ended the call. His luck had changed tonight after all.

  NINE

  The man who blocked Burke’s path was a foot taller than him and fifty pounds heavier. Shaved head, and a scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear. He gestured for Burke to raise his arms.

  Burke shook his head. “I don’t think so, brother.”

  “You want to go in or not?”

  Burke looked past him to the door. It was steel, painted brown to look like wood. The kind of door that would hold up to a Stinger ram just long enough for someone on the other side to flush dope or slam a safe shut, spin the dial.

  “Are we going to have an issue here?” Burke said. “Because I’m not in the mood.”

  The door opened, and Damien leaned out into the hall. “Yo, Luther, what’s the holdup?”

  “I’m trying to check the man, but he acting all hard.”

  “Man, forget that shit,” Damien said. He opened the door wider. He wore a white silk jacket over a salmon-colored shirt. Burke could see the butt of a chromed automatic in his waistband.

  Luther held Burke’s eyes for a moment, then stepped aside. Burke went past him and through the door. Damien shut it behind them.

  Marquis sat at an oak desk that was too big for the room, fingers steepled, watching them. Behind him, big windows looked down on Terry Street, one flight below.

  Damien double-locked the door, slid a police bar into place, then leaned against the wall.

  “Haven’t seen that one before,” Burke said. “You bring in some new boys?”

  “Long time since you been up in here,” Marquis said. “Lots of new faces around.” He gestured to the red leather chair in front of the desk. There was a chest-high green safe on one side of the room, filing cabinets, and on a table near the safe a money-counting machine. Marquis’s desktop was clear except for a multiline phone, an open laptop computer, and a dark automatic sitting atop a glossy magazine.

  Burke sat, nodded at the gun. “You expecting a war?”

  “Should I be?”

  Burke looked across the desk at him, remembering the skinny teenager who’d run the streets, doing errands for the real Gs. And here he was now, Marky Johnson from ’round the way, reborn as drug kingpin. Detroit, the city of new beginnings.

  Burke looked at Damien, then back at Marquis. “Maybe you need to backtrack a little,” he said. “Because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Marquis glanced at Damien, then sat back. He wore wide aviator glasses with tinted lenses, powder blue shirt open to show a single gold chain. He was in his late thirties, old for the Game, on top longer than most.

  Burke had known his father, a grifter and con man named St. Louis Slim. Burke had helped identify his body when they pulled it out of the river, his throat cut, two bullets in the back of his head. Still a patrolman then, Burke had gone to the family’s house to deliver the news. Marquis was thirteen at the time, Damien ten.

  “We got hit today,” Marquis said.

  “Let me guess. The drop-off? For the Mexicans?”

  Marquis nodded. “You hear anything?”

  Burke got out the Newports. “All news to me.”

  “Man, don’t do that in here.”

  “You blow weed here all the time. I can smell it. What’s the difference?”

  “It’s not the same. Those things right there’ll kill you.”

  “Like that shit you sell on the street?”

  “I sell it. I don’t use it.”

  Burke put the pack on the desktop, then leaned forward and picked up the gun. Damien took a step away from the wall. Marquis didn’t move.

  Burke turned the gun over in his hand. It was a Beretta 92, shiny black steel, rubber grips. He ejected the magazine. Fourteen rounds.

  “Careful with that,” Marquis said.

  “Nice weapon.”

  “You like it, I can get you one.”

  “No, thanks. I’m good. Not queer for them, like some people. Way I see it, a gun’s a tool, like anything else.” He slid the magazine back into the grip. “You think whoever ripped you today will keep coming at you? That it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You know anyone ready to war like that?”

  “If you’d asked me yesterday, I’d say nobody had the stones.”

  Burke put the gun back on the desk, saw the title of the magazine.

  “Bloomberg Business Week,” he said. “That’s a good one. Detroit dope slingers have come a long way since the Chambers Brothers.”

  “The Chambers Brothers were punks. Country boys. In the right place at the right time, that’s all.”

  “They had their day.”

  “Shit. When crack started, money was laying on the ground. All you had to do was pick it up. Didn’t need to be no businessman. Things are different now.”

  “I guess they are,” Burke said. “I miss those old days sometimes though. Maserati Rick. Young Boys. You knew who the players were back then.”

  “Yeah, everybody did. And where are they
now?”

  “I see your point.”

  “When I stepped up, there was some chaotic shit going on here. You saw it. People warring, dropping bodies. Everybody dealing. Damien and I, we run those amateurs out. They either got on the team or they got gone.”

  “I know,” Burke said. “You consolidated.”

  “Did what I had to, like any other CEO. Know the market. Cut your risks. Maximize the profit.”

  “Eliminate the competition.”

  “That, too.”

  “Seems to me I helped out some on that part.”

  “And got paid.”

  “And took a lot of risks. Busting other dealers, clearing the field for you? Letting you know when you had a witness problem? I’d say you got your money’s worth.”

  There was a ceramic business card holder on the desk. Burke leaned forward, took a card. It read HARLEM RIVER MOTORS. MARQUIS JOHNSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, with a phone number below, a 313 exchange.

  He’ll go legit someday, Burke thought. Funnel all that money into some other businesses, real estate. Play the CEO for real. And no room in that world for Burke. Marquis acting like he was slumming, by just sitting here talking to him. Looking down on Burke for taking his money, thinking the cash solved everything, smoothed over every disrespect.

  “I get confused,” Burke said. “Which way’s the Harlem River from here?”

  “Quit fucking around.”

  “All right.” He put the card in a shirt pocket. “What happened?”

  Burke shook out a Newport from the pack, listened. When Marquis was done, Burke said, “Smoke grenades, huh? Son of a bitch.” Thinking then, pros.

  “Detroit PD was out there,” Marquis said. “Don’t know if they found anything else. You still have people you talk to there, right?”

  Burke tapped the cigarette on the back of his hand. “Maybe. But nothing’s free these days. Everybody wants to get paid.”

  “They will.”

  “Your guy that got hit. What kind of shape’s he in?”

  “He’s at Detroit Receiving. In surgery last time Damien checked.”

  “I know him?”

  “Willie Freeman. He been with me a long time.”

  “You trust them?”

  “Who?”

  “The boys in the Armada. Freeman, too.”

  “Far as it goes.”

  “You believe that story, the way they told it?”

  “It fits. Damien went out to the scene afterwards, saw how it went down. Stories all match up. Why you making that face?”

  “No easy way to say this.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You fucked up, Marquis. Running a half-assed drop-off like that, something was bound to happen. I could have told you that.”

  “So maybe it was you.”

  “If it was, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I’d be spending your money in Costa Rica.”

  “Not for long,” Damien said behind him.

  “Whoever took you off knew their shit,” Burke said. “These weren’t neighborhood gangbangers. Grenades, crash car. And they did it without dropping any bodies, except for your man.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “It was a pro operation. Probably from out of town, with inside help. One of your people.”

  “Why you say that?”

  “Think about it. How else would they know where the drop car was, when it would be there, what the setup was? They had all that shit down. Probably been watching your operation for weeks. How much they take you for?”

  Marquis looked past him at Damien. “Enough.”

  “You don’t want to tell me, I understand. But give me an idea what we’re talking about here. Half a mil?”

  Marquis shook his head. “Not that much.”

  “Then a quarter, at least. From what I can tell, bulk you’ve been buying lately, that has to be close. See, I know all your shit, too.”

  Marquis steepled his fingers again, watched him.

  “Quarter million’s a good day’s work,” Burke said. “They’re probably on their way back to New York or Oklahoma or California, or wherever they came from, by now. You might find your inside man—if they haven’t killed him already—but you won’t get your money back. At least not on your own. And there’s always the risk, six months later, they come back and do it again. Or somebody else with the same idea, thinking you’re anybody’s bitch now.”

  “That ain’t gonna happen.”

  “Now you’re talking out of your ass.”

  Marquis opened a desk drawer. Burke sat up, ready to close the distance, get hold of the Beretta if he needed to. Marquis smiled, put the gun in the drawer, shut it.

  “I’ll find them,” Marquis said. “And I will get my money back.”

  “If you got this all wired already, why’d you call me?”

  “I need somebody has access to Detroit PD. Can find out what they know and take it further, do what needs to be done.”

  “And that’s me?”

  “Isn’t it?” Marquis dissing him because he knew he needed money, wouldn’t have come here if he didn’t.

  He put the cigarette between his lips. “You know some of this is going to blow back on you anyway, right?”

  “How you mean?”

  “Your boys leave iron at the scene? Some of that will track back, serial numbers. Maybe fingerprints. Your man Willie, they’ll be all over him, too, asking how he ended up in a firefight, wide-open street, middle of the afternoon.”

  “He’ll keep his mouth shut. Say it was a drive-by, he was just a bystander.”

  “Might fly. Might not.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you’re right. I can find out all that shit you need. Might be there were witnesses, too, statements. I can make a phone call, have all that stuff an hour after it’s typed up.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “But I’d be sticking my neck out, calling in favors. Why would I want to do that?”

  “We going to dance, or you going to name your price?”

  “Just letting you know what you’d be paying for,” Burke said. “Ballistics, forensics, fingerprints. Everything from that crime scene is going to come back at some point, and I’ll have access to it. I’ll take it from there, see where it all leads.”

  “All right. So you get that information, you bring it back to me, and then we talk about what it’s worth.”

  “Doesn’t work that way.”

  “How’s it work?”

  Burke took out the lighter, knowing he had him now. He lit the cigarette, snapped the lighter closed, put it away. Marquis opened another drawer, took out a glass ashtray, slid it across the desktop. Burke pulled it closer.

  Marquis nodded at the cigarette. “Thought you’d quit those things. Weren’t you sick a while back? What was it?”

  Burke blew out smoke, met his eyes. “Cancer.”

  “What kind?”

  “Prostate.”

  “And you still smoking.”

  “A man needs his vices.”

  “What’d you have? Chemo? Radiation?”

  “Surgery.” He ashed the cigarette in the tray.

  “They cut it out of you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you still fuck?”

  Burke looked at him for a moment, said, “I can still fuck your—”

  Marquis raised a hand. “Don’t. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “You keep that up, you’ll make me say something that’ll undo all the goodwill we’ve built over the years.” He drew deep on the cigarette, felt the smoke in his lungs.

  “So what’s your plan?” Marquis said.

  “I’d work it the way I’d work any case,” Burke said, talking the smoke out. “I chase leads, knock on doors, look at evidence. Sooner or later, I’ll have names. The crew who did this, they weren’t first-timers. They’ll have reps, MOs, sheets. Shake enough trees hard enough, you find out what you want.”

  “Then what?�
�

  “Then I track them down, find what’s left of your money, bring it back to you, and you give me a cut.”

  “What’s left? I’m supposed to be happy with that?”

  “There’s a small window of time here to get anything back at all. You know that. I’d need to move fast.”

  “How much of a cut?”

  “Half.”

  Marquis brushed a piece of dust off the desktop. “Half.”

  “Half is better than nothing. And nothing’s what you’ve got right now.”

  Marquis was looking past him, at Damien again. Burke didn’t turn. He tapped ash into the tray, waited.

  Marquis looked back at him. “Even if you find the people that took my money, how do I know you’ll bring it back to me?”

  “I’d bring half back to you.”

  “Half, then. How do I know?”

  “You don’t. That’s where our long professional relationship comes into play. Mutual trust, right? I mean, if I wanted to, I could chase this whole thing down on my own, find them, keep all the money. You’d never know a thing about it.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Because you have information I need. I’ll start with your people, pick up the threads, work from there. Finding your inside man—or woman—is the first step. I’ll need your help with that.” He blew out smoke.

  “You are one arrogant white man, you know that?”

  “I’ve been doing this shit my whole adult life. I know how to run an investigation. And that’s what this is.”

  “Kind of arrogance put you in a hole in the ground.”

  “I’ve come this far,” Burke said. “I’ll take my chances.”

  A Detroit Metro cruiser flew by on the street below, lightbar flashing. They listened to the siren fade.

  “If I say yes,” Marquis said, “what do you need?”

  “A list of names, and ten thousand up front.”

  “What names?”

  “Everyone in the Armada, the driver of the drop-off car, anyone else who knew about the setup. For a start.”

  “Why you need the money?”

  Burke stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “I’ll have expenses.”

  “Expenses. And that ten K, that comes out of your share after you find the money, right? If you find the money.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then answer me this: Why the fuck would I give you ten thousand dollars for something my own people will do for free, just because I tell them to?”