Voices of the dead

Jerry came in the office, sat across the desk from him. He had started dressing like Harry, wearing khakis and blue button-down-collar shirts, black loafers and Wayfarer sunglasses. Phyllis had noticed too and mentioned it.

“Hey, I haven’t had a chance to ask, how was your vacation? Went to Germany, right? What’d you do?”

Harry said, “Visited my old neighborhood.”

“I was toying with the idea of going to the Olympics next year. What do you think?”

“Better get your tickets.” Harry sipped his coffee out of a Styrofoam cup. “Let me ask you something. See anything suspicious the past couple days?”

Jerry frowned. “Like what?”

“Like seeing the same car keep driving by.” It sounded lame. He should’ve thought this through a little better.

“Where’re you going with this?”

“Like somebody stopping out front, looking around.” That didn’t sound much better.

“Harry, what the hell’re you talking about?”

Phyllis opened the door, came in, closed it and whispered, “Harry, there’s a detective out here wants to talk to you.”

“Send him in.”

Jerry got up with his coffee, gave him a puzzled look. “You in some kind of trouble, Harry?”

Good question.

Jerry and Phyllis walked out of the room and a short dark-haired guy walked in, tan wash-and-wear suit looking out of season in October, striped tie, scuffed brown shoes. He had a lot of hair parted low on the side, combed across his forehead, and wide, heavy sideburns to the bottom of his ears.

“Detective Frank Mazza, Mr. Levin.” He took out his badge, flashed it in diminished formality. Didn’t offer to shake hands. Suit coat coming open as he came toward the desk, a revolver in a holster on his right hip.

“Have a seat,” Harry said. Arm outstretched, indicating the chair.

Without expression Mazza said, “You know why I’m here?”

“You found my business card in Cordell Sims’ wallet. You talked to his mother, she said I stopped by the house the other day, but it wasn’t me.”

“No, who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you know Mr. Sims?”

“I read in the paper he’s in critical condition,” Harry said. “What’s the story, is he going to make it?”

“You own a firearm, Mr. Levin?”

“I’ve got a license to carry a Colt Python.357 Magnum.” It had expired about six weeks earlier. No reason to mention that.

“That’s a lot of gun.”

“I carry a lot of money. Scrapping’s a cash business.”

“How do you know Mr. Sims?” He pushed his hair back off his forehead.

“We’re friends. I see him occasionally.”

“Do you shoot heroin?”

“Do I look like I shoot heroin?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Never in my life.”

“Do you use drugs, Mr. Levin?”

“I smoked weed one time at an Allman Brothers concert. Got home, ate everything in the refrigerator.” He paused. “Where’s Cordell?”

“You know who shot him?” Frank Mazza said.

“No idea,” Harry said. “You didn’t happen to find nine-millimeter Parabellum shell casings at the scene, did you?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Just curious.”

Mazza combed his hair back with his fingertips. “But you don’t know who shot him, huh?”

Harry shook his head.

“Maybe you should come down to 1300, see if we can jog your memory.”

“You’d be wasting your time,” Harry said.

Bob Stark got him Cordell’s mother’s address on Lothrop. “Her name’s Gladys Jackson. Divorced Sims, married Melvin Jackson. Divorced him.”

“She gets around, huh?”

“You could say. Cordell’s at Detroit Receiving, where most of the inner-city shooting victims are taken, room 308, still listed as critical, but doing well considering he was shot three times.”

Harry took Woodward to Grand Boulevard, passed the GM Building on his left and Fisher Building on his right, two Detroit landmarks. Drove to 14th Street, went right on Lothrop, found the address, parked and knocked on the door. The house was a mess and so was the woman who lived there. Bags, half-moon shapes under her eyes that were darker than her skin. Looked like she’d been in a prizefight and lost. She was wearing a stained terrycloth robe, and had curlers in her hair. “Mrs. Jackson, I’m Harry Levin.” He took out his driver’s license and handed it to her. She glanced at the photograph, seemed to study his face and gave it back to him.

“’Nother white dude come by here saying he was you. Spoke Southern. Saying he from Chattanooga.”

Harry still had the mug shot of Hess that Taggart had given him. He took out the paper, unfolded it and handed it to her. “Is this the man?”

Her eyes opened wide. “That him,” she said. “Who is he?”

“Could be the one shot Cordell.”

“Why he do that? Shoot my boy three times. Kill the sister was with him.” She gave the mug shot back to him. “He gonna try again?”

Harry drove downtown to Detroit Receiving on St Antoine behind the police station. Parked, went in and took the elevator to the third floor. The hospital was old and overcrowded. Not enough beds so patients on gurneys were lined up in the hall under gloomy fluorescent lights that cast a yellow glow. Nurses and orderlies running around amid the chaos. Harry had never seen anything like it.