City Primeval

“I want to see him? For what?”

“To give him back his gun.”

“You took the gun!… I gave it to you!”

Hunter had his eyes and mouth open wide, miming Mr. Sweety’s emotional state.

“No, you told us it’s in the basement,” Raymond said, solemn, straight-faced. “We assume it’s still there.”

There was a silence again. Mr. Sweety said, “I don’t want no parts of that man. I’m getting dumped on-whole big load of shit coming down on me.”

“No, you’re all right. You have my word,” Raymond said. “He comes for the gun, tell him where it is. In fact, how about this? Tell him he’ll have to go get it himself, you’re busy.”

Silence. “I’d have to let him in the house.”

“Not if you put the key under the mat,” Raymond said and had to smile now, looking at Hunter. A couple of kids getting away with something.

There were tales of heroics and tales of tricky nonprocedural moves, old-pro stunts, told in the Athens Bar on Monroe in Greektown, two short blocks from 1300 Beaubien. Raymond wondered if, not so much the heroes, the tricky movers ever looked ahead and saw replays, recountings: a twenty-year pro, an insider, telling appreciative someday pros that it wasn’t to go beyond this table: “So he cons the guy into handing over the gun, has ballistics fire it to make sure it’s the murder weapon, then-here’s the part-he puts it back in the guy’s basement, inside the furnace where it was, and has the guy tell the shooter to come get his gun, he doesn’t want any part of it. You follow? He’s got to make the shooter with the gun or he doesn’t make him. He’s got to set him up…” And the someday pros at the table wait with expectant grins, gleams in their eyes. Yeah?…

Then what? Raymond was thinking, riding in the blue Plymouth police car with Hunter.

Go on…

Well, the way it should happen: With Mr. Sweety’s place under surveillance Mansell walks in, comes out with the gun in his pocket and they shine lights on him and that’s it. If he stays inside they ask him to come out and eventually he does, after trying to hide the gun again or pound it apart with a hammer; but they would still have him with the gun, be able to make a case.

But maybe another way it could happen and be told about later in the Athens Bar: For some reason the surveillance is called off… There could be a reason.

Clement comes out with the gun, the gun loaded, the way it was found. He comes out on the porch and stops dead as he hears, “That’s far enough-” He sees Cruz on the sidewalk beneath the streetlight. Cruz with his sportcoat open, hands at his sides…

You’re weird, Raymond said to himself.

But he continued to picture the scene as they drove over East Jefferson, hearing, “That’s far enough-” and trying to think of what Clement might say then. Yeah, Clement would say something and then he would say something else, something short and to the point and then…

Hunter said, “We both going in?”

Raymond, holding the paper bag on his lap, said, “No, I’m go

26

MAUREEN LET SANDY PACE the living room in her Bert Parks T-shirt and satin shorts, Sandy shredding a Kleenex tissue, dropping tiny pieces of it but leaving no pattern of a trail. Maybe she had to wear herself out before she’d sit down.

“You jog?” Maureen asked her.

Sandy paused to look at the lady homicide sergeant on the couch in her little schoolteacher navy blazer and gray skirt-like a nun in street clothes except for the gun, Sandy suspected, in the worn brown handbag.

“You kidding? Jog … no, I don’t go sailing either, or play golf. Jesus Christ, do I jog…”

“You have a nice trim figure,” Maureen said, “I thought maybe you exercised.”

“I’ve been ru

“Just the way Lieutenant Cruz suggested,” Maureen said. “You gave the gun to Mr. Sweety because you were afraid to throw it away yourself.”

“It’s true.”

“So you have nothing to worry about.”

“He’s go

“Well, I’m here,” Maureen said. “I asked you if you saw a gun in Clement Mansell’s possession, here or anywhere else and you told me no. That’s all you have to say. Don’t complicate it.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I’ll bet I’ve known a few like him though.” Maureen watched Sandy move to the windows and look out toward the river. “There’s one guy we sent to Jackson keeps writing to me. He says we’re pen pals. I think when he gets out in about seven years he wants to get together.”

“Clement’s only been to prison once,” Sandy said. “He’s been to jail plenty of times, but he’s only spent like a year in a regular prison. He says he won’t ever go back again and I believe him. God, he makes up his mind to something… but he’s so unpredictable. One time we’re out at Pine Knob, the Allman Brothers were there. Everybody, you know, they’re drinking beer and acting crazy, rolling joints on their coolers. This boy turns around and offers Clement a toke? Clement slaps it out of his hand like he was the boy’s dad or something, gives him this real mean look. All while the Allman Brothers’re playing Clement’s waving his arms around to make the smoke go away. Sometimes, I swear, he’s like a little old man.”

“You must like him a lot,” Maureen said.

Sandy turned from the window. “Shit, I’m scared not to.” She stared off, mouth partly open, then gradually began to grin, though not giving it much. “He’s cute, though, you know it? God, in bed… I think that’s where he got his nickname, the Wildman? I swear, he gets it up, like he says, you got to hit it with a stick to make it go down.” Sandy’s grin broadened as her gaze moved to Maureen and she said, “What’re you smiling at?”

“I’ve had some experience there, too,” Maureen said. “I was assigned to Sex Crimes for nine years. I think I saw everything there is to see. I mean, you know, fu

“God,” Sandy said, “that must’ve been interesting. Like rapists and degenerates and all? Perverts?”

“Uh-huh, lot of perverts. People you’d least expect.”

“Isn’t that the way? Like schoolteachers… preachers?”

“Uh-huh. A lot of flashers.”

“Yeah? Guys with raincoats and nothing underneath?”

“The pros cut the whole front out of their pants,” Maureen said. “One of the weirdest ones-we got a rape report. Right over in the City-County Building, one of the secretaries was dragged into the stairway and raped, had her clothes torn off. We asked her to describe the guy, if he had any unusual marks or characteristics. The girl said yes, come to think of it, he had an infantile penis.”

“God,” Sandy said, “a rapist.” She sounded a little sad. “Did you get him?”

“We rounded up suspects, repeat offenders,” Maureen said, “but first we had to qualify them, if you understand what I mean.”

Sandy’s face brightened. “Yeah, to see who had an infantile one.” She frowned. “How little is infantile?”

“Wait,” Maureen said. “A suspect would be brought in, then one of the guys in the squad would tell him to drop his pants.”

“Didn’t you see any of ’em?”

“Well, a few. But during the investigation I think something like a hundred and fifty-seven penises were inspected.”

“Wow,” Sandy said, with something like awe. “A hundred and fifty-seven. God…” She paused then with a puzzled expression. “Wait a minute. This girl said the guy’s joint was infantile, but compared to what? I mean her old man could’ve had a shlong that hung down to his knees. You know it?”