52 pickup

"Are you going home for di

"I don't know yet."

"You want to get a bite somewhere?"

"Why don't you read me what you've got?"

"I have a feeling you're off somewhere."

Mitchell looked at his lawyer. "I'm here. I'll be here. Now tell me about the guy."

Jim O'Boyle was soft-spoken, intelligent and a successful lawyer. He knew Mitchell pretty well, sometimes; he thought he knew his moods. One thing, he was not going to waste time beating his head against an immovable mind. He looked down at the open file folder.

"Alan Sheldon Raimy," O'Boyle said, "born in Detroit. Was graduated seven years ago from Michigan with a Masters in Biz Ad, top third of his class, taught accounting on a fellowship, was suspended, fired, for operating an abortion service."

Mitchell looked over. "What?"

"He was an abortion broker," O'Boyle said. "The little girls called him when they got in trouble, Raimy arranged the operation and took ten percent. Like an agent. He was arrested by the A

O'Boyle's hand moved down the page in the folder. "Arrested for embezzlement three years later. Accountant for a chain of women's dress shops in Detroit. He'd send them invoices from phony companies with names that sounded very much like legitimate suppliers, pay the invoices himself and open bank accounts in the phony names. He made over twenty thousand before he was caught, convicted and served a year and a half in Jackson. Since then he's been arrested for, let's see, once for lewd and indecent conduct-he was part of a live smoker act. Alan and two girls."

"What'd they do?"

"Probably everything. He was arrested again for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Caught in a motel with a gallon of wine, marijuana and a fourteen-year-old girl. Thirty days in the House of Correction. Another indecency charge, the last one, showing a smoker movie, stag film, dismissed. So that's Alan Sheldon Raimy," O'Boyle said. "Now he's gone from dirty movies to blackmail to what else?"

"You want a drink?" Mitchell walked over to the cabinet. He took out a bottle of bourbon and poured two short drinks.

O'Boyle watched him. "The police are after Raimy. They can't find him."

"How do you know?"

"Mitch, I'm the first one the prosecutor's office called. Why am I asking about a Leo Frank, deceased, and Alan Raimy? I told them I don't know of any co

Mitchell handed O'Boyle a drink. He took his own and walked around the desk and sat down.

"I don't know where Raimy is," Mitchell said.

"But he's threatening you, isn't he?"

"He's doing more than that." Mitchell took a sip of the bourbon. "He's got Barbara."

He described the phone call and hearing her voice briefly on the line. Mitchell spoke quietly, taking his time. He said, "Yes, he's threatening me. He's going to come here for a payoff or tell me where to meet him. And if he suspects the police are involved, I never see Barbara again, at least alive. That's what's going on."

O'Boyle was silent. Questions jumped in his mind, but he tried to ignore them for the moment and concentrate on Mitchell sitting at his desk with a glass of bourbon, in control now after pacing around the room. That part of it was a little frightening. His calm. Almost as though he felt nothing. Or had made up his mind about something and that was it.

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" O'Boyle said.

"Earlier than what? He called this afternoon. I'm waiting for him to call back."

"Before he does-" O'Boyle paused, as if anticipating Mitchell's reaction and wanting to put it off. "We've got to bring in the police."

"No," Mitchell said. A flat statement, that was it. "I told you what he said on the phone and I believe him. No police. He kills people, Jim. As you said, he doesn't just show dirty movies anymore. What he does, he kills people."

"That's right, and he can kill you too."

"Or Barbara, if I don't handle it right."

"What do you mean, handle it?"

"I have a choice. I can pay him or not pay him. But the first thing I have to do is get Barbara away from him."

"We agree on something," O'Boyle said. "But we still have to call the police."

"No." The flat statement again. "At first, up until a few days ago, I had a vague idea of setting him up. I hand him the money and, somehow, flatten him, break his arm if I have to and then hand him over to the police. But I've got another idea now and it may be the only way."

"Mitch, the police have experience in this kind of situation, a procedure-"

He shook his head. "Jim, remember when this started you came here and I told you about it? I put down on tape everything I remembered from the first meeting with them. This afternoon I put some more stuff on tape. Everything that's happened since and what I may have to do. I'm going to give it to you, Jim, and if anything happens to me you'll know who the guys are, what they did, everything. But I'm not going to discuss it with you now and I'm not going to bring the police in, because this son of a bitch, Alan Raimy, I know would walk out of court. How do they get him for murder? How do they prove it? The girl's gone, so is the movie. He says, 'What girl?' Arrest him for kidnapping? Maybe. But also maybe he feels he's come too far to give up. Jim, this guy kills people. He could kill again, Barbara or me, and get away with it." Mitchell paused. "So I'm going to handle it. One way or the other."

O'Boyle stared at him, as if trying to read his mind. "All right, what're you going to do?"

"I'm going to pay him off."

"I don't believe you."

"Then don't. I appreciate your help, Jim, your concern, but I'm not going to argue with you."

"Mitch, I've got an awful feeling you're going to do something-God, I don't know what-that you've got no business even considering."

"But I do know my business," Mitchell said. "Keep that in mind."

"Now I don't even know what you're talking about."

And Mitchell said, "Good."

Bobby Shy was sitting low, looking straight ahead through the windshield at the tree-lined parkway that led into Metropolitan Beach.

"What time is it?"

Doreen turned her hand, holding the top arc of the steering wheel, to look at her watch.

"Just ten after. Staying light longer, isn't it?"

Bobby didn't say anything.

"Now where?"

They were entering the parking area that covered a good forty acres: open empty pavement that reached to a low line of tan-brick structures-the bathhouse, pavilion and maintenance buildings, empty, deserted this time of the year-and a glimpse of Lake St. Clair beyond, flat gray water that extended to the horizon.

"Over to the right," Bobby said. "See the truck?"

"That's Alan?"

Bobby didn't answer. Doreen glanced over at him but didn't ask him again. She saw him reach inside his jacket, draw his.38 Special out of the waistband of his trouser and put it on the seat, tucking it in tight against his left thigh. Mitchell's Smith amp; Wesson was in the right-hand pocket of his jacket.

"Pull up on the left side of the truck," Bobby said, "two, three spaces over."

Doreen was frowning. "How you know it's him?"

"It's him," Bobby said. "Watch me, don't say nothing. I say get out of here, that's when we get. You dig? Not before I say it."

As they eased to a stop, facing the fenced-off playground area and the sign that said tot lot, Alan got out of the panel and came over, relaxed, friendly-looking, with a nice smile.

Bobby smiled back at him. "You in the drugstore business now?"