“Your man’s down the hall,” he says, pointing like one of those retired hospital volunteers in pink jackets. They actually caught him once wearing that jacket and posing as a greeter. They also caught him wearing a white collar and black jacket and pretending to be a priest. Juke is an unrepentant slimeball, but I admire the guy. He operates in the dark, murky waters of the law, where we have much in common.
Partner is in a gown, sitting on an exam table, his right arm covered in gauze. I take a look and say, “Okay, let’s have it.”
He was leaving an all-night chicken carryout restaurant with a snack for him and his mom. He got in the van, put it in reverse, and the damned thing blew up. A bomb, probably of the gasoline variety, probably stuck to the fuel tank and remotely detonated by someone sitting in a car nearby. Partner managed to scramble out and remembers hitting the pavement with his jacket on fire. He crawled away and watched the van turn into a fireball. Soon there were cops and firemen everywhere, a lot of excitement. He couldn’t find his phone. A medic cut his jacket off and they loaded him into an ambulance. As they rolled him into the ER someone handed him his phone.
“Sorry, Boss,” he says.
“Not exactly your fault. As you know, that van is heavily insured, for occasions just like this. We’ll get a new one.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he says, grimacing.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, Boss. Maybe we get something that’s not quite so conspicuous, so easy to spot and follow. Know what I mean? Like, just the other day I was driving along the expressway and I got passed by a white cargo van owned by a flower delivery service. Standard white job, about the same size as ours, and I think to myself, ‘That’s the way to go. No one ever notices a white van with lettering and numbers painted on the sides.’ And it’s true. We got to blend in, Boss, not stand out in the crowd.”
“And what exactly do we paint on the side of our new van?”
“I don’t know, something fictitious. Pete’s Parcel. Fred’s Flowers. Mike’s Masonry. Doesn’t really matter, just something to go with the flow.”
“I’m not sure my clients would appreciate a generic white van with a fake name painted all over it. My clients are very discerning.”
He laughs at this. The last client to step into my van was Arch Swanger, a likely serial killer. A young doctor suddenly appears and steps between us without a word. He examines the bandages and finally asks Partner how he feels. “I wanna go home,” he says. “I’m not staying overnight.”
This is fine with the doctor. He loads Partner down with bandages, gives him some samples of painkillers, and disappears. A nurse has the discharge instructions and paperwork. Partner puts on his unburned pants, socks, and shoes and walks out with a cheap blanket wrapped around his upper body. We leave the hospital and drive to the fried chicken restaurant.
It’s almost 2:00 a.m. and a police cruiser is still parked near the crime scene. Strands of bright yellow tape surround the van, which is nothing but a smoldering, blackened frame. “Stay here,” I say to Partner and get out of the car. By the time I walk forty feet and stop at the yellow tape, a cop is coming toward me.
“That’s far enough, pal,” he says. “This is a crime scene.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“Can’t say. It’s under investigation. You need to back away.”
“I’m not touching anything.”
“I said back away, okay?”
I pull a business card out of my shirt pocket and hand it to him. “I own the van, okay? It was a gasoline bomb stuck to the gas tank. Attempted murder. Please ask your investigator to call me later this morning.”
He looks at the card but is unable to put together a response.
I return to the car and sit in silence for a few minutes. “Want some chicken?” I finally ask.
“No. Not much of an appetite now.”
“I think I’d like some coffee. You?”
“Sure.”
I get out of the car again and walk into the restaurant. There are no customers, the place is dead, and the obvious question is, why does a chicken place stay open twenty-four seven? But that’s a question for someone else. A black girl with steel in both nostrils is loitering by the cash register. “Two coffees please,” I say. “No cream.”
This pisses her off but she starts moving anyway. “Two forty,” she says as she grabs a pot, one that probably hasn’t been touched in hours. As she sets the two cups on the counter, I say, “That van out there belongs to me.”
“Well, I guess you need a new van,” she retorts with a sassy smile. How clever.
“Looks like it. Did you see it blow up?”
“Naw, didn’t see it, but I heard it.”
“And I’m betting that you or one of your co-workers ran outside with a cell phone and caught it all on video, right?”
She’s nodding smugly. Yes.
“Did you give it to the police?”
A grin. “Naw, don’t do nothing to help no PO-lice.”
“I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you’ll e-mail me the video, and I won’t tell a soul.”
She whips her phone out of her jeans pocket and says, “Gimme your address and the cash.”
