Dead_Wood

Thirty-one

Ellen was in her office when I arrived back at the station. Normally I would have called seeing as how I had just been there. But I felt this new information merited a back-to-back visit. Besides, I knew my sister absolutely cherished time with her little brother. She couldn’t get enough of me. Who was I to deny her of this intense joy created by my presence?

I walked into her office and she let out an audible groan.

“Christ, you spend more time here than I do,” she said.

I filled her in on what I’d found out about Shannon Sparrow, her early marriage and the later exploits of said hubby. I said, “Let’s dig up a photo of Mr. Laurence Grasso and see if he’s the guy I think he is.”

“Have Becky hook you up,” she said.

I went back out to the lobby and found the department’s resident computer guru. Becky Kensington was a bleached blonde, solidly built woman in her late forties. She had something like eight or nine kids but I never knew her to look tired or frazzled. I only have two kids and there are days where I’m looking for a noose and a strong ceiling beam.

“Chief What’s Her Name wants a file on this guy, Becky,” I said, handing her the sheet of info I had on Mr. Grasso.

“So how you been John?” she said as she took the sheet of paper and led me back to the department’s tech center.

“Keepin’ busy,” I said. “You?”

“All those kids in school, all I see are upper respiratory viruses, colds, sinus infections and the occasional strep throat,” she said. “Our house is a petri dish with a leaky roof.”

“Cupboards full of amoxicillin?”

She nodded as she typed.

I watched the screen, anxious, then sensed movement behind me and saw Ellen watching too.

“Turn around,” she said, cuffing me not so gently on the back of the head. I was never fast enough to duck those.

Becky laughed and I said, “That’s a quick glimpse of my entire childhood.”

“The childhood that never ended,” Ellen said. We would have kept going but the computer screen blossomed into a black-and-white mug shot of Mr. Laurence Grasso. He was a sandy haired, slightly buck-toothed guy with high cheekbones and eyes that looked bored but that would clearly entertain ideas of violence. I compared it to the face I had seen behind the wheel of the black Nova.

“F*ckin-A,” I said.

“Spit it out,” Ellen said.

“Hello Randy.”

• • •



Of course, we had no fixed address for Mr. Grasso. I suppose his nickname growing up was A*shole Grasso, which considering my experiences with him, would have been entirely appropriate. Anyway, his last place of residence was vacated. There were no known family members in the area.

The initial search was best left in the hands of the capable police, namely my sister, and her counterparts at the St. Clair Shores police department who were leading the Nevada Hornsby investigation.

They would use all their resources to find Grasso and they would be able to do it faster than I could. On the other hand, if they didn’t have luck right away, I would have to see what I could do.





Thirty-two

I am by no means a cyber sleuth. I do use the Internet for business, but mostly just e-mail. Lots of e-mail. I scrolled through my mailbox and saw one e-mail whose subject line asked me if I wanted to see hot, horny housewives in action. I deleted it without opening it.

I cursed myself once again for ordering a sexy outfit for Anna from an adult catalogue because now I was on their e-mail list. Their latest offering was a product called the Fleshlight. It was a masturbatory device for men that looked like a flashlight, but one end was actually…well, you get the idea. Clever, but no thanks.

There were several messages on my answering machine from potential customers. I returned their calls, left two messages and on the third call I set up a meeting to talk to a woman who had some “concerns” about her husband. This usually meant she was concerned that his knockwurst was making the rounds. And, usually, it was the right call.

That done, I put my feet up on the desk and clasped my hands behind my head. No word from my sister yet, so I let my mind wander to thoughts of Shannon Sparrow’s ex-husband Laurence Grasso. Probably Larry to his friends, though I doubted he had any.

So ol’ Mr. Grasso had found the beautiful, young, talented, driven Shannon Sparrow, seduced her, probably controlled her, then married her. Once she got a little older and a lot smarter, she dumped his genetically shortchanged ass. Free from the steadying influence of someone with half a brain, Larry was free to slide into the life of crime for which he was destined. Not too much later, he wound up at the big house.

Where Rufus Coltraine sat, ten years into his twenty-year sentence for armed robbery and second-degree murder. Rufus was probably playing his guitar in his cell.

I also wondered what their first meeting had been like. Maybe Grasso had tried to shank him. Or Coltraine had saved Grasso from being raped by the brothers. Who knew? The house of detention can apparently make very strange bedfellows.

I picked up the phone, scanned my notes, and called my favorite Jackson State prison guard, Joe Puhy. I wasn’t sure if he would talk to me because I’d never come through on the beers I owed him. After several transfers and sitting on hold, he came to the phone. I re-introduced myself and he remembered who I was. He didn’t seem pissed. After my apologies and reassurances that I would take him out for some refreshments, I got to the point.

“Tell me about Laurence Grasso,” I said.

There was a soft chuckle, then a low whistle.

“Stay away from that one,” he said.

“What do you know about him, other than the fact that I should keep my distance?”

“He’s a bastard. Nasty. Mean. Crazy.”

“Did he know Rufus Coltraine?” I said.

“He sure did. I always wondered about them. They never seemed to fit.”

“How so?”

“Rufus was easygoing, laid back, he had his music. Larry was the opposite. A tried-and-true Detroit boy with a chip on his shoulder, something to prove, always looking for trouble,” Puhy said. “And he was a sneak, too. Any little way to bend a rule, or even just plain old break it, Larry was the guy.”

“So were the two of them buddies or something?” I said.

He thought about it for a moment. I could almost hear him scratching the stubble on his jaw. “I wouldn’t say they were buddies, exactly,” he said. “More like guys who maybe had something in common in here, but outside, would never hang out.”

“Was Grasso into music? Did he play?”

“Not that I know of,” Puhy said. This was a mild surprise to me. “He seemed to like Coltraine’s music, but he didn’t play anything himself. ‘Cept probably the skin flute.”

Prison humor – it gets me every time.

“So what the hell were they doing together?”

“Talking mostly. Sometimes, just sitting and listening to Coltraine’s music.”

How quaint, I thought.

“I don’t know,” Puhy said. “I wish I could tell you more. Maybe I could ask around, see if anyone knows anything. Be like a consultant for you.”

Like a bonefish on the flats, I heard the sound of bait hitting the water.

“Would you?” I said. “That would be great – maybe I could come up with a finder’s fee or something.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Puhy said in a tone of voice that indicated I should very, very much worry about it.

We said our good-byes and I hung up. What a pisser. Two guys with nothing in common hanging out in prison together. Both get out and one tries to kill me while the other one is being killed and possibly framed for the murder of Jesse Barre. So was it Grasso who killed Jesse? Why? Did he have some score to settle with Coltraine – and was Jesse just in the wrong place at the wrong time? That didn’t make sense. After all, Jesse was building a guitar for Grasso’s ex-wife. Somehow the two were connected. Maybe Coltraine was in on it with Grasso. Maybe Coltraine really did kill Jesse. Maybe he wanted one of her guitars for recording purposes, knew he couldn’t afford one, and killed her for it. And then maybe he stole Shannon’s guitar and Grasso went and ripped off his old prison mate. It didn’t sound too convincing. And if I wasn’t convinced I knew Ellen wouldn’t be, either.

I started to get a headache. Too much thinking did that to me.

Still, the idea that I was closing in, that I was just a connection or two away from cracking this thing, got my blood going. It was time to find Laurence F*cking Grasso. Since my sister hadn’t called I figured she wasn’t having any luck.

But I had an idea.

• • •



I could rule out all the things my sister would be checking on. Past acquaintances. Family. Places of employment. Former landlords. The cops would check out the logical places. Whether or not they would have any luck, I had no idea. So far, Shannon Sparrow’s shit-for-brains ex had proven to be crude but effective.

There was really only one place I might have an edge.

And that was the non-logical aspect of the hunt for Laurence Grasso. I tried to put myself in his shoes. I’m out of prison. I’m running around causing the kind of trouble I love to create. It’s what I do. For some reason, I’m sticking around. I’m not running off to Canada. So there’s still something I need. I’ve got to stay close, but can’t go entirely underground.

Where would I be?

My mind grazed over everything I’d learned about Mr. Grasso. I thought back to what Joe Puhy had said, what the police record had shown, and what I knew about him from when he’d chased me and tried to kill me.

I wondered if he would try to go back to Shannon Sparrow. No chance. She wouldn’t have anything to do with him at this point in her life. Still, it would have to be pretty powerful for a guy like that. To think he’d once been married to, had slept with, had shared everything with someone who is now a celebrity. Who’s now on the covers of half the magazines in the world.

It reminded me of a joke. A guy and Cindy Crawford are stranded on a deserted island. After a long time, they start sleeping together. They do anything and everything, sexually speaking, exhausting all possible positions and breaking every taboo known to man. Finally, one day, Cindy says to the guy, whatever you want, whatever your greatest fantasy is, I’ll do it. So the guy has her put on a hat and one of his shirts. He then sidles up next to her and whispers, “Dude, I’m sleeping with Cindy Crawford!”

Illustrative of the minds of many men. I had the feeling that Grasso was mean and violent, but also arrogant. It made sense he might want to spend a little time gloating over the ‘good old days.’

So where would he go to revel in his past, yet still feel safe? I dug around for the stack of articles I’d used to study up on Shannon. After a half hour or so, I finally found the one in which she admitted being abused, where she opened up a little bit about her first marriage.

I skipped down to the section I was interested in. “I met him at a bad time in my life,” she said in the article. “I was dancing at this hole called The Lucky Strike.”

The name didn’t ring a bell with me. It had probably gone through a few dozen name changes since then. But it was obviously a place Grasso had frequented in the past. Why wouldn’t he go down there now and see if he could find anyone who might remember Shannon? Maybe buy ‘em a beer and start bragging about how he’d bedded the great Shannon Sparrow.

Flimsy, I know. But there’s video of Cuban refugees making it to Miami in boats even less sturdy than my big idea.

What the hell.

I was sure the Lucky Strike would be worth the effort.

• • •



I don’t consider it any kind of noble statement to say that I’ve never been a big fan of strip clubs. Or titty bars as the boys like to call them. As a young man, I’d been to my fair share of them. Gotten the ol’ boobs-slapped-in-the-face treatment. Nothing high and mighty about it. I still notice if an attractive woman walks by.

All these lofty thoughts were on my mind when I pulled up against the curb just past the Lucky Strike. As it turned out, the club wasn’t actually called the Lucky Strike. There just happened to be a giant plastic Lucky Strikes sign, probably from the 50’s or so, hanging above it. It didn’t look like the club itself had a name. Like the vast majority of clubs in Detroit, it was located on 8 Mile Rd, the great divider between the city of Detroit and the suburbs to the north. It also happened to be a few doors down from a giant Home Depot and a Burger King. Nice. Stick dollar bills in G-strings then swing next door for sandpaper and a bucket of paint, followed by some chicken wings and fries.

I locked up the Sunbird, thinking that only a moron would steal it. But I didn’t want to have to walk home just because I’d run up against a thief with no sense of style.

The door was heavy, wooden and painted red. I pulled it open, worried about the germs that probably coated the handle, having been grasped by a group of men who would buy ten dollar, watered-down beers for the chance to watch a naked teenager dance. Occupational hazard, I told myself, trying not to think what these guys do with their hands.

Inside was a beautiful marble foyer with a long mahogany bar and waiters in tuxedoes. Kidding, of course. It was actually just what you’d expect. A stage running down the middle of the place with a bar at one end and a curtain at the other. Small groups of tables surrounded the runway, with some chairs right up against it for those fifty yard line kind of spots. For the guys who like to get right in on the action.

There was a girl dancing on the stage. She had on a fishnet body stocking, or what was left of it, anyway. Her breasts poked out of two holes and sat unnaturally high. Judging by the three or four guys who sat watching her, they probably didn’t care if they were looking at a plastic surgeon’s handiwork. I moved to the end of room where the bar was and ordered a beer in a bottle. Six bucks. Ah, that good ol’ naked girl surcharge.

When you get right down to it, there are only so many ways to try to get information from a place like this. You can stake it out over the course of a few days or even a couple weeks, and try to learn something that way. Or you can have an idea of who your target is ahead of time and watch for him or her. Or you can walk in blindly and start asking questions. You can guess which path made sense to me. I didn’t have time for a two-week stakeout. And even though I knew who I was after, I didn’t think Grasso would be so stupid as to just hang out somewhere in the open.

The dancer was really working her stuff on the stage to the incongruous tune of Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Let’s Get Physical.’ As I watched the fishnetted youngster on stage bend over and grab her ankles, I figured the Australian singer didn’t exactly have this kind of imagery in mind when she composed the feisty little ditty.

I hadn’t touched my beer and understood immediately that I wouldn’t be putting my mouth on anything in this bar, unlike the four hundred pound guy waving a dollar bill at the dancer hovering over him.

Before I’d left the police station, I’d made a copy of Grasso’s mug shot. I’d had to do it without Ellen noticing, but old habits die hard and it’d been easy to go around behind her back.

The bartender was a goofy-looking guy. He reminded me of guys I’d gone to high school with that were easy going and fun, but you knew would never really do much with their lives. I waved him over and showed him the computer printout of Laurence Grasso’s mug shot.

“I’m trying to track down a buddy of mine. Larry Grasso. Do you know him?”

Without looking at the picture, he said, “You a cop?”

I shook my head. “Flunked out of the Academy,” I said.

He barely glanced at the picture and I knew what the answer would be. “Never seen him,” he said.

“Is there anyone else here I can show the picture to?”

“Why you lookin’ for him?”

“I’m a P.I.,” I said. “His sister hired me to find him. Their mother died and they need to settle the estate. It’s not much, but they can’t do it until Larry’s contacted.”

The bartender shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Clearly, I was on my own.

I pushed my beer back and walked around the bar to a door marked with the single word “Office.” The bartender watched me and started to say something, but I knocked on the door quickly and when I heard a voice say ‘f*ck off!’ I went right in.

There was a woman behind the desk with big blonde hair. I couldn’t see her face because it was buried in the crotch of a thin black girl sitting spread eagled on top of the desk.

“Oops,” I said.

The black girl scrambled off the desk. The blonde wiped her mouth off on her forearm and stood up. She was a big gal.

I pulled out the picture of Grasso and said, “I’m looking for Larry Grasso. Do you recognize him?”

“Get out,” the woman said, and her eyes flickered over my shoulder. I sensed movement behind me and ducked. Something crashed into the door and I pivoted, then reached up and caught the baseball bat under my arm. I swept my left hand up, slamming it into the bartender’s elbow and I heard a satisfying pop. He let go of the bat, yelped a little and I flipped it around so it was in my hand. I rested it over my shoulder and winked at him. He glared at me and I used the bat like a cattle prod to herd him into the office where I could keep an eye on all three of them. I closed the door behind me.

“Boy, you guys have got a real customer service problem,” I said.

“F*ck you,” the blonde said. The black girl hadn’t moved.

I nodded to the black girl, “Employee of the Month, I assume?”

“Very funny,” the blonde said. “What do you want?”

“Larry Grasso.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Wanna think about it?” I said.

“No,” the blonde said. “Jesus, I never heard of the guy.” She looked at the bartender and he shook his head. To be honest, I couldn’t tell if they were lying or not. Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes you just don’t know.

I thought about it. I could make some more empty threats or I could just cut my losses and thank God I wasn’t wearing a Louisville Slugger tattoo on my temple.

“Thanks for the souvenir,” I said, opening the door and stepping out into the club. The same girl was dancing and the same customers were staring at her. Breathing through their mouths.

I walked outside, feeling a little silly carrying a baseball bat on my shoulder like I was about to start hitting flyballs for outfielder practice. Something told me I wasn’t doing this right. Whether or not they knew Grasso was moot. They were clearly the type that didn’t want to tell anyone anything. I thought about what I’d done, maybe I should have come up with a better story. I popped the trunk and threw the bat inside. Who knew when it might come in handy?

I backed the Sunbird out of the spot and was about to turn out of the parking lot when I saw a flutter of movement off to my left. I looked. At the back of the building was the skinny black girl and she was waving at me. I drove around and pulled up next to her. She leaned in.

“I’ll tell you where he is for five hundred bucks.”

I pulled out my wallet and counted. “I’ve got three hundred and sixty.”

Her face was thin. Her eyes haunted. She was clearly on drugs. Malnourished. Desperate.

I held the money out to her and when she reached for it, I pulled it back.

“He’s in a house on Barrington with a dancer named Ginger,” she said. I remembered when Nate gave me the address from the black Nova’s registration, it had been in a woman’s name. The name wasn’t Ginger, though. It was something plain like Mindy or Missy. Melissa. That was it. Melissa.

“Is Ginger’s real name Melissa?”

She gave me a look like I was certifiable.

“No real names, I get it,” I said.

“Do you know the address?” I said. “Roughly?”

Her eyes took on a strange look and I said, “If you don’t know, don’t lie.”

She nodded then said, “All’s I remember is it’s got a front porch with a refrigerator on it.”

I handed her the money. She took it and her face took on a flush, already anticipating the drugs.

“Don’t even think of calling them to tell them I’m coming,” I said. “Or I’ll come back for a refund, do you know what I mean?” Actually, I had no intention of coming back but I had to at least make an attempt at the tough guy routine. Sober, she wouldn’t buy it. Strung out like she was, she might consider it. Anyone who knew me, of course, would have doubled over with laughter.

She hurried away from the car and darted back into the building through the door. If the big blonde found out she’d given me the information, I was sure she would have her ass. Literally.

But I had a lead.





Thirty-three

Barrington was located on the southern end of Grosse Pointe, bordering Detroit. All the exciting stuff happened down here. You could take your mansions and your yacht clubs and everything else from Grosse Pointe proper, but it was down here in the area they called the Cabbage Patch that all the excitement went down. They called it the Cabbage Patch, by the way, because the homes are so packed together, like, you guessed it, heads of cabbage in a field. Grosse Pointers are sooo creative.

At first, when the stripper had told me to look for a porch with a fridge on it, I thought it’d be easy to spot. But now, driving down the shitty street, I see she should’ve been more specific. Was it a side-by-side? Automatic ice maker? Freezer on the bottom?

Plenty of bikes and chairs and tables and air conditioners and a car bumper and a body (sleeping I hoped) and plenty of dogs without leashes. Dogs without leashes. Sounded like a punk band.

I finally spotted a house with a lovely avocado colored Frigidaire on the front porch. I stopped the Sunbird well shy of the house and put it in Park then got out and walked up onto the front porch. The fridge was in worse shape than it looked from the street. There were garbage bags piled inside. There were more garbage bags on the floor of the porch. I saw that quite a few of the plastic bags had jagged holes chewed in them. Rats. Lovely.

The door was cheap and flimsy. Big surprise there. I thought about what to do. Legalities. Options. Should I call Ellen or not? What if she came and the house was an abandoned rathole?

I thought some more and pressed my ear to the door. I didn’t hear a thing. I pressed the doorbell but didn’t hear any corresponding sound. I pressed it twice more with the same lack of result. So I pounded on the door for a good three or four minutes. Still nothing.

Goddamnit. By now, I was about to piss my pants. I pounded on the door again and noticed that when I hit it really hard, the latch came all the way out from the door. Hmm. I leaned my shoulder into it and now I could get a thin glimpse of the room. Already, I saw a story formulating in my mind. Indefatigable P.I. checks out a lead. Walks up the front porch stairs, trips, crashes into the door which opens up. He “accidentally” finds himself inside the house! Frickin’ brilliant!

Excuse in hand, I lowered my shoulder to the crap-ass poplar frame and plowed my way forward. There was a loud pop and a crack and the door gave way. I stumbled straight into the living room and the working end of a .357, held in the firm, unwavering hand of none other than Laurence Grasso.

“You took long enough you little f*cking punk,” he said.

• • •



He’d changed his appearance from his mug shot. Bleached hair, a bleached goatee. But it was the same guy. The same little predatory weasel eyes, coupled now with breath reeking of cheap wine.

“You just keep comin’, don’t ya?” he said.

“Like a fly with a nose for shit.”

He pulled back the hammer on his revolver. If I had to guess from the aroma of his breath, he’d been partaking in a local wine, probably a merlot. A 2003, perhaps.

“You know what a punk is?” he said.

“Kill him and let’s go,” a woman’s voice said from the kitchen. I didn’t know what startled me more, the voice, or the utter lack of emotion it carried. Unlike me, Grasso paid the advice no attention whatsoever. He was focused on me.

“Let’s go,” the woman said again. Wherever she was, I couldn’t see her. I didn’t recognize the voice. The calm authority, the bored indifference in her tone, however, was unmistakable. I was more scared of the person attached to that voice than I was of the ex-convict with the gun pressed to my forehead. Which isn’t to say I wasn’t scared. Quite the contrary, actually.

Grasso moved around behind me, sliding the muzzle of the gun across my forehead and around my scalp, like he was tracing the line of a bowl to give me a haircut. He stopped behind me and then I felt his forearm go around my throat. He pressed in against me and either he had a screwdriver in his front pocket or something very bad was going to happen to me.

“I used to f*ck guys like you in prison,” he said.

“I’m married,” I said.

“Goddamnit, we don’t have time for this,” the woman in the kitchen said. “He probably called the cops already.”

I tried to see, leaning forward slightly and looking from the corner of my eye. All I could see was a doorway and a kitchen cabinet and countertop. I heard the sound of a chain lock sliding, then a deadbolt thrown. She was definitely getting ready to leave. I hoped Grasso would follow her example. Quickly.

I craned forward a little more and the left side of my face exploded in pain as Grasso used the barrel of the gun as the working end of a karate chop to my face. “Don’t worry about her,” Grasso said. “Worry about me.”

The side of my face was on fire and I felt blood running down my chin. The gun slid along my scalp again, this time ending up at the very back of my head.

“The cops are on their way,” I said. “They know I’d tracked you down. Do you really want another murder on your sheet?”

I was throwing out marshmallows here, I know. But I was scared to death of dying. I needed to somehow convince him that not killing me was the right way to go.

“It don’t f*ckin’ matter now,” Grasso said. He shifted and I sensed that he was moving the gun to his left hand, which begged the question, what did he need his right hand for?

“Come on, let’s go!” the woman called from the kitchen.

“Shut up!” Grasso yelled into my ear. And then I felt something so hideous I froze.

With his free hand, Grasso tried to pull down my pants.

“Mr. Nosy bitch following me around, chasing me, just who the f*ck do you think you are?”

“I—”

“Shut up, punk!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” the woman in the kitchen called.

“Nothin’ better than a virgin punk ass,” Grasso said and as he yanked on my pants I grabbed one of his fingers and bent it back until I felt the bone break, which it did with a sickening little crunch.

Grasso screamed in my ear and then he curled his leg around mine and pushed me forward. He pinned my arms so that I smashed face first into the hardwood floor. I felt something give in my face and a searing pain ricocheted around inside my skull. Blood was in my mouth.

I felt air on my skin and knew with a panic that it was my ass. Grasso had my pants down.

“F*cking bitch,” he breathed into my ear. His breath was hot and fast. I didn’t know if it still smelled like wine, I figured my nose was broken.

I heard the sound of Grasso’s zipper, then the rustle of fabric as he lifted his shirt to pull down his pants.

A sound came from the front of the house that had a tinny quality to it. It sounded suspiciously similar to a police siren. We all heard it at the same time and the woman in the kitchen said, “Shit!”

“Motherf*cker!” Grasso said. Doors slammed outside and heavy footsteps pounded up the front walk. I heard a lot of shouting but everything seemed fuzzy and out of focus. I tried to move, tried to roll, but nothing happened. I had a funny tingling sensation down my spine.

“You f*ck,” the woman said.

I heard Grasso run to the front door and shout.

“Shit,” the woman said, but her voice was further away now. Had she left?

“Just let me—” Grasso started to say and then there was a loud crashing sound followed by two shots close together. Boom-boom.

Grasso garbled something and I heard him drop to the floor just as the walls around me exploded and the gun boomed. A cacophony of sounds greeted my ears. More crashes, shouts, tires screeching, the back door slamming shut, more heavy footsteps.

I rolled as best I could. A stabbing pain raced up my left leg and then the back door banged open.

A newer tinny sound from the front porch was going strong. A cop’s radio. There were running footsteps as I tried to get my bearings and then someone behind me said, “Freeze.” What a stupid thing to say, I thought.

I desperately wanted to pull my pants up but at this point, it wasn’t worth the risk. Besides, the cops had arrived, probably because a neighbor had seen my dramatic entrance. Compared to the fear of being raped and killed, having a Grosse Pointe cop see my bare fanny was no big deal.

I lay still, my heart beating, the pain in my body building to a crescendo.

And then I heard a voice.

“Not one of your finer moments,” my sister said.