“I do say so. This second meeting, this was back at the daiquiri shop again?”
Shadow shook his head. “This Gage didn’t want to do nothin’ out in the street. I got the feeling things didn’t work out so well for the first guy, know what I mean? Gage was more careful. Cooley and the other one who came around, the money man.” Shadow hung his head, snapping his fingers as his brain tried to resurrect the name.
Maureen could see that, in spite of his circumstances, Shadow was starting to enjoy himself, almost even forgetting he was talking to a cop. She realized that his role in solving the puzzle fed his ego. She could see what drove him on the streets. Knowing things, moving the pieces around. Systems, relationships, conspiracy. Moving parts. He didn’t want to drive the race car; he wanted to build it and watch it run in circles around the track. And he wanted to be able to walk away when the car hit the wall and burst into flames, driver be damned. A man who could build a good race car could always find another driver. She’d have learned none of these things, she realized, if she’d left him picking his teeth off the barroom floor.
“Heath,” Maureen said. “Caleb Heath is the name you’re looking for.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Cooley and Heath, they was into it”—he switched into his version of a white man’s voice—“being down, being gangsta, whatever the fuck. But Gage, he was business, and he was cautious.”
For all the good it did him, Maureen thought. “So this second meeting, where was it?”
“At Gage’s apartment,” Shadow said.
“Clayton Gage had an apartment in the city?” she said.
Holy shit, she thought. She was getting it done. Shadow was giving them one fucking lead after another. Wilburn and Cordts had caught her excitement. They rose from their barstools again. Cordts tapped his wrist. She had their attention, but she was running out of time.
“I was there,” Shadow said. “It was nice. New. New paint. New shit. We had to go there late at night, when shit in the ’hood was quiet. Not the kind of place you can be bringing guns in and out of. Which was pretty much the point of me being there. Finding other places to stash the guns.” Shadow straightened up in his chair. He put his hand on his chest. “I gotta say, Officer. You scared me some there.”
“The apartment,” Maureen said. “Where is it?”
“Around the way,” Shadow said. “In them new places. The Harmony Oaks. In a building where no one was renting yet.”
“The houses that Solomon Heath built,” Maureen said. “Gage worked out of an apartment he rented from Caleb Heath.”
“If you say so,” Shadow said. “You got another cigarette?”
“They’re around here somewhere,” Maureen said, her mind spinning. “I guess I should put the table back.”
She righted the table, set the ashtray back on it. The mason jar holding the candle had smashed on the floor, spilling wax onto the wood. She walked to the bar and laid another five over the ten she had tucked under the ashtray. She hoped LaValle hadn’t heard too much of the commotion. Shadow brought his chair back to the table and sat. Maureen tossed him the pack of cigarettes and her lighter. Shadow lit up, set the pack and the lighter back on the table.
He said, “So what now?”
“Any chance you remember an apartment number?” Maureen asked.
“It was months ago, and I didn’t go but that one time.” He sat up straighter. “But it’s easy to find. First floor, in one of the brick buildings right off Louisiana, one of the old ones they saved from the projects.” He laughed. “They got like a pool and shit there now. In the old Magnolia. Looks nice. I only seen it through the fence.”
Maureen adjusted her ponytail. It was helpful information, sure, about the apartment, but her earlier excitement was waning. Clayton Gage had been dead six weeks. The apartment had probably been cleaned out and rented by now. But Caleb Heath had bolted after Gage was killed. Maybe he hadn’t had time to clean up. He didn’t seem the type to do much of that to begin with. And Maureen doubted Caleb had told Solomon what he was doing with the apartments he was supposed to be supervising on his father’s behalf. It was worth a look. They might get lucky.
Shadow stood up. “If there’s nothin’ else you need from me.”
“I think that’ll do,” Maureen said. She tapped her own chest. “Sorry about that. Bruise’ll heal in a couple of days.”
“Ain’t no thing. Shadow’s had worse. Believe that.”
He straightened his down vest. Stretching his neck, he touched his cowrie-shell necklace with his fingertips. He seemed to be lingering, Maureen thought, in order to savor the fact that the cops were letting him go. “I have to admit, Shadow thought for a hot minute he wouldn’t walk out of here.”
“Thanks for your help,” Maureen said. “I’m sure you’ve got business to attend to.”