Free Cul-de-Sac by David Martin Page A

here somewhere.”
    “Eddie’s still around?”
    “Just getting ready to leave, I think he’s bringing you coffee.”
    “Good.”
    “Staking out the flasher?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Hiding in the shadows, that’s work for a brother ain’t it?”
    “Spadework.” Camel laughed.
    “What’d you say?” Kempis asked, bristling.
    “My old man. He wouldn’t abide racial slurs, if he was with guys who started talking about ‘niggers’ and ‘spics’ the old man would just walk away. But to the day he died he’d call a black man a spade. I’d say, ‘Pop that’s a slur too.’ But he’d insist it wasn’t, said it was simply descriptive.”
    “As in ‘black as the ace of …’ ”
    “The old man a product of his time, like we all are.”
    “Like my dad was,” Kempis said with no trace of wistfulness. “Too easy on white people. ‘They have their ways, we have ours.’ ” Kempis started to say something more but didn’t, instead he asked Camel, “Will you give me a call if you catch the flasher, let me turn him in?”
    “You still trying to get that appointment to the state police academy?”
    “Yeah, might be too old though.” Too black, Kempis thought … then looked at Camel and smiled. “Except maybe you don’t plan to turn the pervert over to anyone, maybe you’re planning to lay a little vigilante justice on his nervous ass.”
    “No I don’t operate that way.”
    “Anymore you mean.” Kempis smiled. “I heard stories about you, back when you worked homicide.”
    “Yeah?”
    He nodded, relaxed now. “Hey Teddy, I came here looking for you ’cause I got something to tell you just between us girls.”
    Camel waited to hear it.
    “Boss calls me a few minutes ago, wants to know if I got anything on you.”
    “Anything like what?”
    “My question too. He says anything
negative
. Like did I think you were the kind of guy who’d run scams.”
    “Scams?”
    “He specifically mentioned shakedowns … but he acted like he might be happy hearing
anything
negative, like have I ever seen you falling-down drunk, had any complaints about you from people working on your floor, traffic accidents … the man was seriously hoping for bad news.”
    “I wonder why.”
    “My question again. He says it’s a police agency interested in you. I say which one, he dances around without answering me so I say well fax me over the sheet. He says there ain’t no sheet.”
    “Somebody keeping it unofficial.”
    “My thought exactly.”
    “But why?”
    “My question to you.”
    Camel said he had no idea and Kempis glanced over like he didn’t believe him. “I thought maybe something you’re working on, making people nervous you might be screwing up an active investigation.”
    “No.”
    Kempis again with that disbelieving look.
    “I’m telling you Jake the stuff I work on nobody would be interested.”
    “Well you’re making
somebody
nervous. My boss hinting like a bitch it would do us all some good if I could suddenly remember something bad about Teddy Camel.”
    Camel wondered if it was connected to the calls he made this afternoon about Cul-De-Sac … he also wondered how much Kempis knew and how much he was fishing. “Hey Jake.”
    “Yeah?”
    Camel positioned himself for a good look at Kempis’s face to see if the man was going to lie to him. “This have anything to do with the elephant?”
    “The
what?
”
    Satisfied Kempis’s confusion was genuine, Camel told him, “Never mind.”
    “Did you say elephant?”
    “Nothing, forget it.”
    Kempis scratched under his chin with the backs of his fingernails. “I want that appointment to the academy … if you’re working on something that’s going to lead to arrests, maybe you could—”
    But Camel was already saying no. “I take pictures of women checking into motel rooms at noon, I talk with guys who owe five hundred bucks on an old Buick … nothing anybody’s going to get excited over.”
    “Yeah.” Kempis still