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  GRIND JOINT

  A Penns River Novel

  Dana King

  Praise for Worst Enemies

  “You’re going to be surprised and delighted. It’s a great book, and I recommend it unreservedly.” — Leighton Gage, author of the Inspector Mario Silva series

  “By the end, Worst Enemies was miles from Strangers On a Train...When a crime novel goes above and beyond a mere interpretation of a classic, the reader is left as satisfied as the author.” — Benjamin Sobieck, author of Cleansing Eden and The Writer’s Guide to Weapons

  “I finished reading this book on a gurney in an Emergency Room with crying kids, a car accident victim and a loud drunk keeping me company, and barely noticed them. If that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is!” — New Mystery Reader

  Praise for Grind Joint

  “King has created vividly drawn characters, a plot the late Elmore Leonard would appreciate, and dialogue that hits all the right notes. Let’s hope Grind Joint is the first in a new series chronicling life and crime in the Alleghenies.” — Booklist

  “One of the best novels I’ve read this year. Period.” —Les Edgerton, author of Bomb, The Bitch and The Rapist

  “I cannot remember a book I’ve read—including anything by Elmore —where the cops sounded more like cops, tricking suspects, stumbling with women, smart-talking the tough guys, and finally getting out of a big shootout with brains, brawn, and guts.”—Jack Getze, author of the award-winning Austin Carr series

  Copyright © 2013 by Dana King

  Down & Out Books edition: October 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design by Eric Beetner

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Pronunciation Key

  Grind Joint

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Dana King

  Other Titles from Down & Out Books

  Preview from Devil in the Hole by Charles Salzberg

  Preview from Abnormal Man by Grant Jerkins

  Preview from The Devil's Anvil, a Joe Hunter Thriller by Matt Hilton

  To Charlie Stella.

  Listen to me. He’s a friend of mine.

  PRONUNCIATION KEY

  Western Pennsylvania has a rich ethnic heritage that is obvious from even a quick glance at the phone listings or any high school yearbook. Many of the names are hard to pronounce to outsiders who don’t come across them often. Even for those who do, Western Pennsylvania natives have developed unique accents and pronunciations that bear little resemblance to how relatives in the old country would speak.

  This is not a Russian novel. Below is a key to pronouncing some of the more difficult or unusual names. Tolstoy never met his readers halfway like this.

  Czarniak — ZAR-nee-ak

  DeSimone — dih-SIGH-mun

  DeFelice — dee-fuh-LEASE

  Dolewicz — DOLE-uh-wits

  Dougherty — DOCK-ur-dee

  Grabek — . GRAY-beck

  Lucatorre — luke-a-TOR-ee

  Mannarino — man-uh-REE-no

  Napierkowski — napper-KOW-ski

  Neuschwander — NOO-shwan-der

  Wierzbicki — weerz-BICK-ee

  Zywiciel — suh-WISS-ee-ul

  Back to TOC

  There is always an easy solution to every human problem–neat, plausible, and wrong.

  H. L. Mencken

  CHAPTER 1

  The building used to be a mini-mall. Penney’s on one end, Monkey Ward’s on the other, with a handful of little local shops in between. Nail salon, barber, wing joint, liquor store. They closed years ago, boarded up the windows. The Blockbuster in an outbuilding went tits up last summer. The toy store next door saw half a dozen re-inventions before it managed to scrape by as one of those operations where everything was five bucks or less. That and the bank were all that were left. Kenny Czarniak would have thought it ironic, how only the bank and the discount store survived amid the shells of failure, but any sense of irony had left him long ago.

  He parked fifty yards from the service door in back. Room for at least a thousand cars in the lot. Construction crews didn’t need ten percent of the spaces, but casino management wanted the employees to get used to parking away from the entrances so customers could have the good spaces when the doors opened next week. Pulled his gloves on with his teeth and fished the casino keys out of his jacket pocket.

  Some assholes had left bags of trash by the door again. Not everyone loved the idea of a casino in town. Some thought it hilarious to pull teenage harassments like dumping garbage or a flattened road kill in front of the doors. Never bothered to think the only person they inconvenienced was Kenny, who was just like them and didn’t give a shit whether Penns River had a casino or not so long as he had a place to work.

  He looked down to find the key and when he looked up he saw the pile of trash was actually a bum sleeping one off. They didn’t often come this far from the old business district. Too spread out here, a five mile walk to the shelter where some of them took a bus into Pittsburgh to bum quarters off shoppers. Kenny’d nudge him awake and tell him to keep moving, point him west on Leechburg Road, town’s that way.

  Eight feet away and Kenny noticed the guy’s face had an odd color. Leaned over for a closer look and realized the discoloration was ice crystals. Then he saw the bullet holes, one over each eye, and dropped the keys grabbing the cell out of his pocket.

  CHAPTER 2

  The call came with Ben Dougherty face-deep in Anita Robinson’s well-trimmed shrubbery. He’d hit the Edgecliff on the way home last night and there she was, her kids spending the night with their father, part of his combined visitation policy and twelve-step plan. Duke Robinson never drank when his kids were around—he’d always been a good father, drunk or sober, usually drunk—so they spent random evenings with him, after which he’d stop by the City-County Building to pee in a cup. This freed Anita and her still resilient breasts for occasional evenings of passion. Doc said he’d be there in twenty minutes and ran his face through the wash cycle an extra time.

  He thought the corpse looked familiar, asked his partner if he knew him.

  Willie Grabek hawked up a wad of phlegm. “That’s Donte Broaddus. He was small time downtown when I retired. I heard he’d moved up, had a nice section of the North Side all to himself.” Grabek hunched his car coat higher on his shoulders. “I wonder who he pissed off.”

  “Me, right now. Too cold and dark and I was in the middle of something. Hey, Noosh? What’s it look like? A .22?”

  Rick Neuschwander down on one knee examining a stain on the ground with a flashlight. Did double duty as a detective and crime scene tech in Penns River, getting his in-close work done before the medical examiner from Allegheny County arrived. “Probably,” he said, not looking up. “No more than a .25. Autopsy should be able to say. Looks like they’re still inside.”

  “Not that they’ll do us any good,” Grabek said. “Rattle around in that hard head a few times, come out looking like either gravel or shrapnel, not worth a damn.”


  “It doesn’t matter,” Doc said. “He wasn’t killed here. No blood at all. Actual crime scene could be anywhere. What do you think the odds are we clear it?”

  “This was very professional. We catch this guy, it’s dumb luck.”

  “It is professional, isn’t it? Small caliber weapon, body dumped away from the scene. Sounds like Mike Mannarino’s crew.”

  Grabek wiped his nose with a thumb and index finger. “Maybe. He doesn’t do much heavy work, and he doesn’t shit where he eats.”

  “He dropped Frank Orszulak on the steps of the Bachelor’s Club last year. Fucked us big time on that Widmer case.”

  “That was a message. Orszulak did one of his guys without permission.”

  Doc nodded toward the body. “Maybe this is a message, too. Think Broaddus was selling here in town?”

  “Never heard of anyone selling here, not worth mentioning. Can’t shake those rumors the shit comes down the river to Pittsburgh through here, but far as I know that’s all we are, a pass through.” Grabek spat again. “Fucking sinuses. Besides, even if Mannarino did him for some drug thing, why dump him here?”

  “Showing his ass, maybe. This joint can’t be doing the Hook any favors, siphoning off his gambling business.”

  “He’s smarter than that. This dump is small time compared to the Rivers and down the Meadows.”

  “This one’s in his home town. Insult to injury and all that.” Doc stamped his feet. “Just thinking out loud, but Mannarino’s the only person within a hundred miles who does this kind of hit. The body could’ve been dumped anywhere, or disappeared. Leaving it here, a week before opening? You have to wonder.”

  They watched Neuschwander work for a minute. Grabek said, “You’re the primary. What do you want to do?”

  Doc took a beat to answer. He liked Willie all right, though he was the laziest prick Doc had ever worked with, and he’d worked with a few. Smart, saw things everyone else missed. Also missed things everyone else saw while he was reminding you how smart he was. Retired from Pittsburgh homicide over a year ago, worked in Penns River to supplement his retirement while his daughter was in college. If “work” was the word for what he did.

  “Hey, Noosh,” Doc said. “Find any ID on this guy?”

  Grabek said, “I told you. It’s Donte Broaddus.”

  “I heard you. Do you know where he lives?”

  Neuschwander held up a wallet. “Here. License is inside. Not much else.”

  “No cash?”

  “In his pocket. About a hundred bucks.”

  “Where’s he live?”

  Neuschwander scanned the wallet, thought. “Looks like Homewood somewhere.”

  “Give Willie the address before you bag the wallet.” To Grabek: “That’s your old stomping grounds. Go find his people. Break the news to the family. You know what to do.”

  Grabek looked like he’d have something to say if he hadn’t already ceded control with the “primary” comment. “I’m gonna stop for breakfast first. No one’s up yet, anyway, not in Homewood.”

  “Whenever. I’ll help Noosh put together the reports after I talk to the guard that found him.”

  A Lincoln Town Car floated to a stop, quiet as fog. A man got out about Grabek’s age, thinner, Burberry scarf tucked into a navy pea coat. He wore round glasses and showed as much expression as the Town Car’s headlights.

  “Oh, Christ,” Grabek said. “Look who it is.”

  Daniel Rollison was a private investigator from Pittsburgh. Reputed to be a retired spook, willing to do things law enforcement wouldn’t. Or couldn’t. A year ago he’d worked for Tom Widmer’s defense team, Widmer a numb nuts stockbroker conned into killing his wife’s former lover. Two people ended up dead because of Marian Widmer. Her husband got natural life; she got the house. No one could prove what Rollison got.

  He stopped between the detectives, hands in his coat pockets. “Okay, then. What do we have here?”

  “What’s your interest?” Grabek said.

  “Chief of Security for the casino.”

  “No shit?”

  “What do we have?”

  Grabek gave Doc a “you’re the primary” look. Said he’d better get a move on if he was going to beat the traffic to Homewood and walked away.

  “Seems to me this is kind of a come down for a man with your reputation,” Doc said.

  Rollison nodded toward the corpse. “What do we have here, Dougherty? That’s three times I’ve had to ask.”

  “Donte Broaddus. Medium-time drug dealer. Lived in Homewood. Worked, we think, on the North Side. Shot somewhere else with either a .22 or a .25, then dumped here.”

  “Suspects?”

  “Even if we had any, I wouldn’t be at liberty to discuss them, you being a civilian and all.”

  “Don’t be petty. I can help you. The casino opens in less than a week. Something like this is a blemish that’s easier to erase sooner rather than later. Preferably before we open.”

  “You want to help, help. You know anything about this?”

  “I just got here.”

  “So did I.”

  They made their own little Sergio Leone staredown for a minute before Doc said, “I have work to do. Let me know if you hear anything. Maybe we can share. Remove that blemish for you.” He turned to the guard, standing near the corner of the building cupping a cigarette between his hands. “Mr. Czarniak, can I have a few minutes?”

  Kenny took a last, deep drag and tossed the butt. “Can we go inside and talk? I been out here over an hour and I’m freezing.”

  “Sure,” Doc said. He angled himself to allow Kenny to reach the door without disturbing Neuschwander and the medical examiner, who’d pulled in behind Rollison.

  “Uh-uh.” Rollison stepped between Kenny and the door. “No one but casino employees and contractors get in until we open. Company policy. You can talk to him right here.”

  “This is a crime scene,” Doc said. “Police business supersedes your company policy.”

  “The crime scene is out here. Inside is still mine.”

  Doc gave him a look colder than Kenny Czarniak’s fingers. “Fine. Mr. Czarniak, we can talk at the station. I’ll drive and we’ll get you some coffee on the way.”

  Kenny stopped walking. “I leave here, I don’t get paid. Mr. Rollison?”

  “You’ll get paid,” Doc said before Rollison could answer. “You’re on the clock as long as you’re with me.” He turned to face Rollison. “Casino business, right?”

  Rollison shrugged and went through the door, pulled it shut.

  CHAPTER 3

  “You sure they’ll pay me?” Kenny Czarniak sat in a straight-backed chair next to Doc’s desk. He held a large Sheetz coffee with both hands. “I might need a new transmission.”

  “If you mean ‘can I legally force him to pay you?’ well, no.” Doc tipped his own chair back a little. “He’ll pay, though. The last thing they want right now is any more bad publicity, or local police coming and going through the casino like I guarantee you we will if he jerks us around.”

  They drank coffee until most of the color migrated from Kenny’s cheeks back to his hands. “How’d you come to be night watchman at the new casino?”

  “I’m not the night watchman. I start at five so I can turn the heat and lights on and open up for the work crews.”

  “Who’d you piss off to get that shift?”

  “It’s what they had.” Kenny sipped his coffee, looked into the cup. “I worked twenty-eight years over at Osteen’s in Tarentum as a master machinist. Got laid off about a year-and-a-half ago.”

  “This the first thing you found since?”

  Kenny nodded. “Enough piecework here and there to screw up the unemployment. Not enough to live on.” Another sip. Sheetz coffee ruled. This batch was hot enough to melt solder. “I keep reading how Pittsburgh’s recession-proof now, everybody works in education and medical and things like that. I thought about telling that to the mortgage company when that jagov
senator from Kentucky killed the unemployment extension. Anyway, my boy shows me a thing in the Post-Gazette about these guys in their fifties who might never work again, and the next day my wife seen this ad for the casino. I thought maybe I could be a dealer. I hear they make nice money and good tips. Hell, I’d’a been happy to tend bar. This is what they had.”

  Not the first time Doc had heard a similar story. He wanted to feel worse for Kenny, but he knew ten guys per block in what used to be downtown with stories at least as bad. “You didn’t happen to know a guy named Mike Pelczarski over at Osteen’s, did you?”

  “Knew him to say hello. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. Me and his boy used to play ball together. Mickey had an arm like a cannon, throw it all the way from the fence to the catcher on a line. Of course, he was just as likely to throw it over the backstop, so his value was—I don’t know—dubious?”

  Kenny laughed, loosened his death grip on the coffee. “I know what you mean. I played some outfield in Legion ball. I might not look like it now, but I could cover some ground.”

  Doc had him talking now, time to get to work. “Can I get you anything else? A doughnut, maybe? We’re cops. We got them everywhere.”

  Kenny laughed again and sat back as far as the chair would allow. “No, thanks.” He tapped his chest. “Cholesterol.”

  “Me, too. Look, my partner’s going to be all day in Homewood. Why don’t you sit in his chair? It’s a lot more comfortable. It’s not like you’re a suspect or anything.”

  Kenny’s knees sounded like crinkled cellophane when he stood. He sat in Willie’s chair, crossed his right ankle over his left knee.