2 Grand Delusion (17 page)

Since I had the uneasy feeling that the videotape I made
did
have something to do with it, I didn't answer his question. "Look, if Tony doesn't go to school, they'll sic Social Services on him by the end of the week. He'll have to go back to his mother, or some weird foster care situation. If you open your home to kids that need help, you have to take responsibility."

"I
am
taking responsibility. Come here. Wait 'til you see this." He headed off to the back room, and I had no choice but to follow.

As soon as I entered the room, the smell of paint overpowered my nose, and a medley of colors overpowered my eyes. The whole floor was covered by a huge square of brightly painted cardboard. When I say "painted," I'm using the term in its most liberal sense. Some of the colors looked like they had been thrown on, and still others had been dripped on, or fingerpainted on, or mixed with mashed potatoes and then splotched on.

Ordinarily this kind of stuff is not my cup of tea, but the hodgepodge of colors and techniques somehow "worked," as they say in the art world. Even more impressive, the painted cardboard had been carved into a giant jigsaw puzzle with about fifty pieces, and each piece had its own fullness of color and proportions, its own artistic integrity.

"Who made this?" I asked, not trying to hide my amazement. Dennis pointed at Tony, who was beaming like a thousand-watt bulb. "You're kidding," I said to Tony. "This is
yours?"

He was too overcome with pride to say anything, so he just nodded. Dennis spoke up for him, that slightly manic edge still there in his voice. "I asked Tony what he was into, and he said jigsaw puzzles. So I gave him some old cardboard and leftover paint and other junk, and he's been in here working ever since yesterday morning. Not bad, huh?"

"Not bad?
It's fabulous!" I slapped the kid five. "From now on I'll have to call you Picasso."

"Picasso? Who's that?" Tony asked.

Dennis cut in quickly. "So tell me, you think Tony would be doing anything remotely this exciting if he was in school?
Hah
. He could go to school twelve years straight without a single one of his teachers ever giving him stuff to make a puzzle with. They'd never even know he was into jigsaw puzzles in the first place."

I felt bad that I hadn't known about Tony's love of jigsaw puzzles myself. Dennis's idealism was making me feel like an old fogy, as I often felt when I was with him. Time to put an end to this line of conversation. "Dennis, I need to talk to you."

"So,
nu?"
An Irishman who spoke Yiddish—it was hard to dislike the guy. "Go ahead, talk."

"Privately."

We both looked over at Tony, who squirmed and said, "Okay, see you later—"

"No, stay right here," Dennis interrupted, frowning at me. "Children deserve for us to be up front with them, not whisper behind their backs." For a guy who'd never had any children, Dennis sure had a lot of opinions about them. If he ever got around to having pipsqueaks of his own, I'd root for them to be especially wild kids who drove him crazy. "If you have anything to say about Tony—"

"I don't. It's about me and you." I was surprised by the tough-guy timbre of my voice. Without even meaning to, I'd switched into Sam Spade interrogation mode. It was becoming second nature.

Dennis was startled into silence—no small achievement. Tony said, "I'm going skateboarding," and started out.

I expected Dennis to warn him to be careful and stay on the sidewalk. But he offered no such admonitions; maybe they didn't fit in with his ultra-laid-back childrearing philosophy. So that made it my job to play the cautious parent, a role I hate. "Watch out for cars," I told Tony.

"Yeah, yeah," he called back, in a bored voice.

"Jake, I got to be honest," Dennis told me as soon as Tony was gone. "I'm not too comfortable being alone with you."

"Why not?"

"Because as far as I can figure it, you killed two people."

Hmm. That would explain the manic edge I'd noticed. But on the other hand, maybe he had other reasons for feeling uncomfortable, reasons he wasn't telling me. I cut to the chase. "Dennis, why were you paying extortion money to Pop?"

His eyes widened in surprise. "What in God's name are you talking about?"

He looked utterly sincere. But Zapper had been positive that Pop was getting money from Dennis. I acted like I was positive, too. "Don't fuck with me."

"Have you gone off the deep end?"

"Hey, I thought lying was supposed to be bad for your sobriety."

"Jake, I realize you're under a lot of pressure, but—"

"And now you're paying off Manny Cole, aren't you?"

He shook his head in bewilderment. "Are you kidding? Why would I pay
him
off?"

Had Zapper been wrong about Dennis? Was he actually clean?

I felt like crawling underneath Tony's jigsaw puzzle, but instead I forged full-speed ahead. "Here's the deal. Pop extorted money from you and about five other people. Cole found out and demanded that Pop share the profits. When Pop said no, Cole killed him and took over the business for himself. Now you can either help me prove it, in which case I do my best to keep you out of it; or you stonewall me, I go straight to the cops with everything I know about you, and your ass is theirs. Your choice, buddy."

He just stood there looking stunned, but not afraid.
Damn,
he was calling my bluff. My Sam Spade act had failed miserably. I better get out of there before I broke down and started crying. I threw him a fierce glare, snapped, "Suit yourself," and walked around the jigsaw puzzle to the door.

But then he stopped me. "Hey, you think those cops will even give you the time of day? They're all a bunch of asshole buddies, from the chief on down. Even if Pop and Cole
were
extorting money, Walsh would hush it up."

My heart pounded. Was this an oblique admission? Had Zapper been right about Dennis after all?

"Let me straighten you out: nothing is getting hushed up around here," I said, keeping my hand on the doorknob like I was threatening to leave at any moment. "This is a murder investigation. I've got Dave Mackerel on my side. You don't help me out, then Dave will be all over you, and so will Bobby Hawthorne, the Assistant D.A." I was throwing names around like crazy. If Dave found out what I was saying about him, he'd shoot me.

"I still don't see what all this has to do with Pop being murdered," Dennis whined.

Yes,
whined
. I
had
him.

"Well, too fucking bad. You either eschew the obfuscation—right now—or I tell Dave to come in here and throw the book at you." I was so full of shit my ears should have turned brown. I turned the doorknob, praying silently for Dennis to stop me—

And he did. "For God's sake,
all right!”
he said, putting his hand to his forehead like he had a headache. "If I really thought this had anything to do with the murder, I'd have told you a long time ago." He glowered at me. "I still think you did it. You're just looking for some stupid alibi."

"Spare me the legal commentary and tell me what happened."

He gave an exasperated wave of his arm. Then he sank down defeatedly on the floor next to Tony's puzzle and told me his sordid tale.

It all started back in January, when Pop cited Arcturus for littering the sidewalk out front. Cost to Arcturus: $100.

Then in February, Pop gave Dennis and several Arcturus volunteers numerous nitpicky parking tickets. Total cost: $200.

In March, Pop cited Arcturus for a grab-bag assortment of traffic, littering, and noise violations. Total cost: $400.

In April, Pop cited Arcturus for improving the rear exterior of their building without getting prior approval from the Zoning Board. Arcturus had to hire a lawyer to deal with it. The lawyer gave them a bargain-basement price, but even so . . . Total cost: $600.

In May, Pop came to Dennis one evening when he was in the building alone. He showed Dennis a citation he'd written up against Arcturus for operating a skateboard store in a residential neighborhood without a proper license. Total projected cost, if Arturus fought it: who knows? At least four figures, maybe even five.

And if Arcturus fought and lost, they'd be forced to find another building. "Only we have a cash flow problem right now, until our Youth Services and CDBG grants come in. So by the time we sold this building and found another place that's cheap enough, we'd be bankrupt," Dennis said bitterly.
"Sayonara,
Arcturus. I'm out of a job, and more important, all the kids who depend on Arcturus, kids who are growing up without decent parenting or food or love, except what they find here—"

I cut him off. "So what happened?"

Dennis made a fist, either wanting to punch Pop or punch me, I'm not sure. "I paid him to go away."

"How much?"

Dennis rubbed his forehead with his fist. His headache was getting worse. "Two hundred bucks a month."

I whistled through my teeth. "Two hundred a month? You mean, like,
forever?"

"That was the arrangement. And then we'd operate free from police interference. If the neighbors bitched about skateboarding or noise or whatever, he'd take care of it."

"So this payoff thing started in May?"

"Yeah."

"And kept going all the way until he died?"

Dennis nodded ruefully. "First of every month. Regular as the phone company."

"But with Arcturus dead broke, that must have been a huge hardship."

"You're telling me. August and September, it came right out of my own paycheck."

My heart was pounding again. I tried to keep cool. "So when Pop died, you figured that would be the end of it."

"Hell, I won't lie, I was ecstatic when he died. But then that asshole Cole came along, and now I have to pay
him."

I gave Dennis a friendly nod. "Fucking pigs, huh?"

He nodded back, grateful that I was being so agreeable. "Yeah, fucking pigs. I don't blame you for killing the guy."

"Only one thing."

"What?"

"I didn't kill him. You did."

Dennis's head snapped back, and he tried to laugh. "That's crazy!"

"Where were you that night?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Because you do." I stepped around the puzzle, giving him my best Clint Eastwood look. He backed up, almost knocking over a paint can. "Here's what happened that night. You were driving home from the Thursday night coffeehouse at Arcturus. You saw Pop's car parked in front of 107 Elm. It was the first of the month. You were broke. You decided to confront him about lowering the payoff amount. But he just laughed at you. So you got on your usual high horse. He lost his temper and popped you a couple. You got mad and grabbed his gun—"

"I don't believe this. You're trying to frame me!"

"And you killed Zapper too, didn't you?"

"Why would I do that?!"

"Because he saw you kill Pop, and
he
started blackmailing you, too!"

Dennis's big, hammy hands opened wide, like they were eager to squeeze my neck. "You get out before I . . ."

"Before you what? Kill me?"

"Get the fuck out!" he roared.

No problem. I'd gotten what I came for. I opened the door.

Little Tony was standing right there, with a skateboard under his arm and paralyzed fear on his face.

"Tony—" Dennis and I both said at the same time.

But Tony threw his skateboard at us and ran away. By the time I made it outside he was gone from sight.

Dennis was right behind me. "Now look what you've done. He was just starting to trust me."

"Good thing he stopped," I said.

But I wasn't sure I meant it. Was Saratoga's left-wing Santa Claus really the killer?

I jumped on my bike and headed down the street, looking for Tony so I could try to comfort him. I didn't know what I'd say to the kid, but maybe I'd come up with something.

I rode all around Saratoga for the next hour, but never found a trace of him.

19

The wind picked up and the temperature dropped another five degrees. I wasn't wearing my jacket and I was chilled to the bone.

I rode my bike up Elm Street toward home. Maybe a PB and J sandwich for lunch would cure all of my physical and spiritual ills. It often does.

The TV vans were gone, but there was a cop car parked in front of my house. Well, hell, I hadn't done anything wrong . . . had I? Fighting an impulse to turn my bike around and have lunch in town somewhere, or maybe get started on that trip to Mexico, I pedaled resolutely onward.

As I rode closer, I noticed the cop car was empty. A sudden thought hit me:
What if there's some cop lying on the backseat in a pool of blood?
Breaking into an instant sweat, I squealed my brakes. Why was all this shit happening to me? Now I really did turn my bike around and zoom off.

But then I turned my head for one last look and saw a cop: Manny Cole. He wasn't lying in a pool of blood, he was walking stealthily underneath my grape arbor. And he was looking all around, to make sure no one was watching him.

I veered my bike hard to the right, hiding myself behind the same bedraggled bushes that I'd thrown Zapper's knife into. Safe from Cole's sight, I studied him. He was sneaking off toward the backyard of 107. Why was he acting so furtive? And why did that jacket he was carrying under his arm look so familiar?

Because it was
my
jacket!

I got off the bike and stashed it in the bushes. Then I stashed myself in there too and waited.

A minute passed, maybe two. It felt like hours. From my hiding place I could see Cole's car, but not Cole himself. Was he in Zapper's backyard, or mine? And what the heck was he doing with my jacket?

I poked my head out from behind the junipers, then quickly poked it back in again. Cole was walking down my driveway toward his car.

But he wasn't acting furtive anymore, he was strutting proudly.

And he was minus my jacket.

After he drove away, I jumped out of the bushes, deposited my bike on the driveway, and ran to Zapper's backyard. The jacket wasn't there. I ran to my own backyard; still no jacket.

I didn't get it. Had Cole planted my jacket inside Zapper's apartment, to incriminate me? But that didn't make sense; no doubt the cops had already gone through the apartment for clues last night, after the murder.

But Cole had
something
up his sleeve, that was for sure, and I better have something up mine. Screw it, maybe I should just break into Zapper's apartment and find out what Cole had done. Had he stuffed my jacket behind the sofa or under the bed, so the other cops would believe they must have missed it when they went through the apartment the first time?

I was an old hand at breaking and entering; when I was busy solving that other murder, I did it three times. All I needed now was the hammer from my kitchen tool box, so I could smash open a window. Eager to get the B and E job done before any cops came back, I stepped quickly to my side porch, opened the screen door—

And right there, hanging on its customary hook, was my jacket.

How bizarre. Why did Cole take my jacket only to put it right back?

I picked it up. There didn't seem anything different about it. I checked my pockets and found the usual crumpled chocolate bar wrappers, nothing else. There were the customary faded areas on the elbows; some muddy spots here and there, most of which came from my trip to the cemetery; a couple of dark reddish stains near the right wrist, which must have come from . . .

From what?

Grape juice? No, not purple enough. I brought my nose close and sniffed. It smelled a little like iron, and something else I couldn't identify—

Oh, my God.
I sniffed again. Horrified, I threw the jacket away from me to the ground.

It was
dried blood
.

Cole had rubbed some of Zapper's blood into my jacket! Some time soon—today, I'd bet—the cops would come roaring up to my house with a search warrant.

And I'd be stone busted.

Gut-wrenching panic took over my body. I grabbed the jacket from the ground, jumped into my old Toyota Camry, and backed up. I heard a
thunk;
it was my bike, getting crunched beneath my wheels. My trusty old Raleigh that had been with me for fifteen years, since before I had the money to buy a car.

But I had no time to mourn. In the rearview mirror I spied a cop car coming up Elm toward my house—and toward me. Was the big search about to begin? Would their warrant cover my car, too? Next to me, that incriminating bloody jacket was burning a hole in my car seat. I could just imagine Cole's evil grin as he picked up my jacket and pretended to spot the blood for the first time.

Slamming my foot on the accelerator, I tore off as fast as my antique Camry could carry me.

Behind me the cop car sped up, honking its horn. No, wait, not just one cop car—there were two of them.

Praying to the god of Japanese cars, I zigged right on Hyde Street and zagged left on West Circular, trying to shake the cops. But they closed in on me. Their sirens started screaming, and so did I. A recycling truck lumbered along ahead of me, forcing me to slow down.
Damn
. The cops raced toward me, lights flashing.

Only one thing to do. I sped around the truck—and came face to face with a television van bearing down on me from the other direction. I caught a quick glimpse of Max Muldoon's thick mustache and terrified face in the driver's seat as I swerved back to the right just in time, almost crashing into a parked minibus. I heard the agonized squealing of the TV van's brakes as we missed each other by inches. I raced on.

Behind me the sirens blared. But the cop cars were temporarily stuck. Muldoon, petrified by his near accident, had stopped his van cold in the middle of the street. That left the recycling truck and the cops immobilized behind the parked minibus. I turned left on Washington and put my pedal to the metal, feeling more like Bruce Willis than I ever expected to feel in this life.

But then the sound of the sirens changed, and I could tell the cops had broken free of their tormentors. If they turned right on Washington, I had a shot. If they turned left, I was one dead action hero.

I looked in the mirror. They turned left.

But I was a block ahead of them, and there were about four cars between us. Maybe if I slipped off of Washington Street right now, while they were still busy straightening their wheels, they wouldn't see me. No time to think about it; I swerved sharply into the Grand Hotel parking lot and raced to the other side of the building.
Oh, shit—the exit on the other side was blocked!
Because of the renovation work that had just begun, there were two huge Dumpsters barring my way.

If the cops had seen me, I was trapped. I ducked my head down under the wheel, as if that might somehow protect me from danger. The sirens screamed closer and closer, and a vision of those cages at the Saratoga City Jail came unbidden into my head.

But then the sirens screamed off down the road.

I got my Toyota in gear, backed up, and tore off down Washington in the opposite direction from the cops. I turned left on Broadway and realized too late that my route was taking me right past the police station. There were two more cop cars idling out front. I slowed way down to something approaching the speed limit, gritted my teeth . . . and drove past them without incident. Then I sped up and kept on going.

I needed to get rid of that goddamn jacket—fast.

Taking back roads, I drove out to Price Chopper, near the mall. I scrounged up four dollars in nickels and pennies from the ashtray, went into the store, and bought a pair of scissors. Then I went back to the car and hacked my jacket into three different pieces. I didn't want some lucky garbageman finding the jacket and wearing it, then learning from the local TV news that it was an important piece of evidence in a homicide case.

I threw two pieces of my jacket in the Price Chopper Dumpster. The third piece, a small section of sleeve containing the bogus bloodstains, I stuffed in an empty shoe box. I shoved the box deep into a garbage can outside The Perfect Fit, a clothing store next door to Price Chopper.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I got back in my car and started it up. Then I froze. What would I tell the cops when they asked me where my jacket was? I needed to buy a replica. It was a pretty standard denim jacket, from The Gap. But I was scared to go to The Gap in Saratoga Mall—what if the cops questioned The Gap salesmen?

So I went back into Price Chopper and got some money out of the cash machine. Then I drove half an hour north to Aviation Mall in Glens Falls. I left the radio off, afraid I might find out the cops had an all points bulletin out on me.

I fished a well-worn Adirondack Lumberjacks baseball cap out of the trunk and pulled it down low over my eyes, trying to look as commonplace and unmemorable as possible. Hopefully Pop's murder hadn't made such a big splash up in Glens Falls, and I wouldn't be recognized. Keeping my head down, I went into The Gap, picked out a denim jacket quickly before any salespeople came over to help me, and paid in cash.

Of course, I couldn't face the cops with a jacket that looked brand new. So on my way home I turned off of Route 9 onto a cornfield, got out of the car, and rolled the jacket around in the mud.

Now I was ready.

And so were the cops, as I discovered when I got home.

There were cop cars and TV vans galore out front. Before I could get into the house, I had to pass a gauntlet of TV cameras. I expected Muldoon to ask me why I'd raced around him before, but he didn't. I guess I'd driven by him too fast for him to see my face.

Inside my house, Cole and five other cops were having the time of their lives turning the place upside down. Andrea was begging them to take it easy, but they paid her no attention. They could barely contain their vicious delight as they threw our books, blankets, clothes, and the rest of our worldly possessions into big piles in the middle of all the rooms. Thank God Leonardo and Raphael were off at a friend's house.

The cops claimed they were looking for the gun I'd shot Zapper with. But I knew what they were
really
looking for—or at least, what
Cole
was really looking for. I wondered, did Lieutenant Foxwell, Young Crewcut, and the other cops who were ransacking my house know about Cole's evidence-planting scam?

When I walked into our upstairs bedroom, Cole and Young Crewcut were rummaging through Andrea's underwear drawer. I eyed them silently from the doorway. Then Cole turned, his large hands full of my wife's panties, and saw me.

His eyes immediately went to the denim jacket I was wearing. He dropped the underwear on the floor and got an excited gleam in his eyes, which he tried to hide by acting angry. "How come you ran away from us?" he growled.

"Ran away? What are you talking about?" I asked innocently.

"Talking about you hauling ass in your gray Toyota like some kind of wacko. I should bust you for reckless driving."

"Must have been some other gray Toyota."

"No way, you dumb fuck. I got your license plate."

I took a chance. "Oh, yeah? Then tell me, what is my license plate?"

His nostrils flared angrily. I'd caught him. But he recovered quickly. "What clothes were you wearing last night?"

"Why?"

"Because we got a warrant for your clothes, too."

I dropped my jaw and let my mouth hang open, doing my best imitation of a frightened fish. "M-m-my clothes?"

Cole gave a big sneering grin. "Yes. We'll start with your jacket."

"No! You can't have it!" I shouted in a panicky voice.

"We'll see about that." He advanced on me, with Young Crewcut at his side.

I let them back me up until I hit the bedroom wall. "All right!" I screamed. "I'll give it!"

With shaking hands, I took off my jacket and turned it over to Cole. He flashed me a triumphant look and began examining the jacket, trying not to be too obvious about knowing there were bloodstains near the wrist. So first he checked the neck, then the back, then he worked his way down the arm to the sleeve . . .

And suddenly his eyes filled with alarm.
Where was the blood?!

Frantic, he turned the sleeve over.
Still no blood!
Then he tried the other sleeve, wildly turning it every which way.
Nothing!
Bewildered, he stared at me. I couldn't resist. I stuck out my tongue.