CONCOURSE (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin) (18 page)

Eddie’s look held a certain amount of satisfaction, as though he was gratified that I might not be as stupid as he’d feared.

“You heard someone ask ‘What are you doing here?’ The way a guard would if he found someone unauthorized in his area. That’s why you think it was the guard. Howe.”

Eddie nodded. I was about to ask another question but he held up his hand, then gestured impatiently, as though inviting me closer. I wasn’t sure what he wanted, but I took a stab, repeated the sentence again: “What are you—” Eddie stopped me. He jabbed a finger emphatically.

“
You
,” I said. “‘What are
you
doing here?’ He recognized someone? He knew the person he was talking to?”

This time Eddie almost grinned.

“Did he sound frightened?” I asked. “A man confronting a street gang?”

Eddie shook his head.

“Was there an answer? Did you hear the other voice?”

He nodded.

“Did you recognize it?”

Shake, no.

“Man or woman?”

His hand moved from me to himself.

“A man. What did he say?”

Eddie jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“You’re out?”

He rolled his eyes, looked to Ida.

“What is this, the World Series?” she said. “Not you’re out. You’re through, done, finished, over, kaput. Right?”

Eddie nodded, gave me the look the teacher gives the dumb pupil when the smart one’s through reciting.

“All right,” I said. “I’m trying. Did he say anything else?”

Eddie pointed to his own ear, lifted his hand apologetically.

“There was more, but he didn’t hear it very well,” Ida said.

“Then that’s it?”

Eddie lifted a finger: one more thing. His fist came down with a clump on the arm of his chair.

“A blow? You heard the sound of that?”

His hand rocked side to side.

“Maybe,” Ida said. “He’s not sure.”

I looked from one of them to the other.

“Well?” said Ida. “What about it, flatfoot? Did we help?”

“I think so. I’ll let you know.” I stood.

“Where are you going?”

“There are some more people I want to talk to, downstairs. Can you do me a favor?”

“Name it, shamus.”

I grinned. “You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?”

“How about you call me Dollface?”

“Okay, Dollface. Run interference for me. Check the hallway to see if Mrs. Wyckoff is there. I don’t want to risk being thrown out of here before I’m ready to go.”

“I can do better than that,” Ida said, with a hint of smugness. “Eddie, you wait here. Follow me, gumshoe.”

“Wait. Eddie, thanks a lot. Can you do me another favor too?”

He nodded.

“I’m supposed to meet someone here. A Chinese woman. She’s small and she’ll probably be wearing black.”

“She was here yesterday,” Ida interrupted.

“That’s right.” I was impressed. “She was undercover.”

“Undercover!” Ida snorted. “If people weren’t getting killed around here this thing would be a riot.”

“Anyway,” I said to Eddie, “if you see her, head her off, okay? Get her to wait for me in some out-of-the-way corner. I don’t want her to get thrown out of here either.”

Eddie nodded, smiling. Ida said, “Aren’t you going to give him your signet ring or something so she knows it’s really you?”

I looked at my hands. Maybe I’d sprouted a signet ring.

I took a business card out of my pocket, gave Eddie that. “Good idea, Dollface. Okay, let’s go.”

We left Eddie driving his wheelchair into the hallway, presumably to find a sunny spot to lie in wait for Lydia.

Ida and I crossed the carpeted room to a door discreetly hidden in the paneling of the south wall. Ida pointed to the knob. “I can open it, but it takes a while.”

“Stand back, ma’am.” The door wasn’t locked, but it was heavy, and it stuck in its painted frame. I’d thought it was a closet, but when I yanked it open a narrow passage was revealed behind it.

Ida put her finger to her lips, led me along the dim passage. It was lined with doors, and it jogged twice and seemed to branch once before it reached a set of narrow stairs.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Shhh!” she scolded. She went on in a whisper, “The Helping Hands offices are along there.”

I lowered my voice. “What’s this passage for?”

“In the old days,” Ida hissed pointedly, “when this was a retirement home for ladies and gentlemen and not a warehouse for the feeble, it was considered only decent for the maids and cleaners to be able to get around without crossing the paths of the retired ladies and gentlemen. Those—” pointing at the stairs—“go to the basement. It’s three landings down. Don’t go any farther, because there’s nothing down there but storage.”

“There’s storage below the basement?”

“Of course. In the old carriage house. Piles of useless old rusted-up junk.” She grinned wickedly. “Just like in the bedrooms upstairs.”

“Don’t talk like that, Dollface. Listen, thanks a lot. I’ll be back up soon. Why don’t you go on back and help Eddie ambush Lydia?”

“My pleasure, hawkshaw.” She turned and shuffled off.

I started down the stairs, circled down three landings. At the third there was a door. It would open at a point more or less opposite the staff room, if my internal compass was right. I stood for a moment, my hand on the knob, listening. No sound came from beyond it, no footsteps on the concrete floor; probably I could step out into the corridor, and none the wiser.

Right then, though, I did hear sounds: quiet scraping sounds, and footsteps. Not from beyond the door, but from below, the dimness where the stairs continued down and disappeared.

I strained to hear. On the stairs? No; the footsteps got fainter, faded away.

Well, I told myself, it’s their old rusted-up junk. Still, it interested me, to know who might be walking around in it.

I continued noiselessly down the stairs. Three more landings; these servants’ stairs were steeper, twisted more than the main flights, above. At the bottom there was no door. I flattened myself cautiously against the wall, inched forward into a cavernous space lit only by a row of dim bulbs hanging in wire cages from the ceiling.

I looked around, saw no one, heard nothing. The air smelled musty and damp; the floor was hard-packed dirt. About fifty feet away I could make out the outline of wide double doors, stable doors. These must be the ones that I’d seen my first day here, the doors that opened onto Chester Avenue behind the Home. As my eyes adjusted to the faintness of the light I saw the junk, in piles down the center and against the walls of the room. Well-organized junk, with rows to walk between it, the way a warehouse is set up.

And, as in a warehouse, a forklift sat in one of the aisles, off to my left.

I examined the pile closest to me. Then, moving into the room, I inspected the next.

Ida was wrong. It wasn’t useless, it wasn’t junk; in most cases, it wasn’t particularly old. A commercial-size air-conditioning compressor, some hot-water heaters, a group of mushroom roof fans. Some equipment I couldn’t identify. Something that looked like the burner for a large boiler. Lengths of copper tubing, neatly bundled; copper leaders also, green with age but in good shape, stacked in a long, low pile. And, in a row on the floor, architectural ornaments: stone balusters; pieces of an elaborate copper cornice; colored terracotta
tile gleaming dully in the half-light. A leering gargoyle half as tall as I was.

They steal the faces right off the buildins
, Fuentes had said, grinning.
They steal the faces right from under you nose
.

T
HIRTY
-O
NE

I
stood in the shadows, watched the gargoyle sneer at me. He was right. Talk about dim bulbs, Smith. Right under you nose, also you feet. A warehouse. Hot building parts, half-price equipment. Landlords’ specials. No manufacturers’ warranties, but never you mind: at these prices, if what you bought gives out, you can always come back for another. And our little sideline, a no-questions-asked source of supply for those trendy Soho shops specializing in architectural detail and ornament. Real Pieces from Real Buildings. The perfect gargoyle for that hard-to-fill corner of the loft. Or this cast-stone cornice, just one piece of glass and voila! a coffee table.

Well. So someone was cleaning up. Who?

I was asking myself that when the lights went out.

I pushed my back against the nearest pile of boxes. My hand wormed into my jacket, came out with my .38. I listened, heard nothing; then, faintly, footsteps, and from above, the closing of a door. Not from the staircase I’d come down, but from farther north, the other end of the room.

A second stair. That made sense.

I forced myself to stay still, listen longer, until nothing had sounded in my ears except my own heartbeat for a long time. My eyes strained through the darkness. The only light came from a sharp line that forced itself in around the stable doors; but once inside it faltered in the vastness and age of the space, lost its purpose, dissipated and disappeared.

Finally, feeling my slow way along the aisle, I began to move in
the direction of the sounds. When I found the opening to the second staircase it was by that skin-sense that tells you things have suddenly changed. Positive becomes negative, solid becomes void; you can’t see it, but you know.

I went as silently up this stair as I’d come down the other. Three twisting flights, a mirror image. I tried to picture where I was in the building, and by the top I’d just about figured it out. I stood at the door a minute, listening to rumbles and hisses. Then I opened it. I was right. This was one end of the equipment-jammed, oil-smelling boiler room.

And facing me across it, with confusion and anger all over his unshaven face, was Pete Portelli.

I stepped into the room. Portelli and I stared at each other in silence for a few long moments. I pushed the door shut behind me, not turning around.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” Portelli growled, but he knew the answer.

“I’ve been downstairs.” My words were almost lost in the roar of the boiler. “Examining your operation. Very nice. Neat, clean. I’m surprised.”

Portelli licked his lips, glanced warily at the door behind me. “I thought you don’t work here anymore.”

It was hot where I was standing, near the boiler. Hot and noisy. I moved closer to him. “I’m moonlighting, Pete. Sort of like you. Portelli’s Moonlight Supply. You need it, we steal it. I bet every crooked contractor in the Bronx knows your number, right?”

My approach brought me out of the shadows. Portelli caught sight of my right hand, where my gun dangled. One side of his mouth twitched; I saw fear begin to spread itself across his face.

It pleased me, to see that.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” His voice was shakier than his words.

I stopped with six feet still between us. “Your storeroom, Pete. Pretty building parts all in a row.”

“Gotta keep parts around. Old fucking building like this, things break down all the time.” He licked his lips.

“Three hot-water heaters? Five miles of copper leader? Terracotta tile, in case you decide to redecorate? Come off it, Pete. That equipment has serial numbers. And somebody must have noticed he’s missing his gargoyle.”

Portelli was silent, watched the gun. Then a light came into his eyes. “Ahhh, shit,” he said, his voice stronger. “Awright, what do you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“You gave a shit, you’d’a went to the cops, or at least that bitch Wyckoff. Not that that’d do you any good. So what is it, you wanna be cut in?”

“Is that an offer?”

“You want it in writing?”

“Is it the offer you made Mike Downey?”

His mouth twitched again at Mike’s name. “I never offered that snot-nose mick bastard nothing.”

“But he knew what you were doing, didn’t he?”

Portelli spat into the corner.

Something exploded in me when he did that. I had him slammed to the wall before he saw me coming. My fist pounded his stomach. He doubled over, making choking noises; then he was sick on the concrete floor.

I waited. When he was through I hauled him up by his shirt collar, shoved the gun barrel into his neck. “I knew Mike,” I said. “He was a friend of mine.”

A thin strand of vomit glistened on the stubble of Portelli’s chin. His breath was hot and it stank. “I didn’t know that,” he rasped. His eyes were wide with fear. “How the fuck did I know that?”

“Would it have mattered when you killed him?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Bullshit.” I felt my finger on the trigger.

“I didn’t! Hey!” There was terror in Portelli’s eyes now.

I suddenly wondered what was in my own.

I released him, stepped slowly away, lowered the gun. “Tell me about it.”

He breathed heavily. The rumble of the boiler hadn’t stopped. The air was hot and close; the reek of diesel fumes almost covered the smell of vomit.

Portelli narrowed his eyes, got stupid-crafty. “I don’t know nothing about it.”

“Pete,” I said, “if I shoot you now no one will hear it. I’ll go back the way I came and no one will know I’ve been here. I want to,
Pete. I really want to kill you. I may anyway, if I don’t like what you tell me. Now, try again.”

Some piece of equipment switched on, maybe a pump. I could feel the change rumbling in the room.

“It wasn’t me,” Portelli said bitterly, in the voice of a man who has tried his best but been betrayed by the stupidity of others. “I told that fucking idiot he was gonna screw everything up.”

Screw everything up. That’s what a man’s death comes to. “What fucking idiot?”

“Howe.”

T
HIRTY
-T
WO

I
took a beat, digesting Portelli’s words. “Henry Howe killed Mike?” I asked.

Portelli’s eyes flicked to the gun in my hand. “He said he didn’t mean to, but I didn’t believe him.”

Uh-huh. Put as much distance between Howe and yourself as you can, now.

“I don’t care what you believe. What happened?”

For a minute he looked as though he were deciding whether to talk. Then he glanced at the gun. He spoke to it. “Part of it you got right. The kid found out about the operation.”

“How?”

“Just nosing around. Couldn’t mind his own goddamn business.” Portelli’s mouth twitched again; maybe he’d suddenly remembered Mike was a friend of mine.

“And?” I said.

“He checked it out a few nights, until he had it figured out. Then he reported to Howe. His boss, you know.” The words held a nasty sarcasm.

“He hadn’t figured out Howe was working with you?”

“Working, my ass. That fat fucker never did shit. Me, I busted my goddamn hump on this thing.”

“Something to be proud of, Pete. So what was Howe’s piece?”

“What was his piece of anything? I paid him to keep his goddamn mouth shut.”

“How’d he find out in the first place?”

“Oh, give me a fucking break! He was the night super, how was he not gonna know?” He shifted his eyes quickly back to the gun, as though it might strike without warning if he didn’t watch it.

“So that’s what comes and goes from here at night.” I was catching on.

“No, I’m gonna unload someone else’s fucking furnace at noon in Macy’s window.”

I thought of Leon Vega, in a coma for six weeks after delivering here at night. “But the Home’s protection money doesn’t cover it?”

“Used to, till the moulies caught on. Now I got to pay my own.”

“That’s too bad, Pete.” I thought for a minute; he watched the gun. “Does the Home take a cut?”

“Are you kidding? No way. I don’t know what you think, but this ain’t a goddamn gold mine.”

“So Mrs. Wyckoff doesn’t know about this?”

He laughed nastily. “Sure she does. She found out after that greaseball got stomped.”

“Vega?”

“No, my fucking uncle Luigi.”

“She didn’t do anything about it?”

“She tried. Called me on the carpet, told me I better shut down or else.”

“What was the ‘or else’?”

“Oh, screw her. She could’ve fired me, but she’s so fucking scared this’ll come out and smear shit on her precious reputation, she’s got no ‘or else.’ Helping Hands and its reputation, that’s all she gives a shit about. Makes her a wimp.”

“So you didn’t shut down.”

“What does it look like?”

I thought about the well-ordered supply room down below, about trucks coming and going from it in the middle of the night. That kind of traffic could wake you up, if your room was on that side of the building.

Something else occurred to me. “That’s why Howe wore a beeper. So he could let the trucks in.”

“I hadda pay him extra for that,” said Portelli in aggrieved
tones. “But at least that way I could get some goddamn sleep sometimes. ’Course
I
have to be here when orders are going out. You don’t watch these spics, they’ll shake your hand and steal your fingers.” He tried the brown-toothed grin on me.

I stared at him. “Christ, you’re unbelievable.”

The grin faded. He checked to make sure the gun wasn’t coiling to strike.

“And the money in Howe’s locker?” I asked. “That was to pay for deliveries?”

“Right. My goddamn money. He wouldn’t lay out his own, the cheap bastard.”

That was so ridiculous I almost laughed.

“Hey,” Portelli said suddenly, “how come you know about that?”

“The money? How come you didn’t know that I knew?”

“Huh?”

No, he hadn’t known. That meant the hundred dollars, and my note, had vanished with somebody else.

“Did the cops know Howe had a locker here?”

“They asked me in the morning. I told them which one. I figured, so they find the cash, money’s money, right? It don’t tell where it came from. But it wasn’t there. Maybe he took it home. Hah! Maybe he took it with him.”

He grinned. I didn’t want him that comfortable. I looked at the gun in a thoughtful sort of way, turned it over in my hand. “So. Mike told Howe what he knew, and Howe killed him?”

“Not like that,” Portelli brownnosed quickly. “First he tried to cut him in. The kid said he’d think about it.”

“But he decided no?”

“Fucking Boy Scout,” he said sourly. “He wasn’t about to go on the pad. He was just buying time to figure a way out.”

“Out of what?”

“Howe worked for his fucking uncle. The kid didn’t want his uncle to know one of his guys was dirty.”

I suddenly felt cold in that overheated room. “That’s why Mike didn’t go to the police, or to Mrs. Wyckoff? He was protecting Bobby?”

Portelli nodded. “He told Howe he’d blow the whistle if we didn’t shut down. But that asshole Howe said
no-o-o
. He said we had the kid over a fucking barrel. The kid was afraid the uncle would
have another stroke if he found out. Howe said the kid would come around.”

“What happened?”

Portelli seemed about to spit again, but he changed his mind. “That one night, Downey told Howe that was the end. He was gonna go to Moran the next day if we didn’t shut down. No more screwing around.”

“So Howe killed him?”

“What Howe said, he tried to talk to him for a while, then hauled off and socked him because he was pissed off. The kid fell, hit his head. He died.”

The argument in the garden. What Ida had heard.

“Then Howe figured, better make it look good.”

“Good?” I said incredulously.

“Come on, the kid was dead. Howe was covering his ass.”

“And yours. So he made it look like the Cobras?”

“Well, everybody knows about those moulies, how they do it. So that’s how Howe did it.”

“And then he found the body. So if he had Mike’s blood on him it wasn’t a surprise.”

“I told him,” Portelli said. “I told him it was gonna screw things up.”

“And you killed him to prove it.”

“No,” he said quickly. “Uh-uh, no. I didn’t do that, either.”

“Who did?”

He looked at me as if he wasn’t sure I was all there. “The moulies. Must’ve been the moulies. Who else?”

“Why?”

“Because they were apeshit someone else was doing their thing. They wanted to show they were still the best. That’s what I figured.”

“But it was convenient for you.”

“Well, yeah, it turned out great,” he agreed, as though we were talking about catching a train. “At least till you come along. But that don’t mean I did it.”

“Pete,” I said, “the Cobras didn’t kill Howe. He was killed by someone he knew.”

For a moment, nothing but the pounding of the boiler and the stench of diesel fumes.

“How the fuck do you know that?” Portelli finally asked.

“And the police don’t think the Cobras killed Mike anymore, either.” That was stretching it, but I didn’t care.

Portelli didn’t answer.

“Whoever killed Howe,” I said, “had a reason. You’re the only guy I see, Pete.”

“Bullshit. To kill that jerk? Everybody had a reason.”

“Who’s everybody?”

“Everybody he ever met.”

“Meaning what?”

“Like I said, I paid him to keep his mouth shut. That’s what he did for a living, kept his mouth shut.”

“Blackmail?”

Portelli shrugged.

“Who else did he have things on?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“I’m asking you, Pete.”

“Jesus Christ! Who the fuck do you—”

I raised the gun again. “Don’t get stupid, Pete. You were doing so well.”

“Everybody,” he said quickly, flinching a little. “I don’t know. But he once said, any skeleton you got in your closet, Pete, I already counted the bones.”

My gun and I escorted Portelli back to his office, where I called Robinson. Portelli had promised, nodding his head cooperatively, that he would tell the police everything he’d just told me. I knew he wouldn’t. To the cops, he’d deny it all. Unless they could get Leon Vega’s cousin—or Leon Vega, if he came out of his coma—or Burcynski and his cigar to tie Portelli in, there was a good chance he could make the whole hot-parts operation look like Howe’s game. Who, me? I’m just the building super. How the fuck do I know what’s going on?

When Robinson came he left the cop he’d come with watching Portelli while I took him down into the old carriage house below the basement, showed him around. I told him what Eddie Shawn had told me and what Portelli had said.

“What was it?” Robinson asked. “Portelli had a sudden urge to confess?”

“I was persuasive. Do you have enough to hold him?”

Robinson looked around. Stacks of equipment threw sharp shadows under the hanging bulbs. “I have enough to take him in and question him. But I’ll have to look for a way to hang this on him that’ll stick. Do you think he killed Howe?”

I shook my head. “He hasn’t got the balls to do it the way it was done.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Do you believe Howe killed Downey?”

“Yes,” I said. “I believe that.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“Us? I got what I came for.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was hired to find out who killed Mike Downey. I found out.”

Impatience glittered in his blue eyes. “This is Robinson you’re talking to, Smith. Don’t even try to tell me you’re quitting now.”

“My guy’s dead. I’m done.”

“No,” he said. “First, we still have two unsolved murders. I don’t read you as a guy who’d walk away from that. Second, your buddy’s still in jail.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Somebody killed Howe. The Rev is still my best suspect.”

“That’s crap.”

“Your quitting is crap, too. You just want me off your tail.”

“That too.”

That didn’t faze him. “It’s okay,” he said. “I can pretend I believe you, if it makes you happy. Just remember, I like to be happy too.”

I couldn’t quite conjure up an image of Robinson, happy. “What would do that?”

“Anything you pick up that you tell me about, that makes me happy. Anything you keep to yourself, I get unhappy. For example, the stuff you got out of that old man. That makes me happy.”

“You could have gotten that stuff, if you’d asked him.”

Robinson could have made an excuse then, tried to explain to me why he hadn’t even attempted to interview Eddie Shawn; but he didn’t. He didn’t look away, either.

“Are you going to arrest Portelli?” I asked.

“Not now. We’ll take him in for questioning.” He looked
around thoughtfully. “Anybody else here involved in this?”

It was a good question, and one I had had certain thoughts on myself. I gave Robinson the answer he expected. “I don’t know.”

He gave me the answer I deserved. “If you find out,” he said, “I’d better be the first to hear about it.”

“Okay, boss. Is there anything in particular you want me to do?” My voice held sarcasm, but surprisingly little.

“You know what I want you to do.”

“Uh-huh. Well, in that case, I don’t have a lot of time to hang around chatting with you, Lieutenant. See you later.”

I went back up the stairs to the boiler room, through the hall and into the parking lot. I needed a cigarette, needed to think.

I wasn’t sure Robinson would make good on his threat against Carter, but I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t. He’d been right about one thing, though: I wasn’t about to drop this case before I knew all the answers. Maybe I should have; maybe more could have been salvaged at the end, if I had. Probably not. Probably Robinson would have found everything I found, eventually; maybe, because cops are ham-handed, even more would have been lost.

Sometimes, now, I comfort myself with that thought.