CONCOURSE (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin) (8 page)

F
IFTEEN

I
t was a long, long three hours until morning. I smoked some more cigarettes, paced up and down the halls. I played over the Schubert sonata in my head, felt my fingers twitch at the difficult passages. I stood at the front door, where the cool air carried the scent of autumn: dry leaves mixed with the perfume of the last roses. Beyond the wall a bus whined by. I couldn’t see it.

As the sky began to pale in the hour before dawn I stood on the porch with the young cop who’d drawn garden duty. He was tall, with heavy-rimmed glasses, and so buck-toothed that he seemed to be grinning even when he wasn’t. I asked him about the Cobras.

“Bad,” he said. “The worst.”

“What are they into? Drugs? Guns?”

“Some, probably.” He took his glasses off, rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Shit, I gotta get contacts. You wear contacts?”

“No. Tell me about the Cobras.”

“Never thought about contacts till yesterday. Basketball game, some asshole jammed me. Almost broke my nose.” He resettled his glasses gingerly. “Mostly what they do is protection.”

“Glasses?”

He laughed. “Glasses. Yeah, them too. I meant the Cobras.”

The first sparrow of the morning twittered in the branches above us.

“Protection? How do you mean?”

“Well, protection’s all the same, isn’t it? The Cobras don’t give a shit who does what, long as they get their cut.” He took off his glasses again, examined them. “They got this new kind now. You never have to clean ’em. You just wear ’em and throw ’em away.”

That must be contacts. I declined the new conversational gambit, went back to the Cobras. “You mean other people run rackets in the Cobras’ territory?”

“Sure. Lots of little entrepreneurs. The more the merrier. Makes the take bigger.”

“What if they don’t get their cut?”

He twirled his glasses by an earpiece. “You heard about that trucker a couple weeks ago? They didn’t kill him, just broke him up. That’s how they send a bill.”

“And if you don’t pay it?”

“You gotta be kidding.”

“Why?”

“You saw that guy. The stiff they pulled outta here tonight.”

“You think the Cobras did that?”

He looked at me a little blankly. “Well, sure they did. Why else was Hank Lindfors here? Lieutenant Robinson wouldn’t’ve called him if it wasn’t the Cobras.”

“Lindfors is the Cobra specialist at the four-one?”

“He’s the Cobra specialist in the whole world. You’re so interested in the Cobras, why don’t you ask him?” He looked at the glasses in his hand, rubbed his nose. “Wish I could see without these goddamn things. Wanna know what I think?”

I wasn’t sure what subject he was thinking about, but I said, “Sure.”

“I think the Cobras like it when they get their cut. I think they like it even better when they don’t.”

The soft gray sky was beginning to glow a clear red. From somewhere over my left shoulder came the call of a mourning dove; it was answered by another.

Dayton came on at seven, half an hour earlier than usual for him. Sharp rods of yellow light streaked through the trees as he came in the front door.

“How are you doing?” he asked me.

I stood. “I’m okay,” I said. “You’re a little early.”

“I thought you might want to get some breakfast before you come on again.” His dark eyes looked me over. His face didn’t register anything he saw. “Mr. Moran called me this morning.”

“I’m sorry, Dayton. I’m sorry about the job. I’m sorry about Howe.”

“The job …” He paused. “Mr. Moran will find me another
place. He always has. Though I will miss it here.” He came around behind me, punched the time clock. “Henry Howe …” He didn’t finish.

“You didn’t like him much, did you?”

“I didn’t care for him, no.” Dayton settled in the chair I’d vacated. His back remained straight, his bearing military, as he lifted the clipboard off the desk, glanced over it. “But that’s no way for a man to end.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “What was he like?”

Dayton’s eyes measured me before he answered. “He was generous with unwanted advice. He thought most men fools.”

“He doesn’t sound like Bobby Moran’s kind of guy.”

“He was smart, and he wasn’t a coward. Mr. Moran doesn’t ask much more than that, from most men.”

I took Dayton up on his offer, headed out to get some breakfast before the day shift started. The deli down by the Courthouse, he told me, opened early.

I parked in Lou Gehrig Plaza, the glorified lot at the end of the park. To my right, beyond the el, Yankee Stadium shouldered one-story bars and shops aside to get itself some breathing room. I could see the upper rows of ballpark seats, empty, waiting until next year. The Yanks had trailed their division, this year.

The deli smelled like grease and toast and coffee, coffee, coffee. Plates clanked and people shouted to-go orders at the counterman. I found a table; a waiter appeared at my elbow instantly. I ordered scrambled eggs and bacon, and took my first cup of coffee to the phone by the door to call Lydia.

“God, it’s early,” she said when she answered. “What’s up?”

“There’s trouble.” I ran through what had happened—Howe’s death, his gun, his cash.

She was silent for a moment. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“When? At four in the morning?”

“I’m working this case with you. I should have come up.”

“To do what?”

“Just to be there. Like you.”

“Lydia, what’s wrong?”

“I—nothing. It’s okay. Sometimes …” She paused again, then
said, “Let’s go into it later. I’m sorry. You must have had a horrible night and here I am giving you a hard time. What do you want me to do? Does this change things?”

She’d thrown me off balance. I recovered my thoughts, said, “From the police point of view, no. They’re calling it just a repeat performance. But it does change things for us, in one way: after today I won’t be on the inside anymore. I’m not sure what my next move is, but see what you can find out about Howe. And—” I stopped, watched a tall man with glasses, thinning hair, and a good blue suit walk past me into the deli. He worked his way to a table by the window, where he joined a younger man in an equally good suit who looked as though he’d been waiting.

“Bill? What is it?”

“Guess who’s here?”

“I’m not good at that in the morning.”

“Arthur Chaiken. And I’ll bet there are lots of things you’re good at in the morning.”

“Bill, don’t, okay?”

“Lydia—”

“Call me later?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, okay. Sure.”

We hung up. I went back to my table, where my eggs and bacon and buttered toast waited. I ate, watched Chaiken drink coffee while his companion ate a half-grapefruit and then a bagel, toasted but dry. Chaiken’s shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, and though it was close to ten years since I’d seen him and he was close to twenty years older than I, his long, friendly face hadn’t aged.

The younger man, who looked in his late thirties, had the square build and aggressive set of the shoulders college athletes develop. He had light eyes, rounded cheeks, fleshy lips: not handsome, but his movements were quick with energy and he had a ready smile. Chaiken, I remembered, was a squash player; that would account for his physique. I wondered what the other man did for sport.

I had a second cup of coffee; then, picking up my check, I stopped by Chaiken’s table on my way to the cash register.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Mr. Chaiken?”

Both men looked up. The younger man had been in the middle of a sentence, of which I caught the words, “don’t have to worry about that.”

I said, “You probably don’t remember me. Bill Smith. I’m a
private investigator. I used to work for you occasionally.”

Chaiken’s face melted into a smile. “Of course. How are you?” We shook hands. “God, that was years ago. That was another life.”

The younger man was smiling too, waiting. Chaiken’s hand stirred the air between us as he said, “This is Andy Hill. Andy’s with the Bronx Borough President’s office. Andy, Bill Smith. Damn good investigator, if you ever need one.”

I shook hands with Andy Hill.

“It’s not something the B.P. has much use for, but you never can tell,” Hill said. His light eyes, looking directly into mine, had the very slight squint of the contact-lens wearer. Maybe I should ask him how he liked them, for the buck-toothed cop.

“Well, Smith, how are you?” Chaiken asked. “What have you been up to? Have you eaten, by the way? Want to join us?”

I thought I saw a flash of annoyance in Hill’s eyes, but if it was there it was extinguished immediately.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I have to get to work. As a matter of fact, starting yesterday and until the end of the day today I’m working for you.”

He looked at me in confusion. “For me? I don’t get it.”

“As a guard, at the Bronx Home.”

His face clouded. “Oh. The Home. Have you … do you know about last night?”

“I was there right after it happened.”

He nodded; he didn’t seem to know what to say after that. Hill also remained silent. Either he already knew about last night too, or he had no curiosity whatsoever.

Chaiken thought of something to say. “I understand Mrs. Wyckoff’s dismissed that firm. Is that what you meant by ‘until the end of the day?’ ”

I nodded. “She blames us. The guards, I mean.”

“Well, you can see her point, can’t you? That’s why you hire a security firm. To prevent exactly this sort of thing.”

“If it’s what it looks like.”

He pursed his lips. The sunlight glinting in the window flashed off his horn-rimmed glasses, hid his eyes for a moment as he shifted in his chair to face me more directly. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure. The police say these are gang killings. Maybe so. But maybe they’re something else.”

“What else could it be?” Andy Hill wanted to know.

“I don’t know. Something directed at the Home, maybe. To intimidate. Or for some other reason.”

“What makes you say that?” Chaiken asked.

“Instinct.” And the bullet in Mike’s foot. And the gun in Howe’s belt. And six thousand dollars in cash. The real question, I thought to myself, is what makes me say it to you.

Chaiken frowned, and Andy Hill frowned, and I looked at my watch. “I’d better go. It was good seeing you again, Mr. Chaiken.”

“Good seeing you,” he echoed. We shook hands again. Chaiken’s hand was large, callused; Andy Hill’s, which he wiped on a napkin before offering to me, was smaller and softer; but it was Chaiken’s that was manicured.

I paid my bill, ordered a large black coffee to go. Outside, I stopped to light a cigarette in the bright Bronx sun. I felt a hand on my arm.

“Smith, wait.” It was Arthur Chaiken. He seemed a little ill at ease. “Look, Smith, this may be none of my business, but are things all right with you?”

“With me?” I was surprised. “I’m fine. Why?”

He grinned. “Because you look like hell.”

It came to me suddenly that besides the black eye and the sleepless night, I hadn’t shaved since this time yesterday. I grinned too. “No, I’m fine. This is a tough neighborhood. I’m wearing my tough-guy disguise.”

He smiled in answer to that, but then grew serious. “No, it’s not just that. This security-guard thing—it’s not what you used to do, is it?”

“I don’t do it much. Bobby Moran is a friend of mine. I’m helping him out.”

“Oh. That’s good. I mean, it really is none of my business, but I heard about your uncle—what was it, four years ago …?”

“Five.”

He nodded. “… and I heard you were badly hurt then. And when I saw you, just now … well, listen, Smith, if you need anything, a recommendation, contacts …”

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. But I’m really fine.”

“Okay.” He seemed to relax. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. Listen, call me, we’ll get together for a drink. You still eat Chinese food with your clients at three in the morning?”

“If the client’s buying.”

I promised to call and he returned to the deli, rejoined Andy Hill. The thoughtful frown that Hill was wearing as he’d watched us through the glass turned to the easy smile again as Chaiken sat down.

S
IXTEEN

I
drove north of the Home to a hardware store near Fordham Road. Hardware stores always open early. Then I went back, put the car in the lot. The cop in the back, who’d let me out, let me in.

Morales was still at the back door, doing his job, just as I had been at the front, even though there were cops in the garden and cops in the lot. Overkill; but maybe that wasn’t the right word.

Before I went to clock in I made a quick stop, in the dingy alcove where the lockers stood. I opened Howe’s, felt in the boot. The hundred-dollar bill I’d put back, clipped to a note that said, “See me—Smith,” was still there. I broke the blister packaging around the lock I’d just bought, memorized the combination, scuffed the lock around the concrete floor to kill the newness and snapped it onto the locker door.

As I was heading back down the corridor to the stairs Fuentes came in the back door.

“
Buenos días
,” he greeted me and Morales. He didn’t smile.

“
Buenos días
,” Morales replied, although he didn’t look convinced.

“Hi, Pablo,” I said. “You heard?”

“
Sí
. Bad thing, man. Real bad.”

We started up the stairs together. I asked, “Did you know him well? Henry Howe?”

He shook his head. “The evenin’ guys and night guys, we don’t never see them. If he didn’t come down to talk to Pete sometimes before he goes, probably I wouldn’t even know what he looks like. But I’m tellin’ you, he was a funny guy.”

“Funny?”

“Yeah.” Fuentes rubbed a finger along his thin mustache. “He don’t know me and I don’t know him, you know? But one day he’s comin’ past me and I got this bandage like wrapped around my hand, ’cause I been fixin’ the plumbin’ at home and I got all the wrong tools. You know how it is, man, the kid needs shoes so you buy shoes, you don’t buy no wrenches.”

He stopped; I nodded, to confirm I knew how it was.

“So Howe, he ask what happen and I tell him. Couple days later, he come in, he got this damn set of wrenches, plumber’s tools, you know? In the box, man. He tell me, take this, gotta keep the toilets flushin’. I say, man, I can’t afford this. He say it’s already paid for, don’t worry about it. Someday, he say, maybe I can do somethin’ for him. Then he just walk away, grinnin’ and scratchin’ his head.”

“What did you do?”

He shrugged. “Gotta keep the toilets flushin’.”

“Did he ever ask you to do anything for him?”

“No, man. He never got the chance.”

I walked through the garden in the sunlight and wind, and I thought. I wondered where Snake LeMoyne had been last night, and why Henry Howe had been in the parking lot, and what there would have been to argue about. I wondered how Bobby was feeling, and whether I really should have called Lydia last night, and when I should call her again.

On my next trip downstairs I spotted Martin Carter in muddy coveralls coming through the propped-open exit door at the end of the hall.

“Yo, cuz,” I called.

He grinned, shook his head. “Yo, my man. What’s up?”

“Same old thing,” I shrugged as we neared each other. “Murder.”

His grin faded. “You strange.”

“Yeah. Listen, I want to talk to Snake LeMoyne.”

“You left strange behind. You crazy.”

“Can you set it up?”

“Snake don’t like strangers. Snake don’t even like his friends. And he sure as hell don’t like you.”

“The cops think he killed Mike Downey and Henry Howe.”

“That not gonna be news to Snake.”

“Did he?”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Man, what the hell you care?”

“I knew Mike Downey. I know his uncle, and his wife and baby girl.”

Carter looked away. “He have a baby girl?”

“Sixteen months.”

He looked down at the vinyl tile, then back at me. “What you want with Snake?”

“I want to ask him what he knows.”

“He gonna say he don’t know nothin’.”

“I want him to say it to me.”

Carter said, “What difference it gonna make?”

“To Mike and Howe, none.”

“Or to Snake neither. What he done, he done. What he finally go down for, that be that.”

“I’m not trying to do Snake any favors. If the cops pin this on him, even just in their own minds, they’ll stop looking for the real killers. And those are the guys I want.”

“Could be Snake, still.”

“Could be.”

Into the uncertainty between us came an echoing yell: “Carter! What the fuck’s going on?” Pete Portelli stood in the boiler-room door, an angry set to his shoulders. “You get them damn drains cleaned out?”

“Wasn’t nothing wrong with them,” Carter told him.

“Did I fucking ask you that?” Portelli strode toward us. “You ever heard of preventive maintenance? Nah, you wouldn’t’ve.” As he came up next to me I heard him mutter, “… the way you people live.” If Carter heard it too, he didn’t show it. “Listen, if you’re through with your little kaffeeklatsch here, I got work for you to do. All them damn exit lights on the third floor—”

“I done them already.”

That stopped Portelli long enough for me to step in. “My fault, Pete. I should know better than to bother a guy who’s working.”

“Yeah, if you happen to catch him working.” He gave Carter the look you give the stuff on the bottom of your shoe. Then he turned to walk away.

I gave Carter a quick look myself, then followed after Portelli. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

“You did? Ain’t that nice. I hear you been fired.”

“That’s true.” I added, “I’m sorry about Howe.”

“Yeah? Lot of good it’s gonna do you.”

“I understand he was a friend of yours.”

He threw me a mean-eyed glance. “Friend of mine? He was a jerk.”

Could be the same thing, I found myself thinking. “Did you know him well?”

“Why the hell would I know him? He worked nights. I work days. And speaking of work, don’t you got any to do?”

“I hear he used to drop around to see you sometimes in the morning.”

Portelli stopped walking, whirled to face me. “Yeah? Where’d you hear that?”

“Fuentes, at the back door. He told me.”

“Little spic with a big mouth, Fuentes. Yeah, Howe used to come around. So what?”

“What for?”

I expected to be told it was none of my goddamn business, but instead Portelli looked directly at me. “Howe liked to unwind before he went home, but he didn’t like drinking alone. He brought goddamn Johnny Walker Black. So I drank with him sometimes in the morning.”

I was silent, considering this.

Portelli added: “You didn’t hear that.”

“Why?” I asked. “Afraid Wyckoff might getcha?”

“Ah, fuck you. Have a nice life, in case I never see you again.” He spun on his heel, headed back into the boiler room. At the door he turned back. “Hey, Smith?”

“Yeah?”

“He was still a jerk.”

On each pass through the building I checked Howe’s locker. The first two times everything was just the way I’d left it.

The third time, the lock was gone.

I took a quick look into the corridor to make sure I was alone;
then I opened the locker. The clothes, gloves, magazines were all still there, and the boots were still planted on the floor. I stuck my hand in the right boot, felt around.

The hundred-dollar bill, with my note clipped to it, was gone, too.