Lush Life (54 page)

On Thursday Matty started calling Berkowitz at nine, leaving message after message, each one a little testier than the last, Billy sitting in the chair opposite working a rubber band like a spinning wheel around the fingers of one hand. A whole day before the most optimistic go time for a presser, he was already dressed in a sports jacket and tie. At eleven, still not having gotten a callback and with Billy alternately staring at him and taking endless trips to the bathroom, Matty told him to go home or wherever he was staying these days, and he'd contact him as soon he got through.

When Eric opened his eyes, two detectives were at his bedside, a black woman in a pantsuit and a Chinese guy in a three-piece.

"How you doing?" the woman said, offering him a blur of names as the other one stepped off to take a quick call. "Do you want to tell us what happened?"

"Not really"

"Not really?" as if he were giving her shit.

The other detective snapped off his cell. "Sorry."

"He doesn't want to tell us what happened," she said.

"Oh yeah?"

"It was my own fault," Eric said.

"All right." She shrugged. "It was your own fault. Just tell us who else was involved."

"Nobody." Flinching as he said it. He should have said, They came at me from behind.

"Well, if this nobody' comes back, they might just want to finish what they started," the Chinese detective said. He had a surprisingly heavy accent for someone who had made it out of uniform, Eric thought, but what did he know.

"Look, we can't make you tell us."

"That's right."

The female detective shrugged, not really giving a shit but pissed at the stonewall.

The other one's cell went off again and he stepped away to take it.

"Ow," Eric said, then went back beneath whatever drug they had put him on.

Berkowitz didn't return Matty's call until one in the afternoon.

"What's up?"

The blitheness of the question told Matty everything he needed to know about the nonstatus of the presser.

"Well, he's here."

"Who is?"

Matty stared at the receiver in his hand. "Marcus, he took the redeye in from Miami."

"Yeah? How's he doing?"

"He'll be better after tomorrow's presser."

"Tomorrow?" Berkowitz said as if it were news to him.

It was as if the two of them were in a play, neither allowed to acknowledge that they were simply reciting lines.

"OK," Berkowitz said. "What's the reward up to now?"

"Forty-two thousand dollars," Matty said slowly.

"All right, you know what? I need to get back to you. I just have to talk to a few people."

An hour later Billy came back into the squad room.

"What's happening?"

"I'm waiting on a callback," Matty said. "Still waiting."

"Jesus Christ." Billy flopped into the chair sidesaddle to the desk.

"This is four-star foot-dragging, four-star buck-passing."

"I don't know how you put up with it." Billy closed his eyes, his breath too sweet.

"Have you been drinking?"

"Yeah, but I'm OK."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

Matty stared at him assessingly for a moment. "You know what?" Snatching up his desk phone. "Fuck it."

"Yeah, hey, boss." Matty angled the receiver so that Billy could listen in.

"I was just going to call you," Berkowitz said.

"You know I have to say"-Matty eyed Billy-"this guy Marcus is getting good and pissed."

"Yeah? What's his problem?"

"His problem? He caught a predawn flight to do this and here it is two days later and he's still sitting on his hands waiting to hear if we're on board or not."

"Well, I just got off the horn with Upshaw about that. Turns out there's a problem with the reward money"

"Oh yeah?" Matty scribbled a gouge into his steno pad. "And what would that be?"

"His end of it? The twenty? He didn't set up the escrow account properly. According to the letter of intent it's in his name, which means he controls the payout. We don't work that way."

"What the fuck?" Billy lunged forward drunkenly, Matty glaring him into silence.

"The letter of intent, huh?" Matty said, a finger to his lips.

"At first Upshaw was going to put it through, but then he got nervous, called Mangold, the chief says no press conference. Says, T thought I made myself clear on this one. Let it die.' "

"Let it dieT Billy hissed to himself, Matty thinking, Coffee.

Tm being as candid with you as I can," Berkowitz said.

"Yeah? Then let me be candid too. The bank letter, the escrow account, its all in good faith and you and everybody else in that building knows it."

"That's not the point."

"Look, boss, the guy flew all this way and he wants his presser with us. He wants it done."

"Well, he'll have to deal with it."

Matty looked at Billy like he wanted to punch him.

"You know what? I'm gonna have him call you directly because I didn't sign up for this, and if he goes and embarrasses the job, I don't want everybody pointing the finger at me."

"Fine, have him call me."

"Me?" Billy suddenly looking terrified, then completely checking out, going into an Ike-drift like slipping under the covers.

Matty took Billy back to the Castillo de Pantera, set him up at a corner table, and plied him with coffee.

"Here's what I need you to do. One. Sober the fuck up. Then I need for you to call this guy, Deputy Inspector Berkowitz, and tell him you want this to happen. You raised the money and now you want that tipline ringing off the hook. You bring up all those reporters' cards you have and you tell him how all these vampires ever really want to hear you talk about is how the police have fucked this up from the door on in, but how you've never bit on that. You've never talked bad, but, Deputy Inspector Berkowitz, I wind up doing this presser solo, and I swear to Christ, all bets are off and I am going after you, your boss, the chief of D's, and the PC, but your name is going to come out of my mouth first, Deputy Inspector Berkowitz, Deputy Inspector Berkowitz, just keep saying his name like that, and say it first."

"You want me to call him?"

Matty leaned into the table. "Are you hearing anything I'm saying?"

"Yes."

"I am putting my balls in a sling for you right now. Do you get that?"

"Yes."

"This is not part of my job, fucking with these people. Do you understand that?"

"Then why are you doing it?" The question popping out of Billys mouth like a frog.

Matty hesitated just a hair before saying, "For your son."

Hesitated just long enough for Billy, even in his frightened and boozy daze, to pick up on the hollowness of the declaration.

But Matty picked up on it too; hustling the dead kids father like that . . .

"You know what?" Matty said more softly. "All due respect to your son and hopefully this'll work in his favor, but its just that they have been fucking with me on this since day one, and I am so very, very tired of it. I just want to do my job."

"I can see that," Billy said evenly, and once again his refusal to be judgmental reinforced Matty's wanting to go the extra mile.

"Look," Matty said, "do you want to just blow this whole thing off?"

"No." Billy gulping down coffee.

"Do you want me to go over everything again?"

"No."

"Nothing?"

"No."

"All right, brother." Matty dialed Berkowitz for him, then slapped the cell phone into the guy's hand like a gun. "Show me what you got."

But when Berkowitz came on the line, Billy was so frightened that the first thing out of his mouth was a complete hash.

"Mr. Berkowitz, I would really like you to join me at this press conference. If I'm up there by myself, I have no idea what to say," then closing his eyes in self-disgust.

"Well, look, Mr. Marcus," Berkowitz said, his voice coming through to Matty tinny but clear, "first off let me say how sorry I am for your loss."

Billy seemed grateful for the smooth and sober voice coming back at him. "Thank you."

He should have better prepared him for this; did the guy really think Berkowitz would have come at him like some animal?

"I have two sons myself and I can't even begin to imagine what you're going through right now."

"Thank you," Billy said softly, looking at Matty

"And from what everybody tells me, Ivan was a great kid."

"Ivan?"

"A real comer." "Ivan?"

Matty either imagined or actually heard the rustle of papers on Berkowitz's end.

"Mr. Marcus, is there a number that I can call you back?" "Not really." Billy suddenly dead sober. "Then maybe we should talk face-to-face."

"Maybe we should," Billy said coldly, Matty finally feeling calm enough to go outside and have a cigarette.

Billy came out a few minutes later. "Where at?" Matty asked. "Green Pastures on East Houston?" "When."

"Hour and a half."

"Hour and a half?" Matty startled. "All right, shit, OK . . . First I need for you to go back to wherever you're staying and get every reporter's card you have."

"He called him Ivan," Billy said.

Matty lit another cigarette off the last one. "Don't forget it."

They sat in Matty's sedan a half block west of Green Pastures, a vegan deli founded by white pioneers in the mid-seventies, situated at the ass end of East Houston, the dying sun tinting their chests and chins orange.

Billy seemed to be having a hard time breathing, as if the righteous fury in him had been smothered by a mortal stage fright.

"Billy." Matty grabbed his biceps. "Listen to me. Are you listening to me? You look like you're going to have a heart attack, but fuck it. Be pissed. You have every right, you hear me?"

"No. I know. I just don't want to fail him, you know?"

Matty hesitated, fail who, then, "You won't."

Billy nodded briskly, then reached for the door.

Matty grabbed his arm again. "One more time. Chief of Manhattan detectives?"

"Upshaw."

"Chief of D's?"

"Mangold."

"Commissioner?"

"Patterson." "Go."

But then grabbed him again, Billy looking ready to puke.

"And where am I?"

"What do you mean?"

"Berkowitz asks you, Where's Detective Clark right now.'You say . . ."

"How the hell should I know?"

"Beautiful. Go."

Billy bolted for the door, Matty holding him one last time. "You got those reporters' cards?"

"Fuck," Billy said. "I forgot."

Billy left the car and headed towards the deli looking as if he were about to pull his first stickup, Matty feeling like a backstage mother, praying the poor bastard wouldn't fall to pieces in there and blow the play.

Look at him; Matty watching helplessly as Billy walked right past the deli, then kept going all the way until he ran out of sidewalk at the FDR roundabout.

A moment later, after he had corrected his course and doubled back, Berkowitz pulled up in front of the deli in his personal car, no driver, and Matty slid down in his seat. The DI stepped out, intercepted Billy with a handshake, walked him around to the passenger side, and opened the door for him as if Marcus were his date, Matty thinking, Christ, I have to tail a DI, but once inside the car, they stayed put and began to talk.

"As 1 said to you on the phone, Mr. Marcus," Berkowitz palmed the Pepcid foils lying in the cup caddy between them, "I can't tell you how sorry I am for your tragedy."

"Thank you," Billy said. Too nervous to look at the deputy inspector directly, he was staring at a girls' soccer team walking across the highway overpass to the riverside park at the far end of the Drive.

"Look, I think it's great that you have this commitment and interest . . . and I just want to reassure you that we're doing everything we can to bring this to a close so you can grieve for your son properly"

"Properly?" Billy getting a little head of steam off that. "Like I'm sitting here with you right now in order to fend off the grieving process?"

Berkowitz quickly put his hands up. "I wouldn't presume to know that."

"Because personally?" Billy finally turned to him. "I think I'm grieving great."

"All I'm trying to say, Mr. Marcus"-Berkowitz put a hand to his arm-"is that I understand your eagerness for a press conference, but I've been working these cases for thirty years, and when it comes to the media, its all about timing."

"Timing."

"For example, OK? If we had done it today like you originally wanted? Page twelve. At best. Are you reading the papers? They found an infant in a dumpster last night behind Jacobi hospital up in the Bronx. Not to sound callous about these things? But it would've shoved us into the car ads."