Pariah (6 page)

He is still in his work clothes, and he notices that there is now a tomato stain on his striped shirt. Anything less than sartorial perfection is also unlike him, and this only serves to confirm
to himself how badly his state of mind has been altered by today’s events.

Enough of this shit, he thinks. Bring back the old Tony.

He gets up and heads toward the bathroom, stripping as he goes. He takes a long, hot shower, trying to wash away the grime from his body and his mind. Images flash in his brain. Of Joe, lying
amidst the garbage, three small holes drilled into his skull. Alvarez tells himself that he shouldn’t have to think about such things. He is young. He should be able to think about women and
beer and having fun. And today, somebody robbed him of that youth.

As he rinses the shampoo from his hair, he lets out a shout, a roar of anger and emotional pain. The noise fills his head, distracting him from the images. For now at least.

When he steps from the shower cubicle and wraps a warmed towel around his waist, there is a ringing in his ears. It takes him a second or two to realize that it’s coming from his
cellphone. He walks back into the living room, finds the phone in the pocket of his jacket.

‘Hello?’

‘Tony, it’s Vic, down at the house. I hope you don’t mind me calling you like this.’

Vic is one of the detectives on duty at the station house. He will know that Alvarez has put in a very long day, and that there has to be a good reason to disturb him now.

‘Go ahead, Vic. What’s up?’

‘I took a call just now. Very weird. Guy won’t give his name, but says he’s got something on the Joe Parlatti case. I ask him for the details, but he refuses. Says the only
person he’ll speak with about it is you.’

‘Is that it?’

‘No. He gave me a number you can call him back on. Said it can’t wait, neither. You want to hear what he has to say, you need to call him straight away. Oh, and one other thing . .
.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know if it means anything, but he said to tell you that Fancy and Choo-Choo send their regards.’

TC, Alvarez thinks. Tremaine Cavell.

He dips a hand back into his jacket pocket, takes out a notebook and pen.

‘Okay, Vic, thanks. You got that number?’

He writes it down and hangs up. He looks again at the number, starts dialing, but changes his mind. Moving into the bedroom, he opens a drawer in his bureau and pulls out an Olympus voice
recorder and a TP-7 cable. He plugs one end of the cable into a jack on the recorder, and pops the other end into his ear. Switching the recorder on, he dials the number he’s been given.

‘Yeah, who that?’

Nice telephone manner, Alvarez thinks.

‘Tremaine, it’s Detective Alvarez. I hear you want to talk to me. You got something for me?’

‘Nah, man, not on the phone. What I got for you got to be face to face.’

‘You prepared to meet me at the precinct station house?’

Cavell barks a laugh. ‘Fuck that shit. Only time you get me in there is when you arrest my ass. Niggers see me walking in there without ten cops on my back, I might as well write my
obituary now.’

‘Okay, so where?’

‘One of my girls got a crib on West Seventeenth. Meet me there.’

‘What’s the full address?’

Cavell gives him the building and apartment numbers, and Alvarez scribbles them below the phone number that Vic gave him.

‘Okay, let me get in touch with Detective Doyle—’

‘Whoa! Hold up! I ain’t throwing no party here. This is me and you, man. That’s it.’

‘Detective Doyle was with me earlier today. He’s working the case with me.’

He hears a sigh from Cavell. ‘You don’t get it, do you? What I got for you is some heavy, heavy shit. A cop like Doyle be the last motherfucker I want around me when I break this
out.’

Alvarez feels like a bony finger has just stroked his spine. What’s the problem with Doyle? Why exclude him?

‘What makes you think I’m any better than Doyle?’

A pause. ‘I don’t. Let’s just say your name didn’t crop up in what I heard.’

‘And you want to take that risk? Why the good citizen act all of a sudden, Tremaine?’

‘Because some motherfucker took out one of my bitches, and that makes me mad. So if the only way I can get back at him is through you, then that’s what I have to do.’

Alvarez considers this, and knows that he’s hooked. Tremaine is too stupid to make up a story like this, and too unadventurous to follow through on such a lie. He knows something, and he
wants to capitalize on that knowledge.

‘All right, Tremaine, I’m coming over. This better be worth it.’

He hangs up, then switches off the recorder.

Quickly drying himself off, he dresses in jeans, Timberlands and a woolen sweatshirt. He shrugs on a tan overcoat, then clips his Glock to his belt and drops three more loaded magazines into his
pocket. He picks up his cellphone and the recorder, with the intention of returning the latter to the bedroom drawer, then thinks better of it and slips both gadgets into his other side pocket.

As he heads out into the night, his thoughts are troubled by one thing. Or, rather, one person. And it’s not Cavell.

Alvarez parks up on West Seventeenth, close enough to get a good view of the apartment building Cavell specified, but not directly in front. He turns off his lights and remains
in the dissipating warmth of his Toyota for a good ten minutes while he watches the five-story walk-up.

He sees nobody go in and nobody come out, and as far as he can tell, there is no sign of anybody else keeping an eye on the building from out here on the street. The only indication that anyone
is aware of his presence comes when a coiffured poodle takes an interest in his car’s front bumper. The dog’s owner, a middle-aged man in a long coat and wide-brimmed hat, warns the
pooch that the cute-looking driver probably isn’t ready for that level of intimacy, and they continue on their merry way.

Alvarez takes out his cellphone and voice recorder, then connects up the cable microphone and inserts the earpiece. He searches the phone for the last number he called, then redials. As he
listens to the ring tone, he switches on the Olympus.

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s Detective Alvarez, Tremaine. I’m gonna be a little bit longer. My car’s decided it’s too cold to move.’

‘Fuck is this, man? You want to hear this shit or not? I don’t need to be taking no risks like this.’

To Alvarez, Cavell sounds a little flustered. Not quite the cool gangsta image he had adopted in the garage.

‘All right, Tremaine. Keep it puckered. I’ll be with you in fifteen, twenty minutes tops.’

‘Aiight, but any more than that and I’m gone.’

Alvarez hangs up. He disconnects the recorder and puts it into the glove compartment, then drops the cellphone back in his pocket. He pulls his Glock, checks the indicator telling him
there’s a round in the chamber, then reholsters it.

When he climbs out of the car and locks it up, the cold hits him. He feels as though he will freeze to the sidewalk if he stands here too long.

He walks toward the building, glancing into the interior of each vehicle as he passes it. At the lobby door he doesn’t ring the bell for Cavell’s apartment, but instead buzzes the
superintendent.

When the super opens the door, Alvarez flashes his badge and ID.

‘I need to speak with one of the tenants. Unannounced.’

The super, a gray-haired, grumpy-looking man, has spaghetti sauce around his mouth and is still chewing.

‘There gonna be shooting?’ he asks, losing a strand of spaghetti as he does so.

Alvarez says, ‘Well, it’s not on my to-do list.’

The super sucks the pasta back in, chews some more.

‘’Cause I don’t need no holes in my building. And not in my tenants neither. I just want a quiet night. Good food, cold beer and
Barbarella
.’

‘Your wife?’

‘I wish. The movie. Jane Fonda stripping off in zero-G. My wife, she looks more like
Henry
Fonda.’

Alvarez is already heading for the stairs. ‘Enjoy the movie,’ he says.

‘No holes, remember,’ the super calls after him, and then Alvarez hears a door shutting.

He takes the stairs two at a time, but with stealth, listening as he goes. Outside apartment 3C he puts his ear to the uniform slab of a door.

He doesn’t fear Cavell. Cavell is a young punk. But Alvarez doesn’t like the fact that, right now, Cavell is calling the shots and acting kinda weird. And so it seems sensible to
Alvarez, especially acting without backup like this, to proceed with some caution.

If this is some kind of trap, Alvarez thinks, then Cavell will believe he can breathe easy for a while, his victim not expected for a good fifteen minutes yet. He’s not going to stand
there with a cannon pointed at the door for that long. And if he’s got anybody else in there with him – say a whole bunch of his homies laden with artillery – then it’s
likely that they will be equally at ease for now. There’ll be some conversation. A couple of jokes. Maybe even some detailed description of what fun things they are going to do to that spic
cop when he walks in.

But Alvarez hears nothing. Not a murmur. He is not even certain that Cavell himself is in there.

He draws his gun and lowers it to his side, then knocks on the door. It is only seconds before the door opens and Cavell’s face appears in the gap. He is wearing a gray Hilfiger hooded
zip-up over a blue T-shirt. He looks slightly surprised.

‘That was fast, man. You get the car—’

Alvarez snaps his gun hand up and aims the weapon at the center of Cavell’s forehead. With his other hand he pushes the door wide open to get a view into the apartment.

‘Turn around,’ he orders.

‘Yo, what the—’

‘Turn around. Now!’

Cavell does as he is told, raising his arms slightly in surrender as he has probably done a hundred times before. Alvarez puts the muzzle of the Glock to the back of Cavell’s head, then
places his left hand on his shoulder. He pushes him forward into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind him.

He marches Cavell into the middle of the living room, his eyes darting as he moves. The room gives off to a small kitchen area and there are doors into two other rooms. Alvarez picks one and
guides Cavell toward it.

‘Open it!’

Cavell pushes open the door and stumbles in, Alvarez tight behind him. A bedroom. All pink and lilac and teddy bears. A huge unmade bed filling the space. Some kind of black skimpy nightwear on
the end of it.

‘The closet,’ Alvarez says, and Cavell twists his head slightly toward him.

‘The closet? You think you Inspector fucking Clouseau or something? You think I got fucking Cato hiding in there?’

Alvarez jabs the gun muzzle hard into Cavell’s skull. ‘Do it!’

Cavell sighs and steps over to the closet. Alvarez stays near the doorway, his gun on Cavell’s back but his eyes constantly flicking back to the living room and that other unopened
door.

Cavell yanks open the closet. There is a sudden movement within. Alvarez tightens his trigger finger. A red shoe falls from the shelf and lands at Cavell’s feet, and Alvarez steps down the
pressure on the trigger.

‘Back that way,’ he says. He keeps his gaze fixed on Cavell as he retraces his steps. As Cavell passes, he puts the gun back to his head.

‘You don’t gotta do that,’ Cavell complains.

‘Shut up! Open the other door.’

They cross the living area, and Cavell follows his instructions. Alvarez doesn’t need to enter the tiny bathroom to see that it’s unoccupied.

‘Happy now?’ Cavell asks.

‘No,’ Alvarez answers. ‘Against the wall.’

Knowing the drill, Cavell puts his hands high on the wall, alongside a window looking onto the street below. Alvarez kicks his feet apart, displacing his center of gravity so that any attempt to
come away from the wall will have him falling flat on his face. Keeping his gun in place, he pats Cavell’s armpits, then down both flanks. He checks Cavell’s waist, then drags his gun
down Cavell’s spine and runs his free hand over the man’s legs. Straightening up, he does a similar run along Cavell’s arms. Finally, he dips his hand into the hood of
Cavell’s sweatshirt.

‘Stay there,’ Alvarez says. He walks back to the apartment door and sees that it has a locking bar. He fixes it into place, just in case some friends of Cavell’s should decide
to pay a visit.

‘Now I’m happy,’ he says, putting the Glock away.

Cavell straightens up, drops his arms and turns to face Alvarez.

‘The fuck you gotta do all that shit for, man? I tole you I was trying to help you out.’

Alvarez is warm after the exertion and the stress of the last few minutes. He takes off his coat and slings it over the back of the sofa, then folds his arms and looks around the room.
It’s clean and tidy. Vases of dried flowers on the coffee table and on the kitchen counter. On one wall, a poster of the good-looking black doctor from
ER
.

‘You like that guy, Tremaine?’

Cavell curls his lip at the insult. ‘Like I said, this my girl’s place.’

‘One of your hookers?’

‘One of my own private collection. I don’t like to mix business with pleasure.’

‘Uh-huh. So why bring me here, Tremaine? What’s all this about?’

‘I got a message for you.’

‘A message, huh? Who from?’

‘Can’t say.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

Cavell just shrugs.

‘Okay, so why not tell me on the phone? Or send me a letter? Or a fucking carrier pigeon?’

‘Don’t know. I was just told this is the way it has to be.’

‘You always do what you’re told, Tremaine? Whose bitch are you being right now?’

Cavell flares his nostrils and bares his teeth. Alvarez knows that the slur got to him, but when Cavell bites on his bottom lip, he realizes it’s not enough. Somebody, somewhere, has a
grip on Cavell’s testicles and is threatening to squeeze.

‘And why do I have to keep Detective Doyle out of this? What’s that all about?’

Again Cavell shrugs, and Alvarez accepts he’s wasting his time.