Red Hook (28 page)

I went in. Sonny looked up at me, and took a bottle from his desk drawer. “Nightcap,” he said and poured
Scotch into two glasses that were already on the desk. He had been expecting me. “They want me out of here,” he said and gestured at the office. “I'm not leaving.”

“That's why you called me? You left messages. It's late. What?”

“Yeah, sit down. You want the bad news or the other bad news?” he said.

I took the glass. “Go on.”

“I have to tell you something, man. I don't want to but I have to.”

“What is it? Jesus, Sonny, what?”

“It's about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got a call from a guy. Someone who knows I know you.”

“What guy?”

“It doesn't matter what guy. A guy I had asked about Sid McKay for you. Call him my Deep Throat,” he said and snorted. “He said, you're talking Detective Artie Cohen, aren't you, and I said, yeah and I'm about to ask him about the McKay case, and he says out of nowhere, listen I know Cohen's a pal of yours, so I want to tell you that someone got his license number off one of the Al Qaeda intercepts.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I know this sounds like fucking Tom Clancy stuff, but it's what they do, you know the reports coming in about attacks on Citicorp earlier in the summer, whatever, they get real detailed stuff from somewhere, they got sleepers everywhere, man, they got measurements of every skyscraper in New York City, they got
the architectural plans, they got the locations of vents and air conditioning, they probably know the names of the president of every fucking co-op board that's fighting about who puts a plant on the roof garden, and they probably got people
on
the co-op boards, and among other shit, they got the badge numbers of officers on the beat and licenses of cops and license plates from guys on cases. You have no idea. They write it down, they send it back to whatever shit-hole in Pakistan or Saudi they work out of, and once in a while, we capture some stuff and there it is. Your license plate. Your badge. You don't have to be some fucking whiz kid.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, fuck is right,” Sonny said.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Nothing. I'm just telling you. You know how the Feds get, they get a shred of information they turn it into something to get media play because otherwise they would never get anything positive, and the politicians climb on board, I'm just telling you, I mentioned your name, this is what comes back, so anyone stops by your place, you call me, or if you get stopped at an airport, or your car breaks down and you get hassled. Something like that. OK?”

“Thanks.”

“OK, I'm just saying.”

“OK,” I said but I was nervous. A while back the Feds had been in my place looking through my stuff because someone told them I could speak a little Arabic.

“You think it's related to Sid McKay?” I said.

Sonny said, “I doubt it. But it will make people look
at you. Some people. Some people in the department. You have to talk to me about this thing with Sid McKay. I heard the family is saying it was some kind of accident. What kind of accident? He hit himself over the head? You know anything about this?”

I drank the Scotch and asked him for another, and then I told him everything I knew, except for a few details about Tolya Sverdloff. I said I was thinking that maybe Jack Santiago could work as a suspect for Sid's murder. I floated it at Sonny. I floated it like a little Chinese trick paper flower and the more I sent it out, the more it made waves and blossomed; I waited to see if it would open up real nice.

They had been close, Sid and Jack, I said. Somehow Jack betrayed him. Maybe Jack knew something about Sid's half brother, Earl. There were files, too, I said. Sid kept notes.

Sonny looked at me pityingly. “Art, man, everyone knew. Sid passed files around like boxes of fucking chocolate cherries. He was nuts, what can I say? He showed up on TV shows, he was like this liberal pundit they hauled in when they wanted one. Then his paper canned him and he went nuts. His stories never amounted to much,” Sonny said, “I been talking to a lot of people since you dropped by on me at home, man, and it woke me up. You got to give me more on Santiago than that Sid McKay didn't think he was doing his job. I get called by people all the time, editors, whoever, see if there's criminal activity on any of those cases of reporters faking stuff. You want to eat at Rao's
with me tomorrow night? I have my table. Or Peter Luger's if you want?”

Listening to him talk about Sid and the news business, I replied by saying how much I really liked Jack for Sid's killer. I drank with Sonny for an hour, and I sat opposite him at his desk and made a case.

I told Sonny things I wasn't sure about. I threw stuff out at him like the fact that Jack lived in Red Hook, stuff that didn't mean anything by itself. Told him about the way Jack had come to the wedding, the way he made a play for Valentina Sverdloff. I built a scenario. I made connections, I introduced characters, I erected a plot and pieced it together and embroidered it and gave it conviction.

Cops did it all the time. Sometimes it meant they figured out, looking at the neat arrangement of the parts, who the killer really was; sometimes they got it wrong; they did it because they needed a collar, or were sick to death of a case and yearned for a conclusion. Sometimes, by the end of the story, they convinced themselves. I was convinced.

“What's the matter, man, you cold or something? You want Rhonda to turn down the air?” Sonny was glazed from the booze.

There was gooseflesh on my arms. I kept talking. Sonny drank some more. Inside I felt something shift. My arm still hurt from the cut.

Jack Santiago was on his way to Beslan in Russia to write about the kids who were killed by a bunch of terrorists, I told Sonny, I said, how come Jack got assigned over there so fast? Wasn't it convenient? Stop
him from leaving the country, Sonny, I said, and he said, stop him how? Just get in his way, I said; call someone in Immigration, or Homeland Security.

Stop him, I said. I leaned over the desk and cranked it up, how Jack killed Sid. Stop him, I said.

Sonny got more and more remote, but, as I made my story good and tight, I could see him buy it. He was a reader, he understood narrative in his gut. By the time I left, I knew I had made him believe in the Santiago scenario, that Jack killed Sid McKay, because that was what I wanted to believe.

When Sid McKay's obituary finally appeared Sunday in the
Times,
it had been scrubbed clean. I picked up the early edition after I left Sonny's office around midnight Saturday, and I read it on the street outside the newsstand.

The obituary did not give the precise cause of death. It suggested a medical condition, and an accident. The rest of it described his education, his family, his professional achievements, his awards. He was survived by his son Alexander Justice McKay, and two grandchildren, it said. Alex McKay had never mentioned his own children. The obituary referred to other family members. There was no real news in it, only the list of accomplishments and a picture taken maybe ten years earlier, Sid smiling slightly, in a suit and tie.

I knew the McKay family had moved in fast and taken control before any real news stories emerged. Lucky for them that Sid died during a week when barely any news south of Madison Square got reported.

*

“Artie? Let me in. It's me, Rick.”

It was Sunday early, and I realized I had fallen asleep, the phone in my hand after I came home with the newspaper and tried to get through to Maxine. When I heard the banging on my door, I made out that it was Rick's voice and I ran and opened it and found him, dressed only in some cut-off jeans, his face pale with tension. In one hand was a copy of the
Times.

“Come on in. I didn't know you were back.”

He stumbled into my place. I hadn't seen him since my wedding almost a week earlier. I knew he'd been away, probably Singapore, where he did business. He was white and under his eyes were hollows big and stained like teabags.

“I'll get some coffee,” I said. “What is it, Rick?”

“It's Sid.” He held up the newspaper, then went into the kitchen, picked up the espresso pot and shook it to see if it was full, then poured himself a cup, stood by the stove and drank it in two gulps.

“I'm really sorry,” I said. “I've been working this case unofficially as best I can.”

“You've been working it and you didn't tell me?”

“You weren't here. I didn't know you and Sid were that close.”

“We were close.”

“You want to talk?”

He looked at the folders I had laid out across the kitchen counter and on the floor. I gathered them up and took them to my desk.

“What's all that?”

“Just work stuff.”

“I didn't help him, Artie. Sid called me, and I didn't help him,” he said.

“Go on.” I poured myself what was left of the coffee, and put on some more.

“Nothing, he called me and said he was worried, and I didn't go. I couldn't get in it again. I knew him a long time ago.”

“You and him?”

Rick nodded.

“Yeah, but he didn't want anyone to know. He wasn't really out back then. He said he was too old for me. I took him to see my parents once, my father looked at him like he was a baby killer, it was bad enough he had a fag for a kid, but bringing an old man over, and an old black man. And his family. My God, you never saw anything like it, it was like they were living out some fantasy life, I met an aunt once, I think she imagined I was Sid's houseboy, you know, did the cooking. It was bizarre, you know, like an alternate universe?” Rick stared into the coffee cup. “After that Sid retreated. We split up. Around 9/11, we met up, you know how everyone was getting together, and we had a fling, but it was a 9/11 thing, you know. We stayed in touch, I don't know, we'd talk once a month and have dinner.”

“I'm really sorry.”

“Just make sure you find the bastard who did it, make sure for me,” Rick said. “I have to go.”

I said, “Call me if you want.”

“Sure,” he said, and again I thought how sad I was that we had drifted apart.

He went to the door, opened it, then turned around.

Ricky said, “I really loved him a lot, you know.”

I moved fast now. I needed a real fix on Jack. I needed it soon. He could disappear into Russia for months if he wanted. Had he left the night before, after he and Val took off in the cab? When did the last flight go?

I started calling the airlines. I hit a dead end with Lot, the Polish airlines, and then it occurred to me that Jack could have hitched a lift with a friend who had a plane. He was that kind of guy. I called around facilities for private planes. The only person I knew who flew private was Tolya. I once asked him about it, and he had looked at me pityingly and said, “You don't think I fly commercial, do you?” But Tolya wasn't giving any rides to Jack.

I threw a few things in a bag, and packed up all the files. I didn't want anyone seeing them, not Tolya or Rick or anyone else coming into my place, especially not some Fed who knew Al Qaeda had my license on a satellite intercept.

Sonny said that Sid's files were bullshit, but what else did I have left? I wanted one last shot at them. Maybe I'd been lazy or stupid. Anyhow, to move on Jack, I needed a reason and I knew I had to get through the files, one piece of paper at a time, get it figured out. I took the bag and got my car to drive out to Maxine's place in Brooklyn where no one would think of looking for me. Also, I missed her. On the way, I stopped in Red Hook.

*

Jack's apartment was in a white building that had once been a cement factory. It looked like a crumbling pile of stale white bread. It was a few blocks away from Sid's, an easy drive, an easy walk. Jack was on his way to Russia by now. I still didn't know what route he took. I was sure he was gone, but I took a chance.

I buzzed his apartment. No one answered. I hung around the building downstairs until a good-looking woman showed up, carrying a carton of coffee. She wore sweat pants and a red halter top, she was around fifty, I figured. Great figure. There was something that looked like glue in her dark long hair.

“Yeah, yeah, sure I know Jack,” she said and leaned against the front door and said she'd talked to him the night before.

“Did he have a girl with him?”

“No,” she said. “No girl.”

He left with a suitcase the night before, she said. Late. She couldn't remember what time. He rang her bell, like he always did when he was leaving town because he knew she was up all hours, and anyhow he didn't care who he woke up. He told her he was going to Russia. He asked her to take up his mail. He told her he was going to do the real story about Beslan, about the school and the dead kids over there, on and on, she said, the way Jack always did, blah blah blah, making sure you knew what a big deal he was.

“Like always?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Like always.”

“You're sure?”

“Jack doesn't do not sure,” she said. “He was fucking always sure. He was sure about everything,” she added. “Sexy, though. Great fuck, you know? Fucked everything that moved, but he was nice about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, what's the saying? He'd even fuck a Venetian blind, someone wrote that. That was how Jack was. I'd know.”

“You see a lot of him.”

“Whatever,” she said. “He comes and goes.”

I thanked her, and started for my car. I turned back and said, “You go out for coffee early a lot?”

“Yeah, all the time. You get crazy working by yourself, you know what I mean?”

“Where do you go around here?”

“There's a couple stores open early, convenience store over on Van Brunt makes the best brew. Everyone gets coffee there,” she said.