Safe House (2 page)

“Bottom line,” I said. “Let’s get to it. Come on.”

“Porkpie gives me a picture, okay? What the guy looks like and all. And he drives me to the spot where the guy gets off work.”

“You braced him in daylight?” I asked, already shuddering at his stupidity.

“Nah, Burke. He’s a security guard, like. Gets off after midnight. In this big building on Wall Street. He has to go right through this alley to where they park their cars. Porkpie said I could grab him there.”

“And . . . ?”

“I snatch him, okay? I slam him up against the wall, tell him I’m the girl’s cousin. Porkpie told me to say that, so he’d know I was serious and all. He tries to talk to me, but I’m not playing. I told him, he wants to get down, let’s do it. Right there. He drops his hands, puts his head down. I figure that’s it. . . . Then he comes out with a piece. I didn’t . . . think about it, man. I just plunged him.”

“You shanked the motherfucker?” the Prof asked quietly, leaning forward over the back of the front seat.

“Right in the gut,” Herk said. “I didn’t mean to, but . . . once I stuck him, I knew he was gone. I could see it in his face, like when the light goes out, you know? He was off the count.”

“Anybody see you?” I asked. It was business now.

“I don’t think so. I don’t know. Porkpie said he didn’t see nobody.”

“When was this?”

“Two nights ago. I mean, it’ll
be
two nights when it gets dark.”

“What do you need, Herk?” I asked him.

“I need a stake, Burke. I got to get outa here. Outa this city.”

Herk couldn’t say it, but he could feel it. He was a mine-shaft canary, just beginning to smell the fumes, fluttering his wings against the cage. I looked back at the Prof. He nodded.

“I’m gonna take you someplace,” I told him. “You’ll be okay there. Meanwhile, I’ll see what’s going on, okay?”

“Sure, Burke,” he said, smiling. A big, sweet dumb kid.

“
T
his one ain’t no Fourteenth Amendment citizen, is he?” the voice on the phone said.

“He’s the same fucking citizen I am,” I said, keeping my voice down to a jailhouse whisper—soft with threat.

“No offense, man,” the voice said quickly. “But you know how I have to play it. I mean . . .”

“No offense. A yard a day, right?”

“Right. Ten-day minimum.”

“He’ll have it with him.”

I
checked on the wire. The police had it down as a mugging that went wrong. At least Herk had been smart enough to grab the dead man’s watch and wallet. And toss them into the nearest Dumpster, where some foraging wino was sure to pick them up. He’d never touched the dead man’s pistol, leaving it where it was. The cops had no suspects.

But I did. Herk was the third day into his hideout before we found Porkpie. He was coming out of a dive in Red Hook, wearing a snazzy dark overcoat and his trademark little hat with a fat little white feather sticking up from the band. A zircon glistened on his hand, bloodshot from a faded red neon sign in the window of the bar.

“Hey, Porkpie!” I yelled at him, closing the distance between us, hands empty at my sides.

He stopped in his tracks, making up his mind. Before he finished, Max had him.

O
ne good thing about Red Hook, you never have to go far to find some privacy. I docked the dark-green Volvo sedan next to one of the piers, backing in carefully so I could spot any visitors. I didn’t expect cops—even when the weather is warm and the piers are crawling with longshoremen, the rollers working the pad know the money men only come out in daylight.

Porkpie was in the front bucket seat, Max right behind him, one hand on the weasel’s neck. Max’s hands are hard autobiographies: big leather-colored maps of seamed scar tissue with callused ridges of horn along the knife-edges—flesh-and-bone sledgehammers with bolt-cutters for fingers. Porkpie couldn’t see the hand, but he could feel it, the fingers pressing his carotid artery, thumb hooked just under his Adam’s apple. What he could see was the pistol in my gloved left hand, held at my waist, pointed at his crotch.

“Open the glove compartment,” I told him softly.

“Burke, I . . .”

“Open it, Porkpie.”

He pushed the button and the door came down. In the light from the tiny bulb he could see the coil of piano wire. And the barber’s straight razor with its mother-of-pearl handle.

“We wrap your hands and your ankles in the wire,” I told him. “We got a couple of car batteries in the trunk for the weight. Then I take the razor and open you up so you don’t float, understand?”

“Jesus! Don’t . . .”

“It’s a hell of a way to die,” I said. “But you tell us quick, I’ll do you a solid, okay? I’ll put a slug in your head first, so you don’t feel nothing.”

His stink filled the front seat.

“There’s only one way out,” I said, breathing through my mouth.

“Anything,” he blubbered. “Just tell me, I’ll—”

“You got Hercules to do a job for you. The girl, the one this guy was threatening, she yours?”

“No. No, man. I don’t know her. I ain’t never even
seen
her.”

“So somebody paid you, right?”

“Right. It was just—”

“Shut up, punk. Just answer what I ask you. Who paid you? And what was the job?”

“I don’t know her name. Honest to God, Burke! She found me in Rollo’s. Said it was her sister, that girl. The one this guy was—”

“Don’t make me tell you again,” I said. “I don’t want to hear your stories. How much was the job?”

He hesitated. I nodded to Max. Porkpie spasmed in his seat, his spinal fluid turned to liquid pain. “I don’t like this part,” I told him. “I’d rather ice you right now than keep hurting you, understand?”

“Yesss . . .”

“How much was the job?”

“Five grand.”

“And you were supposed to do . . . what?”

“Just scare the guy. Like, spook him, you know? Run him off.”

“Not total him?”

“You crazy? I ain’t no hit man.”

“That’s right, punk:
you
ain’t.”

“Burke, listen to me. Please. If I was gonna have Herk do him, would I go along? I didn’t know nothing until he comes charging back to the car. I . . .”

“That’s enough,” I told him. The smell of truth came right through the stench. Porkpie didn’t have the
cojones
to be anywhere within a mile of a killing, even as the wheelman. “Describe her.”

“I
told
you—I never even seen her, not once.”

“The woman who paid you, Porkpie. Her.”

“Oh. She’s some kinda Chink.”

“Chinese?”

“I don’t fucking know, man. Something like that. Small. She had a hat on, with one of them veil things, black, like they wear at funerals.”

“What did she call herself?”

“She didn’t say no name, man. Just asked me, could I get it done? I told her the price. She paid me. That’s all. I never seen her again.”

“But she gave you a phone number.”

“No, I swear it! Nothing. I didn’t need to talk to her—she paid me the whole thing up front.”

“So how come you didn’t stiff her? Just take the cash and walk?”

“She said she could find me again. I . . . believed her, like.”

“You believe
I
can find you again, Porkpie?”

“Yeah. I know your rep.”

“You know who’s holding your neck? That’s Max the Silent. You know
his
rep?” I asked him gently.

He shuddered a reply.

“I’m gonna trust you,” I lied. “We’re gonna let you slide on this. You take the car. Drive it anywhere you want and leave it there. But don’t fuck around with it—it’s hot. Understand?”

“Sure. I mean—”

“Ssssh,” I said, holding my right finger to my lips. “You get popped dumping the car, that’s your problem. I can find you in jail, Porkpie. You know I can. You’d be easy in there. This is your last chance. That woman calls you, you call me. And if you’re holding anything back, you’re landfill, understand?”

“I’m not! I—”

I nodded to Max. He released his grip, slid out of the back seat, quiet as Ebola. I opened the car door and backed out, still pointing the pistol at Porkpie.

Max and I faded back into the shadow of the pier. In a minute, we heard the Volvo start up. We watched Porkpie pull away fast, the rear wheels spinning on the slick pavement.

Clarence pulled up at the wheel of my Plymouth and we all went back across the border.

I
worked the relay over the pay phones, got the word to Hercules: Stay put.

And hoped the Prof wasn’t right about him.

D
ays passed. I vacuumed the newspapers, listened to the radio, even watched some TV. Nothing about the homicide. There was no outcry, no pressure. It would probably disappear into the black hole the cops called Unsolved. It wouldn’t be the first time—not all floaters go into the water.

There was a cop I could ask, a cop who owed me, but that would be the same thing as telling him I was connected in some way. Even if you trust a man not to play certain cards, there’s no point in dealing them to him.

Time was on our side. But the statute of limitations wasn’t. So I went to see a lawyer. Davidson’s a hard-nosed criminal-defense guy, but he passed for honest in our world. He might jug you a little on the fee, but he wouldn’t favor-trade with the DA, and he wouldn’t sell a client for some favorable press ink, the way some of the others do.

H
is office is in midtown, just one good-sized room with a secretary’s station outside. At one time, he had a big joint with a bunch of associates, but he went lean-and-mean a few years ago. His office is furnished in early Salvation Army—all the money’s in technology. And in the heavy cork paneling. In Davidson’s business, traveling sound can get you killed.

“Feels like a decent justification defense to me,” he said, puffing appreciatively on one of the mondo-expensive Expatriados cigars I’d brought him. “Where’d you get these?” he asked.

“An old pal of mine makes them down in Honduras. Cuban seeds, Cuban artisans, but he says Cuban soil is all played out. These are better.”

“Sure are,” Davidson said, holding the dark cylinder at arm’s length to admire the shape. Then he got back to work. “One guy pulls a gun, the other one pulls a knife. One gets a jury trial, the other gets an autopsy. Self-defense. It happened in a bar, we walk. But your guy, his story’s shaky. He was just strolling through the alley at that hour, minding his own business . . . ? I don’t
think
so.”

“And we don’t know if the other guy’s pistol was still there when the EMS crew arrived,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding his head. “We’d get that on discovery, but if it comes up blank . . .”

“Anyone could have picked up the piece and walked off with it,” I told him. Thinking of the dead man’s wallet and watch.

“Forensics?” Davidson asked. Meaning: fingerprints, blood splatters . . . anything the police-lab vultures could vacuum from a corpse.

I flashed on what the Prof had said about that same question: “Blood don’t tell no more, Schoolboy. We ain’t gotta worry about that. A good shyster can always O.J. the DNA.” I scratched my temple, like I was thinking about it. “Nothing,” I told him.

“It’s still dicey,” Davidson said.

“So you advise—what?” I asked.

“Your guy got a sheet?”

“Long one.”

“For this kind of thing?”

“Oh yeah.”

“He a predicate?”

“Twice over.”

“So he couldn’t take even a Man Two,” Davidson mused. “No way to bring him in and make a deal.”

I didn’t say anything. Manslaughter Second Degree is a Class C Felony in New York. Even if Davidson could sweet-plea his way past the life sentence a Habitual Offender tag would bring, Herk was looking at seven and a half to fifteen.

“You got any more cards?” Davidson asked.

“A witness,” I told him. “He’s not a hitter, but he’s no citizen either.”

“Would he roll?”

Would Porkpie turn informant? It wasn’t even a question. The Prof had dismissed any other possibility with a contemptuous snort: “That punk ain’t no real thief, chief. You know the way he play—don’t do the crime if you can’t drop a dime.” He was right: give Porkpie a pass on one of his own cases, he’d sell his mother.

Then again, so would I.

But I’d never sell my family.

“Sure,” I replied.

“Well,” Davidson said, switching to self-protective legalese, “given the facts of the hypothetical with which you’ve presented me, I would advise absolute discretion.”

Meaning: Herk couldn’t come in.

O
nly two ways to tap Porkpie’s home phone—take a major risk or use up a major favor. And even if he
had
a phone in that pesthole he lived in, he probably wouldn’t use it for business. He was a weasel, but not a stupid one. “Got to send Clarence in,” I told the Prof.

“No way, Schoolboy. I told you true—my boy don’t work for Herk.”

“Look, Prof. The only place we know we can possibly get to this girl Porkpie told us about is at Rollo’s, right? If Porkpie’s there, he spots me in a second. You too. Max can’t negotiate. Who’s that leave us?”

“I don’t feature no undercover crap,” the little man said, giving ground grudgingly.

“Clarence goes in, he hangs around, okay?” I said, pleading my case. “He spots Porkpie talking to the girl . . . spots
any
girl who matches the description . . . he steps back, makes a call. The rest is ours.”

“The whole motherfucking thing should be ours.”

“What’s the problem?” I pressed him.

“Bad juju, youngblood. We ain’t fucking
detectives,
” he said, jeering the last word. “We don’t solve crimes—we do ’em. Maybe Herk should just relocate his dumb ass to some fresh green grass.”

“What good’s that gonna do? He tries to make a connect on strange turf, he’s just gonna end up back in jail.”

“But no fear if he stays here?” the little man challenged.

“Okay,” I said, throwing up my hands in surrender. “Fuck him. Let him fall.”

The Prof looked at me a long quiet minute. Then he said: “Guess I taught you even better than I thought, son. Two weeks, all right? We put it together by then, good. If not, Herk’s gotta walk his own way.”