Stakeout (2013) (6 page)

What?

How did a low-level mobster live this long, he doesn’t even lock his door?

It occurred to me it would be a really good time to get out of there.

Right after I erased my number from caller ID.

I pushed the door open, stepped into the kitchen. I was lucky in that it wasn’t dark out yet, I didn’t have to risk a light.

All right, where’s the phone, where’s the answering machine, where’s the caller ID?

There was a phone on the kitchen wall, but there was nothing attached. That wasn’t the one I wanted. There would be an extension in the office or the living room.

I hoped I wouldn’t have to go into the bedroom upstairs. A bad place to be when you hear a car. I’m way too old for jumping out of upstairs windows. Which is not as depressing as it sounds. I was never young enough for jumping out of bedroom windows.

The door from the kitchen led into a small living room with couch, chairs, TV, and a coffee table littered with racing forms. Nothing to indicate Vinnie was the type of swinger who liked to hang out in cheap motels. Which indicated, as MacAullif had suggested, that in all likelihood he had not rented the room for himself.

This was all very interesting, but there was no phone. How’d the guy get along without a phone? He must use his cell phone and—

Jesus!

Could I have
called
his cell phone?

Then there’d be no way to erase it. It would be in his pocket. He could be looking at it right now. It would say Missed Call, just like mine did when someone failed to leave a message. And he’d press it and it would give him my phone number. And he’d trace it and find out who I was. He could even call me and—

My cell phone rang and I nearly peed my pants.

And me without a Gatorade bottle.

Jesus Christ, where the hell was it? Jacket pocket. Pants pocket. Why can’t I be consistent? I can never find the damn phone. It’ll keep ringing and ringing. Until it stops. Then it will say Missed Call.

No it won’t. It will go to voice mail. I do not want this guy’s voice on my answering machine.

Now I really
do
have to pee.

I whipped it out—my cell phone—and flipped it open.

“Stanley. Where are you?”

“Not a good time, Alice.”

“Why? Are you driving?”

“Not at the moment.”

“The office called. You’re not answering your beeper.”

I certainly wasn’t. I’d put it on silent before I called on the widow and never turned it back on.

“Sorry, I’ll call ’em,” I said, but I didn’t. I hate business calls when I’m breaking and entering.

I put the phone on mute, continued my hasty inspection of the house.

I completed my search of the downstairs, found nothing. The phone in the kitchen was it.

It looked like I’d have to go upstairs after all.

I went up a flight of straight and narrow stairs. I figured using them was the only time Vinnie walked the straight and narrow. Realized that was very bad and I was getting punchy. Where’s the damn phone?

There were three bedrooms and a bathroom on the landing.

There was no phone in the first bedroom.

There was no phone in the second bedroom.

There was a phone in the third bedroom, but I didn’t use it to check the caller ID.

Instead I stared at the body on the floor that I assumed was Vinnie Carbone.

15

H
E
’
D BEEN SHOT AT CLOSE
range. At least, close enough to hit him in the head. The bullet appeared to have shattered his right cheekbone just below his eye. I say “appeared” to allow that my assumption might have been wrong. Long years of living with Alice have taught me that.

The man was thin and wiry with dark, curly hair. He had sideburns down below his ears, which he probably thought impressed the ladies. I wondered if they ever did. The guy had the look of a loser, and it wasn’t just because he was dead. He was flashy in a cheap, obvious way. His hair was greasy and looked as if he’d spent a lot of time combing it. Vainly, pretentiously. As if he could get a girl to meet him at a motel.

No, this was clearly the dude. Or most likely the dude. Or the Dude Most Likely, as in my abortive set of Man Most Likely jokes: “The man with the bullet in his head is most likely to be Mort.” But that only works in French, and while I know the words for
man, head
, and
dead
, I don’t know the word for
bullet
. Or
most likely
, for that matter. Le plus possible?

I was not thinking that while I stood looking at the body. I was hyperventilating and vacillating. Not from the shock of finding someone dead, which I have done now and then in the course of my checkered career. But from the dilemma in which I found myself.

The phone by the bed was the type with caller ID. I know because Alice has it. And it keeps a record of incoming calls. Alice had sometimes asked me to look one up, and I’d fumbled my way through the procedure enough times to realize I could fumble my way through it now.

Did I want to do that?

Or did I want to get the hell out of there?

Don’t judge me too harshly. You gotta understand. I was out on bail. Which can be revoked, if you do anything to show you’re not a good citizen. Like get arrested for murder. Getting arrested at this crime scene would probably be the end, if not of my life, of my liberty and pursuit of happiness. Richard, who had put up the bail bond, would not be pleased. Did he forfeit the money if I killed somebody else? See, I’d never been out on bail before. I’d been out on my own recognizance, but no one gives a damn if you forfeit that.

I’d certainly be going to jail. Which was kind of like Rome, where all roads led.

There were tissues on the night stand. I took one out, used it to push the button on the phone that activated caller ID history. The most recent number came up.

It wasn’t mine.

Great.

Now, how did I exit the function?

I didn’t remember.

Picking up the phone ought to do it.

I took another tissue, used it to lift the receiver, put it down.

Yes.

Everything reset.

My number wasn’t in the caller ID, which meant I didn’t have to be there to begin with, but I was, with a dead body, so what did I do now?

I was skipping down the stairs while I had that thought. Which kind of answered the question. I ran to the back of the house, slipped out through the unlocked kitchen door.

Yes, I polished the doorknob with the tissue.

I went around the house, not running, but not dawdling to take in the scenery either.

I hopped in my car and pulled out just as the police cars came down the street.

16

R
ICHARD
R
OSENBERG LOOKED ANNOYED
. “S
TANLEY
. What the hell’s going on? The girls have been fielding calls for you all afternoon.”

“Really?”

“Didn’t they tell you?”

“Wendy tried to say something on the way in, but I had to see you.”

“I’ll bet she did. She and Janet have been trying to beep you all day. Apparently, you turned off your beeper.”

“I was busy. I didn’t want to talk to any cops.”

Richard’s face darkened. “Why would the cops want to talk to you?”

“We have attorney-client privilege here?”

“We got more than that. We have twenty-five grand riding on you not fucking me over. So, tell me, what the hell stupid thing did you do now?”

I gave him the whole spiel. From MacAullif getting me the guy’s credit card receipt to going in and finding him dead. I left out little things like being afraid I’d left my number on the caller ID. It wasn’t on caller ID so it didn’t matter. But aside from that I told him the whole schmear.

When I was done Richard sat there in helpless smoldering fury. I got the impression the only thing keeping him from turning me in was the fact it might cost him twenty-five thousand bucks.

“So,” he said. “Does MacAullif know the guy whose address he gave you turned up dead?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“I wouldn’t think so. Otherwise there wouldn’t be enough of you left to scrape off the floor.” Richard snatched up the phone. “Any of those phone calls for Stanley from MacAullif?… Uh huh. Any of them official?… Yes, like cops … Uh huh.” He hung up the phone. “Why would the police be looking for you?”

“I have no idea.”

“Guess. Were you seen at the guy’s house?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Were you seen driving away?”

“Again, I don’t think so.”

“You didn’t leave anything behind in the house that could be traced to you?”

My eyes flicked.

“Aha! Just what is it?”

“Ah, hell,” I said, and told him the whole caller ID bit.

He was almost as scathing as Alice. Which wasn’t fair. I was granting her the title without her having even competed. But there was no doubt that she would win.

Before Richard had another shot at the championship there came the sound of a ruckus in the outer office, the door slammed open, and MacAullif surged through. That was not supposed to happen. Richard had told the girls he was not to be disturbed. Not that I could fault them. There was no doubt they were doing their best. Wendy was actually clinging to the sergeant’s leg. He shook her off, uttered a remark that probably would not have gotten him invited to be speaker at the local
DAR
. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, wheeled on Richard.

“Pardon the interruption, I need to borrow your employee.”

“He’s my client.”

“I need to borrow your client. Don’t worry, I’ll return the unused portion.”

He wrestled me toward the door.

“You can’t do that,” Richard said.

Apparently he could.

17

M
AC
A
ULLIF DRAGGED ME OUT FRONT
, threw me in the back of his police car. He hopped in the front and took off.

“Where we going?”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

MacAullif had an unmarked car. I didn’t know if the doors were locked, but if I wanted I could have hopped into the front seat, or reached up and strangled him, or put my hands over his eyes so he couldn’t see what he was doing. If that occurred to MacAullif he didn’t seem too concerned, just kept flying down the street.

“You mind telling me where we’re going? It’s not just an idle question. There are some places we probably shouldn’t go.”

“Like the Jersey Shore?”

A woman with a laundry cart leapt to safety, a look of sheer terror on her face.

“MacAullif!”

“I do you a favor. A favor I probably shouldn’t do. A favor that is out of my jurisdiction. I pull a fast one, impersonate an officer—and don’t say I
am
an officer, I mean a New Jersey officer. I pull it off and get you a name and address. And do you
investigate
the guy who lives at that address? No. You
kill
the guy who lives at that address.”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“He’s dead.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“Oh, no? You
don’t
investigate this guy, you think he’s lying on some slab in the morgue, or out playing the ponies?”

“It doesn’t have to be cause and effect.”

“No, it doesn’t
have
to be.”

“It’s probably not. Come on, MacAullif. The motel manager doesn’t know you. The motel manager doesn’t know you’re connected to me. The motel manager doesn’t know squat. The motel manager is just a guy giving you a name and address. Of someone we thought might be mixed up in the murder. Well, guess what? He is. This is
good
news. The death of the dipshit indicates we’re on the right path.”

“We’re not on the right path. We’re not on any path. We’re on no path whatsofuckingever, you and I. Is that clear?”

“What do you mean clear?”

MacAullif ran a red light and swerved around a bus, at the end of which he gave a perfunctory toot on the siren. “Don’t be dense. I am not involved in this case. There is no
reason
to involve me in this case. If you
do
involve me in this case, I consider it a bad move and a breach of friendship. Is that clear?”

“Absolutely.”

“So what are you gonna say when a cop asks you how you got this guy’s address?”

“I’ll tell him to go fuck himself.”

MacAullif slammed on the brakes, pulled in next to a fire plug. He turned in his seat to grab me by the lapels long before the car stopped. “Asshole! I’m serious. Have you given any thought as to what you’re going to say?”

“I want to call my lawyer.”

“Don’t pull that shit on me.”

“No, that’s what I’m gonna say. I’m gonna call my lawyer and I’m going to shut the fuck up. I’ve been arrested for murder and I’m out on bail.”

I could feel some of the tension go out of MacAullif’s body. “Well, that’s something.”

“Yeah, it’s wonderful,” I said. “It’s not great news for
me
, but some of the people in this car ought to be happy.”

“All right, let’s have it. How bad is it?”

“I don’t know. Why did you kick down Richard’s door and drag me out of there?”

“You know why.”

“Yeah, but the details matter. When you heard the guy was dead, how did you find out, and in what context? Was it brought to you personally, or was it just something you plucked out of the general pool of information?”

MacAullif exhaled noisily, shook his head. “If you were only half as good analyzing crime as you were at nitpicking my motivations. Okay, dipshit, you’re closeted with your lawyer, you’re not the least bit surprised to find the asshole’s dead. Assuming you didn’t kill him, what did you do?”

“Will you stay on that side of the seat?”

“Don’t be a schmuck.”

I gave MacAullif a rundown of the situation. I can’t say I improved his mood any.

“So, the cops haven’t picked you up yet,” he mused.

“I like to think of it as they haven’t picked me up.”

“Fat chance. Suspect out on bail when a second murder occurs. I think even
you
would want to talk to him.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Why?”