The Long Good Boy (20 page)

A minute later, forgetting she'd already told me why she had ducked around the corner, under the sidewalk bridge, to grab a smoke, she said, “I got the fiercest headache. This make it go away.” She peered toward the corner. “Devon see me, I'm as dead as the rest of the meat around here.”

Clint finished sniffing and put his front paws up on my fishnet stockings. I scratched behind his ears, folded over like the flaps of envelopes.

“I came looking for you for a reason,” I said, Chi Chi doing her best to look alert. “I've changed my mind.”

“'Bout what? You not going to solve this case for us?” Chi Chi stumbled. I grabbed for her arm, but she pulled it away.

“Doing Vinnie.”

“Say what?”

“Are you supposed to see him this morning?”

She nodded.

“Well, I'd like to go instead. The door'll be open, right?”

Chi Chi nodded again.

“Chi Chi, I've got all these pieces of information, but I can't put them together in a way that makes sense. I'm trying.” I shook my head. “I don't want anyone else to get hurt. I don't want you to get hurt. That's why I need to—”

“I din't say no, did I?”

“Thanks. Really.”

“And like I said, you could keep half the money.” She sniffed. “Right?”

“I don't want the money. You paid me enough.”

“Okay. Whatever you say, Rachel. You want I should wait here?”

“Is it time?” I looked at my watch. Then up at the sky, which had just started to lighten.

“More than time. It late. See, I got delayed with a trick. He let me off,” she waved her hand in the direction of downtown, “an' I had to walk back. Then I stopped to have me a little smoke, ease my pain. Jus' try the door. I'll wait here for you. You need Clint?”

Chi Chi had obviously had a bit more to shore her up than the one joint. I told her I didn't need Clint, I would go in the way she did, through the front door. She thought about that, then nodded and said she'd wait.

“You don't have to,” I told her. “I doubt I'll have anything to tell you when I come out, but I have to try everything. You never know where the information that gives you the answer will come from, what'll set your mind straight.”

“What about the money?” she asked.

“How much do you get?”

“Sixty,” she said.

Yeah, yeah.

I pulled some cash out of my purse, a bigger one this time, more to carry, and gave her three twenties, easiest money she ever earned. She held it in her hand, saying nothing. Then she handed me a twenty back.

“Sometimes he only pays forty,” she said, “and you a beginner.”

I could see from the sidewalk that the padlock was off the door. I made my way across the cobblestones, careful not to get my heels caught in the spaces between the stones, looking the way Chi Chi had the night I spied on her from up on the bridge, that same funny walk. Dashiell was heeling. At the door, I bent and took off his leash, hanging it around my neck. Then I pulled open the door, let him in ahead of me, and signaled him to heel again. We picked our way through the hanging carcasses, not much here at this hour, before the morning deliveries. Coming to the end of a row of hooks, sides of pork hanging on the last three and blocking my vision, I found myself nose to nose with the head of a pig, his eyes staring dead ahead, as if he were looking right at me, his mouth open. There were six of them. Now, what was that all about? Halloween was long past. I hurried on, the sound of the compressor covering any sound I might make, pushing through the plastic strips, heavier than they looked, reminding Dashiell to stay at my side. Once we'd gotten to the top of the stairs, I pointed to the floor, then held my palm in front of his face to let him know he should stay put.

The light was on in the office. So was the heater. I could hear the fan, feel the heat coming out into the cold hallway, see the orange glow from where I stood.

“Where's Chi Chi?” he asked. He'd gotten up from where he'd been sitting, coming halfway around the desk, stopping, one hand on his hip, the other pointing at me.

“Busy,” I told him. “Anyway, she thought you might like a change of pace.”

He shook his head. “I didn't tell her that. I didn't tell her to send someone else.”

“No. You didn't.” I walked closer, sliding one cheek and thigh onto the edge of his desk. We were close enough to touch. “Something wrong?” I asked him. “Not enough money in petty cash to pay me?”

“What are you—”

“I have some questions, Vinnie. You answer them, I leave, no problem. It won't cost you a dime. In fact, if you cooperate, this little meeting never happened.”

“Why should I talk to you? Who the fuck are you?”

I slipped my hand into my purse. Vinnie backed up so fast, he nearly fell into the chair he'd recently vacated. As I pulled my hand back out, Vinnie raised his in a defensive gesture, as if he could stop a bullet with it, as if that ever worked.

I held up my cell phone.

“What the—”

“I have your wife on speed dial,” I said.

Vinnie froze, one hand still up in the air, the way the Supremes used to do it when they sang, “Stop in the Name of Love.”

I was waiting to see if I needed to call in the big guns, but Vinnie's hands never moved.

“Why don't you roll your chair back a little,” I suggested.

That seemed to wake him up, and he reached for the drawer on the top left side. I swung my leg around the front of the desk and kicked the door shut, catching two of his fingers when it closed. Then I whistled, and there was Dashiell in the doorway before Vinnie had the chance to pull his damaged hand out of harm's way.

“Watch him.” I slapped the desk, and then Dashiell was on it, his back paws on the old blotter, his front ones at the edge, as if he were ready to spring again, his compressor going full blast.

I leaned forward and opened the drawer, flipping my hand at Vinnie, telling him he could have his wounded paw back, then pulling out the gun and, without looking at it, pointing it at him.

“Charlton Heston would be so proud of you,” I told him. “On the other hand, didn't you ever read that when you keep a gun, there's a
huge
chance whoever breaks in will end up using it on you?”

He didn't answer me. He was cradling his hand and staring at Dashiell.

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

“It's since Mulrooney,” he said. “I'm here alone, and I don't know who the hell—”

“You could always lock the front door,” I said.

“But—”

“I know. You've got needs. And Rosalinda had to earn a living. And anway, don't they call it a victimless crime?” Nothing, not even a polite little nod. “Until, of course, Rosalinda became a victim. I'm wondering what might have caused that. I'm wondering how you could help me, Vinnie, given the fact that both she and Mulrooney died at virtually the same time and that it stretches credibility to think that since Mulrooney worked here, and Rosalinda worked here, we might say, and they both died on the night of Halloween, that those deaths were unrelated.”

“I didn't …,” he said. Then he stopped. He closed his mouth so tight, his lips all but disappeared.

“You didn't?”

He shook his head.

“I never thought you did,” I said, slipping my other leg up onto the desk, putting an arm over Dashiell's back. I heard the cup Vinnie kept his pens in hit the floor and break, the pens and pencils skittering across the dirty floor, but I didn't turn around to look. “Hey, the cops released those two guys from CityWide Carting. Paper said they were someplace else that night. Lucky guys, don't you think? Most times, cops want to know where you were and there's no one around to corroborate your story, you're home alone watching TV, boohoo, no alibi. Am I right?”

Vinnie took a breath, his first, as far as I could tell, since the Eisenhower years.

“Especially when you're talking four, five in the morning.”

“Six.”

“Six?”

“That's what we were told.”

“Broken watch pinpoint the time?”

Vinnie shrugged. He wasn't the ME. How the fuck did he know the answer to a question like that?

“Of course, saying it was them, saying those alibis were bought and paid for, why would they have killed Rosalinda, too?”

This time Vinnie's mouth opened, then closed again.

“Any theories?”

“Maybe she saw something?”

I stared.

“Maybe she witnessed a crime while commiting a crime.”

“Excellent point. But I figure it this way, Vinnie. If Capelli and Maraccio had done Rosalinda, wouldn't they simply have left her here? Why take the enormous chance of carting—get the little occupation-appropriate humor?” I waited. Vinnie nodded, taking a not-so-subtle peek at his watch. “Why take the chance of carrying a corpse all the way to the Gansevoort Pier? Or perhaps they walked her there, then did her? What's your opinion on it, huh?”

“Look, it's getting late for you to be here.” He was sweating, the way the girls do, but as far as I could tell, he wasn't on anything, a decision he might have been ruing at the moment.

“Not to worry. I have plenty of time.”

“No, you don't understand. Dressed like that”—he gestured from where he sat, looking small, almost as if he were a ten-year-old sitting in his dad's chair—“the men will be here in less than an hour. Some of them, they get in a little early, you know. I need you to leave. Now. Understand?” Loud. He got up. Dashiell revved up the sound effects. Vinnie sat again.

“I appreciate your concerns,” I told him. “I really do. So, tell me what your take is on this, and I'll be out of here. Not only that, you being such a good boy, I won't call the little woman, either.”

“It was them,” he said. “Capelli and Maraccio.”

“This is your theory? This is your brilliant conclusion, that even though Keller's has used two other carting companies since the Trade Waste Commission was established, these two hoods killed Mulrooney over a few months of your puny business? All of a sudden, you think you're Lamb Unlimited, Western Beef, your business is worth killing for?”

“The what commission?”

“Don't take me for a fool, Mr. Esposito. I'm not a fool. And since you were aiming to manage this place, you couldn't be ignorant of the laws about the carting industry. You couldn't be that stupid.”

He sat there, trying his best to make me a liar.

“Used to be, the carting industry was all the mob, am I right? Feel free to nod, just so I know you're awake.” He did. “Nothing anyone could do. You put out for bids, you only get one bid. You want to stay in business, you pay them whatever they say it costs. But then Giuliani gets a bug up his ass. He wants to clean it all up. Make the carting industry honest. So now the commission gets to check all the licenses of the carters, and they set maximum rates. Since they started, the rates have gone down by twenty to as much as fifty percent. Can't blame Mulrooney for trying to save a little money for the Keller family, for doing his job, can you?”

“But the paper said—”

“Hey, grow up. The cops must have been after those two anyway. And they can tell the papers whatever the hell they please. What's the
Times
going to do now that they released a second cock-and-bull story, arrest the police?”

“Maybe it had to do with a different change.”

“And that would be?”

He checked his watch again. “Maybe someone knew about the meat.”

I leaned forward. “I'm listening.”

Vinnie put his hands up to his head, as if it had suddenly started to ache, or perhaps was about to explode. “It's genetically altered. But we sell it without saying so.”

“And you think someone killed the manager because of that?”

He nodded.

“And your hooker? Was she here that night, in her white gown? Was that a night she helped you wait for the wedding, Vinnie, so that you wouldn't be tempted to dis your virgin bride?”

“Oh, shit.”

“Tainted meat without a label?”

“Not tainted, genetically altered. The law says, you know, you got to say, but the hotels and restaurants, they don't want it. They want milk-fed, corn-fed, not dicked-around-with provisions.”

“Then why were you selling it?”

He rubbed the thumb of his right hand against the forefinger. “It's cheaper. The profit is higher. They tol' me I was passed over because the profit margin was too low, I wasted money, I had too many men on the floor, I never came up with any good ideas, that Mulrooney could do better. He had a history of making more money for management. But that's not what they told me earlier, when they said I had a good shot at promotion, I should be patient.”

“So this was his decision, to buy the altered meat?”

“No, mine. I thought if I could show them I could put more money in their pockets, they'd change their minds. I'd get the job they promised me after all. That's all they care about, the almighty buck.”

“You mean, you did it on your own? You wanted to prove to them that you would make a better manager?”

He smiled, the little snake, proud of himself.

“Then why did Mulrooney get it and not you? And why didn't whoever was so upset, upset enough to kill, just move their business elsewhere? Why execute the manager?”

“Maybe as a lesson to the other markets.”

There was a noise downstairs.

“Shit,” Vinnie said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Your men?”

He nodded.

“And your boss?”

He nodded again.

“You've been very helpful,” I said. “I wouldn't want to see you get into trouble.”

“I can't explain this.” He pointed at me, the boor.

“Pay me, and I'm out of here.”