A Walk Among the Tombstones (9 page)

"I understand. Well, that makes his motive easier to grasp. He wants to get even. Any idea who they are?"

"No."

"But you figure they'll do it again."

"Why quit on a winning roll?"

"Nobody ever does." He helped himself to more vodka. At both of his regular places they bring him the bottle in an ice bucket, and he drinks great quantities of it without paying much attention to it, just drinking it down like water. I don't know where he puts it, or how his body processes it.

He said, "How many bad guys?"

"Minimum of three."

"Splitting four tenths of a mil. They might be taking cabs a lot themselves, don't you think?"

"I had that thought myself."

"So if somebody's throwing a lot of money around, that would be useful information."

"It might."

"And the drug dealers, especially the major players, should get the word that they're at risk for kidnapping. They might just as easily grab a dealer, don't you think? It wouldn't have to be a woman."

"I'm not sure about that."

"Why's that?"

"I think they enjoyed the killing. I think they got off on it. I think they used her sexually, and I think they tortured her, and then when the novelty wore off they killed her."

"The body showed signs of torture?"

"The body came back in twenty or thirty pieces, individually wrapped. And that's not for the street, either. I hadn't planned on mentioning it."

"I'd just as soon you hadn't, to tell you the truth. Matthew, is it my imagination or is the world turning nastier?"

"It doesn't seem to be lightening up."

"It doesn't, does it? Remember the Harmonic Convergence, all the planets lining up like soldiers? Wasn't that supposed to signal the dawn of some kind of New Age?"

"I'm not holding my breath."

"Well, they say it's always darkest before the dawn. I see what you mean, though. If killing's part of the fun, and if they're into rape and torture, well, they won't pick some raggedy-ass dope dealer with a beer gut and a five o'clock shadow. Nothing queer about these fellows."

"No."

He thought for a moment. "They'll have to do it again," he said.

"They could hardly be expected to quit after a score like that. I wonder, though."

"If they've done it before? I was wondering the same thing myself."

"And?"

"They were pretty slick," I said. "I get the feeling they had some practice."

FIRST thing after breakfast the next morning I walked over to the Midtown North station house on West Fifty-fourth. I caught Joe Durkin at his desk, and he caught me off balance by complimenting me on my appearance. "You're dressing better these days," he said. "I think it's that woman's doing. Elaine, right?"

"That's right."

"Well, I think she's a good influence on you."

"I'm sure she is," I said, "but what the hell are you talking about?"

"That's a nice-looking jacket, that's all."

"This blazer? It must be ten years old."

"Well, you never wear it."

"I wear it all the time."

"Maybe it's the tie."

"What's so special about the tie?"

"Jesus Christ," he said. "Did anybody ever tell you you're a difficult son of a bitch? I tell you you look nice and the next thing I know I'm on the fucking witness stand. How about we start over? 'Hello, Matt, it's great to see you. You look like shit. Have a seat.' Is that better?"

"Much better."

"I'm glad. Sit down. What brings you here?"

"I had the urge to commit a felony."

"I know the feeling. There's hardly a day goes by that I don't get the urge myself. You got any particular felony in mind?"

"I was thinking of a class D felony."

"Well, we got lots of those. Criminal possession of forgery devices is a class D felony, and you're probably committing that one at this very minute. You got a pen in your pocket?"

"Two pens and a pencil."

"Gee, it sounds as though I better Mirandize you and get you booked and printed. But I don't suppose that's the class D felony you had in mind."

I shook my head. "I was thinking of violating Section Two Hundred Point Zero Zero of the Criminal Code."

"Two Hundred Point Zero Zero. You're gonna make me look that up, aren't you?"

"Why not?"

He gave me a look, then reached for a black looseleaf binder and flipped through it. "It's a familiar number," he said. "Oh, right, here we are. 'Two Hundred Point Zero Zero. Bribery in the third degree. A person is guilty of bribery in the third degree when he confers, or offers or agrees to confer, any benefit upon a public servant upon an agreement or understanding that such public servant's vote, opinion, judgment, action, decision or exercise of discretion as a public servant will thereby be influenced. Bribery in the third degree is a class D felony.' " He went on reading silently for a moment, then said, "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to violate Section Two Hundred Point Zero Three?"

"What's that?"

"That's bribery in the second degree. It's the same as the other only it's a class C felony. To qualify for Bribery Two, the benefit you confer or offer or agree to confer, Jesus, don't you love the way they word these things, the benefit has to be in excess of ten thousand dollars."

"Ah," I said. "I think class D is my limit."

"I was afraid of that. Can I ask you something? Before you commit your class D felony? How many years has it been since you were on the job?"

"It's been a while."

"So how'd you remember the class of felony, let alone the article number?"

"I've got that kind of memory."

"Bullshit. They've renumbered the sections over the years, they've changed half the book at one time or another. I just want to know how you did it."

"You really want to know?"

"Yes."

"I looked it up in Andreotti's book on my way up here."

"Just to break my balls, right?"

"Just to keep you on your toes."

"Only my best interests at heart."

"Absolutely," I said. I'd set aside a bill in my jacket pocket earlier, and I palmed it now and tucked it into the pocket where he keeps his cigarettes, except during those intervals when he swears off and smokes other people's. "Buy yourself a suit," I told him.

We were all alone in the office, so he took the bill out and examined it. "We'll have to update the terminology. A hat's twenty-five dollars, a suit's a hundred. I don't know what a decent hat costs these days, I can't remember the last time I bought one. But I don't know where you'd get a suit for a hundred bucks outside a thrift shop. 'Here's a hundred bucks, take your wife to dinner.' What's this for, anyway?"

"I need a favor."

"Oh?"

"There was a case I read about," I said. "Had to be six months ago and it could have been as much as a year. Couple of guys grabbed a woman off the street, rode off with her in a truck. She turned up a few days later in the park."

"Dead, I'm assuming."

"Dead."

" 'Police suspect foul play.' Can't say it rings a bell. It wasn't one of our cases, was it?"

"It wasn't even Manhattan. I seem to remember that she turned up on a golf course in Queens, but it could as easily have been somewhere in Brooklyn. I didn't pay any attention at the time, it was just an item I read while I drank a second cup of coffee."

"And what do you want now?"

"I want my memory refreshed."

He looked at me. "You're getting pretty free with a buck, aren't you? Why make a donation to my wardrobe fund when you could go to the library, look it up in the Times Index?"

"Under what? I don't know where or when it happened or any of the names. I'd have to scan every issue for the last year, and I don't even know what paper I read it in. It may not have made the Times."

"Be easier if I made a couple of phone calls."

"That's what I was thinking."

"Why don't you take a walk? Have yourself a cup of coffee. Get yourself a table at the Greek place on Eighth Avenue. I'll probably drop in there an hour from now, have myself some coffee and a piece of Danish."

Forty minutes later he came to my table in the coffee shop at Eighth and Fifty-third. "Just over a year ago," he said. "Woman named Marie Gotteskind. What's that mean, God is kind?"

"I think it means 'child of God.' "

"That's better, because God wasn't kind to Marie. She was reported abducted in broad daylight while shopping on Jamaica Avenue in Woodhaven. Two men drove off with her in a truck, and three days later a couple of kids walking across the Forest Park Golf Course came upon her body. Sexual assault, multiple stab wounds. The One-Oh-Four caught the case and bounced it back to the One-Twelve once they ID'd her, because that was where the original abduction took place."

"They get anywhere?"

He shook his head. "Guy I talked to remembered the case well enough. It had people in the neighborhood pretty shook up for a couple of weeks there. Respectable woman walks down the street, couple of clowns grab her, it's like getting struck by lightning, you know what I mean? If it can happen to her it can happen to anybody, and you're not even safe in your own home. They were afraid there'd be more of the same, gang rape on wheels, the whole serial-killer bit. What was that case in L.A., they made a miniseries out of it?"

"I don't know."

"Two Italian guys, I think they were cousins. They were doing hookers and leaving them up in the hills.

Hillside Strangler, that's what they called it. Stranglers, it should have been, but I guess the media named the case before they knew it was more than one person."

"The woman in Woodhaven," I said.

"Right. They were afraid she was the first of a series, but then there weren't any more and everybody relaxed. They still put a lot of effort into the case but nothing led anywhere. It's an open file now, and the thinking is that the only way they'll break it is if the perps get caught doing it again. He asked if we had anything tied into it. Do we?"

"No. What did the woman's husband do, did you happen to notice?"

"I don't think she was married. I think she was a schoolteacher.

Why?"

"She live alone?"

"What difference does it make?"

"I'd love to see the file, Joe."

"You would, huh? Whyntcha ride out to the One-Twelve and ask them to show it to you."

"I don't think that would work."

"You don't, huh? You mean there are cops in this town won't go out of their way to do a favor for a private license? Jesus, I'm shocked."

"I'd appreciate it."

"A phone call or two's one thing," he said. "I didn't have to commit a flagrant breach of departmental regulations and neither did the guy on the job in Queens. But you're asking for disclosure of confidential materials. That file's not supposed to leave the office."

"It doesn't have to. All he has to do is take five minutes to fax it."

"You want the whole file? Full-scale homicide investigation, there's got to be twenty, thirty pages in that file."

"The department can afford the fax charges."

"I don't know," he said. "The mayor keeps telling us the city's going broke. What's your interest in it, anyway?"

"I can't say."

"Well, Jesus Christ, Matt. You want it all flowing in one direction, don't you?"

"It's a confidential matter."

"No shit. It's confidential, but departmental files are an open book, is that it?" He lit a cigarette and coughed. He said, "This wouldn't have anything to do with a friend of yours, would it?"

"I don't follow you."

"Your buddy Ballou. This got anything to do with him?"

"Of course not."

"You sure of that?"

"He's out of the country," I said. "He's been gone for over a month and I don't know when he's coming back. And he's never been big on raping women and leaving them in the middle of the fairway."

"I know, he's a gentleman, he replaces all divots. They're looking to put together a RICO case against him, but I suppose you already knew that."

"I heard something about it."

"I hope they make it stick, tuck him away in a federal joint for the next twenty years. But I suppose you feel differently."

"He's a friend of mine."

"Yeah, so I've been told."

"Anyway, he's got nothing to do with this matter." He just looked at me, and I said, "I have a client whose wife disappeared. The MO

looks similar to the Woodhaven incident."

"She was abducted?"

"It looks that way."

"He report it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I guess he had his reasons."

"That's not good enough, Matt."

"Suppose he's in the country illegally."

"Half the city's in the country illegally. You think we catch a kidnap case, the first thing we do is turn the victim over to the INS? And who is this guy, he can't swing a green card but he's got the money for a private investigator? Sounds to me like he's got to be dirty."

"Whatever you say."

"Whatever I say, huh?" He put out the cigarette and frowned at me.

"The woman dead?"

"It's beginning to look that way. If it's the same people--"

"Yeah, but why would it be the same people? What's the connection, the MO of the abduction?" When I didn't say anything he picked up the check, glanced at it, and tossed it across the table to me.

"Here,"

he said. "Your treat. You still at the same number? I'll call you this afternoon."

"Thanks Joe."

"No, don't thank me. I have to figure out if there's any way this is going to come back and haunt me. If not I'll make the call. Otherwise forget it."