City Of Lies (27 page)

The seller is having second thoughts. If Micky Levin is buying then Micky Levin isn’t
really
buying. Micky Levin never bought anything for himself in his life. He’s a carrier, a gopher, a hired hand, a runner, a small-timer with high hopes and flexible loyalties. He’ll never be anything but someone’s boy.

‘Everything?’ Micky asks.

The seller nods. ‘Everything,’ he says.

‘Do I need to check it?’

The seller’s eyes widen. ‘When did you ever need to check anything from me?’

Micky smiles. ‘I didn’t.’

‘So we’re good then?’

Micky shrugs. ‘I have to check . . . you understand this isn’t my gear, right? I’m just fetchin’ an’ carryin’, you know what I mean?’

The seller nods. ‘I know what you mean.’

‘And this is a taster, right? This stuff is good then we’re gonna need one helluva lot more. You make good on this and there’s a lot of money gonna change hands.’

The seller nods, his mouth turned down at the edges thoughfully. ‘So you’re in on something—’

‘Hey, you know better than that,’ Levin says.

The seller is irritated. Micky Levin is a two-bit piece of shit. He doesn’t have the right to share the same sidewalk, let alone speak like he’s hit the big time.

Levin shakes his head. ‘I ain’t got nothing. I ain’t into anything, you get me?’

Seller wants to slap Micky down the street and west three blocks, but he minds his fists and his mouth. Needs the trade.

‘Back there,’ Micky says, and indicates an alleyway fifteen or twenty feet down the sidewalk.

‘I’m walking,’ the seller says, and turns, starts in that direction, and Micky’s following on behind him, glancing back towards the other side of the street.

The seller pauses at the entrance to the alley, glances back at Micky who is three or four steps behind him, and then turns and walks right on down there.

Micky slows up. He turns and heads back the way he’s come. He waits on the sidewalk, blocks the alleyway from view with his body, and when two or three minutes have passed he backs into the darkness, turns, and hurries down there to the fence at the end.

The seller – a wiseass, no-good, two-faced motherfucker called Johnnie Hoy – sits against the fence, hands in his lap, snow turning him pale grey, face kind of pushed in to one side, switchblade jutting awkwardly from his right eye, left eye open and staring, expression kind of surprised but at the same time resigned to the fact that if he was going to go then it would be in such a way as this. People like Johnnie Hoy didn’t die of coronaries or strokes or diabetes or cancer; people like Johnnie Hoy were shot in the forehead or garrotted, stuck in the neck with a shiv down in Fulton Pen., or they took a long drop with a short rope off a fire escape someplace in Brooklyn Heights. It was part of the life, part of the world within which he had lived, the same world which now had killed him.

‘Cocksucker,’ Micky Levin says. It’s almost a whisper, nothing more than that. And then he takes one step forward and lets fly with an almighty kick to Johnnie Hoy’s head. The sound of the vertebrae shattering in his neck is like a firecracker. Blood jettisons across the toe of Levin’s shoe.

Micky leans down and picks up the paper bag. Looks inside. Three .38s, a box of Glaser Safety shells, two cartons of double-aught shot. Bundles the top of the bag tight, tucks it under his arm.

‘Sol?’ Levin asks.

Sol Neumann steps from the back right-hand corner of the alleyway.

‘So we’re good?’

Neumann nods, clears his throat. ‘Good enough.’

Levin buries his hands in his overcoat pockets. ‘Cold as fuck,’ he says.

‘Get outta here, go home,’ Neumann says, and nods his head towards the street-end of the alley.

‘I’m gone,’ Levin says, and starts walking.

‘Hey.’

Levin turns back towards Neumann.

‘You keep your ears and eyes open for any sign of this McCaffrey guy, right?’

Levin shakes his head. ‘It’s all I hear about Sol. McCaffrey, McCaffrey . . . Jesus, who the fuck
is
this loser?’

‘He ain’t no-one,’ Sol Neumann replies.

Levin smiles. ‘For someone who’s no-one he sure seems to have pissed off a lot of people.’

Neumann raises his hand. ‘Enough already. Do what you’re asked. Keep your eyes and ears open, okay?’

‘Right, right. McCaffrey.’

‘Thomas McCaffrey. Black guy. You hear anything you let me know.’

‘Sure thing Sol, sure thing.’ Levin turns and starts to walk away. Tiny drops of blood remain at the toe of each footstep, stark red against the snow.

Sol Neumann stands for a moment and watches until Levin has vanished out into the street. He lifts his left foot and places it against Johnnie Hoy’s chest. With his right hand he tugs the knife free, wipes it on Johnnie’s coat, and then folds it up. ‘Fucked you up, eh?’ Neumann says. ‘Dumbass piece of shit you are, so help me God.’ He pauses a second more, looks down at the collapsed form of the man against the fence, the blood covering his cheek, running down his neck, the way the snowflakes touch it and dissolve instantly. By the time someone finds him they’ll have to defrost the asshole.

Neumann puts the switchblade in his pocket. He backs up one, two, three steps, and then he turns and hurries out onto West Fifteenth. The snow comes down faster as he walks. The mess of footprints in the alleyway will be gone within seconds. The lights from the storefronts reflect back at him. The feeling of Christmas is in the air, and Sol Neumann believes this Christmas will be one he remembers.

He is right. Johnnie Hoy will not be found until late the following morning. By the time they get to identifying him word will already be out that Johnnie was out of the show for keeps,
wouldn’t be clearing his tabs or making good at the track. Easy come, easy go.

Sol Neumann heads back towards the Fourteenth Street subway station. He takes a train, stays on all the way down through West Village to Canal Street, walks back up Sixth to a small Cantonese restaurant. Inside it is warm, a welcome respite from the snow and bitter wind. He removes his overcoat, nods at the waiter, and then goes to the rear of the restaurant. He takes a chair facing Ben Marcus.

Ben Marcus looks up, raises an eyebrow. ‘Mr Hoy won’t be joining us?’

Neumann shakes his head. ‘He couldn’t make it.’

‘A shame . . . the char sui bun is very good indeed.’

Neumann smiles. ‘Another time perhaps.’

‘And McCaffrey?’

Neumann shakes his head. ‘Marie fucking Celeste.’

Marcus is quiet for a moment, and then leans forward, his voice hushed. ‘I said I wanted him found, Sol. I meant just that. I need him found within hours, not days. Tell your guys that the man who finds him is in for a twenty-five bonus.’

‘Ben—’

Marcus shakes his head. ‘I don’t want a discussion. I want McCaffrey. Twenty-five grand to the man who finds him.’

Neumann doesn’t reply.

Marcus reaches for a bottle of sake and then leans back in his chair. ‘So we eat,’ he says, and then fills glasses for them both.

Sol Neumann smiles, unfolds a napkin. Killing people makes him hungry.

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Dukes singing ‘Love On The Wrong Side Of Town’.

Jukebox back and to the left, like an old Wurlitzer. Coffee shop, quaint but hip, last man standing against the Seattle conglomerates. Tables with red and white-checkered cloths, waitress dressed like some old-time ’50s kind of theme. Button-badge said ‘Angela’.

‘Just straight,’ Duchaunak said. ‘None of this foam or steamed milk or walnut shavings or anything else . . . just straight coffee with cream and sugar.’

Angela smiled beautifully, like she didn’t even have to try and look good, just rolled out of bed like Veronica Lake. She turned to Harper. ‘And you, sir?’

‘Same again but no sugar.’

‘Anything to eat? Cinnamon Danish, Banoffee pie?’

Harper shook his head.

Angela looked at Duchaunak. Duchaunak asked if they did a plain ring donut. They did; he said he’d have one.

She drifted away with a degree of elegance and grace that belonged to a George Petty pin-up, not a coffee shop.

‘Pretty girl,’ Duchaunak said.

‘She is.’

‘You’re not married?’

Harper shook his head. ‘You?’

‘No, not married.’

‘Ever been?’

‘I look like the marrying kind to you?’

Harper smiled. ‘I know some girls that don’t give a rat’s ass what a man looks like.’

‘The kind of girl you pay for, right?’

‘No, not the kind of girl you pay for. What do you take me for?
I don’t mean that kind of girl . . . I mean the kind that’s looking for a husband because the idea of having a husband and raising a family is more important than what the guy might look like.’

‘I don’t know any girls like that, and besides I’m not the marrying kind.’

‘How come?’

Duchaunak smiled wryly. ‘Cops are like nuns. They marry the lifestyle, the job. If they’re fortunate enough to find a girl who’ll put up with being second best all the time then good luck to them. I sure as hell haven’t seen a great number of my colleagues make a success of that kind of life.’

Angela returned. She set the cups on the table. A jug of cream, a bowl filled with sachets of sugar, some brown, some white.

Harper looked up at her. She was a very attractive woman; made him think of Cathy Hollander, wondered where she was, what she was doing.

Southside Johnny faded. Tom Waits started up with ‘The Ghosts Of Saturday Night’.

Duchaunak was sorting through the bowl of sugar sachets. He took out one of each, brown and white, and laid them side by side near his coffee cup. He went through a little ritual, picking up a sachet, holding it by the upper edge, flicking it so the sugar settled to the bottom. He tore the top, emptied half the sachet into his cup, and then folded it over neatly and put it on the table. Took a spoon and stirred his coffee – clockwise twice, anticlockwise three times. He did the same with the second sachet – flick, tear, pour, fold, stir – and then he took the first sachet, unfolded the top and emptied the remainder in his cup.

‘What the fuck is that?’ Harper asked.

Duchaunak looked up. ‘What?’ He glanced around the room as if there was something to see.

‘That shit with the sugar sachets.’

Duchaunak frowned.

‘The thing with opening them and putting half in your cup, and then this stirring routine . . . what the fuck are you doing?’

‘Er . . . it’s nothing . . . just a thing I do . . . like for good luck, you know?’

Harper shook his head, his eyes squinted. ‘You what?’

‘It’s nothing. It’s just a thing I do. Half and half, brown and white sugar.’

‘What’s the fucking matter with you? You got OCD or something?’

‘OC what?’

‘OCD. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. You know, like people who have to turn the lights on and off five times before they can go to sleep. That kind of shit.’

‘No, I haven’t got OCD.’

‘Then what the hell’re you doing all that for?’

Duchaunak looked up at him. ‘Don’t make something out of nothing—’

‘You’re the one who’s making something out of nothing . . . all that opening sugar sachets and closing them up again for good luck. What normal person does that kind of thing?’

‘The company you’re keeping I don’t think you have any right to be making judgements on who’s normal and who’s not.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that you got yourself into something deeper than—’ Duchaunak shook his head. ‘Christ, I don’t know, I can’t even think of a suitable metaphor for the depth of shit you’re in.’

‘So give me a clue.’

Duchaunak leaned back and sighed. ‘You ever seen
The Godfather
?’

‘Which one? It’s a trilogy.’

‘Ah fuck, I don’t know. I only ever saw one of them.’

Harper smiled. ‘Then you’re missing a great deal. You should go rent out all three of them and watch them back-to-back. Lot of people have an opinion about the third one—’

Duchaunak raised his hand. ‘I didn’t come here to talk about Godfather movies.’

‘You asked me if I’d seen the movie, right? You started this thing about
The Godfather
.’

‘I know I did. Hey, I’m sorry. Let’s back up a minute and start over.’

‘Sure, whatever you say.’

‘Right. Okay. So you seen some gangster movies.’

Harper nodded. ‘I’ve seen some gangster movies.’

‘So you know that people like that . . . well, people like that, they steal and kill one another and all that kind of thing.’

‘Sure they do. That’s what being a gangster is all about. That’s their job, isn’t it?’

‘So that’s who you’re dealing with right now.’

Harper didn’t reply.

‘You understand what I’m telling you, Mr Harper? The people you are associating with . . . Walt Freiberg, Cathy Hollander, yes?’

‘They’re gangsters . . . like in
The Godfather
. Gangsters like in the movies, right?’

Duchaunak smiled, then turned his mouth down at the edges. ‘Gangsters, hell I don’t know.
The Godfather
? It was just what came to mind. I was simply trying to give you a point of reference.’

‘A point of reference? Marlon Brando or Al Pacino? Or maybe Andy Garcia, eh? And Cathy Hollander? Is she more like Talia Shire or Diane Keaton?’

‘You’re missing the point, Mr Harper—’

‘The point? What point would that be, Detective? You come down here and run this same crap on me? What the hell is it with you?’

‘I’m doing my job—’

‘I don’t understand how this can be part of your job.’

Duchaunak leaned forward. He placed his hands flat on the table. ‘My job, Mr Harper, is to stop people breaking the law—’

‘And you’re here right now, right here in this coffee shop with me, on
official
business, yes?’

Duchaunak paused, looked awkward.

Harper slid his coffee cup out of the way and leaned forward. ‘On official business, Detective, working on a case, an active case supported by your department, authorized by your precinct captain, and I am in some way directly or indirectly involved in an ongoing police investigation—’