Clockers (23 page)

Rocco took a breath, then started in. “Listen, ah, just be patient with me. I’m gonna have to ask you the same questions you probably just got asked by Detective Kelso a few hours ago.”

“Fats?”

“Fats? Is that what you call him?”

“Yeah. He OK, Fats. He told me last week I had a warrant out on me, ‘cause I didn’t show up at court that time? He took care of it. He made a phone call for me.” She snapped her fingers. “Bam, it’s over. Fats awright, he got me on this twenty-one-day methadone program? Yeah…” She nodded in appreciation.

“So what did you see tonight, Carmela?”

“Yeah, well, I was across the street.”

“What street?”

“You know, De Groot.”

“De Groot where?”

“You know, in front of Rudy’s.”

“Rudy’s.”

“You know, the bar?”

“Were you in the bar?”

“Well, I was before, but mostly to use the bathroom and buy potato chips. I ain’t got no money for cocktails, just like once in a while like to celebrate something. Mostly I buy a pint at the package store and hang out in front of Rudy’s.”

Rocco began writing. “What time we talking?”

“Late.”

“How late?”

“Well, I don’t know ‘cause I don’t have a watch.”

“Take a guess.”

“Well, it got to be around ten-thirty because I was hungry, so I walked over to the Ahab’s to get some food, ‘cause Rudy close his kitchen at nine, and after that they got nothin’ left but them pickled sausages and eggs in them
jars,
and I got a stomach situation, I got my stomach operated on so I can’t eat that garbage, but I see the lights go off inside the Ahab’s like they closing up? So but they close up like ten, ten-thirty, yeah.”

“Where were you when the lights went off?”

“I was in the parking lot at the end.”

“What do you mean, the end?”

“You know, like right by the street. You know, like far away from the building? I see the lights go off and I say, ’
Damn,
I just missed.’”

“What you do then?”

“I see the manager or someone come out. You know, like to lock up on the side, and I keep walking to him because I figure maybe I can get him to give me something^and I saw this other man leaning against a car near the door like waiting for him, and when the guy locked up, the other guy came off the car and he just …
boom boom.
You know, three, four times, and then he ran. It was fast, the whole thing was
fast.
”

“Whoa, whoa, back up. This car—do you think the car was his?”

“I don’t know. He was leanin’ on it.”

“Did you see him get out of the car?”

“Nope. Didn’t get back in either.”

“What kind of car?”

“Red, like,
red.
I saw the po-lice taking down the plates, you know, the numbers? They got on that car when they did that, yeah.”

“Where was he leaning?”

“On the car.”

“Where? Front, back?”

“In the middle on the door.”

“Driver’s door or passenger’s door?”

“The side door in front.”

“You don’t know what kind of car?”

“It looked nice, new.”

“Big? Compact?”

“I don’t know.”

Rocco stopped the interview to go over to Vy’s desk and call the Bureau of Criminal Identification, to get a print man over to the scene and find the car, dust the doors. A million to one, but what the hell. He watched Carmela refill her coffee cup with gin.

Sighing, Rocco returned to his chair. “OK, so Carmela, where were you when the shooting happened?”

“About halfway to the Ahab’s.”

“Did you recognize the guy who did the shooting?”

“Nope.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Nope. He was wearing a hood.”

“What do you mean, a hood?”

“Like a sweatshirt hood.”

“What color?”

“Dark.”

“Dark. What else he have on?”

“Pants, I guess.”

“Dungarees, gym sweats, dress pants?”

“I didn’t look.”

“Sneakers or shoes?”

“I didn’t look.”

“Did he have any decorations on his clothes—words, designs, stripes?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe what?”

“I don’t know. I heard that
boom boom
or, you know,
pop pop,
and I just turned and walked back. I ain’t gettin’ in
that
mess.”

“Did he say anything? Did they talk?”

“Naw, it was like he just went up in his face and started shooting, you know? And like, the manager, he was backing away and shaking his head like, No, no.”

“He said ‘No, no’?”

“No, just like, shaking his head.”

“You see the gun?”

“Not really.”

“Would you know if it was automatic or a revolver? Do you know the difference between an automatic and a revolver?”

“Yeah. An automatic you put the bullets in the bottom.”

“Right.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t see.”

“OK, so nobody said nothing. Where’d the guy run to?”

“Like towards the mini-mall, just runnin’ runnin’ runnin’.”

“Did he say anything when he was running? Did he yell out anything?”

“Nope. Shit, I was runnin’ too.”

“Was the guy white or black?”

“The manager was black, I know that.”

“The shooter.”

“I don’t know … I couldn’t see.”

“What color were his hands?”

“I didn’t see.”

Rocco flipped his pen onto his pad: Horseshit on a platter.

“Listen to me, Carmela. I know you’re probably afraid, but I want you to know you’re covered, you’re protected. I’m personally gonna protect you.” Rocco hated saying that. The fact was she was on her own, they all were, but if they weren’t sold on protection, they would never testify. “In fact, you’re not even here. I’m writing this up like an anonymous citizen gave me this. You’re a confidential informant. It’s just me and You.”

“I ain’t afraid.” She made a face.

“Look, a lot of people are. I’m just telling you, you got nothing to worry about. Your name’s not gonna be in the papers, nothing. In fact, there might even be some money in it for you, like a cash reward from the Ahab’s company.”

“Hey.” Carmela tilted her head forward, scratched the bulging bone below her ear with an amber thumbnail. “You say cash, shit, I’ll
make
things up, I
like
cash.”

Rocco heard a dull thud and excused himself to check on Touhey. He was still passed out inside the cell, mouth open, forearm across his eyes. It must have been the refrigerator kicking over. That, or somebody landing on the roof. He ducked into the stillness of the Homicide office, the silent sea of clutter, the phones, thinking: Call Patty. Maybe she could help him figure out this actor thing. But he still didn’t feel up to it.

Rocco walked back into the reception room. It was one-thirty in the morning. “OK, Carmela. What did you do after the shooting. Where’d you go?”

“I ran into Rudy’s. I go to the bartender, I say call the police and he called, and, you know.”

“What’s the bartender’s name?”

“Rudy? I don’t know. Rudy the bartender, I guess. He’s nice, though. I can go to the bathroom six times a night, not buy a beer, he don’t say nothin’.”

“Did you go back out to the lot?”

“Well, yeah, but like the police was there by then. Shit, I wasn’t gonna say nothin’ to nobody except when I saw Fats, because Fats helped me with this warrant thing I had last week?”

“Did anybody else see the shooting?”

“Well, you know, you had some people by the wall, but I don’t run with them, and I can’t say because I wasn’t looking over there, except they most always there.”

Rocco remembered Mazilli’s canvass coming up empty. “Did you know the guy that got shot?”

“Yeah, but just from eating.”

“Did he have any problems with anybody? Any enemies? Anybody didn’t like him?”

“I mind my own business. I go in there. I want food, not stories, you know?” She took a little more gin.

Rocco paused, looked at his notes and tried to put a few of the pieces together. It seemed more like an execution than a random assault or a botched robbery. No struggle, cash still on the body—a living-large dope roll, most likely. Somebody waiting around to do what was done and then splitting. Not much to go on, but it was better than nothing.

“Anything else you can think of telling me?” He sat with legs crossed and pen poised, waiting ten seconds, twenty, thirty…

“Carmela?”

She had fallen asleep with her eyes at half mast. A frozen stillness came over her, and Rocco watched the eyelids, like space ship doors, smoothly dropping shut, cutting off contact with the known world.

Rocco fretted momentarily about not getting her social security number, her date of birth. “Carmela, baby…” He stretched and yawned, then took out the photo of Erin again and wrote down Carmela’s address at the top of his first sheet. He would have to bag the taped formal interview until tomorrow.

Rocco slid his chair over to Vy’s phone, gliding on the casters, and dialed home. He turned back to look at Carmela: eyebrows high, lids shut, she slowly rocked forward, jerked back, then tilted forward again, threatening to pitch face first off the couch.

Now that he was finally making the call, he felt desperate to hear Patty’s voice. But just after the first ring, an echoey racket came from the hallway and Rocco had to hang up before she could answer.

A uniformed cop escorted the victim’s sister into the darkened reception area.

“Where the fuck is everybody?” the cop crabbed. He hit the overhead lights and almost reached for his gun when Rocco materialized by the desk.

“Easy, easy.” Rocco held his palms up and slid in his chair to the center of the room.

“You wanted her, right?” The cop nodded to the woman he had just brought in, who stood slightly hunched over, her hands jammed into her armpits.

“Absolutely.” Rocco stood up and gently cupped one of her bony elbows. He steered her down the hall to the squad room, then stopped and looked back at the cop. “Jesus. Can I ask you a favor?” He pointed toward Carmela. She was still asleep, perched on the edge of the couch and undulating like a cobra. “You can drop her off anywhere down there.” Rocco gestured vaguely to the city beyond the office and turned away before the cop could object.

Rocco and Darryl Adams’s sister sat facing each other in oversize black naugahyde desk chairs back in the squad room, both of them absently rolling back and forth on kidney-shaped plastic rug protectors.

“Harmony—that’s a nice name. Where you live, Harmony?” Rocco held the legal pad on his knee-desk again, Carmela Wilson folded underneath now.

“I live at Four Forty Allerton Avenue, third floor rear, and my social security number is 182-40-3947,” she sang out, her bolero jacket draped backwards across her chest, arms hidden underneath. Her chin had sunk below the high collar, and she peered out bright-eyed and shaking. “182-40-3947—I never forget that.”

There was something burbly and loose in her voice, a slightly hysterical chattiness, as if she was freezing. Rocco looked at her bare feet and remembered that earlier in the evening she had been hobbling around on one high-heeled sandal. He gazed at her legs a moment too long, and she leaned sideways and pulled them under her bottom.

Rocco took a deep breath and made a kind face. “Would you like something to drink? Some coffee? Something else?”

“Do you have something to eat?” Her voice was nervous, coy.

“We got doughnuts, Entenmann’s, we got a candy machine…”

“Doughnuts is fine. I like doughnuts.”

Rocco got up and went past the holding cell to the coffee machine. He found a paper plate and took two stale dunkers from a grease-saturated cardboard box. Turning back toward the squad room, he saw the actor whimper in his sleep, pumping his legs on the cot like a dreaming dog.

Rocco shook Touhey’s shoulder. “Sean, Sean.”

The actor whooped and whimpered, weakly battling the air.

“Sean, you want to learn something? C’mon out with me. I’ll tell her you’re my partner.”

Touhey bolted upright, stared around with bulging eyes, then crashed back into tortured sleep. Rocco waved him off, castigating himself: Just do your fucking job.

Rocco let the sister get a few bites down, watching her delicately scrape away a blotch of powdered sugar with a broken pinkie nail.

“I haven’t eaten all day, then I threw up. My stomach’s so empty I’m getting a headache.”

“Hey, please.” Rocco reared back, palms up. “Knock yourself out.”

Her eyes caught the Homicide blackboard flanked by two Marine recruiting posters over the rear wall filing cabinets, and Rocco studied her face as she read the latest news:

6/11 Homicide #41-89–Cesar Cerrano-28-Floater-Dempsy Bay near 48th Street-Possible

6/14 Homicide #42-89–Darryl Adams-23?-Gunshot D.O.A. 747 De Groot (Ahabs)

Homicide Picnic—Liberty State Park 6/30. Ten dollars/head to Petey Brennan by Friday 6/24 or you’re shit out of luck and that means
you
and
you

Her lips moved as she read, and when she finally looked away her shoulders rippled involuntarily in a shivery spasm that dropped her jacket to her lap.

Rocco lowered his voice. “Listen, ah, let me extend my sorrow to you. I understand your brother was a good guy.”

She nodded in acknowledgment, but her eyes were focused somewhere over his left shoulder. “I had a cousin in the Marines. He’s at Drew University now, cumma sum laude.” It took Rocco a minute to make the connection with the recruiting posters, or maybe it was the red-and-gold-trimmed Marine desk blotters that covered about two thirds of the desks in the room.

“When was the last time you saw your brother?”

“To the dot I can’t say. I see him all the time you know, in the street? But he doesn’t talk to me because I’m a cocaine addict. He hasn’t spoke to me in like three months.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, and she stared blankly at Rocco’s pad, nodding in agreement with herself.

“So he didn’t like drugs?” Rocco flashed on the twenty-five hundred dollars Mazilli had plucked from the body.