CONCOURSE (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin) (17 page)

T
HIRTY

I
called Nathan Cohen’s office from the pay phone in the station-house lobby, left instructions. Then I called Lydia.

The machine picked up. I left a message that she should meet me at the Bronx Home whenever she could. That was where I intended to be, and I had a feeling I’d be there a while.

As I hung up I saw Lindfors stride through the lobby and out the rear door, to where the cops park their cars. I crossed the lobby, called after him.

He turned. “Shit,” he said, but he stood still and waited.

“I need to talk to you,” I said, coming up to him.

“Robinson gave you a job to do. Why don’t you just be a good little Boy Scout and go do it?”

“Who’s your witness?”

Lindfors ground his teeth together. “Go to hell.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You think I give a rat’s ass what you believe?” He turned, pushed his way out the double glass doors.

I followed. He turned again, to face me. The sun was bright on the harsh surfaces of concrete, asphalt, the glass and steel of cops’ cars. I squinted against it.

“You’re so smart,” he said through the tightness of his jaw. “You find a way to bring Snake in, you can take your buddy home.”

“What is it, Lindfors?” I asked. “Between you and Snake?”

“Snake?” Lindfors was squinting too, in the sunlight, but his
eyes had the hardness back in them, I could see that. “He’s garbage. Fucking scum. You’d be happier if I liked him?”

“There are lots of guys like that, in a cop’s life,” I answered. “This one seems to have gotten under your skin. I think it’s keeping you from seeing what’s really going on.”

“I don’t want to see,” he said. “I don’t want to see a damn thing except Snake LeMoyne where he belongs, behind fucking bars for the rest of his life.”

I looked at him, his glittering eyes and bitter mouth. “You know,” I said, as a thought struck me, “I’ll bet no one ever cared about that kid more in his life than you do right now. I’ll bet no one ever wanted anything good for him as much as you want to tear his heart out.”

I was just talking, really, just thinking out loud, and I didn’t expect an answer; but I got one.

“Oh, great!” Lindfors sneered. “I got here a genius p.i., a p.i. knows everything! Fucking everything, right, Smith? Well, so happens you’re wrong. There was a cop once, cared about that kid. Asshole cop, taught karate at the community center. Used to take Snake to the ballpark, back when his name was Anthony. Sometimes to the beach. Helped him with his fucking homework. You believe this asshole?”

I waited a little. A car pulled into the lot, doors slammed, three cops walked past us into the building. Lindfors didn’t say anything else, he didn’t move.

“What happened?” I asked.

Lindfors went on, as though he didn’t want to but couldn’t stop. “Even after they moved the center and Snake stopped coming around, this jerk would go out looking for him. To take him to the ballpark.” Lindfors looked up. In the west, soft, country-looking clouds moved across the sky. “Took him for nuggets at Burger King. Kid used to like that. Cop didn’t notice the kid was looking over his shoulder a lot now, wasn’t going to school much. Cop was too dumb to see that.”

“Or didn’t want to,” I said. “And?”

“And. And one day the cop went to take a leak at Burger King, came back and the kid was gone. So was two hundred and forty bucks from the cop’s wallet. See, he was such an asshole, he hung his jacket on the chair.”

“And?” I said again.

“And what?” Lindfors barked. “And when the cop found Snake later, he was hanging with the Cobras. ‘You ain’t got a warrant,’ the kid said, ‘you ain’t got a witness, you can’t touch me.’ Skinny bastard, grinning.

“Then Snake started killing people, or just crippling them if that’s what he felt like. And then when the cop went looking for him, it was to bring him in. Fucking asshole! Served him right.”

“What happened to him?” I asked. “The cop?”

“Who gives a shit?”

“I do.”

“Oh?” Lindfors said. “Yeah? Well, just for your information, motherfucker. Just so you know. He died. He didn’t have it anymore, to be a cop, so he curled up and died.”

“Was he a friend of yours?”

“Yeah.” Lindfors looked at me directly now. The hardness of his eyes kept him far away. “Yeah. He was a friend of mine.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

A pause; then, “Fuck you,” and he turned and stalked away.

I wasn’t sure what sort of reception to expect at the Bronx Home. On the porch, I paused. No one was there. The hour was too early, the sun too weak to warm the residents; and the maintenance staff, now short a man, must have had more urgent duties than tending the garden. A movement caught my eye. It was the tiger kitten, scuttling from behind one stone baluster to another. I saw him peering out at me from the shadow. I didn’t see the other kitten, or the mother cat.

The big iron-and-glass door opened and a square-shouldered man in a Wells Fargo uniform crossed the porch. The Wells Fargo jackets fit well, but if you’re looking for it you can see the bulge a gun makes under them.

I thought of Robinson’s words.
Dozens of armies. That’s what the Borough President considers ‘out of control.’

“Can I help you?” the guard asked, his manner not entirely friendly.

“I’m Smith,” I said. “I work for Bobby Moran. Frank Bruno said—”

“Yeah, he told me. You got I.D.?”

I showed him that I was Smith, that I worked for Bobby Moran.

“Okay.” He watched me. “Lotta real nervous people in there. You heard what happened last night?”

“What happened last night?” I waited. I wanted to hear what they were giving out.

“Another guy got killed. Doctor who ran the place. Someone shot him, but not here.”

“Where?”

He shrugged. “Somewhere else.”

“Do they know who?”

“Nope.”

“Do they think it’s connected?”

He gave me a strange look. “They don’t tell me what they think. But you gotta to be some kind of idiot not to think it’s connected.”

“That’s true.”

“You going inside?”

I nodded.

So did he. “Watch yourself. That crazy lady is on the warpath.”

We parted, he going down into the garden, I across the porch and into the Home.

I identified myself to the man on the desk and he nodded me past. I paused, indecisive. I’d come here to talk to a couple of people, to look at a couple of things. I wasn’t sure where to start.

From down the hall I heard a piano, the patient repetition of a passage being practiced. I headed there.

In the curtained, carpeted room, Ida Goldstein was at the piano. Eddie Shawn, knitted sweater buttoned to his chin, sat in his wheelchair by the window in the angled morning sun. I watched as Ida played the same phrase a few more times; then, suddenly, without pause, she took off from it into a crashing passage of demonic, unstoppable rhythm. The music built, soared; pounding, dissonant chords shot through with glittering arpeggios, fortissimi cut precipitously to near silence, then howling again, roaring, but always a sense of contemptuous control, of ill-spirited laughter.

As I listened, swept along by the music, Ida hit a false note, then another. Her rhythm faltered, resumed, failed again. She returned to the beginning of a long crescendo passage twice. Then her bony shoulders sank. Her hands stopped their movement, her foot lifted
from the pedal. She sat motionless. The silence was louder than the music had been.

I would have left then, not let her know I’d been there, but her head snapped up and her eyes locked onto mine. At first she said nothing. Then, into the silence: “Do you know that piece?”

“Liszt?” I asked, fairly sure I was wrong.

But Ida said, “That’s right. The Second Mephisto Waltz. Everyone plays the First. No one plays this. Do you know why?”

“No.”

“It’s about old age. Schubert wrote about dying young. Everyone can understand that, it’s a great tragedy. Liszt wrote about old age. It’s only nasty. Do you play this?”

“No,” I said.

“Can you sight-read?”

“I …” I didn’t know how to answer her, wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.”

“Yes you can. The way you follow the music, the way you listen. I can tell. But you don’t want to play for me.”

Something in her eyes when she said that needed an answer. “I don’t play for anyone, Ida. I don’t ever do that.”

“Why not?” she challenged.

A mumbled sound came from Eddie Shawn’s spot in the sun. His bony fingers played the controls of his wheelchair and he headed determinedly toward us.

Ida looked at him. “He thinks I’m being a busybody. He thinks it’s none of my business.”

I said nothing.

In my silence Ida found another question. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t coming back?”

“I’m back,” I said.

“You were fired. You didn’t say good-bye.”

“I’ve come back,” I said again. “To see you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m serious. I want to talk to you. You and Eddie.”

The old man arrived at her side smiling, as though he’d known all along that this would work out.

She closed the cover on the keyboard, turned around on the bench. “I can’t play that piece anymore,” she said. “You have to be young and strong to play it. Young and strong to play a piece about
being old and feeble. What do you think about that?”

“Not much.”

“I’ll bet you’re strong. I’ll bet you can play Liszt, and Beethoven. Do you play the Symphonic Etudes of … of …”

“Schumann?” I said. “Yes. I do.”

“Damn,” she whispered, low and fierce. Eddie Shawn reached out a skeletal arm, patted Ida’s hand.

“Oh, never mind,” she said, looked at me crossly. “Do you really have anything to talk about?”

“Yes.” I picked up a side chair, moved it near the piano bench. Eddie leaned forward as I sat. We made a tight circle, Eddie and Ida and I.

I searched for words, not to make it too hard, but also not to patronize. “There’s more bad news,” I said. “Do you know about Dr. Reynolds?”

Ida frowned, gave Eddie a glance. “They didn’t tell us, but we know because I listened. Someone murdered him.”

I let out a breath, realized how much I hadn’t wanted to be the one to tell her. “That’s right. And that’s why I’m here. To investigate the killings. To find out what’s really going on, and to stop it.”

She said sarcastically, “You mean there’s something going on?”

Eddie slapped his hand on the arm of his chair. Ida gave him a resentful look. “Oh, lay off,” she said. To me: “What do you mean, investigate? Who made you Sherlock Holmes?”

I told her who I was, what I did.

She thawed just a little. “Well, what do you know? A real private eye?” She chortled, leaned forward conspiratorially. “Do you carry a gat?”

“The slang word now is ‘piece’.” I told her.

“Piece, schmiece. Let me see it.”

I opened my jacket partway, let Ida and Eddie get a view of my .38 resting in its rig. I felt like a flasher in the park.

“Okay,” Ida groused, but by now it was an act. Eddie’s eyes were shining. “All right, Sam Spade. Whaddaya wanna know?”

“Dr. Reynolds,” I said. “Why would anybody kill him?”

“The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, and he starts right off with it!” Ida Goldstein peered at me. “Aren’t you supposed to build up to that?”

“It was worth a try.”

“Maybe Eddie killed him,” she suggested. “To stay out of the hospital.”

Through his thick glasses the old man focused his eyes on the ceiling, a thoughtful expression on his cadaverous face: the very picture of a man trying to remember. Then he shook his head apologetically.

“Thanks, you guys,” I said.

“Try another,” Ida offered.

“What about the argument the night Mike Downey was killed? Is there anything else you can remember about that that might help?”

“I told you all about that. There isn’t anything else.”

“Did you hear it?” I asked Eddie.

Eddie shook his head.

“He lives on the other side,” said Ida. “The west side.”

“The parking-lot side?”

“That’s right.”

“Two nights ago, when the other guard was killed,” I said to Eddie. “Did you hear anything then?”

Eddie’s face changed, lost its playfulness. He didn’t respond, gave me a look so long I wasn’t sure he’d understood. Then, slowly, he nodded.

“You did?” I said.

“You did?” Ida said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you tell the police?” I asked. “What did you hear?”

Sunlight streamed silently into the room. Eddie turned angry eyes to Ida in a way that excluded me completely. “The police didn’t ask him,” Ida said. “They know he can’t talk or write or see very well anymore, so I guess they thought he can’t think, either. And how would he have told them? They’re not very patient men.”

I felt awkward and very stupid. “I’m sorry.”

Eddie blew a short exasperated breath.

“But,” I said to him, “I’d like you to try to tell me now.”

The old man looked away, didn’t respond. I thought his eyes were still angry, but I wasn’t sure. I started to speak again. A quick, small movement of Ida’s hand shushed me.

“He’s thinking about it,” she said. “Be quiet.”

Nothing happened for few moments. Then Eddie raised his bony left hand, pointed at me.

“Me?” I said. “You heard me?”

He shook his head angrily.

“Someone like you,” Ida said. “The other guard?”

Eddie nodded.

“Howe?” I asked. “The one who was killed?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t think he knew Mr. Howe,” Ida said. “Eddie doesn’t come down here at night. You didn’t know him, did you?”

Eddie shook his head.

“Then what makes you think it was him?” I asked.

“He,” corrected Ida.

Eddie, eyes wide, made a demanding movement with his good hand, palm up.

“ ‘What are you doing?’ ” Ida said, still watching Eddie. “He does that when he wants to know what I’m doing.”

The old man pointed a thin finger at the ground.

“Here?” I said. “What are you doing here?”