Lover Man: An Artie Deemer Mystery (24 page)

"I suppose you had a search warrant."

"Unnecessary under the circumstances. Where did you get these photographs?"

"Billie Burke mailed them to me." This was the fucker who told Eleanor Beemon that her daughter was murdered.

"Don't bullshit me, Mr. Deemer. I'm your best hope for the future."

"I have a right to a lawyer. Do you deny me that right?" But at this point in my new career, I was feeling neither cooperative nor frightened by authority, at least not in his form.

"Do you know this man?" He pointed a squeaky-clean finger at Harry Pine's chest.

"We've met."

"Is it not true that Harry Pine paid you to report to him?"

Sybel. "Yes. But there has been nothing to report."

"Nothing to report? His building was burned to the ground. His employee was found dead in the same little refrigerator from which you got the photos. Still another of his employees was shot to pieces outside your door. Nothing to report?"

"Why don't you ask him? You know I didn't do any of those things. You're denying me my civil right to an attorney. Is that your intention?"

"I heard about your attorney." He gestured dismissively over his shoulder at Hargrove, who left. "Not a lot of this makes sense, the murders, the arson, but you make the least sense of all." Who could argue with that?

Hargrove ushered Sybel into the gray room. They had her hands cuffed together in front. Her face was pale and drawn, her black hair oily and disheveled. Our eyes met. She seemed too exhausted for surprise as she sat at the head of the table and folded her chained hands. Jailhouse grime was lodged beneath her fingernails.

"Sybel, did they allow you to phone a lawyer?" I asked.

She shook her head wearily. "They kept me in a cell all day and night. They had me strip searched."

I didn't get it. Why would he do a thing as stupid as that. Even Bruce, tripping, could get his whole case tossed out on that basis.

"I told them how you got the photographs, Artie." Then she seemed for the first time to see that those very photos were spread out on the table.

"She also told us about a certain note from the Burke woman." He consulted his notebook. "Saying in effect, 'I'm dead. Look in the ice tray.' Where is that note?"

"It was with the photos. Didn't you see it?"

Watson re-consulted his notebook. "Leon Palomino informed you by phone that he had touched off the fire which destroyed the building at number 89 West Eleventh Street known as Renaissance Antiques. I believe you were present during that time, Miss Black. That makes you both accessories after the fact to arson in the first degree."

"Come on, Watson," I said. "You know it can't be first-degree arson if the building was not inhabited."

"You know what? You'd better stop fucking with me." He looked back to his notebook. "Destruction of evidence in a capital crime, withholding evidence in a capital crime. I have a half-dozen eyewitnesses who heard the gunman, after he killed Richard Ricardo, call you by name."

Sybel's mouth gaped open. She had been in jail when that went down.

"The gunman said, 'Now you take care, Artie,' at which point he walked away. Who was that man, Mr. Deemer?"

"I was a little busy at the time. Do you know this Ricardo asshole was trying to kill me?"

"Did you or did you not meet Leon Palomino at Yankee Stadium?"

"No, I did not."

"Mr. Deemer, I told you time is short. And if I were you, Miss Black, I would not place my fate in the hands of a jailhouse lawyer as reckless as Mr. Deemer." Back to me: "My men saw you at Yankee Stadium with Leon Palomino."

"No, they didn't, they saw me at Shea Stadium."

Watson looked back at Hargrove, who nodded slightly. "Shea Stadium, that's what I said. What did he tell you during that meeting?"

"That he saw Jones and Ricardo wheel the refrigerator across Eleventh and into Renaissance Antiques." I waited for him to follow up on that, but he did not.

"What did he tell you about Harry Pine?"

"That someone was trying to extort money from Pine's friends."

"Who? Why?"

"He didn't say. Just what do you want from us, Watson?"

He looked at Sybel: "Mr. Deemer thinks I can't make these charges stick because of certain technicalities. But what he doesn't recognize—what you
should
recognize—is that I don't care about making them stick. I can, and shall, make your lives
miserable for a long time to come without making anything stick. I'll request at your arraignment that bail be disallowed because your freedom might subvert my ongoing investigation at a crucial stage and could defeat the ends of justice. All the lawyers in New York, Miss Black, won't keep you out of the Women's House of Detention for a couple of weeks. And you, Mr. Deemer, will be arraigned and sent directly to Rikers Island."

"Don't do that to us," Sybel said.

"You have a daughter, don't you, Miss Black?"

"Yes."

"Staying, I believe, with your mother in New Jersey."

"Yes."

"I want nothing more than to reunite you with her, but I'm in the midst of a very serious investigation, and the small people will be sacrificed if they don't cooperate. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem."

"What do we have to do?" Sybel asked in a small voice.

"I'm after Harry Pine's clients. Pine is a small fry, but he's a step up the ladder to bigger fish. That's what I'm after, big fish. We had Pine under strict surveillance, and then it blew up in our face about the time you and Mr. Deemer entered the picture. Now we've lost him. If you agree to help me get him, you will leave this building in about half an hour, and I will protect you from any harm that might come as a result."

"So you don't really give a shit about Billie Burke's murder?"

"No, I do. It might prove useful. Miss Black told me that you are now working for Harry Pine."

"I told you we were forced to work for him."

"That's what I want you to keep doing. Tell him that you've been arrested, and that the FBI is climbing all over him. You will be wearing a recording device and transmitter when you meet him. He's bound to say something incriminating. Pine is scared. Scared people do reckless acts."

"You mean like killing us?" said Sybel. "That would work great for you wouldn't it?"

I hadn't thought of that chilling point.

"You needn't worry about that. My people will have you under surveillance the entire time. I can guarantee your personal safety. My men are not like the NYPD. We get the job done. So what do you say? Do you assist me, or do you return to jail? Your choice."

TWENTY-TWO

"T
HAT HORRIBLE MATRON," snarled Sybel. "She taped the damn thing to my nipple." Sybel clutched her sweater at the side of her breast and yanked. Tape ripped.

We sat savoring the outdoors on a bench graffitied with Chinese characters and English obscenities in Columbus Square, a concrete pocket park behind the Criminal Court Building from which five minutes earlier we had been released, with strings attached. Technicians had taped listening devices to our bare chests. I had envisioned space-age microchips straight out of
Mission Impossible
, but these were nothing more than small tape recorders. Watson had buzzed about nervously re-explaining what the technicians had already told us, belaboring the obvious: flip the switch to ON when we were going in for the setup, otherwise leave it OFF to conserve the batteries; and the setup had to happen
today
. Never mind that we had no idea how to get in touch with Pine, even if we wanted to. As Watson had opened the last door, he came on all avuncular and trustworthy. "Don't worry," he had said. "My people will monitor you every step of the way."

"Do you have any money?" Sybel asked me.

"Yes." Watson had returned my envelope of personal belongings.

"Will you buy me a pack of cigarettes?"

I bought cigarettes and two cups of stagnant coffee from a Chinese lunch counter on the corner of Bayard and Mulberry, and the cashier wished me a nice day. I wanted time to halt while I slept for about three days, no thinking, worrying, or scheming,
but first I wanted to sit on the Chinese bench beneath the lovely English plane tree and drink coffee, never mind the slack drizzle, with Sybel, the only other person in the world who shared my experience, if not my obsession. Kids played stickball on the wet cobblestones.

"I can't go back in there, Artie. Whatever happens, I can't go back in that cell."

"Maybe we can think of something," I said, but I doubted it, feeling my body sliding toward lassitude. Energy and hope waned together. What could we do? Certainly not visit Pine wearing wires.

Sybel said, "I've been thinking about—" And she pointed to the place beneath her right breast where her wire was taped. She pulled me close to her mouth and whispered the rest, her lips brushing my ear. She asked me why we should trust the on/off switches. What if they were phonies? What if Watson, even now, was listening in?

"Excuse me, Sybel. I'll get us some more coffee." Next door to the Chinese luncheonette was a Chinese electronics store, where I bought two of the cheapest and tiniest radios ever made in Taiwan. I tuned both to the all-news station—"Give us twenty-two minutes, we'll give you the world"—handed one to Sybel, and as surreptitiously as possible, we tucked them beneath our shirts next to Watson's ear. Hell, this was
thinking
. Maybe there was still hope.

"Can I take about six showers at your place before I go home?"

"Seven," I said.

"Do you have cab fare?"

"Can you carry me to the curb?"

We didn't need to travel any farther than that. A cab was waiting. We named our destination and headed west on Canal. Sleep gripped me by the shoulders and gently drew me back in the seat.

"Jesus!" Sybel said.

"Wha—?"

"Look who's driving!"

Cobb! He wore a Mets cap with phony black hair spilling out from behind. "We need to have a little sit-down, you and me, but you got so-called agents hanging off you like warts, so we got to take unusual steps."

"Why can't you just leave us alone!" Sybel squealed, and struck the door panel with a soft fist.

"I'm sorry, Sybel, but those are my murders, and I want 'em," said Cobb.

"Do you know they held her incommunicado for twenty-four hours?" I demanded.

"Of course I know. Things are way out of hand. That's why we need to have this sit-down. Sybel, I didn't have anything to do with the way you were treated inside. I tried to stop it."

"You failed," she said.

Cobb, playing cabbie to the hilt, laid on the horn when the bakery truck in front lagged at the light. "By the way, Artie, Sal Loccatuchi went up and walked your dog last night."

"He did?"

"Billie's killer's gonna walk, and that offends my professional pride. Cops got professional pride just like anybody else. Hey, what's that noise?" Cobb pivoted in his seat, and I showed him our broadcast system. He grinned at Sybel and me in turn. "Smart. Smart but not necessary. They don't work."

"They don't?"

"Nope. My guys set them up. They'll record about twenty seconds, then drop dead. Mysteriously. That's how far out of hand things are."

"So you and the FBI are playing a game of steal the bacon, and we're the bacon."

"Steal the bacon. Yeah, I remember that. Those fucking college boys don't care about my murders. They think they got a shot at the wiseguys, get promoted off the street, as if they ever been
on
the street. The street is mine. The college boys think Pine's gonna turn over as easy as Jay Kiley did. Do you folks know what went down in Moxie, Florida?"

"I do. Sybel doesn't, because she was in jail having her civil rights denied."

"The college boys get word that this asshole Jay Kiley's down in Moxie asking a lot of questions about Harry Pine, and they lean on him. It comes out Kiley's working for one Billie Burke. But then she gets killed. That's where you come stumbling in. When Sybel told them about the photos, they sent Kiley out to Shea to buy them from you, then make Kiley use them to set Harry Pine up, get it? But you told Kiley to fuck himself."

"You mean Kiley was wearing one of these wires when he met with me?"

"Sure. You dicked up their plan—until Ricky Ricardo gets whacked in front of your place. Then they got an excuse to lean on you directly, make
you
set up Pine. Get a stupid idea and stick with it no matter what, even if it means stepping all over my murders with their Bass fucking Weejuns."

"What happened to Jay?"

"Disappeared. Maybe we'll find his body, maybe not. Maybe he got smart and moved to Singapore, but smart doesn't seem his style. Kiley used the Moxie dirt to blackmail the doctors, while Billie used it to blackmail Harry Pine. That about the size of it?"

"I don't know."

"You
don't?
I think you do. The college boys think just lay a few half-assed murder charges on Pine he'll sing about his wiseguy bosses. Get Mr. Big or some shit. Here's Pine, a big war hero, he's gonna fall apart in front of some college boys with their dorks caught in their zippers? Right. Am I going too fast for you? You happen to know Pine's a big Mafia pilot?"