Lush Life (12 page)

After sticking Cash with a sketch artist to buy more time on the weapons search, Matty and Yolonda went up to the roof for a smoke.

It was hot up there, and Yolonda, the mother of two half-Irish boys, pulled off her turtleneck to reveal a T-shirt that read i'm not the nanny.

"Oh my God," she said. "I thought we had him for sure."

"Can I tell you something?" Matty so tired now that he found the sunlight dancing on the East River oppressive. "I'd feel a lot more solid about this guy if we had that gun."

"They 11 find it," Yolonda said, lighting up.

Matty rocked his head from shoulder to shoulder, hearing the gristle roll in his neck. "Nice to have a why too."

"Three drunks on an all-night bender, the one with a chip on his shoulder's packing? Why ask why?" Yolonda stifled another yawn. "We got him lying about the call to 911, lying about never hanging out with the vie before, tried to lie about having fucked the same girl but only fucked her once, as in, was probably dumped, so jealous, in general a bitter motherfucker, still hasn't asked how the dead kid's doing. And, oh yeah, I almost forgot. Two witnesses."

Matty closed his eyes for a second, fell asleep on his feet.

"Nice to have a why," Yolonda muttered. "Why'd that Salgado kid get shot last year, remember? Borrowed an iPod, gave it back without recharging it."

"C'mon, that was in the Cahans."

"Oh. Right. Excuse me. I forgot. This guy's white. Sorry. What was I thinking."

"Give me a break."

"You're such a redneck asshole sometimes, I swear to God."

Matty's inside coat pocket began to tremble.

"Clark."

"Yeah, Sarge, this is Captain Langolier from DCPI? The chief wants to know where you're at."

"Well, right now it's either a robbery or a dispute, two wits giving his friend as the shooter, but the guy himself, for whatever it's worth, is claiming they were jacked at gunpoint."

He, killed, him, Yolonda mouthed, Matty waving her off. "We need some time to sort things out."

"There's word they were out there last night tripping the light fantastic?"

"There was a certain amount of barhopping, yeah," Matty said carefully. The chiefs in Public Information often got their information as much from reporters calling up to confirm some fact or rumor as they did their own detectives. And when they called down like this to confirm what the reporters had brought them, the circle came complete.

"Listen, you get anything about the vie having some kind of confrontation with Colin Farrell?"

"Colin Farrell, the actor?" Matty massaged his temples.

"The same."

"And where would this have taken place?" Matty looked at Yolonda, then to the heavens.

"We were hoping you could help us with that."

"I got nothing on that so far, but I'll get right on it, boss."

"Get back to me."

Matty hung up.

"Colin Farrell?" Yolonda said, flicking her butt off the roof. "He was great in that movie Phone Booth, you see that?"

"Fuckin' guy."

"Who was it?" Yolonda flicked her butt. "That gimpy kid from the Post?'

"Who else?" Matty dialing, then,, "Hey, Mayer. Matty Clark. Do me a favor, stop calling Langolier and gassing up his head with all the bullshit you hear on the street. He hangs up with you and right away he's in my ear with every stupid little rumor and it's like a wrecking ball coming through the window. You have any questions on this, you come to me, not Langolier, or I swear to God anything you need to know I will refer you to Langolier, you hear me? . . . Excuse me? Say again?"

Matty held out the phone so Yolonda could hear too.

"Is it true the shooter was an army Ranger in 'Nam?"

"Jesus Christ . . ."

"What I do now?" the reporter squawked. "I'm asking you, aren't I?"

"Do me a favor, stick to writing about the victim for now, OK?"

"Fine, what do you got?"

Til get back to you."

Matty hung up and looked out over the neighborhood, could almost see 27 Eldridge if not for a stack of add-on floors going up atop some tenement on Delancey that weren't there the last time he was on this roof.

He wanted the gun.

"OK, so we've got people out there, reconstructing the night," Yolonda said, opening up round three. "Interviewing some of the people at the bars you mentioned."

"What would you do that for?" Eric's voice started to climb. "It was a mugging."

"Most likely. But we just want to make sure that no one was staking you guys out, maybe some bartender noticed somebody not quite right, or Ike got into something that you were unawares of."

"And?"

"And nothing. Well, those neighbors, the Chinese people who were waiting around for that translator? They all pretty much said that when they looked out the window, they saw three people down there, not five."

"What? No, no. They mustve looked out after the gun went off."

"Thing is, they all came from different buildings on Eldridge, north of the scene, south of the scene, directly across the street."

"They all mustVe looked out after. I don't know what else to say."

"Maybe," Yolonda said faintly.

"All those eyes, though," Matty jumped in. "All those angles of vision. The shooter and his buddy, they mustVe been bookin', huh?"

"Everything happened so fast." Eric palmed his heart. "You have no idea."

"You told me that they ran south, correct?" Matty asked, looking at his notes.

Eric closed his eyes, reenvisioning. "South. Yeah."

"Because we had our people check all the street-facing security cameras along Eldridge from Delancey to Henry," Matty said. "We didn't catch anybody running at that time on any of them."

"Maybe they hung a quick left and went west. Or east," Eric said. "I wasn't standing around tracking their progress."

"Right. You were busy trying to call 911."

"Yes," he said, looking stricken. "What. Was I supposed to chase them or something?"

"That would have been stupid," Yolonda said. "By the way, Sarah Bowen was pretty shaken up."

Eric looked at them blankly.

"The tattooed lady that hooked up with Ike at Cry? You know, one minute she's having sex with a guy, next thing she hears . . ."

Eric reddened, looked away.

"And by the way, it seems like she remembers you a lot more than you remembered her."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She said you were kind of hung up on her last year."

"What?"

"Kept calling her."

"No, wait, hang on. That's because she kept saying to me whenever I called, tonight wasn't a good night, like another night would be." Eric near gobbling his words as he searched their faces. "If she had ever said to me straight up, 'I don't want to see you, I am not interested in seeing you,' that wouldve been the end of it. I mean, what the hell, what did she say, I was stalking her or something? Jesus."

"All I'm saying is, when we talked before, you damn well knew right off the bat exactly who Ike was with last night, right? Because you were kind of playing it, you know . . ."

"I was embarrassed, so . . ." Then, "What's going on here?" His alarm cranked too high again, the both of them suddenly scrambling to deflect the flow, Yolonda the first in.

"What . . ." she said down low with a smile. "Afraid we were gonna tell your girlfriend?"

"How do you even know I have one?"

"Don't you?"

Still lost in consternation, Eric stared at the table as if there were writing on it.

"Don't you?"

"Don't I what?"

"Have a girlfriend."

"Yes," he said emphatically. "Of course."

"Well, it's not a gimme or anything," Yolonda said. "What's her name?" "Alessandra. Why?"

"She's from around here?"

"Yeah. We live together, but she's in the Philippines now, why?"

"She's Filipino?"

"No. She's doing research for her master's over there. Are you going to tell me why you're asking all this?"

"We' re just trying to get a fully rounded picture."

"Of me?"

"Sometimes with investigations?" Yolonda shrugged. "There's a lot of hurry up and wait. Right now, before we can go forward we need for some people to come in from the field. These are just killing-time-type questions."

"Master's in what?" Matty asked.

"Gender studies. She's doing research on the movement to organize sex workers in Manila."

"Sex workers," Yolonda said.

"How long has she been over there?" Matty asked.

"Nine months or so," Eric said as if embarrassed.

"You guys talk much? Or do you e-mail?"

"A little of both."

He was lying, Matty could tell, their relationship most likely pretty thin soup.

"Excuse me."

He got up, left the interview room, and stepped to a detective. "Jimmy, in about fifteen, twenty minutes? Knock on the door, say there's a phone call."

"You got it." Then, "Hey," waving Matty closer. "The PC's driver Halloran called?"

"And?"

"The PC wants to know if you're bringing in Phillip Boulware."

"Who?"

"The father of the drunk kid. Apparently they were on the same high school football team."

"Sorry," Matty said, stepping back inside.

"So, Eric," Yolonda said, "we understand you spent some time in Binghamton?"

"I was born there, why?"

"OK, don't take this the wrong way?" She laid a hand on him again. "But we had to do a background check, anybody we talk to in an investigation like this it's mandatory, and . . ."

"And you saw I was arrested."

"It reads like bullshit," she apologized. "Do you want to tell us what happened?"

"Do I have to?"

"That's completely up to you," Matty said.

"Look, again, I'm sorry, I don't understand, what does this have to do with anything?"

"I think we just explained what's going on now, but if you prefer, we can just sit around and stare at each other," Matty said.

"Look, it's not . . Eric tried to resist, but once again Matty's irritation was too much for him. "1 wouldn't even know where to start."

"What the hell," Matty said. "Give it a shot."

"I don't know," Eric began, sounding embarrassed by his inability to hang tough. "Something like fifteen years ago? I went to the same college as Harry Steele up there. SUNY Binghamton. I was a freshman, he was a senior, and he had this idea, he was looking for someone in the dorms who would be willing to convert their room into a cocktail lounge . . . My dad owned a bar and grill in Endicott, one town over, so I kind of grew up around all that, and I said I'd do it. Put in some stock, some colored lights, a few card tables, hired a bouncer from the wrestling team . . ."

"Are you serious?" Matty sat up straighter, cocking his head.

"Oh yeah." Eric tentatively smiled, Matty again sensing the power he had been granted in here, the guy's mood rising and falling with the tone of Matty's voice. "Cleared about five hundred a week."

"So how long before you got caught?" Yolonda asked.

"About a month."

"And you took a collar for that!

"No, no. The college said if I immediately withdrew from school, they wouldn't press criminal charges. So I did."

"What happened to Steele?" Matty asked.

"Nothing. He was just the bankroller, never set foot in the place, and I never mentioned his name. So . . ."

Eric went off somewhere, came back. "I didn't even really give a shit about school all that much except . . ."

"Except . . ."Yolonda leaned forward, giving him her sad smile.

"Nothing, I mean, 1 was a theater major? And I had just landed the lead in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, so with rehearsals starting, I would've had to shut down the bar anyhow in a week or two, so . . ."

"The Chalk Circle, that's a play?"

"Yeah, a play," Eric said quietly "And they almost never gave parts out to freshmen either, let alone the lead, so I wasn't, you know, without talent."

"That sucks," Yolonda said.

"Yeah, well, I was heading for New York anyways, so, I came down, and, it wasn't easy, but I actually got stuff. Some children's theater, a few basement plays, a commercial for Big Apple Tours, another for Gallagher's Steak House . . ."

"Can I ask you an actor's question?" Yolonda said.

Eric looked at her.

"Did you ever have any dealings with Colin Farrell?"

Eric continued to stare, then, "What on earth would make you ask that?"

^'Never mind."