Shadow Dancers (19 page)

Long before Warren was old enough to know or understand the strange, dark tidal pull between man and woman, he’d watched a cat stalk a bird, capture it, and proceed to devour it while the creature still lived. Within his own unwritten biography, he marked that down as the first time he’d experienced sexual excitement. This was not unlike the bird taken by the cat.

Looking up suddenly, Warren found himself farther north in the park than he would have guessed, moving between a thickly wooded grove, not far from the Wollman Memorial Rink. There, just ahead of him, with blades of grass thrusting up along its rusted rectangular sides, he saw in the pale orange glow from a lamppost the lid of a drain cover atop a sewer. It was odd, he thought, how he knew precisely the spot, as if something had almost guided him there.

FIVE O’CLOCK WAS “DEAD” TIME AT THE BALLOON
, undoubtedly why Mooney liked it so much. It was the hour when the luncheon rush was over and the staff had its feet up and was taking a breather before the onslaught of supper.

He pretty much had the place to himself then. He could sit there in the cool, air-conditioned quiet, have a couple of stingers, and gab to his heart’s content with Patsy. Outside, it was pouring — a drenching rain at the finish of a hazy, steamy, mostly miserable day. Great claps of summer thunder hammered overhead, making the dry, cozy peace of the bar all the more enjoyable. Fritzi hadn’t arrived yet and wouldn’t for at least another hour, just before, dinner when she’d come to make her final inspection before the charge of the famished hordes.

Patsy and Mooney talked mainly about the track and the Mets. Mooney said nothing about his encounter that afternoon with Mulvaney, but there it was all the same, gnawing away at his intestinal lining.

For some time after he’d left Mulvaney’s office, he’d told himself he didn’t care. He was just biding his time for a while until he could cut free of the force. So what did it matter what they took from him or, for that matter, what they reassigned him to? And as for the Dancer, he’d never wanted the job in the first place. So why all the fuss? What was he sitting around for, hiding in this dark, cool place, sipping stingers and licking his wounds?

“They say Angel Pie’s a cinch for the Acorn,” Patsy said. He was polishing glasses at the end of the bar.

“That’s dumb,” Mooney grumbled. “Strictly for chalk players. Never listen to touts. Make your own moves. Angel Pie’s a lox.” Mooney looked up from the bottom of his stinger, surprised to see Patsy staring at him with a funny expression on his face.

“What the hell are you shouting at me for?” he said. “All I said was Angel Pie’s looking good for the Acorn.” The bartender’s reaction took him by surprise. He hadn’t been conscious of the fact that all the while he’d been gabbing with him, his voice was growing louder and his face redder.

“Sorry, Pats. I guess I got carried away.”

“Must’ve had a sensational day.”

“I guess it wasn’t what you’d call tops. Gimme another of these.” He held up his glass.

“Ah, now look, Frank,” Patsy protested. “You know what Fritzi —”

“Never mind what Fritzi says. If I want another stinger, I’m gonna have it.”

The phone rang at the end of the bar.

Patsy picked it up. Mooney could hear him talking low, watching him all the while. “Hey, Frank, it’s for you. Pickering.”

“What the hell does he want?” Patsy slid the phone down the bar in front of his stool.

“Hello, Frank?” The high, fluttery voice came over the lines. “Listen, I’m up here in …”

The words got lost in a lot of buzzing and hissing through the wires.

“Speak up, will you, Rollo. I can’t hear a word—”

“I’m up here in Dyckmans.”

“Where?” Mooney cupped his ear, trying to hear better.

“Dyckmans. Near the Cloisters.”

“What the hell you doing up there?” Mooney asked. “I’m in a radio/TV repair shop.” Pickering sounded a little out of breath. “Listen, we located one of the pieces taken on the Torrelson job. We got the amplifier.”

“Yeah?”

“Sansui four hundred.”

“The seventy-eight model with the twin speakers?”

“That’s what the repairman here tells me.”

“How’d you find it?” Mooney asked, feeling the dull throb starting up again at the back of his head.

“Some guy brought it in to be repaired. The owner of the shop remembered reading in the papers that this was the same model amplifier that was grabbed on the Torrelson job. They get a lot of fenced goods passing through here and so they’re always on the lookout for what don’t look kosher. He called the precinct house and they referred him to me.”

“Who brought it in?”

“I got the ticket right here. Guy’s name is Berrida. Hector Berrida. Three twenty-four West One Hundred Eighty-first.”

“Washington Heights.”

“Right. I called Torrelson,” Pickering rattled on. “I described the set. The color and model numbers. He said it sounded like his. It even has a big nick in the side that his set had.”

Mooney’s brain started to whirl. “Let’s go see Berrida.”

“How long will it take you to get up here?”

“Gimme a half hour. That’s if I can grab a cab and the rain hasn’t flooded the Drive. I’ll meet you there.”

“Where? Here or Berrida’s?”

“Berrida’s.”

“Swell. That was three twenty-four West —”

“One Hundred Eighty-first,” Mooney said. “I scribbled it here on my napkin. So long.”

“Hey, Frank … wait a minute. Should I call Berrida and tell him we re coming over?”

“No. Better we just walk in on him. You get over there now and wait for me out front.”

Mooney slammed the phone down, feeling something like the first jolt of exhilaration he’d felt all day. “Hey, Patsy. Gotta run. Can you call me a cab, real quick?” Just as he was whirling out the front door, Fritzi was whirling in, backing into the revolving door while closing her umbrella. They waved at each other through the dividing glass. She didn’t go into the bar but kept turning and spun back out onto the street. “Where you going?”

“Washington Heights. Gotta run,” Mooney said, diving through the downpour to a cab waiting there in the steam rising at the curb.

“You coming back for supper?”

“I don’t know. Don’t wait for me. I’ll talk to you later.” Mooney slammed the door. The cab jolted. A wall of rain from a passing truck hit the windshield with a splat as they lurched off into 84th Street.

“Where did you get it, Hector?”

“I already told you, man. In the street. This guy —”

“He from around here?”

“No. I never seen him before. I already told you.”

“What did he look like?”

They were standing in the turmoil of a cramped, low-ceilinged apartment smelling strongly of fish and wet laundry. The single window of the living room faced out on the brick wall of an inner court. The voices of children playing in the courtyard drifted up from below and from a window across the way came the throbbing beat of congas and timbales played on a hi-fi at a mind-numbing volume.

“What did he look like, Hector?”

Mr. Berrida paused. A slight, dark young man, his nervous eyes flashed back and forth from the two detectives to the brick wall looming gray and oppressive beyond the window. Responding to the barrage of questions, he grew increasingly agitated and spoke very fast.

“It’s okay. You can tell us, Hector,” Mooney coaxed gently. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you.”

Tom between instinctive fear of the police and the inviolable code of the streets, Mr. Berrida continued to stare out the window, his legs and arms moving, but no sound forthcoming from his mouth.

“Was this a white guy?” Pickering asked.

“Yeah. A white guy.”

“How tall?”

Berrida answered by raising his hand to a level several inches above his head.

“Five nine, five ten,” Mooney murmured and scribbled figures into his pad. “What else? Hair?”

“Dark,” the young man whispered as if afraid to be overheard.

“Long or short?”

“Medium. You know. Wavy, like.” His hands fluttered above his own darkly flamboyant locks.

“Like yours?” Mooney was beginning to exhibit impatience.

“Yeah. But shorter. You know.”

“Yeah, sure. Were there any distinguishing marks?” The concept of distinguishing marks appeared to baffle the young man.

“Scars. Disabilities. Anything unusual in his appearance?” Pickering attempted to clarify.

“You notice his teeth, Hector?” Mooney got right to the point. “Anything funny about his teeth?”

“Teeth. I didn’t see no teeth, man.”

“How come?”

“I didn’t look.”

“You say he was downstairs in the street?”

“That’s right. Right out in front of the building. I come down and see a lot of people standing around this car. The trunk’s open and there’s a guy selling stuff out the back of it.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Electronic stuff. You know, man? Speakers, amplifiers, tape decks. That kind of stuff.” As he spoke, the young man grew increasingly gloomy.

“Anyone else down there you know bought anything?” Berrida put his hands up before him and started to back away. “Eh — man.”

“Okay, okay, forget that,” Mooney said. “Tell me about the car.”

Berrida’s large, dark eyes swerved wildly about the room.

“What kind of car was it? Can you describe it?”

“That car. Yeah, sure. That was a Mercedes, man.” Mooney and Pickering exchanged glances.

“What color Mercedes, Hector?”

“Green.”

“What shade green? Light? Dark?”

“Dark. It was dark green.”

“You didn’t happen to see the plates or catch a number or two on it?” Pickering asked hopefully.

The young man laughed with a tinge of contempt. “See what plates? I’m down there checkin’ the goods. I don’t see no plates, man.”

Mr. Berrida began to work himself up into a lather. “I mean, I guess maybe I saw them but I don’t remember no numbers.”

“Were they New York plates?”

Something in the question relieved his gloom. “I was standing right in back of the car, staring into the truck. Maybe I remember seeing the plates.”

“You happen to notice where they came from?” Mooney remarked wearily.

“You mean like the state and all? No. I didn’t see.” He sensed their disappointment. “But I can tell you the color. Blue and white. They were blue and white.”

“Blue on white or white on blue?” Pickering inquired. “New York’s blue on white.”

Mr. Berrida closed his eyes in a conscious effort to recall. “I think this was maybe blue on white,” he said at last.

“You sure, Hector?”

“Yeah. Pretty sure,” the young man said, but with sufficient hesitation to unnerve them.

“Connecticut is white on blue,” Pickering said. “You’re sure it wasn’t white on blue?”

“Could’ve been pale yellow on blue,” Mooney grumbled. “Jersey and California are pale yellow on blue. Anyone could make that mistake. Particularly at dusk.” He turned back to the young man. “By any chance, you don’t happen to know the year of that Mercedes?”

Mr. Berrida glowed with sudden, unaccountable joy. It was as if he’d been waiting for just that question. “It was a nineteen sixty-eight.”

Mooney and Pickering exchanged glances.

“What model?”

“A two twenty.”

Mooney frowned. “How can you be so sure?”

“‘Cause I asked the guy,” Berrida proclaimed with huge pride.

“And he told you it was a ‘sixty-eight Mercedes and that it was a two twenty?”

“I could see it was a two twenty for myself, man. It said so right on the trunk.” Their skepticism baffled him. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Mooney said. “Nothing’s wrong with that. You asked the guy and the guy told you it was a nineteen sixty-eight. What kind of condition was it in?”

“Great. But I mean this car was fantastic. New tires. Polished. All shiny like new.”

“And it was a dark green?”

“Right. He just had it painted.”

“Painted?” Mooney and Pickering both answered at once. The sound they made was like a yelp of pain. “How do you know that?”

Berrida was still smiling. ” ‘Cause I asked the guy.”

“And he told you?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with that? I mean, I’m interested in cars, man. I’m like a car freak. And that car I liked.”

“You asked him if the car had just been painted?”

“No. I asked him how come a car nearly twenty years old looks so good.”

“And he told you it was just painted?”

Berrida’s smile wavered between pleasure and puzzlement. “Yeah.”

“He didn’t just happen to say what the color was before?”

The young man shook his head from side to side. “Coulda been any color, man. He didn’t say.”

“Or even the same color,” Mooney added, recalling that the car spotted on the Torrelson job also happened to be green.

“Sure. Coulda been the same color.” The young man grinned amiably. “Hey, look, you guys ain’t gonna run me in or anything?”

Mooney flung an arm out as though swiping a fly. “No, no one’s gonna run you in, but you did know these were stolen goods in back of the car.”

“Oh, look, man. You don’t know this place.” Berrida glanced over his shoulder as though he were being watched. “Lots of guys drive into these streets. All times of the day and night. It’s commerce, man. See? Simple as that. They pull in here with a van full of stuff. Nobody asks no questions. It’s just commerce.”

“Commerce,” Mooney grumbled.

Outside, the rain had stopped but water continued to splash noisily from a drainpipe down into the courtyard below. There was a rumble of distant thunder moving off to the east.

The three men stood there, shifting their feet. The questions appeared to have run out.

Berrida smiled, flashing a gold tooth at them. “That it?” Mooney scratched his ear slowly. “I guess so. Just one more thing.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his inside pocket and carefully unfolded it. On it was the police artist’s composite drawing of the face of at least one of the suspects, reconstructed from versions given by Cara Bailey and two survivors of his assaults. “This look anything like your guy in the green Mercedes?”