The Folks at Fifty-Eight (36 page)

Hammond smiled good-naturedly as he offered a contradiction.

“Fucking’s got two syllables.”

Gabriel shot a sideways glance at him, but didn’t answer.

The previous twenty-four hours had seen little or no progress in the search for Catherine. The desk sergeant over in Queens had been unable to help. Other than swilling copious quantities of beer at the local ‘cop bar’, and telling tall stories about Gabriel and his time on the force, the elderly sergeant had simply repeated much of Gabriel’s earlier tirade.

He had suggested they visit an active neo-Nazi group operating up in White Plains, but the group turned out to be the same bunch of black-suited half-wits and straight-arm-saluting Neanderthals forecast by Gabriel.

As Hammond drove down to Gabriel’s office in Brooklyn, he felt more depressed than at any time since he’d begun the search. If a man of Gabriel’s ability and experience couldn’t find so much as a sniff of an intellectual Nazi anywhere in New York, what chance did he have?

Gabriel was already at his desk, in a rented office on the second floor of a house on 6
^th
Street.

“So, where do we go from here?”

Gabriel shrugged.

“There’s another twenty thousand of those fucking assholes in this city. You gotta turn your collar up to avoid ’em. They’re all pretty much of a fucking muchness, but we could check a few, I suppose.”

Hammond couldn’t see the point.

“No. There’s a disconnect, and we have to find it.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Well there has to be a link somewhere, between the people who wear swastikas and jackboots and think owning a copy of
Mein
Kampf
gives them a license to hate, and the people who fan and manipulate that ignorance for their own purposes.”

“All very fucking highfalutin, J. Edgar, but how do you suggest we go about finding it?”

“I don’t know. You got any ideas?”

“Not really. We could check out that alleyway on East One-Twenty-Third.”

“Why? Where’s that?”

“Spic Harlem. Came in on the radio, just before you got here. Cops found the body of a male Caucasian: naked, castrated, and covered in fucking swastikas. Might be worth a look?”

Hammond felt the adrenaline surge.

“Let’s go.”

Gabriel eyed him uncertainly, but didn’t say anything as they drove up to Harlem. They arrived just as a crowd had started to gather. An aged lieutenant had apparently arrived a few minutes earlier and was now taking charge. Gabriel appeared to know him, but stood back as the lieutenant spoke to one of the young policemen who had evidently found the body.

“You OK, son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then wipe your face and straighten your uniform. Then see if you can get the sightseers and rubber-neckers back around fifty yards or so.”

The aged lieutenant smiled generously.

“And the next time that sidekick of yours flags down a car to call in a body, tell him to use the correct procedure and codes. Half this city doesn’t need to hear graphic details of dead bodies when they’re enjoying their breakfast.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll tell him. I’m sorry, sir.”

“And if you look behind me, you’ll see another reason we like to keep details like that off the airwaves.”

He nodded to where Gabriel and Hammond stood listening. Gabriel grinned.

“Morning, Jimmy.”

“Morning, Dave. Thought I told you to hand that radio in last year?”

“Radio, what fucking radio? I told you before, I ain’t got your fucking radio. I handed it in with the car when I quit. We were down the street when we heard about a badly-mutilated body, covered in fucking swastikas. Thought we might be able to help out.”

“And just how were you expecting to do that?”

Gabriel nodded towards Hammond.

“This is Mr Gerald Hammond. He’s up from the State Department in Washington. He’s looking for fucking Nazis.”

Hammond shook hands with the Lieutenant, who glanced incredulously at Gabriel.

“Nazis, huh? Well, they shouldn’t be too tough to find, not in this city.”

Gabriel gave a short laugh.

“Yeah, that’s roughly what I fucking told him. Mind if we take a look?”

“Be my guest. It’s not for the squeamish.”

Hammond had either caused or been around violent death for much of his adult life, but the sight that greeted him as Gabriel pulled back the sheet caused the nausea to rise from even his experience-hardened stomach. He studied the lower torso and swallowed back the bile. Then returned his gaze to further study the mutilated remains of Alan James Carlisle, unable to disguise the start of recognition as his eyes travelled to the face.

“Jesus!”

“You know him?”

Hammond saw no reason to lie.

“Alan Carlisle. . . One of my bosses at The State Department, or used to be.”

“‘Used to be’ is about right. You’re due a fucking promotion. As for your boss here, I’d have to say this is a real fucking piece of work. Whatever didn’t get carved off, got fucking swastikas gouged all over. You think some fucker’s trying to tell you something, J. Edgar?”

“I don’t know about any intended message, but they’re not swastikas.”

“They’re not?”

“No.”

“So what the fuck are they?”

Hammond explained.

“The swastika has the feet pointing clockwise. These point anticlockwise. You see here, and here, and again here? It’s what they call a reverse fylfot; similar, but not the same.”

“I can see it’s fucking similar. My extensive experience and all that sophisticated police fucking training told me that. What I wanna know is what the fuck’s it all mean, J. Edgar?”

Hammond’s answer was purposely vague, his speech slow and deliberate, but his mind racing as he tried to assimilate the horrific sight and the implications of Alan Carlisle’s death.

“No idea. Could be pagan, I suppose, or something to do with the occult or Voodoo. To be truthful, I can’t say I know that much about either. Could be some religious symbol: Muslim, or even Hindu.”

Gabriel studied the poorly-disguised evasiveness and shook his head.

“It ain’t pagan, or not by any fucking pagans I ever met, and the occultists may be a little on the weird side of fucked-up, but as far as I know they ain’t total fucking lunatics. As for all that fucking Voodoo shit? Well, if you’re looking for Maman Brigitte and Baron fucking Samedi, you’re standing on the wrong set of crossroads on the wrong side of fucking Harlem. As for the rest, I ain’t never heard of no thuggees carving off the fucking genitals.”

Hammond regarded the red-faced detective with fresh eyes.

“So cars aren’t the only subject you know? You’re an educated man, Dawid Gabriel.”

“Only when it comes to homicide. I’m a fucking world expert when it comes to that. Well that, and smelling total fucking bullshit.”

Hammond asked a question, hoping to deflect the glare of accusation.

“So what can you tell me about the time and cause of death?”

Gabriel returned his attention to the corpse.

“I usually leave that to forensic, but I’d say twelve hours ago, maybe. Cause of death sure as hell wasn’t strangulation, though, well, not with any knotted fucking handkerchief or rope.”

“Go on.”

“My guess would be those puncture wounds to the neck. In case you’re wondering, I ain’t suggesting fucking vampires, although that would explain the absence of fucking blood. I’d say they did the carving-up somewhere else, then brought him here and dumped him.”

“They?”

“Someone would have to drive whatever brought him here. And someone would have to lift him up and dump him, or what’s left of him. One person could do it, but it’d take more time and be messy. Hopefully they cut the poor bastard’s balls off after he was dead. The rest of it looks like a fucking afterthought. Or, like I said before, maybe a message for someone?”

Gabriel peered hopefully at Hammond, who tried not to look guilty and said nothing further. Gabriel carefully re-covered the remains, before walking back to the waiting lieutenant, who had been quietly monitoring their conversation.

“Our friend from the State Department has some information for you, Jimmy, if you can believe a fucking word of it. You want me, I’ll be in the car.”

The lieutenant shook his head.

“What the hell have you got yourself into this time, Dave?”

“Fuck knows.”

“Well stay close on this one. We can’t have lunacy like this, not in this town. If they wanna carve each other up, let ‘em do it in Washington. Oh, and, Dave. . .”

“What?”

“Don’t forget to bring that radio back.”

“I told you: I handed the fucker in a year ago. I’ll call if I come up with anything.”

Hammond spent some time with the lieutenant, providing details and addresses and answering routine questions. When he returned to the car, Gabriel held out his hand.

“You owe me two hundred bucks. That’s as agreed: a hundred up front, and fifty a day. I normally load the fucking expenses, but as we’ve been on your fucking gas, I’ll let it go.”

“I don’t understand.”

Gabriel nodded across the street to where the lieutenant had returned to the alleyway.

“What did you tell him?”

“Not a lot. There wasn’t a lot to tell. I’m not sure he believed me, though.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.”

“How’s that?”

Gabriel replaced the open palm with a single finger of rebuke.

“When you’ve been asking fucking questions for as long as he has, and for as long as I have, you get to spot a lie before it’s even rolled off the fucking tongue. And when someone tells you they’re being truthful without even being fucking asked, it usually means they ain’t. Now I can put up with the helpless act and all the psychological Washington fucking bullshit. I can even put up with some suicidal asshole who wants to take on the Folks at Fifty-fucking-Eight. But I don’t work for liars, and I don’t work with liars, not if I’ve got any fucking say in it. That’s another reason I quit the force.”

Hammond glared back at him.

“I wasn’t lying.”

“Maybe you were and maybe you fucking weren’t, J. Edgar, but you sure as hell weren’t telling the whole fucking truth.”

Hammond sat weighing the risk of giving further information, before concluding that he had no choice.

“The body back there.”

“Your friend?”

“No, not my friend, but I knew him reasonably well.”

“What about it?”

“The marks, and the rest of it. . . I’ve seen it before.”

“When was this?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“In New York?”

“No.”

“So, that’s it then. This is serial killing, cross fucking state, and that’s the fucking FBI’s jurisdiction. New York’s finest is gonna have to back the fuck off. If you’ve got any fucking sense, you will, too.”

“No, it wasn’t in another state. It was in central Europe.”

“And I’m not even gonna fucking ask what you were doing over there.”

“That’s probably wise.”

“So what else d’yer know?”

“Not a whole lot.”

“But you think you know who did it, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Hammond took a deep breath. “I think it might have been the girl.”

Gabriel looked all but lost for words.

“The what, did you say? The girl; the fucking. . . What the fuck’s going on?”

“It’s a bit complicated.”

“Complicated, he says! Fucking complicated! What were those fucking words you used? A young girl, you said, beautiful, helpless; a young friend in trouble.” He roared his anger. “Did you see that fucking cadaver back there? Did you see what she fucking did to it? If she’s a fucking friend of yours, I sure as fuck don’t wanna meet any of your fucking enemies.”

“You don’t understand. She’s a sweet kid, but she’s been through a terrible ordeal. She needs help.”

By this time the spluttering Gabriel was beyond anger.

“Sweet? Is that what you just fucking said to me? A sweet fucking kid? It may have escaped your fucking attention, J. Edgar, but that sweet fucking kid of yours just sliced-up your boss like a slab of fucking salami and left him out with the fucking trash.”

“Now you’re beginning to sound like a typical New York detective.”

Gabriel bristled.

“I am a typical New York fucking detective. They call us fucking gumshoes, or ain’t you never heard that fucking expression before? Now answer the fucking question.”

“It may not have been her.”

“But you think it could have been?”

“It’s possible.”

“Then that’s it. I’m fucking outta here, J. Edgar. Getting my balls thinly sliced on to a fucking bagel for fifty bucks a fucking day ain’t exactly my idea of gainful fucking employment.”

Hammond studied the outstretched hand and shook his head.

“No you’re not. You want to see this through as much as I do. And what else are you going to do? Go back to taking compromising photographs, or peering through motel keyholes looking for grubby people having grubby affairs and doing grubby deals? Hoping to dump more evidence of deceit and misery and infidelity on to someone else’s already miserable life?

“You’d miss all this. I could see it in your eyes just now. I could almost hear what you were thinking.”

“So you think you know what I was fucking thinking, do you? Let me tell you something, J. Edgar. You’re not even halfway fucking there. All I was thinking about was living fucking long enough to start drawing my fucking pension.”

Hammond shrugged and held out four fifty-dollar bills. Gabriel waved them away.

“Fuck it! I probably want my fucking head examined, but what now?”

“You know those people in Harold Pratt House, The Folks at Fifty-Eight, the ones you’re so scared of? The ones you say are unbeatable? I think maybe it’s time I took a trip up to Connecticut and talked to one of them.”

“Which one?”

“A man called Conrad Zalesie, he’s. . .”

“I know who he is. Everybody knows who Zalesie is; at least those of us who ain’t been in a fucking coma for the last few. . .” He suddenly stopped in mid-sentence. “Hey, wait just a fucking minute. Here, give me one of those fifties.”