Too Old a Cat (Trace 6) (24 page)

“Something’s wrong,” Trace said. He dialed the telephone number at Sarge’s house and Chico answered.

“Hello, Chico.”

“Hello, Devlin. Are you coming home soon?”

“Is everything all right?”

“I’ve cooked your favorite. Eggplant. Got to run now. Are you coming right home?”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Good,” she said. The phone clicked off in his ear.

“Something is wrong,” he said. “We’d better get out to the house.”

“She say something?” Sarge asked.

“She called me Devlin. She never calls me Devlin. And she said she made my favorite eggplant. She knows I won’t eat eggplant. And before, she called you my friend Pat.”

“Somebody’s there with her,” Sarge said.

“Let’s go.”

Trace moved to the door. Sarge pulled out one of the desk drawers. Taped to the outside of the back panel was a small .32-caliber revolver. “Take this,” he said, tossing it across the room to Trace, who caught it and shoved it into his jacket pocket.

“Go over to the parking lot and get Billy’s car,” Sarge said. “I’m calling those two cops in case we need backup.”

“Hurry up,” Trace said as he turned and ran down the steps. “Just hurry up.”

Gault and Gorman were working up to their big finale. The room had been shocked when they asked the two young women why they had killed Salamanda.

Theodore Longworth had started to rise to his feet, but the police commissioner had touched his shoulder. “Let them go on, Ted,” he said.

Gorman said to Longworth, “I’m sorry, sir. But the evidence is there. And here.” He nodded to Gault, who handed him a briefcase. Gorman opened it and took out two photographs and handed them to the commissioner.

“They show Abigail Longworth in the rose ceremony at the time the Swami was murdered,” Gorman said. “Here is one of the roses.” He pulled a withered rose from the briefcase. It was wrapped in Saran kitchen wrap. He held it up and showed it around the room.

“Let me see that,” Jackson said, and took the rose from the detective’s hand.

“Isn’t this stupid?” Razoni said.

“Abigail,” Longworth said, “did you have anything to do with this?”

“No, Daddy. I didn’t kill anybody.”

Jackson showed the rose to Razoni. “Look at the end,” he whispered. The stem had been cut straight across. “That’s what that girl in Tracy’s office meant. The girls bought one batch of roses but the poisoned ones came from someplace else.”

Gorman was talking aloud. “I’m sorry, Mr. Longworth, but we can’t ignore the evidence. We could have done this all earlier and maybe less painfully if the case hadn’t been botched at the start by incompetents.”

“I’m not taking any more of this shit,” Razoni said to Jackson. “Commissioner,” he called out, “can I ask a question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Abigail, sweets,” Razoni said, “when you went to the refrigerator to get the roses for the ceremony, were there any other roses there?”

The girl thought a moment. “No,” she said.

“Gorman? You look in the refrigerator?” Razoni asked.

“Yeah. There were roses there. We’ve got them in the property room.”

“Where’d they come from?” Razoni asked.

Gorman stopped pacing. For the first time, a worried look appeared on his face.

“Somebody must have bought them,” he said. He shrugged.

“Unpoisoned roses, right?” Razoni said.

“That’s right. The lab said they weren’t poisoned.”

“Why would somebody buy them after the lizard was already dead?” Razoni asked.

He stared at Gorman, who stared back malevolently.

“I don’t know,” Gorman said.

“You don’t know anything,” Razoni said.

“These photos,” Gorman said. “She was there.”

“Of course she was there. We knew that. We sent you those pictures, you numbskull.”

There was a knock on the door and Mannion rose to answer it. Sergeant Schultz from his office stood there, said a few words to Mannion, and then came inside. He stopped by Jackson.

“You got a phone call from a Tracy. He said he thinks the case is broken; get to his house in Queens right away.”

“On our way,” Razoni said. He and Jackson rose.

In the center of the room, Theodore Longworth was glaring at Detective Gorman. “You’re in trouble with these false accusations.”

Razoni stopped in midstride and wheeled about. “I’m about tired of you, Longworth,” he snapped. The commissioner looked startled. “If you hadn’t bought a goddamn television tape of your daughter at the Swami’s and if you hadn’t burned the goddamn tape and if you hadn’t jerked the police department around trying to find her because you were afraid she was going to get arrested, this would have all been cleared up earlier. Take a hike, Longworth. You’re a pain in the ass.”

He turned and followed Jackson out the door.

“Who did it?” Mannion yelled after them.

“Damned if I know,” Razoni said. “But I think we’ll find out now.”

Trace parked down the block from Sarge’s house. The retired policeman checked his gun, a long-barreled .38 Special.

“Okay,” he said. “Give me thirty seconds to cut through the neighbor’s back yard. Then you make your move.”

“Right,” Trace said. “Hurry.”

Sarge got out of the car and darted into an alley between two houses. Trace tried to count the seconds; they each seemed to take an eternity.

Finally, he got out of the car and walked down the street toward his parents’ house. The unfamiliar weight of the pistol in his right jacket pocket slapped against his hip.

He whistled as he walked up the front steps and rang the bell.

There was no answer and he rang it again.

“Who is it?” Chico’s voice called out.

“Devlin, honey. I forgot my key. Open up.”

Slowly, she opened the door. There was a look of horror on her face. As Trace stepped inside, Chico darted her eyes toward the right, but before he could move, Trace felt a gun jabbed into his back.

The door slammed shut and Trace was pushed roughly against it.

“Don’t move a muscle,” a man’s voice snapped at him, then began patting down his sides. He quickly found the gun in Trace’s jacket, reached his hand in, and took it out. The gun was removed from Trace’s back and he turned in time to see Gildersleeve putting Trace’s pistol in his own jacket pocket.

“All right, you two. Over on the couch,” Gildersleeve said. He held another gun in his hand and waved it at them. As Trace turned away, toward the couch, he winked reassuringly at Chico, then helped her to the couch.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Trace said. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him. “Everything’s okay,” he said.

Gildersleeve was standing in front of them.

“I don’t know why you two are so nosy, but it’s going to cost you,” he said. “You should have left well enough alone.”

“I don’t think your killing two people is ‘well enough,’” Trace said. “You did kill them both, didn’t you?”

“Ask your girlfriend,” Gildersleeve said. “She knows all about it.”

Trace looked at Chico, who nodded. “He killed Salamanda,” she said. “I found the store down near his hotel where he bought the other roses that he poisoned. Then Gloria caught on and he had to kill her. He’s the one who took that button from Alcetta downstairs from our office. And I found the place where he rented the car like Alcetta’s. It still had the gum on it from the bumper strip he put on it.”

Trace said, “That’s what didn’t ring right. If Angelo was going to kill his wife, why park his car in front where everybody would see it?”

“But it wasn’t Angelo,” Gildersleeve said. “I wanted everybody to see it.”

“But why?” Trace asked.

“Why what?” Gildersleeve said.

“Everything. Why everything?”

Gildersleeve shrugged.

Chico said, “He was in charge of building that City of Love in Pennsylvania. He was going south with the money and Salamanda found out.”

“And one thing led to another,” Gildersleeve said. “And now it leads to you. I’m going to make it quick,” he said. “It’ll look like a lovers’ quarrel.”

Suddenly Sarge’s voice rang through the room.

“Drop that gun or you’re film at eleven,” he roared.

Gildersleeve tensed. He looked as if he were about to turn.

“Don’t turn around,” Sarge barked. “Just drop that gun.”

Gildersleeve dropped the gun onto the carpet. As Chico watched, he half-turned his body so that his right side was away from Sarge. He glanced toward the big ex-policeman standing in the doorway to the kitchen, and Chico saw his hand slip into his right jacket pocket, where he had stashed Trace’s gun.

She started to yell. “Sarge! Watch out!” and as she did, Gildersleeve yanked the pistol out and wheeled toward Sarge. The gun was out in front of him, aimed across the room.

The .38 Special in Sarge’s hand barked. Gildersleeve’s arms flew up into the air. The gun dropped and he flew back onto the couch between Trace and Chico, who shrank away from the man. There was a hole in his chest big enough to push a golf ball into.

“Holy shit,” Chico said as she got to her feet.

“Double that,” Trace said, leaning over the man. “I think he’s dead.”

Sarge was at the telephone, calling the police, calling for an ambulance.

Chico shook her head. She was unable to take her eyes off Gildersleeve. She looked at Sarge with worry in her eyes.

“I thought he had you,” she said. She went to him and put her arms about him as he stood at the telephone. “I thought he had you.”

Absently, Sarge patted her head. “Not with that hairy old trick,” he said. “I’m too old a cat, honey, to be screwed by a kitten.”

Razoni and Jackson arrived three minutes later, even before the ambulance came.

Razoni looked at Gildersleeve’s body on the couch, then at Chico, and said, “Jesus Christ. Why don’t you people go back to Las Vegas? What pains in the ass you are.”

The party was Jackson’s idea. At first, Razoni resisted it because he said he was afraid to be anywhere with a homicidal maniac Japanese woman, but finally he relented when Jackson explained that not only had the murder been solved but they had been taken off punishment detail. Razoni agreed finally and pointed out that he had managed to solve the crime with his usual efficiency and had also managed not to be assaulted by any dirty, creepy, disgusting fags, male or female, who were sick and making a sick city sicker with their disgustingness.

Trace had agreed instantly because having something else to do on Saturday night meant that he had a reason not to accept his ex-wife’s dinner invitation. Chico said she would go if the food was good. Sarge said, “Anything to get out of the house.”

Razoni picked the restaurant, a “great place” he knew in Little Italy. Jackson, with his wife in the back seat, drove through the twisting little streets as if they were straight and followed Razoni’s orders to park on the sidewalk in front of a small storefront restaurant that had the same quaint glamorous look as Anzio in 1945.

“Why did I park on the sidewalk, Ed?” he asked.

“Because the junkies sneak in here to crap in the streets but they wouldn’t dare mess up a car that’s got the nerve to be on the sidewalk.”

Trace, Chico, and Sarge were already inside, at a large table in the far corner of the room. A jug of wine sat in front of them. Jackson made all the introductions while Razoni busied himself figuring out how he could sit as far away from Chico as possible and still stay at the table.

A very thin, nervous old man was skittering about from table to table, muttering in Italian, and when he reached them, Razoni insisted upon ordering for everybody. The old man’s hand shook furiously as he tried to hold a pencil and pad.

“We’ll have melon and prosciutto, chopped baked clam, enough for everybody, bracciole, lasagne, your vegetable of the day, and another two jugs of wine.”

The old man read the order back and Razoni nodded and said, “I want those clams chopped.”

“Chopped,” repeated the waiter as he tried to aim his shaking pencil at the pad. Razoni started to say something to Jackson’s wife when the waiter began bellowing next to Razoni’s ear. He was shouting their entire order to a gigantic woman who sat in the back of the restaurant peeling garlic. Jackson shrugged. Chico laughed aloud. Razoni jumped up.

“What the hell did you write all that down for if you were just going to shout it from the table?” he yelled at the old waiter.

“So you know what you’re paying for,” the old man said, shaking. While he was explaining, Trace and Chico could hear their order being bellowed by the fat woman to a cook who was behind a wall.

“Charming places you take us to, Ed,” Jackson’s wife said.

“It used to be great.”

The waiter brought back more wine and more glasses, and Razoni poured for everyone, then lifted his glass in a toast.

“Here’s to Abigail Longworth. And Karen Marichal. And Theodore Longworth. And the United Broadcasting network. And its entire staff. And all the other fags who are making this city unlivable for us normal people.”

Chico muttered, “Name one.”

“Name one what?” Razoni snapped.

“One normal people,” she said.

“Well, I sure didn’t mean you,” he said.

Sarge raised his glass. “And here’s to Captain Mannion and the two best detectives in New York.”

“Gee, shucks, Sarge,” Chico said.

“He meant us, lady,” Razoni said.

They drank again, draining their glasses. Razoni refilled them all.

It was Jackson’s turn. “Here’s to the new famous detective agency. Long may it prosper to torture Razoni.”

His voice was almost drowned out by the fat garlic lady screaming in Italian at the shivering waiter.

They drank and Jackson asked Razoni, “What’s she saying? Does that language really have a meaning? I always thought it was just a lot of sounds.”

“Go beat on a log with a drumstick,” Razoni said.

The waiter appeared with a platter of baked whole clams.

Razoni sniffed. “I wanted them chopped,” he said.

“Never mind,” said Jackson. “We’ll be here all night.”

“That’s the trouble with you, Jackson. You settle too easily. Since you’re paying for this, I should think you’d want things to be just so.”

Jackson divided the clams anyway onto small appetizer plates. Suddenly he saw something shiny whiz past his right hand. The garlic woman was chasing their waiter down the center aisle of the restaurant, wildly waving her butcher knife in the air.

They disappeared through the front door out into the street.

Jackson excused himself. “This party’s missing something,” he said.

Razoni said, “This whole city’s going to hell in a bucket.”

Chico nodded, then plunged mouth-first into her plate of clams.

When Jackson returned, Razoni said, “Where’d you go?”

“I made a phone call,” Jackson said.

“To who?”

“To whom?” Jackson said.

“All right, to whom?”

“I called the Marichal family.”

“What for?” Razoni demanded.

“I invited them to dinner. I told them we found a great place where they’d feel right at home.”

Razoni said, “Did you invite the monkey too?”

“I had to,” Jackson said.

“Why?” Razoni demanded.

“He answered the phone.”

Trace raised his glass in a toast. Everybody else lifted their glasses also.

Trace said, “God bless us every
birinci
.”