When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (24 page)

"To make it harder to find them later, I suppose."

"I guess. But why should they think we'd bother to look for them? There's not a hell of a lot we can do to them. We made a deal, traded money for your books. What did you wind up doing with the books, incidentally?"

"Burned them, like I said.And what do you mean, there's nothing we could do to them? We could murder them in their beds."

"Sure."

"Find the right church, take a shit on the altar, and tell DominicTutto they did it. That has a certain charm, now that I think of it. Fix 'emup,get 'ema date with the Butcher. Maybe they wore disguises for the same reason they stole the car.Because they're pros."

"They look familiar to you, Skip?"

"You mean looking past the wigs and beards and shit? I don't know that I could see past it. I didn't recognize the voices."

"No."

"There was something familiar about them, but I don't know what it was. The way they moved, maybe. That's it."

"I think I know what you mean."

"An economy of motion.You could almost say they were light on their feet." He laughed. "Call 'emup,see if they want to go dancing."

My glass was empty. I poured a little bourbon into it, sat back, and sipped it slowly. Skip drowned his cigarette in a coffee cup and told me, inevitably, that he never wanted to see me do the same. I assured him he wasn't likely to. He lit another cigarette and we sat there in a comfortable silence.

After a while he said, "You want to explain something to me, forget about disguises. Tell me why they shot the lights out."

"To cover their exit.Give them a step or two on us."

"You think they thought we weregonna come stampeding after them? Chase armed men through backyards and driveways?"

"Maybe they wanted it dark, thought they stood a better chance that way." I frowned. "All he had to do wastake a step and flick the switch. You know the worst thing about the gunshots?"

"Yeah, they scared the shit out of me."

"They drew heat. One thing a pro knows is you don't do anything that brings the cops. Not if you can help it."

"Maybe they figured it was worth it. It was a warning: 'Don't try to get even.' "

"Maybe."

"A little touch of the dramatic."

"Maybe."

"And God knows it was dramatic enough. When the gun was aimed at me I thought I wasgonna get shot. I really did. Then when he shot up the ceiling instead I didn't know whether to shit or go blind. What's the matter?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake," I said.

"What?"

"He pointed the gun at you and then he fired two shots into the ceiling."

"Is that something we're supposed to have overlooked? What do you think we've been talking about?"

I held up a hand. "Think a minute," I said. "I'd been thinking of him shooting outthe lights, that's why I missed it."

"Missed what? Matt, I don't-"

"Where have you been lately that somebody pointed a gun at someone but didn't shoot him? And fired two bullets into the ceiling?"

"Jesus Christ."

"Well?"

"Jesus Christ on stilts.Frank and Jesse."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know what I think. It's such a crazy thought. They didn't sound Irish."

"How do we know they were Irish at Morrissey's?"

"We don't. I guess I assumed it. Those handkerchiefmasks, and taking the money for Northern Relief, and the whole sense that it was political. They had that same economy of movement, you know? The way they were so precise, they didn't take extra steps, they moved through that whole robbery like somebody choreographed it."

"Maybe they're dancers."

"Right," he said. "Ballet Desperadoes of '75. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around all of this. Two clowns in red hankies take off the Morrissey brothers for fifty grand, and then they jack off me andKasabian for- hey, it's the same amount. A subtle pattern begins to emerge."

"We don't know what theMorrisseys lost."

"No, and they didn't know what wasgonna be in the safe, but a pattern's a pattern. I'll take it. What about their ears? You got pictures of their ears from last night. Are those the ears of Frank and Jesse?" He started to laugh. "I can't believe the lines I'm speaking. 'Are those the ears of Frank and Jesse?' Sentence sounds like it was translated from another language. Are they?"

"Skip, I never noticed their ears."

"I thought you detectives are working all the time."

"I was trying to figure out how to get out of the line of fire.If I was thinking of anything. They were fair-skinned, Frank and Jesse. And they were fair last night."

"Fair and warmer.You see their eyes?"

"I didn't see the color."

"I was close enough to see the eyes of the one who made the trade with me. But if I saw them I wasn't paying attention. Not that it makes any difference. Did either of them speak a word at Morrissey's?"

"I don't think so."

He closed his eyes. "I'm trying to remember. I think the whole thing was pantomime.Two gunshots and then silence until they were out the door and down the stairs."

"That's how I remember it."

He stood up, paced around the room. "It's crazy," he said. "Hey, maybe we can stop looking for the viper in my bosom. We're not looking at an inside job. We're dealing with a daring gang of two who're specializing in taking off bars in Hell's Kitchen. You don't suppose that local Irish gang, whatdo they call them-"

"TheWesties.No, we'd have heard. Or Morrissey would have heard. That reward of his would have smoked it out in a day if any of them had anything to do with it." I picked up my glass and drank what was in it. God, it tasted good right now. We had them, I knew we did. I didn't know a single goddamned thing about them I hadn't known an hour ago but now I knew that I was going to bag them.

"That's why they wore disguises," I said. "Oh, they might have worn them anyway, but that's why they didn't want us to get a look at them. They made a mistake. We're going to get them."

"Jesus, look at you, Matt. Like an old firehouse dog when the alarm goes off. How the hell are you going to get them? You still don't know who they are."

"I know they're Frank and Jesse."

"So? Morrissey's been trying to find Frank and Jesse for a long time. Fact he tried to get you to go looking for them. What gives you the edge now?"

I poured myself just one more little slug of the Wild Turkey. I said, "When you plant a bug on a car and then you want to pick it up, you need two cars. One won't do it, but with two you can triangulate on the signal and home in on it."

"I'm missing something."

"It's not quite the same thing, butit's close. We've got them at Morrissey's, and we've got them in that church basement inBensonhurst. That's two points of reference. Now we can home in on them, we can triangulate on their signal. Two bullets in the ceiling- it's their fucking trademark. You'd think they wanted to get caught, giving the job a signature like that."

"Yeah, I feel sorry for 'em," he said. "I bet they're really shitting in their pants. So far they only made a hundred grand this month. What they don't realize is Matt "Bulldog" Scudder is on their trail, and the poor bastards won't get to spend a dime of it."

The telephone woke me. I sat up, blinked at daylight. It went on ringing.

I picked it up. TommyTillary said, "Matt, that cop was here. He came here, can you believe it?"

"Where?"

"The office, I'm at my office. You know him. At least he said he knew you.A detective, a very unpleasant man."

"I don't know who you're talking about, Tommy."

"I forget his name. He said-"

"What did he say?"

"He said the two of you were in my house together."

"Jack Diebold."

"That's it. He was right then? You were in my house together?"

I rubbed my temples, reached over and looked at my watch. It was a few minutes past ten. I tried to figure out when I'd gone to sleep.

"We didn't go there together," I said. "I was there, checking the setting, and he turned up. I used to know him years ago."

It was no use. I couldn't remember anything after I'd assured Skip that Frank and Jesse were living on borrowed time. Maybe I went home rightaway, maybe I sat drinking with him until dawn. I had no way of knowing.

"Matt? He's been bothering Carolyn."

"Bothering her?"

My door was bolted. That was a good sign. I couldn't have been in too bad shape if I'd remembered to bolt the door. On the other hand, my pants were tossed over the chair. It would have been better if they'd been hung in the closet. Then again, they weren't in a tangled heap on the floor, nor was I still wearing them. The great detective, sifting clues, tryingto find out how bad he'd been last night.

"Bothering her.Called her a couple of times and went over to her place once. Insinuating things, you know, like she's covering for me. Matt, allit's doing is upsetting Carolyn, plus it makes things awkward for me around the office."

"I can see how it would."

"Matt, I gather you knew him of old. Do you think you could get him to lay off me?"

"Jesus, Tommy, I don't see how. A cop doesn't ease up on a homicide investigation as a favor to an old friend."

"Oh, I wouldn't suggest anything out of line, Matt. Don't get me wrong. But a homicide investigation is one thing and harassment's another, don't you agree?" He didn't give me a chance to answer. "The thing is,the guy's got it in for me. He's got it in his head I'm a lowlife, and if you could just, you know, have a word with him. Tell him I'm good people."

I tried to remember what I'd told Jack about Tommy. I couldn't recall, but I didn't think it amounted to much in the way of a character reference.

"And touch base with Drew, just as a favor to me, okay? He was asking me just yesterday what I'd heard from you, if you'd come up with anything. I know you're working hard for me, Matt, and we might as well let him know, too. Keep him in the picture, you know what I mean?"

"Sure, Tommy."

After he hung up I chased two aspirins with a glass of water from the tap. I had a shower and was halfway through with my shave before I realized I'd virtually agreed to try to talk Jack Diebold into letting up on Tommy. For the first time I realized how good the son of a bitch must be at getting people to buy his real-estate syndications, or whatever the hell he was peddling. It was just as everybody said. He was very persuasive over the telephone.

OUTSIDE the day was clear, the sun brighter than it needed to be. I stopped at McGovern's for one quick one, just a bracer. I bought a paper from the bag lady on the corner, tossed her a buck and walked away wrapped in a fog of blessings. Well, I'd take her blessing. I could use all the help I could get.

I had coffee and an English muffin at the Red Flame and read the paper. It bothered me that I couldn't remember leaving Skip's office. I told myself I couldn't have been too bad because I didn't have all that bad of a hangover, but there wasn't necessarily any correlation there. Sometimes I awoke clearheaded and physically fit after a night of ugly drinking and a large memory gap. Other times a hangover that kept me in bed all day would follow a night when I hadn't even felt drunk and nothing untoward had taken place, no memory lost.

Never mind. Forget it.

I ordered a refill on the coffee and thought about my discourse on triangulating on the two men we had taken to calling Frank and Jesse. I remembered the confidence I had felt and wondered what had become of it. Maybe I'd had a plan, maybe I'd come up with a brilliant insight and had known just how to track them down. I looked in my notebook on the chance that I'd written down a passing thought that I'd since forgotten. No such luck. There were no entries after I'd left the bar inSunsetPark.

But I did have that entry, notes on Mickey Mouse and his adolescent career as a fag-basher in the Village. So many working-class teenagers take up that sport, sure that they're acting on genuine outrage and confirming their manliness in the process, never realizing they're trying to kill a part of themselves they don't dare acknowledge. Sometimes they overachieve, maiming or killing a gay man. I'd made a couple of arrests in cases like that, and on every occasion the boys had been astonished to find out that they were in genuine trouble, that we cops were not on their side, that they might actually go away for what they'd done.

I started to put my notebook away, then went over and put a dime in the phone instead. I looked up Drew Kaplan's number and dialed it. I thought of the woman who'd told me about Mickey Mouse, glad I didn't have to see her bright clothing on a morning like this one.

"Scudder," I said, when the girl rang me through to Kaplan. "I don't know if it helps, but I've got a little more proof that our friends aren't choirboys."

AFTERWARD I went for a long walk. I walked downNinth Avenue, stopping at Miss Kitty's to say a quick hello to JohnKasabian, but I didn't stay long. I dropped into a church onForty-secondStreet, then continued on downtown, past the rear entrance of the Port Authority bus terminal, down through Hell's Kitchen andChelsea to the Village. I walked through the meatpacking district and stopped at a butchers' bar on the corner ofWashington and Thirteenth and stood among men in bloody aprons drinking shots with short beer chasers. I went outside and watched carcasses of beef and lamb suspended on steel hooks, with flies buzzing around them in the heat of the midday sun.

I walked some more and got out of the sun to have a drink at the Corner Bistro on Jane and Fourth and another at the Cookie Bar onHudson. I sat at a table at the White Horse and ate a hamburger and drank a beer.

Through all of this I kept running things through my mind.

I swear to God I don't know how anybody ever figures anything out, myself included. I'll watch a movie in which someone explains how he figured something out, fitting clues together until a solution appeared, and it will make perfect sense to me as I listen along.