My friend the parking attendant got out and said, “Mr. Gruskowski.”
One of the Hispanic men stepped forward and said, “That’s us.”
“You’re not Mr. Gruskowski,” the attendant said.
“Mr. Gruskowski sold the car to me,” the man said with the slightest of accents. “I have the title here to prove it. He signed it over.”
“Excuse me.” I stepped in. “I’m Gruskowski’s friend. I’m surprised he sold the car. He loved that Corvette.”
“He sold it to me yesterday,” he said, not elaborating.
“Where?” I asked. “Here in Santa Monica?”
He said nothing and got into the driver side. His friend got in the passenger side. I walked up to the driver with my cellphone in hand and said, “If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll call the cops.”
“Call them. I purchased the car legally from Craig Gruskowski.” His accent was now completely gone. “Gruskowski’s name and signature are on the title. He signed it over to me.”
I couldn’t stop them from leaving, not without getting into trouble. The car sale sounded legitimate and they themselves seemed aboveboard. Strong-arming them wouldn’t work.
“Will you tell me what happened if I pay you?”
The driver looked at the passenger, who nodded his head. I counted out five hundred and held it so they could see it. I asked them what happened. After the driver tucked the wad into his pocket, he told me about a poker game in Tijuana, where Skeeter lost most of his cash on a can’t-lose hand. Skeeter wanted to keep playing, so he sold the Corvette, a $70,000 car with less than four thousand miles on it, for $10,000 cash. Skeeter went on to lose most of that money within two hours.
“Skeeter went to Mexico City with his friend after the game,” the driver said, holding out his forearm. “He sold the Rolex to me, too.”
“Anything else about the poker game?”
“That’s it.”
The man drove off in Skeeter’s former car, wearing Skeeter’s former watch, while I stood on the sidewalk, flummoxed. I had chased these guys for three thousand miles, if you include the plane ride to Chicago, and I came up empty. I paid the parking attendant the money I owed him and asked for my car.
I had nowhere to go, the trail had ended, and so I drove to the airport and returned the Mustang, paying a hefty surcharge for the one-way rental and heftier charge for the damages caused by crunching El Knucklehead. I bought a plane ticket for Boston. The only upside to the trip was that I’d see Cheyenne when I got back.
38
The plane landed in Boston at 11:00 PM, after a herky-jerky flight. My stomach was roiling when I hailed a taxi and told him to bring me to Charlestown, giving him the address. Cabbies don’t need to know the city streets anymore. They simply enter the address, and the GPS does the rest. He took the Sumner Tunnel to I-93 and had me home in fifteen minutes.
When I entered the apartment I sensed a presence, as if someone had been here while I was away. Maybe Harraseeket Kid had come up to check things, or maybe I needed to get adapted to my own place again. I was wrong on both counts. Cheyenne came out of the bedroom wearing one of my button-down Oxford shirts and nothing else.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” she said, and gave me a big hug. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
I moved closer and wrapped my hands around her waist and guided her to the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind us. She turned off the desk lamp and let the moonlight illuminate the room.
Early in the morning we went to the Grasshopper Café and sat at a table facing Bunker Hill Street. Lynne the waitress took our order and said, “You two make a lovely couple.” She went to the kitchen.
“How’s the jet lag?” Cheyenne asked.
“You knocked it out of me last night, and again this morning.”
“Glad I could help,” she said. “It’s good to have you home.”
“I missed you, too.” I reluctantly changed topics. “I have to figure out my next move on the case.”
“What if you talked to Victor’s girlfriend, the one Ester told you about.”
“You heard about that?” I asked.
“Yes, I told Ester to call you,” she said. “By the way, Harraseeket Kid is quite a character, and I think he’s falling for Ester.”
“I know he is,” I said.
We watched the cars going by. The drivers in Charlestown are pretty good. They stop at crosswalks to let pedestrians cross. And the pedestrians are good, too, sticking to the crosswalks. Everywhere else in the city it’s a free for all.
“What is Victor’s girlfriend’s name?” she asked.
“Bianca Sanchez,” I said, “the cashier at Avakian’s Market.”
“You already interviewed her, right?”
“I did, but she never told me about Victor.” I drank coffee. “I’ve been wondering why she didn’t tell me, and I keep arriving at the same conclusion.”
“And what conclusion is that?”
“I think Bianca told Victor about Gert’s coins,” I said. “If she told him about the coins, she’s an accessory to the crime, thus culpable in the murder.”
“What do you mean?” She pushed aside her coffee.
“If Victor gets convicted, which is pretty likely, Bianca will be on the hook too, if she told him about the coin collection.”
“Maybe she didn’t tell him about the coins,” Cheyenne said. “So I guess you need to find out why she lied to you.”
“I intend to do just that,” I said.
After finished we breakfast, she asked, “Do you want to take a walk?”
We walked down Bunker Hill Street toward Hayes Square, and when we came to the projects, a car raced by us filled with laughing teenage boys. They swerved onto Monument Street, bouncing over a curb, and turned onto Medford Street without slowing down, all in daylight. In the old days they’d have waited till nightfall.
“That was scary,” Cheyenne said. “I’m glad no one was walking a child.”
“The loopers,” I said. “They’re going to kill somebody one of these days.”
When we got home I saw Kid’s truck parked out front. I told Cheyenne I’d be up in a minute and went to the basement to talk to him. He was sitting on the bottom step, cleaning one of his rifles. He eyed the barrel, nodded in approval, and set the gun aside.
“Hey, Kid,” I said from the landing, hoping not to startle him into firing.
“Hey, Dermot.” He waved me down. “Do you have a second to talk?”
“Always.”
“Ester and I started seeing each other. It’s getting kind of serious. I’d like to ask her to move in with me, if that’s okay with you.”
“You don’t need to ask me. This is your home, Kid. I’m thinking of asking Cheyenne to move in with me, too.”
“Look at the two of us. Who’d a thunk?”
I looked around Kid’s apartment, and I could see why Ester felt safe there. He had a rifle cabinet lined with long guns. He had ammo boxes. The window shutters looked like parapets, ready to defend against attack. I contrasted the Kid’s basement to Casa Abruzzi, where the Barese brothers were keeping an eye on Ester, and I asked myself: Who would provide better protection, Haraseeket Kid with a rifle or Andy ‘the barber’ Barese with a straight razor?
“I’ll tell Ester,” Kid said. I started for the stairs and he asked, “Where are you off to?”
“I’m heading for Avakian’s Market to talk to Bianca Sanchez,” I said. “Ester did a nice job tracking her down.”
“She worked at it, Dermot.” Kid fished in his pocket and handed me two lottery tickets. “Use these to break the ice.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ask Bianca to check the lottery tickets,” he said. “It’ll give you an excuse to talk to her. Besides, my computer
shit the bed, so I can’t look them up.”
“Good idea.”
I walked to Avakian’s Market, forming a plan along the way. My eyes glazed as I thought, always a strain for me, and they came into focus when I got to the store. Taped to the window was a Help Wanted sign that looked like it had been there since the market opened. The sign was faded and the phone number had no area code. I went inside and took out Kid’s tickets and studied the lottery chart. The days and numbers ran together into a vertigo blur. The only thing I could discern was a red star next to one of the winning numbers. A delivery man with a two-wheeler bumped me going by, jolting me from the daze.
Bianca Sanchez came out of the back room and went behind the register, and one fact was clear: Victor Diaz had extraordinary taste in women. I went to the counter and asked her to check the tickets. If she was nervous, she didn’t show it. She scanned them on the machine and said, “Sorry, no winners.”
I tore the tickets in half and put them in my pocket, stepped closer and said, “I know about you and Victor Diaz, Bianca.”
“Who?”
“Your boyfriend, Victor Diaz.” I leaned forward. “You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you —”
“”What is going on here?” Mr. Avakian said, coming out of the back room. “What’s with the whispering?”
“I was asking Bianca what you paid your employees.”
“That’s not your concern,” Mr. Avakian said.
“I saw the Help Wanted sign out front.”
“Help Wanted? Is that still there?” He looked me up and down. “I could use a big guy like you around here. Are you looking for work?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Think it over.” Mr. Avakian then said to Bianca, “Where is Nick?”
“He’s on a delivery at Flagship Wharf,” Bianca answered. “Two cases of Sam Adams, two liters of Glenfiddich 21, and a big bottle of Smirnoff 100.”
“The yuppies drink the best.” Mr. Avakian nodded with approval. “The other a day a man ordered a case of Johnny Walker Blue Label, twelve bottles, each in its own gift box.”
“Only top-shelf for the landed gentry,” I said. “I’d better be going.”
“Let me know about the job,” Mr. Avakian said. “I’ll put you to work right away.”
I made eye contact with Bianca on my way out of the market, letting her know I’d be back with more questions.
39
I stepped outside and noticed two men sitting in an idling car at the corner, with cigarette smoke drifting out the windows. A smoldering butt arced out like a fireball from a Roman candle and exploded into orange sparks on the asphalt. I walked along Terminal Street toward the Tobin Bridge and the car pulled up next to me. A revolver pointed out of the rear window. The hammer clicked, a gunman’s ahem.
“Get in front,” a man said. “Move it, get the fuck in.”
I got into the car and looked in the back seat and saw Bo Murray.
“Should I buckle up?” I said.
“Shut up,” Bo said. The driver was either Albert or Arnold Murray, one of Bo’s twin brothers. Bo tapped me on the shoulder with the gun barrel. “Don’t make me blow your brains all over the seat, Sparhawk. Drive, Arnold.”
Arnold Murray, a known druggy, drove through Sullivan Square to Beacham Street in Everett. He turned for Chelsea, going over abandoned railroad tracks and bottomless potholes, into the maze of the meat-packing district, driving past loading docks and warehouses and alleys filled with debris. The putrid smell of processed fish and rotting meat filled the air, the smell of death. I hoped I didn’t end up in a sausage run. Arnold parked in a dirt lot.
“It’s quiet here at night,” Bo said, “no one around to bother you.”
“No one to witness nothin’ either,” Arnold added, and then he waxed philosophical. “If an asshole gets shot in Chelsea and no one hears it, is he still dead?”
“You should be at Harvard,” I said to him.
“Button it, Sparhawk.” Bo was in charge again. “What’s going on with my mother’s murder? I heard you left town for a while.”
“Who said that?”
“I got friends,” Bo said.
“Friends in the police department,” I said, as if I actually knew. “You’re a career criminal, Bo. The only time you went away was when the Feds raided Charlestown. The Boston cops protected you, and the politicians turned a blind eye. You must have made it worth their while.”
“Shut the fuck up, Sparhawk,” Bo said. “My friends told me Diaz didn’t kill my mother. They said his accomplice did it.”
“The cops are wrong. The accomplice didn’t kill your mother.”
“How do you know?”
“Whoever killed Gert has big feet,” I said. “Your cop friends must have told you about the bloody footprints. I tracked down the accomplice, and guess what? He has small feet, just like Victor Diaz.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in the Dominican Republic,” I lied, hoping to throw Bo off the scent, thus protecting Juan Rico. “He took off.”
“You went to the Dominican Public?” Bo tapped my head with the gun. “Answer me, Sparhawk. Is that where you disappeared to?”
“That’s where I went, the Dominican Public.”
“What’s his name, the accomplice?” Bo said. “I wanna talk to him.”
“His first name is Juan,” I said. “I don’t know his last name.”
“You don’t know his last name?” Bo sounded incredulous. “Do I look like an idiot to you? Tell me his fuckin’ name.”
“I never got his full name. For all I know his first name is bullshit, too.”
Bo grumbled then continued the interrogation.
“Who told you he was down there?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I got an anonymous call from a woman with a Spanish accent. She arranged everything. She told me when and where to meet him.”
“And he’s still down in the Dominican?”
“As far as I know.”
“Half the projects are from the Dominican,” Bo said, more to himself. “This Juan, why did he want to talk to you?”
“He wanted to tell me that Gert was already dead when they broke in,” I said. “I asked him to testify for Diaz, but he said no.”
“Why the fuck didn’t he just call you?”
“Maybe his plan didn’t have unlimited minutes.”
“Was that a wisecrack?” Bo snapped. “What about Avakian’s Market? What were you doing in there? And don’t say nothin’, because I watched the whole thing. The old man got pissed off about something.”
“I was checking my lottery numbers.” I took the torn tickets from my pants pocket and held them up. “Two losers.”
“Huh?” Arnold stirred from his stupor. “What did you call us?”
“Shut up, Arnold,” Bo snapped. “Look, Sparhawk, I don’t have long to go. The fuckin’ cancer’s eating me alive, but I won’t die ’til I kill my mother’s killer. So here’s how it’s gonna work. When you find who murdered my mother, you’re gonna to tell me first.”
“If I find out, I’m telling the police.”
Bo pressed the gun against the back of my head and said, “Your girlfriend is quite the looker, a real fuckin’ beauty. I’d hate to see anything untoward happen to her. Is that one of your fancy college words, Sparhawk, untoward? Or do you want me to dumb it down for you, so you understand it?”
“If you touch her I’ll —”
“You’ll what, kill me?” Bo laughed. “You’d be doing me a favor.” Bo slumped in the back seat. “We aren’t much different, you and me. We do what we gotta do to get things done.”
“Like forcing a man into a car at gunpoint?”
“That’s right, like forcing a man into a car at gunpoint,” he
said. “Are you above that, Sparhawk? Are you too refined to stick a gun in a man’s face and tell him what to do? Is that what you’re saying?” Bo coughed and laughed and said with a gasp, “Don’t get all high and mighty on me. Your old man was a tough guy and a Townie, and you’re a tough guy and a Townie, so don’t go pretending you’re a Brahman, just ’cause you went to college. I know you. I know what you’re capable of doing. Find my mother’s killer, dip shit, and get out of the car.”
40
Cheyenne awoke early in the morning and went to Tufts to discuss her thesis proposal with a faculty advisor. I went to Uncle Joe’s Diner for an omelet and coffee. The owner, Joe Lally, joined me at the table and said, “How’s the investigation going?”
“Slowly, very slowly,” I answered. “I hit a wall, Joe.”
“You still think Victor Diaz is innocent?”
“I know he isn’t the killer, but I can’t prove it.” I added cream and sugar. “It only counts if you can prove it.”
“I haven’t seen you around,” Joe said. “You got some sun, I see, and you look relaxed and happy. Did you take a vacation or something?”
“Not a vacation.”
I told Joe about my futile chase across Route 66, pursuing a criminal suspect. Then I told him about Skeeter Gruskowski and Gage Lauria. I told him about Cheyenne Starr. Joe stopped me and said, “Dermot Sparhawk in love? That’s terrific news.”
“Thanks, Joe.”
“By the way, those guys you were talking about, I saw them.”
“What guys?”
“Skeeter came in for lunch yesterday.”
“He came here?” I put down my fork. “Are you sure it was him?”
“Sure, I’m sure. He was sitting right over there with another man, probably Gage, based on your description of him. You said Gage played basketball. The guy with Skeeter looked like an athlete, moved like one, too.”
Murder in the Charlestown Bricks: A Dermot Sparhawk Crime Novel Page 14