“Is Brendan pressing a complaint?”
Reardon shook his head. “Brendan is no longer with us. He dropped dead of a heart attack in the hospital. How about that? At least if Giardino had shot him dead ... what the hell. We’re trying for a homicide charge, but his battery of lawyers will find a way to get out of it. Giardino will be out on bail within the next twenty-four hours. We’re holding Elena in protective custody, but there’s something a little funny there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’ve heard—from sources—that Elena is someone very special to Enzo Giardino. But he isn’t making the slightest effort to get her released. And she seems perfectly content to stay put. Our informant said that Giardino keeps a ledger. A ledger.” Reardon intoned the words as though he were speaking of the Holy Grail. “In this alleged ledger is a rundown not only of the top-level people, but of all points of subsequent distribution. We tore Giardino’s place apart last night.” Reardon closed his eyes and rubbed them briskly. “Christ, we ripped walls, mattresses, just like in the movies. This morning, we opened up about five safe-deposit boxes in Giardino’s name and a couple in Elena’s name. And that, by the way, wasn’t exactly legal, since our court order didn’t extend to outside his apartment. You see how completely I trust you Detective Opara?”
“How did you manage to do that?”
Casey Reardon smiled. “I don’t trust you quite that far. At any rate, of course, we didn’t find ‘the ledger.’ Now, as in any big enterprise, sooner or later, competition rears its head. That’s only traditional, right? We’ve received word that there are some elements of the drug traffic who are not too happy with the current setup. They would like to share Giardino’s virtual monopoly, but in order to do that, they’d have to find out his operational plan. Apparently, only Giardino has that information.” Reardon lit a cigarette, studied the match thoughtfully, then extinguished it. “But possibly, Elena Vargas knows where the information is, too. Which might explain why there hasn’t been any great attempt to get her released from protective custody. We might be doing Giardino a favor by holding her.”
“Well, what about your informant. If he knew all that, he must know more.”
Reardon swallowed the remaining Scotch, then stared at the empty glass. “My informant is now deceased. At about five minutes after midnight, last night, he was found slumped over the wheel of his 1969 white Buick convertible in the flatlands of Brooklyn. Just below his left ear were two small bullet holes. So much for my informant, the bastard.”
Christie’s face registered her immediate reaction to Reardon’s last remark. “Don’t waste any sympathy on him. He was a punk, name of Funzi Bennanti. Operated a crane at one of Giardino’s scrap metal and iron works in Brooklyn. He used to hang around with one of Giardino’s employees, an old guy who used to handle Giardino’s wheel in the good old days of knocking off joints. One night, the old guy got between Giardino and some acid that definitely wasn’t intended for the old man. So, Enzo gave him a soft job, let him sit around the junkyard and draw pay. Funzi was picked up as a receiver some time back, buying and selling stolen TVs off the piers on the west side. He had three heavy ones on the sheet and he’d have sold his mother to keep from going up for life as an habitual. So, we played him along. He’s thrown us a few tidbits. About a week ago, he called Stoney and told him he’d latched on to something really big.”
“From the old man?”
Reardon nodded. “From the old man. He got loaded one night and started bragging about the old days. The old guy is a lush, has one eye, one ear and apparently, every now and then, Giardino treats the old guy to a drink or two, for old time’s sake. Apparently, some loose talk penetrated the soggy old brain and Funzi egged him on enough to get the two things the old man heard: one, that Giardino is top man in the narcotics trade; two, that Giardino keeps a ledger with all the vital information.”
Christie frowned. “You mean that just on the basis of what that old man told that ... Funzi ...”
“No, not just on the information the old man blurted out.” His mouth pulled down and he shook his head. “You don’t have to know everything about this damn case, Detective Opara. I don’t know why the hell I’m going into such detail anyway. Your main concern will be Elena.” He stopped for a moment and his voice changed. “She’s quite a little girl, our Elena. What did you think of her?”
Christie shrugged without answering but Reardon didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, she’s quite a little girl. What you would call ‘all female.’ She works at it. Every minute, without even trying.”
“That’s very interesting,” Christie said shortly. “But then, I guess that’s her ... her profession, isn’t it?”
Casey Reardon looked blank, then laughed. “Honey, you sound just like a woman.”
“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, that’s what I am. Besides being a detective, I mean.”
“Don’t go getting touchy, Detective Opara, you know what I mean.” She really was annoyed, but he refused to acknowledge it. Hell, he had spent too much damn time as it was worrying about her moods. “Now, what your job will be is to try to get next to Elena, you know, ‘chummy.’ Find a way to get through to her. We’ve got to get something on Elena, something strong enough to make her willing to cooperate.”
Incredulously, Christie asked, “You mean, just like that I’m supposed to find out some deep dark secret or something? You have to be kidding.”
“I’m not kidding. That’s why you’re in this case, Christie. We’ve been working on Giardino, off and on, for nearly a year. We’ve got backgrounds on him, his various legal and illegal operations. We’ve also come up with two observations about Elena Vargas: one, that she is more than just Giardino’s mistress, and two, that Giardino, for some reason, has placed complete trust in Elena. Now that would give rise to speculation; Giardino is not what you’d call a ‘trusting’ type. Which indicates that he has something strong on Elena, so strong that he has no doubt she’ll keep quiet. You’re wearing your dopey expression, Opara. Yeah, I know it’s vague right now, but you’re about Elena’s age, you’re trained as an investigator. And you can be sympathetic, right?”
“Sympathetic?” Christie shook her head. “I’m not at all sure what I’m supposed to be sympathetic about. From what I’ve seen of her, Elena Vargas doesn’t need ... sympathy.”
Reardon’s eyes went past her. “Elena sure doesn’t look like she needs anything. She’s got it all.”
“Why don’t you offer her sympathy?” The words were out before she could stop them, before she realized the impact of her sharp tone.
“Exactly what’s your problem, Detective Opara?”
Christie shrugged, stared at her hands. She didn’t really know why being assigned to Elena Vargas bothered her, or why she was tired of hearing everyone point out to her how sensational Elena Vargas was. She felt a weary, directionless depression, deeper than her physical exhaustion and tinged with recognizable self-pity: her nose was red, her eyes burned, her sweater was too bulky, she ...
“Listen, you want to go on sick leave?” She looked up, drawn by the anger in Reardon’s voice. “Hell, if you’re not feeling well, go on home, we’ll manage.” He glanced at his watch, impatient to get going; his eyes moved restlessly around the room.
Christie felt defensive again and resentful of the feeling. “You’ve assigned me to Elena. All right, I’ll do the best I can.”
He studied her carefully, turned something over in his mind before he spoke. “All right. But you handle it carefully, you got that? She’s bright and sharp as hell. And she’s very likely to get under your skin, the way you are tonight.”
He set it up as a battle and Christie felt a surge of combative-ness. If Elena was sharp, so was she. If Elena was professional at her job, Christie Opara was a first-grade detective, and that took a degree of professionalism very few police officers could achieve.
She reached for a cigarette, but Reardon picked her pack up and p
ut it into his jacket pocket.
“May I have my cigarettes, please?”
Reardon shook his head slowly. “No,” he said quietly. “Chew on your nails. It’s less self-destructive.”
Lieutenant Andrews opened the door at her first knock and peered at her over his eyeglasses. “Oh, Detective Opara, would you mind signing the time card I’ve prepared in your name?”
“The time card?” Christie glanced at Ferranti, who gestured vaguely. “What time card?”
Andrews carefully ran his fingers through a group of cards and extracted one. On it, neatly typed, last name first and first name last, was her name. “I always keep index cards on the people assigned to me. It’s a much more accurate system than time sheets. I put you on duty at 7:30, since that’s when you arrived.”
“I wasn’t aware of the fact that I’m working for you, Lieutenant.”
Oh, well. Not exactly. But the members of your squad will be performing chores as part of my investigation. We keep careful records as to time expended during any particular phase of any particular investigation.” He pointed to the card Christie held. “You see, all the information is fed into a computer eventually so that we have a better idea of how our time is spent. Really, there is nothing personal involved.”
Christie realized she was behaving childishly. The mild-mannered man, peeking over his glasses, wasn’t being as offensive as her reaction. She knew that. Knew it was stupid of her. But she shook her head and handed the card back to him unsigned. “Take it up with Mr. Reardon in the morning, all right, Lieutenant? I’m not used to signing ‘time cards’ for computers or anything else.”
Bill Ferranti followed her into Elena’s room. The girl was watching television and seemed absorbed in a loud musical number.
“Christie, he’s really a very nice man,” Bill said quietly.
She felt irritated and didn’t want to be pacified. At least, not by Ferranti. “What is he doing out there, anyway? Preparing the Dead Sea Scrolls for the Great Computer in the Sky?”
Ferranti carefully checked that Elena could not hear the conversation. “Bank accounts, statements, invoices, bills of lading.” He ticked them off quietly. “All kinds of records from Giardino’s ‘industries.’ ” Then he winked. “Andrews doesn’t know it, but about half of those records were “borrowed.’ ”
Christie smiled grimly. “He’d turn us all in if he knew that. But first of course, he’d make little index cards on each of us.”
“He’s a bit of a nuisance, Christie, but is very knowledgeable. He just has his little hangups, like index cards. He must have about a thousand of them. I better get back in there. Take it easy.”
Christie sat on the sofa and pulled her boots off. Her feet were damp and her toes felt cold. Elena, her face impassive, slid her eyes from the television set to Christie.
“Would you mind if I turned the sound down a little? I want to make a phone call?”
Elena shrugged. It didn’t matter.
Lieutenant Andrews’ voice spoke pleasantly into her ear. “May I help you?”
Christie wondered, as she waited for the hotel operator to get her home number, if Andrews kept a card on telephone calls and would present her with a bill. She tapped her fingers impatiently and counted three rings. On the fourth ring, Mickey’s voice, breathless and excited, broke her nasty mood.
“Hi, Mom?”
“Hi. How’d you know it was me? You a detective or something?”
“You said you’d call. It was really good, Mom, and I didn’t forget any of my lines and you know what happened? Vera’s braces slipped right in the middle of a song and she spit all over Susie Jacobs and Susie got mad right on stage when she was supposed to be singing about the elves and stuff and she just stopped singing and Freddie sounded very loud and then Vera started spitting all over everyone making like it was an accident but it wasn’t!”
Christie felt the clear laughter of her son penetrate, lift away some of her own weariness. She listened as he told her all about the school play and how funny it was and how the devoted audience of parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters laughed at everything and how the teacher, Mrs. Clare, said it was the best show she’d seen that year. And everything.
“Gee, Mickey, I wish I could have been there.” It broke the lightening effect of her son’s words: the old guilt surged through her. She was away from home too much, away from her son too much.
Mickey brushed it off. “That’s okay, Mom. But boy, it was really funny. Nora laughed like crazy, didn’t you, Grandma?”
“I’m glad it was fun, Mickey. You’ll have to act it all out for me tomorrow, okay?”
She heard Mickey call his grandmother, then Nora’s voice, carried by the child’s enthusiasm, was bright and cheerful. “Hi, Christie. It was a masterpiece of confusion, the kids all looked great and the teacher looked like she considered herself lucky to have survived. They really were cute, though.”
She talked with Nora for a few minutes, tried to latch on, to be part of it, to make up for having missed another part of her son’s life. Nora caught some of her mood. “Christie, you okay? Do you have any medication with you for your cold? Will you be stuck all night?”
“Yes, to all your questions. Nora?”
There was a brief, expectant silence. Christie turned, saw Elena, hesitated. “Nothing, Nora. See you later. Kiss my little Barrymore for me, okay?”
Then, thud. She was back in the hotel room.
Elena made no attempt to hide her curiosity. “You have a child? A son?”
“Yes.”
“How old is he?”
“Almost seven.”
“Who takes care of him, when you’re working, I mean?”
Christie dug in her pocketbook, then remembered that Reardon had taken her cigarettes. Absently, she answered, “His grandmother. My mother-in-law.”
Christie walked to the window, her back to Elena. She looked down into the dark street, squinted her eyes so that the street light and bright neon restaurant signs and automobile headlights all compressed into formless slashes of sharp glare. She watched the traffic light on Park Avenue, red facing the avenue, green facing the street. The cars, gunning impatiently back and forth, shot long streaks of gray slush beneath their wheels. Bed all around, then darkened for a moment, then green, and waiting cars shot forward. Toward what? Where was everyone going? Christie was lost for one small moment, out there on the light-flooded street, waiting for a signal. To go. To move. Somewhere.
The nausea came on her suddenly and unexpectedly; flooded her with a feeling of light-gray cold insistence and medicinal clarity. The damn Scotch and the damn cigarettes and the damn cold. She clenched her fingers into the palms of her hands and bit down hard on her back teeth. She swayed for a moment, turned toward the window and breathed in short, shallow breaths of the cold air that escaped from the window frame. She felt a little shaky and gray and dabbed at the cold sweat across her upper lip and forehead.
“Are you all right?” Elena’s voice was soft, just edged with concern.
Christie turned slowly. “I’m all right. I was just a little dizzy for a minute.”
“I have some Anacin if you’d like.”
Christie sat on the couch, stretched her feet out to the cocktail table. It had passed; she felt her body settle down. “No thank you.”
“Do you get dizzy often?”
She was annoyed by the girl’s bright stare and by her questions; she shook her head without answering.
“You look very pale. I thought perhaps you were going to be sick.”
“I’m not going to be sick.” And then, irritably, “Look, forget it, all right?”
Elena hesitated for a moment. “I was wondering about you. You don’t look like a policewoman. I was wondering how you came to be a policewoman.”
Christie spoke too quickly, her voice cold and hard to meet some implied accusation. “I was wondering about you, too. I was wondering how you came to be a prostitute.”
If the words had any effect on the girl, nothing registered on her face. She drew deeper into the corners of the chair, ran her small palms over the expensive fabric, studied her fingers for a moment. “Detective Opara,” she said carefully, “I imagine you were selected for a particular reason, to be here with me. That other one, that policewoman who was here with me all day and into the night, she was very different from you. Shall we be honest with each other? What is it you want?”
Christie held her hands tightly together. “All right. Let’s be honest. Although, I don’t know how honest you are.”
“Nor I how honest you are.”
“That’s true. Okay.” Christie took a sharp breath and spoke rapidly so that nothing would stop her words, no sense of caution, no sense of letting things get away from her. She wanted to cut directly to the heart of what this was all about: it was where they would eventually end up anyway. “I want to know where Enzo Giardino’s ledger is. The ledger that spells out the various routes of distribution for narcotics that enter this country under supposedly legitimate conditions.”
Elena’s fingers tightened on the arms of the chair and there was a surprised smile on her lips. Her eyes were not smiling. “Well. You are very honest. So far. More so than any of the others. You come right to it, don’t you? Very well, I will be very honest too. I don’t know and if I did know, I would not tell you. Nor anyone. Because the ledger,” she said, not denying its existence, “if I had it, or if I knew where it was, would be my insurance, wouldn’t it? I mean, if I had it or knew where it was and gave you that information, what would my life be worth?”
Along with a sense of relief at having put all pretense aside, Christie felt a sense of release. “Exactly what is your life worth right now?”
“It is my life. To me, it is everything. It is all I have.”
“What kind of life is it, Elena? Christie felt a reckless curiosity.
The girl gazed past her. “It is my life; it is what I have.”
“But it really isn’t your own life, is it? I mean, any man with the price can buy his way into your life, can’t he?” Reardon had told her to be very careful. Caution. Be sympathetic. But Christie didn’t feel like being careful and sympathetic; she felt like throwing a few darts of her own.
The Ledger Page 4