The Ledger

by Dorothy Uhnak

“Tonio’s going to need stitches in his head, Reardon, and he didn’t do nothing. Nothing to her. She didn’t need to slug him and we’re going to get her locked up. How’d you like that, huh?”

  Casey Reardon pulled the receiver from his ear for a moment and actually stared at it. The voice continued the furious, repetitious barrage of words and they were directed at him, and it was undoubtedly Enzo Giardino, but he didn’t know what the hell Giardino was talking about.

  Reardon waited for a pause, then calmly said, “Hold it a minute, Enzo. Would you like to start at the beginning and tell me exactly what you’re so upset about?”

  The thin control snapped and Giardino’s voice broke. “What I’m upset about? You keep that Opara bitch away from Elena or what she did to Tonio’s gonna seem like nothing!” There was a loud crash in Reardon’s ear, followed by a softer replacing of a receiver.

  Reardon was still holding the phone when Stoney came into his office.

  “I didn’t hear what I think I heard, right? I’m just tired. I mean all this ... this paper work and this lousy stale food can make a guy punchy, right? You didn’t hear the same thing I heard. Did you?”

  Reasonably, Stoney said, “Well, at least we know where Opara’s been.”

  Casey Reardon walked to the window, pulled it open, let the cold air hit his face. He took two deep breaths, turned and reached for Stoney’s cigarette. He pointed to the telephone. “Get Tom Dell on the car phone.”

  His voice, as he spoke to Tom Dell, was very calm. “Tom, I’m not going to ask you anything much. Not right now. But I assume that Christie Opara is with you?”

  There was a quiet, respectful, “Yes, sir.”

  “Fine. Put her in the first cab you see and send her to the office. I want her here within the next ten minutes. Think you can manage that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s fine, Tom. Just fine.” He carefully replaced the receiver.

  20

  CHRISTIE FELT A SMALL trickle of moisture glide down her back and she knew it was caused by tension rather than the heat of Reardon’s office. Her fingers were stiff and inflexible as she ran them along the back of the chair. In the short time it took for the taxi to deposit her in front of the office building, she prepared several different openings, but it took one quick glance at Casey Reardon’s face to drain her of words. He barely nodded at her arrival, continued a quiet conversation with Stoner Martin, then stood, engrossed by Stoney’s telephone conversation with someone at the State Commissioner’s office.

  Stoney replaced the receiver. “That brings us up to date, Mr. Reardon.”

  “Okay, fine.” He glanced at his watch. “How about taking a coffee break, Stoney. Then bring back a couple of containers.”

  “Right.”

  “Well,” he said finally looking up at her, “you’ve been a busy girl, haven’t you?”

  She sat down, but he motioned her to her feet. His face looked very earnest and matched his voice: almost boyish. “No, no, get up for a minute. I know you have a lot to tell me, Christie, but there’s something I want you to show me. To clarify. Something that’s got me puzzled.”

  “What’s that?”

  Reardon rubbed the back of his neck and kept his face down as he walked toward her. “Well, from what I understand, you were in an elevator. In Elena Vargas’s apartment house. And Tonio LoMarco was in the elevator with you.” He spoke very softly, almost gently. She didn’t have a chance to question his source of information. He reached out for her, pulled her by the arm. “Come over here a minute. Let’s see. About how big was the elevator?”

  He wasn’t really asking her a question. It was as though he was speaking to himself, but it was obvious what he was doing even if his purpose was obscure. Reardon slid two chairs from in front of the desk, paced off an area. “Was it about this size?” He moved his arm, indicated the partial square.

  “The elevator?” Christie shrugged. “I guess that’s about right, why?”

  “Well, from what I understand, there was something of an altercation in the elevator. Right?”

  “Yes, and ...”

  “Just let me get this straight in my mind.” His hand covered his eyes. “You and LoMarco were in this elevator. Okay. Now, what I want you to do is show me what happened. If you just tell me, it won’t be as clear. Give me a graphic demonstration of what happened.”

  “Don’t you want to first know ...”

  He interrupted and the first edge of hardness came into his voice. “No. First I want you to show me what happened in the elevator. Any objections?”

  “No, no objections,” Christie answered warily. She turned, positioned herself. “Tonio was ... over there, I guess.” Reardon nodded and moved. “And then, when we reached the main floor, the door slid open and ...”

  Reardon moved his hand. “The door would be here? To my ... to LoMarco’s right? Okay. Now what?”

  “Well, the door opened and ... well, he had said some ... some threatening things to me on the way down and I ... had reason to believe that he wasn’t going to let me get off the elevator. In fact, he moved to block the door and ...”

  “Like this?” Reardon moved his body to the right and Christie nodded. “Okay, now what did you do? In order to get off the elevator?”

  “Well, I distracted him. I dropped my pocketbook and he looked down at it for a second and then I ... hit him in the throat and knocked him down and got out of the elevator.”

  “There wasn’t much room to move, was there? You use judo or what? Something they taught you at the Police Academy?” He sounded mildly impressed.

  “I guess so. I mean, it happened so quickly. It was an automatic response. You know.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I can see it. How you could have knocked him down in such a small space. Go ahead, Christie, show me. Look, I’m Tonio LoMarco. And I’ve just said some ‘threatening things’ to you, okay? Now the elevator door is opening and you know that I’m not going to let you get off.” He turned and blocked the imaginary exit. “Come on Opara, don’t worry. You won’t hurt me.”

  His voice was insistent; for whatever reason, he wanted her to demonstrate her escape from Tonio. Christie took a deep breath, shrugged, then dropped her pocketbook, her eyes on Reardon’s.

  She lunged. And then, everything went wrong. She was propelled by her own momentum, spun about by Reardon, tripped by his foot. She landed on the floor. Hard. She groped for something to grab onto, to pull herself up by. Reardon reached down, grasped the lapels of her coat and yanked her to her feet, then shoved her into the chair.

  “United States Marine Corps style judo,” he said, his face close to hers. “Weren’t you lucky that Tonio-the-creep wasn’t an ex-Marine?”

  For a moment, she didn’t comprehend what he had done, but his anger was open now. “You did that deliberately. You ... you deliberately dumped me on the floor!” She grasped the wooden arms of the chair and tried to pull herself up from the chair, but Reardon’s hands forced her shoulders back.

  “You stay put until I’m finished with you.” He relaxed his grip and his voice softened. “You damn fool. You goddamn little fool you’re lucky you’re still around to be dumped on the floor.”

  Christie started to speak, to answer him, but she was overwhelmed by anger and humiliation and, more than she had realized, by stored-up fear. She covered her eyes and kept her face down. “Damn it,” she muttered. “Damn it, damn it.” Finally, she looked up and spoke very slowly. “Don’t you bully me, Mr. Reardon.” He leaned back against his desk and folded his arms. “I won’t be bullied anymore. Enzo Giardino bullied me and Tonio bullied me and even people I don’t know, making phone calls about me and about where I was and what I was doing and where I was going.” Her hand clenched into a fist and she tapped it on the arm of the chair. “And ... and now you’re bullying me and I won’t be bullied anymore.”

  Reardon walked around his desk, took a box of tissues from the bottom drawer. He leaned forward,
placed the box near her, then sat in his swivel chair. Christie ignored the box, dug in her pocketbook for her own tissues, blew her nose and wiped her face.

  “Are you finished?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “All right if I ask you a few questions? I mean, you won’t feel like I’m bullying you, if I just ask a few questions? I’ll stay on this side of my desk, so you won’t feel intimidated or anything.”

  Christie tried a long, hard stare and a slow blink to let him know that his soft sarcasm was a waste of time. “I don’t feel intimidated. I refuse to feel intimidated any more.”

  “Well, that’s fine, Christie. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you took your coat off?”

  She pulled the coat closer around her. “I’m perfectly comfortable, thank you.”

  He ran his index finger over his lips for a moment and studied her. She had slid down in the chair, her face was pale and taut; she hadn’t expected what he had done to her. He could see her eyes, unnaturally bright and shining, moving restlessly over the papers on his desk, blinking too rapidly. She had been cut way down, to little-girl size; she had to climb back now to claim her professional status.

  Briskly, he said, “Suppose you start by telling me where the hell you’ve been for the last two days. And why you haven’t called the office.”

  “You told me to stay away. To go on sick leave, so I ...” She stopped. It was standard procedure to check with the office when on sick leave and to leave an alternate phone number if you were away from home.

  “All right,” Reardon said, “we’ll discuss proper procedure another time. Bring me up to date. I assume you’ve put your time to some good use.”

  She told him all of it, carefully and thoroughly. Reardon studied the photographs of Elena Vargas’s son.

  “Are you positive that this is Elena’s son?”

  “Yes. Positive.”

  He turned one photograph over: on it, in a neat, small handwriting, was the boy’s name and address. “How the hell did you get to him?”

  She shot the answer back to him. “Through a confidential source.”

  Reardon caught the challenge beneath her words; he merely nodded, then asked, “Is it a source you trust completely?”

  Without hesitation, she told him, “Absolutely.”

  “Okay. Good enough.” He looked up, and his voice softened. “Christie, for Christ’s sake take your coat off.”

  She stood up, glanced around, undid the toggles. “Well, it’s gotten a lot warmer. Yes, I think I’ll take my coat off now.”

  Christie glanced over her newest report, signed her name on the last page of each of the three copies, collated them, stapled them and headed for Reardon’s office just as his voice summoned her from the intercom on Stoner Martin’s desk.

  Reardon was standing with his back to the office; he leaned forward and his forehead pressed against the cold windowpane. It was Stoney who asked her questions this time.

  “Christie, we’ve been kicking around the information you’ve gotten the last few days. A couple of questions: one—are you sure this kid is Elena’s son?”

  Her eyes flickered to the back of Reardon’s head; there was an unruly thick lock of hair that needed smoothing. Her attention returned to Stoney. “Yes. It’s Elena’s son.”

  The detective nodded. “Okay. Now this is crucial. Are you positive, absolutely positive, that Elena Vargas knows that this boy, this Richard C. Arvin, Junior, is her son?”

  Reardon turned from the window. Both men watched her intently. Christie felt a small doubt, not really a doubt, but a possibility: the words absolutely and positive were too rigid, too unyielding. She closed her eyes for a moment to shut out their close examination of her. “Yes,” she said, finally, her eyes on Reardon. “Elena Vargas knows that Richard C. Arvin, Junior, is her son.”

  Still, Stoney questioned her. “Christie, one more question. Do you think that Elena Vargas knows where this ledger, or the information we need, is?”

  “Yes.” She answered too quickly; stopped. “I don’t know, Stoney. Maybe. Yes, I think she does.”

  “Okay,” Casey Reardon said, “which is it? Yes, no or maybe?”

  Christie sat down and ran her fingertips along the edge of his desk. The wood was warm and gleaming and smooth. She didn’t notice that Reardon had moved, that he was leaning against his desk, almost directly in front of her.

  “Hey,” he said quietly, “you’re doing some thinking, right? Do it out loud, Christie. Stoney and I have been kicking things around out loud all night. Let’s hear what’s on your mind.”

  “Well, Elena. I don’t think Elena is what I originally thought she was. The way she talks to Enzo Giardino. The way she spoke to Tonio LoMarco. She’d have to be crazy or something not to be afraid of Giardino and LoMarco. And whatever she is, Elena isn’t crazy. And she isn’t afraid of them, either.”

  “Which leads you to believe ...”

  Christie bit her lip. “That Elena is very valuable to Giardino. That she is ... necessary ... to his operation. Not as a woman, a female. But as a key part of his operation. That she knows where this ledger is. And that she might be the only one who does know.” It was impossible for her to read the expression on Reardon’s face. Wearily, she asked, “Did I say something good or bad?”

  Reardon didn’t answer but he and Stoner Martin were aware of the fact that everything Christie Opara had just said more or less confirmed what they had concluded.

  “Christie, why would Giardino trust Elena so completely?” She hesitated, uncertain of his reaction. “Come on, you’re doing fine.”

  “Well, Giardino trusts her because he thinks he has his finger on the boy, Raphael, in Puerto Rico. Elena wouldn’t cross him because of the boy. She’s made certain that Giardino is convinced the boy is hers. Raphael is probably the child of her cousin.”

  Reardon reached for the photographs of Richard Arvin. “And we know and Elena knows that this is her real son. And if we got hold of Elena and showed her these pictures, and told her that if we didn’t get what we want from her, we’d mail these photos to Enzo Giardino ...”

  Christie chewed on her thumb nail for a moment, then sighed. “Yes, but Elena would know it’s a bluff.”

  “What do you mean, a bluff?”

  “Well, she’d know that we wouldn’t really ...”

  Casey Reardon’s face was a hard, unfamiliar mask; his mouth pulled tight and his eyes, beneath the thick red lashes, were pale and cold. “The hell we wouldn’t.”

  He walked quickly behind his desk, pulled open a drawer, slammed it, reached into another, found an envelope. He snatched at a pen, wrote on the envelope, then looked up impatiently at Stoner. ‘What the hell is the address?”

  “Forty-four Terrace Drive, Hilton, New Jersey.”

  Reardon finished addressing the envelope, found a stamp in his top drawer. “All ready to go. The rest will be up to Elena.”

  He reached for the photographs at the same time that Christie did and his hand held hers. “Detective Opara,” he said sharply, “exactly what did you have in mind when you went to all the trouble of tracking this kid down?”

  “But ... we wouldn’t ...”

  Reardon pushed her hand away, gathered the pictures and put them into the envelope. “We’ll see how it goes.” He cut to Stoner. “You reached Ginsburg and Dudley?”

  “They’re getting warrants on LoMarco: one for the murder of the girl and one for the assault on Christie. Their card-playing Texas man has decided to talk, plus the fact that they’ve gotten a lead on the weapon and have come up with some bloody clothing of LoMarco’s. The blood matches that of Celia Kendall.”

  Christie was puzzled. “What was that about a warrant for assault on me?”

  Reardon stood up, tightened the knot on his tie. “To protect you. The bastard had to have some stitches in his head at the end of his elevator ride with you. Some strong-arm guy he is, getting clobbered by you,” he added caustically.


  “But why the warrant? I don’t get it.”

  “If we don’t have a warrant to cover you for splitting his head open, he just might have you locked up.”

  “He couldn’t do that. There were just the two of us in the elevator and it was self-defense ...”

  “Stoney, will you explain the facts of life to this character.”

  “Christie,” Stoney said, “Tonio LoMarco could supply ten witnesses who would all swear on their mothers’ graves and their wives’ honor that you sneaked up behind him and hit him with a candelabra while he was praying in church. With a warrant, we’ll get the facts on record.”

  Before he left the office Reardon gave her a long list of notations. There were reports she was to prepare, messages she was to relay, telephone calls she would receive. The last notation concerned Tom Dell.

  Christie looked up cautiously. “Mr. Reardon, about Tom.”

  He glanced at his wrist watch. Stoney should have a cab at the curb by this time. “What about Tom Dell?”

  “Well ... Tom didn’t know I was in Elena’s apartment, because even if he was looking right at me when I entered the building, he wouldn’t have recognized me. Not from where he was sitting. And not without expecting me. Which of course he wasn’t.”

  Reardon stood motionless for a moment; his eyes flickered over her face, caught the nervous deep intake of breath. Compulsively, her fingers tapped lightly on the keyboard of the typewriter. He moved his head to one side. “Go on, why wouldn’t Tom have recognized you?”

  “Well, I had this cape over my head.” Her hands traced a vague, shapeless form in the air. “It was a big plastic thing, a rain cape, and I pulled it over my head when I went into the building.”

  “Why did you do that, Christie?”

  “I didn’t want the doorman to recognize me. Because, well, frankly, I thought you might have occasion to see him and he might mention it to you, you know, that I had been there. And I figured that if things worked out, I’d tell you about it anyway. And if they didn’t, well,” she shrugged, “you’d never need to know.”

  There was a streak of carbon smudged along her chin; the terrible tension that had registered on her face earlier was gone, was replaced by an excited animation now that all her solitary work was being incorporated into the Squad’s plan of action. He was touched by her attempt to cover for a fellow squad member. He reached out, lifted her chin gently.