But Big Zappo was dead. He had been dead a long time.
Then what was so blasted important about that house?
Bucky Mohler.
He’d lived in that house but took nothing from it. He’d helped kill another kid so he could disappear. Why? Where had he gone into hiding? There was one place... a decent job. Nobody would ever suspect Bucky Mohler of being able to get and keep any kind of respectable employment.
I let out a little grin and said silently to myself, okay, Captain of the station house, big cop with medals, well trained to recognize clues and twists of circumstance, how did you miss this one? You saw the picture, wrinkled your nose at the partial face shot because you thought he looked familiar to you and didn’t push it any further.
You saw pieces of him in two pictures, didn’t you? That Credentials anniversary pamphlet and the office photo.
No wonder you’re retired.
Bucky Mohler was the young guy, the computer whiz, the fix-it guy at Credentials, the one in the office photo Bettie had shown me!
Chapter Nine
The street was a rubble-strewn war zone now. The utilities were off and the vagrants chased out and on the stretch down from where the station house used to be, only two buildings remained.
Old Bessie’s former domain was five vacant lots away from the tenement that had once belonged to a gangster named Padrone.
John Peter Boyle at the development office took my questions over the phone and called back with the answers. He confirmed that a charitable organization operating homeless shelters owned the building. This had held things up, but the charity rep said a deal had been worked out with both the city and the new Saudi ownership. In two days, the building known in its time by two numbers — 703 and 4428 — would be just another pile of debris.
“But here’s the funny thing,” Boyle said. “Funny odd, I mean — the kind of circumstance that doesn’t get into the public record.”
“Not following you.”
“It’s just this, Captain — the rep of that charitable group mentioned that they had a sort of silent partner in that old building. Dating back to when the ownership was transferred over to them.”
“Interesting.”
“The old tenement was renovated twenty years ago, you know — nothing fancy, just efficiency apartments. Still, it generated decent revenue.”
“Housing in the big city always does.”
“Yeah, until lately. You know what that neighborhood’s been like, last five or six years. That building either needed another renovation or a wrecking ball.”
“And the latter is what it’ll get.”
“Cheaper for these developers to put up new buildings than try to gentrify these old tenements, even one that had been renovated a couple decades ago.”
“Understood,” I said. “You get the silent partner’s name?”
“Yeah, and you’ll love it: John Smith. Lives upstate somewhere. Address is a P.O. Box. Look, Captain, I didn’t dig deep — this was a friendly conversation, off the cuff... and I could tell if it got serious, the charity rep might clam up.”
“It can be tracked....”
“You’re the detective.”
“Mr. Boyle, you’re not a bad one yourself.”
Two days, and 4428 would be rubble and dust.
Two days for something to happen, if that old pile of brick and wood and glass really meant a damn thing.
But two days was also manageable. I could set up an operation within those parameters, no problem.
Which is how I ended sitting at old Bessie’s window. I didn’t hang out over the sill — she had taken her red velvet elbow pillow with her, and anyway I didn’t want to be seen. This was surveillance.
And like all surveillance duty, it had its drawbacks. The stripped shell of the tiny old apartment, with its faded floral wallpaper and ancient creaky floors, stunk with decades of cooking smells. I never saw a rat, but I could hear them in the walls and halls, tiny claws scratching, scurrying.
But I was looking for a bigger rat, name of Bucky Mohler.
Mohler had been a gang kid coming up strong, back in the old days, an up and comer who suddenly up and went. The old gal who’d sat in this very window had seen his return, and I hadn’t believed her at first.
I believed her now.
With no heat in the building, and the fall air turning from crisp to cold, I was glad to be in a black corduroy jacket over a black sweater. T... .45 was on the hip of my black jeans. I looked half cop, half ninja.
The dark attire was strictly in case Bucky showed up after sundown. But I doubted he would. With the street damn near dead, and only a few street lamps to light the way, Bucky returning in the daylight made sense.
I intended to put in the long day shift myself, seven am till nine pm. For nightshift duties, I had lined up retired brother cop Pudgy Gillepsie for the first night, and an off-duty Sgt. Davy Ross himself for the second one.
The officials were in the know, but I was playing a hunch. Or call it an educated guess, yet none of the evidence that provided that education would be enough to get the NYPD or the Feds on the front line. A phone call, though, would bring the cavalry on the run....
I didn’t mind a long surveillance. I’d done it enough times, and for every splashy shoot-out the papers had written up from my so-called exploits, there were a hundred days of dull damn tedium. If pressed, I’ll admit my bones and muscles did some complaining. With sixty looming up ahead like a speed limit sign, I was bound for a little discomfort.
Luckily I’d been able to improvise. A few abandoned items of furniture were to be found in Bessie’s building, including a well-worn lounger that a thrift shop would’ve junked, but it still allowed me to sit looking out that window at the Padrone building like I was watching football or an old movie on the tube.
As the guy who was throwing this party, I had brought along a Styrofoam ice chest filled with Cokes and Millers. Also a grocery bag filled with bags of chips and four plastic-bagged sandwiches — Swiss cheese and pastrami from a good deli. Wanted to do right by my pals helping me out, plus I had to eat, too.
I spoke to Bettie by cell phone in the morning and she reported nothing suspicious. On the other hand, nothing got past her — she was aware that I had Darris Kinder and Joe Pender keeping an eye on her.
“Darris stopped by yesterday morning,” she said, “and Joe came by in the evening — just saying hello, seeing if I needed anything. But it’s more than that, isn’t it, Jack?”
“Yes,” I said. “Something’s about to happen.”
“What?”
“Tell you the truth, I’m not exactly sure. I know the New York end is coming together. That young computer tech at Credentials, twenty years ago — he was a kid named Bucky Mohler.”
“I wish I could say that name means something to me.”
“That’s a stray piece that may float back yet. But it was him, all right — your friend Florence said the computer tech had a ‘cowboy’ name. Well, when I was a kid, there used to be a cowboy actor called Buck Jones.”
“Who?”
“Before your time, kitten. Before your time even twenty years ago... but not Florence’s, and that’s what she meant, I’m sure. Buck. Bucky.”
“Jack... you say twenty years ago, this Bucky worked where I worked, at Credentials, on computers. But what does that have to do with today?”
“I’m not sure. I think the answer is right here in the big city.” I looked out the window at the Padrone building, old and not quite proud. “And when I get it, I’ll fly home to you.”
“Fly fast, Jack.”
“Baby, I won’t even need a plane.”
Phone calls broke the monotony of the stakeout. Some I made, some were incoming, like the one from police scientist Paul Burke.
“Got something on that carved ivory hash pipe, Captain.”
“Great! Don’t tell me you actually got a print off that thing?”
“I actually got a prin
t off that thing — a partial. But that was enough to make a match through other means. The print likely belongs to a convicted drug dealer, a sterling citizen name of Romero Suede.”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Oh? He’s got a rep as a mean one. Questioned on several murders, but never charged. Served his drug-bust time, no outstanding warrants — but also no current address.”
I knew what Romero Suede’s current address was: Garrison Properties, Florida.
“How I know this partial is likely Suede’s,” Burke was saying, “comes from a letter in his file. The warden commending Suede for his ‘artistic endeavors’ — wood and ivory carving.”
“The guy is carving out hash pipes in stir and the warden commends him for it?”
Burke chuckled. “Well, Jack, the prison system is trying to get its charges ready for the outside world again.... By the way, there were traces of high-quality hash in that pipe.”
“Thanks, Paul.”
“Always happy to help a retiree enjoy his sunshine years.”
“And you could stick it where the sun don’t shine, buddy.”
He laughed, so did I, and we rang off.
That afternoon, between cold Millers, I spoke to Captain Kinder.
“You got Bettie covered, Darris?”
“Damn straight. Working the dayshift myself, Jack. And Joe is on nights. Plus, we have every ex-cop on your street, and the street behind you, alerted that something may go down and soon. All they do is nod. They don’t even ask what.”
I grinned at the cell. “Old firehorses just need to hear the bell, Darris. They don’t ask where the fire is, just follow the smoke.”
“One thing I’m keeping a close eye on, Jack, is our friendly neighborhood ice cream trucks. We’ve had two trolling Sunset today.”
“How much ice cream does a retirement village need, anyway?”
He grunted. “It’s not so suspicious that I can collar ’em or anything. We’ve always got a lot of grand-kiddies visiting down here, and for the Golden Age crowd, there’s nostalgia value in buying ice cream goodies off an old-fashioned truck. These guys really do have plenty of customers to justify their presence.”
“I think you’ll find those trucks are hauling more than ice cream.”
“What, drugs? You don’t think our fellow ex-coppers are buying their prescription drugs on the black market, do you? Weed for glaucoma patients, maybe?”
He sounded like he wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not.
“That’s not what I was thinking, Darris. Garrison Properties, right on the ocean there, is a convenient spot to offload narcotics from South America.”
“Yeah.... And with a housing development populated by retired mobsters and their families going in, who’s going to police that little action?”
“Nobody,” I said, “and nobody. Also, our favorite ice-cream salesman, Romero Suede, is probably at least using drugs if not selling.”
“That’s probably a reasonable assumption, Jack — but how did you make it?”
I told him about Paul Burke tying the hash pipe I’d found at Garrison Properties to Suede.
“I don’t suppose that hash content is enough for us to bust his ass,” Kinder said.
“No. What with lab work done unofficially for us in New York, and only a partial print. But it confirms we’re correct in giving Mr. Suede our full attention.”
Kinder grunted his agreement, assured me Bettie was under his watchful eye, and signed off.
Later I checked in with Kinder’s helper, Joe Pender.
“Your wife getting on your case, Joe, about you getting back in temporary harness?”
“Hell no,” he laughed. “I think she likes having me out from underfoot. Gets the whole damn double bed to stretch out in, plus a pass for a few nights on my snoring.... Listen, can I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“After nightfall, why don’t we move Bettie out of her place, and into yours? If we manage to do that without anybody unfriendly spotting it, that puts any home invaders invading the wrong home.”
“Not a bad idea. And the layout of both houses is pretty much identical, so she won’t have too much trouble getting her bearings.”
“Jack, you better call her and suggest this. Kinder and me, we haven’t clued her in that we’re watching her. That, you know, we think trouble’s brewing.”
I laughed. “Joe, she’s way ahead of all of us. But I’ll call her.”
Through that morning and afternoon, I went through a single sandwich and two bags of chips and three Millers. The water in the building was off, but the toilet in Bessie’s apartment didn’t protest when I took the occasional piss. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t catch myself starting to doze off a couple of times, and one of those times was at dusk.
And just as my body did that little startled dance after you fall asleep for a second, I came fully awake to see a late-model Buick, light blue, nothing special, pull in at the Padrone tenement.
And by pull in, I mean literally. The driver came up and on over the sidewalk and across the ground and around behind the building, snugging the vehicle back there. When he emerged, the driver was wearing a zippered navy blue jacket and tan pants and running shoes.
Funny thing was, though he was trying to stay careful, surreptitious even, he couldn’t get the swagger out of his stride. That same cock-of-the-block walk that old Bessie had recognized.
Bucky Mohler.
Changed but not changed — still a medium-sized, smirky round-faced guy with squinty eyes and brown hair, only thinning now, like lines drawn on a cue ball with a felt-tip pen.
He entered the building the same way I had, the time I’d gone in to poke around. And when that side door closed, I was off my lounger and heading out of the empty apartment to run down those old stairs.
Only I was halfway out the front door of the building, onto its stoop, when I had to duck right back. Then I settled into a position where I could peek around and not be seen even as I saw another vehicle pulling in at the Padrone building.
The van was black and unmarked — shiny and new, and when it backed in as near as possible to Big Zappo’s side door, the vehicle shuddered to a stop and somehow conveyed heaviness. The tires were oversize, too.
Was I reading in, or was that van designed to carry a large load for its size?
I felt a spike of excitement shoot up my spine. The kind of tingles I hadn’t felt since I’d been officially on the Job were like little needles jabbing my neck....
Four guys got out of the van — two from the front, two from doors opening at the rear. The two from in front wore black leather jackets, not the motorcycle variety, more like something out of a men’s fashion magazine. They looked much alike, dark-complected with devil’s mustaches and goatees, only one was much taller — a Middle Eastern Mutt and Jeff. Their pants were black, too — also leather? Shoes had a gleam.
The two from in back were brutes — one bald, one with a ponytail, both with well-trimmed full-face beards, also copper-complected. They wore black jumpsuits and heavy work boots. And heavy gloves.
The fashion plates in black leather went in first, the muscle following — management trailed by labor. No sign of Bucky. No way to know if he was expecting this company, or getting ambushed.
Either way, I was interested.
I stayed away from the sidewalk and the yellow pools of lamplight, and ran in back of the buildings that were the last two teeth in the street’s horrible smile. Keeping low, like I once did in a far eastern jungle, I felt ridiculous; no ferns or brush to aid me, just open devastation where the life along this street had been.
I was careful slipping into the building. It seemed possible, even probable, that one of the bruisers would be left to guard the door. Since nobody had been posted outside, that meant just inside the door was more likely.
Since I still had a key to the front, I went in that way, quietly, but with t... .45 in my fist. The building was already dark.
With the electricity off, and the blue of dusk outside darkening every second, the going had to be slow and careful. When I made it down to the side door, however, where a burly sentry might have waited, nobody was on guard.
For a few moments I just stood there, wondering if they’d all slipped out while I was making my careful way here.
Then I heard the voices below.
The voices didn’t echo, but they rattled and shook the old rafters and planks and sound seeped up through a thousand nooks and crannies. The voices were not raised, and Bucky seemed to be dealing with expected guests, not a surprise party.
By the time I reached the landing onto those heavy, timber-backed stairs to the basement, I could see that an orange-tinged glow of light came from down there. And I could hear the conversation clearly.
“You have the combination, Mr. Mohler?”
“Yeah. Of course I do. Years ago, see, I hired a safe-cracker pal of mine to open this baby up. Found a lot of loot in there. Old, old loot, big oversized bills from way back when.”
“Most interesting.”
But the voice, which had a pronounced Middle Eastern accent, didn’t sound that interested.
And I was hearing more than conversation — somebody was digging down there. A couple of somebodies, probably the two jump-suited, bearded brutes, making use of the shovel and pickax I’d spotted on my previous trip here, tools that had been leaned against one carved-out dirt wall.
I risked moving down the first step. A good six steps could be mine before anybody spotted me, unless they looked up and in my direction. The stairs remained in the darkness, the central area of the cellar lighted by a couple of electric Coleman lanterns on either side on the dirt floor, like at a campsite.
So I risked another step. Like a damn ballet dancer, I placed my foot just right, and got no squeak or creak in return for my artistry.
By the time I got to the third step, I could hear a broom down there, sweeping away dirt.
If they’d turned around, they could have seen me — me and ... .45. But down there in the orange-ish glow of the Coleman lanterns, all of their backs were to me, except Bucky’s, and his attention, like theirs, was on the big old iron object that the digging and sweeping had uncovered in the dirt floor.
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