“What’s it say?”
“Guy sounded like a boozer.”
“He’s a derelict, Emil.”
“Well, whatever the hell he is, he’s gonna be waiting for you.”
“Tonight?”
“Hell, yes, tonight.”
“Where?”
“In the alley behind your favorite establishment.”
“Bun’s?”
“That’s what he said. You sure you bat from the right side of the plate, Cuddy?”
“He give you a time?”
“I asked him that. He said you were too goddam cheap to give him your watch, so you could just hope he’d still be there when you arrived. Goddam uppity bum.”
“Thanks, Emil. Sorry to inconvenience you.”
“I won’t let it turn into a habit.”
He hung up.
Liz leaned her elbows on the balustrade above me, shifting her weight from bent leg to bent leg, rolling her rump in a one-two rhythm. Probably an aerobics exercise.
She said, “Sounds like you’re leaving me.”
“Sorry. Thanks for dinner. It was terrific.”
“So are the stars. Over the water you can see them real clear. Count them even.” She accentuated one repetition of the exercise. “Especially good viewing from the wheelhouse.”
Climbing the stairs, I drew even with her as she slid her arms up and around my neck.
I looked into her eyes. “If I were to say, ‘Maybe next time,’ I’d be lying.”
She shook her head. “I know.”
Seventeen
THE STRIP HAD one strong point: parking never seemed to be a problem, even at ten-thirty on a Thursday night. Leaving the Prelude near Bun’s, I entered the alley just as a cloud passed across the moon, followed by a flash of lightning and the eventual rumble of distant thunder. Liz would be missing her stars. A second flash allowed me to spot Vip, curled around the wheels of a dumpster maybe ten feet from the back door of Gotbaum’s bar.
Bending down, I said, “You called me?”
His feet, shod in old combat boots, squirmed and resettled.
I tugged on one of the boots. “Vip, it’s John Cuddy. You called me?”
Using an elbow as a fulcrum, he passed a palm over his face. “Awake, officer. I’s awake.”
“Vip, it’s John Cuddy.”
“Cuddy?”
“Yes. You called me, remember?”
“Right, right. You don’t gots to spell it out for me, you know? I’m not a fuckin drunk, like some peoples I could mention.”
“You ready to talk now?”
“You ready to pay now?”
I took a twenty from my pocket and held it close enough for him to see the denomination. “Start talking.”
“Not till I gets the twenty.”
“You said you trusted me because of how I handled those three teenagers, right? I give you the twenty first, and I don’t like what I hear, I can just take it back. So why don’t we exchange value like gentlemen here, okay?”
Vip grunted. “You wants it short or long?”
“Long would be nice.”
He arranged himself into a sitting position, back against a bag of trash that hadn’t quite made it into the dumpster. I found a beer case, stamped it flat, and lowered myself Indian-style.
“Shaping up to be a dry night, that one. Not much action, nobody gots no bottle. Gets me some supper up along the mission off Second, some kind of seafood shit gots more potatoes in it than anything, but what else be new under the sun? One of the boys say Charlie out and about, so I comes down here.”
“Charlie Coyne?”
“’Course Charlie Coyne. Who the fuck you wanting to know about?”
“He’s the one.”
“Then hows about you shuts up and listens to what I gots to say about him?”
“Fine.”
Vip seemed mollified. “Charlie, he a piece of work, that one. Gets hisself shit-faced over in the bar. Buys hisself some cheap shit offen the barkeep. Then come out here, pass it ’round to the boys.”
“You talk with him that night?”
“Talk with Charlie? You gots to be shitten me, man. Charlie, he don’t start coming out here till he so shit-faced, he lucky he still raise a hand for to drink with.”
“What happened after he started passing the bottle around?”
“They’s a fight over it, like they always is. Fuckin bums, they goes up the alley a piece, squabbling over the thing like hens over a new bandy-cock. I lets ’em go, ain’t gots no time for fighting over things.”
“Then what?”
Vip looked around melodramatically, a confidant in a silent movie. “Biggish dude kind of crawl over to Charlie. Never laid eyes on him before, and I been in this here alley mosta two years now. I figures maybe he gonna rip old Charlie off, buy his own bottle. Dude gets close onto Charlie, starts going through the pockets, you know? Not like a queer, more searching for something. Anyway, musta struck a sweet spot, ’cause old Charlie, he come ’round, shouting and cussing. Had us a moon that night, we surely did, and I sees the blade coming out and down, then they’s rolling ’round, spitting and tussling, but that Charlie, he too drunk and shit, he too skinny anyway for to take the big man. I hears a noise I hears before, and I knows he’s gone.”
“What noise?”
Vip worked his mouth. “Noise a blade make going through the lung. You hears it onest, you never forgets it later.”
“Then what happened?”
“Big dude gets hisself up, don’t really look ’round or nothing, just takes hisself off down the alley here, hopping on one leg and dragging the tuther. I sees this knife sticking out the side of it. Don’t seem right.”
“What didn’t seem right?”
“The knife. You ever sees a man stuck like that?”
“Slashed or stuck in the guts, yeah. Not in the leg.”
“Well then, you gots some to learn, you does. Man stuck like that big one, he gonna pull that sucker out afore he does no jogging, get me?”
“I get you.”
Vip shook his head. “No, don’t seem right.”
Another bolt of lightning, a clap of thunder on its tail this time. “You said the moon was up that night. You get a look at the big guy’s face?”
“Some. Like I says afore, never did see him ’round.”
“Can you describe him?”
“White man, gots a watch cap pulled down over his ears.”
I thought about my scrape with the Buick. “Watch cap?”
“Yeah. Fuckin cold in these alleys of a night, you don’t gots something on your head. Shit, man, here she come.”
I felt a few raindrops, too. Vip started what promised to be a two-minute program of getting to his feet.
I said, “You tell the cops all this?”
“Yeah, yeah. I tells the same things, they writes ’em down, grins on their fuckin faces, like they don’t gots to believe a word I say.”
“They take you to the station, show you mug shots?”
“You gotta be shitting me, man. They’s the cops, they’s seen it all afore. Bum gots knife, bum wants bottle, bum kills bum. End of story.”
The drizzle gave way to real rain as Vip finally made it to his feet and took a few hesitant steps.
“Shit, man. Gives me my twenty, huh? I don’t wanna catch no ’monia outta this here.”
I gave him the twenty. He squirreled it inside his coat and past three or four layers, making faces until he reached deep enough to feel secure. He set off down the alley, lurching like a newborn colt.
I said, “Vip, you call me again, alright? Let me know you’re okay?”
He started what might have been a wave, but began to sing instead.
Eighteen
THE STORM WOKE me twice during the night, but Friday dawned cloudless, the rain living on only through isolated pools and wet grass. I had an Egg McMuffin and three containers of orange juice at the Golden Arches, then drove to police headquarters. I h
ad to wait only five minutes before the desk sergeant sent me up to see Hagan.
Reading a duty roster, Hagan wore a short-sleeved dress shirt and knit tie, the hair on his forearms sandy and thick. “What is it this time, Cuddy?”
“I had a talk with your star witness last night.”
“What witness?”
“The derelict who saw Charlie Coyne get stabbed.”
“Great. Appreciate the follow-up. Anything else?”
“He says the killer stood up and hopped away on a bad leg.”
“Your leg has a tendency to go bad, you get a knife jammed into it.”
“Or if you have some preexisting injury.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it seems just a little odd that a guy with a knife in his leg is going to run away on it without taking the knife out first.”
“So?”
“So I’m thinking, what if the knife in the leg is a mask for a limp the killer had before he went after Charlie.”
Hagan leaned back into the chair, blowing out a breath. “Your bum see Coyne’s killer walking okay before the fight?”
“No. Never saw him before and never saw him walk. Said the killer crawled over to Charlie.”
“Doesn’t fly. Too complicated. Besides, Coyne was known to carry a knife, and the responding unit didn’t find one at the scene.”
“Which makes the knife in the leg the one Coyne carried.”
“Right.”
I said, “That assumes the killer brought a knife to use on Coyne. The witness says the guy searched Coyne before fighting with him. Suppose the killer was looking for Coyne’s own knife, stabbed him with it, then just stuck the knife through a pad or something strapped to the leg, to make it look like Coyne had gotten him so as to cover the limp the killer had coming into the fight.”
Hagan chewed the inside of his cheek, then shook his head. “You’re going on an assumption, too. You’re assuming the killer’s also the one who did your client, right?”
“It would make sense.”
“But it doesn’t.”
“How come?”
“Basic principle of homicide. Rust died by overdose, Coyne by violence, specifically a knife. Different methods entirely. A professional finds a way to kill, he stays with it because it works and he doesn’t get caught doing it. A nut, he finds a way he likes, he stays with that because he’s got to, the voice of his dead mother or whatever tells him to keep using it. The same person wouldn’t do Coyne one way, then Rust another. Variety isn’t his spice of life.”
“How about an amateur?”
Hagan said, “Amateur?”
“Yeah. You said a pro and a nutcase would both stay consistent. How about an amateur?”
“You figure Rust asked a bum in for hot cocoa Monday night?”
“I figure maybe the big guy who did Coyne wasn’t a bum, remember? Also, if he knew killers stay consistent, what better way to disguise the crimes being related?”
Hagan came forward in his chair. “I don’t see it that way, Cuddy.”
“Which way do you see it?”
“The way it happened. Shitbird gets knifed, depressed girl feels responsible and decides to chugalug her life.”
“I want to talk to the mother of Dwight Meller.”
Hagan’s face drained like somebody pulled a plug in his throat. “Why?”
“If you’re being straight with me, it seems you’d tell me where I can find her. She’s not listed in the book, seems like she never has been.”
His Adam’s apple rode up and down. “You ever kill anybody, Cuddy?”
“Yes.”
“Intentionally?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“All of them.”
“Well, I haven’t. Not ever, not once. The knee kept me out of the draft. I used to think it was a miracle the force would have me. Then came that night. Aside from the Meller boy, I never took a life. And Meller was unintentional. I killed him alright, but I never meant to.”
I said, very quietly, “I’d still like to talk to his mother. You want me to waste a day checking welfare, water bills…”
Hagan blinked, then blinked again, but I think more at what was inside his head than at me. “Costigan Street, over on the north side. Number 57.”
“All these years, and you still remember the address.”
“Ought to. After that night, I drove by it every day for a month, trying to get up the courage to tell his mother I was sorry. Now get out.”
I was reaching for the knob when the door opened and a youngish plainclothes cop stuck his head in. “Sorry, Captain, but you said you wanted to know when we got an ID on the swimmer in the alley.”
“Go ahead. Mr. Cuddy was just leaving.”
As the cop passed me, he said to Hagan, “Manos made him. Only had a nickname. ‘Vip.’”
I closed my eyes and turned back around as Hagan said, “Vip?”
I said, “It stood for ‘Very Important Person.’ Your star witness.”
Hagan clenched his teeth. “Coincidence, Cuddy.”
I shouted, “Oh, for crissake!”
Hagan rose from his seat and pounded a fist on his desk. The paperwork and the young cop jumped about the same height. “The guy was a bum! They found him with an empty quart of rye still in his hand, facedown in the rain puddle. They get so soused, they can’t even tell they’re drowning.”
“I was with the guy last night, Captain, remember? It was ten-thirty, maybe eleven. He didn’t have a bottle on him, and your liquor stores would all be closed by then.”
Hagan really erupted. “You gave him some money, didn’t you?”
I didn’t reply.
“You gave him money so he’d talk to you, and he took it to some blind pig. You think a bum doesn’t know where to buy a bottle after-hours?”
I didn’t want to hear the rest of it, but I’d pushed Meller down Hagan’s throat, and he had a right to do the same to me.
“They sell him the rye, Cuddy, and he downs it, then goes belly-whopping in three inches of water. What the fuck did you think he was gonna do with your money, Saint John? Buy himself some new threads, maybe a dry bed for the night? You fuckin sanctimonious asshole, you said you never killed anybody without meaning to? Well, stand proud, brother. You just got credited with your first.”
I’d heard enough and left, the young cop’s mouth set for catching flies.
If I had my bearings right, the button I was pushing belonged to 57 Costigan Street, but I couldn’t hear any chimes responding inside. I tried knocking; no one answered. Then I heard a vaguely familiar sound that I couldn’t immediately place. A whispery, intermittent ticking noise, like someone repeatedly thumbing along and through fifty pages of a book. It was coming from behind the house.
Moving to the side yard, I noticed how similar the house was to Gail Fearey’s, the major difference being the condition of each. The exterior paint here was pale peach and appeared, if not fresh, at least not completely abandoned. Mrs. Meller maintained ivy and other vines along the sunny wall, with flowers planted in a pleasing pattern beneath them.
As I turned the back corner, I could see an older, slight woman pushing a prehistoric hand mower, the thresher blades making that ticking sound. The yard was only about forty by fifty, which made the manual method seem quite rational. Her back to me, she advanced, retreated, and drove on, two or three feet at a time, waltzing to a silent tune.
I said, “Mrs. Meller?”
She quartered her progress, but only to cover a patch extending into a bed of violets. I crossed the yard, repeating her name. I was only a few steps from her when she spun around, a frightened look in her eyes.
I quickly said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
She held up her right hand in a stop sign, which had the desired effect on me. She cupped the hand to her ear, then two fingers to her lips in a shush gesture. Then she shook her head.
Deaf, and mute. Approaching sixty, her
face tapered to a delicate chin and was framed by graying hair in what used to be called a pixie cut.
Mouthing the words in an exaggerated way, I said, “Do you read lips?”
She held up her hand again, this time thumb and index finger an inch apart.
“A little?”
Mrs. Meller nodded.
I produced my identification. She read it, looked up at me.
“Jane Rust hired me before she died.”
Mrs. Meller seemed baffled.
“You didn’t know her?”
Negative shake.
“I think her death might have something to do with the death of your son, Dwight.”
She crossed her arms and dropped her gaze. Gulping once hard, the woman made up her mind. She moved toward the back door, indicating I should follow.
The inside of the house was as perfectly arranged and kept as the landscaping. We sat on a couch in her living room, she pointing first to a red bulb in a fixture mounted on the opposite wall. Pressing her thumb on an imaginary button in the air in front of her, she pointed next to a lamp, then opened and closed her fist like someone signaling “five” over and over.
“When the doorbell is pushed, the red light flashes?”
She nodded, smiling. Then her expression shifted. From the drawer in the end table she produced a large manila tablet like elementary school kids used when learning the alphabet. Mrs. Meller wrote quickly in capital letters, her syntax jumbled.
“WHAT YOU WANT KNOW ME”
Indicating the pad and then myself, I said, “Should I write my questions down for you?”
She shook her head, gesturing toward me and my mouth, then her and the pad. I got it.
As she stared intently at my lips, I said, “I know how the police said the incident happened. Do you believe them?”
“DWIGHT AND ME POOR BUT HIM THIEF NO”
“What do you think happened?”
“POLICE LIE ME NO KNOW WHY”
“Had Dwight ever been in trouble with the authorities before?”
As I spoke the word authorities her eyes fluttered, confused.
I said, “Trouble with the police before that night?”
Shaking again, she wrote, “KIDS SCHOOL MAKE FUN ME DWIGHT MANY FIGHT”
“Aside from fights at school, though, any … any crimes?”
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