by Andrew Lanh
As I stood there, a woman rushed up the sidewalk, a policewoman cradling her elbow, and she tried to break free, headed toward the body. Another cop grabbed her arm, but she shrugged him off, wailing, arms flailing, until she stumbled. It was an awful moment, the crowd around me becoming silent as her body rolled back and forth. I breathed in, caught by the raw display, and the moment took me back to New York, to my flatfoot beat in Chelsea. How many times had such a scene played out on a bloody sidewalk? The awful grief that hit a loved one like a senseless tsunami, the dark engulfing sorrow. I’d witnessed it too many times, yet it never failed to stun me. Now, again, this anonymous woman shrieking about the old man dead on the sidewalk.
Ardolino, watching, his pad in hand, didn’t budge. But when he looked around again, I noticed that his face was pale as dust.
An hour later, the body removed after the medical examiner made his official pronouncement of death and the evidence squad photographed and bagged and labeled, the crowd drifted away. I waited by the tape with a few stragglers.
At one point, looking back toward Farmington Avenue, I spotted a low-slung Toyota with dark tinted windows idling at the light. Khoa and Diep? Kenny and Joey? They were too far away to tell. The light turned green, but the car didn’t move. A red light, then green again. A car behind them blew its horn, but still the Toyota refused to move. Finally, one insistent horn blast erupted from behind, the driver maddened and leaning on the horn, and the Toyota whipped forward, backfired, its occupants returning the horn fire. It disappeared. The Vietnamese brothers? With Simon and Frankie in the backseat?
Finally, darkness falling, streetlights popping on, the street shadowy and bleak, I watched Ardolino nod to another man, tuck his pad into a breast pocket, button the raincoat, and walk away. A dozen yards away he opened the door of George’s Pizzeria, but deliberated. He yelled back to the patrolman, “Hey, Sanchez. Yeah, you. Do you see any other cops named Sanchez earning a buck for just hanging around? Yeah, him. Get that guy.”
That guy: me. I slipped under the tape and walked by Sanchez.
“As I said,” he whispered to me as I passed, a knowing grin on his face, “the dunce sitting in the corner of charm school.” I saluted him, and he smiled. “Good luck, amigo.”
Inside Ardolino was already sitting at a booth, still in his buttoned-up tan raincoat, hunched over the table. I slid into a seat across from him as he signaled to the waitress. “Honey, a Bud Lite. I’m off-duty.” The last was addressed to me. “Don’t call the fucking commissioner, Lam boy.”
“I probably still have him on speed dial.”
“Funny man.” He bit his tongue. “Christ, murder makes me thirsty.” A sickly smile. “So maybe your bad little boys are back at work. The first one was practice, sort of whetting the appetite. This one was a direct hit.” He mimed a fist connecting to the side of my temple. Instinctively I jerked back, which made him laugh.
“What happened, Detective?”
A disingenuous smile. “Maybe Saigon sez…may I take a giant step toward prison?”
“Tell me what happened.”
The waitress placed a bottle of beer on the table, waited, looking at me, but I shrugged her off. Ardolino took the paper menu that was wedged between an old-fashioned jukebox player and a crusty sugar container and skimmed the offerings. His finger drummed the laminated paper. “I can’t decide if I’m hungry or not.”
“Detective, come on.”
He dropped the menu and locked eyes with mine. “It’s the same goddamned M.O., Rick. You know what I’m saying? Listen to me. This old man, Christ, he had a cane no less, half-blind fucker, and he’s hobbling in broad daylight down the sidewalk. He just left his daughter’s house. She works as a school aide—you saw her fall to pieces. Every afternoon a walk—for his health. Doctor’s orders. So he’ll live to a hundred-and-ten. Like anyone wants to in this town. Anyway, he’s making his way slow and sure, baby steps, and he’s down here on Whitney. Just down from the shops. Here on a stretch where the welfare apartment houses are. No one around. Well, maybe one person. Maybe. Suddenly—and this is from that one person—two figures in black come running breakneck speed, weaving in and around parked cars, yelling and laughing, and the old man, startled, I guess, he stops to wait for the dumb kids to run past him. Instead one of them sucker-punches the old fart in the side of the head. Like he planned it. Heavy-duty punch, mind you. And they run off.”
“The witness saw this?”
He nodded and took a long sip of his beer, wiped the beer foam off his lips. “Think I’ll have the pastrami grinder.” He signaled the waitress and gave the order. “Make it to go, darling. The missus misses me when I’m late at work. Women die from loneliness, Rick.” A huckleberry smile that broke at the edges. “Write that down. Seen that looker who dumped you in New York. I should write a manual and give it to you.”
“Yeah, twenty-four words or less.” Impatient, I leaned forward. “Detective, the witness?”
“A woman who just entered the foyer of her slum housing, for some reason looks back out, sees two young guys, both dressed in black hoodies, running. She sees one of them slam the old guy so she dials 911. Babbling in Spanish, of course. Sees them running, turning that corner toward Sisson, she thinks. End of story.”
“She never saw their faces?”
“What do you think?”
“Then why do you assume it’s Simon and Frankie?”
He finished the beer, smacked his lips. “Ain’t you been listening to me? Doesn’t this sound like a certain story you and I been through before?”
“C’mon, Detective. You and I both know there’s no evidence the attack on Ralph was done by Simon and Frankie.”
“Then why are you here?” he asked. “Why did you break every speed law getting to the scene of this crime? A simple public citizen posing as a voyeur?”
“You know why I’m here.”
‘That’s what I said—Simon and Frankie.”
I was getting frustrated. “We’re talking in circles.” I watched his face. Something was going on—a mischievous grin, a twinkling eye, his tongue rolling over his lips.
“What?” I said. “You’re not telling me something.”
“What if I told you that I got proof firsthand?”
My heart sank. “What?”
He took his time, fiddling with the empty beer bottle, pulling at the lapel of the raincoat, gazing around the room.
“I love moments like this.” A devious smile. “It almost makes all the bullshit worthwhile.”
“Proof? Like what?”
He was taking his time. “This is like…CSI: Hartford. Asshole Division. You see, the evidence squad is picking up all the debris around the victim, bagging everything. Not just the shit he had on him, like the cane. And his wallet, by the way. It fell outta his pocket. But all the litter—paper cups, Coke cans, French fries wrappers, even a brittle condom—hey, it’s a dark stretch of Whitney and some dudes are in a hurry—even a rusted penny that ain’t gonna bring nobody any luck.”
My voice was hollow. “And they found?”
He did a fake drum roll. “Ta dah! I wish I had it here to show you. To see your face. Something musta fell out of the perp’s pockets as he bumped off the old geezer. Maybe he slipped. Who knows? But there’s this crumpled postcard from a store in Bloomfield called GameStop. It’s telling the recipient that the video game he ordered and put down a five-dollar deposit on…well, guess what? It’s arrived! Come pick it up.”
“And the card…”
“Is addressed to someone named Frankie Croix, a nasty piece of work that lives in Frog Hollow.”
Ardolino stopped, the teacher’s pet in class finishing his drill and expecting cheers and huzzahs.
“Say something,” he told me.
I had nothing to say.
Ardolino slipped out of the booth, grabbed th
e pastrami grinder the waitress had left on the edge, dropped a ten-dollar bill on the table, and looked down at me. “Oh, by the way. I got your call about that…that YouTube video from…SaigonSez. Clever boys, no? Thanks for the tip. It’s like they’re providing a scenario for some low-budget movie they’re gonna film on the sorry streets of Hartford. Today was the second rehearsal, wouldn’t you say?”
I still said nothing. That postcard. Frankie Croix. What in the world?
Finally, standing myself, I looked into his face. “Is that why you asked me to stay? To have this little conversation?”
He let out a belly laugh that broke into a raspy, smoker’s cough. “Hey, I need a little drama in my life, too.”
“You couldn’t wait to tell me, could you?”
He started to walk away, but turned back, a broad smile covering his features. “Yeah, well”—a long pause as he formed the line I’d used to end my phone message earlier that day—“I just wanted to let you know.”
Chapter Twenty-three
At midday on Saturday Liz picked me up at my apartment, the two of us headed to Mike Tran’s home.
After much coaxing and tender direction, Liz had helped Hazel orchestrate her separation from Judd. Now she was taking Hazel out to lunch, picking her up at her home. Yesterday, at Liz’s insistence, Hazel had made the perilous call to Judd. “We rehearsed the call over and over,” Liz told me. “I wrote down the words. I made her recite them to me repeatedly.”
“I’m surprised she went through with it,” I told her.
Liz looked weary. “A lot of smooth talk—and an appeal to her own self-worth. She still possessed a stupid, lingering belief that I”—Liz raised her voice—“me! me!—was interested in that overgrown lummox. Once I disavowed her of that silly notion, she confessed being scared of him—wanting to be away from him. She cried. Lord, Rick, she told me that he hit her—and more than once.”
I shivered. “I know. Good for you, Liz. But what now?”
“Now is a follow-up lunch to reinforce. To talk about strategies. Restraining orders, if necessary. He has to be convinced to stay away from her. Police intervention. I called the Avon cops, filled them in, and a cop was going to pay a casual but forceful visit to the lad at his daddy’s bachelor lair. Yesterday I called Miss Porter’s and got a sympathetic counselor. Hazel will not be alone as she walks to class.”
Liz gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“Judd’s gonna be a problem.” I stared at her profile. Her jaw was rigid, determined.
“I figured that.” She glanced back at me. “You know, Rick, he was vicious on the phone. Told her she didn’t know what she was doing. After all, they’ve been together a long time. Rick, I’m afraid she might become a problem—a backslider. But at least she hung up on him.”
Earlier when she’d called me, I’d mentioned that I’d received a frantic call from Mike Tran—a plea that I stop over. He also mentioned Liz’s visit.
“I’ll pick you up,” Liz had told me. “Afterward, you and I can talk about Hazel.”
“And Simon,” I added.
“And Simon,” she echoed.
Mike Tran’s early morning call resulted from reading the front page of the Courant. The splashy headline: “Man Murdered in West End.” A subheading: “Second knockout attack.” The dead man was identified as Horace Timball, eighty-one, a retired accountant who’d worked for the Democratic Party machine for decades. A well-known politico. He’d served as financial advisor to old-time Governor Bill O’Neill. Governor Dannel Malloy issued a statement celebrating his long service to Connecticut. My first thought: high-profile. Trouble. Friends in high places.
I’d read the same article and found myself recalling that low-slung Toyota idling too long at the intersection last night. It was the same car driven by Diep and Khoa—I was sure of it. That murky dark blue paint, the one fender primed for painting, the tinted windows. Idling, watching, refusing to move.
I wanted to talk to them. But how? A visit to JD and the VietBoyz?
Then Mike called, rattled. “Can you come over? My wife…me…We’re going nuts.”
“Is Simon there?” I’d asked.
“In his room. Hiding. He won’t come out. Playing video games non-stop. I asked him about it. Again. He won’t answer me. Christ, Rick, I ain’t going in to work today, and I don’t give a damn. Can you…?”
I’d stopped him, mid-sentence. “I’ll ride over, Mike. Don’t worry.”
But I did worry as Liz and drove to the house. The Courant hinted that a piece of incriminating evidence had been discovered at the scene, a scrap of paper that linked this killing to that of Ralph Gervase. But “suspects previously interviewed at that time are now persons of interest again.” The words sounded like Ardolino stumbling through a press release.
Lucy opened the front door and stepped back, a barely audible greeting escaping her throat. Liz hugged her. Silently, Lucy nodded toward the living room where Mike sat on the sofa next to Hazel, who looked none too happy. No makeup, her hair uncombed, bags under her eyes. He tried to smile as Liz and I neared, but finally he sank back into the cushions, a hound-dog look on his face. He looked old, beaten up. A copy of the Hartford Courant rested between him and Hazel, folded neatly but with the front page ominously evident. That awful headline. The granite tombstone of his dreams. As Liz and I sat down, Mike picked up the paper and waved it at us. “How did the world get to be so mean, fall apart?”
“Pop…” Hazel began.
But Lucy interrupted. “Coffee. I have coffee ready.” Her words were so high-pitched and frenetic she could have been screaming for help.
Liz spoke up. “Maybe later. Hazel, are you ready?”
The girl nodded, though she glanced at her father. He smiled at her, and then at Liz. A murmured “Thank you.” He swallowed. “Thank you for my daughter.” Liz nodded back. Then, more forcefully, “I never liked that boy.” He gripped her hand.
Hazel trembled, and I wondered what she thought of her father’s condemnation. Yes, Hazel might fear Judd now, dread his furious slap, but I knew that abuse victims often harbored lingering affection, a hope of reform. Redemption. A spotless phoenix rising from the ashes of his dirty game. A persistent girlish crush on her first boyfriend?
“It’s gonna be all right,” Liz said, her expression taking in Mike and Lucy but resting on Hazel. “The police…”
Hazel blurted out, “I don’t want the police.”
Liz spoke in a clipped voice. “Hazel, you have to trust me.”
Silence in the room. Mike watched his wife, nodded at her.
“Judd called here this morning.” Lucy made a clicking sound, annoyed. “I mean, I didn’t talk to him, but I could hear his voice.”
Liz fumed. “He was told not to call.”
“Go now.” Lucy pointed at Liz, and Hazel jumped up, grabbed a jacket lying on the sofa, and followed Liz out the door. Liz caught my eye—take care of this, Rick.
“It’s gonna be all right,” I assured Mike and Lucy when we were alone.
Mike’s mouth tightened. “It ain’t never gonna be all right.”
“Minh,” his wife consoled. “Please. Minh.”
But he shrugged her off. “And that…that Judd ain’t the real problem.” He looked toward the staircase—and doubtless Simon’s bedroom. I could hear ping and zap noises from a video game—followed by the boys whooping it up.
Mike grumbled. “Listen to that. Simon and Wilson—like nothing in the goddamn world happened yesterday.”
Lucy caught my eye. “Simon talked to me this morning. He told me he was with Frankie at West Farms Mall. You know, like hanging out. For hours. The same time that…” Her voice trailed off.
“Okay,” I said. “Perhaps there’s surveillance tape. I’ll check into that. The mall is good about that.”
She sounded apologetic. “
He says he was in the parking lot, not inside. Sitting in a car, driving around.”
“Great,” Mike thundered. “One goddamn excuse after the other. A boy who wants the world to put a noose around his neck.”
Lucy squealed. “Minh, no.”
“He won’t talk to me, Rick. He talks to—her.” He pointed at his wife, his finger trembling. Breathing in, Lucy looked away.
“Will he talk to me now?” I asked.
“Fat chance,” Mike answered, biting his lower lip.
Lucy leaned into me, confidential. “That detective called here this morning. He wanted to know about Simon—was he here? I said yes, and he says—keep him home.” A bewildered look in her eyes. “Why, Rick? What’s gonna happen?”
Her husband seethed. “What’s gonna happen? Christ, Lucy, smell the goddamned coffee. They’re gonna take the boy away. Didn’t you read the paper? They got—proof.”
“Hold on,” I cautioned. “No one is taking Simon anywhere yet.”
Lucy’s voice was stronger now. “He told me Frankie’s taking the bus here. I guess they want to talk things over.”
Mike snarled, “What? Plan a defense?”
A sudden spurt of anger in Lucy. “You yell at him, Minh. You don’t talk to him.”
“He’s up there…stony…stubborn.” Mike walked to the foot of the stairs and yelled, “Simon. Wilson. You boys come down here. Mr. Lam is here to talk.” Silence. “Your mother made lunch.”
The last line struck me as bizarre. “Lunch,” she mumbled. “Yes.”
Mike looked at me. “Rick, go upstairs. Talk—without us. Maybe he’ll…talk…”
Quietly I walked up the stairs, though a little hesitant. From the open doorway of their bedroom, unseen, I stared at their backs as they leaned into their PlayStation consoles. Not a gamer myself, I’d watched Hank and his younger brother going hell-bent to leather on some fast-and-furious adventure projected on their big-screen TV.