by John Farrow
‘I’m good,’ Cinq-Mars said.
‘Will miracles never cease?’ He seemed to demand an answer to his question, then waved at Cinq-Mars with the back of his hand. ‘Shoo,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking.’
Something he did not encounter at his previous station: a cop publicly admitting to being thoughtful. Cinq-Mars doubted that the rumination related to police work.
In the detectives’ main room, he scouted around. No one present. The contingent pulling the night shift was small and, save for the captain, out on the job. The uniforms who briefly appeared were pushing paper. No one interviewed a witness or hauled in a suspect. Cinq-Mars identified Giroux’s desk but did not head there. Finding out about the fingerprints at the scene of the robbery could have waited until morning, and there was nothing he could do with the information that night. In the morning, however, he would not have access to the vacant desk of homicide Sergeant-Detective Frigault. At night, he did.
In this suburban precinct, senior sergeant-detectives merited an office that had large windows to the interior, none looking outside, which made Cinq-Mars conspicuous going where he did not belong. He elected to brave it. As a newcomer, he could plead ignorance or error. The fingerprint evidence with respect to the murder interested him, and the file would have landed on Frigault’s desk. If it arrived late in the day, he might be the first to have a peek. He easily found the document. Different sets of prints from the dead boy’s car had been examined: None provided a positive ID beyond that of the victim.
Hearing footsteps, Cinq-Mars dashed through his reading. The cigar-chomping captain rambled down the hall. Unable to flee the office elegantly, Cinq-Mars stayed put. The captain remarked on his trespass. ‘Touton’s punk boy. Touton’s boy,’ he said, half under his breath, as if that held dire meaning. What he was seeing finally registered, and he turned on his heels. ‘What’re you doing in there?’
Nabbed, he chose to broach the truth.
‘I’m comparing the fingerprints from the robbery with those from the murder. See if there’s a connection.’
‘Is there?’ the cigar chomper demanded.
‘Not here. Let me check Giroux’s files.’
The captain kept a keen eye on him as Cinq-Mars hustled across the room, found the file he wanted on top of Giroux’s IN tray, and gave it a quick study.
‘Well?’ Honoré asked when the new guy returned.
‘No connection’s been made,’ Cinq-Mars informed the man.
‘All right then,’ the captain said.
‘All right then, what?’ Cinq-Mars asked.
‘Get out of here. You’re bothering me. Touton’s punk is pissing me off.’
Cinq-Mars gave the captain an offhand, secretly discourteous, salute and decamped. He knew now that any plans for the evening were shot, for he had picked up an interesting tidbit. No connection had been made between the two crime scenes because none had been ordered. The files had been processed separately, not jointly. If a fingerprint in the murder case matched one from the robbery, that was unknown to all investigators. As well, an anomaly snagged his attention. He needed to run that down before returning to his flat and bed.
He was coping on adrenalin.
He planned to add a heavy dose of caffeine to the mix soon.
Cinq-Mars drove downtown to visit his old stomping ground.
Ezra’s Visitor
(A bloody hand)
The bell above the pawnshop door welcomed a visitor. A man in a black suit entered. The bell jingled again as the door closed.
‘Want I should lock up?’ he inquired.
‘How do I earn my living closed?’
‘A yak in private, you wanted, Ezra.’
‘I can stand the interruption if somebody wants to buy.’
‘Your tone. I thought our talk was serious.’
‘Only a serious man can have a serious talk, Arturo. Go in back.’
‘I never told you I hate your back room?’
‘Is it for you to like? Go in.’
The man at the door was Arturo Maletti, a soft-core punk in the local Ciampini syndicate. He possessed cachet by virtue of being a friend to a cousin of a cousin to a gang boss. On occasion, he participated in marginal rough stuff, earned a stripe that way, enough to strut down the street with his chin stuck out. His main claim to fame was legitimate: He did time for a crime he did not commit. He pulled twenty-nine months without naming the name that would have gotten him killed if he was foolish enough to repeat it. For the inconvenience of losing time off his life, he was handed a soft-dope territory to manage. That gave him the status he craved. Never to be a made-man, in the parlance of the trade, yet acknowledged as a trusted punk.
Swarthy, Arturo Maletti at thirty-one exhibited Italian machismo, in his mind. He preferred black suits and white shirts with broad stiff collars. The top buttons perpetually undone to show a tuft of chest hair. He was heavily gelled. A detriment: he trimmed his unibrow. Solid through the chest and shoulders, Maletti worked out, and augmented his look with bling: a silver-chain necklace, a gold nugget in one earlobe, a diamond stud in the other. Rings large enough to serve in lieu of brass knuckles if a situation warranted. His one liability contributed to his general insecurity: his eyes were remarkably close together. That gave him a bird-like appearance, damaging the overall impression he was gunning for.
Easily, he could snap the aging Ezra Knightsbridge like a barstool over a drunkard’s noggin, as in a Wild West movie, yet he dutifully ventured into the back room and grabbed a seat. Ezra followed and plugged in the kettle. Waiting for the boil, he said ‘Arturo.’ Then slapped the young man hard across the face. Once. Violently. An imprint of fingers reddened on the visitor’s left cheek.
Maletti jumped in his chair. ‘What the—!’
Ezra slapped his other cheek – less hard, as he used his weaker left hand.
‘Stop! What’s the matter with you?’
Ezra lifted his right hand as though to strike a third blow. Maletti had learned, he kept his hands up for protection.
‘What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you, Arturo? Why did you do that?’
‘What’d I do?’
The younger man could deck the pawnbroker with his closed fist, and any argument between them would conclude. But rather than strike back, he guarded his face against more slaps.
Ezra attended to the tea. His guest was undeserving, so he poured a single cup. He sat, sipped his tea, and shook his head.
‘What?’ Maletti wanted to know.
‘One question. You are out of your mind since when?’
‘Why say that?’
‘You sleep with Savina.’
The visitor remained silent a moment. ‘You know that how?’
‘How I know? Who else knows is your problem.’
Maletti figured the face-slapping had concluded and put his hands down. ‘Who besides you?’
‘Who came home early last night?’
‘You know that?’
‘Surprised? Tell me who.’
‘The husband,’ Maletti whispered.
‘How did you get out in time?’
He shrugged. ‘I left early. Luck, I guess.’
‘If the husband found you in his bed, you would not be in luck. Maybe he shoots you. Maybe you shoot him. Maybe nobody shoots nobody. No matter what, the world finds out that Arturo Maletti sleeps in Savina Vaccaro’s bed. Then what?’
Embattled, the hood lifted and dropped his shoulders again. The gesture conveyed that he knew the answer but didn’t want to say it out loud.
‘You’re dead, that is what. What’s wrong with you, Arturo?’
He dipped his chin. ‘I’m a man. She’s a woman. It’s not like this has not happened before in human history.’
Ezra put his tea down. He had to either do that or throw it at his guest. ‘You are a punk. Did you forget? She is a married woman.’
‘It’s not like it never happened—’
‘I don’t want to hear yo
ur stupidity about history! Don’t come to me like you’re a philosopher now. Plato, you are? Her father is your boss. You, his punk. And she is married to a surgeon yet. Now, does the father – does he let the daughter – sleep with his punk when she is already married in her life to a surgeon?’
‘She’s not that happy with him.’
Ezra slapped the top of Maletti’s head, the blow glancing off his scalp as he ducked.
‘That means to me what? Nothing! The answer is, the father does not let this happen. Who does he prevent? His daughter? Savina? Or the punk from taking his next breath? Who?’
Maletti was reluctant to reply. ‘I guess me,’ he finally conceded.
‘At least, you figured that out without it took ten years.’
He was still unable to fathom a large part of the discussion. ‘How do you know?’
‘Arturo, you’re not here to ask questions. You’re here to answer.’
‘What am I supposed to answer?’
‘Whatever I ask you, answer it,’ Ezra advised him. He was rising to see who else had arrived. The bell above his front door was jingling. ‘With the truth, Arturo. Nothing but.’
Out front, a young woman wanted to repurchase her violin. Ezra took her receipt, returned to the back room, located the instrument on a shelf, and concluded the transaction at the front counter. Then he returned to his other duty. Which he felt was going well, overall.
‘Tell me everything from last night,’ Ezra instructed his guest.
‘What do you know already?’
‘Don’t ask stupid questions.’
Maletti sighed heavily, falling into troubled resignation.
‘Like you said. Me and Savina, for old time’s sake.’
‘In old times, she was a single woman. You were a punk bum. Go on.’
‘I left. I parked my car in Park Ex. Other side of the fence from where she lives.’
‘I know where she lives.’
‘I went to my car and saw the husband come home. That’s it. That’s all.’
No sooner had Ezra made himself comfortable in his chair than he stood again to root around in a tall box that had the lid cut off.
‘What you looking?’ Maletti asked him. ‘I’m sorry if that’s a question.’
‘A stupid one.’
‘What you looking?’
‘A baseball bat,’ Ezra informed him.
‘For what, a bat?’
‘Nothing but. That’s what I told to you. That means, nothing but the truth. What do I get? Bull crap I get.’
Ezra retrieved a bat from the cardboard bin and wielded it. Not as though he was swinging at a pitch, more like a golfer lining up a tee-shot.
‘I will crack your kneecaps,’ he told his victim.
‘Ezra, put the bat down.’
‘Then your head. Crack it.’
‘Put it down. What can I say if I don’t know what you know yet?’
‘Another stupid question. Answer me this. Which knee first?’
‘Put it down, Ezra. I’m serious. I’ll talk to you, no problem.’
The pawnbroker returned the bat to its place, then returned to his seat.
‘Let me explain to you,’ he said, ‘why it is good to hold back nothing. Hold back, I will know you are a liar. Can you count to two? Number one. You cause me trouble. If I don’t find a way out of my trouble, I have no choice. To save my skin, I will speak to Mr Ciampini. When I do that, you are deader than a man already in his grave one year. What choice I have? Number two—’
‘Ezra. Please.’
‘You cannot lie to me when you try. Last night, you were with Savina, like I told you. Am I right or not wrong? Tell to me.’
‘We covered that already.’
‘Right or not wrong, Arturo?’
‘You were right. You weren’t wrong.’
‘You heard a noise. When you bounce-bounce with Savina. You go downstairs naked. In one hand, your dick. Other hand, your gun. Right or wrong?’
Maletti was disturbed now by the way their talk was progressing. He complained, ‘I wasn’t holding my dick.’ He denied no other aspect, shocked by Ezra’s knowledge.
‘So scared, your dick shrunk. Too small for you to find. So, you walked with a gun. In Savina’s house. If it was the husband, if he came home and made noise, would he be dead today?’
Maletti had a glimmer. ‘Was it the husband?’
‘Was he the one hiding? In his own house? What you think?’
‘I don’t know. Was it the husband?’
‘Lucky for you, you had a gun. Maybe he was there. Maybe he saw the gun. Maybe he left. Then you left. Then he comes back, not for the first time early. A coincidence, the timing?’
‘Ezra. What are you saying? Was it him?’
‘Did you talk to Savina today? Were you a good boy, you called?’
‘She called me. When she was free.’
‘She was still alive? Good. Then it was not the husband. You know that much.’
No doubt Maletti would have preferred to conceal his sigh of relief, but he failed. He tried to breathe normally, failing again. A new thought slipped into his head, which he presumed to be correct, a knowledge that did not set him free. Sheepishly, he said, ‘Somebody was in the house. That’s what you’re saying. One of yours? From your gang of kiddie thieves? One of your juvenile delinquents?’
‘You were one of mine yourself.’
‘I grew out of it. I do better things now.’
‘A matter of opinion.’
‘I’m doing good. You don’t think so?’
‘Sleeping with the boss’s daughter, that’s good? You could lose your life. Screw this up, you could cost me mine, too.’
‘Yours? How come?’
‘Because I haven’t turned you in and I don’t plan to. I’m protecting you. That’s the only way I can protect who you call my kiddie thieves. My skin I’m risking, Arturo, to save yours. Indicate to me you know what I’m talking about.’
Outwardly, Maletti took the news in stride. Inwardly, he was baffled. He was trying to determine exactly how the events of the previous night affected him.
‘Tell me again, Arturo, about last night. This time the whole truth, nothing but, or I will use my bat to teach you a lesson you won’t forget before midnight. After that, you’re so mental, I don’t know.’
Both men held the threat to be idle. Maletti might submit to a face-slapping by the man who had introduced him to a life of crime, but not to a serious drubbing. If Ezra swung a bat in the younger man’s vicinity, he’d be thrown through a wall. The overture to violence merely underscored the imperative that truth be spoken.
The story that Maletti related confirmed Quinn’s recollection of what had happened. He had departed the premises early, unnerved by the noises he and Savina heard, which they were thinking came from downstairs, although they eventually convinced themselves it was the street. Leaving, he noticed a car parked along the hedge with a driver inside. Peculiar at that hour because businesses in the area were closed. Maletti had been trespassing in another man’s house, he’d heard an unexplained noise, and he was a small-time hood sleeping with the married daughter of a gang boss. He was concerned. He waited in his car to see what the other driver might do. He saw someone come along the fence, on the far side which made identification impossible through the hedge. That person stopped at the car. Then quickly went on. A second person – he used the word ‘boy’ to describe him – whom he noticed under the street lamps was blond, also stopped at the car. This one got in. Then jumped out again. Arturo Maletti found that weird. Weirder, the second person snuck in behind the car when another vehicle came down the street. That turned out to be the husband’s car, and the husband drove it onto his driveway. A close call, normally he’d still be in Savina’s bed. After the husband had parked and gone inside, the person hiding near the car looked in the car again, maybe spoke to the driver, then departed. Maletti was overwhelmingly curious. Was this a pusher, the guy in the car? Someone h
orning in on his turf? Or someone spying on Savina, to find out who was sleeping in her bed? That possibility made him nervous. Should he run? Should he shoot himself in the head? If the husband had hired a spy, he could take care of that. But what if her crime boss dad had done the hiring? A very different outcome, depending. Maletti was too curious. He had to go see.
He found that the driver behind the wheel of the car was a dead boy. He got out of there fast.
‘Except I got my hand bloody.’
‘What?’
‘How was I supposed to know the car was covered in blood? My hand went inside.’
‘By itself? You idiot.’
‘So I smeared my prints. Over the inside of the door …’
‘Less of an idiot. All this because you could not stay out of Savina’s bed.’
‘You have no idea, an old man like you. We’re special, me and her. Honest to God, Ezra, she’s not happy in her life.’
‘Get that out of your head, Arturo. You are not being in her life.’
He seemed sullen, saddened.
‘I’ll break it off,’ he said.
‘Not yet you won’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘The timing. You want her to think nothing. You want her to think the dead boy outside her house and her husband home early had nothing to do with you. Quit her right now, she might wonder something different. Put time between last night and when you break up. Don’t fit those two things together. Just be careful. Remember who you are dealing with. Savina is not Snow White, even in a blizzard. The husband, what about? Does he suspect?’
‘How would I know?’
‘You live in his house at night.’
‘I have a question. How many of them were yours?’
‘Them? Mine? Make sense to me.’
‘How many were your thieves? The dead boy in the car? The first guy who went by? The second? If the driver was not dead already, one of those two did it. How many were your kiddie thieves?’
‘Don’t ask stupid questions. Especially, don’t ask that. Are you hearing me when I talk? We’re done here for now. Go. I’ll do my best to keep you alive. I’m keeping my mouth shut. Do the same.’