On the Line

by S. J. Rozan

  “The times you did go, did you win those games, too?”

  “I wouldn’t play. Only basketball, nothing else. It pissed him off.

  “Sometimes Hal would go with them, though. One weekend, after I split, they turned it into a bar crawl. In one place, late that night, Kevin hit on a girl. Hal said later he knew it was trouble, but by then he could barely walk, was too far gone to do anything. The next morning the girl was found beaten to death in Central Park.”

  “Shit, dude.”

  “Kevin was arrested. We thought that was it, but when Hal and I went up to the playground the next week, there he was. Crowing. ‘Fucking cops, fucking bitch. Yeah, I picked her up, what the fuck, you saw her, Hal, she was hot, right? The park, that was her idea, what is it with women, disgusting, like some fucking jungle. Yeah, we did it rough, how she liked it. Mostly they like it rough, whatever they say. What do you mean, then what? I kissed her off and went home! Hadda save some for Megan, you know? She must’ve picked up some other asshole later, for more. Hours I sat in that shithouse telling those cops that, over and over. Fuck, Hal, you work with those cocksuckers, place like that, no wonder you’re an alky. Let’s play ball.’ ”

  I paused, seeing Kevin’s face that day, hearing his sneer.

  “Hal blew up. Jumped on him, suddenly they’re pounding each other. Jim and I had to separate them. I told Hal to get out, go home. Thought he might pull the gun from his gym bag and shoot Kevin and me, too. When he left, I apologized to Kevin, grabbed some kid from the sidelines, asked if he wanted to play.”

  “Dude, you did? Apologized?”

  “And played badly. We lost. Kevin was strutting, God, he was all that and a bag of chips. I suggested a beer.”

  “Oh.” Linus grinned. “I see it coming.”

  “I kept buying rounds, egging him on. I said I believed he hadn’t killed that girl because he’d never have been able to get over on the cops if he did.”

  “And he bragged and told you he did?”

  “No. He wasn’t that drunk and he’s not that stupid. But he got louder, more full of himself. The cops, the bitch, the cops, the bitch. I listened. Then later, I went looking. Turned some things up. Nothing the cops wouldn’t have found if they’d kept at him. But I wasn’t sure they would.

  “One of the things I heard while he was ranting was a gap between when he and the girl left the bar and when he got home. The cops heard it, too, but they couldn’t squeeze anything from it. He claimed he’d stopped for one more, too drunk to remember where.

  “I thought, if I were Kevin, what would I have done? Obviously, play a game. ‘Outsmart the Cops.’ What would that involve? I’d ditch my clothes, wash off before I got home. Not near where I lived, and not near where I killed her. But not someplace random. Kevin didn’t have the imagination for that. Someplace he knew.

  “Where we played ball, the playground, that was the Village. He didn’t live there and it’s far from Central Park. So midnight, I went there. Talked to the bums on the benches. Found one who’d seen a big, soft guy scrub off at the spigot, middle of the night, week before. He couldn’t ID Kevin’s picture, but it was enough. Once the cops knew what to look for, they found it. The cabbie who drove him down Third, another who took him crosstown. Clever, see, changing cabs? A clerk in the all-night CVS remembered him buying a T-shirt and running shorts. The clincher was the bum who’d dug a pair of sweats out of the Dumpster. He didn’t want to give them up, but when he did, they were Kevin’s. And they had the girl’s blood on them.

  “When Kevin found out where the new evidence came from, he went ballistic. Swore he’d kill me. I wasn’t worried. Evidence they had, they should’ve been able to put him inside for decades.”

  “So why’s he out?”

  “He made bail, and when the trial started his lawyer went to work punching holes in the DA’s case, in the cops, in me. It wouldn’t have paid off. The jury would’ve nailed Kevin to the wall. But Hal got all liquored up one afternoon, after a particularly bad day in court. It had never quit gnawing at him, that he hadn’t saved that girl, hadn’t stopped her from going off with Kevin. He went up to Kevin’s place. Why Kevin let him in I don’t know. Probably so he could crow about how he was winning. Probably he mocked Hal, or maybe Hal didn’t need that. In the end Hal did what he went there to do: he beat the crap out of Kevin, left him lying in a pool of blood.

  “And then,” I tossed my cigarette butt out the window, “then he called me. ‘Hey, pal, I killed that little prick!’ Shit, he was so happy. Thought I’d be happy. I called 911. It was touch and go but Kevin pulled through.

  “Kevin’s lawyer was all over it. Instant plea or they’d sue the NYPD, the city, everyone in sight. Got Kevin a soft deal, and Hal was allowed to retire, full pension, no charges.”

  “Sounds lucky.”

  “For Kevin. Hal saw it another way. If Kevin had died he might have gotten away with it. No one saw him there, no one knew it was him. Except me. He blames me for calling 911, ending his career.”

  Linus thought for a while, then shook his head. “Dude, I don’t get it. About Kevin Crazy Man. Even with the R2-D2 voice, seems so obvious it was him.”

  I’d been kicking myself about that, over and over. “It’s been a lot of years. And Lydia’s description threw me off.”

  “If it’s not how he looks how do you know it’s him?”

  “A few things. Some of those phrases sounded so familiar: ‘grab my sneakers, find another game.’ Before, he told me to lighten up. Kevin was always saying that. Meaning don’t get riled when he got over on you. The crowd at Fatima’s, bankers chasing the A-list. Bespoke clothing. Ways to prove you’d made it: that was Kevin.”

  “But the difference?”

  “When I knew him his hair was dark. Longish, wavy. But ten years in prison, time enough to get a jailhouse buzz. To go gray. Back then he was flabby, too. Big soft spare tire. But years pumping iron, that could do it.”

  “Yeah, dude, but still. How come it took you this long?”

  I felt a burn creep up my face. “Like I said, I haven’t thought about him since then.”

  That wasn’t enough for Linus. He turned to me and waited for the rest.

  “What I did,” I said slowly, “nailing him after he thought he’d won, to him that was the biggest, worst thing that ever happened. To me . . .”

  “Dude,” Linus nodded. “I get you. To you, it was a game.”

  “I said I didn’t play his other games. But I did. I played ‘I Won’t Play.’ It pissed him off and that made me happy. Nailing him wasn’t about justice. It was about outsmarting the smug shit, like on the court. When I did, I got a rush. And then, over. Like any game: the only thing while it’s on, meaningless when it’s done.”

  A long pause. “You whupped his ass,” Linus said.

  “I’m just like him.”

  “Oh, dude. Oh, what bullshit.”

  I didn’t answer. I wished I had another cigarette, a beer, a thousand miles between me and everyone else in the world.

  “Dude,” Linus said. “Whatever. That was then, this is now.”

  Meaning: don’t get lost in the videotape. This game’s still on.

  “The girl Kevin killed, back then,” I said. “Marly Lin. From LA. But her parents, from Taiwan.”

  Silence, until Linus finally said it. “A chink ho.”

  14

  We were close enough to our destination that I was looking for a place to park when Linus spoke again. “Dude? Okay if I ask you something?”

  After the last few hours, how could it not be? “Go ahead.”

  “Well, just, you and cousin Lydia. I mean, what’s that?”

  I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it. When I didn’t respond right away he went on. “See, dig, I know Lydia’s mom’s not into it. A bunch of the older folks don’t like it. But there’s people on your side, too.”

  “What are you saying? Your family discusses this?”

  “Du
de! A Chinese family? You think? Seriously, a couple of Lydia’s brothers think you’re cool. And some of the cousins. Like, you know, me.”

  I shook my head, not even sure where to start. “The brothers and the cousins . . . It’s what Lydia thinks that matters, Linus.”

  “Oh. But I thought—you mean she—but, dude—” After a moment: “I didn’t know that. I totally dig. It’s the same as—” He stopped again, and flushed. “As, you know, Trella and me.”

  I glanced over. “Is that what you think?”

  He nodded. “She’s, like, not so into me.”

  I spotted a parking space, started pulling in. “I could be wrong,” I said. “I’m bad at this. But from where I am, that’s not what I’m seeing.”

  Linus didn’t answer. He just stared at me.

  “You ready?” I asked Linus as we got out of the car, Woof watching from the rear window.

  “I dunno, dude. Trella’s better at this stuff than me.”

  “Trella’s not here. I need you, Linus.”

  “Dude!” A bright grin. “This morning you were all, like, go away.”

  “When this is over, ask Lydia. She’ll tell you I’m usually wrong.”

  I pressed the bell at Jim White’s brownstone. The door opened, not far. The bony woman who peered out had straggly blond hair and a fading bruise on her cheekbone. “Yes?”

  “Mrs. White? Greg Bowen. Alliance Casualty.” I offered her a card from my wallet, one of a small cluster I keep around. “This is Linus Wong.” Linus offered her a bored nod. “We’re sorry for your loss. We need to ask you some questions.”

  Nicole White’s frown swept us. “What kind of questions?”

  “Your late husband had a million-dollar life insurance policy with us.”

  “He—Jim did? He was with MetLife. And,” a soft, bitter laugh, “it wasn’t that much.”

  “This was paid by his employer. Automatic at Chase for executives above a certain level. Standard in the industry.”

  Nicole White stood digesting that. I might’ve expected her to perk up—no matter how fresh the loss, a million unexpected dollars should catch a widow’s interest—but she actually seemed to deflate. “So. It didn’t cost Jim anything.”

  “No.”

  “That makes more sense. As long as he didn’t have to spend money on me.”

  I said, “Maybe you’d be more comfortable indoors?”

  For the first time she seemed to notice the cold leaking through her sweater. A brief hesitation, then she stood aside and let us in. I was more comfortable off the street, too, though that had nothing to do with the weather.

  Jim White, I could see, had spent this last decade being good to himself. A brownstone on a trendy street. Gleaming wood floors, oversize leather furniture. On the kitchen counter, an espresso machine the size of a small car. Watching his wife, though, I got the feeling he’d been less good to her. Her pallor and sunken eyes could be shock, sleeplessness, the dull ache of loss. But the bruise on her cheek, and another on her wrist, melded with her skittish and defeated air to tell a longer story. Well, I’d known Jim. Not hard to believe he’d knocked his wife around.

  “The police made me go over it a hundred times. I really don’t want to go through it again.” Nicole White spoke listlessly, as though she were used to what she wanted not mattering. Sitting, she pulled a Salem from a pack. I leaned to light it. Instinctively she shied away. Then she saw the flame, met my eyes, leaned in. “Jim wouldn’t let me smoke in the house. I guess I can do what I want now, huh?” She swiped at a tear. He beat her up, ordered her around, cowed and frightened her, still she cries over him. People are staggering, but rarely surprising.

  “Thing is,” Linus spoke with an air of impatience, “there’s a problem. With the policy.”

  Nicole White regarded him as though she wasn’t sure what he was. “What kind of problem?”

  “Cocaine. Cops found it in your husband’s system.”

  She looked from him to me. “No. I thought they didn’t.”

  “Not enough to be a legal concern,” I said soothingly. “But it raises issues with the policy.”

  “What kind of issues?”

  Linus said maliciously, “We might not have to pay.”

  Now, a spark. “Why?”

  “There’s a clause. If he was stoned, drunk. ‘Impaired,’ dig? Ask me, I wouldn’t have come, I’d have told Alliance go ahead and fight it, but I’m just a junior investigator. Big boss here insisted.” Linus rolled his eyes. “It’s like this. Three years ago they had a case. Before me, you dig? Policyholder wrapped her car around a tree. Blood alcohol miles above the legal limit. We don’t pay, right? Wrong. Because check out this bullshit, pardon my French. Seems she was a regular at the ER. Walked into lots of doors, haha. That night they were at a bar, her and her husband, him buying beers and making her drink. She was scared to say no.”

  I watched Jim’s widow while Linus talked. Hunched over, she dragged at her Salem.

  “The husband was in the car beside her, didn’t get a scratch. His lawyer—his!—said because she was drinking involuntarily, she wasn’t responsible, so we better pay. Serious crap, right? But the jury bought it. He wasn’t the beneficiary, the kids were, and they all came to court, very sad.

  “So now, things like your husband, we gotta pay unless we can prove, one, the drugs contributed to the accident, and second, the insured took them voluntarily. So: how long had your husband been snorting cocaine?”

  “I— He wasn’t. He didn’t.” Nicole White blinked.

  “Linus,” I said, “you’re not being fair. I’ve spoken to you about this before. Mrs. White has a right to the whole story.” I gave him a senior frown and took it up. “We talked to someone at your husband’s office. He said Mr. White had run into a man he used to know. Someone he was afraid of. I told the company, if he was afraid of this guy, maybe he was afraid to say no when the guy brought out the cocaine. I said we had to speak to you, we couldn’t just reject the claim out of hand.”

  Linus muttered, “Couldn’t, my ass.”

  “Linus, you know as well—”

  Nicole White found her voice. “Who is this someone he used to know?”

  “A man called Kevin Cavanaugh.”

  “Kevin?” The widow blanched. “My God, I forgot all about Kevin. That was years ago. He’s out of jail?”

  “A few months now. When did your husband first see him after he got out?”

  “I don’t think he did. I don’t think he knew that. You mean this might be Kevin’s fault?”

  “If he was here,” I said. “If he coerced your husband into taking drugs, we’ll have to pay.”

  Linus stuck in, “Yeah, well, we’ll have to talk to him first. Get his side.”

  “I . . . I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Where do we find him?”

  “Kevin? I have no idea.”

  “We will need to speak to him,” I confirmed apologetically. “Before we can pay.”

  Wildly, she laughed. “Wouldn’t that be just like Jim! A million dollars and I can’t get at it because he didn’t tell me he’d seen Kevin. Goddamn liar!” Suddenly she was crying. “Maybe he saw Kevin. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen someone and not told me. That bastard. That bastard! He said he loved me. How could he?”

  Linus and I exchanged glances. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” I said.

  “Maybe she gave him the cocaine. Honey, I’m working late. Party time! Then I wouldn’t get paid, would I? But could they put her in jail?”

  “Who are we talking about?”

  “Jim’s mistress. His whore! His piece on the side.” Her words poured out. “He thought I was stupid. Sometimes he wasn’t so smart, either. He should’ve told the agent, don’t call my house, whatever you do.”

  “Agent?”

  “Some stupid real estate agent. The paperwork needed a signature. I asked what the hell she was talking about. She hemmed and hawed, oops, her mistake, forget it. Her
mistake! No, Jim’s. But he was like that sometimes. Sloppy. What an idiot.” Another roughly smeared tear.

  “What paperwork? What was it for?”

  Now the tears flowed, shining her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. “He rented her an apartment.”

  Linus threw me a look of alarm. I was right there with him. If Jim was having an affair, maybe that explained his distraction, his exhaustion. Maybe his death was an accident, maybe Kevin had nothing to do with it and maybe we’d just wasted half an hour we could have used to actually do Lydia some good.

  The widow sniffled and ignored us. I was about to thank her and get us out of there when my new phone rang. Trella, reporting in?

  As it turned out, no.

  “Where the hell are you guys?” Mary whispered fiercely.

  Why lie? “In the Village.”

  “Get the hell out of wherever it is. Cops on the way. Move!”

  She clicked off. On the way, how close?

  And how come?

  The car was around the block, couldn’t risk it. I stood. “I’m sorry if we’ve upset you,” I told the widow. “If we could just see the basement? The pool itself. Then we’ll go.”

  After a blink Nicole White nodded, led us to a door by the kitchen. She unbolted it, flicked on a light and started down the stairs. I held Linus back. When she was halfway down I slammed it shut, threw the bolt.

  “Dude! What—”

  “Come on. Don’t argue.”

  I raced up the stairs to the second floor, then the third, Linus behind me. We could hear Nicole White shouting and pounding on the basement door. Sorry, lady, but the cops will be here soon. From the third floor a tight spiral staircase led to the roof. “Stay here,” I told Linus.

  “Dude, I’m going where you’re going.”

  “Stay there! Just wait!”

  “WTF?” But he stopped.

  At the top I slid the door’s heavy bolts, stepped onto a teak deck. The view over the rooftops was good; I saw a police car turn the corner. I ducked down, took off my watch, wrenched at the band. My arms shook with effort until a link finally broke. I tossed the watch onto the next roof. It skidded amd skittered, came to rest where you could see it. I swept back down.