Crime School

by Carol O’Connell

  ‘If it wasn’t for me, that junkie whore would’ve bled to death.’ Sal’s hand waved in the air in a girlie affectation. ‘Or the rats would’ve got her. I saved her damn life.’

  This did not work with what Riker knew about the ex-convict’s character; Tall Sally did not have one.

  ‘I know you used a ten-year-old girl to heist VCRs off a delivery truck.’ He opened the folder again, feigning interest in another piece of paper. This one was blank. ‘I got two cops who can place you on that scene. When their patrol car showed up, you left that poor kid behind.’

  ‘What makes you think that I – ’

  ‘You answer my questions, Sal. That’s how it works. I know that little kid gave the VCRs to Sparrow. Then you caught Sparrow fencing them for heroin. You stabbed her and killed the drug dealer. I’ve got motive, opportunity – everything I need to close this case.’

  ‘Frankie was dead when I got there. You know my rapsheet. Any knives, any weapons? No!’ Hysteria was rising in Tall Sally’s voice. ‘Frankie stabbed Sparrow. And I carried that bleeding whore on my back for three blocks.’

  ‘You moved her body away from a crime scene – so you could go back and get your goods without wading through ten cops.’

  ‘No, that was the kid’s idea. The brat drags me to this empty building on Avenue B. Used to be a crackhouse before the cops raided it. And there’s the whore laid out on the sidewalk. So I’m carrying this half-dead whore, and the kid runs up ahead, looking for a phone that wasn’t broke. She used my damn change to call 911! Then I laid Sparrow down – ’

  ‘And you went back to the crackhouse to get your VCRs. So that’s when you saw Frankie’s body? Is that your story, Sal?’

  ‘Damn kid didn’t mention that – a dead man lying next to my VCRs. So much blood. I swear, every drop in his body bled out. Still had the knife in his leg.’ Sal pointed one finger at Riker, saying, ‘And that was Sparrow’s knife. Big ol’ S on the hilt.’

  ‘Too bad we never recovered the murder weapon.’ That was a lie. Riker had personally disposed of that knife long ago. ‘Maybe the kid can back you up. Got a name for her?’

  ‘No, just street names. I called her the Flying Flea. Damn, that girl could run. Anyways, she’s dead now. Sparrow said the kid got cooked in a fire.’

  Riker was finally convinced that this ex-con would never connect the name Kathy to a cop with the same green eyes. ‘The evidence makes you look bad, Sal. We can get you a lawyer, or we can make this old business go away. You run into Sparrow now and then, right? If you lie to me, I’ll have your parole revoked.’

  They played a waiting game, and finally Tall Sally leaned forward, saying, ‘That other cop, the tall blonde? She said the whore got her nose fixed. Now if I did see Sparrow – it would’ve been before that.’

  ‘You can do better, Sal. I need to know how Sparrow was spending her time the week before she died.’

  ‘Man, I can’t give you what I don’t have. Three months ago, I was leaving town for the weekend, so I’m sittin’ in traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel, and there’s Sparrow, working the cars with all the other busted-up whores. Damn queen of the commuter blowjob.’

  ‘You’re lying. There haven’t been any hookers around that tunnel for over a year.’

  ‘You don’t drive much, do you, Riker?’

  Why would Sal spin him a lie that was so easy to break? The detective heard voices on the other side of the door, and one of them was Ronald Deluthe’s.

  ‘Okay, you can go.’ He actually felt a breeze when Tall Sally sprinted from the room. Deluthe smashed himself against the door frame when the giant blonde sped by him. And Riker could not help but notice that Sal’s hair color looked more natural than the cop’s.

  ‘Okay, kid, what’ve you got for me?’

  ‘All the stuff you wanted me to copy for Mr Butler.’ Deluthe set a pile of paperwork on the table, then took the chair that Sal had vacated. His back was turned to the door when Mallory appeared on the threshold.

  Riker patted the paperback in his pocket. He had been hoping to find a private moment to give her the old western, but this was not the time. She was wearing dark glasses, her idea of hiding. Tall Sally would not be back, but there were more interviews to come, other whores who would remember Sparrow’s golden shadow, a child with strange green eyes. Mallory must feel trapped.

  No, there was something else on her mind. Her attention was focused on the young cop seated at the table. Soundlessly, she moved into the room and stood behind Deluthe’s chair. She bent down to his ear and said softly, ‘I told you to stay at Stella Small’s apartment – her unlocked apartment.’

  She might as well have shot him.

  Deluthe’s hand went to his chest as he lifted his head and stammered to the ceiling, ‘I got a uniform to stand guard in front of her door.’

  Mallory sat down at the table, the picture of calm, shaking her head slowly from side to side. ‘No, you don’t get to issue orders to the uniforms. That’s not your job, and you don’t have the rank.’

  ‘And it pisses off their sergeants,’ Riker added.

  Mallory lowered her glasses so Deluthe could see that she was three seconds away from doing some real damage. ‘That uniform was pulled off guard duty to settle a domestic dispute in another building. Nobody bothered to tell his sergeant that waiting for Stella Small was a matter of life and death.’

  Deluthe could not look away from her. He was waiting for the explosion of temper, but Mallory was only stringing out his imagination, his anticipation of what she might do.

  ‘I’ll go back.’ Deluthe was rising from his chair.

  ‘No you won’t.’

  He froze in an awkward stance, half sitting, half standing, awaiting permission to wet his pants.

  She never raised her voice. ‘I patched things up with the cop’s sergeant. He gave me a guard for the door and another man to canvas the neighbors in her building. That was also your job.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that you wanted – ’

  ‘I shouldn’t have to tell you every damn thing, Deluthe. Sit down.’

  He sank to the chair.

  ‘The uniforms will do the job,’ she said. ‘You stay the hell out of it. Just sit on your hands.’

  Riker kept silent until she left the room, and then he turned to the problem of rebuilding the shattered whiteshield. ‘How long were you with Loman’s squad? Four months?’

  The younger man nodded.

  ‘Did they teach you anything?

  ‘Yes, sir.’ There was a curious lack of sarcasm in Deluthe’s voice when he said, ‘I know which guys take cream and sugar, and who likes their coffee black. I know who wants mayo on their sandwiches and who wants butter. And I never get their deli orders wrong.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Detective Janos. ‘The tunnel’s crawling with whores.’ Hookers had reinvaded old territories while the mayor was concentrating on a new psychosis, exterminating all winged insects that might be carrying the East Village virus. This summer, insecticides had killed two elderly people with severe emphysema, and the insects, who had killed no one, were being executed en masse. But the hookers had escaped the city-wide extermination of bugs and old people, or so said Janos as he lumbered down the sidewalk with Riker.

  ‘You gotta see it for yourself Janos’s large hands were rising, thick fingers fluttering, delicately plucking words from the air. ‘All those whores at the mouth of the tunnel. Well, the whole tableau is just gorgeously phallic’

  This from a man with the face and physique of a bone-crushing hitman. Riker turned around and waited for Deluthe to catch up. ‘Hey, kid. You wanna go down to the Lincoln Tunnel and roust some whores?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Deluthe was grinning.

  ‘You can’t wear gloves. That’s the giveaway that we’re gonna chase ‘em down. So think about it, kid. We’re talkin’ body lice and head lice, crabs and herpes – every disease in the world is down there.’

  Janos smiled. ‘It’s God’s little wa
iting room for dying whores.’

  ‘Should be fun,’ said Riker. ‘Still wanna go?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Lieutenant Coffey watched the television set in the incident room. Stella Small was now the subject of a fifteen-minute news segment. The police were requesting public assistance in the hunt for a potential crime victim. ‘Prime-time news. This is too good to be true.’

  ‘Oh, they were happy to do it,’ said Detective Wang. ‘It’s ratings week. This’ll send advertising revenues through the roof. They loved the part about the serial hangman.’

  The reporter on screen interviewed a bartender in Stella Small’s neighborhood. The tavern’s customers leaned into the shot and waved to the audience. The camera panned to the window, then out the door and into the street, turning left and right. The reporter asked, ‘Where is she now? Have you seen her?’ His voice had the tenor of a game-show host inviting the home viewers to play.

  A banner ran across the bottom of the screen with telephone numbers for the police tip line as the picture changed to a group of small children in costumes. Coffey wondered how a local news station had obtained this video of a kindergarten play in Ohio. A child-size Stella Small wobbled onstage, precariously balanced atop a pair of grown-up’s high heels. The little girl promptly fell off her shoes and landed on her little backside, endearing her to two homicide cops and eight million New Yorkers. Tiny snow-white socks waved in the air while the child cried, ‘Mommy!’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Coffey knew where the film had come from. ‘It was that damn agent. She turned the reporters loose on Stella’s family.’

  Ronald Deluthe parked the car some distance from the mouth of the tunnel, where a battalion of women were working the lanes of congested traffic. Slow-stepping in high heels, the whores flashed bosoms pearled with sweat. Cars crawled through the street market of skirts hiked up to buttocks, twin moons in every shade of skin, spangles and cheap wigs in copper and gold – red, red mouths.

  Some of the women were diving into cars, heads down and disappearing from view, then emerging with cash.

  ‘Hookers never file complaints,’ said Riker, turning to the young cop behind the wheel. ‘And they never identify suspects. You know why? When the perps get out on bail, they beat the crap out of the women – or they kill them. Dead witness? Case dismissed. That’s our criminal justice system. So we need to convince the ladies they’ll never make a court appearance. But leave that to me, kid. I’ve got more experience lying to women.’

  He loosened his tie and buttoned his suit jacket so the gun and holster would not show. ‘Give me fifteen minutes. I’ll pick out some likely whores. Then we’ll try to bag two or three.’

  Riker stepped out on the pavement and raised the hood of Deluthe’s car, disguising it as a disabled vehicle. Then he wandered toward the women, weaving slightly and snapping his fingers, but not in time to the blaring music from a slow moving car, for he was playing the role of a harmless drunk out of tempo with the rest of the world, so as not to trigger the hookers’ cop radar.

  Twenty minutes later, he had picked out three junkies, older prostitutes in Sparrow’s age bracket. They would be climbing the walls inside of an hour in custody, and a dope-sick whore was a talkative whore. One looked familiar, but if he had ever arrested her, she did not remember him either. He had asked no questions about Sparrow, for these women were streetwise, but he had managed to pick out regulars who had worked this part of town when Sparrow was last seen whoring.

  The detective looked at his watch. Where was Deluthe? More than the allotted time had passed, and one of his best whores was getting away.

  A red sedan crawled by, and a pair of high-heeled sandals clacked alongside the moving vehicle as a woman leaned down to smile at the driver, singing to him, ‘Hey, sweet thing.’ The prostitute rolled on to the hood of the car and rode it into the mouth of the tunnel, shouting into the windshield, negotiating her price with the driver.

  Riker turned around to see the rookie cop make a hasty exit from his car. Now Deluthe remembered to slow his steps as he approached the women. What was he carrying? Riker squinted, and then his hand went to his own jacket pocket.

  Empty.

  The paperback western must have fallen out in the car.

  Deluthe was trying not to stare at all the undressed skin, and this attracted immediate attention. Alerted now, the women lifted their heads, all but sniffing the wind for the smell of a cop. Some edged away, and some stayed to watch from a distance, wary and tense, ready to fly. And Riker knew he would be lucky to catch a single whore.

  Could it get any worse? Oh, yeah.

  There was only one stiff breeze in the entire month of August and it had to be tonight. Deluthe’s suit jacket was blown open. Three of the hookers could see the gun in his brand-new shoulder holster. And now they were melting away in the heat.

  The whore-store was closing.

  All the brunettes edged away, but one blonde sang out to other blondes as she strolled toward Ronald Deluthe.

  Go figure.

  Riker had seen hookers gang together by race, but never by hair color. Two more blondes were drifting toward the young detective. And now the dark-haired whores had forgotten their fear and proceeded to steal all the trade, picking off commuters, climbing in and out of cars, raking in cash by tens and fives.

  Deluthe was deep in peroxide heaven and mounds of pale skin escaping from halter tops. The women stroked his hair, his chest and thighs. They smiled at him with broken teeth and gold teeth, with a ‘Hey, baby’ and ‘Hi, sugarman.’ One whore tapped the book in his hand, saying, ‘So – you know how this story ends?’

  Riker’s jaw went slack as he watched Deluthe open the paperback western. The young cop then read aloud to a group of very attentive, nearly naked book fiends.

  CHAPTER 11

  Lieutenant Coffey closed the door of his office, wanting more privacy for this delicate telephone call to Ohio. He spoke gently to Stella Small the elder, while Stella Small the younger cried on an extension phone. The mother soon faded out of the conversation, but the grandmother remained on the line until weeping made talking impossible.

  He set down the telephone and turned to the small television set in the corner of his office. The live coverage from Ohio had resumed as the two Stellas returned to the reporter in their living room. Beyond the couch where the women were seated, Coffey had a picture-window view of their trailer court. A circus of media were camped outside.

  The reporter was asking the mother and grandmother about their telephone interview with Special Crimes Unit in New York. ‘Do the police believe they’ll find Stella before she dies?’

  No mercy.

  The lieutenant looked up at the glass partition and counted up the whores passing by his office, ten of them. Leading this parade was Ronald Deluthe. Riker was the last one through the stairwell door. All the detectives in the squad room were smiling, heads swiveling to follow the women, and Jack Coffey had no trouble reading their minds:

  More blondes. God is good.

  The lieutenant opened his office door and called out to Riker. ‘Charles Butler is here. He said you sent for him.’

  Charles sat in a narrow darkened room rather like a theater audience. Rows of comfortable chairs were raised in tiers, and there was not a bad seat in the house. The stage was a large bright space on the other side of a one-way glass, where Ronald Deluthe was holding the door open for a group of blondes in various stages of undress. The women took chairs around a long table. He could see them all talking at once but heard nothing of their conversation.

  Riker entered the room and flopped down in a front-row seat, his tired face illuminated by the light from the window.

  ‘Hard day?’

  ‘Surreal.’ The detective rolled his eyes. ‘I’m trolling for hookers with the baby cop, and the ladies are crawlin’ all over him. Now you might think they want Deluthe’s sweet young body.’

  ‘No,’ said Charles. ‘That would be too easy.’<
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  Riker sighed. ‘They wanna discuss literature with him.’ He held up the old western as he stared at the larger room beyond the glass. ‘What you’re lookin’ at out there – that’s the Kathy Mallory Hooker Book Salon. Those women can name all the characters from Kathy’s westerns. They used to read to her when she was a kid, but only for an hour at a time. Some of them knew the beginning of a story, and some knew the middle or the end.’

  ‘But none of them ever read an entire book.’

  ‘Right. So this is what they used to do between tricks – they’d marry up the plots of the whole series. Other hookers joined up from word of mouth. And then they started running ads in the Village Voice. It took them years to find each other. And tonight they see Deluthe come along with a book by their favorite author, and it’s one they’ve never seen before.’

  ‘The last western,’ said Charles. ‘They wanted the story.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, Deluthe tells ‘em he’s only gotten a few pages into it. So he opens the book and starts reading to a gang of whores. Now the traffic really slows down. Nobody’s ever seen anything like that in New York City. Then the kid stops reading, and he says, „Hey, I know somebody who’s read the whole book.“ So now the hookers think it’s a great idea to go to a police station. It gets better. They invite some more blondes with street-corner addresses. I had to send out squad cars to pick ‘em all up.’

  ‘And how can I help you?’

  ‘I’ve read maybe half those books, but that was fifteen years ago. You’re the only one who’s read ‘em all. We’re gonna trade plots for information. At least half of these women know Sparrow on sight. I need a time line for the week before the hanging.’

  ‘And you’re hoping one of them got a look at the scarecrow.’ Charles turned to the glass and watched Deluthe set up room dividers to create two small cubicles and the illusion of privacy.