Material Witness

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Anyway, there I am at five in the morning cruising down 31st toward Astoria, when this car passes me going fast, runs a signal, and he’s out of there. A late model Chevy Malibu, dark blue.”

  “And you gunned your engine and began a thrilling high-speed chase?”

  Bello’s lip lifted a fraction of an inch: for him, a grin. “Yeah, right. I figure the guy’s heading for La Guardia by Grand Central Parkway, he doesn’t want to miss his plane. OK, fifteen minutes I hear sirens, I switch on the radio, it’s a fire, two-alarm, right across the street from the last burnt-out building. I was just there. They must’ve been pouring gas while I was out in the street.

  “So I think about my Malibu. It’s worth a check, so I drive to the precinct and call in the plates, and …”

  “You remembered the plates?”

  “Yeah, well, the last three numbers were 756. My shield number is 21657. So it stuck. You want me to finish this story? OK, so the car’s a rental, Hertz out of La Guardia. Rented by a James Cross, from Philly. I run the address past the Philly cops and it’s a phony; no such address. I find the clerk that rented it and I go to see her. She remembers the customers. A short guy with a round face and a heavy five o’clock shadow. Like Nixon, she says. And the other guy, a cigar smoker, big, older, gray sideburns, wears a plaid hat, glasses, dark eyes. A good witness. She remembers because of the cigar. She hates cigars.

  “And also because she’s seen this pair before. At least twice: in late at night, out on the first shuttle the next morning. Always a Chevy, always paid in cash. I call Hertz back and check the records. This Cross rented a car on the same nights three of my buildings burned. This is number four.”

  “Nice work, Harry,” said Marlene.

  He grimaced in distaste. “It’s still horseshit, though. It’s no crime to come into the City, or to drive through Long Island City at night. I doubt I’m gonna catch them in the act.”

  “You could tell the car agencies to look out for them. Put up a description.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I did that already. So big fucking deal, Marlene. I pick these guys up and let’s say it turns out that they’re professional torches. I still got shit. You think they’re gonna be carrying a notarized contract that says burn down such-and-such a building?” He settled back into his pillow and sighed.

  “You don’t get it yet, do you?” he said. “Face it, if you were the brass and wanted a case shit-canned, who would you give it to?”

  “Come on, Harry, you know that’s not true.”

  “No? I haven’t lost that many marbles. OK, forget that. The rest of my weekend. I go down to Bed-Stuy and I look up an old snitch of mine, a Jamaican guy named Lamont, and I tell him about your little problem.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said you wanted to see Doone. And that you knew who hijacked his dope.”

  “What! Harry, I don’t know shit about who.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He looked at her appraisingly. “You’re not slowing down on me, are you? I have to draw a map?”

  Marlene was about to protest, then checked herself and tried to make a Harry-type jump. She figured it out and her palms started to sweat. “Jeeze, Harry, that’s really fancy. If it doesn’t work out, it’s my sweet ass. What makes you think he’ll buy it anyway?”

  “I got no idea if he’ll buy it. You’re the one who wanted to see Doone, and that’s how you get in. How you play it from there’s up to you. Meanwhile, Lamont got back to me Sunday afternoon. It’s on, tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Wednesday, right?”

  “All day long,” she said.

  He gave her an address. She wrote it down and gestured at the hospital room and said, “So you worked so hard, you decided you had to take a rest?”

  “No. I didn’t drink all weekend. Didn’t need it, want it, anything. Then I’m sitting around the house Sunday, thinking about Bed-Stuy and Doris and things. And thinking about you, as a matter of fact. A nice dinner, laughs, human life, like that. So I got out a gallon of red I’d been saving for a special occasion and I drank it.”

  “The whole gallon?”

  “For starters. By the time I finished it, it was Monday, my R.D.O., so I walked down to Queens Boulevard and went into Phil’s. You know it?”

  Marlene nodded. “I ordered a double scoop of Canadian, Schlitz on the side. That’s the last thing I recall, ordering that drink. I woke up here, last night. The Department is not pleased. They don’t like blackouts, especially not by armed officers. They want me in a thirty-day program.”

  “A good idea,” said Marlene.

  Harry sniffed. “I’m not an alcoholic, Marlene. I don’t have deep inner problems. Just bring Doris and Jim back and I’m a one-drink-with-dinner guy.”

  Marlene didn’t say anything. She just looked at him and waited for his mind to digest what he’d just said. It took a while. Then he sighed deeply and in a choked voice said, “I don’t want to end up on a slab.”

  Marlene leaned over and grasped his hand. “Harry, I promise you, you avoid the medical examiner, I’ll make sure you go out by way of St. Joe’s, with a Mass and a wake and the whole nine yards. Provided I survive myself.”

  Harry Bello looked her in the eye and said in a tone of the utmost gravity, “He touches you, there’s no place he can hide. I told Lamont. The fucker will never see a courtroom.”

  The intensity of his gaze unnerved her. She said lightly, “Come on, Harry, I’m a D.A.; don’t say shit like that.”

  “Just so you know,” said Bello, turning his face away, squeezing her hand.

  While Carmine waited for Joey to finish in the shower, he made calls to boat liveries in Sheepshead Bay. He knew a dozen guys who would do the job, just as a favor, but he couldn’t use any of them. Nobody was supposed to know he was in town on business. He engaged a twenty-one-foot Bayliner inboard-outboard for some night fishing that evening.

  Joey came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and a grin on his face. “Hey, Fish—so, we goin’ fishing?” he said brightly.

  “I told you, don’t call me Fish. Just Carmine, OK? Yeah, we’re goin’ tonight. She wrapped?”

  “Yeah, she looks like a big turd. She sure could move it, though. Probably the best fuck she ever threw in her life. Funny, they really put out if they think you’re gonna let them go.”

  “Any mess?”

  “Nah, I used the plastic sheet. So what about this Ciampi cunt? She said she didn’t say anything to her, but …”

  “You said you believed her.”

  “I did. By the time she was finished she wasn’t bullshitting about nothing. I guarantee it.”

  “We’ll check her out a couple of days,” said Carmine thoughtfully. “See who she is, what she does. Tell you the truth, I’d be just as happy if we didn’t have to bother anybody else.”

  “Listen,” Marlene said to Karp, “do you mind if I do something a little risky?” His nightly call, and through the conversation, as she filled him in on what she had learned from Ariadne Stupenagel, she had been building up to this and then saying something else. It was so easy, so wifely to tell him little lies, to omit details. Why make him worry? What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. It was the way she was raised, the way Karp was raised, and harder than she had thought to change. Still, now it was out.

  Karp paused meaningfully. “Um, how risky would that be, Marlene?”

  “Risky like going to see John Doone.”

  “The cops picked him up?”

  “No. I’m going to see him in his lair. In Bed-Stuy. Bello set up the meet.”

  “I presume he was drunk at the time,” said Karp acidly.

  “It’s within the realm. But be that as it may, it’s set up.”

  “But he’s going with you, right?”

  “No, it’s a solo. Just the kid herself.”

  “What! Marlene, where’s Bello while you’re in there?”

  “He can’t come; he’s in detox, drying out.”

  “Oh, uh-huh. He mak
es an appointment with a crazed killer for you and then relaxes on the pillows. What do we buy for this, Marlene? Could you tell me that?”

  She ignored the irritation in his voice. “We buy the sister. The sister knows the whole story.”

  “The sister? What, your intuition tells you this? Marlene, for crying out loud, you got no evidence for that, you—”

  “Wait!” she shouted. “Listen, will you? OK, one, we know the sister used Simmons’s car all the time; two, we know the sister was a mule, probably for Doone; three, there’s a strong likelihood that Leona picked up Marion after the game—she did it before.

  “OK, something happens: Marion gets shot, someplace, we don’t know where, and carted off in the car. Leona’s scared stiff. Why? Who’s after her? Doone, for losing the dope? The D.A., for clamming up? The killers? Maybe she saw something.”

  Suddenly, Marlene thought of Francine Del Fazio. Whatever weird mess she had fallen into, Marlene had not been able to help her. She realized that the intensity of her desire to get close to Leona Simmons owed something to that failure. She continued, with renewed fervor. “So we’ve got to have Sis. She’s got the answers. And my gut feeling is, she’s with Doone.”

  “How do you figure that?” asked Karp. “Why isn’t she running from him?”

  “You forget: Harry followed her to Doone’s place after the murder, after the dope was lost. She walked out. They must have made it up some way.”

  Karp’s sigh whistled in her ear over the lines. “OK, you go in there, assuming he’s got the girl, what makes you think he’s gonna deal with you? You want Sis, but what have you got to trade for her?”

  “Harry told him we know who did Marion. No, calm down! I didn’t see it right away either. OK, the presumption is it’s Doone’s cocaine, so he’s got to be dying to know who got in the way of his delivery. A rival? An accident? If it was a rival, why’d they leave the dope in the car? It doesn’t make sense. It’s as much of a mystery to him as it is to us.

  “So there’s a point to his cooperating. As far as he knows, we’re the law, we got all these resources, we’re going to find his bad guy for him. That’s what pulls him in. He doesn’t need to know we’re running our own game.”

  “Uh-huh, and suppose we find the killer, what happens then?” asked Karp, his voice unnaturally calm.

  “Nothing happens. Once we have a suspect, we can start to build a case. Leona’s probably a witness—”

  “Stop! Marlene, this is the most fucked-up thing I ever heard of. Since when do we finger suspects to killers?”

  “Who said finger? Did I say finger? All I want is for Doone to be interested enough to give me a lead on Leona. Then he’s out of it.”

  Karp gave the inarticulate cry of a man stuck in Atlanta while his wife was doing something crazy and dangerous in New York. “Out of it? You’re fucking out of your mind, Marlene! What makes you think that your charming partner is going to roll over and let the law take its course when he finds out? By his rep, he’s not into probable cause or trial by jury. Of course, we know where he stands on capital punishment.”

  “Butch, that’s not fair, we do deals with the bad guys all the time.”

  “Deals? Yeah, we use a little fish to catch a big one, but then we’re in control of the investigation. We are preparing a fucking case. What you’re doing is farting around because you’re bored, putting yourself in danger and maybe screwing up something you don’t even know about—”

  “I’m going to hang up,” said Marlene. “I don’t have to listen to this shit.”

  “Wait! Wait, don’t hang up,” Karp cried into her ear. She paused, waiting. She heard him catch his breath, and then he said in a voice creaking with strain, “Look, OK, you want to play detective, fine. You’re a grown-up. Do me one favor, though, please? Take somebody with you. Besides going to see Doone, that’s a rough neighborhood. I’d rather not be worrying about somebody sticking a gun in your face. And face it, you’re not as limber as you used to be.”

  “That’s a point. OK, I’ll take somebody.”

  “Somebody reliable,” added Karp.

  “I’ll take Rin-Tin-Tin’s father, OK? Jeez, Butch, a girl gets knocked up, you think she’s the fucking baby.”

  “I wonder why. Ah, shit, if I think about it I’m gonna get pissed again.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Butch,” said Marlene.

  “Yeah, right,” said Karp sourly. “Anyway, I’ll be back home tomorrow, early evening. Assuming you’re still alive and not in jail, I’ll see you then.”

  Marlene hung up and then, on impulse, called her sister, Anna.

  After the usual pleasantries and family chat, Marlene brought up Francine Del Fazio, saying she had come by but omitting any details.

  Anna said, “Francine! God, Frankie Del Fazio called too. She hasn’t been home and he’s worried sick. Do you know where she is?”

  “No, but I got the impression she needed a separate vacation. Look, Annie, if she shows up, let me know, huh? I’d like to talk to her again.”

  The next morning Marlene rose early. Nervous and jumpy already, she made herself eat an English muffin and swallow some coffee. Then she got on the phone and reached Raymond Guma, not at his office but at Sam’s, a luncheonette off Foley Square, where he and his various cronies fortified themselves for their several days in court.

  She got swiftly to business. “Goom, I got a date with John Doone this p.m., in Bed-Stuy, and I need a baby sitter.”

  “Doone, Doone …” mused Guma. “B. and E. guy? Used to work the diamond district with Shorty Paltz?”

  “No, Guma, this one’s a Jamaican dope dealer. Chops people up.”

  “Oh, that Doone. You better take the whole Fifth Precinct, honey. Does Karp know about this?”

  “Yeah, Guma, he does. What, I need his permission? Check my ID—I’m a grown-up, all right?”

  “Hey, get off my case, Marlene! Anyway, why call me? Just buzz Fred Spicer and he’ll send one of his guys with a car—”

  “No, it can’t be cops, Goom. This is seriously unofficial. Nobody respectable need apply, you know? I was thinking of one of the street people. Somebody reliable.”

  “A reliable street person, huh? Isn’t that a whadyacallit?”

  “An oxymoron,” said Marlene. “Somebody intimidating. Just for the cab ride down, back and hang around to scare off the mutts. For a twenty.”

  “A twenty’ll buy you a lot of oxymoron,” said Guma. “I’ll work on it. Where and when?”

  Marlene gave him the information and then called a gypsy cabdriver whose girlfriend’s mugger Marlene had once sent up for a three-to-five. He was available and glad to help.

  At noon, therefore, Marlene was sheltering in the doorway of her loft, wrapped in a maroon quilted maxi-coat, leather knee boots and a black wool scarf, trying to keep out of both the harsh wind and the way of the men with handcarts servicing the local industries and wholesale merchants. At ten past, a battered black Dodge, bearing no visible mark of its trade, edged to the curb between two trucks.

  Marlene darted forward. “Poco, my man!”

  “Marlene! Lookin’ good, guira!” answered the skinny Nicaraguan in the driver’s seat, leaning over to roll down his passenger window. They shook hands warmly and the driver said, “Hop in.”

  “Just a sec, Poco. We got to wait for somebody, my, um, assistant.”

  “No problem, guira, I got all day. Get inna car, though; ’s cold as a bitch out there.”

  Marlene sat next to Poco in the front seat. They spoke briefly about family and general conditions and then remained in companionable silence for about ten minutes. Marlene felt no particular pressure of time, since neither the person she was waiting for, nor those who were expecting her, were likely to be keeping Date-Minders.

  The engine murmured, the car heater strove to replicate the climate of its owner’s homeland, and Marlene settled into a pleasant semi-doze. Then, through half-closed eyes, she spied a familiar shape walkin
g rapidly toward the entrance to her building. Her heart sank. “Guma, you bastard …” she mouthed, and then stopped when she reflected that he had done what she asked—provided her with a reliable escort.

  She heaved herself out of the car and approached the being that stood waiting on the sidewalk. He was nearly seven feet tall and built like a coal-fired home furnace. He had a bushy gray-black beard twenty inches long, which object was so heavily encrusted with dank organic matter that it resembled the floor of an Amazonian rain forest. He was dressed in a hooded ensemble, constructed mainly of green industrial canvas wrapped with thick cords and wire, that covered him from the crown of his head to the bulky wrappings in which his feet were shod. A greasy leather letter-carrier’s bag completed his outfit. His face was so black with filth that only his red-rimmed blue eyes evidenced his original race.

  “Hello, Booger,” said Marlene, moving casually into an upwind position.

  “Ahrrng gong, hn mmnf,” replied the creature, grimacing horribly, revealing an astounding mass of naked flesh and gum. He had no front teeth and a spectacular harelip and cleft-palate combo.

  This person was known in the environs of Foley Square as the Walking Booger. The D.A.’s staff swore he was a former defense attorney who had chosen a nobler life. Reliable all right, thought Marlene as she directed the huge man into the backseat of the cab. The Walking Booger was used by the seedier bail bondsmen and lawyers as a courier, especially when cash had to be transferred across town. The Booger was both as honest as a brick and as unstoppable as an armored car. And he was cheap.

  “Jesu Maria!” gasped Poco when the Walking Booger entered the car. The stench was like a living being.

  “Quick, roll the windows down!” Marlene cried, “and get moving!” The cab leaped into traffic, and they pointed their noses gratefully into the icy wind. Marlene wrenched a purse-sized sprayer of L’Air du Temps out of her bag and frantically doused the air with cologne spray. The Booger settled comfortably into the backseat, grinning and humming to himself; he didn’t get many rides.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Poco made the trip to Brooklyn in twenty minutes, running more lights than even gypsy cabs usually do. The location Bello had mentioned was a rubble-strewn vacant lot at the junction of Gates and Ralph avenues. Despite the cold and wind, a dozen or so well-wrapped black men were grouped around a fire barrel; others were standing around on the street, talking to people cruising by in cars and shaking hands unusually often with passersby.