City of Ice

by John Farrow

  “What?”

  “It’s like my partner told me earlier, I don’t have enough to make a murder charge stick. Even though it was you dressed up in a Santa Claus suit—”

  Kaplonski turned quickly to face him.

  “—ah, you didn’t know I knew that? Now you do. Even though I know for a fact that you were involved, that you rented the Santa suits, that you paid for them when you couldn’t bring them back, that you went into that rooming house ahead of me, even though I know all that, I’m going to let you go.”

  “What’s he talking?” Kaplonski asked Mathers.

  “I think I’ve got it figured out,” the detective answered.

  “Sir, it’s simple,” Cinq-Mars explained. “Pay attention. This is important. You have to hope for three things. You have to hope that neither of the two cops behind us is dirty. What are the odds on that? And if they’re clean, you have to hope they don’t go blabbing around the station about what happened today, because a dirty cop would pick up the news that way. And third, whatever it is you know about the Angels, you better hope it isn’t all that important. If it is, and they find out we had this friendly talk, well, good luck to you, Walter, because you’re going to need it. Now, sir, you’re free to go. Pull over, Bill.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  “Sorry, Walter. I’ve got places to go and people to see. Get out of my car. And, sir, let me give you fair warning. Don’t call my partner Pig Puke again. I am the only one authorized to call him that. By the way, why do you think the tough guys put you on the scene in that Santa suit? Why do you think they had you rent the Santa costumes under your own name? That’s all so dumb. Unbelievably dumb. Makes me think they were setting you up all along. Have you thought about that? I would if I were you. Did you think things through, Kaplonski? Or are you just a man of action? Why do you think they had you sign in with Hagop Artinian down at the docks, putting the two of you together at the time of death? You didn’t know I knew that? Tell you what, give me a buzz if you come up with something interesting to say, or, who knows, if you suddenly get the feeling that you might be worth arresting. In the meantime, Walter, get the hell out.”

  His cutting words were uttered with a smile, and Cinq-Mars climbed out of the car with Kaplonski, arched his lower back, and yawned. He patted the freed prisoner on the shoulder and clambered into the front seat. “Go,” he told Mathers in French. “Quickly.”

  The younger detective peeled away from the curb. Before those in the trailing squad car could comprehend that the prisoner had been granted his freedom, they followed, and dispersed only after Cinq-Mars called them on the two-way and told them to do so.

  “Amazing,” Mathers said.

  “God bless Walter Kaplonski.”

  “So you think Déguire’s dirty?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” the senior detective admitted. “We’ll wait and see on that.”

  Arriving late for the evening rendezvous, Cinq-Mars was perplexed. The restaurant was nondescript, a notch above a dive, glaringly bright and, at eleven o’clock, sparsely populated. Bottles sparkled on the mirrored bar. Domes displayed tall cheesecakes topped with a strawberry glaze, tasteless concoctions for which he had a profound weakness. As the waitress came over he ordered coffee only, patting his belly while LaPierre knowingly chuckled.

  “So, André,” Cinq-Mars began, although the other man had called the meeting, “how’s your vacation going?”

  “You’re hilarious.” Two thin Band-Aids covered shaving cuts over his Adam’s apple, which was startlingly protuberant. He looked wan, as though his height was a liability when he was under duress and his heart had trouble pumping blood to his extremities. Cinq-Mars hated to think what would happen to LaPierre if he ever really got sick. He was no longer so thin around the middle, but his bones appeared to push through his skin. If he lost any weight he’d look skeletal.

  “You should’ve paid for your repairs, André.”

  “Émile, you’re such a saint. When you die we’ll build a shrine in your honor as big as the Oratory. Penitents will crawl up the stairs on their knees for a glimpse of your heart.” He lit a smoke.

  “That’s right. During pledge week students will steal it and hide it in their dorms. What else is new? You can’t get away from crime, André. That’s why I pay for my repairs. To give myself a break from the bad guys.”

  “That’s not how it is,” LaPierre said quietly. He had a distant gaze in his eyes, and Cinq-Mars noticed a slight quiver to his right lower eyelid, something he hadn’t noticed before. They were all aging. He wondered if he developed tics of his own whenever the nights were long and his bones were exhausted.

  “That’s how it looks. How is it, André?”

  “Émile, you sit in your chair all day. Stoolies phone you. You make arrests. The rest of us, we have to work for a living.” He took a long, deep drag on his cigarette.

  “I didn’t always have it so good,” Cinq-Mars objected.

  “That’s right. You used to work for your busts, like me. You were a good cop. I admired you. Know something? I’m just as good a cop as you, maybe better.” When he wasn’t wearing a jacket the bones of his shoulders poked through his shirt.

  “You were, until your car got fixed for free.”

  “That makes me a dirty cop?”

  Cinq-Mars raised an eyebrow, as though to suggest that he was unwilling to go that far. “A dumb one.”

  LaPierre rapped his knuckles on the table. “I work for my arrests. I don’t sit on my ass while murderers beat down the door to beg me to arrest them. The criminals I know try to get away from me, they hide. Only you have it so lucky. Me, I work the streets. I drink in the bars, take my girlfriends to rooming houses that charge by the quarter hour. Ever been in one of those? I never made an arrest by going to mass, Émile. I live where the criminals hang out. Go to church where they do. I socialize, I dance with the brokenhearted. That’s how the job gets done.”

  Cinq-Mars bobbed his chin, to show that he understood the merit of his colleague’s stance. “That philosophy can excuse many sins, André.”

  “We’re not in the sin business, Émile,” LaPierre corrected him. His jaw was trembling now, as he forcibly held back on the passion that ignited this response. “We’re in the crime business, and for me that means homicide. If I have my car fixed at a garage where killers sometimes go, that doesn’t hurt my chances to catch bad guys.”

  “Are you telling me—”

  “I’m telling you how it is.”

  “So you had your car fixed for free—”

  “—so I could move in certain circles. So I could be seen there. So people won’t think I’m a priestly cop like you. I need tips. Information. I need to bump into people who can give me tips and information.”

  Cinq-Mars sipped from his steaming cup. “It’s a good argument, André. If I were you I’d take it before the panel. It might work there.”

  “I know I can’t talk you onto my side, Émile. You and me are alike that way. We’ve heard every story. Like me, you only want the facts.”

  “It gets worse, André,” Cinq-Mars reminded him.

  LaPierre understood. “Céline, in data processing. I didn’t know she was connected, Émile. You don’t believe that, but I’m saying it anyway. Sure, I screwed her. I’m a man not a priest. I screwed her, and I had a good time, too. Tremblay tells me she keyed the entries, deleted stolen cars from the computer log. That was her. That wasn’t me. I know nothing about it. Nothing, Émile.”

  “Your investigation of the Artinian case was shoddy.”

  “I had the flu!”

  “So you say. But you didn’t call in sick. You were on standby for Christmas Eve. So how sick were you?”

  “Taberhuit. It was just coming on me. Maudit calice. You know how it is, Émile. You’re on standby for a holiday, you figure you might get an easy night. Why should people kill each other on Christmas Eve, tabernouche? Better to be sick on standby, save your days off for when you’re h
ealthy. Don’t tell me you’ve never done that. You’re a saint but don’t tell me you’re ridiculous. I figured I’d get away with that one night, that way I’m safe for New Year’s. If I phoned in sick, for sure I get booked on for New Year’s, and you know what a shit ride that is. Anyway, Émile, I don’t have kids. I was doing some daddy-cop a favor, tabernac.”

  When the English swore they used sexual references or bodily functions to get their rage across. If Cinq-Mars really wanted to let loose a profanity he chose English. The French swore by being sacrilegious, denigrating religious relics. So they would say the French word for tabernacle, and add embellishment, or the word for chalice, and call it bloody. Cinq-Mars figured that LaPierre was into a swearing spree because he knew how the use of religious words irked him. Unconsciously or deliberately, he was trying to cut him. “Afterward you stayed on the case. You didn’t call in sick then either.”

  “I wanted the case, Émile! I waited for the flu to run its course, that’s all. I didn’t want to give this one up.”

  “Why not? It’s just another case.”

  LaPierre seemed unprepared to answer. He held the heel of one hand on the table with his elbow upraised and he stared at the saltshaker. “When I saw the message on that sign, M-Five, I didn’t mention it, but I thought it was connected to you. March Five. If something was going on, you know, to bring you down a notch, I wanted to be in on it. That’s all.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  LaPierre derisively waved his hand in the air. “I’m no saint. When have I pretended? I’m a competitor, and I’m tired of being in your shadow. It didn’t used to be that way.”

  Cinq-Mars continued to watch him, and he said nothing.

  “Lately, it’s not been so good. So many homicides are bombings. The Rock Machine blows up somebody from the Hell’s Angels. We know it’s the gangs, we know it’s a settling of accounts, do we catch the perp? No. Maybe down the line an asshole turns and we find out who did what to whom, but those cases never come to trial. Half the time the shits don’t live long enough. If they do, the Wolverines handle the investigation. I get a case that doesn’t look gang-related, not especially, not at first, well, I want that case, Émile. I want that opportunity. I’m not going to hand it off because I got the flu.”

  Cinq-Mars conceded, “I can understand that, André.”

  “Some people think I’m sliding into retirement. Maybe I’m not as young as I used to be, but I got fire in my belly, Émile.”

  “My partner told me you interviewed Artinian’s girlfriend. That shows you were on the job. Did you get anything out of her?”

  LaPierre thought about it as he drank his coffee and smoked. In the end he acknowledged that he hadn’t learned much. “She confirmed what we knew about the boy.”

  “Anything you can give me, André? I know you’re a competitor, but it’s your career on the line. If you found something in your investigation, anything, give it up now. If something good pans out, I’ll go to your hearing. I’ll let the panel know you helped us out.”

  Sergeant-Detective André LaPierre appreciated the news. He thought hard, pressing his thumbs to his temples as though luring memories of the investigation from their mental sockets. Cinq-Mars doubted that whatever he had to say was as deeply entrenched as the motion implied. “One thing,” LaPierre said.

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe it’s nothing, you know how it goes. There was an employee at the garage, his name was Jim Coates.” Cinq-Mars took out his notebook, and LaPierre spelled the name for him.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s disappeared.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Soon after the murder, he vanished. Left his apartment. Cut off his phone, the whole bit. As I said, it might be nothing. But you never know.”

  “Okay. Thanks for that. I’ll let you know if he shows up. Anything else?”

  LaPierre turned his cup around in circles on its saucer.

  “André, you called this meeting. I don’t think you’ve told me what you came here to say.”

  LaPierre granted the point. “Listen, Émile. We’ve been colleagues a long time. We’ll be colleagues again. I’m going to beat this rap. I won’t sit here and try to convince you I’m an altar boy. I went to that garage to have my old junk heaps fixed for free more than once. I took advantage for personal reasons. But me, I took advantage for professional reasons also. I can prove it, too.”

  “How?”

  “You took a tap out of Kaplonski’s office. You get a report back on that?”

  “I did.”

  “It was old issue.” The pale man seemed tired now, as though he was running low on fuel.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s mine. One of my trips for a repair job, I put it there. Slipped it under the table with contact glue. The paperwork on that tap is buried, but it goes back sixteen years. The person who requisitioned that tap was me. As far as the books are concerned, it’s working a felon’s house. Except the guy’s been dead ten years.”

  Cinq-Mars sucked air and seemed to expand on his side of the booth, straightening up to look LaPierre squarely in the eye. “That’s your tap? If that’s your tap, I want the tapes.”

  “I thought you’d say that.” He tried on a weary smile.

  “Don’t mess with me, André. I want the tapes.” Cinq-Mars sucked rapid breaths.

  “What are you, a homicide detective these days?”

  “Hand them over.”

  “I’m keeping them—”

  “The hell you are!” Although he kept his voice low, the fury of his tone was apparent, and Cinq-Mars lightly pounded the table. He attracted the attention of the waitress, who retrieved the coffeepot and moved their way. LaPierre waited for her to pour and move off before resuming.

  “First of all, they’re illegal, so I’m not going to flash them around right now. Any evidence on those tapes gets squashed. I’d rather let the information lead me, and nobody will know where the trail got started.”

  “That’s a crock. That’s not what we’re talking about here.”

  “Second, I might need the originals to get myself off. They prove I was working. The department will only reinstate me if they can pitch it to the press. The tapes help me with that. Finally, it’s my tap, Émile. I don’t give a damn, it’s my tap and therefore they’re my tapes. I’m not turning them over to you.”

  “Are you so afraid I’ll make an arrest? What’s on the tapes, André?”

  “I’m reviewing them.”

  “You’re on suspension! You have nothing else to do! How long can it take?”

  LaPierre smiled, seemingly enjoying himself. “You know how it is. You go over things in the background, the meanings of conversations, shit like that. It takes time, Émile.”

  “What the hell are you up to?”

  LaPierre smirked. “Maybe that’s the question of the hour. Some of us’ve been asking it about you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You turned me over to the papers. I know it. I can’t trust you with the tapes when they’re all I got left.”

  “What’s on them?”

  “Not much. I don’t have some big operation. A few guys go over to Garage Sampson, and I happen to follow them there. Hit the record button. Sometimes I swing by for the hell of it. Turn on and see what comes up. Mostly I get nothing. It’s not like I recorded twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Oh, I got something, Émile. I got something good.” From the inner breast pocket of his overcoat, André LaPierre teased Cinq-Mars by slowly pulling out an audiotape.

  “You bastard.”

  “You don’t have many friends left, Émile. If I knew what you were up to, maybe I could trust you with everything. Until that day comes, the original tape stays with me.”

  Cinq-Mars was adamant. He stuck a forefinger in front of him. “Give me one good reason. One. So far you’ve given me cause to advocate for yo
ur suspension.”

  LaPierre slid the copy across to Cinq-Mars. He made a move to leave the table. “Maybe there’s some little thing on the whole tape that might incriminate me, Émile. Who knows? You don’t seem to understand how real cops work. You’ve forgotten. You’ve been high and mighty for so long you’re afraid to muddy your knees. Me, I’ve been down on my knees so long I’ve forgotten how to walk. I got scabs. My knees prove I’m a cop. Besides—ha!—who trusts who anymore, Émile?”

  “What are you giving me?”

  “A couple of days before Christmas Eve. I wasn’t feeling so hot. I was home so I turned on my bugs. Most were quiet. I got conversation on one, so I hit the button and went to bed. I was sick, Émile. The flu was coming on but I didn’t know it yet. Just felt weak. A few days later I find out my murder victim works for Garage Sampson. Then I think, wasn’t that the place I tapped?”

  Cinq-Mars put his hands to his head in genuine astonishment. He was not sure whether he was elated or furious. “You kept it to yourself until now?”

  “My gold mine, Émile. You got your own. This one’s mine. Listen up, I’m going to beat my suspension. I’m coming back. I’m studying the tape. If I get more than this—and don’t kid yourself, this is hot—maybe we can trade.”

  “Withholding evidence, André,” Cinq-Mars warned him.

  “Ill-gotten, Émile. Which means it’s not evidence at all.”

  “André—Come on, man, this isn’t about trading.”

  “You don’t think so?” He stood and adjusted his coat and scarf. “I want my career back. Help me out with that. I’m giving you Kaplonski. I didn’t go after him in interrogation because he’s not Number One. The tape will tell you that. I played Kaplonski soft because that’s my strategy. He’s the only guy we’ve got who can lead us to Number One. Listen to the tape. It’ll give you Kaplonski for conspiracy to commit and accessory to. That should be good for you. All I’m asking is that you don’t block me off. Help me back in, then maybe you’ll get to hear the whole tape.”