by Thomas Laird
Then we sit on his beige three-section couch. The parrot barks like a dog, and Natalie looks at the bird and laughs.
“He’s a very talented young bird,” Tommy says.
“What’s his name?” Natalie asks Spencer.
“Enrico. He’s my second bird. The old one had to be put down.”
“Enrico…After Caruso?”
“Yeah,” he smiles at me. “A good Italian name, no, Jimmy?”
I smile back at my partner. Then his face goes serious.
“You want to go after Walker S. Hansen on your own clock?” Tommy asks.
“Yes. And we want you to be our ears at the Department. I won’t ask you to do anything illegal. It’ll be strictly confidential. Your name will never come up if they start asking me questions.”
“Fuck ‘em. Use my name any time you want to, Jimmy. Excuse my French, Natalie.”
“You don’t need to clean up your act for me. I’ve been living with this paisan too long,” Natalie retorts.
“I don’t care if they force me to retire too. I got my thirty years in this month…Yeah, count me in.”
“You don’t think I’ve gone over the deep end, then?”
“Never.”
“I wasn’t so sure, in the Captain’s office.”
“I wasn’t so sure then either, Jimmy. But I’ve done a lot of thinking since then. I should’ve stood with you.”
“Not necessary.”
“Yes it was, partner, because you would’ve stood up for me. It made me feel bad, Jimmy, feel low like I’ve never felt low before. And I didn’t expect it from our Captain. He yanked you out like a rotten electrical plug. I didn’t expect that from him. I didn’t expect him to cave like that, kiss the FBI’s ass, the way he’s doing. I mean I was kind of in shock…But I should’ve stood up and told him to give me the same leave of absence.
“You were right in the beginning. I still don’t know about Walker S. Hansen, though, Jimmy. I think he just might have hit a nerve in you. He’s a very unpleasant guy, but that doesn’t make him the mass murderer who did the Anderson Building.”
“I know…I thought it might have been personal too, this past week, sitting home thinking about everything. But there’s something about him that strikes me…He’s a great candidate for sociopath, Tommy. He’s got all the ‘qualities.’ There’s a smell of carelessness on him. It’s an outstanding odor. We’ve come across it a few other times. With Carl Anglin. With Marco Karrios. With the vampire nut who drained all those girls of blood, whatsisname…
“This guy could do all those victims and sleep like a baby, Tommy. I’m sure of it. That’s what I meant when I told the Captain my intuition was working overtime. I know we haven’t got a goddam thing on him. He didn’t need the money. Unless there’s a story beneath the story that we’re unaware of so far.”
“I only worked with Jimmy for a little while on Marco and the vampire. But I know what that second sight stuff is with my husband, and it’s almost scary. When he zeroes in on a perpetrator like Karrios or that loony kid with the blood fixation…Tommy, you’ve been his partner for a while now. Do you trust him?”
“Completely. And that’s why I’m sorry I didn’t stand up with you with the Captain. Forgive me, huh?”
“Nothing to forgive. The Captain shocked me too. I don’t blame you for being speechless.”
“I didn’t call you because I thought you might be pissed at me because I didn’t…”
“I was never angry with you. I just thought you might have agreed with the Boss.”
“I tend to keep my ties with the guy whose squad I’m sharing…Look, I’ll work the off shifts with you two, if that’s okay. I can work nights the next few weeks. Is that all right?”
“Nights is the best. They’ll never see us coming,” Natalie smiles.
Enrico barks like a dog and then he meows.
“Personality crisis,” Tommy explains for the bird.
“We can interview Walker S. again, then?” Tommy suggests.
“Yeah. I don’t know how he’ll know I’ve been relieved of duty…Maybe it isn’t him, Tommy. Maybe everybody else is right and I’m wrong. Don’t do this out of blind loyalty.“
“The Arab didn’t do it. He had the three C-4 setups planted in the big-name buildings downtown, but he didn’t plant a fifty barrel bomb at the Anderson site. They all would’ve been C-4’s, the explosive of choice in our little war, you remember?”
“He’s right, Jimmy. It makes the Anderson scenario distinct from all the others. Why would they pick such a low profile target and why would they use a different device from all the rest? We both know you’re right. It’s the public fever. It’s the feeding frenzy. That’s why the Feds won’t hear you. It’s because they don’t care who really murdered all those vics. They just want an arrest. They want a convenient killer, not the real thing. We all know they have a history of jumping on bandwagons. They jailed all the Japanese/Americans in World War II, and right and justice didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.”
I look at my wife, and then at my new partner, and tears sting my eyes. It’s been a lonely last few days. I thought I was out there on a limb by myself, but it appears that it was all in my head. I have two friends in my world, other than my children, of course and my mother and Mari, Doc’s widow, and maybe John Garvin at the saloon in Berwyn. But not all that many friends, when you do the counting. My wife and my partner have stepped up, now, so I have to go on, I have to continue to the end. It’s the way it was for my old man, Jake, back in the Second War—he signed up for the termination. There were no tours in this thing, then, no finite pieces of time to find whoever did the Anderson Building. It was until the finish. The CPD and all the Federals weren’t with us and we were alone in this thing.
Except perhaps for Marty Van Dyke. He had connections in the media, and I knew he wanted to become hands-on in this investigation. Van Dyke might become useful to us.
“I want to include Marty Van Dyke in our merry band of outlaws,” I told them.
“Why, Jimmy? I mean I know he lost his wife, but—“
“Red, if I lost you it’d be the same for me. End of my story. I know how he feels. He asked me if I’d ever lost anybody to a homicide, and I said I had. You know about Celia. I’ve told you. I lost her and I lost a wife too. Three would be a killer for me. So I know what nothing feels like. But I’ve been lucky. You showed up. No one’s going to appear magically for Marty Van Dyke. He’s a one-woman man. You can see it in his eyes. We owe him a piece of this, even if we fail.”
“Okay with me. We can use his newspaper connections,” Tommy says.
“All right with me too, then,” Natalie agrees.
“We can’t run at Hansen directly. He’ll lawyer up,” I remind Tommy.
“Yeah. He threatened to the last time we talked,” Tommy tells my wife.
“He’s never seen me before,” she says.
“He might lawyer up on you too,” Tommy says.
“Let’s find out,” I tell them both.
*
Natalie comes out of the posh entrance to the condos where Walker S. Hansen lives. She walks past the doorman in his big red coat and black top hat.
“He tried to hit on me,” she smiles.
“So this is the new Garvin’s,” Natalie grins as she sips her Diet Sprite.
We stop in Berwyn to hear the report from Natalie. It’s eight-thirty. We have to work nights because of Tommy’s schedule, and so it’s well past dark on a light slushy evening in November.
“He hit on you,” I repeat as the old man, John, delivers my Diet Coke with Tommy’s Old Style. Tommy’s off shift, so he goes with a draught.
The place is not jumping tonight. It gets much more crowded during softball season. Most of the patrons here are beyond basketball and winter sports—too old, I mean. Softball’s all they have left, into their fifties and sixties.
There are red and green and blue Christmas lights illuminating the bar area. All of th
e TV’s are showing something athletic in the saloon.
“Yes. Subtly, but he did hit on me.”
“You showed him ID?” Tommy asked.
“First thing…Jimmy’s right. This guy doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a damn who you are or who you’re with. If a female Fed had walked in, he would’ve sized her up and dealt with her just the way he did with me.
“He’s a predator, Tommy. Jimmy’s right.”
“But does that make him our guy for sure?” Tommy insisted.
“No. But I’m starting to like him as much as Jimmy does, and I only talked to him for what, thirty minutes?”
“We still don’t have the reason, Red,” I remind her.
“No, we don’t. We have the personality type—a profiler would love Walker S. Hansen too, and I’m going to run his interview by our girl downtown tomorrow. Jenna owes me one.”
Jenna was Jenna Louise, one of the CPD’s best profilers. She was ex-FBI. She got tired of the politics in the Fibbies, and so she quit and came to work for us. I’d used her services several times, and she was very good.
“Still nothing concrete, and until we come up with it, we’re clandestine and working alone, the three of us, in the dark,” I remind them.
“I like him, but he’ll be hard to get close to,” Natalie says.
“He’s got money, which means he’ll have good legal help. Did he threaten to lawyer up?” I ask my wife.
“Nope. He didn’t even mind my wedding band. Or about the fact that my married name, Parisi, was on the ID. I don’t think my pooch shows yet.”
“So it isn’t a rumor?” Tommy smiles.
“No. I’m due in six months. Three months along. So I will be rising in the middle very soon.”
“So?” I ask her.
“Oh. Yeah. He’s got more money than she had…Same same that you two heard before. But he did say his wife was a very independent woman, and he got this look on his face.”
“What look?” I ask.
“I don’t know…Competitive, maybe? Like he and she were always competing against each other? I got that kind of impression about their marriage. Not so much from what he said, but from the way he says things…He seems to forever be looking down at you. Did you sense that?”
“He’s six-four,” Tommy sniggered.
“It isn’t because of his height. He could be a midget, and he’d still be looking down on you,” my wife says.
“Competitive,” I say. “Competitive about what?” I ask her.
She shrugs her shoulders.
“Partners are competitive. Why’s that unusual?” Tommy asks her.
“I don’t think this guy can stand to lose. At anything,” she tells Spencer.
“Anything,” she repeats.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Having Natalie and Tommy onboard has made my life a lot more bearable than it was the first few days after the Captain told me to retire. Now I feel like I have some sap left after all. I’ve got some new reserves of juice to deal with the Anderson case.
It’s still the same. Bin Laden didn’t do this one, but I’m also not sure if Walker S. Hansen did. I’m getting no help from Carlo Ciccio about his name being on that list of twenty-four that caused his eye to twitch, just for a second.
So I decide to see Carlo alone. I come unannounced on a Friday evening in mid-November. The slush has turned back to rain, and it’s a dreary night, and the temperature’s near forty. No freeze, just the big chill.
I find him sitting in a booth, fondling the breast of that black stripper whose ass he admired when Tommy and I were first here.
He lets go of her tit, and then he slaps her gently on her beautiful hind- quarters, and she frowns at me and then leaves the booth.
“Walker S. Hansen,” I tell him as I sit opposite him.
“Who?” he smiles.
“You heard me.”
“I don’t know anybody that name, Jimmy P.”
“You saw his name mid-way down that list I showed you. What’s he got to do with you?”
“I don’t know a—“
“I know lots of guys in the health department. I know lots more in the traffic division who’d love to ticket the shit out of your patrons who illegally park this neighborhood every fucking night of the week. You want to play hard, say the word, Cousin.”
“Why’re you doin’ this to me?”
“I want Hansen for the Anderson thing.”
“Why him?”
“Because he’s got the right fragrance. The fuck do you care? Is this guy related to you, Carlo?”
“No, but I thought you were.”
I look at the black stripper who’s making love to her silver pole, opposite us, again.
“I don’t want to do you harm, Carlo. You haven’t killed anyone on my watch yet that I know of, and we are blood. But if I don’t get some help on this Anderson—“
“All right, Jimmy…Shit…His old lady was a user.”
“Drugs?”
“Yeah. The powder kind, the kind you float up your nose. Cocaine, okay?”
“They could afford it.”
“Sure.”
“They into you for the drugs?”
“Hell no. They paid their bills, in full and always up front.”
“So Walker S. wasn’t into you for his wife’s recreational drugs.”
“He was a steady patron, and he didn’t owe me a fucking nickel, Jimmy. You’re looking at the wrong mamaluke if you’re lookin’ at Walker S. And besides. He’s not one to fuck with…Look, we already heard you’re off this case.”
“Who told you?”
“A little fuckin’ bird with a big fuckin’ beak…What difference does it make, Jimmy? Why you trying to shake me down when it’s no official concern of yours anymore?”
“It’s my case, Carlo. It’s my only case. I find Walker S.—or whoever the fuck did it if he didn’t—and I’m gonna walk.”
“Retire?”
“Yeah. I’ll retire and teach young cops how to put crooks like you in the slam.”
“I can’t see you quitting. Not ever.”
“Look again.”
Carlo isn’t smiling anymore.
“You really mean to nail Hansen?”
“If he’s the guy to nail. That’s what I’m trying to find out, and you’re still not helping.”
“You want me to make shit up? The guy and his ho had an expensive habit. But they’re millionaires. It’s all just chump change, Jimmy. They can drop ten grand in a half hour and it doesn’t even tickle Walker S. You want to make him a mass murderer just because he does some toot?”
“You look me in the eye and tell me on the souls of your wife and kids that that’s all you know about Walker S. Hansen.”
“Jimmy.”
He looks me squarely in the eyes and I see the remnants of his teenaged acne with its subtle scars on the hollows of his cheeks.
“I swear on my grandchildren that’s all I know. I saw him on your list, and he was the only fucking name I knew. But it was simply because the guy buys his honk from my people…You going to turn me in to narco?”
“No. I work Homicide.”
I got up and left him in his booth.
*
I roll off my wife and I’m breathing inordinately heavily.
“You okay, Jimmy?”
“Yeah. I’m just..short of …breath…”
“Are you all right?”
She gets up on her elbows, and I catch my wind.
“Now I’m all right.”
“Don’t do that to me.”
“We…I…Got carried away. But I’m fine.”
I look down at her white tummy and I see its expansion now. She’s almost four months along, so her pregnancy is starting to show, obviously. She’ll have to talk to the people downtown about her maternity leave in a few months. Our daughters are becoming all excited about their new sibling.
Natalie insists it’s a boy and she wants to call him James, Jimmy, Junior. I’
m not sure I want a namesake in this world, but if it’ll make Natalie happy, I figure, why not. My older son’s name is Michael, Mike. Mary is the oldest daughter. And the two young ones are—
“Jimmy, lie back down,” the redhead insists.
She massages my temples.
“You had your blood pressure checked lately, cowboy?”
I pinch her left nipple gently.
“Oooch. They’re getting ultra sensitive.”
“I really couldn’t go another step if I lost you.”
“You’ll never lose me.”
“That’s what the other two said.”
“They couldn’t help it, Jimmy.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
“You’re all wrapped about this retirement business and about the Anderson case.”
“I know. And I don’t know what cocaine has to do with Walker S. Hansen and his late old lady, but I’m going to find out.”
“He’s fading as a suspect, Jimmy, and we both know it.”
“You sure?”
“We liked him, both of us did, because he’s a miserable human being. But I think the fact that his wife was a victim made it convenient to try and tie him to the explosion. He’s got no reason to take her out, Jimmy. They didn’t need money, either of them, and they weren’t into Carlo for any cash…What can I say? I’m your biggest fan, Jimmy P, but you’ve got the wrong scent in your nostrils. You’re right. It isn’t Bin Laden. But it isn’t Walker S. Hansen either.”
“I’m not convinced. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You have to shake someone like Hansen loose, once he gets into your system. I understand.”
“Did you look at his eyes?”
“Yeah. They’re gray, like a wolf’s eyes. You notice that right away. You were right. He’s a predator. But I don’t think he planted that barrel in the building. I don’t think he’s a mass killer.”
“What if she had lovers?”
“Then you’d say it was because he was the jealous husband.”
“I’m going to ask around.”
“Like I said, honey. If he got that deep under your skin, you need to shake him out until you’re free of him.”
“You really think I’ve got the wrong guy?”
