by D. J. Herda
"Mrs. Rasci?"
She looked up into his large, round face. "Yes, darlink?"
"What's his name?"
She waved her hand. "Oh, Walter something or other. I have his name written down somewhere on a little piece of paper. You know, I always ask my tenants to pay me cash. I don't believe in all this other stuff, this checks and debit cards and stuff. I know his name is Walter something. I have it written down on a piece of paper."
"Do you have a lease?"
She looked at him blankly, and she suddenly slapped her hand against the side of her head. "Of course. All my tenants sign a lease. You know, I don't want no troubles. I don't want nobody saying, 'Oh, no, Mrs. Rasci, you said I could have the apartment for fifty dollars a month!' or nothing like that. You wait here, and I'll go get it for you. You wait here, and I’ll be right back."
"That's not necessary," Cartel said. "I'll have one of my men stop by later to pick it up. But can you at least give me some idea of what this Walter looks like? Where he works, what he does. Does he have any relatives, any ... any friends that you know of? Anyone who might know where he is now?"
"I tell you something funny. You know that little fellow before this Walter? I can't remember his name. But he was so-o-o good looking. Such a good-looking little fellow. But I tell you something, Mr. Cartel, darlink. He used to bring his girlfriends home with him ... these tramps! You know something, I don't understand about this country. All the beautiful things the people have here, and this feeling all the time for the sex and the tramps. I tell you something, it's a sin, a good-looking little fellow like that fooling around with these ... these things with their short skirts and their ratty hair and ..."
"Mrs. Rasci—" Cartel twisted his face to one side—"what about Walter?"
"Well, Mr. Cartel, darlink, I am coming to that. I think after this one good-looking young fellow gave me all the trouble with these women and then ran off owing me three months' rent, I think all right, Velchenka, the next time you rent out this little flat, you will rent it to some ugly fellow. Then there won't be no fooling around. Well ..." her mouth turned up in a sly smile, "this middle-aged man rings my doorbell and asks to see the apartment I got for rent. Well, I tell you, I nearly have to laugh. Mr. Cartel, he is ugly as sin! As sin! Forgive me to say it, but he looks like some kind of a little fish or something.”
“Can you describe him for me, Mrs. Rasci?”
"So, he looks at the apartment,” she continued, ignoring his question or possibly not hearing it at all, “and he tells me he has a good job at a factory somewhere and that he would like to give me the rent. I ask him if he has a little girlie friend or something, and he says no. He was married, but now he's divorced. Isn't that a shame? But I think no girl in her right mind would ever go for such a ugly man, so he gives me a hundred dollars cash, and he rents the apartment."
"Can you show me the apartment, Mrs. Rasci?"
She paused. "You haven't seen it before?"
"I just want to take another look."
"Well, I don't know. I'm not sure how clean it is. I just found out he was missing yesterday. I haven't ... "
"Please. Just a quick look, Mrs. Rasci, that's all."
"Oh, sure, sure," she said, fumbling in her apron for a key. Cartel followed her out the front door and down the steps, one agonizingly slow step after another, to the basement entrance. For the life of him, he didn't know why she hadn't slipped, fallen, and broken her neck years ago. "So, when the second month comes around, he says to me, Oh, Mrs. Rasci, I lose my job and have to owe you the rent for a couple of days. Then he says, Oh, Mrs. Rasci, my ex-wife is sick and I have to pay her hospital bills. Then he says, Oh, Mrs. Rasci, I'm expecting a check from the government for my taxes and I will pay you everything when I get it next Tuesday."
Cartel followed her through a dimly lit corridor lined with old chests smelling of cedar and old cardboard boxes, smelling of mold and old broken floor lamps not smelling of anything in particular. They shimmied past disheveled, discarded furniture that looked as if it had been salvaged from a junk bin centuries ago. And several more that were still waiting their turn. The last few rays of daylight filtered through a single window at the far end of the hall, its faltering beam spilling across the floor and into the two-room flat. A few second-hand chairs lined one kitchen wall, and as Cartel moved across the floor toward the stove, a handful of roaches dashed madly across the yellowing enamel, disappearing en masse through the gas grates.
"And then one evening when I come down to bring him his little supper, what do you think I find? He is drunk. He starts crying on my shoulder and telling me how bad things is for him. And I tell him to get away, to go get sober! Now, how do you like that? Such a young man, and he was drinking his money away. I tell myself, Velchenka, you are such a dumbhead. You believe all these lies. Such a dumbhead you are!"
"And how long ago was that? How long between then and when you discovered he'd skipped?"
"Well, it is maybe two weeks, maybe less. Last night I go to bring him some food, and I say to myself, now, Velchenka, you must ask him to pay you the money what he owes you and to move out. It's no good to have drunks around everywhere you go. They are dirty, and they lie, and they could start a fire and burn your house down. So when I knock on the door and come in, what do you think? He's gone! All his stuff is gone. Everything is gone."
Cartel turned the knob on the old Roper range.
"Oh, that old stove don't work no more. I had it disconnected."
Cartel ran his finger over the top and sniffed; a hint of cleanser, nothing more. Mrs. Rasci stood near the kitchen sink, chattering on, while Cartel opened some cabinets, checked the solitary closet off the bedroom, opened the bureau drawers. All empty. Spotless. Picked as clean as a Thanksgiving turkey in a household of twelve.
"I don't seem to find anything of Walter's here, Mrs. Rasci. No papers, pencils, ashes, food, nothing. Not even a speck of dust in the trash can, here."
"Ohh," she said, waving her hand. "He didn't have much. A couple little things. Some dirty clothes and a couple little things like that. I threw them all in the trash, such filthy dirty things."
"Uh-huh. And how about the other three skips? I don't remember. Did any of them leave anything behind?"
"Oh, they didn't have much. None of them had much. They all wasted their money on women and liquor and that one little fellow, he smoked the dope. You know, Mr. Cartel, darlink, I rent a furnished place here. None of these crazy people are like you or me who got some things and who save their money. You know, you are smart, Mr. Cartel, darlink. You are so smart. I know you are. That's why I like talking to you. You're not like these other dumbbells who come to see me. That's why I like you. Such a gentleman, and so smart."
Cartel walked back into the bedroom for another look. "I was just wondering about that sofa, there. It's new, isn't it?" The sofa sat next to a makeshift cot and mattress between the bureau and a floor lamp, neither of which had seen a showroom floor since America elected Roosevelt to be president—the first one.
"Oh, the old sofa was no good no more. I give it to the Salvation Army. They come and take it away and resell it. That’s how they make their money, and I get inside a good feeling helping the poor unfortunates like some people we know."
"Uh-huh." Cartel pushed his fist into the cushions—soft, overstuffed, inviting. They could easily consume a man his size. Well, not easily. "Nice," he said.
"Mr. Cartel, darlink, I have to go back upstairs now. It's getting close to five o'clock, yes? Poor Mrs. Fougherty, she has trouble with her eyes and can't cook so good no more. I have to make her supper and bring it to her, or else she has nothing to eat. She is a good woman, kind. She worries all the time about Velchenka. You would please lock the outside door when you leave, no? Just pull on it hard until it clicks."
"Sure. And if we hear any news about Walter, we'll phone you."
"Oh, no," she said, ambling toward the door. "He is nothing to bother about, Mr. Car
tel, darlink. He is not good enough to waste your time and worry about. I don't care that much about the money he owes me. I got plenty of money. My grandmother used to say in the Old Country, 'Velchenka, you have only one thing nobody can take away from you. Your mind.' You know, Mr. Cartel, darlink? That woman, she was so smart. Like you. She used to run her own seamstress shop and sold flowers and took in laundry, and people would come to her and ask her to do their work for them. She tell me, 'Velchenka, you see how some people are so dumb? They got two good hands, yet they willing to pay someone else to do their work for them.' I tell you something, Mr. Cartel, darlink, that when my mother died, it was the best thing that ever happened to me when my grandmother took me in and raised me up. I tell you, you're so young. Like a baby, so young and so smart. That is why I don't like to see you worry about such a dumbhead like this one who live in a flat like this without nothing to their name. They won't ever amount to nothing, believe me. They wouldn't even know they have a brain in their head, they are such dumbheads. That's why I can't feel sorry for them when they cry on my shoulder, Oh, Mrs. Rasci this, and Oh, Mrs. Rasci that. No, they not like you, so smart and nice to talk to. I like it when you come to talk to me. But you don't got to worry about them, those dumbheads."
"Well, that's my job, Mrs. Rasci., worrying about dumbheads." Cartel's mind drifted as the old lady wandered off down the corridor. If her grandmother had been anything like her, it was no wonder Mrs. Rasci was so well off. She probably had the first dollar she ever earned. And probably will have until the day she dies.
Cartel stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door to the small apartment closed behind him before taking one last look down the corridor toward the back of the building. He spotted an open doorway a few feet farther down the hall and picked his way past some junk piled high until he reached the light switch. The yellow glare spilled softly over a giant behemoth, an old converted coal burner, chugging and sputtering away in a vain attempt to match wits with the coming chill of winter. Cartel spotted a stack of old clothes and rummaged through them. Men's clothes. Underwear. Socks. Pants. Shirts.
Strange. She said she'd been widowed for more than ten years. Yet, these can't be but a couple years old, judging from their condition. I wonder. ...
He stacked the clothes back in a pile and walked over to a wall lined with empty cardboard boxes. Behind him, a crate suddenly tumbled from its perch. Cartel leaped to one side, grabbing for his revolver, when a small, gray rat skittered along the baseboard and disappeared into a hole between two bricks. Cartel breathed out deeply. Against the wall, the shadows bobbed and weaved like a roomful of dancers on hot coals as the furnace belched rhythmically. He holstered the gun and kicked aside some more boxes. There, two feet above the floor, he discovered a cast-iron pipe poking its aged head up from the concrete. A handle extended from the center of the pipe. He examined it closely, following it back as far as his eyes could see. He turned the handle halfway, then full, and listened. Silence. Finally, he turned it back to its original position and shifted the boxes back to where they had been.
Strange.
Cartel turned back down the hall and opened the hulking door to the building, pulling the monster closed behind him and stepping back into the chill of the waning sun. The wind had stopped blowing, the calm betraying a pleasantness that existed only in his mind. To make matters worse, he wasn't any closer to solving the case of the missing skips than he'd been an hour earlier. And, yet, somehow, something in the back recesses of his mind told him that he was.
Meyers fingered a small memo pad as he spoke. He was a funny looking man with a long forehead and straight, thin hair that slunk down and across his face to one side where it seemed to reattach itself to his scalp as if by magic, like a barnacle clinging to the hull of an aging ship. His nose was long and thick at the end, a full Roman nose, while his eyes were small and bird-like—always darting, always searching, seeking to take in everything about their surroundings. He was a good enough investigator, although Cartel wished he showed more motivation. He was one of those people who did enough to get by, enough to keep out of hot water, no more. Cartel, on the other hand ...
"What'd you find out?" Cartel asked.
"The stake you asked for at the Rasci place? He just called in."
"And?"
"And he reported the usual. The two girls left the apartment this morning at 7:45, just like always. One returned at lunch and went back out half an hour later. Mrs. Rasci swept down the front steps and threw some breadcrumbs to the pigeons around ten. The two girls returned to their apartment around 4:45."
"No sign of the other one—that ... Mrs. Fougherty?"
Meyers shook his head. "Nothing. Although the lights in her apartment go on each evening around 4:30 and off, again, a little before ten."
"Anyone else enter or leave the building? Any strangers? Anyone?"
"The gas reader showed up this morning around 11, and Mrs. Rasci let him into the basement. He was there for three or four minutes and left."
Cartel hesitated, rummaging through the scant information Meyers had given him, searching for something unusual. Anything unusual. "What time is it now?"
Meyers squinted at his watch. "Quarter past five."
"Well, have our stake stick with it 'til everything's quiet, then reel him back in."
"Right." the man said, stopping suddenly. "Oh, and one other thing."
Cartel looked up.
"About 2:30 this afternoon, two men from the Salvation Army pulled up and went inside. A short while later, they came out carrying a couch."
"A couch?"
"Yeah. You know, a sofa."
"A sofa?"
"From the basement. Mrs. Rasci let them in, and a few minutes later, they carried it out to the truck and took off."
Cartel rubbed his chin. The only sofa I saw yesterday was brand new. Why would anyone donate a brand-new sofa to charity? "Who's our stake?"
"Tony Barducci. Why? You want him?"
"Yeah. Get him on the horn. I just got an idea."
Cartel slipped back into his chair and crossed his arms. This is it. You did it once too often. You're gonna play with fire, you're gonna get burned, old lady. No doubt about it. You’re gonna get burned.
Through the doorway, Cartel saw Meyers motioning him to pick up the phone. And then ...
"Cartel! Cartel, you get your fuckin' ass in here. Now! You hear me?"
Cartel jumped like his ass was on fire. Whenever the captain shouted like that, it spelled trouble. And Cartel had a good idea just what that trouble was. He hurried past an armada of metal desks leading to the captain's flagship. He glanced down at Meyers, holding out the receiver. “Barducci,” he whispered.
"Tell him I'll get back to him later. I hope."
Cartel peeked into the captain's doorway. "You wanna see me, Cap'n?"
Lombardi scribbled furiously across a sheet of paper before him, his hand moving faster than the cop's eyes could follow until he finally jammed the pencil down so hard, it snapped in two. Lombardi blinked, took a deep breath, and slowly looked up. "Get in here and close the door!"
Cartel turned and reached for the knob.
"No. No, wait. On second thought, leave it open. Leave it open so that everyone in this fucking office can hear what I'm going to say to you."
Cartel turned back around and folded his hands behind him. He stood straight and tall, eyes focused on a spot on the wall just beyond the captain's head ... just the way he'd learned to do in the Academy. It was a posture he hadn't used for fourteen years.
"Is the captain displeased with something I've done?"
Lombardi rose slowly from his chair and walked around the corner of his desk. He approached Cartel cautiously, warily, like a hungry ferret might stalk a clueless mouse. That's how Cartel had always looked at him. Like a ferret. With his long, thin nose, his swollen, darting eyes, his bushy brows and scraggily mustache. He even moved like a ferret, on short, stubby legs that couldn't outrun a
lamppost. Most of all, though, it was the way the guy thought; it was his thought process. His brain was always working, always scheming, always planning. His mind never stopped. Cartel once bet a fellow officer that the guy's brain was still racing even after he went to sleep, but neither of the cops could figure out a way to find out for sure, so they called the bet off.
"I got a call a short while ago from some woman over on Chestnut Street," he said slowly, deliberately, exaggerating every other word.
Oh, shit.
"She was concerned because she'd seen a car, a dark four-door sedan parked across the street from her apartment building for the past three days. It never leaves, she told me. And there's always someone inside it. A man or a woman, she couldn't tell, but would I mind coming over to check it out?"
Oh, fuck.
"So I told Scaliaggi and DeCico to check up on it. I told them to be careful. I told them someone might be casing the place, planning a robbery or a kidnapping or maybe even a murder, you never know, do you, Cartel?"
Cartel raised his eyebrows and shrugged. He opened his mouth to speak before quickly slamming it shut again.
"Well, Scaliaggi and DeCico got there and, sure enough, they found the car that the woman had called in about. And, sure enough, they found someone in the car that the woman had called in about. And, do you know who that someone was that the woman had called in about?"
Cartel cleared his throat. "It was ... probably Tony Barducci. I imagine. Sir."
The captain circled Cartel until he stood just inches from his junior officer's nose. He rocked back on his heels, then forward onto the balls of his feet. He rolled back and forth for what seemed to Cartel like hours until he finally broke the silence.
"No-o-o," he said slowly, deliberately. "No-o-o, it was probably not Tony Barducci, you imagine!"
Cartel's eyes shifted quickly down to Lombardi's, then back to the same spot on the wall behind the desk.
"It was definitely Tony Barducci. And you don't imagine, goddam it. You fucking know it was.” He paused “Goddam it!"
"Yessir!" Cartel snapped.
