The Moonlight

by Nicholas Guild

  But that was only when things weren’t busy at the station. Alice never asked questions, but she scanned the Greenley Times as if were holy writ and always knew if he was working on something important and would be taking his lunch with him. She was the best god damned woman on the Eastern Seaboard.

  And, although not particularly horny, Detective Lieutenant Spolino would have loved just then to walk the eight blocks to his front door and to have a quick pop with his homely little wife. Because, just at the moment, he wasn’t feeling a whole lot like King Kong.

  Leo Galatina, George Patchmore, and Charlie Brush. Two down, and one to go.

  Just to be sure that nobody was getting cute, Spolino phoned the City Reports Department, which was only across the street, and asked for a copy of George Patchmore’s death certificate. Five minutes later it was on his desk.

  Nothing. George Patchmore had died of a cerebral hemorrhage, a fact which was confirmed at autopsy. No chance of foul play.

  So what was the connection?

  Like everyone else in town over the age of forty, Spolino knew all the stories about George Patchmore and the Moonlight Roadhouse. The only difference was that, having Lucio Spolino for a grandfather and growing up with the children of other Family members, he knew that the stories were true. Old George, while not a made man, had been someone who did favors for the right kind of people, and who received favors in his turn. George was not invited to weddings and funerals—though crooked, George had been an outsider, in the same way that Spolino’s father, though just an honest baker, had been an insider. But George had intimità. He was up to his armpits in the Family shit.

  But that had been thirty-five years ago, and nobody waits thirty-five years to get even. Revenge or profit, those were the only two reasons why you killed a man like Leo Galatina, and the only people who stood to profit from Leo’s death were his children and grandchildren, who would know better. That left revenge, but whoever was settling scores was a little slow off the mark.

  Tom Spolino hated this case, if only because its logic eluded him.

  So—when logic failed, you returned to the crime site and the physical evidence.

  Spolino had received the call just as he and Alice were sitting down for Murder, She Wrote, which he watched every Sunday night for the sake of its touching naïveté. He was in his car and up on Mill Road within ten minutes, the officer on the scene already had the area roped off to traffic, and there was still plenty of daylight. Galatina was on his way to the hospital, but the blood and the tire marks were perfectly plain to see.

  Of the two, the tire marks were the more interesting, because somebody had really put down the rubber. A fast acceleration, a heavy foot on the brakes but not until well past the point of impact. Then, instead of just taking off, which was what you’d expect, the guy had backed up and gone over Leo again—which pretty well ruled this out as a traffic accident. Leo must have been one tough old bastard. It was a miracle he even made it into the ambulance.

  From the distance between the tracks it was a fair sized vehicle, but nobody uses a kiddy car to run somebody down.

  The old man had been out walking his dog, and the dog was still alive, although its leg was broken and it was yelping like hell. Spolino himself called the Humane Society to come and take it away, and then he went inside to talk to the housekeeper. She was hysterical.

  No she hadn’t seen anything and no Mr. Galatina didn’t have any enemies and why should a wonderful old man like Mr. Galatina have any enemies and why had the ambulance taken so long to get here and. . .

  Spolino went into the kitchen and hunted around until he found the inevitable bottle of brandy. He poured the housekeeper about two fingers, after which she started to calm down.

  “What will happen to the dog?” she asked, once she had regained her composure.

  “If it’s hurt bad enough they’ll probably destroy it.”

  “Good.”

  The idea seemed to give her real satisfaction. It made you wonder how many years she had lived in this house, hating that dog.

  “If you didn’t see anything, did you hear anything?”

  “Just the squeal of tires, and then the dog yelping. . .”

  That seemed about to set her off again, so Spolino gave her another tot of brandy. She was probably sixty years old, hard featured but without a line of gray in her hair. Maybe she dyed it.

  “How many squeals?”

  She thought for a moment, and the intellectual effort was more steadying than the brandy.

  “Two,” she said. “Yes, two.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The sound of a car door slamming.”

  So, the bastard had gotten out to take a look.

  “Where were you when you heard all this?”

  “On the porch—I always wait on the porch until Mr. Galatina comes back from his walk.”

  “Then you had a clear view of the road. And you didn’t see the car?”

  “No. Mr. Galatina was still out of sight around the curve when it happened.”

  “Did you see any car?”

  “No.”

  That was not surprising. Galatina had been struck down about fifty yards along the road, and whoever did this was not going to advertise his intentions by cruising the neighborhood. He must have been parked and waiting.

  She also told him that Mr. Galatina took his constitutional every evening at about this time. He and the dog would do a brisk forty minutes after supper. It wasn’t a secret. Everybody in the neighborhood knew Mr. Galatina’s habits.

  Leo must have walked right by the parked car, except that Leo wasn’t the type to walk past a parked car, with the driver sitting inside, without it registering that this was something to be wary of. He was old, but he wasn’t that old.

  Unless the car was waiting in somebody’s driveway—then he might not even see it.

  A check of the neighborhood turned up that the Crockers—across the street and three or four houses down, but with a driveway that was long and shaded by line of tall hedges—were in California visiting their daughter, who had just been delivered of her second child. A search of the driveway turned up four cigarette butts lying close together, as if someone had been sitting in a car, waiting. Bensen & Hedges 100s. The interesting thing was that the cigarettes were found on what would have been the passenger side. Had there been two people in the car? If you’re going to murder someone, do you bring a guest?

  It was a weird case. Spolino didn’t like it at all.

  He had just finished his chicken salad sandwich and was prepared to toss the wadded-up little ball of saran wrap into his wastepaper basket when the phone rang.

  “Tom, are ready for something strange?”

  It was Harry Thurman from the crime lab over in Stamford, where the physical evidence had been sent for analysis. Greenley just wasn’t up to something like this.

  “So tell me,” Spolino answered. “I just love good news.”

  “There was no saliva on the cigarettes.”

  “Maybe the guy used a holder.”

  “Sorry—we got a very clear lip print off one of them, and a partial fingerprint from another. I’m not quite sure how it’s possible without leaving any saliva, but he was smoking ’em just like you and me.”

  Except that Tom Spolino didn’t smoke.

  “Enough on the fingerprint for an identification?”

  “No chance.”

  Fine. Wonderful.

  “What else have you got to make me feel better?”

  “We ran Galatina’s clothes, and we came up with some broken glass from the headlight and some paint. You’re looking for a wine red Lincoln Town Car model years ’88 through ’89.”

  Spolino tendered his thanks and hung up. He had an appointment.

  Chapter 10

  Robert Henry Galatina, whose name incorporated the anglicized versions of his father’s and grandfather’s but who, ever since The Godfather, liked to be called “Sonny,” lived on a huge
estate in New Canaan. He had been his father’s underboss since the age of twenty and was now the Don. He lived like one. The driveway gate even had guards, but they were principally for show. There hadn’t been any serious trouble among the Connecticut Families for a long time.

  Thomas Spolino and Robert Galatina had played together as children. They had traded homework answers in high school and had popped their cherries on the same girl. They were friends. They hardly ever saw each other—it didn’t do for cops and wise guys to mix socially; it made a bad impression, on both sides of the line—but they were still friends. In the past thirty years they had met perhaps half a dozen times, and on those rare and companionable occasions their conflicting professions did not get in the way. Tom Spolino knew there was no way he was ever going to get a chance to bust Sonny Galatina. It just wasn’t going to happen. That made everything a lot easier.

  The guards at the gate knew Spolino was expected and knew him by sight, so he was waved through. The driveway, which must have been a quarter of a mile long, ended in a huge turning circle in front of a house that could probably best be described as Builder’s Colonial—impressive for size, but not for much else.

  There was a columned portico over the double-door entrance. And Sonny Galatina was standing under it, dressed in bright green slacks and a Hawaiian shirt, smiling brightly, ready to greet his old buddy who had disappointed everybody by joining the police.

  Time had not been kind to the Boss of Bosses. The muscular boy who had played sandlot baseball was fat and almost elderly. His face was pouchy and his throat hung under his jaw like a bag. His black hair was getting gray. The rings on his fingers seemed embedded in flesh. He looked like a man in training for a fatal coronary.

  Spolino got out of his car, feeling like a guest at a funeral.

  “How are you, Bob?” he said, without enthusiasm. “How’s Trish?”

  “Who knows?” The Don laughed, taking Spolino’s hand in both of his and pumping wildly. “In Florida someplace, screwin’ around with twenty-year-old beach bums. I’m workin’ on Number Three now. Hah, hah, hah. Come inside—you look great.”

  He put his arm over Spolino’s shoulders and almost dragged him through the double doors, where they were hit by a blast of frigid air-conditioning. As they made their way through the house they talked about the past, about half-forgotten athletic triumphs, about girls who by now might be grandmothers, about the world they had once shared, a history now so remote it they could only marvel that it was their own. The conversation had the quality of a religious ritual, a solemn requiem over their long-dead youth.

  The rooms through which they passed were all possessed of the same stale glamour: expensive, uncomfortable-looking furniture made of leather and chrome tubing; paintings no one ever looked at; pile carpet so deep you almost tripped on it. It was not so much a home as a showplace, a collection of trophies, a place to witness its owner’s power. The rooms were silent, for, although Sonny Galatina had three or four children by his various wives, none of them lived with him.

  They sat down in what would probably be described as the den.

  “You want a drink, Tom?”

  “Maybe just some coffee,” Spolino answered, shaking his head.

  As if by magic, a woman appeared in the doorway. She was probably about twenty-five and dressed in extremely tight orange capri pants that stopped a couple of inches below her navel, along with a little halter top to match and little white leather sandals that revealed red painted toenails. She was blond, very striking, and wore too much makeup. She seemed to be waiting for something, if only for her rather obvious beauty to have its effect.

  Spolino, who had not been raised in a barn, started to stand up, but Galatina motioned him back down.

  “Traci, honey, bring us some coffee,” he said.

  Traci disappeared and returned a few minutes later with a tray. While she was bending over to set it on the table Galatina put his hand on her rear end, as if he were patting a dog.

  “Now run along, honey—man talk.”

  The chair on which Galatina was sitting was so deep that it held him like a trap. He had to struggle to get close enough to the table to pour the coffee. When he had handed a cup to Spolino, he sank back with evident relief.

  “This is a bad thing about Uncle Leo,” he said, frowning so that his face puckered. “What have you got for me, Tom?”

  Spolino took a moment to consider being offended, and then decided he would be wasting his time. He took a sip of his coffee, decided it was too strong, and put the cup back down on the tray.

  “The investigation is proceeding normally,” he said, as if reciting his social security number.

  This, however, was not the answer Sonny Galatina wanted to hear.

  “Don’t blow smoke at me, Tom,” he said, in a low, intense voice that probably scared hell out of his underlings. “You’re Family, remember? Your grandfather swore allegiance to my grandfather.”

  “And I swore allegiance to the Constitution of the State of Connecticut. We’ve been friends for a long time, Bob, but don’t push it.”

  For a moment the Don hardly moved, as if he could hardly believe what he was hearing, and then suddenly he smiled and made a little gesture, turning out of the palms of his hands like a man offering surrender.

  “Okay, Tom, but you have to understand my position.” Sonny Galatina, man of affairs, sat back in his glove-leather chair as if it were a throne. “Somebody topped Uncle Leo. I didn’t much like the old bastard, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he was blood. I don’t approve of people knocking down old men with cars. I can’t ignore this.”

  And all at once Spolino knew why he had been asked to come. Sonny Galatina didn’t expect to be handed Leo’s killer—he just wanted to make it clear that he hadn’t sent the guy and didn’t know who did. He wanted Tom Spolino to know his hands were clean.

  “When I find the perpetrator, it’s up to the courts to decide what happens to him.”

  “Bullshit!” Galatina exploded good-naturedly. “The courts can go fuck themselves. It’s up to me.”

  Spolino didn’t answer, because there was no answer. When it came to it, Sonny Galatina was right—the police could arrest and the courts could convict, but the Family had a reach that extended right into the state prison system, and the Family would pass sentence.

  If Detective Lieutenant Thomas Spolino ever arrested anyone in connection with this case, or even indicated a suspect, he would be resigning the poor slob to death.

  So when you don’t have an answer, you ask another question.

  “Who would want to kill Uncle Leo, Bob?”

  Galatina shrugged.

  “Everybody and nobody,” he said, as if stating the obvious. “He wasn’t a nice man, and he made a lot of enemies over the years.” Suddenly his eyes narrowed. “What is this, Tom—are you telling me it was a hit?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Well I’ll be fucked.” The Don shook his head in apparent disbelief. “I thought it was a traffic accident. I suppose I should’ve known better.”

  “I suppose you should have. Tell me what you know about Uncle Leo, Bob.”

  There was a second cup on the tray. With great effort, Galatina leaned forward and filled it about two thirds of the way up with coffee. Then he added two heaping teaspoons of sugar and topped it up with cream that was so heavy it seemed to fall in lumps. When he had tasted it and was satisfied it wasn’t going to poison him, he relaxed and let the chair enfold him again.

  “You know I can’t tell you stuff like that, Tom. I can’t talk to the police about Uncle Leo.”

  “Uncle Leo is dead,” Spolino pointed out, as if he thought it might have slipped the Don’s mind. “Everyone knows he hasn’t been a player in years. It’s ancient history.”

  “Can’t do it, Tom.”

  “Then tell me about George Patchmore.”

  “George Patchmore?”

  “George Patchmore, onetime propr
ietor of the Moonlight Roadhouse, now both defunct. Tell me about George Patchmore.”

  “Oh him—what’s he got to go with anything?”

  “You tell me.”

  Galatina seemed genuinely surprised. He sat there, the hand that held his cup and saucer balanced on his considerable expanse of belly—you could watch the cup rise and fall as he breathed, which he seemed to do with conscious effort—and it was almost possible to hear the wheels turning his head? Was it safe? Was it? Was anything safe?

  Spolino was very happy he had followed his father’s example and declined a place in the Galatina organization.

  “In business with Uncle Leo,” the Don said at last, speaking as if he had to feel his way across the words. “But that was in another life. Years ago. What difference can it make now?”

  “Some people stay mad a long time, Bob.”

  “Yeah.” Sonny Galatina nodded, appreciating the tenacity of hate as perhaps few other men could.

  “Help me, Bob. You want this guy, and I want him. But I’m the only one who can catch him. We can worry about who has jurisdiction later.”

  . . . . .

  “George Patchmore was a holdover from the old days,” explained Sonny Galatina, capo di tutti capi, as he adjusted the waistband of his bright green trousers—even in the arctic cool of that relentlessly air conditioned room, he looked hot. “We organized Connecticut a lot later than New York and New Jersey, and there were holdovers. George was one. He was cooperative. It was more convenient to use him than to put in one of our own people.”

  Tom Spolino merely nodded. He had understood so well he didn’t even have to make the translation in his head: We let George live when we pushed out the small fry. He did us a favor by not making an issue of loyalty to his friends. He sold out.

  “The Moonlight was a drop off for stuff coming north. You know how that works—George would sit on a package for a few days and then take a small percentage as his fee.”