Ellipsis

by Stephen Greenleaf

  I leaned against the fender and waited. The cop went down the road to a new blue Chrysler that was parked in the shadows of a hulking storage tank at the far end of the lot. A moment later he trudged back. “Vince’ll meet.” He pointed. “At the car.”

  I followed him back to the Chrysler. As we approached, a door opened and a man got out. He was large and muscular, filling his black turtleneck and canvas cargo pants with muscle and swagger. He wore a shoulder holster on his flank and a black SFPD baseball cap on his head. His eyes were lazy and lidded, but I doubted they missed much of interest. His mouth was toothy and genuinely amused, the way sharks sometimes look, as though he were in his element and I were an unwitting new snack.

  Hardy put me in mind of someone, and suddenly I realized it was Charley. Except if what I’d heard about Vincent Hardy was true, he was the anti-Sleet, the antithesis of everything Charley believed, Darth Vader to Charley’s Luke. It would be a pleasure to put him out of business. It might also be a bloody mess.

  Hardy inspected me the way he would a new weapon. “You’re Tanner.”

  “Right.”

  “Sleet’s buddy.”

  “Yep.”

  “You think you got something I need.”

  “Yep.”

  He looked beyond me toward the hulk of the decrepit shipyard blotting out the sky at my back. “You didn’t do anything stupid like bring backup, I hope.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Like you said. That would be stupid.”

  He considered the quip, then nodded. “Okay, make it quick. What the fuck do you want?”

  “A piece of your action.”

  “What kind of piece?”

  “Four thousand a month.”

  “That’s a big piece.”

  “I’ve got a big prize.”

  He crossed his arms in easy anticipation, as if I’d offered to tell him a lawyer joke. “What prize is that?”

  I made him wait for it. Somewhere, a siren mocked our lawlessness. Behind Hardy’s hat, a top-heavy freighter steamed out of the bay with the grace and displacement of a hippo. The smells of leaking fuels mixed with the odor of decomposing marine life to make a stench as potent as kraut. The wind still whistled; the fog was still tangible and cautionary; the only humans in sight probably wanted me dead. I didn’t hear anything alien or alarming, but I didn’t know what that meant.

  “I’ve got a girlfriend,” I said when it was time to move things along.

  “Great. So do I. Three of them, in fact.”

  “Mine is an assistant DA.”

  Hardy nodded with satisfaction, as though he’d beaten the information out of me. “So I hear.”

  “Then maybe you also heard she’s running the grand jury looking into your little boys’ club.”

  “I heard that, too. So what?”

  “I can tell you what’s going to happen in that grand jury before it happens.”

  His shrug was massive and self-explanatory. “Why would I care?”

  “Because they’re after the circus that’s called the Triad and you’re the ringmaster.”

  “Says who?”

  “One of the witnesses before the grand jury.”

  “What witness?”

  “Wally Briscoe.”

  His snort was brusque and autocratic. “Briscoe’s not going to be a problem.”

  “Not anymore,” I acknowledged. “But there are other witnesses where he came from. Do we have a deal or not?”

  His sneer was damning and dismissive. “I still don’t see what I get out of this.”

  “You get to know the evidence the DA’s got against you. You get to know what times you need an alibi for, what forensics you need to explain, and what witnesses you need to discredit. And you get all that before you get your subpoena.”

  He started to walk away, then didn’t. “Guaranteed?”

  “Solid gold. But I need something in addition to the four thousand bucks.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Protection.”

  “From what?”

  “From you.”

  “What kind of protection are you talking about?”

  “I need a statement that you gave the order for Briscoe to be killed.”

  That his concurrence was immediate was the most frightening thing so far. “Okay. You got it.”

  “And I need the names of the triggers.”

  “Storrs and Prester.”

  “And I need to know that you or your people set the bomb that blew up Chandelier Wells.”

  “You got it,” he said with a grin, as though we’d just perfected a juggling routine.

  “And I need all of it in writing.”

  His smile turned sloppy and insecure. Without a word, he turned toward the Chrysler. “Kill him,” he said to someone inside.

  As two guys got out of the Chrysler and poked their handguns at me, Vincent Hardy turned back to me and smiled. “You want to know your mistake, Mr. Private Cop?”

  “I’m always up for self-improvement.”

  “We already got a line to the grand jury.”

  “Not Jill Coppelia,” I blurted, more as testimonial than question.

  Hardy shook his head.

  “Then who is it?” I asked.

  But no one heard me.

  Chapter 30

  The first shot cut Hardy off in midword. The second was a head shot that took out one of the guys with a gun trained on my chest. The third wasn’t fired with a pistol, it was a volley of words made indelible by someone holding a bullhorn. “Freeze! Police! Drop your weapons and hit the dirt. You know the position. Assume it!”

  After that came the floodlights, accentuating every evil detail of the impound yard, animate and inanimate, alive and dead. I stayed as still as I could and kept my hands in the air, hoping they’d know me as a good guy.

  They had come over water, not land as the Triad had expected, the way Wolfe had come against Montcalm at Quebec. Lucky for me, the element of surprise had produced the same result—the grungy citadel that was the staging ground for the Triad’s reign of terror fell quickly and decisively, with little in the way of resistance. The genesis of the assault—that someone in the police department would actually try to shut him and his criminal enterprise down—seemed more shocking to Vincent Hardy than the ambush itself.

  Hardy wasn’t a fool. Once his adjutant had been taken out, he didn’t move a muscle except his lips, which stretched in a sardonic smile as his hands moved away from his sides in the universal gesture of surrender. The smile suggested what I already knew to be true—that this wasn’t the end of the game, this was only halftime.

  “I covered my ass, you pimp,” Hardy hissed above the commotion that swirled around us. “I’ll be back on the street before noon.”

  “Maybe,” I acknowledged. “Or maybe you finally went too far. Maybe someone took the baton from Charley and decided it was time to purge the department of scum suckers like you.”

  His teeth gleamed like fangs. “There’s nobody in this outfit with that kind of guts now that Sleet’s in the ground.”

  I looked to my left, toward the platoon of cops who were rounding up a dozen or more of Hardy’s henchmen. “I think the captain over there might disagree with you,” I said as I watched Mark Belcastro fit a pair of plastic cuffs around the wrists of one of the men from the Chrysler.

  “Belcastro eats shit,” Hardy swore, then put his hands on top of his car and waited for someone to arrest him. If I believed the New Age mantra that all things happen for reasons, I’d believe that my finger had been broken in this very spot a year earlier to make this moment possible.

  Impressed by their efficiency and élan, I watched Belcastro’s troops round up the members of the Triad who were present for the festivities. The exercise culminated in the arrival of a paddy wagon to haul away the catch of the day. Such was the professionalism of the squad, none of the Triad put up an ounce of resistance, not even when Belcastro rea
d them their rights.

  Of the dozen men put in custody, none were Prester or Storrs. But if Belcastro had employed the eavesdropping equipment I’d suggested to Jill that he bring, Hardy’s casual indictment of the two detectives would be admissible evidence and it would be only a matter of time before they were brought in. And if Jill was as good at her job as I thought she was, there would be so many cops rolling over on their confederates to cut themselves a deal, the Triad would be out of business before the end of the week.

  I was halfway back to the Buick when Belcastro looked over at me from the paddy wagon and nodded, which I interpreted to mean he’d gotten what he needed to enable Jill to indict and convict. A moment later, as he was being herded toward a squad car and kept away from his mates, Vincent Hardy called out for the others to keep quiet till they talked with a lawyer, but his mandate seemed more plaintive than defiant. After that, one of the Triad men let out a loud curse as he was unceremoniously hustled into the paddy wagon by a cop who had taken the same oath to serve and protect the city as had his prisoner.

  My gun was off the roof of the car and back in its holster when I felt a hand on my arm, then a kiss on my cheek. “Thank you for this,” Jill said softly. “It will save us a lot of time.”

  I turned and gave her a hug. “And get you a lot of convictions.”

  “I hope so. You’re all right, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine. Though for a minute I was worried you were going to be late to the dance.”

  “Turned out the Coast Guard couldn’t help. We had to use a fireboat.”

  “Nice job of improvising, counselor.”

  She grinned. “We got it all, too—video and audio both.”

  “That’s great.” I lowered my voice. “Did you hear the part about the mole in your unit?”

  She nodded. “We think we know who it is. We had some suspicions ourselves, so we pretty much cut him out of the loop several weeks back.”

  “Good.”

  She couldn’t suppress a wider smile. “God. I’m so wired I could fly. I’m starting to see why men like war so much.”

  “Maybe Spielberg will make a movie of it.”

  Something in my tone made her calm down. “I’m being silly, I know. If they’d started shooting, it would have been terrible. For one thing, you might be dead.”

  “Or hiding under a Honda, at least.”

  Her expression turned grave. “I hope this makes up for Wally Briscoe.”

  “It will,” I lied. “In time.” After absorbing the moment for another minute, I added, “There’s one other thing that might help.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The FBI might have someone undercover inside the Triad.”

  “Really? What makes you think so?”

  “The speed with which an exagent decided the car bomb that hurt Chandelier Wells wasn’t targeting his pal Filson.”

  Jill’s features furled prettily. “I don’t know if that’s a good development or not. The feebs foul things up as often as they help out.”

  “Just wanted you to know the score.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” Jill looked once again at the benighted surroundings, this time with a proprietary air of obvious satisfaction. “I guess it’s under control.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “I’d better get some sleep before the arraignments.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Will you call me tomorrow? I should be back in the office by eleven.”

  “Sure.”

  “I really do appreciate this, Marsh. The city will be lots better off with these guys behind bars.”

  “I know.”

  “Well …”

  “Well …”

  Like ballplayers after a big win, we were reluctant to leave the field, so we didn’t. “Belcastro will want a complete statement from you, probably,” Jill commented absently.

  “Anytime.”

  “Their lawyers will be all over you, too. Trying to break down your testimony.”

  “I’ve dealt with lawyers before. If it gets to be a problem, I’ll get one of my own.”

  “We could send someone down to advise you, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “Well …”

  “Well …”

  “I should be going.”

  I smiled. “Yes, you should.”

  Her voice lowered to a lusty hum. “What I’d really like to do is make love.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Right here, right now.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Some sort of posttraumatic stress, I guess.”

  I laughed.

  “Well …”

  “Well …”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Right.”

  This time we got the job done.

  I drove home on automatic pilot, glad the ambush had worked out, glad Jill was glad, too, glad the police department might be a shade more upright in the months to come, glad I’d helped put Chandelier and Millicent and Violet and Eleanor out of danger. But my reverie was broken when I turned into my street and saw enough red lights to suggest all of the cops in the city were congregating at my doorstep.

  I pulled to the curb and stopped, in the grip of the sudden fear that a gang war of sorts had begun, a struggle between good cops and bad for control of the department and in some sense the soul of the city. I took my gun out of its holster and laid it in my lap. Then I waited to see if the remnants of the Triad had come to exorcise me before I could do any more harm to their cause.

  But the longer I waited the less sense it made. If they came for me at all, it would be a sneak attack from cover, an anonymous assault in a city that was full of anonymous assaults, not the obvious extravaganza taking place down the street. Something else must have happened; something other than my hunch.

  Normally I park in the garage beneath the building, but the way was blocked by an ambulance and a squad car. As I pulled to the curb for the second time, two EMTs emerged from my building shepherding a body on a gurney. The body was entirely draped in blue blankets, and the flashing lights on the ambulance suddenly went dark—sure signs that someone had died under my roof. With a jolt of anger and adrenaline, it occurred to me that the corpse might have been in the way of a weapon that had been targeted at me.

  When I opened the door to the building, I came face-to-face with a uniformed cop. He crossed his arms and inspected me as though I were stark naked. “You have business here, sir?”

  Because of the events of the evening, I was sure I looked capable of whatever crime had just been committed. “I live here,” I explained.

  “Where?”

  I pointed up. “Apartment three.”

  “How long have you lived there?”

  “Almost twenty years.”

  “You know the woman in two?”

  “Pearl. Pearl Gibson. Did something happen to her?”

  “She’s dead.”

  I sighed. “Who did it?”

  The cop blinked and stepped back and put his hand on his weapon. “Now why would you say something like that?”

  “I don’t know. It just came to mind.”

  “She was an old woman. Seems to me what would come to your mind would be stroke. Or maybe heart attack. Not homicide.”

  “I saw her two days ago. She seemed as healthy as you do.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” he said, looking me over even more closely, as if to prove his point.

  “I’d like to know what happened to her,” I said while the inventory was still in progress.

  He ignored me. “Where were you earlier this evening, Mr.…?”

  “Tanner.”

  “Tanner.”

  I nodded.

  Something came to his mind and he voiced it. “You’re the guy who killed Sleet.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “You were his buddy.”

  “Yes.”

  “He forced your hand.”

  I nodd
ed.

  The cop stuck out his hand. “Hollingsworth. Central Station. Charley was the best cop in the city.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “They say you did him a favor.”

  “I hope so.”

  In response to some inner rhetoric, the cop made a decision to trust me. “Know anything about the old woman?”

  “Not much. She was a little eccentric but she was nice. So it wasn’t a violent death?”

  He shook his head. “Not according to the ME at this point. Of course it’s not official till the PM.”

  “When you find out for sure, will you let me know?”

  “Sure.”

  He started to turn away but I grabbed his arm. “How come you’re here, anyway?”

  He shrugged. “All I know is someone called it in as possible foul play.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “How long has she been dead?”

  “Not more than twelve hours.”

  “How did the caller know about it?”

  “Don’t know that either. You might talk to dispatch at the station.” He touched his hat like someone out of Dickens. “Have a good evening. We should be out of here in a few minutes.”

  “Take care. And thanks.”

  He turned away, then turned back. “You still didn’t tell me where you were this evening.”

  “You’ll read about it in the morning papers.”

  Chapter 31

  I slept late and stayed in bed even later. Although I should have been thinking about Jill Coppelia or Chandelier Wells or any number of other people nearer the core of my life, I spent most of my time thinking about Pearl Gibson.

  After Hollingsworth had left the scene, another cop asked me if I knew any of Pearl’s next of kin. I told him I didn’t. Then he asked if I knew if she had any close friends. Although it occurred to me the mailman might qualify, I told him I didn’t know of any. After they hauled her off to the morgue, I calculated my liquid assets with a view toward assuming the expense of her burial, since I seemed to be the only option that could keep her out of potter’s field.

  Inevitably, thinking about Pearl made me think about age and my birthday. And thinking about age and my birthday made me think about the future. More specifically, it made me wonder whether I could, in good conscience, keep doing what I had done for a living the past twenty years.