He turned back to the men in the room; they were staring.
“Who owns the building?” he asked.
“The Archdiocese of New York,” Jenkins replied.
Burstein turned to Ben. “Is the nun in there?” he asked, pointing.
“Yes,” said Ben. “She’s always there. When you leave, look up at the window. It’s night, so you may not be able to see very much, but you should be able to barely make her out. If not, you can try tomorrow.”
“I want to speak to your wife’s doctor in the morning,” Burstein said, after a long pause. “I want to know when I can talk to her. And I don’t want anybody in this room to leave the city, unless we’re notified. Understood?”
The men nodded.
“Good,” Burstein said.
Burstein and Wausau left the apartment. Outside, Burstein stopped in front of the nun’s door. He listened. Nothing. He knocked. No answer.
“You’re not serious about this, are you?” Wausau asked.
Burstein walked to the elevator and pressed the call button. “I want you to find a file for me…go back about ten years. It was a multiple homicide. A detective named Gatz was the officer of record. Try Allison Parker, Michael Farmer, Joseph Brenner. The file would be listed under one of those names. I want you to read it. Then I want to know what you think about an old blind and paralyzed nun.”
The elevator arrived.
“Okay,” Wausau said, as he stepped inside.
“Then I want you to invent a good excuse for a warrant.”
“What kind of warrant?”
Burstein looked back down the hall before stepping into the elevator car. “I want to get into the nun’s apartment.”
The elevator door closed. And they were gone.
Faye was breathing slowly very slowly. At peace. With some of the anemic look replaced by a touch of facial color and life.
Ben leaned over and kissed her cheek.
The Valium was working. He hoped he’d be able to sleep as well.
The baby was quiet, too, having awakened only once during the confusion, then falling back to sleep quickly with a minimum of complaint.
Ben took off his pants and laid them neatly over the lounge chair. He didn’t want Faye to wake up in the morning and see his clothes tossed in all directions. He would be neat for once. And cause her no more problems, no matter how trivial.
Into the bathroom. A quick tooth-brushing. A look at his heavy dark eyes. A click of the light switch. And into bed.
The soft bed. Under warm blankets. And the sound of Faye’s gently moving chest next to him.
The ticking of the clock, too.
He stopped breathing, afraid to disturb the symmetry of the room…that strange, almost bucolic atmosphere of darkness and silence.
And he wanted to sleep.
He closed his eyes.
What had Faye said? “I think we’d all be better off, if we just forgot about her, left her alone.”
He turned on his side.
“Damn.”
5
Inspector Burstein walked into the offices of Manhattan Homicide at eleven o’clock.
“Did you get any rest?” detective Wausau asked, as he stepped out of the detail room to Burstein’s side.
Burstein shook his head and fought back a yawn, ignoring the last trace of the twisting migraine that had raced up the back of his neck shortly after he’d crawled into bed at four-forty in the morning.
They entered the Inspector’s office. Burstein place his hat and coat on a peg, crossed the room, and sat at his desk, a cluttered monument to overwork and underpay. Pouring a cup of coffee from a thermos he carried in his overcoat, he glanced over the duty roster, then looked up, stretching his features once more into a yawn. “What about Eighty-ninth Street?” he asked, unbuttoning the collar of his stay-pressed shirt and loosening his tie.
Wausau cleared his throat and adjusted his tortoise-shell glasses. “I spoke to Forensic,” he said. “They checked for the body parts, but found nothing. And there are no prints. They’ll have a report here by noon.”
Burstein nodded, while rearranging the papers on the desk. “Was the building covered?”
“Yes, but we’re still running down three tenants, two of whom are women.”
“Who’s the man?”
Wausau opened his notebook. “His name is Louis Petrosevic. He’s on the twentieth floor. Across the hall from the Burdetts.”
Burstein stretched, then grabbed a pencil and began to scribble on the blotter. “When was Petrosevic last seen?”
Wausau turned several pages, then answered. “Yesterday. At work. He sells copying supplies. We called his office and spoke to his secretary. She said he left at five o’clock to see a client, intending to go home afterward. As far as we can tell, he never made it back to the apartment.”
The pencil broke; Burstein tossed it to the side and rubbed his hands over his face. “Okay,” he said. He sipped the coffee. “That’s a possibility.”
“I went ahead and compiled a profile, just in case.”
“Good.”
The phone rang. Burstein answered it and referred the caller to one of the staff detectives. “What about the files?”
Wausau’s face drew blank. “There are none!” he announced.
“What!” Burstein cried, shooting to his feet.
“I checked everywhere,” Wausau said nervously. “Under every name you gave me. But there’s nothing.”
“Not even a catalog listing?”
“Sure. It’s listed. They have it on the computer. But the files are gone. They’ve been misplaced or stolen. I checked for duplicates. Dead end there, too.”
“God damn,” Burstein cried bitterly. “God fucking damn. I want you to double-check.” He paced nervously around the desk. “What about the warrant?”
Wausau popped a stick of gum into his mouth. “I spoke to the D.A. We need more than an intuition.”
“That figures.” Burstein looked through the bars on his window. There wasn’t much of a view. Just a yard and the wall of the next building. He turned. “I need some time to think.”
“You know where to find me,” Wausau said. He walked out.
Burstein fished out a new pencil, scribbled a bit, closed his eyes, then grabbed the phone and slowly dialed. The line chattered noisily and began to ring.
“I was certainly surprised to hear from you,” former Chief Inspector Thomas Gatz said in a familiar low-pitched twang that was forever irritating to the ear. The sound emanated from deep in his throat and took much of its form from the unnatural tucked-in position of his jaw, which caused the muscles to constrict and the vocal cords to compress. “How long’s it been, since we’ve seen each other?” he asked, his attention focused on Burstein’s inexpressive face.
“A year,” Burstein answered, ignoring the din in the overcrowded luncheonette. “Maybe more.”
Gatz looked down at the bowl of chicken broth that had been delivered moments before. A squat little man with an angular face, he had a pair of black eyes, a long nose with a lump on the bridge, and two unnaturally thin and colorless lips. On his head was an old fedora, which blended perfectly with his oversized suit. His shirt was soiled and spotted with coffee stains; it was also covered with ashes that had fallen from a chewed-up cigar that hung from his mouth and bobbed about as he ruminated.
“A year’s too long,” he complained, shaking his head. “So then why the call now? A problem?”
“You might say that.”
“After all I taught you!”
Burstein lifted his brow. Had he really learned anything from the old cantankerous bastard? He smiled, then nibbled at the edge of a corned-beef sandwich. “You taught me a lot, but there were even cases that stumped you.”
“Not many!” Gatz said with certa
inty.
Burstein smirked. “What have you been up to?”
“Not much. I was never made for retirement. Sure, there are things to do. But I’d rather be back on the force. There are times that I feel like busting inside.”
“Why don’t you take a part-time job?”
“I have one. Night watchman three nights a week at Con Edison. It’s a snap, but boring as hell. You know, there ain’t many good openings once you reach sixty-five.”
Burstein mumbled sympathetically.
“Cut it!” I don’t need sympathy from a bald Jewish cop with a nagging wife and chronic hemorrhoids.”
“And you’re not going to get any, you old bastard!”
“Fuck you!”
They both laughed.
“You’ve been well?” Burstein asked.
Gatz nodded. “I’ve got arthritis. But other than that I’m alive. I keep myself busy enough to get by. Most nights, when I’m not at Con Ed, I watch old movies. There’s a theater up here that plays the damn things. Three different ones a night. They start at eight and end near midnight. Yesterday they had Wings, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Little Caesar.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen them.”
“You’re an uncultured bastard, Burstein. You know that?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Why I ever liked you, I’ll never know.”
Burstein laughed once more. The waitress came and deposited two cups of coffee. Then Burstein leaned toward his former superior and said, “Where in the hell am I going to find the time to watch old movies? I got two kids to put through school. And a wife to keep in groceries.”
Gatz beamed. “The family okay?”
“Sure,” Burstein replied. He dug out his wallet and lifted three pictures, placing them on the tabletop. “The two boys. And the wife.” He pointed. “That’s Michael. The oldest. You remember?” Gatz nodded. “He’s in his third year at Boston College. When he graduates, he’s going to law school. He’s not gonna start out pounding a beat like you and I did.”
“Worse could happen to him, but he becomes a lawyer, he becomes a rich man.”
Burstein pointed once more. “That’s Ricky. He’s a freshman at Syracuse University. He’s a good kid. He’s studying to be a pharmacist.”
Gatz picked up the picture of the younger son. “Good-looking boy, Jake. It’s amazing how fast they’ve grown. I remember when you joined my squad. Ricky couldn’t have been older than two or three.”
“That’s right.”
“I look at this, it makes me think that I should have married and had kids.” He laughed. “As it was, I did have kids in a way. You and Rizzo. I loved you both. When Rizzo died in the car accident; it took a piece out of me.”
“I know,” Burstein said.
The old man was baring himself, looking for a kind ear, a friend. But the mention of Rizzo must have disturbed him, because he suddenly changed the subject, returning to the topic of old films.
“Let me tell you about these movies,” he said, removing the cigar from his mouth for the first time and tasting the broth. “In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Charles Laughton plays the bell-ringer, Quasimodo. Remember that sergeant in Vice up on 188th Street? I think his name was Melvany.”
“Yes.”
“Looked a little like him. Christ, Melvany was the ugliest bastard I ever saw.”
Burstein studied Gatz’s face, the absence of emotion. It was time. “I want to talk to you about something…like you said, a problem.”
“Quasimodo was found as a child by the Chief Justice of the French Courts, and lived in Notre Dame, where the Chief Justice’s brother was bishop, and…”
“Listen to me.”
“There was a gypsy girl named Esmeralda, who the Chief Justice loved…”
“Tom!”
“And the Justice killed the girl’s lover…”
“Tom,” Burstein cried again. “I want to talk to you about Allison Parker.”
Silence.
“What about her?” Gatz said coldly, his voice betraying an underlying, deep-seated bitterness.
“There’s been a homicide.”
“So what?”
Burstein reviewed everything that had happened at 68 West Eighty-ninth Street. He’d never seen Gatz so attentive in his life. When he’d finished, he added, “And the police files are missing.”
Gatz stared in silence.
“What do you think?” Burstein finally asked.
“What do you think I think?”
“Well…I guess I know.”
“I want to see the nun, speak to those people. And I want your permission.”
“You have it, as long as you don’t interfere with my investigation.”
“I won’t! And I appreciate you coming to me. You know how important this is. I’ll let you know.”
“You do that.”
The luncheon ended abruptly, as Gatz stood and dug into his pocket for change to pay his part of the bill. Burstein grabbed his hand and shook his head.
Gatz nodded. “You’re a good boy, Jake,” he said. Then he turned and left the restaurant.
Burstein rubbed his freshly shaved chin and stared at the rows of booths. He hoped he’d done the right thing. There was no way he could tolerate interference. But if he’d not told his former boss, he couldn’t have lived with himself. Gatz had waited an eternity. He couldn’t deny him now. He only hoped that Gatz would stay out of trouble.
Several hours after leaving Inspector Burstein, Gatz emerged from the kitchen of his rent-controlled Bronx apartment and sat down at his desk, holding a can of beer in his hand.
Two sets of open police files, removed from the police library years ago, lay on the desk blotter.
Since he’d taken them, they’d been stored over the desk on the lower of two wall shelves.
Unsurprisingly, he’d forgotten many of the particulars, a fact that became painfully obvious by two o’clock that afternoon, after a first reading. Since then, he’d reviewed the material two more times, intending to have everything down to rote by midnight, convinced that if he were to appear at 68 West Eighty-ninth Street the next day properly prepared, he’d have to discipline himself as best he could.
He had never thought he’d have the chance to vindicate himself, to turn failure into success.
But if Burstein was right, the opportunity had now presented itself. And he’d try not to blow it.
So he readjusted the light, put on his reading glasses, slurped from the beer can, and started through the material once more.
Joe Biroc bit into the stem of the pipe, enjoying the mellow taste of the Swedish tobacco. The night was cold; he was chilled. He tightened the collar of his overcoat and stamped his feet against the frost-coated ground, trying to spark circulation in his legs. He looked at his watch. 8 p.m. He’d been there for three hours, hidden in the corner of the dark alley, beneath a tangle of encroaching clotheslines. Leaning down to pick up the capped coffee thermos at his feet, he yawned and repositioned himself against the wall of the auto body-parts garage. He looked up, staring at the lighted window three floors above. Former Detective Gatz was still seated at the living-room desk, still clearly visible. Gatz hadn’t moved in more than an hour.
Biroc poured some coffee into a mug and tipped it to his lips. The coffee was still hot. It tasted good. He smiled, then returned the thermos to the ground.
6
The high, shrill blast of the jet’s engines cut through the cold night air, as Alitalia Flight 7 turned off the taxiway and maneuvered toward a berth at the International Arrivals Terminal, John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Above, on the observation platform, Father James McGuire gripped the guard rail tightly. He’d been waiting more than an hour, facing the bite of the Jamaica Bay winds, while sensing that surge of adrenaline that often bu
ffets expectation. The arrival of Franchino signaled the start of the final phase…whatever that phase was to be. Since their first meeting in July, he’d followed Franchino’s instructions to the letter, asking no questions, realizing that since he’d been involuntarily conscripted for an unknown purpose by a clandestine process originating within the Vatican, he’d had no alternative, but to comply. But, now, maybe the suspense would end. Franchino’s telegram had hinted at it.
Below, the passengers had begun to deplane. Franchino was the fourth person out. Father McGuire had not seen him in six months.
McGuire reentered the terminal building and took the escalator down to the arrival lunge to wait until Franchino had claimed his luggage and cleared customs.
Franchino appeared twenty minutes later.
“Monsignor Franchino,” McGuire called out, as he saw Franchino walk through the doorway.
The two men embraced.
“Your plane was right on schedule,” McGuire said.
“We should be thankful for that, Father,” Franchino replied. “Few things in Italy are!”
Both men laughed.
McGuire pointed to the exit gate. “The car is just outside.”
Franchino nodded and began to walk.
“Let me take this for you,” McGuire said, pulling a leather suitcase from Franchino’s hand.
“That’s kind of you, Father. It was a long flight and I’m tired. Perhaps I’m getting to be as old as Cardinal Reggiani says I am.” There was a twinkle in his eye; he didn’t believe a word of it. “When a man enters his mid-fifties, many things start to happen, no matter how well he has taken care of himself. Do you take care of yourself, Father?”
“I think so, your Eminence. If I can, I jog in the morning and do calisthenics before I go to sleep.”
Franchino smiled pleasantly.
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