Cover Story

by Gerry Boyle

I looked after him, then turned and kept walking. The guy’s abrupt about-face had caught the attention of the cops in front of 1283, and as I approached, they watched me. I saw them murmur to one another and I knew they were trying to peg me.

  Somebody collecting money? A guy who had picked a very weird place to go cruising? Somebody checking out the scene of whatever had happened at 1283? The perp at 1283?

  The passenger window rolled down.

  “Hey, buddy.”

  I looked.

  “Yeah, you. Come here.”

  I stopped. The cop was young, with a military haircut and silver-rimmed glasses. He opened the door and got out, showing short sleeves, black fingerless gloves, and muscle-builder’s forearms. The driver, who was smaller, got out, too.

  They approached. The muscular guy pointed a forefinger at me.

  “Hands outta the pockets. Where I can see ’em.”

  I took them out.

  “Now some ID.”

  He was in front of me, the driver behind me, to my right.

  I reached for my wallet.

  “Slow,” the muscleman said.

  “I got him,” the black man said, circling to my side.

  “Hey, I’m just walking down the street,” I said, smiling. “Don’t you need some sort of probable cause?”

  The muscular guy smiled and showed his teeth.

  “You want probable cause? This is a homicide scene, chump. You’re lingering in a suspicious manner.”

  “I’m lingering because you told me to stop.”

  “Did I ask for any lip? Who was that you were talking to, the guy who ran when he saw us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re talking to him walking down the street but you don’t know him? Hey, what do you think I am? Stupid?”

  “I was just asking him what was going on here. With the police tape and everything.”

  “Why you want to know?”

  I held out my driver’s license.

  “Maine,” the muscular cop said, peering at the license as though it needed decoding. “What the hell you doing here, Mr. McMorrow?”

  I hesitated.

  “Working.”

  “Working? Working how?”

  “I’m a reporter. I work for the Times.”

  “That right? Must be a hell of a commute—”

  He looked at the license again.

  “—from Prosperity, Maine.”

  “What’s the name again?” the black cop said.

  “McMorrow. Given name Jack.”

  “Hey, you know who—”

  He stepped closer.

  “You mind taking off the hood, sir?” the black cop said.

  I glanced up the street toward Brighton Beach Avenue.

  “I’d rather not,” I said.

  “Jesus Christ,” the muscular cop said, and he stepped toward me, grabbed the hood, and yanked it backward.

  “Whatcha hiding under there?”

  “Easy,” the black cop said. “You know who this is?”

  “Some shithead who wants to play games.”

  “No, this is McMorrow. The McMorrow who’s Butch Casey’s friend. You know. The guy he was drinking with?”

  Even in the muscular cop’s head, it clicked.

  “You’re in the paper,” he said; staring at me with new fascination.

  “Not by choice,” I said.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. McMorrow?” the black cop said.

  “I was about to ask you that.”

  “We’re securing the scene of a homicide,” he said.

  “When did it happen?”

  “Early this morning. Around two-thirty.”

  “Who’s the deceased?”

  “Who’s asking the questions?” the muscular cop said.

  “You can watch it on the news like everybody else. So what I want to know—”

  “Was it a guy named Vladimir Mihailov?”

  They stared at me. The muscular cop moved closer, his eyes fixed on mine.

  “How’d you know that name?” the black cop said.

  30

  “Mihailov was four names ago,” Ramirez said. “There was Michalek and Ivandek, and he was living as Ivanov when he came back here.”

  From under my hood, I looked out at the bleak, narrow street two blocks from Mihailov’s. We had driven over at my insistence. I did not want to be seen.

  “His mother died,” Donatelli said. “He’d been living in different places, all in Brooklyn. Borough Park. Flatbush. He changed his appearance. Dyed his hair. Grew a beard. Shaved it off.”

  “So he was sort of in hiding?” I asked.

  “Ah. Sort of halfhearted hiding. He didn’t go to Moscow or anything. He still was working for a guy named Iwanow. The W is a V. Guy was a fairly big-time loan shark. Mihailov was his muscle. One of ’em.”

  “The one who comes knocking?”

  “Right.”

  “So how did a guy like that get turned loose so easy after he hit the rich kid on the head and took his BMW?” I said.

  “These Russians are no dopes,” Ramirez said. “Maybe they had something going with the judge. Maybe they knew somebody who knew somebody. Shit happens. Let’s not kid each other.”

  “It stuck out in Butch’s mind. Fiore was quoted in the story when they picked him up. Mihailov, I mean. Talking about the need to clean up the scum, take the city back for law-abiding New Yorkers. He was campaigning.”

  “Guy never stopped campaigning,” Donatelli said.

  “But listen, if Fiore was in on it directly, the guy should have been gone, right? Instead, he gets some Mickey Mouse bail and he’s out.”

  “So Fiore missed one, McMorrow,” Ramirez said. “Probably was just looking for an audience. Went on to the next tragedy and got all worked up all over again.”

  “If it was routine, why did Butch pull it out?” Ramirez snorted.

  “Hey, you want me to tell you how Casey’s mind works? This is a guy who killed the mayor. Are we forgetting that here?”

  “He’s just charged with it.”

  “Give me a break, McMorrow. He’s guilty. And he’s a squirrel.”

  “But Mihailov was on his list,” Donatelli told her. “And Mihailov gets whacked. Somebody knocks on the door. He answers. Pop, pop, pop. Three hours later, McMorrow walks up. What’s wrong with this picture?”

  “Hey, where were you at two thirty-five?” Ramirez said.

  “Asleep,” I said.

  “You got witnesses?”

  I pictured Christina, naked against me.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I’ll bet you do,” Ramirez said. “Was it good for her?”

  “Oh, come on,” Donatelli said. “McMorrow didn’t kill Mihailov. The guy was just in a business where that happens. He was a punk. These guys don’t die of old age.”

  “Thank God for small favors,” Ramirez said.

  “But why now?” I said. “After ten years? The day I come looking for him? The day after somebody takes a shot at me—”

  “You say. ’Cause you’ve heard silencers on TV,” Ramirez said.

  “And I’m warned off. And threatened.”

  “You say you were threatened.”

  “You think I’m making all this stuff up?”

  “No,” Donatelli said. “I don’t.”

  “Because you can check me out. I’m not some kook. I’m a reporter, for God’s sake. Reporters don’t make things up.”

  “Hah,” Ramirez said.

  “You know what I mean,” I said. “This is real. Lester John’s gone. Who hauled him off?”

  “His drug-dealing buddies,” Ramirez said. “And pardon me if I don’t get all upset over the idea of him floating in the East River. I save my sympathy for people who deserve it. And there are plenty of them, McMorrow.”

  I thought of her son.

  “Then why does Tilbury think John was arrested?”

  “Christ! ’Cause he’s senile, McMorrow. I don’t know.”
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  “That guy didn’t call me yesterday because Butch was imagining things,” I said.

  “Maybe not,” Donatelli said.

  “Hey, I’ve got my assignment,” Ramirez said to him. “Look out for McMorrow here so he can tell his story to a grand jury and tell it in court. Which I’m trying to do. But he’s off on some crazy wild-goose chase and you’re gonna go with him? What do you think you’re gonna find out, McMorrow? That your buddy didn’t do it?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “ ’Cause forget that, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s a goner. Gonna go down as the dirtiest cop in history, I’m sorry to say. Got the mayor’s blood on his hands, literally.”

  “Then why is the DA’s man after me?”

  “He’s got the same job as us,” she said, turning to me.

  “He’s trying not to lose you. And you’re making things pretty goddamn difficult.”

  “Somebody’s making things pretty difficult for me,” I said.

  I paused.

  “I want protection for my friend.”

  “In Maine?” Donatelli said.

  “Yeah. Roxanne Masterson.”

  “Then you should talk to the Maine cops.”

  “I want you to talk to the Maine cops,” I said. “Portland. South Portland. State Police.”

  They didn’t answer.

  “Hey, you want my help, don’t you? Well, so far it’s been all one-way.”

  They looked straight ahead.

  “Or I start forgetting things,” I said.

  “We don’t need you,” Ramirez said. “I mean, we can get a conviction without you.”

  “Without me, you’re going to have a hard time proving long-term intent, or whatever you call it. That’s why you need me. Without me, maybe you’ve got a bitter cop who flew into a rage or something. A guy whose wife was murdered. He’s a crime victim. I’m the one who can tell you that he was talking about the mayor that night. Or not.”

  “You are a ballsy son of a bitch,” Ramirez said.

  “You talk to the Maine cops,” I said. “They watch TV. I call them, they’ll just hang up.”

  They didn’t answer. Ramirez shook her head in disgust.

  “Now we gotta babysit his whole family?”

  But Donatelli got out his notebook and started asking questions.

  Roxanne’s name and address, her address at work. Her telephone numbers, both places, and in the car. The car registration, type of vehicle. The time she got to the office, the number where she could be reached that morning.

  And I gave it to him, with an ominous sense of déjà vu. Everything Donatelli asked for, the man on the phone had already known, and had recited to me in about the same order.

  “Is this routine for you?” I said.

  “We get a lot of this stuff. People are always threatening to pop witnesses, especially if you’re working with people you’ve flipped. If you’re gonna try to guard somebody who isn’t in custody, these are the things you ask.”

  “If you’re a cop,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Donatelli said. “I suppose.”

  They dropped me two blocks over, at the end of another street of miniature houses with Easter-egg doors. I pulled my hood forward and walked back up to the main drag, where more Brighton Beachers were out and about.

  So I fell in with them, young guys in baggy shorts, old men in slacks and straw fedoras, women who stood at the produce stands and squeezed the peaches, one by one. The heat was rising from the damp pavement and the hood felt like a hot towel on my head. I considered taking it off, then stopped at a newsstand, where a dozen Butches were splattered like a Warhol painting.

  And thought again.

  The News had a photo of Butch played huge, over half the front page. He was in the background at a press conference, in a sweatshirt and Yankees hat, listening as the brass took credit for some major bust. They’d cropped the picture to center him, smirking as he leaned over.

  I was bent toward him. I looked like I was about to laugh.

  The lead story was about the killing of Leslie Moore, with her head shot set into the text. The headline said, “Wife’s Murder Left Casey a Broken Man.” But in the lower right was another, smaller headline: “Casey and McMorrow: Partners in Crime,” it said, and then below it, “Detective and Reporter Worked NYC Mean Streets in ’80s.”

  I kept the hood on.

  The Post had Butch on the cover, too, but with a knife in his hand. I looked closer. It was a murder scene in 1986, the caption said; Butch had taken the knife away from a killer. The effect was jarring, and grossly misleading.

  The Times had this story, top left, three columns: “Star-Crossed Friends: History Turned on Fateful Last Drink.” And “A Funeral like No Other: Fiore Service Could Rival JFK’s.”

  I bought all three papers, keeping my face turned away from the woman behind the counter. And then I walked up the block, past another newsstand where Butch Casey peered out from amid porn magazines. I turned away, crossed under the elevated tracks, and continued on. On the other side of Brighton Beach Avenue, I looked around the corner and saw the Rover in front of the fruit stand.

  There were cars in front of and behind it, all the way up the street, but they were empty. There was a dark-haired man just this side of the Rover, watching a little dog poop. When the dog had finished, the man took out a tissue and bent over to wipe its behind.

  I walked quickly down the street, on the side away from the car. Nothing unusual showed. The man with the dog was putting its droppings in a plastic bag. I strolled down the block, turned in a driveway, and walked between two houses. I waited, then eased my way back to the corner of one of the buildings. I looked up the block, then crossed the street and started up, my hood still up.

  People were looking at fruit. They were meandering up and down with grocery bags, coffee in paper cups. The man with the dog was still picking at the ground. I felt in my pocket for the car keys. Got my fingers on the door opener. Took a last glance behind me. There were no cars coming up the block, nobody in the cars that were parked.

  I turned back. The man with the dog was still crouched at the curb. And as I watched, he put the Baggie of droppings in the pocket of his windbreaker. Took something else out.

  And put it under the Rover’s windshield wiper.

  I started to yell, “Hey,” but caught myself. He’d turned away from me and was walking up the block. The dog trotted jauntily and the man hurried him along. I looked at the car, then followed.

  They turned the corner, wove through the crowd. Then the man reached down and picked the dog up. I wanted to see his face, but his back was toward me and he was hurrying. He stepped out into traffic, crossed between the passing cars, and broke into a trot. I waited as the cars rushed past, and when the traffic broke, he was gone.

  I turned back.

  Eyed the car from a distance, the white paper still on its windshield. I walked to the fruit stand, felt the peaches. Looked up and down the block, then bought two apples. The man dropped them in a sack. I turned and unlocked the Rover’s doors. Snatched the paper and jumped in the driver’s seat.

  I backed up, jockeyed out of the space. Hit the gas and rounded the corner, floored it through a yellow light, turned at the next block, and unfolded the paper as I drove.

  It was Roxanne.

  A blurry likeness. A fax of a fax. A head shot from a newspaper, with a fragment of a story.

  The note was typed. Two lines.

  LEAVE NY A.M. TODAY, WED. NO MORE CALLS. NO MORE TALKS. OR SHE’S DEAD. YOU’LL GET HER IN MAIL. HEAD FIRST. LAST CHANCE.

  I put the paper down on the seat. Felt my mouth go dry. I looked down at Roxanne’s face again, and punched the throttle.

  I had to leave. I believed them now. The man with the dog. The man on the phone. The men on the roof. How many of them were there? How had they found me? After they’d killed Mihailov, had they waited? Had they known I’d show up? Where had they been?

  I drove
fast and hard, cutting off cars, passing on the right, on the left. The Rover roared as I caught a parkway, put the pedal to the floor and hung on to the wheel.

  And the phone rang.

  “Go to hell,” I shouted, but it kept ringing and I reached for it.

  “Yeah,” I barked.

  There was a roaring sound, like a jet engine.

  “Yeah,” I said again.

  “Jack?”

  It was Roxanne. Her voice was faint, fading in a crackle of static.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Jack?”

  “Rox,” I shouted.

  “Jack, I can barely . . . you. Can you hear me? Jack?”

  “Yeah. I can. A little.”

  The phone hissed and crackled, the signal ricocheting off satellites. The motor roared.

  “Jack, this damn phone. There’s something wrong with it,” she said. “But if you can hear me, I wanted . . . . you to know I love you. I wanted to tell you and I’m on my way to a client’s home and I won’t be able to call for a while and . . . I don’t want anything to change. It hasn’t changed, has it, Jack?”

  “Roxanne,” I said.

  “Oh, you must think I’m being silly, but I have a bad feeling. I’m worried about what’s going to happen . . .”

  “Roxanne.”

  “. . . to us. To me. Am I still, I don’t know . . .”

  “Roxanne, where are you?”

  “Am I still yours? Or would you rather . . . this glamorous person. Maybe that’s what you want? Maybe I was just a phase. I don’t know.”

  “Roxanne?”

  “Jack, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah,” I shouted.

  “Good, Jack. Tell me. Am I wrong to be worried? Are you worried, too?”

  “Yes,” I shouted. “But not—”

  “Oh, Jack,” Roxanne cried, and then her voice slipped away.

  That much she had heard.

  31

  I tried calling back. A robot voice said Roxanne was out of range. I tried Christina’s and she answered brightly.

  “Yeah, she called. Good thing she didn’t arrive in the middle of the night, huh? Sorry about all that, Jack. It was the wine. I shouldn’t have—”

  “It’s okay. Did Roxanne say where she was going?”

  “No, she just said she was working. Going to see a client, I think.”