‘So, what have you got?’ he asks.
‘A surveillance tape from the camera near the booth and one nine millimeter shell casing.’ Budlow gestures to the drunk. ‘And Homer. Homer claims he was asleep when the shooting went down. Claims he didn’t wake up until we arrived.’
‘What about the token clerk?’
‘Also asleep when the shots were fired. She says when she opened her eyes, people were flyin’ out of the station. She called it in, by the way, at three thirty-seven.’
No fools, Budlow and O’Malley only hang around long enough to change the information on the evidence bags containing the surveillance tapes and the cartridge casing. That done, they’re up the stairs nearly as fast as the passengers fleeing Bubba’s fusillade. The Russian doesn’t stick around all that long, either. He quizzes the first cops on the scene, but they have nothing to add. The station was empty when they got here. Except for Homer, the only game in town.
The Russian grabs Homer by the collar and hauls him down the platform. When Homer falls and starts to choke, the Russian keeps on going, though he carefully skirts a puddle of urine. He doesn’t stop until they reach the steps at the end of the platform, the ones that lead into the tunnel.
‘What the fuck, what the fuck? Where are we goin’?’
‘I’m takin’ you into the tunnel so I can beat the shit out of you.’
‘Oh, man, why you wanna do me like that?’
‘Because you’re disrespectin’ me.’
‘How ah’m disrespectin’ you?’
‘Eight gunshots? In a subway station? You know how loud a gunshot is down here? Loud enough to wake the fuckin’ dead, that’s how loud. But here you come along asking me to believe that you slept right through the gunshots but conveniently woke up when the cops arrived. That’s disrespectful.’
Homer’s shaking his head as fast as he can. The Russian can almost see the man’s brain rattling inside his skull. As he can see the truth in the man’s jaundiced eyes. Homer was, indeed, asleep, which is all Chigorin wants to know.
‘Reason I woke up,’ Homer explains to the Russian’s retreating back, ‘is that fat cop kicked me right in the ass. My ass is still hurtin’.’
One more stop and I’m outta here, Chigorin thinks as he makes his way to Sergeant Ernie Boyle of the Crime Scene Unit. Boyle and Chigorin have disliked each other for many years.
‘I want you to collect the rat,’ Chigorin says.
‘Twice in one night? Why me, Lord?’
The Russian shakes his head. ‘What I’m gonna do is make a note of my request and stick it in the case file. If there are bullet fragments in the rat’s body, I want them.’
‘Fuck off, Chigorin.’
‘Nothing I’d rather do.’ The Russian hands over the evidence bag containing the spent shell. ‘I want this compared to the casings recovered on Hamilton Place,’ he tells Boyle.
‘I was there, remember.’
‘I need the results right away, for obvious reasons.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Boyle produces a small notebook and a pen. He opens the notebook and prints the word ‘RUSH’ in the center of a clean page. ‘That’s so I won’t forget,’ he tells Chigorin.
FOUR
The Russian arrives home at five o’clock. Home is an apartment he rents over a two-car garage in the Queens neighborhood of College Point. The apartment’s only one room, but it’s a big room, more like a loft, at least in the Russian’s opinion. One thing for sure, he never feels claustrophobic when he’s at home. And the furniture’s half-assed decent, comfortable at least, if not exactly new. The one exception is a fifty-inch plasma flat-screen purchased only a month before. The set is connected to a satellite service that provides more channels than he can ever watch.
Though it’s still early, the sky outside the window behind the television is already growing light. Chigorin lets the blinds down, then runs a finger along the slats to close them. He sets a glass containing four fingers of peppered vodka on the table next to the couch, finally pushes the subway surveillance tape into his VCR. The VCR is twenty years old, but still functional, most likely because he never uses it, much preferring DVDs.
Chigorin drops on to a leather couch. The couch is even older than the VCR and its cracked cushions have long ago molded themselves to his ass. He picks up the remote, hits the PLAY button and settles back. The tape reveals the area to the right of the token booth, including the foot of the only set of stairs leading to the street, but not the platform where the shooting took place. That means he has to narrow the time frame. Otherwise, it’s impossible to separate passengers who boarded a train from passengers on the platform when the shots were fired. He considers the situation for a moment before checking the telephone directory in his PDA for the number of the police liaison stationed at the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
Given the hour, Chigorin’s expectations are not high, but when his call is answered on the third ring, he pounces.
‘This is Detective Chigorin, Homicide Division. Who am I speaking to?’
‘Sujan Chakraporty.’ The man answers without hesitation, leading the Russian to conclude that he’s given his real name.
‘I need to know at what times, exactly, the 1 Train was in the station at a hundred and forty-fifth Street between three twenty and three forty.’
Chigorin endures the silence for a few seconds, then says, ‘Look, Mr. Ch … how do you say your name again?’
‘Chakraporty.’
The Russian spells the name out. ‘Is that the correct spelling?’
But Chakraporty’s over his initial shock. ‘Please, this is not my job,’ he says, his tone flitting through several octaves.
‘Well, you have to excuse me, but I dialed the number of the NYPD liaison and you, Mr. Chakraporty, picked up the phone.’
‘I was expecting my wife to be the caller.’
‘Your wife is a cop?’
‘No, no.’
The Russian chuckles. ‘Saving minutes on the old cell phone, right? Hey, I don’t blame you. But you should get one of those plans with free minutes after nine o’clock. That way you won’t have to use a city phone. Anyway, about my request.’
‘This is not my job,’ Chakraporty repeats. ‘You must please call back after nine o’clock.’
‘I can’t do that, Sujan. This is a homicide investigation and I need the information now. And don’t bullshit me, either. We both know you can get it for me in five minutes. Myself, I don’t think that’s too much to ask, but if you’re of a different persuasion, you can put your supervisor on the phone.’
The Russian sips at his vodka while he studies the arrival/departure schedule Chakraporty was good enough to supply. The buildings on Hamilton Place closest to the crime scene still have to be canvassed, which can’t happen until eight o’clock when the neighborhood wakes up. Also, the vic’s relatives will have to be found, assuming he had any. Manuel Torres was carrying a single piece of identification at the hour of his death, a bogus Social Security card. But that’s for later, too. For right now, he has the tape, a ready supply of vodka and no wish to sleep.
After a few minutes, the Russian constructs a simple timeline, which he records on a yellow pad. The murder on Hamilton Place was called in at 3:25. A southbound 1 Train entered the station at 3:24 and left at 3:25. The subway shooting was called in by the token clerk at 3:37. A southbound 1 Train entered the station at 3:38 and left at 3:39.
The Russian isn’t fond of assumptions. He much prefers his killers discovered still at the scene, murder weapon in hand. Either that or a dozen witnesses singing the identical song: ‘Henry did it.’ But in this case, the shooter was gone before the good guys rode up and no witnesses have as yet emerged. Not that he’s giving up on the canvas. Maybe he’ll get lucky, maybe some insomniac was looking out the window when Manuel Torres was assassinated.
But the Russian isn’t holding his breath and he makes an assumption that significantly narrows his review of the tape. Chigori
n assumes that every passenger standing on the southbound platform boarded the 1 Train that arrived at 3:24. Except for Homer. This doesn’t have to be true and he knows it. Maybe somebody else was sleeping on the platform, somebody who woke up when the shooting started. Or maybe the shooter lingered on the platform for an extended period of time, waiting for a specific individual to arrive. Maybe those bullets were aimed at an enemy. Maybe the rat was an innocent bystander.
The Russian starts the time-stamped surveillance tape at 3:24, when the first train arrives, and runs it to 3:39 when the second train leaves the station. Then he runs it again, stopping the tape at various points to note each of the nine passengers entering the station. He gives the passengers names as he goes along, which makes them easier to remember: Skinny Kid, No Habla, Jail Bait One, Jail Bait Two, Chicken Hawk, the Headless Horseman, Satch, Old Gal and the Monk. Once he’s able to keep them straight, he focuses on the passengers who exited the station after the shooting began. This is a more difficult task because the fleeing citizens are moving right along, even Old Gal, who walks with the aid of a cane. The Monk’s been good enough to take her by the arm, but he’s yanking her along like a dog at the end of a leash. The rest of the passengers are already up the stairs.
The Russian plays the tape several times, until he’s certain. Nine passengers entered the station, but only seven left. The other two, Skinny Kid and the Headless Horseman, must have taken the southbound train that arrived at 3:38. Certainly, they were nowhere to be found when the first officers arrived at 3:42.
Skinny Kid is easy to identify because he stops within range of the camera for eighteen seconds before jumping the turnstile. He’s no more than twenty and nondescript, a boy really, looking somehow small, though he probably stands a bit over six feet. The Russian, for no reason more pressing than the neighborhood’s demographics, figures him to be Hispanic. West Harlem long ago ceased to be an all-black community. Dominicans and Mexicans now form a majority of its residents, a majority which continues to grow.
The Headless Horseman, on the other hand, presents the Russian with a serious problem. The grainy tape of Skinny Kid will yield a still photo the Russian can show around. But the Headless Horseman doesn’t have a face. He’s so big that his entire head is out of the frame. All Chigorin can say for sure is that the guy’s Caucasian and has forearms that would shame Popeye. Plus, he’s light on his feet, especially given his bulk. The man’s chest is as big around as a refrigerator, but he moves with the confidence of a trained athlete.
The Russian’s pretty much satisfied by the time his cellphone rings at six thirty. He glances at the phone’s little screen. It’s his estranged wife, Yolanda, a Filipina nurse with a dependence problem. When she walked out on him two years before, taking little Sonia, the Russian didn’t hold it against her. And he doesn’t hold it against her now. He freely admits that he’s cross-addicted to alcohol and work, and that he fully intends to remain that way until he’s forced into retirement or his liver crashes. If he could, he’d probably walk out on himself. But he does resent Yolanda’s calling on him every time a light bulb needs changing. It isn’t as if she doesn’t have a boyfriend.
‘Yolanda, what’s new?’ Even as he answers, Chigorin’s refilling his flask with peppered vodka.
‘Are you working, Pete?’
‘Yeah.’ The Russian’s hoping a terse reply will end the conversation. Fat chance.
‘It’s about Sonia. She’s being bullied.’
Right away, Chigorin’s put off. Yolanda has this way of being absolutely certain of everything she says or thinks. There’s no ‘maybe’ in her tone, no ‘possibly’. Chigorin picks up his jacket, holds it to his face and sniffs. Not too rank.
‘Isn’t that the reason I paid to send her to karate school?’ The Russian gets in a shot of his own. A registered nurse with a master’s degree, Yolanda’s income is half again as large as his, yet she calls on him whenever Sonia needs anything more than food on the table or clothes on her back.
‘Well, that’s the problem. It’s taking place at the karate school.’
Chigorin jams the phone between his chin and his shoulder as he heads out the door. He knows that Sonia’s a bit of a drama queen, but the thought of some pimple-faced asshole scaring her upsets him greatly. Not that he was ever the target of a bully. No, with the Russian, it was usually the other way around.
‘A boy or a girl?’
‘Pardon?’
‘The bully. A boy or a girl?’ Chigorin locks the door and heads for his car.
‘A boy named Murray.’ Yolanda rushes on before the interrogation continues. ‘It’s happening in this sparring they do, kumite. He’s hitting her really hard. I’ve seen the bruises myself, on her chest and her sides. She’s all black and blue, Pete.’
‘What about Alexei?’
‘Your cousin, the sensei?’ Yolanda’s tone oozes contempt. ‘I spoke to him and he says taking punishment is part of the process. Myself, I think he likes it.’
The Russian has a notorious temper. Not only does he see red when he’s angry, his neck and face turn the approximate color of an overripe tomato, a phenomenon which is happening right now as he walks toward his car. Chigorin’s remembering the check he made out to his cousin, Alexei Barakova. He’s remembering the check and Barakova’s assurance: Don’t worry, I protect my students.
‘I’ll take care of it,’ he tells Yolanda.
‘What’re you gonna do, Pete?’
The Russian slides into the front seat of his Chevy Malibu and jams the key into the ignition. He reaches beneath the seat, removes a paper bag containing a fifth of vodka, lays it on the seat.
‘I’m gonna get my money back and find Sonia another school,’ he tells his wife. ‘What did you think I was gonna do?’
‘I thought you were gonna hurt Alexei. I mean, he’s your cousin …’
‘All the more reason why he should have looked out for Sonia.’
The Russian’s canvas of the buildings on Hamilton Place is thorough, if unproductive. He knocks on the door of every apartment with a view of the murder scene. Most of the individuals who respond are Latino, but Chigorin understands Spanish well enough to communicate. Only no one’s talking. Or maybe nobody saw anything. He can’t tell which. But in this case, it’s the doing that counts, the doing and the paperwork generated by that doing.
On the way back to his car, the Russian stops long enough to call a detective named Soriani. Assigned to Missing Persons, Soriani passes his days at the morgue, matching bodies to names on a list. The Russian needs to contact Manuel Torres’s relatives, but the name, even if genuine, is extremely common. Better to treat him as a John Doe and run his prints through the FBI’s computer. In his early twenties, Torres had prison tattoos on his chest and both arms.
Soriani doesn’t hesitate when the Russian asks him to reclassify Manuel Torres. Until Soriani reformed, he and Chigorin were drinking buddies.
‘You ever un-reform, I’m buyin’ the drinks,’ the Russian tells Soriani.
‘You ever decide go on the wagon, I’ll be your sponsor at AA.’
This is a bit the two of them have been doing for years.
The Russian slides the phone into his pocket. He’s about to leave when he notices a shopping cart parked halfway down a set of stairs leading to the basement of the apartment building he’s standing next to. The cart is stuffed with odds and ends: clothing, several books, a long-handled broom, a black trash bag half-filled with recyclable bottles and cans. But the Russian has no interest in the shopping cart, only in the tiny black man crouched behind it. He’s looking down at the man and wondering if he maybe spent the night in the stairwell.
‘Well,’ he asks, ‘you coming up or do I have to go down there and get you?’
‘I could use some help with this cart,’ the man admits. ‘My arthritis is hurtin’ me bad this morning.’
The Russian grabs the cart by the handle and yanks it up the stairs. ‘You got a name?’ he asks as he
sets the cart down.
‘Arthur.’
‘Well, get on up here, Arthur. You got no excuses now.’
‘No, sir.’
Arthur makes his way up the stairs, his progress slow. When he finally reaches the sidewalk, Chigorin realizes that the man’s back is severely hunched, which is why he’s so short. The Russian’s just drunk enough to imagine having to live with a handicap this severe. It hurts him even to look at the man.
‘I’m investigating a shooting. The one that took place last night.’
‘That happened on the other block.’
‘True enough, Arthur, but we know the shooter went directly to the subway station, which means he walked right past you.’ This is a complete fabrication, but one unlikely to be challenged. ‘I was wondering if you noticed him.’
‘Well, I did and I didn’t. I mean, I’m not exactly sure. I had a little bit to drink last night.’
‘You and me both.’ The Russian takes out his flask and offers Arthur a quick hit, which Arthur gratefully accepts. ‘Now, tell me what you remember.’
‘I was down at the bottom of the stairs, tryin’ to get to sleep, when I heard the shots. This bein’ Harlem, gunfire ain’t all that unusual and I didn’t think too much of it. But then I heard footsteps, not runnin’ exactly, but movin’ pretty fast. Now I didn’t get up or nothin’ – I ain’t crazy – and I never woulda got a look at that man if he hadn’t walked close to the railing at the top of the stairs.’
Arthur pauses long enough to take a deep breath, then goes on. ‘Man, I’m tellin’ ya, this was the biggest white man I ever seen. This white man was a muthafuckin’ giant.’
The Russian’s pretty much exhausted. He’s been on duty since midnight and it’s now ten o’clock. But his work day is far from over. There’s paperwork to be done and evidence to be vouchered, tasks which keep him in Manhattan Homicide North’s headquarters until he signs out shortly after noon. The Russian wants to go directly from work to Anselm’s Bar and Grill on College Point Boulevard. Anselm’s is as close as he gets, or wants to get, to a social life. But there’s a stop to make, at Sonia’s karate school in Jackson Heights, and having to make it after a twelve-hour shift does not improve the Russian’s mood. Not at all. He marches into the storefront school and walks across the dojo floor without taking off his shoes, marches right through a line of students and into Alexei’s office, closing the door behind him.
Cracker Bling Page 3
