Everybody Dies (Matthew Scudder)

by Lawrence Block

  “And if he had? Where I’m goin’, what you figure was in the bag?”

  “He could have had the head in there,” I said. “I don’t doubt for a minute that he killed Farrelly. I understand they really hated each other, and if he got the chance he probably killed him with a cleaver, and wore his father’s apron while he did it. He might well have dismembered the body for disposal, and that would have involved cutting the head off, so yes, he could very well have had the head in the bag.”

  “Never found the body, did they?”

  “No.”

  “Or the head, I guess.”

  “Or the head.”

  He considered this. “You ever been bowlin’?”

  “Bowling? Not in years and years. There was a cops’ league in Suffolk County when I lived in Syosset. I was on a team for a few months.”

  “Yeah? You have one of those shirts, got your name on the pocket?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “’I don’t remember.’ That means you did, Sid, and you don’t want to admit it.”

  “No, it means I don’t remember. We ordered shirts for everybody, but I had to quit the team when I got a gold shield and my hours changed.”

  “And you didn’t bowl no more after that?”

  “Once that I remember. I was off the police force and living at the hotel, and a friend of mine named Skip Devoe was always organizing things.” I turned to Elaine. “Did you ever meet Skip?”

  “No, but you’ve talked about him.”

  “He was an owner of a joint on Ninth and a hell of a fellow. He’d get a bee in his bonnet, and the next thing you knew we’d all be traipsing out to Belmont for the racing, or to Randall’s Island for an outdoor jazz concert. There used to be a bowling alley on the west side of Eighth two or three doors up from Fifty-seventh, and he got it in his head we had to go bowling, and the next thing you knew half a dozen drunks descended upon the place.”

  “And you just went the once?”

  “Just the one time. But we talked about it for weeks after.”

  “What became of him?”

  “Skip? He died a couple of years later. Acute pancreatitis, but then they never put on the death certificate that the deceased died of a broken heart. The story’s too long to tell right now. Besides, Elaine’s already heard it.”

  “And the bowlin’ alley’s gone.”

  “Long gone, along with the building it was in.”

  “I bowled once,” he said. “Felt like a fool. Looked so easy, and then I couldn’t do it.”

  “You get the hang of it.”

  “I can see how you would, and then you just be tryin’ to do the same thing over and over again. I see ’em sometimes on television, and those dudes are really good at it, and I keep waitin’ for ’em to nod off in the middle of the game. How’d we get on this subject?”

  “You brought it up.”

  “The bag. They never found the head, I was wonderin’ did they ever find the bag. Don’t matter if they did or didn’t. Point is, that’s a nice friend you got.”

  “You’ve met him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s who he is,” I said. “He can be very charming, but he’s a lifelong criminal and he’s got a lot of blood on his hands.”

  “Times I met him,” he said, “was when I was with you, an’ we fell by that place of his that got trashed.”

  “Grogan’s.”

  “Didn’t see a lot of black folks there.”

  “No.”

  “Not workin’ there, not havin’ a drink there.”

  “No.”

  “Dude was polite to me an’ all, but all the time I was there I was real conscious of what color I was.”

  “I can see how you would be,” I said. “Mick’s an Irish kid from a bad neighborhood, and those were the people who hanged black men from lampposts during the Civil War draft riots. He’s not likely to decorate the windows for Martin Luther King Day.”

  “Probably uses the N word a lot.”

  “He does.”

  “Nigger nigger nigger,” he said.

  “Sounds silly when you say it over and over.”

  “Most any word does. What you say, he’s who he is. We’s all of us that.”

  “But you might not care to work for him.”

  “Not in his bar, Lamar. But then it don’t look like it gone be open for business anytime soon. But that ain’t the way you mean.”

  “No.”

  “We was workin’ for him a couple days ago, wasn’t we? He much more of a racist now than he was then?”

  “Probably not.”

  “So why would I all of a sudden not want to be workin’ for the man?”

  “Because it’s dangerous and illegal,” Elaine said. “You could have some major trouble with the police, and you could even get killed.”

  He grinned. “Well, all that’s cool,” he said, “but I just know there’s gotta be a downside.”

  “You think that’s funny, don’t you?”

  “So do you, or you wouldn’t be tryin’ so hard to keep from laughin’.” To me he said, “What we gonna do, exactly? Grab some guns and head for the OK Corral?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think either of us is cut out for that,” I said. “There will probably come a time for that, and it’ll be tip to somebody else to do it. Right now, though, nobody knows where the OK Corral is, or who’s holed up there.”

  “Was the Clantons, way I remember it.”

  “This time around the Clantons don’t have names or faces. What’s called for is some detective work.”

  “An’ we the detectives,” he said. He scratched his head. “We didn’t get too far with E-Z Storage. Fact, we took it as far as we could and signed off the case.”

  “We haven’t got much more now than we did then, but there are a few things.”

  “Dude who shot your friend.”

  “That’s one. Right now the main thing we know about him is he’s black.”

  “Narrows it down.”

  “It does, as a matter of fact, because we also know he’s a professional. And he screwed up, he shot the wrong person.”

  “Word might get around.”

  “It might,” I agreed. “Second, there’s the gunman at Grogan’s.”

  “Asian dude.”

  “Southeast Asian, from the looks of him.”

  “That’s right, you saw the man. I was thinkin’ they didn’t show his face on the TV, but you got to see him up close.”

  “Closer than I’d have liked. They haven’t released his name or anything about him, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know it.”

  “Get his name, trace him back, see who he used to hang out with.”

  “That’s the idea. Our third opening’s the two guys who jumped me a few blocks from here.”

  “Pounded on you, till you went and pounded on them.”

  “I got a good look at one of them,” I said. “I’d recognize him again.”

  “You figure he lives in New York?’

  “He’d pretty much have to. Why?”

  “’Cause that’s how we’ll do it, Hewitt. Just drive around lookin’ at people, an’ pick him out of the eight million faces we see.”

  “Well, that’s one way.”

  “But you can think of another.”

  “I can,” I said. “The trouble is, it’s not a whole lot better than your way.”

  “Well, we flexible,” he said. “We try your way, an’ if it don’t work we try mine.”

  “George Wister’s not a bad guy,” Joe Durkin said. “A good cop and a bright fellow. He doesn’t know what to make of you. You want to know something? I’m not so sure I know what to make of you myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were having dinner with your friend last night. You went to the can and he got shot. And you couldn’t think of a reason on earth why somebody’d want to kill good old Jim.”

  “I still can’t.”

  “Bul
lshit,” he said. “That the same jacket you were wearing last night?”

  “So?”

  “Same as your friend had on. Don’t jerk me around, will you? You were the intended vic. Only reason you’re here now is you picked the right time to take a leak.”

  We were in a Greek coffee shop on Eighth, just a block down from the Lucky Panda. I’d have preferred a different meeting place, but I’d already rejected his first suggestion, the squad room at Midtown North, and he hadn’t liked my idea of getting out of the neighborhood altogether and meeting somewhere down in Chelsea or the Village.

  When I’d got there he was at a back booth, drinking coffee and halfway through a piece of cherry cheesecake. He said it was good and I ought to have some, but I told the waiter I’d just have a cup of coffee. Joe said it was good we’d stayed in the neighborhood, that it was going to rain. I said they kept predicting rain and it kept not raining. He said they’d be right sooner or later, and the guy brought my coffee and we got down to it.

  Now I said, “I guess that’s true. I was evidently the shooter’s actual target.”

  “It took you until today to figure that out?”

  “Wister suggested as much last night. In an offhand way, after he’d gotten through floating the idea that Jim had been printing up green cards and bearer bonds for the Five Families. I took it about as seriously.”

  “When did you change your mind?”

  “When I talked to Mick Ballou.”

  “Your friend,”

  “He’s a friend of mine, yes. You know that.”

  “And you know what I think about it. A lot of guys on the job have made themselves grief that way, having friends like that. Buddies from the old neighborhood, guys who went one way while they went another.”

  “I’m not on the job anymore, Joe.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “And Ballou and I don’t go back that far. I put in my papers years before I met him.”

  “And the two of you just hit it off, huh?”

  “Since when do I have to explain my friendships to you? You’re a friend of mine, and I don’t get a grilling from Ballou on the subject.”

  “Is that a fact? I guess he’s more broad-minded than I am. Where were we? You were saying you changed your mind when you talked to your good friend the murderer. When was this?”

  “After I finished with Wister. I stopped at his place on my way home.”

  “Not exactly on your way. You walked over to Ninth and turned left instead of right I don’t suppose you dropped in for a drink.”

  “I’d just lost one friend and felt the need to say hello to another,” I said. “And when I got there he told me how he’d been having problems.”

  “Oh?”

  “There was a fellow who did some odds and ends for him who wound up in a garbage can on Eleventh Avenue.”

  “Peter Rooney, and the odds and ends had to do with Ballou’s shylocking operation. What’d he do, hold out a few dollars and Ballou put him in the Dumpster?”

  “He didn’t know who’d killed Rooney, but I gather there had been other incidents as well, and the implication was somebody was trying to muscle in on him. His take on Jim’s shooting was that I’d been the target, and it was because I was a friend of his.”

  “That’s what he told you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I don’t suppose he mentioned who was putting the screws to him.”

  “He said he didn’t know.”

  “Like getting roses from a secret admirer? Except instead of roses it’s death threats?”

  “Maybe he knew and didn’t say.”

  “Yeah, and maybe he said and it’s you that doesn’t want to say. And then what happened?”

  “What happened?”

  “Yeah. What did you do next?”

  “I went home. I can’t say I took it all that seriously. Why should a friendship make me the target of a presumably professional hit?” I shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. I was up late, drinking coffee in the kitchen and grieving for my friend.”

  “That’s your friend Jimmy.”

  “Jim. Nobody ever called him Jimmy.”

  “Your friend Jim, then. As opposed to your friend Mick.”

  I let that go. “Then Elaine woke me around noon,” I said, “after she heard about the incident at Grogan’s.”

  “The incident.”

  “The bombing, although I gather it was more than that. There was gunfire as well, wasn’t there?”

  “You tell me.”

  “How’s that?”

  He picked up his empty coffee cup and tapped it against the edge of the saucer. “The way I hear it,” he said, “you were there.”

  “I just got through telling you I was there. Then I went home, and it must have been two hours later that the shit hit the fan.”

  “Two hours later.”

  “Maybe three.”

  “Not the way I heard it.”

  “You heard I was there when it happened?”

  “That’s right, Matt,” he said, looking straight at me. “That’s exactly what I heard.”

  “Who’s saying that?”

  “Information received. You want to rethink your story?”

  “My story? I haven’t got a story. I told you what happened.”

  “And you were nowhere to be seen when the crap was flying.”

  “No.”

  He frowned. “I blame it on all those years on the job,” he said. “If there’s one thing a cop learns it’s how to tell a lie and stick with it. And it’s like riding a bicycle, right? You never forget how.”

  “You think I lied to you?”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “Well, I think you lied to me. ‘Information received.’ You never heard I was at Grogan’s. You were on a fishing trip.”

  He spread his hands. “We had a description, couple of guys seen leaving the scene. One was Ballou and the other could have been you.”

  “What did they say, it was a white male with two arms and two legs?”

  “All right, point taken. The description we had could fit half the precinct. If they’d thrown in pain in the ass, then I’d have no doubts. Maybe I was fishing, but that doesn’t make me wrong. Goddamn it, I still think you were there.”

  “Well, it’s a free country. You can think whatever you like.”

  “I’m glad I’ve got your permission. While you’re at it, you want to give me your word you weren’t there when it all went down?”

  “What for? You just got through telling me my word’s not worth shit.”

  “I guess it’s still worth something,” he said, “Or you wouldn’t be reluctant to give it. I’m not sure what kind of a game you’re playing, my friend, but I don’t think I like it. What are you trying to do, do you even fucking know?”

  “I’m not sure I understand the question.”

  “Maybe all you’re trying to do is stay alive, and in that case I can’t say I blame you. Here’s a question you can answer straight. Have you been over there this afternoon?”

  “Where, Grogan’s?”

  “Uh-huh. You happen to walk by, have a look-see?”

  I shook my head. “I came straight over here. From what I saw on the TV, there’s nothing to see but plywood at this point.”

  “It’s a shame you didn’t get to see it the way I did. I was there this morning right after my shift started. They’d removed the bodies by then, but I had pictures to look at.”

  “I don’t envy you that.”

  “And I don’t envy the poor bastards who were first on the scene, far as that goes. What a fucking nightmare.” He cocked his head. “If it was you looking at the pictures, there might have been one you recognized.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Does the name Lisa Holtzmann mean anything to you?”

  “Of course,” I said without hesitation. “From a few years ago. She was a client, her husband got shot making a phone call.”

 
“Killed by mistake, as it turned out. Like your friend last night.”

  “What about Lisa? She was at Grogan’s last night?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “I didn’t hear her name on the news.”

  “She was there,” he said. “And come to think of it, maybe you wouldn’t have recognized her from the picture. What I saw was strictly closed casket.”

  “I’ve seen her around the neighborhood a few times over the years. Never at Grogan’s, as far as I can recall.”

  “She wasn’t there when you dropped by earlier?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose. If she was I didn’t see her.”

  “If she was, she should have gone home when you did. You could have walked her home.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I don’t even know. Matt, if you’re holding out information that could help clear the case, you’re not doing anybody any good. Straight answers for a minute, okay? Do you know who shot your friend Faber?”

  “No. I heard it was a black man, but I can’t even say that out of my own knowledge.”

  “Guy was a pro, way it sounds to me. You don’t know who might have hired him?”

  “No.”

  “Or who was behind the mess at Grogan’s?”

  “No, but I’m willing to believe it was the same person who hired the other shooter.”

  “And you don’t know who that might be, and neither does Ballou.”

  “Not unless he’s holding out on me.”

  “And you don’t think he is?”

  “I can’t see why he would. Did they say on the news the shooter at Grogan’s was Asian?”

  “One of them was. We’ve got zip on the second man.”

  “I didn’t know there was a second man.”

  “The bomb chucker. Unless there was just the one guy, did the shooting and threw the bomb, but that seems a little unlikely. The eyewitness testimony suggests a second man, but it’s not conclusive.”

  “But the shooter was Asian.”

  “Vietnamese, as a matter of fact Wasn’t that on the news?”

  “If it was I missed it All I heard was Asian.”