A Scourge of Vipers

by Bruce DeSilva

  “Maybe the homicide twins think we’re in this together,” he said.

  “Have they brought you in for questioning?” I asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Seems odd.”

  “It does.”

  “Occam’s razor says the simplest answer is the right one,” I said.

  “Meaning Mario is guilty.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not what our client wants to hear.”

  “He probably doesn’t give a shit,” I said. “Annunzio gets paid either way.”

  McCracken nodded.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I said.

  “No.”

  “Something I should tell you.”

  “What?”

  “I bought a new Mustang convertible this week.”

  “You know I gotta ask.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Where’d the money come from?”

  “Yolanda got me a fat wrongful termination settlement from The Dispatch.”

  “Really?”

  “Go ahead and ask her.”

  “Aw, fuck,” he said. “We’re both getting paranoid.”

  “No way to start a partnership,” I said.

  “No it’s not. We need to trust each other.”

  “But we don’t,” I said.

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I’m gonna take another crack at the hotel staff. Ask if any of them saw somebody go into Romeo Alfano’s room before the cops arrived. Or maybe saw one of the homicide twins sneak out with a briefcase before Parisi showed up.”

  “Grab photos of Freitas and Wargart off the Dispatch website and show them around,” McCracken said.

  “Good idea.”

  “And Mulligan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Go ahead and take a snapshot of me with your cell phone. You might as well show that around, too.”

  51

  I’d already struck out earlier with the desk clerk, the concierge, and the hotel dick, so this time around I tried my luck with the housekeeping staff. That didn’t get me anywhere either. Most of them were Mexicans who didn’t understand English. Or maybe pretended they didn’t. They probably thought I was from the INS. I couldn’t even get them to look at the photos.

  I was striding through the hotel lobby, heading for the exit, when Fergie, the hotel detective, stepped into my path and put a hand on my chest.

  “I’d like a word,” he said. “Please step into my office.”

  Fergie wedged his rump into his swivel chair and plunked his Buster Browns on his desk. I plucked a stack of manila file folders off the visitor’s chair, dropped them on the floor, and sat. Behind him, a citation for bravery he’d earned when he was a Providence detective was mounted on the wall.

  “You’ve been questioning our housekeeping staff,” he said.

  “I have.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you know why.”

  “You’re not a reporter anymore, Mulligan. How come you’re still sticking your nose into this?”

  I pulled out my wallet and flashed my P.I. credentials.

  “Who are you working for?” he asked.

  “Bruce McCracken.”

  “I meant, who’s the client?”

  “Mario Zerilli’s lawyer.”

  “Humpf.”

  He removed a soft pack from his shirt pocket, shook out a Marlboro, and lit it with a Bic. I took that as permission to clip the tip from an Ashton.

  “There’s no smoking in here,” he said.

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “I make an exception for the hotel detective.”

  I put my lighter away, shoved the cigar in my mouth, and gnawed the tip.

  “The maids tell you anything?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Pretended not to speak English, did they?”

  “That they did.”

  “Haven’t told me a damned thing either,” he said.

  “Think they know something?”

  “No, but I suppose it’s possible. I get the feeling a couple of ’em are scared. Like maybe somebody threatened them with deportation.”

  “They don’t have green cards?”

  “Of course they do, but I don’t look too hard at them. Some of the documents could be phony.”

  “I hope you’re gonna keep letting that slide.”

  “Long as the INS doesn’t come snooping,” he said.

  “Any chance one of the housekeepers grabbed the money? Maybe stuck it under some towels and rolled it downstairs in a laundry cart?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “I don’t suppose one of them up and quit recently.”

  “Didn’t happen.”

  “Okay, then. Are we done? Your secondhand smoke is thin on nicotine. I need to go outside and light this baby.”

  “One last thing,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember asking me whether the Providence dicks or the state cop got here first?”

  “I do.”

  “I been thinking about that. Might be that Parisi beat the homicide twins by a few minutes.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  “No.”

  The hotel surveillance video would tell the story, but Freitas and Wargart had made off with it, and they weren’t the kind to share.

  “The first cop on the scene could have shot Alfano and stolen the money.” I said.

  “I doubt that happened.”

  “But you’ve got to be wondering.”

  “I’m still pretty sure Mario did it,” he said, “but the thought has crossed my mind.”

  I left Fergie’s office and strolled slowly across the lobby. Was the hotel dick trying to make me suspicious of Parisi to divert my attention from his old Providence PD pals? I wouldn’t put it past him.

  By the time I pushed through the hotel door, the sun had fled to its hideout in the west. The downtown streetlights were burning. I turned right on the sidewalk and was startled to find Parisi leaning, arms crossed, against a new, unmarked Chevy Cruze—the model his department had chosen to phase out the Crown Vics. Why GM decided to spell cruise wrong, I had no idea.

  “Good evening, Captain.”

  “Not for you, it isn’t. Turn around and place your hands on the wall.”

  52

  Across the street, a yellow North Kingstown School District bus was disgorging a swarm of squealing teen girls. The pom-poms they carried told me they’d come to town for the state cheerleader competition at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

  “What’s this about, Captain?”

  “Do as you’re told, Mulligan. I’d hate to have to shoot you in front of the kids.”

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t shoot me at all.”

  I turned and laid my palms flat on the hotel wall. Before I could spread my legs, Parisi kicked them apart, patted me down, and jerked the Kel-Tec from the small of my back. I glanced over my left shoulder and saw the cheerleaders staring wide-eyed at the big-city drama as their handlers tried to hustle them away down the sidewalk.

  “Empty your pockets.”

  I pulled out my keys, wallet, and cell phone.

  “Drop them,” he said, so I let them clatter to the pavement.

  Parisi grabbed my right wrist, twisted it behind my back, and cuffed it. Then he did the same with my left.

  “I thought this wasn’t your case,” I said.

  “Shut up and get in the car.”

  He grabbed me by the cuffs, bulled me toward the Cruze, opened the back door, and shoved me inside. After locking me in, he retrieved my belongings from the sidewalk, stuffed them in his pockets, and got in behind the wheel.

  I expected him to turn right at the first intersection and work his way toward Route 10 for the dreary forty-minute drive west to state police headquarters in Scituate. Instead, he blew straight through the light.

  “You haven’t told me tha
t I’m under arrest.”

  He didn’t speak. Ignoring the next opportunity to turn, he kept driving east through downtown Providence.

  “You haven’t read me my rights.”

  Nothing.

  “Hey, Captain?”

  Still nothing. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  No reply.

  As we crossed Francis Street, a gray Honda Civic pulled in behind us, but when Parisi swung south onto Dyer, it peeled off. Just south of downtown, Parisi picked up Eddy Street, drove past the entrance to Point Street Bridge, and swung left at the Eddy Street–Allens Avenue split. To our right, a low-end strip club and a few shabby retail stores, some of them boarded up. To our left, the docks, oil tanks, and warehouses of the Port of Providence. Behind us, just a couple of cars on the road now. I couldn’t make out the models or colors through the glare of their headlights.

  “Are you planning to shoot me?”

  Nothing again. But this time, nothing sounded like an answer.

  “You’ll never get away with it, Captain.”

  More silence. And then, “Of course I will.”

  “At least twenty people saw you scoop me up.”

  “I’ve got that covered.”

  “How are you going to tell it? That you shot me for resisting arrest? For trying to escape? It won’t pass the smell test, Captain. Too many witnesses saw me cuffed and secured in the backseat.”

  Silence.

  “Can you at least tell me why?”

  Nothing.

  “Too bad about your pension, Captain.”

  No response.

  “But I guess Alfano’s two hundred grand will make up for it.”

  So it wasn’t the homicide twins who’d stolen Alfano’s money and set me up to take the fall. But why had Parisi targeted me? Wasn’t Mario a more credible suspect? Oh, wait. When Mario was on the run and living out of stolen cars, there was no way to plant evidence on him. I saw all that clearly now. What I didn’t get was why Parisi need to kill me to make his plan work.

  He drove in silence for another minute, maybe two. Then he said, “How did you figure it out?”

  “I didn’t. Except for Pope Francis, you were the last one I suspected.”

  Ten seconds, and then, “If you didn’t, you would have eventually. You’re way too persistent for your own good.”

  Your life is supposed to flash before your eyes in a moment like this, but what I flashed on was the things I’d never done. I’d never strolled the streets of Paris. Never danced at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Never researched my family tree. Never climbed an active volcano. Never learned to ski. Never swam with dolphins. Never walked on the Great Wall of China. Never fathered a child. But it was too late for a bucket list.

  “You don’t want to do this,” I said. “It violates everything your life has stood for.”

  Ten seconds, and then, “I know.” His voice was a mix of regret and determination.

  “Let me out, and we can both walk away. I don’t have a thing on you. Nothing I can prove, anyway.”

  Silence.

  “I’ll never mention my suspicions to anyone.”

  Five seconds. “Sure you will.”

  “No I won’t,” I said, and I might even have meant it. “The state screwed you out of your retirement by mismanaging the pension system. You saw a chance to secure your future, and you grabbed it. I’m glad you took that money, Captain. It’s not like it belonged somebody who deserves to get it back.”

  Nothing.

  Had Parisi found Romeo Alfano dead? Probably. Had he killed him for the money? Until now, I wouldn’t have believed he was capable of murder.

  I twisted around in the seat. As usual, Allens Avenue was nearly deserted at this time of night. Only one car was behind us now, and it had fallen back about a hundred yards.

  Parisi turned left into a cluster of unlit waterfront warehouses. Some of them were abandoned, and at this hour, all of them were empty. He punched the headlights off and drove slowly toward the water, the car rocking over pavement riddled with potholes.

  “You haven’t thought this through,” I said.

  “I think everything through.”

  Not this time, I thought, but I kept that to myself.

  It was a black night, so dark that I could barely see the outlines of the warehouses against an overcast sky. Parisi braked to a stop, shoved the car into park, opened his door, and climbed out. It was so quiet that I could hear the waters of upper Narragansett Bay lap against the shore.

  He pulled my Kel-Tec from his jacket pocket and opened the back door on the driver’s side. He was going to shoot me with my own gun.

  I was on the verge of panic now. I took two deep breaths, and it helped a little.

  “Get out of the car.”

  “No.”

  “Do it!”

  I retreated to the passenger side and swung my legs onto the backseat, my cuffed hands trapped beneath me.

  “If you’re going to shoot me, you’re going to have to do it right here.”

  “You think I won’t?”

  “I think you’ll have a hell of a time explaining the blood spatter on the backseat.”

  “I’ll clean it up.”

  “You’ll never get all of it, Captain. There’ll always be a trace.”

  “Get out of there, or I’ll drag you out.”

  I had a dozen years, four inches, and thirty pounds on him. I didn’t think he was up to it. He hesitated a beat, then decided that he was. He transferred my gun to his left fist, leaned in, and grabbed my left ankle with his right hand.

  I kicked him square in the face with my right foot.

  His nose exploded.

  The gun discharged.

  For a moment, I thought I was dead; but the round had gone wild, crashing through the window behind me.

  Suddenly, two flashlight beams lit us up.

  “Providence PD. Drop your weapon.”

  The order resonated in two-part harmony, the sweetest sound I’d heard since Yolanda played Norah Jones for me.

  “Down on your knees, hands behind your head.”

  I swung my feet to the floor, stuck my head out the door, and saw Parisi kneeling on the pavement. Freitas and Wargart stood over him, their guns drawn. Wargart swung his pistol my way.

  “Get out of the car and drop to your knees.”

  “He was going to kill me,” I said.

  “That’s a lie,” Parisi said.

  “Just do it, Mulligan,” Freitas said. “By and by, we’ll all pop into the station for a nice little chat. See if we can get this thing sorted out.”

  Freitas covered us while Wargart cuffed Parisi. Ten minutes later, a squad car with two patrolmen inside pulled up. Wargart shoved Parisi into the backseat, and we watched it roll away. The homicide twins holstered their weapons, gripped my arms, and led me through the gloom, lighting the way with their flashlights. They’d left their car near the street.

  It was a gray Honda Civic.

  Wargart shoved me into the backseat and climbed in beside me as Freitas took the wheel.

  “Where’s your Crown Vic?” I asked.

  “At the station,” Wargart said.

  “Where’d you get this heap?”

  “Borrowed it from impound. Been using it for undercover.”

  “For tailing me, you mean.”

  “From time to time.”

  “Why?”

  “We thought you’d eventually lead us to the rest of Alfano’s money.”

  “So why were you following Parisi tonight?”

  “We weren’t. We were sitting on your Mustang outside the Omni. When Parisi grabbed you, we decided to tag along. See what was up.”

  “Lucky for me,” I said.

  * * *

  At the station, the homicide twins escorted me to an interrogation room, removed Parisi’s handcuffs, and recuffed me with my hands in front. Then they nudged me into a chair, locked me insi
de the room, and swaggered off to get Parisi’s side of the story. I figured they’d be gone for an hour or two. But in five minutes they were back.

  “Parisi must have lawyered up,” I said.

  “Good guess,” Freitas said.

  “Going to read me my rights?”

  “Why would we do that?” Wargart said. “I thought you were claiming to be the victim here.”

  “I’ve got nothing to say until I speak with my lawyer.”

  Yolanda stormed in a half hour later, kicked the homicide twins out, sat across the interrogation table from me, and took notes as I spilled my story. When I was done, and she finally looked up, her face was a battlefield of fear and suppressed rage. She reached into her bag for a tissue to wipe tears from her eyes.

  “I almost lost you tonight.”

  “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  She reached across the table and held my cuffed hands in hers for a moment. Then she regained her composure, summoned the homicide dicks, and stood in the corner while I answered a barrage of hostile questions.

  “That’s quite a tale,” Wargart finally said.

  “It’s not a tale,” Yolanda said. “Charge him or release him.”

  “We’re gonna need more time to sort this out,” Wargart said. “So for the time being, we’re charging him with possession of stolen goods.”

  “Stolen goods?” Yolanda said. “What stolen goods?”

  “The money we found in his apartment,” Freitas said.

  “That was planted,” Yolanda said.

  “We don’t know that,” Freitas said.

  “Can you hold Parisi as well?” Yolanda asked.

  “For illegally discharging a firearm,” Freitas said. “It’s a bullshit charge, but it will have to do for now.”

  I spent the next three days in a holding cell.

  * * *

  Late Thursday afternoon, the homicide twins cut me loose without an explanation or apology. When I walked out of the station house, I found Yolanda waiting at the door. She hugged me hard and drove me to the Omni to pick up Mister Ed. Three parking tickets were tucked under the wipers.

  That evening she cooked for me again. This time, the music was by Michael Bublé, but the dinner conversation was all business.

  “Parisi has been charged with kidnapping and attempted murder,” she said.

  “Can they make it stick? It’s just my word against his.”