Footsteps of the Hawk b-8

by Andrew Vachss

  I was up early the next morning. Called Mama from a pay phone. Two messages. One from Hauser, the other from Belinda. I dialed Hauser. "It's me," I said.

  "I got into the morgue at the Daily News," he said. "Got all the clips, right from the beginning. When are you going to have the other stuff ?"

  "Maybe today," I told him. "I'll call you back. Where are you gonna be?"

  "My office," he said, and hung up.

  Belinda grabbed her phone on the first ring, said "Burke, I was hoping— " before I said anything.

  "Do you have the— ?" I asked.

  "Yes! I went by your place earlier, but…"

  "But what?"

  "Maybe I went to the wrong address. I mean, it looked like it did before, but— "

  "Where did you go?" I asked her, wondering what the hell she was talking about.

  "The place on Mott Street. You know, the— "

  "I. don't have a place on Mott Street," I told her quietly. "If you want to see me, use the telephone, understand?"

  "Okay. I just thought— "

  "That's enough," I interrupted. "You don't want me coming to your place, don't come to mine."

  We made the meet for eleven, in the park behind the Criminal Court. That's where she wanted it— maybe out in the open so she could have her people watch better than they did last time. It didn't bother me. The park is really part of Chinatown— I could get the job done there too.

  I walked up Broadway, past the giant Federal Building, which houses everything from Social Security to the FBI. The building's biggest business is Immigration— the hopefuls start lining up hours before the place opens.

  On the wide sidewalk in front of the building, dozens of merchants had set up shop, selling everything from jewelry to perfume to bootleg videocassettes. Different kinds of food, pastries, fresh vegetables. Children's books, street maps, umbrellas. They were packed so close together it was hard to move along the sidewalk. All cash businesses, every single one. And right behind them, the IRS slumbered, unaware and uninterested, too busy terrorizing honest citizens to care about the outlaws.

  Belinda was already there when I rolled up, sitting comfortably on a metal cross–brace to some permanent outdoor exercise equipment. The park is a monument to filth, full of pigeons rooting around for the take–out food tossed onto the ground every day. At night, the homeless take over. And rats replace the pigeons.

  She waved when she saw me. Or maybe the wave was to tip off her backup— no way to tell.

  I walked closer, changing my stride enough so she'd know I'd seen her. She bounced off the exercise bar, landing lightly on her feet. "Where's that big dog of yours?" she asked. "What's her name again…?"

  "Betsy," I told her, not missing a beat. The difference between a professional liar like me and a garden–variety bullshit artist is that I always remember the lies I tell.

  "That's right." She brightened. "Betsy. I really liked her. She liked me too, didn't she?"

  "Sure did," I replied, doubling up on the lie. "You have that stuff with you?"

  "In my purse," she said. "I thought we could go someplace. Inside. You live around here?"

  "No," I said. "But if you do…"

  "I'm not ready for that yet," she said, watching my face too closely.

  I didn't push it. "I know a restaurant," I said. "It's a little early, but maybe it's open…"

  "I'm game," she replied. "Let's try it."

  We walked slowly through the twisting back streets, heading for Mama's. The white–dragon tapestry was hanging in the window, alone. Belinda's expression didn't change, like she'd never been there before. Okay. I opened the front door, ushered Belinda inside. Mama looked up from her cash register, asked "How many, please?"

  "Just us," I told her.

  "Sit anywhere," Mama said dismissively, going back to her ledger book. Anytime I come in the front door, she knows something's up. There's a button under her cash register. She pushes it and a light starts flashing back in the kitchen. A red light.

  I led Belinda to one of the middle tables, staying away from my booth in the back. A waiter came out after a few minutes, silently handed us each a plastic–coated, fly–specked menu, the kind they give tourists. Mama has a lot of businesses, but selling food isn't one of them— the last thing she wants in her joint is repeat customers.

  Belinda told the waiter what she wanted. He gave her a mildly hostile look, said something in Cantonese. "They don't speak English here," I told her. She finally pointed to the menu, ordered the #2 combination plate: pepper steak, fried rice, egg roll. The whole package cost $4.95, a bargain on the surface.

  I knew what kind of bargains Mama served up, so I just ordered a plate of fried rice.

  Belinda wanted a Coke— I asked for water.

  The waiter left. I lit a cigarette. "At least he seemed to understand 'coke.'" Belinda smiled.

  I nodded, editing out a half–dozen stupid comments I could have made. I felt the tip of Belinda's sneaker tapping at my ankle. It didn't feel like she was playing— or that she was nervous either. I kept my face empty, put my left hand under the table. Belinda met me halfway— handed me a thick envelope of some kind. I took it from her, left it on my lap.

  The waiter brought the food, slapping it down on the Formica table with sullen indifference. I checked out Belinda's combination plate. The green peppers looked soggy, the steak was a suspicious two–tone chocolate color, age–ringed like an old tree. And the fried rice they gave her didn't resemble what was on my own plate.

  Belinda didn't seem to notice. "I didn't have breakfast," she said by way of explanation as she dug into the food. I ate my rice in silence.

  "Ugh!" she said suddenly. "This Coke is flat."

  "This water's no bargain either," I told her.

  "Why do you come here, anyway?" she asked.

  "I live in a hotel," I told her. "No cooking facilities. Better the devil you know…"

  She flashed another smile. "It's all there," she said quietly. "Some of the photocopies aren't that good— I didn't have that much time."

  "I'm sure it'll be okay," I told her.

  We finished the meal at about the same time. The waiter dropped a check on the table, face–up. It came to twelve bucks and change— bogus addition is another way Mama keeps her customers from coming back. I left a five and a ten on the table. Unless Belinda had the digestive system of a goat, she was going to pay her share later on that day. As we passed by the cash register, Mama said "Come again," with all the passion of an embalmer.

  The envelope felt heavy in my inside jacket pocket as we strolled back to the park. Belinda let her hand rest on my right forearm, her soft rounded hip occasionally bumping me as we walked. "Are you already working on it?" she asked.

  "Yeah."

  "You want to tell me— ?"

  "No."

  "Okay, don't get hostile. We're on the same side, right?"

  "Me, I'm doing a job," I told her. "We had a deal— I'm living up to my piece of it."

  "Is that a subtle way of asking for the money?"

  "It'll do."

  "I don't have it," she said. I clenched my fist so the muscles in my forearm tightened, giving her my response. "But I'll get it," she finished quickly. "It has to come from…George. Like I told you, the— "

  "Trust fund," I put in, just the trace of sarcasm in my voice.

  "It's true," she said, in a pouty girl's voice. "You can check it out for yourself."

  "What I want to check out is five thousand dollars. Like we agreed. One week, five C's, right?"

  "Right. What I'm trying to tell you, if you'll just give me the chance to say something, is that I don't have it…but Fortunato does. I already spoke to him. You can go by his office anytime, pick it up yourself."

  "He's gonna leave a package for me at the receptionist's desk?"

  "Stop being so mean," she said. "He wants to talk to you— what's so strange about that?"

  "Which means I got to call him, make a
n appointment, all that, right?"

  "Well, I guess…"

  "Guess again, sister. If you think I'm gonna work this job for you on spec, you need therapy. I work the same way Fortunato does. You know how it goes: money in front, all cash, no big bills. And no refunds."

  "That's okay. I mean— "

  "Here's what I mean," I told her quietly. "I already started this thing. And I still haven't seen any money. I'm not gonna spend a week chasing this lawyer. Call him. Tell him I'll see him today. Anytime he wants. But today, understand? I don't get the money today, I'm out of this."

  "Okay, okay, okay," she spit out rapid–fire. "I'll call him. You'll get the money today, I promise."

  "Not the money," I reminded her. "My money."

  "Fine," she said with a sniff, taking her hand off my forearm. "Give me an hour. I'll leave you a message.

  "See you around," I told her. I walked away, leaving her standing there. When I got as far as Worth Street, a pair of Chinese kids in matching red silk shirts under fingertip–length black leather jackets nodded an "okay" at me. I nodded back to show them I understood— I hadn't been followed.

  I went over to my office, patted Pansy for a minute, opened the back door so she could get to her roof. Then I spread the contents of Belinda's envelope out on my desk. Everything was on that cheap flimsy paper they use in government copiers. Nothing but DD5s, the Complaint Follow–up form they use to keep track of investigations. Three women. Three bodies. All cut to pieces, first stabbed to immobilize them, then sliced for fun. Sex crimes for sure, every one of the women razor–raped. The report was in Cop–Speak: "On the above date, the undersigned Detective Oscar Wandell, Sh#99771 of the Manhattan Homicide Squad, entered the premises known as 1188 University Place Apt 9B at approx. 09:45 hours…" Whoever prepared it had just X–ed out any typos he saw— cops don't use Wite–Out.

  All the homicides were south of Midtown, west of Fifth. All inside the victims' apartments. Somebody they knew? Bar pickups? No way to tell. All the victims were white. The youngest was twenty–nine, the oldest thirty–six. The killer was working a narrow band— maybe they were all targets of opportunity?

  I took a yellow legal pad from the desk, started working on a chart. The dates synched with what Belinda had said: One of the murders— the woman on University Place— went down before Piersall had been popped over in Jersey. The other two came while he was being held without bail. No indication that the cops had linked the crimes in any way.

  I went back to the different reports. Some were more detailed than others. One detective had really done a job— even included a diagram of the apartment's floor plan, an outline to show where the body had been found, an inventory of the victim's medicine cabinet. I checked the signature box at the bottom— I couldn't make a name out of the scrawl. But next to it was a box for the detective's name to be typed.

  Morales.

  Fuck!

  Being in a box is bad enough— it turns to all kinds of holy hell when you don't know where the walls are. Or what they're made of. I folded up the reports, stuck them in my pocket and split.

  I hit the switch for the garage door, nosed the Plymouth out onto the street behind my building. Once I got the car rolling uptown, I hit the cellular, reaching out for Hauser.

  "It's me," I said. "Now a good time?"

  "Very good," he said. "Come on up."

  I couldn't find an open meter, so I settled for an outdoor parking lot. The attendant looked at the Plymouth with distaste, but he gave me a claim ticket without a word.

  I knocked on Hauser's office door— he doesn't have a bell or a buzzer. He opened it quick, a phone with a long cord in his hand. Hauser motioned me over to the couch, made a "just give me a minute" gesture and went back to his conversation.

  "Of course it's sourced," he said into the receiver. "No way I'd write it otherwise."

  He listened impatiently to whoever was on the other end of the line. Then he said, "Look, here's the deal. I'll let you see the stuff, but there's no way you can talk to my source. You want to do it that way…okay. If you don't, I'll just— "

  Hauser listened again, this time nodding his head in satisfaction. "I'll be there," he said, hanging up the phone.

  "Great–looking boys, aren't they?" he said to me, pointing to a framed color photograph on the end table next to the couch.

  "Yeah," I agreed. "Yours?"

  "All mine," he said, a broad smile on his face. "The big one's J.A., the other one's J.R. You want to hear something absolutely fucking incredible," he went on without taking a breath, cluing me to one of those stupidass cutesy–poo stories all parents tell…like it's a big deal if their kid smeared jam on the wall or something. But I wanted something from him, so…

  "Run it," I said.

  "Okay. Last night, I'm reading JA a bedtime story. 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears.' Now, he's heard this one before, see, but it's one of his favorites. You remember how it goes, right?"

  "Sure," I said, to prevent him from telling it to me.

  "Okay, when you get to the part about the Papa Bear saying, 'Someone's been sitting in my chair,' J.A. pops up and asks me, 'How would he know?' I was gonna brush him off, finish the damn story so he'd get to sleep, but then he pipes up again. 'It's a hard chair, Dad. See? in the picture? So you couldn't tell by looking, right? So how would the bear know?' And it just knocked me out. You see it?"

  "Yeah. The kid figured it out, right? How's a little girl gonna make a dent in a chair that holds a goddamned bear. That's amazing," I said, not lying now.

  I guess a minute or two passed. Hauser was staring at my face. "What is it?" he asked.

  "Nothing," I told him, shaking my head to clear it, feeling wetness on my face. Thinking about Hauser's kid being a genius so early, how Hauser adored that kid, how he must have hugged him and kissed him and been proud of him. Thinking about another kid, a little kid who questioned what he was told. Thinking about the vicious slap in the face, the ugly curses. Thinking…Ah, fuck this! I didn't need Hauser poking around in my life. So I pointed at his kids' pictures, asked him, "What's all those initials stand for?"

  "Same as mine— nothing."

  "You wanted to name them after you, how come you didn't just call one of them Junior?"

  "Jews don't do that," he told me in a serious tone. "You only name a child after someone who's dead."

  "Okay, I kind of knew that, I think. But I thought only Southerners named their kids with initials."

  "There's Jews in Atlanta." Hauser smiled. "Now, how about showing me what you got?"

  I handed over the reports. Hauser put them on his desk, pulled a few sheets of paper from his wire basket, laid them side–by–side with what I gave him. I smoked a couple of cigarettes while Hauser browsed around in the paperwork.

  "Nothing here," he said finally, looking up from the desk.

  "Nothing?"

  "Nothing that would support the idea that it's the same killer."

  "The signature— ?"

  "There is no goddamn 'signature,'" Hauser said. "It's not there. Take a look for yourself."

  He shoved the sheaf of papers across the desk to me. I sat down to read, then stopped as soon as I saw AUTOPSY centered at the top of the first page. "How'd you— ?" I asked.

  His answer was a shrug, just a hint of self–satisfaction at the corner of his mouth.

  The language of the reports was as cold as the corpses. They all ended the same way.

  MANNER OF DEATH: HOMICIDE.

  "Check where I marked," Hauser said.

  Portions of the reports were covered with a yellow highlighter. But I didn't need it to pick out the red ribbon Belinda told me about— the woman on University Place had one stuffed inside her, just a little piece trailing out. But the two later ones— after Piersall was locked up— there was no ribbon mentioned. What the hell…?

  "So this one woman, the one in New York, that's the only place they found the red ribbon?" I asked. "What about the one in Jersey— th
e one who survived?"

  "They didn't need any red ribbon there, Burke. I did a NEXIS spin too. This cop pal of yours, he didn't happen to mention DNA, did he?"

  "No," I said, already getting it, wondering if I could possibly be as stupid as Belinda must be thinking I was.

  "The investigation they did— the one in Jersey, not here— they introduced DNA–fingerprinting evidence on top of the ID. The woman had enough of Piersall's flesh under her fingernails to make it open–and–shut. No question about it— they got the right guy"

  "You're…sure?"

  "A dead match," Hauser told me.

  "So why wouldn't the ME report on the red ribbon in the other killings?"

  "You got me, Hauser said. "It's the same coroner's office, true enough, but they used a different doctor for each one. I don't see anything suspicious in that— whoever's around, that's who gets to do it. And I read it close,too— no red ribbon, no trace of red fibers, no nothing."

  "So there's no way this guy is innocent?"

  "Not of the Jersey crime," he confirmed. "That DNA stuff is dynamite. I've been reading up on it. Even checked with an expert. There's some people in the forensics field who claim it can get screwed up pretty easy— wrong samples, not enough differentiation fields to work with, poor tagging procedures…all that. But the bottom line is that it's still being used— you got people being convicted with it every day— people getting out of jail with it too. They use it for paternity tests too–when the regular blood test isn't conclusive enough for the court."

  "So you're off the job?" I asked him.

  "Not a chance," he replied. "Something's going on here. Maybe not what you— or that cop friend of yours— think. But something. Let me know what happens, okay?"

  "Yeah."

  I called in to Mama's. "Same girl," she said, as soon as she recognized my voice. "No wig this time."

  "It's starting to get messy," I told her. "Any other calls?"

  "Lawyer call. Say his name: For–too–not–toe. He say, he have your material. Six o'clock tonight."

  "Thanks, Mama. Nothing from the Prof?"