Night of the Toads df-3

by Michael Collins

  ‘No, he-’ The downstairs buzzer rang. ‘There he is.’

  She went to release the street door, and waited at her door as footsteps came up slowly, limping. Footsteps are distinctive, conjure up a mental picture of the man, and the steps coming up didn’t make me see Emory Foster. I went for the door.

  Sarah Wiggen was staring out.

  I pushed her aside. He stood at the top of the stairs. Tall, stooped, his work clothes crusted with gutter grime, his pale eyes watery and red with booze and, maybe, grief. The gaunt man from the cafeteria. He tried to run, but he was shaky, weak. I got my hand on his arm, enought to ruin his balance, and he slipped, fell, crashed down the stairs to the next landing. I jumped down after him. Groggy, he tried to get up. I kicked him in the stomach. He fell back, gasping, and stared up at me. I put my hand into my pocket, held a foot aimed at his chin.

  ‘Call Captain Gazzo, Sarah.’ I gave her the number of Gazzo’s private office. ‘Tell him I found Boone Terrell.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Graffiti covered the walls of the Interrogation Room. A generation of janitors had tried to scrub them off. They had given up, and settled, puritanically, for scratching over the obscene ones. It left plenty of reading: Johnny Knucks, I’ll never learn… Little Sal been here and gone… You’ll be back, Sal… Rory Connors, a bum rap… I’m sorry, Marge, I’m sorry…

  Gazzo said, ‘Tell us where you’ve been, Terrell. ’

  Boone Terrell sat in the chair under the light. Gazzo half-sat on the bare table. Three other detectives in shirt sleeves, guns prominent for intimidation, stood spaced around at the edge of the circle of light. I leaned on a wall, read graffiti, and listened to Gazzo work.

  ‘Drunk, Captain,’ Terrell said. ‘I drink some.’

  Terrell’s voice had the shakiness of a bad hangover, very bad. Under the hangover it was a firm voice, with a strong regional twang of the South, but without any whine. The voice of a decent farmer. His big hands shook, but that was booze, too. He sat like a man who didn’t scare easily, a slow rock against threats or danger, the hands stuck out of his sleeves again, as if he never could find clothes that fit. His face was paler than ever, but not flabby, and his sunken eyes seemed more stunned than worried. He continually brushed at the caked grime on his clothes as if ashamed to be seen so dirty.

  ‘I guess you do,’ Gazzo said. ‘A routine binge?’

  ‘The weekend, Captain. You know how that is.’

  ‘Don’t we all? Why’d you go to Sarah Wiggen?’

  ‘You know, family an’ all. I ran out of money.’

  ‘Did you know we were looking for you?’

  ‘Hell, no, Captain. I sure didn’t.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know why we were looking?’

  Terrell brushed dirt. ‘I guess I know.’

  ‘You guess you know,’ Gazzo said. ‘Then why didn’t you come in? No, never mind for now. We checked you out, Mr Terrell. You drink, sure, but you don’t binge. Your local Queens pals say Boone Terrell he drinks, but he never goes on a binge. No sir! Boone Terrell has two kids, he takes care of his kids. Oh, sometimes he’ll tie one on over a Friday or Saturday night, but never any longer. His wife comes out from somewhere on the weekends, so sometimes he gets drunk, but not often. No, Boone Terrell he watches his kids, stays with his wife.’

  Preacher Gazzo, Captain Mouth. They say, the thousands who have faced his verbal barrage, that when he starts talking, lawyers plead guilty. Boone Terrell only looked at him.

  ‘I guess it’s true? My Annie’s dead?’

  Gazzo walked away into a corner. Terrell’s eyes followed him. That’s one of the tricks, the walkaway. Prisoners, or witnesses, want to please their interrogator. Deep down, somehow, they all want to please, as if that will make them safe. Sergeant Jonas took Gazzo’s place. Jones is the hard questioner.

  ‘You’re saying you’re not sure she’s dead?’

  ‘I guess I just don’t want to be sure,’ Terrell said.

  ‘Then how did you know? You sneaked out there Saturday, right? Sure; your wife, another man’s kid in her. You helped her out, gave her some extra pills, killed her!’

  ‘Anne died from pills? I never did hold with pills,’ Terrell said. ‘Saturday? The kids was all alone-with her?’

  I said from my wall, ‘Sally Anne took good care.’

  Terrell nodded. ‘Sally Anne’s a good kid.’ He wiped at his face with his big hand. ‘Word got around to me. From the Queens saloon. Fellows told fellows to tell me.’

  ‘When did word get to you?’ Jonas asked.

  ‘About morning.’

  ‘You mean today? Why did you stay away Sunday, even Monday? Your wife always went back to Manhattan on Sunday night. You stayed away, left your kids alone? Why? Because you knew she was dead, you were afraid to go back even for your kids?’

  ‘You got it wrong,’ Terrell said. Hangover or not, he had an odd dignity. ‘Annie, she come early Friday. Said she was goin’ down to Carolina with the kids, but not with me. We had us a fight. I walked out. I didn’t go back ’cause I figured she was gone. I never knew about that abortion. Didn’t know she was that way. I guess it wasn’t mine.’

  Sergeant Jones glanced at Gazzo. The Captain drank a glass of water, walked back to sit on the table in the light.

  Gazzo said, ‘You married her when she was fourteen. You must be twenty years older than she was. Tell me about your life with her, Terrell. How did you get to New York?’

  Terrell nodded. ‘I was thirty-five when we met up, been married once before down Arkansas. I was up Carolina visitin’. We had us a dance, Annie was there. She’d sneaked out on her folks. She was real beautiful. She liked me, and I told her I had my own place. A woman down that way likes her own place, so marryin’ with older fellers ain’t so special. We married up, and I took her back to Arkansas. Her people cut her off, and that kind of hurt her. I guess my place wasn’t like she’d figured, neither. When we had Sally Anne and Aggy she didn’t even write her Ma. I guess she was ashamed, the life I give her. A hard-rock farm, no better than her Daddy had.’

  ‘How did she get the idea of New York and the theatre?’ Gazzo asked. ‘A fourteen-year-old from a Carolina farm?’

  ‘We got TV, Captain, and there was this summer acting place over to Huntsville. I give her a bad life. I never got to no school. All I know is hand farming. She had two kids and not even a cash crop for maybe a decent dress. It wasn’t goin’ to get better. Government people come down and spend more money than God got sinners improvin’ farming. All that does for niggers and folks like me is send us walking. We ain’t needed.’

  ‘So you walked up here?’

  Gazzo said.

  ‘She done. Eighteen. I did what I could down home. The kids missed Annie; me too. She missed the kids, maybe me, too. She wrote, said come on up we’d figure out something. I was losin’ the farm anyway, not that there was much worth losin’. She got us the place in Queens. I tried to work. The Government don’t do so much for us when we comes up here after we got no place down home. I got a bad leg, it pains me. I ain’t smart, got no work for up here. Odd jobs. Had one once for six months ’fore I got paid off. Annie brought money every week. I lied, got welfare. She come out weekends.’

  Gazzo said, ‘You took it; the way she lived along, how she made her money?’

  ‘You ever see her, Captain? Alive, I mean? Know her?’

  I said, ‘I did, Boone.’

  ‘Then you know why I hung around. What was I about to do in Arkansas alone with the kids and no better off? Up here anyways I seen her regular. There was some money.’

  ‘You met her in the city, too?’ I asked. ‘Regularly?’

  ‘Not much, she got to keep us hid. If I was in town, she’d see me a few minutes if she could.’

  ‘Who watched the kids if you were in town, or boozing?’ Gazzo asked.

  ‘Baby-sitters if I had money. Most times Sally Anne took care. What else we supposed to do? Everyone got a right to some l
ivin’ of their own. Her Ma taught Sally Anne good. Annie was a good Ma. Tried real hard for the kids, even for me.’

  ‘And for herself,’ Gazzo said. ‘The big ambition.’

  ‘Ain’t a person entitled to what she wants, too? Try for it, leastways?’ Terrell said. ‘I ain’t got much schoolin’, but it seems to me we all got our wants, and who says a woman got to forget it all ’cause of what she done at fourteen? She done her best for her kids, and worked for herself, too. Worked like a field hand. She had to keep us hid, she had to get men to help her out. Sure, it made me feel bad. Sometimes she even had to come in on a date Saturday night, but what else did Annie have to help her? She could’ve done better without us, left us in Arkansas. She didn’t. She was good to us.’

  We were all silent for a time. Terrell sat with his big hands clasped between his knees, his head down. The detectives just stood. I read some more graffiti: I’m sorry, Marge, I’m sorry… George M. took a plea… So long, Georgie…

  Gazzo said, ‘An interesting story, Terrell. You thought a lot of Anne. You expect us to swallow that you went on a big binge just because she was taking the kids to North Carolina? It won’t play, Terrell, not with that story.’

  For a time Terrell sat motionless, head down, then he took a deep breath. He raised his head. For an instant, a flash, I had a peculiar feeling that he had expected the Captain to react in exactly that way. He began to nod.

  ‘I guess you figure me too good,’ he said. ‘She told me she was carrying. She told me what she was fixin’ to do. It wasn’t mine, only maybe it was, too, see? Who wouldn’t go get drunk? By Saturday I got worried, though, so went and watched her come home. She looked okay to me, so I come into town an’ took me a good drunk. I was dryin’ out this mornin’ when some fellers got word to me. I snuck on out to Queens. I saw cops, and the kids was gone, so I knew it was true. I come back in the city to drink some more. I was broke, so I went to Sarah.’

  I said, ‘Did you know she tried to blackmail Ricardo Vega?’

  ‘She talked some,’ Terrell admitted. ‘She said maybe we’d have some money; us and for her theatre. Said it was good I was sick the week before she took them two weeks away in January, and she was alone in Queens. Said it was good I got one kind of blood type. I figured she was fixin’ to squeeze this Vega, only I never did know what happened about it. The Vega feller fixed it up for her to get rid of the kid. She had somethin’ wrote down in case Vega couldn’t take her to the place on Saturday. I guess this Vega knew the Doc who done it.’

  For a moment, coming like that in his slow voice, the words seemed unimportant enough. A slow bombshell, delayed. But the words were heard after a few beats, and Gazzo stood up in a kind of slow motion.

  Gazzo said. ‘She told you Ricardo Vega arranged the abortion? That he was taking her to the doctor himself? Going with her?’

  ‘Yes, sir, she said that. Vega’s a name you remembers.’

  ‘What about Ted Marshall?’ I asked.

  ‘Never heard about him. I guess I didn’t want to know about all her fellers. Just her, and me, and the kids. That’s what I wanted. Don’t just figure what I do now. I got no money, no work. How do I keep the kids? Could take ’em down Arkansas, or send them to her folks in Carolina. Annie wouldn’t like none of that for the kids.’ He sighed deeply, as if hearing Anne Terry and her plans for her children. ‘Well, you think I can see the kids anyway, Captain?’

  ‘I’ll fix it,’ Gazzo said. ‘We’ve got no reason to hold you now. But we’re going to check your story and your movements all the way. You understand?’

  ‘You got your job. I thank you kindly for the kids.’

  Terrell stood up, and Gazzo instructed Sergeant Jonas to arrange for Terrell to go to his children. Gazzo nodded to me to follow him out. He didn’t say anything until we were both seated in his shade-drawn office, and he had a cigarette.

  ‘Well, Dan?’

  ‘What does Terrell gain by lying?’ I said. ‘Revenge?’ ‘He’s got stone in him, Dan,’ Gazzo said. ‘A man like that can do a lot if he thinks he has to. But just for revenge on one of her men? Anyway, all we have is his word for what she said. His word against Vega’s. We’ll need more.’

  ‘You’d think he could make a better lie if he was after Vega,’ I said.

  ‘Yeh, you would,’ Gazzo agreed. He stood up. ‘Let’s go and talk to Vega.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ricardo Vega didn’t like our reappearance. He met us at his door in a sweat suit under a cashmere topcoat. He wore Wellington boots, and looked ready to go out. The boots and slim sweat suit made him look like some dashing cavalier. An overaged cavalier, his face tired.

  ‘I’m due at rehearsal, Captain. I’ve got too many problems in my show to waste time.’

  ‘We won’t take long, Mr Vega,’ Gazzo said. He didn’t exactly push inside, or menace Vega, but we went in.

  ‘I’m sick of that one-armed pariah,’ Vega said, as much to assert himself against Gazzo as anything else. ‘Get him out.’

  ‘Mr Fortune is licensed to help us. He’s helping,’ Gazzo said. ‘We’ll wait if you want your lawyer.’

  ‘I want,’ Vega said, ‘and I have work to do.’

  He vanished into an inner room. Gazzo sat in his coat. on an ornate Empire chair. Somewhere in the vast apartment Vega began to shout. He had been outfaced, he had to fight back against those he could dominate. George Lehman went away, and the distant shouting began again.

  In the late sunlight the mammoth living room had a dusty look. With its fussy, overcrowded furniture, and walls of paintings, it was somehow closed in and untouched by open space. A room that lived only at night. A room for the people who moved through it. They are night people, those who live on the high echelons of the successful business of art. They exist indoors in rooms like this. A narrow life of written words, canvas colours, shaped stone, and the judgement of each other. Always indoors and the night, even when they were out in the daylight. They carry their world with them, hear the same analytical voices, in New York or Paris, Tokyo or Montego Bay.

  Gazzo came alert an instant before Ricardo Vega returned to disturb my reverie. It was obvious that the apartment had a rear entrance-the lawyer was with Vega.

  ‘Okay, let’s get on with it,’ Vega said, impatient.

  He still wore his sweat suit. Slim, but older in daylight. ‘Let me, Rey, will you?’ the lawyer said. ‘Is it the same matter, Captain?’

  ‘Same thing, ‘Gazzo said, and stood.

  ‘Is there a warrant involved now?’

  ‘Just some talk for now.’

  ‘I don’t like that, but what’s on your mind?’

  Gazzo told them. What Boone Terrell had said, word for word, and nothing more. No judgements, no guesses. The lawyer bridled. Ricardo Vega shrugged.

  ‘I never heard of Boone Terrell,’ Vega said. ‘He’s lying.’

  ‘He didn’t say he knew you,’ Gazzo said. ‘Just told us what his wife told him. Her you did know.’

  ‘She never said that, how could she?’ Vega said. ‘If she did, she was raving or out to get me. Cause me trouble.’

  ‘She didn’t know she was going to die, Vega,’ Gazzo said.

  I said, ‘Why would Terrell lie? Any ideas?’

  ‘No,’ Vega snapped, ‘and you keep out of it. You I don’t have to put up with. Captain, I don’t love authorities, but I want to co-operate. Only this is ridiculous. The man’s lying.’

  The lawyer said, ‘Mr Vega doesn’t intend to be pushed around, Captain. We don’t threaten, but he has position, power, and standing. He’s an important man. Unless you have more to-’

  Vega said dryly, ‘They know who I am, Charley.’

  ‘Let’s say she was lying,’ Gazzo said, unaffected. ‘Why?’

  ‘Who could know, Captain?’ Vega said. ‘For her husband, perhaps. Maybe she liked to drop my name, I get that all the time. A name to satisfy the husband. Maybe to get him to come after me for revenge?’

  ‘
Did he?’ Gazzo asked.

  ‘If he did, I never noticed.’

  Gazzo said, ‘I don’t figure him for revenge.’

  ‘I hope not. I’m too busy for any games.’

  The lawyer said, ‘You appear to be working very hard on a small crime, Captain. A simple abortion.’

  ‘I want the abortionist, and maybe someone set it up, even took part,’ Gazzo said. ‘Then there’s the pills. She didn’t exactly die of the abortion. She took wrong pills in combination with sodium pentothal. Maybe someone knew they would kill her, knew that for her the combination was extra lethal.’

  The lawyer was unable to believe his ears. ‘Murder? You suggest murder? No more, Rey! Get a warrant, Captain.’

  ‘No, wait,’ Vega said, waved, ‘Murder, Captain?’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Gazzo said.

  ‘Rey!’ the lawyer cried.

  ‘Why, Captain?’ Vega said. ‘I mean, think! An abortion alone ends any threat to me, right?’ He leaned toward Gazzo, ticked off his points on his fingers. ‘Say I even paid her off. After the abortion no more threat, so why kill her?’

  ‘To get the payoff back,’ Gazzo said. ‘That forced contract, especially. Your work and name means a lot to you, right?’

  ‘A few bucks, and one bad contract? Please, Captain.’

  ‘I did some checking,’ Gazzo said. ‘You haven’t had a money success in years. You get paid good for acting, but your own company is shaky. I figure that’s what’s important to you-where you do it all: write, direct, act and spend your own money. The whole deal, and the critics haven’t been so nice to your shows, either. You’ve been losing some money, getting lumps from critics, and word says you’re having a harder time getting backers. That could make a man more touchy about bad publicity. You admitted she maybe could have hurt you. Maybe she had more against you than you let on. You might have been more scared than you look. This show you’re doing now, it’s a big stake, right? You’ve got a lot riding on it.’

  Gazzo was a good cop, I’ve said it before. He works carefully and deep, looks under all the rocks. Ricardo Vega seemed to grow older before my eyes as Gazzo talked about him, and I felt a crawling sensation on my neck. Vega was worried, unsure. Sometimes great artists are on the way down when they look like they’re on top. There’s always a reputation lag. When I thought about it, Ricardo Vega’s big triumphs were years old now.