The Marble Kite

by David Daniel

  “You’re the one smoking it.”

  “That seems to be a minority opinion these days. Lately I feel like a criminal, standing out there on the stoop.” She took a light from the match I struck, drew smoke, and I saw her relax. She was a pretty, faded brunette with drooping eyes. She told me about Tom Waits sitting in there in the wee hours, nursing coffee and a club sandwich and sweet-talking her in his three-pack-a-day voice. I didn’t know if it was for real, but it made a good listen, punctuated in the pauses with the wind pulsing against the big windows. A party of two middle-aged couples came in, noisily debating something or other, and trudged to a booth. I squinted their way. They might have been people I’d gone to high school with, though it was impossible they’d look that old. Stel let them get settled, stubbed the cigarette, and rose, exhaling a silvery strand of smoke. “Don’t be a stranger, hon.”

  But wasn’t that the appeal? A late-hours oasis where night travelers could be strangers: sufficient unto themselves, without history or a future, just there in the bright fluorescent and chrome heart of the urban wilderness … with lipstick on your cup. The city was full of waitresses on tired feet, looking for a snug harbor, however temporary, and some companionship to share the lonely stretches after a long shift, when they took off the uniform that still smelled of the foods cooked and eaten in the diner, someone there when they let her hair down, and a voice to sing them a lullaby till they dropped off to sleep. No one knew the night city better: not patrol cops, or the graveyard shift gas jockeys, or the hookers on Middlesex, those fallen sister-angels of the night. No one knew the empty sidewalks and the dim dawns as the waitresses did. Stel was pretty in a way that didn’t hide the living, or feel it had to. Ah, Rasmussen, you’re hopeless. When I pushed back into the night, the air had cooled considerably, and I was wide awake.

  I was turning onto Market when I saw the flashers strobe on behind me. I flipped the rearview mirror tab to keep the cycling lights from frying my eyeballs and drew the Cougar to the curb. I opened the window and waited. A cop approached, taking his time, and I was startled to see Duross. If he recognized me, he showed no sign. Already the twitching colors washing across the brick facades of adjacent buildings were bringing curious faces to windows.

  “Sir, I’d like you to come with us.”

  “Where? What’s going on?”

  “JFK Plaza.” In the glare, his breath smoked. “Detective Cote has some questions for you.”

  And I’ve got one for you, I thought. About your uncle Frank Droney. But I let it lie. “Have him phone me in the morning, I get to the office at nine.” I was irked at being late-night entertainment for insomniacs.

  “Make it now.”

  Duross’s face appeared to be set in concrete. I suppose I could’ve told him where to go, provoked him a little, which would have given us both some options. But I didn’t need anyone informing me of Miranda-Escobedo, even if he could do it without reading it off a card, as I suspected Duross could. “We’ll follow you,” he said.

  “I’ll see you there.” I trod on the gas before he could protest, forcing him to jump back. I didn’t like wearing a leash.

  Headquarters wasn’t far. Duross caught up to me in the lobby, but maybe the presence of other people spared me a hassle. At the desk, as instructed, I unsnapped my belt holster and handed over the .38, which the desk officer made a note of in a log and passed to Duross. Wordlessly, we went through a steel door into an inner stairwell. Down one flight were the cell block and booking area. We went up to the next floor. Roland Cote was waiting in an interrogation room, perched on the edge of a long table. He was in shirtsleeves, with suspenders, his legs crossed at the ankles. He gave me an eyebrow flash for greeting. Duross laid my holstered weapon on the table near Cote, gave me a heavy look, and went out.

  “Okay, you’ve got my attention,” I said. “What gives?”

  “What’s your hurry? Take a load off.”

  “It’s two o’clock in the morning. You want to sit and talk?”

  “Unless you prefer to have a lawyer present.”

  I frowned and gave it a moment. “What for?”

  “Interfering with an officer in the performance of his duties.”

  “Did Duross tell you that?”

  “Have a seat, for God’s sake.”

  I took one of the chairs at the table. Cote shifted position to face me. “I don’t know why you’re busting my balls on this,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve got a good thing, you know it? I mean, think about it. You solve a case, or even just take a case, help someone out—the stuff I do routine—you’re a hero. You get your name in the newspaper, maybe collect a bonus. I do it”—he shrugged—“it’s just part of the job.”

  “Somebody call the twenty-four-hour diner on Dutton. I think I’m asleep in a booth there. I’m dreaming this.”

  “Keep being funny.”

  “Okay, sometimes I get kudos—not that often, but sometimes. But I’m also the one who gets my ass kicked. I’m here at this ridiculous hour on my own time, not on the clock, and I can’t get an answer that’s any straighter than what you’re handing me? Forget funny. Now, what’s this really about?”

  “I ask the questions. You answer them to my satisfaction, you can call your little sweetie and tell her to fluff up the pillows. You can’t fluff up a jail pillow.”

  “No,” I mumbled, “they’re as thin as your honor. Ask your questions.”

  Cote stood and walked around to the chair across from mine, his manner tougher now, as though he was determined to try another approach. The room was like rooms of its kind everywhere: as drab as a crow bar, nothing on the walls but paint. No clock. Time didn’t matter in rooms like this. I couldn’t tell if there was recording equipment in operation or not; I assumed there was. Cote said, “What were you doing out at the fairgrounds earlier tonight?”

  “You seem to have the questions and the answers.”

  “I can turn this into a bust if I have to. Try again.”

  “This is beneath even you, Cote.”

  He moved a shoulder. Words didn’t have much zing after midnight; we were jousting with rubber lances. There was a sound of footsteps moving in a quick march down the corridor. Frank Droney came in and shut the door. He had his shield on a flap on his sport coat pocket. I sat up straighter and glanced at Cote. He showed nothing.

  Droney leaned against the door, arms crossed in an attitude that gave an impression of casualness, but it didn’t fool me. I’d worked for him. Casual wasn’t part of his makeup. Strip the muscle and hard fat off him and you’d find rebar and steel cables, with only just a tincture of rust on them. The system’s failure was in elevating men like him to positions of authority; its wisdom was in not allowing them to get all the way to the top. He nodded for Cote to resume.

  “What do you know about a trailer being burned at Regatta Field the night before last?”

  “Only what I saw in the newspaper.”

  “You’ve been seen out there often lately. Why is that?”

  “I’m working for the carnival owner,” I said.

  “Were you in any way responsible for acts of vandalism or criminal trespass there?”

  “What would be the point?”

  “To put us off the scent.”

  “That’s me for you. Always trying to flummox the law.”

  Droney pushed away from the door. “Cut the crap.”

  “You cut it. You think I’d poison my own well?” I was angry now, fresh out of fun. “What’s with the Hoover routine? I came in willingly. And how come I can’t move without Duross stepping on my heels?”

  Droney took a stride toward me. “I got it, Frank,” Cote said, moving between us. When Droney moved back, Cote said, “Things are getting crazy around the city. We had several people beat up last night, and someone tossed a brick through a window at the cable TV station with a hate note attached.”

  “So now I’m responsible for the act
ions of other citizens of this town?” I flicked a glance at Droney. “Or are you looking to pin that on me?”

  “Who says it was citizens? Maybe it was your carnival friends doing it.” I sat back, awed by their logic.

  “Did you discharge a weapon at the fairgrounds tonight?”

  Was that what this was about? Was I being set up for something? Guardedly, I said I had.

  “Is this the weapon?”

  “Yes. It’s the only one I own.” A white lie; I wasn’t about to cop to the sawed-off 12-gauge sitting on a ceiling joist in the cellar of my new house. “I shot it into the ground. There’s empty brass in one chamber.”

  Cote drew the .38 partway from the holster and looked at it, maybe recalling a day when the Special had been the sidearm we’d all packed, or maybe we’d ramped up to a .357. No more; it was all semiautomatics now, which in my book missed the point. Some people preached the wisdom of carrying semiautos for the increased firepower and ammo load, but it also meant more working parts to jam in a tight situation. Besides, if you couldn’t take someone down with six shots, it was probably too big a problem anyhow. “Why?” he asked.

  “To make an impression.” I told them the story.

  “A torch? That’s a pretty boneheaded move.”

  “I never said it was brilliant, but it was the best I could think of at the time. It seemed to work.”

  Droney reached and took the holstered weapon from Cote. “I’m tagging this and hanging on to it for now. Evidence. Discharging a firearm within city limits is a crime.”

  “So level a charge,” I said.

  When he got mad, Droney’s heavy jaw grew lumpy, like a man with the mumps. “I may goddamned well do that.”

  “Hold on,” I said, more reasonably. “I know the law, but I had to calculate the odds and take a risk. That friendly little band of citizens had already talked themselves into going out there in the first place, and they were hassling a young woman and an old man. I don’t believe it would’ve ended there.”

  “It’s against the law to fire a gun,” Droney said doggedly.

  “Sure,” I mumbled, “unless it’s an officer shooting an unarmed suspect running from an order to halt.” As soon as I said it I felt the air in the room go frigid, but there was no taking the words back. And suddenly I didn’t care. I was feeling the lateness of the hour, the fact that I hadn’t slept in a long time, that my woman had dumped me, and that the lawyer who had hired me had quit. I was sick of being pushed around. “If you knew all this and you just got me in here to dance me around, bring a charge!”

  Droney stepped forward, his sport coat flapping open. I caught a glint from the little tie bar clamped to his necktie: a pair of miniature gold handcuffs. There was nothing else cute about him. His eyes were electric with anger. A vein throbbed in his throat. His pointed finger was six inches from my face. “Fuck with me, mister,” he said from a throat full of gravel, “I’ll have so many cops on your ass you’ll think you’re leading a parade. I can tank you for interfering in a police investigation, for obstructing justice, withholding evidence. Firing a weapon, trespassing at a crime scene. I can jack you up for crossing the street, for zipping your fry!”

  Cote looked at the floor; I think even he felt embarrassed by the outburst. But I couldn’t shake the sudden question of how much they knew. Did they know, for instance, that I’d been inside Flora Nuñez’s apartment? I was pretty sure I’d heard a cop come in there that night, was pretty sure I knew who, too. Did they know that I’d removed potential evidence? Sweat crawled under the sleeves of my shirt. Just then, a civilian employee stuck her head in, glanced around at the thick silence, then told Droney he had a phone call and ducked back out. Giving me a long, slow glare, Droney yanked his coat shut, buttoned it, and left. My head felt as if it had been released from a bench vise.

  “There isn’t much time,” Cote said. “He’ll be back. Level with me and I may be able to help you. Don’t and he’s going to bust you.”

  “Okay, he can mess with me,” I said more measuredly. “None of it would stand up, but it would be a bigger hassle for me than for him. Yet he hasn’t done it, so what is it you guys really want? For God’s sake, we’re working for the same end.”

  “You’re just dragging things out. As long as that’s going on, the case is news and things are staying stirred up.”

  “You overestimate my power in this.”

  He stepped back, shaking his head. He was growing impatient. “Pepper did her. It’s simple. It’s not the first time some dumb shit lost his head over a twitch, and it damn sure won’t be the last. But maybe we can make people think twice. Gus Deemys is ready to trample him. Don’t be in the way of that.”

  I didn’t know if I could credit Droney with anything more than cynicism, but Cote, I realized, believed his spiel. His normal shift ran nine to five, yet here he was, long after, still plugging, as eager as I’d ever seen him. The case was getting press, and that’s what Gus Deemys liked. Maybe things were exactly as Cote was presenting them. Was he right? All at once I was too tired to offer an alternate take; I had just enough energy to try one bluff. “Do I still get a phone call, or have you suspended all my rights under the Patriot Act?”

  Cote sighed, and I realized he didn’t have anything.

  There was a rap at the door and I half-expected Droney to reappear, but it was Ed St. Onge. He looked as if he had been called out of bed. He glanced at me with bloodshot eyes, then at Cote. “Did you gooseneck him yet?”

  “Cut it out, Ed.”

  “How about a fucking rubber hose?”

  “We’re just talking. Hey, Rasmussen, were we just talking?”

  St. Onge shook his head disgustedly.

  He walked me upstairs and along a corridor with framed portraits of police superintendents past and of the city officers who’d died in the line of duty. In his rumpled tweeds, he might have been heading for a weekend of partridge hunting at Lord Thrippleton’s country estate. I didn’t comment, though; I’d have welcomed him if he’d been in jodhpurs and a green sombrero. In his office he said, “Sit down.”

  “So people keep telling me. It’s wearing thin.”

  “Sit down and quit being an asshole. And not one word about the crumby disposition! This time of night my filters are shut off.” He went over, lifted a coffeepot off the warmer, and sniffed at what looked like brown paint in it. “Cup?”

  “It’d keep me awake.”

  “That’s why I need it.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t just roll out of a cozy bed.”

  He spun, coffee sloshing in the pot he held. “You could’ve rolled into a cozy cell.” He flung his free hand at the door. “Those guys are jumpy as hell, and I understand why. Things are starting to quake. There was graffiti on the steps of city hall this morning. ‘Fry Pepper!’ You like that? And some hapless longhair got stomped because a group of citizens thought he was a carny. Turns out he was a college student who’d thumbed down from Montreal to see Kerouac’s hometown. We gave him bus fare back, but it’s not exactly a PR coup for the city.”

  I’d had my nose too close to the ground lately to see the bigger picture, but I was getting it now. Shaken, I sank into the offered chair. “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Got a phone call at home. Officer Loftis heard the dispatch call to pick you up. She took a chance I’d want to know.”

  That was a welcome surprise. “I appreciate it.”

  He poured himself a mug of coffee, black with a Sweet ’n Low. His MO hadn’t changed a lot over the years, nor had his lair. The framed Sierra Club poster still hung facing the navy gray desk, though I doubted the choice had anything to do with his liking the tranquility of the wildflower meadow, its contrast to his world here in the criminal bureau. Most likely it was just there, like the tall cabinets of expired files on cases, where victim and perp (and probably arresting officer, convicting DA, defending attorney, deciding jury, and sentencing judge, for that matter) had gone as belly up as the fli
es in the overhead globes that cast their glare on the room. When Randy Nguyen had been a police intern, he’d put a lot of material into electronic databases, but bureaucracies hated to part with paper as much as Elizabeth Taylor did with the idea of marriage. Love has many forms. St. Onge parked a haunch on the corner of the desk and scratched at his mustache. “So tell me why you think Droney wants to screw you into the ground.”

  “Walk me out to my car,” I said.

  He glanced around. “What, you don’t like your old home turf?”

  “I’m a little short on nostalgia tonight.”

  My car was in front, and we got in. I opened my mouth to speak, but he stilled me and nodded across the square to where several cars were parked. “What?” I asked.

  “Maybe nothing.”

  Or maybe watchdogs. I caught on. I thought I could make out the dark shapes of people inside one of the cars. “Hold your story for a bit,” he said. “Let’s find out.”

  39

  Traffic was light at that hour, and easy flowing. At Ed St. Onge’s instruction, I went down Arcand toward the central post office and Tsongas Arena and turned right onto French. No vehicle seemed to be particularly interested in us, but I cruised for another block or two. “Anyplace special,” I asked, “or are you a ‘journey, not the destination’ type of guy?”

  He navigated and we crossed the river, which lay wide and silent, illuminated with the reflected lights of the city. None of the cars lingering in City Hall Square had trailed us, which, St. Onge guessed, meant that they were protestors keeping vigil. On the west side of Christian Hill we parked and hoofed down an alley between nondescript yellow brick buildings. The only indication that they were anything but tenements was the industrial fan vent on one, exhaling a boozy smoke into the branches of an ailanthus tree. At the metal-sheathed door, a beefy guy in a black T-shirt that read THE KILLING HAND in blood red across his chest rose from a stool where he’d been reading a comic book, recognized St. Onge, and nodded us in. About a dozen people were sitting at tables around the edges of a room the size of my kitchen. At the center was a billiard table, with enough space for someone to make most shots without rapping your face with the butt end of the cue. A few of the patrons were familiar from around town, movers and shakers of one sort or another. I dug the irony. The narcotics squad was out busting kids for smoking pot, and here were city grandees, sopping up after-hours hooch, but that’d have to be someone else’s cause; my plate was full. The rosy-nosed leprechaun behind the bar knew St. Onge. “What’ll it be, lads?”