Dead Red (20 page)

“How’d the fuck you know that?”

“I know many things. Did someone reinterview Ricky’s cousin, Fred, yet? The owner of the cab fleet?”

“Nope. He’s a pillar of the community and lawyering up.”

Jack said, “What’s the word on the other cabbie who was shot Dilman?”

“They finally tracked down the guy God musta been looking out for. Cab shot to hell, and this guy took a through-and-through in the shoulder. He’s cool, didn’t see shit, has no reason why anyone would be using him for target practice.”

Jack looked at me as if to ask me if I had any questions for Willy D. I gave it some thought, then shook my head no.

“Okay, Willy. Thanks, man.” A wicked smile crossed Jack’s face. “Hey, Willy. When’s your next blow job?”

Silence from the other end while Jack giggled like a sixth grader.

“That joke gets funnier every time you use it, Jack,” said the piper. “In fact, a couple of us played the pipes at a funeral just last night. A lieutenant from the Bronx buried his twelve-year-old daughter. Fucking cancer. Believe that shit?”

That sobered Jack up. “Childhood cancer,” Jack said. “God’s way of saying, ‘I don’t really exist.’”

“It ain’t all God’s fault, Jack. See ya soon.”

“Not if I see you first.”

He turned the phone off. “This don’t look good for Ricky, Ray.”

“Ricky’s dead, Jack. How good
can
it look?”

“It’s
not
supposed to look like he was targeted. But, shit. I know you’ve been hanging with the kiddies for a few years, but to us cops, Ricky getting one to the head by the same gun that takes out the kid kinda makes it look like this
was
about Ricky, and the kid was supposed to shoot up cabs as a diversion.”

I knew damned well what it looked like. I just didn’t want to think about it. I told Jack about Ricky and the condos next to where he was killed.

“How’d he think he could afford that?” Jack asked. “He wasn’t getting
that
much work from me.” Jack merged onto the Long Island Expressway and immediately slowed down with the traffic. “Fucking LIE. World’s longest parking lot.”

“Ricky never said anything to you about coming into some money?”

“Nada. Just that he was gonna put his papers in to get back on the force. But that don’t pay enough for a two-bedroom condo in that building.”

We rode in silence for the next mile or so. Jack turned up the AC, cracked the window, and lit a cigarette. Our own mini-version of global climate change.

“Shit, Ray,” Jack finally said.

“What?”

“I hate to think this way, but you think there’s a chance that Ricky was playing me? That he located the
chiquita
, found Angela Golden, and was going behind my back to collect the reward money?”

“Ricky? No way, Jack. You knew him better than I did. You hired him because you trusted him so much.”

“Yeah, but he was different, man. After he came back. That shit can play with your head, you’re not careful.”

I thought about what Jimmy Key had said yesterday. How Ricky’d been having some trouble adjusting to life back in the states and how it was a good sign that he was going back to the cops.

“I don’t know, Jack. I don’t see it.”

“But it’s a possibility, right?”

“Shit, everything’s
possible
. But…”

Whatever it was I was going to say next just trailed off and vanished out the window with Jack’s cigarette smoke. I looked at the hundreds of cars in front of us and almost became mesmerized by their windows. All intact. All normal. Just like my life was a few nights ago. I got this buzzing feeling in my arms, so I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing. I must have dozed off because, before I knew it, Jack was pulling up in front of my apartment.

“All right,” he said. “Good day’s work.” He looked at his watch. “Shit, it’s not even noon. Good
half
day’s work.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out some money. “Here ya go, Ray. Three hundred.”

I took it. “That’s a lot of money, Jack.”

“You up for more work this week?”

“Yeah, I might be. Let me check my schedule and I’ll get back to you.”

“Your schedule?” Jack laughed. “You don’t gotta be at work until the day after Labor Day. What schedule?”

“I do have a life outside of school, Jack. Let me call Allison, see what her week looks like.”

“Oh, forgot about the girlfriend.” Again he sounded like a seventh grader.

“I’ll see what’s up with her and I’ll get back to you, okay?”

“Okay, Ray.” He shook my hand. “I got the work, so just give me the word. You did good today.”

“I was window dressing.”

“It was more than that, but I’m not gonna waste time complimenting you.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Then we’re good.”

He pulled away. I went to the corner and got an iced coffee and the paper. I brought both upstairs and fell asleep on the futon before finishing either one.

*   *   *

I was dreaming about swimming underwater and getting attacked by some sort of electric eel or stingray. It stung me in the side and wouldn’t let go. I’m not sure how long that was going on before I woke up enough to realize it was my cell phone buzzing in my pocket.

“Hello?”

“Don’t tell me I woke you, tough guy,” Allison said. “I know you had to work a few hours this morning, but jeez, it’s only three o’clock.”

“I dozed off,” I said as I sat up. “How are you?”

“Good. I got a little news for you about the shooting the other night, if you’re interested.”

I sat up straighter. “Ricky’s shooting?”

“No,” she said. “The other driver in Queens. Michael Dillman.”

“What about him?”

“Turns out he had a record.”

I knew that.
“For what?”

“Illegal trafficking of tobacco products across state lines. Did five years upstate and just got released back in February.”

“How long had he been driving for the company?”

“Since March,” Allison said. “Been clean since then, it seems. Meets with his parole officer on schedule, even pisses in a cup once a month.”

“He was a user?”

“When they caught him, they found a little marijuana and some coke in his possession. It was barely enough to bust him on intent to distribute. He pleaded out on those and got the five years for the smokes. I think the urine samples were just to break his balls a bit. Remind him he got off easy.”

I loved it when Allison talked like a cop.

“Found out something else that may interest you.”

“What’s that?”

“It seems Mr. Dillman—Little Mike they called him—was superstitious.”

“Okay…”

“He liked to drive the same cab each shift. Insisted on it.”

“What does that have to do with—?”

“The night of the shootings,” Allison said, “his regular cab was having engine trouble. He had to drive another car or not take a shift.”

“I’m still not seeing why this is important.”

“He takes another car and about an hour later, the mechanic’s got the other one fixed. Your buddy Ricky comes in—he was running late—and takes
that
one out. He, apparently, was
not
superstitious. Maybe he should have been.”

“Because…” I said, dragging the word out. “Fuck! The GPS.”

“What about the GPS?”

I told her what Edgar had explained to me about how the cab companies used the system to keep track of their drivers and how the system could be hacked into. It came to me as I heard myself speaking.

“If someone hacked into the GPS,” I said, “they may have thought they were tracking Little Mike instead of Ricky.”

Allison and I stayed quiet, pondering what the hell that meant.

“Which,” Allison said, “brings up two very interesting questions.”

“How did they know which cab Dillman liked to drive?”

“And who wanted him dead?”

“Yeah.” I gave that some thought. “How did you find out about Dillman being superstitious with his cab?”

“I spoke to the mechanic at the garage. They have a small fleet. Six medallions.”

“Does the mechanic have access to the GPS system?”

“I didn’t ask, Ray.”

“Do me a favor?”

“It depends.”

“Call the lead detective—Royce over at the nine-oh—with this info. Explain to him how you came across it and leave my name out of it.”

“Uncle Ray?”

“I’ve already pushed it with him and Royce.” I went on to explain my trip to the scene with Jimmy Key and Ricky’s application for a six-figure condo. I left out the suspicions that info brought up.

“You’ve been a busy boy, Ray.”

“Idle hands. By the way, what do you know about Charles Golden?”

She waited a beat. “Golden and Associates, Charles Golden? The PR guy with the missing daughter?”

“That’s the one. What do you know about him?”

“Only what he wants me to know, Ray. If public relations were an Olympic sport, this guy would be on the Wheaties box. Why?”

I told her about my trip to Long Island and meeting the man himself.

“Shouldn’t you be taking it easy?—I thought Jack just wanted you to interview witnesses in Brooklyn and take some photos of accident scenes.”

“He also wanted a two-man presence at Golden’s home this morning.”

“Well, my friend, you have been to the castle. He’s the go-to guy in a crisis and the king of positive press. He’s repping Tony Blake, y’know? The guy wants to be mayor so badly he’s getting a huge jump ahead of whoever else decides to run. The next election’s not for a while and already we’re hearing about what a great councilman he is. Good thing he’s got the bucks to back him up.”

I laughed. “I love when these ‘Men of the People’ leave out the part about being able to buy and sell the people they wish to represent.”

“That’s where Golden comes in. He’ll get it out there that Tony Blake went to community college and strategically leave out the part about how he couldn’t get into any other college because he was so stoned throughout his high school career.”

“Why do they call him ‘The Magician’?”

“He does this thing when he’s out campaigning. Table tricks. You know, with cards, cups, and shit? He’s pretty good.”

“You’ve seen the act?”

“Oh, yeah. Then he turns it into, ‘As mayor, I’ll make special interests disappear and the city debt will vanish.’ People—voters—love that shit.”

“Style over substance,” I said.

“At least at this point.” She paused. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You sound a little … off, and it’s not like you to sleep during the day.”

“I’m fine, Ally.” That came out a little sharp, almost like I wasn’t as fine as I thought. I breathed. “Am I going to see you tonight?”

“I believe you will. How about I come over to your place, we order in some takeout, and you rip my clothes off?”

“Let me check my schedule.”

“Keep checking, tough guy. The offer may get pulled at any moment.”

“In that case, I’m free. Seven?”

“Seven.”

After we hung up, I thought about what she’d said. I wasn’t the kind of guy who took midday naps, but I was tired from getting up early and not getting enough sleep last night. I shook that off, looked at my clock, and figured I had enough time to swing by the gym and get back home for a shower before Allison got here.

Chapter 18

IT WAS MY FAVORITE TIME TO work out at Muscles’s: midafternoon. There were only two other clients there. One was a serious lifter, judging from the size of his biceps and the amount of weight he kept adding to the machines. He had a big tattoo on his left arm. I couldn’t quite make it out, but from across the gym it could have been a can of spinach. The other was a woman of about thirty who seemed to be in pretty good shape, except for a slight belly. She was working with the trainer/manager Muscles had recently hired to pick up some of the day-to-day slack around his gym while he was out doing off-site personal training sessions more and more these days. My guess was the woman was a new mom from one of the nearby million-dollar condos, working off the pregnancy weight.

“Keep your eye on what you’re doing, Ray,” Muscles instructed. “I don’t want you undoing all this good stuff because you can’t focus.”

“Sorry,” I said, lowering the leg weights on my machine. “Daydreaming a bit. How long have you been crouching there?”

“Long enough.” He looked down at his clipboard and smiled. “You’ve increased the weights by ten pounds since last week. Nice, Ray.”

I did another few reps. “It hurts a little.”

“It’s supposed to, but not too much.” He ran his index finger slowly down the clipboard and nodded. “You keep this up, I’m gonna have trouble busting your balls much longer.”

“And what a shame that would be.”

Over on the other side of the room, the big guy finished a set and slammed the weights back into place, hard and loud. I guess I flinched, because Muscles reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. I noticed an increase in my heart and breathing rates.

“You okay?”

“I’m good,” I said yet again, not even convincing myself.

“I keep telling Felix to go easy with my equipment. Want me to talk to him?”

“No, I’m g—. It’s just…”

“Loud noises, I know.” Muscles put the clipboard down. “It helps to talk about it, you know.”

“Talk about what?”

Muscles waited before responding. “Some of the guys from the nine-oh were in the other day. They told me you were there when Ricky got his ticket punched. Right next to him?”

“Yeah.” I swung my legs off the machine. “I’m really fine, but I’ve been a bit freaked out about it the last few days.”

“Ya think? Jesus, Ray. It’s supposed to freak you out. How come you didn’t want me to know?”

“I come here for
physical
therapy. I didn’t want to lay this on you, too.”

He thought about that, and I wondered if I had offended him. If I had, he didn’t let it show. “That’s a good point.”

“What is?”

“Physical therapy and mental—
emotional
—therapy. You should talk to someone. I got a few folks I can refer you to.”