Mitchell Smith (10 page)

The First Deputy indicated two chairs to his right, across from John Cherusco.

The Colonel settled himself in the slightly more isolated of these, and crossed his left leg over his right knee, so that his tasseled, black left loafer drooped toe-down toward the carpet’s Prussian blue. Then the Lieutenant took his seat.

The Colonel, older than he seemed at first, with short, pale brown hair, and pale brown eyes to match, looked like one of the more mature male models used to advertise fine tweed overcoats. A wide mouth. A well-cut jaw.

The Lieutenant, taller, something of a gawk, his eyes a milky blue, sat up straight, knees at ninety degrees, shins parallel, his hands folded in his lap. The brown briefcase, like an affectionate cat, leaned against his right leg.

The First Deputy, affable, at ease, mentioned Washin ton’s heat when he had last visited that city, and remarked that New York’s summer heat had slackened at last into autumn.

The Colonel, speaking in the slow, swooping cadences of the deep Middle West, agreed, found New York’s temperature quite pleasant. “-Those few hundred miles north make quite a difference.” But found, or one of his people had found, the ragweed pollen blowing east from New Jersey pretty trying.

“Oh, yeah . . . oh, yeah,” said the First Deputy. “People five in a big city, they think you get away from nature. -No way, though. More trees, more things like that around than people realize.”

Silence after that, almost companionable. None of the policemen had anything more to say.

“Suppose we ought to get down to business,” the Colonel said.

“This is pretty old business,” said Cherusco.

“We feel,” said the Colonel, “-we feel that that old business just got dug up. The Gaither woman’s death comes close to laying everybody’s balls right out on the table.”

To this hearty introduction, there was no immediate reply.

After an uneasy moment, John Cherusco said, “That is strictly an NYPD

case,” his Bronxed voice distinctly unpleasant after the Colonel’s prairie music.

The Colonel, also, had attended many conferences. —Your Chief of Department doesn’t agree, Commander,” he said, and left that small poisoned needle to glitter where it fell. “I think this matter might very seriously affect our organization as well as yours-would certainly affect some of us personally-and would damn well affect the present national administration, the present government of the United States.”

“Mr. Mathews called me from Washington,” Delgado said serenely to the First Deputy. “-It seemed best for both parties to be agreed on the handling of this one.”

“Right. Right on,” the Colonel said, and his lieutenant nodded.

” All right,” the First Deputy said, “-to an extent.”

“Absolutely,” the Colonel said, and looked up at the ceiling for a moment, revealing an almost youthful throat.

“-And we appreciate that.” He paused for a little, still looking up at the ceiling, then looked down at his hands, his Academy ring. “This operation has, until now, remained so secure that frankly we haven’t worried about it, despite the obvious political repercussions.” The Lieutenant nodded very slightly to support the “repercussions.”

“-The fact that, legally, there was no wrongdoing whatsoever involved, that we all had good security reasons for using the woman, the other people, for making the tapes-Soviet involvement directly out of the U.N.

and so forth, Organized Crime . . . wonderful intelligence for you people as well. And by no means the first occasion where male and female prostitutes were used. -I was informed at the time, I hope correctly, that tap-and tape warrants were proper and current, the ones we were shown.

“They were,” Cherusco said.

“Well, then,” said the Colonel, “-there’s no legal difficulty.

“We’re not here discussing legal difficulties,” the First Deputy said.

“-You can take it we know our business.”

“No offense,” the Colonel said. “-Just getting that out of our way.” He lightly lifted his left leg, put it down, and recrossed his legs the other way, right over left.

“Our joint concern, now, is the possibility of some untoward revelation-in the press, for example-if and when this woman’s murderer is caught … or some written evidence is introduced. A diary or whatever.”

“If the guy that killed her got anything like that,” Cherusco said,

“it’s under his refrigerator or in a plastic bag in his toilet tank.

Even if he’s got it, he can’t ever show it, because it’ll get his ass convicted. -So come on, now-what’s the problem?”

If he gets caught,” the Colonel said. His lieutenant nodded again, very slightly. “-If he gets caught, that would be problem enough. Witnesses to previous activities might be called . . . a good deal of information would come to light. -Wouldn’t it?”

“If there were any such witnesses … if there was any such material,”

Delgado said. “-If he does get caught.”

an”I wouldn’t care,” the Colonel commenced, reflective, d began to slowly raise and lower the foot of his crossed right leg. The tassels on his black loafer swayed slightly back and forth. “I certainly wouldn’t care to hazard the existence of the present administration of my country

… my personal future … the personal futures of all of us, on their being nothing concerning Godiva produced in a murder trial of that kind.

-I surely wouldn’t.

I don’t think any reasonable person would want to hazard that. -If it wasn’t Soviets from the Mission who performed that termination.”

“That’s a lot of crap,” Cherusco said, his bird’s beak poised to peck.

“The Russians … ? Those U. N. Russians can’t find their way to the toilet! The KGB and those Red Army guys send every faggot they got to the U.N. Mission just to try an’ keep us busy. Their real guys come out of L.A. and Washington. -I know that, and you people”-a bird’s cock-headed stare at the Colonel should damn well know it!”

John,” Delgado said.

Cherusco sat back into his chair, his feathers settling, beak softly chattering.

After a pause, the Colonel said, “Everyone else in Godiva was shelved years ago. The other two women are living on the West Coast. One of the two males involved is terminally ill.” At this, Delgado and the First Deputy exchanged a glance. “-All shelved until this killing.” He smiled in a friendly way at Cherusco. “Of course, if KGB or GRU

questioned and then terminated the Gaither woman, we can assume they have everything she had. -Not a pleasant prospect, that’s for sure.”

The three police officers simultaneously assumed that bored expression seen on doctors at dinner parties, when lay people express some possible diagnosis.

“This homicide is a relationship homicide, Colonel,” Cherusco said, not troubling with the “Mr. Mathews.”

‘-The perpetrator is one of the whore’s johns, or at least somebody knew her personally. -O.K.? Now, will you please stop tryin’ to tell us our business? That Russian -asshole Matuchek is long gone, and you got nothin’ on him anyway except he had a big dick and wanted an office with a window7 -So give us a break.”

The Colonel took no apparent offense, though his lieutenant did, displaying a thinned mouth, his mild blue eyes now chilly, reitinj on this slight and big-nosed wop-a typical piece of New York trash, and likely with the police rather than the Mafia only for the pension.

“The Soviets,” the Colonel said, “have longer memories than we do,” his leisurely voice as pleasant as everthe tassels on his suspended loafer jiggling, however, in an agitated way.

Horseshit” said Cherusco, playing bad-cop to the elbow.

“That’s enough of that, now, John.” The First Deputy, good-cop through and through. “-These gentlemen are very right to be concerned.” He opened the small redlacquered box on his desk. “You gentlemen smoke?”

“No, thank you,” the Colonel said, for both of them.

The First Deputy lowered the box lid. “Good for you.

It took me a solid year to break my habit. -Nobody can tell me nicotine isn’t addicting. Took me a solid year.”

“More,” Delgado said, ‘-took you more than a year.”

“You’re still smoking, Tony-you’ve got no right to comment.

“And intend to continue smoking,” Delgado said, -and live forever, too.”

The Colonel and Lieutenant smiled.

“A year ‘ . . maybe a year and a half,” the First Deputy said.

“Torture … and let me tell you, I put on maybe twenty pounds of flab doing it.”

“A tough one to break,” the Colonel said, his jittery loafer now at ease. “-It’s possible, you know, that the Soviets might have staged the killing to appear to be a personal one. I understand there were some bizarre elements.”

“She had a banana up her ass,” Cherusco said. “-I can just see Bodrun Shulamof from the U.N. up there in her apartment with his perfume and his hairnet, choosin’ the right banana while his boyfriends do the job on her in the shower. -Shulamof would have tossed his cookies all over her carpet, and his boyfriends would be in the Mission clinic flat on their backs getting’ vitamin shots and beet soup. I told you-those U.N.

guys aren’t up to it.

And their Army guys are just as sad.”

“The U.N. people are not the only agents the Soviet”Look-I told you.

You think my people don’t know what the Russians are doin’ in this city?

I know all the shit they’re doin’ in this city. -O.K.? Now, why don’t you just get off it.”

to John,” the First Deputy said, though pleased enough see his man pecking Washington, “-that’s enough of that.”

“Yes, Sir,” the bad -cop said, put his head beneath his wing, and dozed.

The Colonel cruised on, a lean warship sliding through ructious tides.

“-Of course, there were others,” he said, by which he meant several criminals of some importance; seven or eight politicians—local and national, minor and major-a justice of the New York State Supreme Court; some forty or fifty businessmen, foreign and domestic; two movie stars (man and wife-both of great reputation and, as it happened, disappointing performance); and several important and less important attaches, intelligence officers, representatives and functionaries of the United Nations. “-There are,” the Colonel said, “several of these individuals quite capable of violence. The congressman, for example . .

.” Referring to one of the notable clients, a retired politician from the South widely believed in intelligence and law enforcement circles to have murdered his daughter-the motive as unpleasant as could be.

“That guy wasn’t even in town last week,” Cherusco, said. “It was a way different M.O. Plus, he banged this Gaither just once, years ago. He didn’t have any problem with her at all.”

“And the gangsters?” The Lieutenant, speaking up at last, spoke up Southern. He’d played basketball in high school in Birmingham, and done well-but had been too slow up and down the court to be offered any but a tuitioned place at Clemson. -So, the Army and Officer’s Candidate School.

The policemen smiled together at “gangsters,” and the First Deputy leaned forward in his splendid chair. “Those men,” lie said, meaning his opposite numbers in Organized Crime, “-those men don’t usually have any reason to murder prostitutes. Those people usually don’t talk about their business with whores—they just enjoy themselves. Prostitutes and those people understand each other very well; they keep each other company.”

“And,” Cherusco said, “-and, if a wise guy did want a whore dead for some oddball reason-maybe he couldn’t get it up, didn’t want her telling his buddies—he’d just get some meatball to shoot her in the ear.” The Colonel him. “-Those guys aren’t perverts, you know-they’re started to say something, but Cherusco rode right over not going’ to go stick a banana up some woman’s po-po.”

“Po-po?” said the Colonel.

“Vaginal area,” the Lieutenant said.

“I know that-I thought it was put in her anal area.”

“She was a two-banana girl,” Cherusco said. “-You understand what I’m sayin’? We’re talkin’ about an emotional thing, here. A personal killing. We probably got love involved here-O.K.?”

“Even if you’re right, Commander,” the Colonel said.

“-Suppose you’re right, and this killing of an ex-Godiva operational person-who had as her clients a number of Soviets and Cosa Nostra people–even if her killing was, nonetheless, just a personal thing by some sickie …

even if that’s true, it doesn’t solve our problem. Our problem is the possible publicity-the possible revelations coming out of this! Frankly, at this point, DOD simply does not care who murdered the woman.”

:‘Right,” the Lieutenant said.

“We do care that the woman’s activities for us in those years not become public knowledge-for reasons we all know very well. Washington is very definite on a firm lid being kept on this case . . . this whole matter. They are very serious about it, which is why I’ve been sent back here. -Now, we have certain assets I would be happy to offer to help in damage control. We’ll be in town for as long as it takes.

-We’re staying over at the Algonquin-“

“Great,” Cherusco said. “That’s all we need.”

“I have to tell you . . Mr. Mathews,” the First Deputy sat, “-t at fee I would )e est for your people o stay out of the case. It would almost certainly do more harm than good. -A matter of too many cooks.”

The Colonel uncrossed his legs and sat up straight. “Of course,” he said, “if you prefer we stand aside for the time being . . .”

“You bet,” said Cherusco.

“The Department,” Delgado said-he’d been gazing out through his wall, now turned toward them, blinking at the lesser light-“the Department has had considerable experience handling delicate cases.”

“Not this delicate, I’ll bet,” the Colonel said. And to the First Deputy: “Have you seen the tape?”

“I read the file on all the tapes. I’m familiar with our particular problem.”

“But you didn’t view the tape. . . .” The Colonel nodded to his lieutenant. “With your permission-” :‘We know the problem,” Delgado said.

“Even so,” said the Colonel, and nodded to his lieutenant again. “With your permission . . .”