Mitchell Smith (45 page)

“I don’t know … I’m really busy-and this afternoon I have to go see a someone.”

“I won’t keep you long. Quick lunch. It’s noon on the dot. -You have time for a quick lunch?”

Anderson walked up the aisle past Ellie as she listened. He glanced at her, but gave her no more smiles.

“Yes. Yes, I think I can.”

“Good. I’m at the front desk.”

“O.K. I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”

“O.K. Good-b I and Medina looked up from his keybo, t tell him you weren’t one-four-seven.

“Bobby, I’m sorry. I’m going to meet him right now, and I’ll tell him.”

Sfie saw Nardone standing in the doorway to Leahy’s office, his back half turned, saying some thing to the Lieutenant. She walked across the room to Classman’s desk, which Samuelson had appropriated as being farther from Leahy’s office, and found Samuelson sitting, leaning on the dented gray metal like a hillside, reading the racing page of the Post.

The two young black detectives, making a rare appearance, were at their desks deeper in the short leg of the squad room’s L, each on his phone’each I I I looking bored, listening.

“Max . . .

Samuelson turned his massive crew-cut head, and stared at her.

“I’m sorry to bother you-” Samuelson always read the various racing articles and racing forms at noon, so as to be able to place advantageous bets on afternoon and evening races, and disliked being disturbed at his studies.

`-Buf I’d like to ask you something.”

Samuelson sighed and put down his article, which concerned track conditions as they affected the performance of Proof Positive, now a four-year-old.

“What?”

“Do you know a cop named Shea?”

“I know half a dozen cops named Shea.”

“No, I mean he’s in Stakeout.”

“There’s two of ‘em in Stakeout.”

:‘This one’s tall; he looks like a farmer. Phil Shea.”

“Cookie.”

What?”

“Cookie Shea. Call him Tough Cookie, ‘cause he knocked over two at once, once. Got a third one, too, couple of years ago. -Sergeant.”

“Well, he’s a lieutenant, now.”

Samuelson didn’t seem surprised. “O.K. He’s a good cop. Real hardnose. -Why? What do you want to know for?”

“Oh….. no particular reason,” Ellie said.

“Yeah….. ? O.K.” Samuelson turned from her, and picked up his Post.

Nardone was back at the desk, studying the canceled checks.

Ellie pulled out her chair and sat down. “What happened?”

Slardone looked up from the checks. “-Good news an’ bad news,” he said.

“Good news is they buy that Gershon was gazin’ stars. -Reason they buy that, is they can’t prove he wasn’t. That ‘come’ shit helped there, too. That one set ‘em back a little.”

“Bad news?”

“The bad news is, we’re going’ out to Long Island an’ look at that friggin’ boat day after tomorrow. Anderson wanted us out there tomorrow-I told him we had to be in court.”

“What the hell are they so hot for these chicken-shit cases for? -These aren’t serious investigations!”

Nardone took a look at another canceled check, then leafed past it.

“I got no idea,” he said. —They want us to waste the time, we waste the time. -Tell you this, I’m not findin’ one fuckin’ thing wrong with that boat.”

“Right. -What did they say about the Classman thing?”

“Well-thing on that was, Leahy liked it better than Anderson. Anderson said it sounded like junkie shit to him-tryin’ to get gravy for the next time they fall. He was pissed off I even went asking’; I told him you were out of it. “Oh, bullshit, Tommy. Everything you’re in, I’m in.

-Don’t say anything like that again.”

“O.K., O.K. . . . Anyway, he said he’d pass it on to Division, give

‘em everythin’-and ‘thanks a lot an’ in future mind your own fuckin’

business.”

“

“Well . . . what did you expect? A citation?”

Nardone did his gay impression. “Well . . . ! He could have shaken my hand!”-from which Ellie gathered his methadone junkies had put a minor block to the brass after all, in the Classman thing, and had possibly increased the honor of the Squad.

“I’m going to go to lunch early.

“You’re going’ . . . ?” Nardone gave her a look. “-Did that Irishman call, or what?”

“Yes. He called.”

“Well, well, well . . . at least that Harp’s got some follow-through.”

“Tommy . . .”

“I’m not sayin’ nothin’. Guy’s O.K. apparently-supposed to be a good cop…. I hope you know the guy’s a killer. Killed three guys like he was shootin’ ducks-which is another thing the guy does all the time.”

“How do you know all this?” Ellie got up to go.

“-You check up on him, or what?”

“I happened to hear, that’s all.”

“What a liar - - .”

“Hey-there’s plenty of creeps in the Department, too, you know. You gotta be careful.”

“What a liar you are,” Ellie said, and bent and kissed Nardone on the forehead. LaPlace and Seguin whistled and made kissing noises from their desks. “I’ll be back in an hour, then you go-O.K.?”

Nardone heaved a heavy sigh. “-That’s O.K.; I’ll just be up here doin’

the work.” Ellie started up the aisle to get her raincoat. “-An’ look out for that guy. He’s probably been drinkin’, get his courage up!”

Ellie gave Nardone the finger, over her shoulder-more whistles from LaPlace and Seguin-took her raincoat from the coat rack, went out to the corridor, and down to the fire-stair door.

At quarter to one, Captain Anderson left his office, took the elevator to the basement, and hitched a ride with the Chief of the Department’s relief driver, a patrolman named Futterman, five blocks east to Flowers’.

At that corner, the Captain went to the phone booths beside the restaurant entrance, found the first phone wrecked but the second one working, and made a call.

The place was already crowded for lunch when Anderson walked down the short flight to the open door, went in, nodded to Buddy Rowers at the cash register, and walked on into the back room-but Captain GarciaBueno had a table for four to himself, and no one pressing to join him.

Anderson eased his way through the tables—mouthing hellos to Department and City people he knew over the waterfall noise of conversation echoing off the low stampedtin ceiling-got to the table for four, nodded to the Captain just as the waiter put a plate of boiled potatoes and lamb stew in front of him, and sat down opposite.

“I’ll have the same.”

The waiter, an old man with large, pale hands, scribbled on a new check-blank, then walked away.

Though Captain and Commander, and genuine herocop, GarciaBueno didn’t look the part at all. twenty-two years before, he’d faced three dealers in a small room on the Lower East Side, placed them under arrest, and been shot through his left knee with a twelve-gauge for his pains. On the floor, his lower left leg only tenuously attached to him, GarciaBueno had shot and killed his assailant-forced one of his living prisoners to apply his belt as tourniquet to GarciaBueno’s thigh-then had read these men their rights, and held them and consciousness until aid arrived.

This small, scrawny man, unpleasantly bald, brown as a cigar and slightly walleyed to boot, had then and thereafter exhibited ferocity and determination sufficient to insure his steady promotion, and the cautious respect of anyone required to associate with him. He lived, and had lived for decades, in a small apartment building, a tenement in Spanish Harlem that stood in the center of a side block buzzing with addicts, thieves, whores, muggers and murderers. In this row of buildings, where desperate trouble and awful sounds were commonplace, the tenement where the Captain lived was a neat oasis of calm, quiet, and perfect safety-and had been for some years, following an episode in which three men (apparently the Captain’s magic number) chased a screaming woman, who owed a certain sum, into that building and up its stairs.

These men were not fooling, and were armed-two with knives, one with a small, inexpensive West German revolver-and no doubt considered themselves all-conquering. When, roused from his after-dinner nap by junle cries, the then Lieutenant GarciaBueno came out of gis apartment-shared with his sister, brother-in-law, and a fat old cat named Jorge-his slight brown body was nude except for a pair of clean white boxer shorts. He had his service revolver in his left hand.

Continuing his apparently established pattern of dealing with such threes, the Lieutenant placed two of the men under arrest, ordered them to remain absolutely still on the staircase (with the now silent and subdued lady they’d been chasing), and followed the third-the perp with the revolver-up onto the roof, and shot him through the head.

When he came back down the stairs, the Lieutenant found his prisoners and their intended victim docilely waiting for him, nor did their friends ever make fun of them for not trying to run their separate ways.

From that, and the previous incident, and many incidents in the Department’s bureaucracy thereafter, GarciaBueno earned a reputation as a man with no sense of humor whatsoever-a man who, if he hadn’t been so ugly, would have been a serious candidate, someday, for Chief of the Department.

This slight, small brown man now sat opposite Captain Anderson, and looked at him with blank brown eyes the right eye slightly walled. He was smoking a cigarette, holding it pinched between his left thumb and forefinger.

He hadn’t unrolled his napkin and silver, and didn’t seem interested in the plate of food in front of him.

Anderson got the notion the Captain was waiting for him to talk, and so he did, beginning with a graceful salutation from Chief Delgado-and, when GarciaBueno nodded in acknowledgment, got to the point.

Two years before, the Hispanic Captain had been given a precinct-an appointment somewhat overdue on merit, but delayed because of the Captain’s unbecoming personality. It was felt he might be a public relations deficit.

Wrong.

The precinct-in a largely black area of Brooklyn had, after the first few months, embraced their sour, dangerous little Captain, and grown fond of him. Fond of him because he dealt mighty strokes against the murderous young men and boys who hunted through their streets.

The Captain kicked ass-and kicking, made two groups of enemies beside the hoodlums: the patrolmen in his precinct, ordered to stand footpatrol one shift out of three (against assignment agreements negotiated with the PBA)-and several local black politicians and churchmen with no leverage on a Puerto Rican police captain interested only in police work.

It had begun to make for difficulties, downtown-the difficulties compounded by some Departmental and a EL

great deal of press approval of the excellent job GarciaBueno was doing.

-Compounded further by the man’s adamantine character.

Chief Delgado had two methods of dealing with difficult men-too bad or too good at their work. He had decided, quite correctly, that subtlety was wasted on the Captain.

“-The Chief wants you to take those men off footpatrol, except for specific posts that he personally approves. You will also set up a civilian advisory committee.

We’ll supply the names of the people you’ll request to serve on that.”

This bluntness had come at the end of a very reasonable summary of the problems the precinct presented, and congratulations, as well, for the fine job done so far. In the course of these, Anderson’s lamb stew lunch had arrived, and he’d begun to eat it before realizing that Garcfa-Bueno-having said not a single word-had still not unwrapped his silver, apparently didn’t intend to, and was sitting opposite, silent, smoking another cigarette and staring in that blank way. He was listening to Anderson talk, watching him eat, his own plate of food growing gelid before him.

Anderson, choosing between not eating at all, or gobbling and swilling while the little Captain sat watching him, decided on a middle course-ate an occasional spoonful of stew, very neatly, and began to speak more and more laconically. It became a long lunch.

“The Chief would like,” Anderson finally said “your undertaking to obey those orders-and no bullshit about it, Captain.” Anderson’s temper had frayed.

As if he’d waited just for that, GarciaBueno nodded, said, “O.K.,” and added, “-this time.” Then he leaned forward, and reached over to drop his cigarette into Anderson’s stew.

“Where’s Tucker?” the Colonel said, having encountered Mason at the Algonquin’s newsstand. “-Where the hell is he?”

“Out shopping, sir-over at that fancy toy store across town.” Mason had just bought two body-building magazines, and was suddenly concerned that viewing the tanned, oiled, and strenuously muscled men adorning the covers, the officer might think him queer. `-Getting something for his kids.” He folded the magazines-covers in-and held them down along his right leg, tapping his thigh with them, casually.

“You’re checking out of here,” the Colonel said, “-at once, if not sooner. Pack up and check out, pay your bill with your issue card. . .

.” He took a small, folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. A door key was Scotchtaped to it. “Go to this address-it’s down in Greenwich Village-and stay there. Budreau’s already on his way.”

“Could I ask what’s up, sir?”

“Just do as you’re told,” the Colonel said, and stood looking up at him till Mason got the idea, and went on his way to the elevators. -Not the best material for a crisis situation, the Colonel thought. And maybe a fruit, too.

He bought a pack of Wrigley’s Cinnamon, and opened it while he walked out of the hotel to the sidewalk, to get a cab.

“O.K. -How’d it go?” Nardone closed a Gaither shoe box, and sat waiting to hear.

“It’s raining out there,” Ellie said, sat on the edge of his desk, and brushed raindrops off her skirt, which was a blue fall tweed, and probably wouldn’t water-stain in any case’

“I don’t care about that. -I’m asking’ for gossip! Did the guy have something’ to contribute, or what?”

“Phil’s very nice,” Ellie said.

… Phil,’ huh?”

“that’s right.”