The Gutter and the Grave (10 page)

The patrolman appeared at my elbow. I first saw him in the bar mirror, and I thought
Here we go. Vagrancy. Let’s see your wallet, Mac, your identification, do you have a visible means of support?
No, you son-of-a-bitch, I have an invisible means of support.

“Matt Cordell?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“We’ve been looking for you all day. Finally decided to come back, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to come along with me?”

“What the hell for?”

“The Skipper wants to talk to you.” He paused. “It’s about a murder.”

We drove to the local precinct, and the patrolman waved at the desk sergeant and then led me upstairs to the Detective Division. The detective squad room was at the end of the hall—a bleak, colorless room with hanging light globes and desks and filing cabinets. “The Skipper” was a detective 1st/grade named Miskler, substituting for the lieutenant who was on vacation. We went through the squad room and then the patrolman showed me to a bench just outside Miskler’s private office.

I cooled my heels on the bench for about ten minutes, occasionally looking at the frosted glass door that carried Miskler’s name in peeling gilt letters. Finally, a guy in shirt sleeves and dangling shoulder holster opened the door, poked his head out, and said, “Cordell?”

“Yes. Detective Miskler?”

“The Skipper’s inside,” the guy said. “Come on in. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

I went into the office. The guy with the shoulder holster had three counterparts inside, all of them in shirt sleeves. One of them was sitting behind a desk in the corner of the room. I figured him to be Miskler,
the substitute boss. He was a big man with bright red hair and bright blue eyes.

“Cordell?” he said.

“Yes.”

“I’m Detective Miskler. This is my squad, and these are some of my men, Jones, Di Palma, and Krutsky.” The men nodded. I nodded back. “Have a chair.”

I had a chair.

“What do you know about Johnny Bridges?” Miskler asked.

“Johnny Bridges,” I said, as if trying to recall the name. “I don’t think I know him.”

“No?”

“No. Oh, wait a minute. Bridges, sure. I knew him when I was a kid.”

Imperceptibly, the bulls were forming a circle around my chair. Miskler came from behind his desk and walked over to take the quarterback position, and the other bulls crowded in waiting for him to call the play. I wasn’t on the team, but some of that old spirit was beginning to spread into my bones. I wondered if this were just going to be a verbal battering ram or whether we’d try for a run around end with rubber hoses. It was very hot in Miskler’s office, and the crowd around me didn’t help the heat very much. One of the bulls had a terrible case of body odor, but perhaps that was a planned part of Miskler’s torture routine. I braced myself. If I was going to get hit, there wasn’t much to be done about it. Bulls know how to hit, and they’re usually big bastards, and there was no
sense tangling with four of them. If we were going to play “What’s My Line?” I wanted to be on my toes and ready for whatever questions came. I don’t know if you’ve ever been questioned by four guys hurling questions in rapid-fire longhand. It can knock you on your ass, believe me, as sure as a punch can.

“When’s the last time you saw Bridges?” Miskler asked.

“When I was a kid.”

“How long ago was that?” Jones asked, or Krutsky, or Di Palma.

“About ten years.”

“How old are you now, Cordell?” Di Palma asked, or Krutsky, or Jones.

“Thirty-three.”

“Then you weren’t such kids,” Krutsky said, or Di Palma, or Jones.

“I guess not.”

“And you haven’t seen him since that time?”

“That’s right.”

“Where were you yesterday, Cordell?”

“All day yesterday?” I asked.

“Yes. All day yesterday.”

“Drunk,” I said.

“Where?”

“The Bowery.”

“Where on the Bowery?”

“A park bench outside Cooper Union.”

“Anyone with you?”

“No. I was alone.”

“Until what time?”

“I don’t remember. It was dark when I came out of it.”

“Did you see Bridges yesterday?”

“No. I haven’t seen him in ten years.”

“Did you call the police yesterday?”

“Why should I call the police?”

“To ask about Johnny Bridges—using the name Joe Phillips.”

“I don’t know any Joe Phillips,” I said. “Who’s he?”

“He’s supposed to be a lawyer. We think he’s you, Cordell.”

“What gives you that impression?”

“You went to see a private detective named Dennis Knowles this morning. You used the phony name Joe Phillips to get into his office.”

“Did I?”

“You did.”

“Who says?”

“Knowles says.”

“He ought to know.”

“He sure ought to,” Miskler said.

“Is he the one who sicked you onto me?”

“In a manner of speaking. He thought he might be helping the investigation of a homicide. One hand washes the other, Cordell. He calls us often enough for routine help.”

“I’ve got nothing to do with any homicide,” I said.

“Don’t you? Where’s that paper, Fred?”

One of the bulls, Di Palma, Krutsky, or Jones,
handed Miskler a copy of one of the tabloids. Miskler opened it to the third page, folded it back and handed it to me. The story was headlined, “Harlem Tailor Slain.”

“Read it,” Miskler said.

I read it. “So?”

“That’s the story we gave to all the metropolitan dailies,” Miskler said. “You see anything in that story about the initials J.B. being found on the wall?”

I looked at the story again. I was beginning to get a queasy feeling in my stomach. “No,” I said. “No mention of any initials.”

“Then how’d you know about them?”

“Who says I did?”

“Knowles. He said you told him so in his office this morning. Now how about it, Cordell?”

“I guessed.”

“Don’t get smart, Cordell. How’d you know about those chalk marks?”

The quarterback had called the play, and the boys were ready to snap back the pigskin and go for broke. They crowded around me menacingly. This wasn’t a vagrancy charge, and it wasn’t practicing without a license. It was plain and simple accessory after the fact, and the fact was murder. I swallowed.

“Well, Cordell?”

“What happens when I tell the truth?”

“We decide whether or not it is the truth.”

“Suppose I lose?”

“You’re an accessory. You’re an accessory anyway, so why not chance it?”

I sighed. “I was with Bridges when he found the body.”

They were all brimming with questions now, Miskler, Jones, Di Palma, and Krutsky. They had me pinned and they wouldn’t let me wiggle loose. In rapid-fire, each man taking his turn while the next man phrased his question, they let me have it.

“Why’d Bridges say he was alone when he found it?”

“We decided it would be better that way.”

“How?”

“If I was left out of it.”

“Why leave you out of it?”

“So that I could help find the real murderer.”

“How do we know you didn’t put the blocks to Archese yourself?”

“You know I didn’t. I’m a goddamn drunk. I’ve got no motive for wanting Archese out of the way.”

“Bridges has.”

“Does he?” I said.

“Damn right, he does.”

“What’s the motive?”

“A little hanky-panky with Christine Archese, the dead man’s wife.”

“You’ve only got Dennis Knowles’ word for that. I heard it differently.”

“How’d you hear it, Cordell?”

“I heard it was Archese who hired Knowles to watch Christine. Not Bridges to watch Archese.”

“Well, you heard wrong.”

“Unless Knowles is in this, too, and trying to cover up.”

“Knowles is too smart to get involved in homicide.”

“So am I,” I said.

“It doesn’t look that way, Cordell. What were you doing with Bridges in the first place?”

I told him all about the cash register thefts. They listened blankly. When I finished talking, Miskler said, “It stinks.”

“That’s why you should know it’s the truth. If I was inventing a story, I’d make it a doozie.”

“And Bridges thought your help in finding the real murderer was worth lying to the cops, huh?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a laugh. You couldn’t find your way into the I.R.T. with a token’s head start.”

“I’m a little better than that, Miskler,” I told him. “I broke a few tough ones in the old days.”

“These ain’t the old days. These are the new days, and I read you for a drunken bum who maybe hired himself out for a quick bump job. How does that sit with you, Cordell?”

“It doesn’t. It stands at the back of the theatre with its thumb up its ass.”

“Watch your language,” one of the other bulls warned.

“Then watch the stories,” I said. “I’m not a hired gun. And I’ll never be a hired gun, no matter how bad things get.”

“You expect us to believe that crap about the cash register?”

“Believe it or not, it’s the truth.”

“Try this on for the truth, Cordell. Bridges is laying this Christine job, and she’s quite a job, and I don’t blame him. Archese knows, and they ask him for a divorce, but he won’t play ball. They hire Knowles to tail Archese, but Bridges is getting impatient by this time. He likes the dame too much; he wants her as a steady diet. Answer? Get Archese out of the way. But who? Why not Matt Cordell, good old buddy Matt who used to live uptown and who proved he knew how to use the ass-end of a .45 when he beat up the guy who put the horns on him. Old Matt’s down and out now, maybe he can use a C-note to keep him in liquid poison for a few days. Maybe old Matt would do me the honor of knocking off my partner for me.”

“To quote you, Miskler, it stinks,” I said.

“I ain’t finished, Cordell. Bridges finds you and tells you the whole setup. You agree to do the job. You use the gun that was in the drawer outside, the gun Bridges owns. You come up to the shop and knock off Archese.”

“I see,” I said. “And Archese can’t see too well, is that it?”

“He saw fine,” Miskler said. “We checked his past medical record, just for kicks. 20/20 vision. What the hell are you driving at?”

“If he saw so fine when I was allegedly shooting him, how come he wrote Johnny’s initials on the wall?”

“He didn’t.”

“No? Then who did?”

“You, maybe. It sure as hell wasn’t Archese.
According to our autopsy report, death was instantaneous. He could no more write anything on that wall than he could breathe.”

“Let me get this straight, Miskler. I was hired by Johnny Bridges to kill his partner, right?”

“Right.”

“So I killed him, then picked up a piece of chalk and put Johnny’s initials on the wall, right? Now why the hell would I do something as insane as that?”

“A smoke screen. It wouldn’t be the first time, Cordell. The minute we ascertain that Archese couldn’t have scribbled those initials, we’re also ascertaining the killer
must
have scribbled them. And this automatically eliminates Johnny Bridges. What killer would be crazy enough to sign his job? That’s the way we’re supposed to think, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Jesus, I don’t know how the hell you’re supposed to think. If this is a sample of what you come up with…”

“Give me a better story, Cordell.”

“I gave it to you.”

“And it stinks.”

“And so does yours,” I said.

“It’s a shame I’m the cop, ain’t it?”

“You going to book me?”

“You got a better idea, Cordell?”

“I’ve got a lot of better ideas.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“Let me snoop around a little more. You gain nothing by locking me up.”

“We gain a killer,” Miskler said.

“Then Bridges is clear?”

“Not if he hired you, he ain’t. It don’t matter who pulled the trigger, you know that, Cordell.”

“Okay. If you think I pulled the trigger, you’ve got me cold, right? Put a tail on me to make sure I don’t leave town. You can pick me up whenever you need me.”

“What do I gain?”

“You gain an experienced investigator who happens to have the confidence of most of the people who were closely involved with the deceased and the suspect. That should be worth something to you.”

“The confidence, huh? Like the kind Knowles has?”

“Knowles is harboring a grudge. I once broke his nose. You didn’t expect him to be good to me, did you?”

“It seemed
you
did.”

“I made a mistake.”

“I’m probably making one myself,” Miskler said.

“What do you mean?”

“Take off, Cordell. You’ve got a tail, so don’t leave the city. You make a move toward a bus, train, or an airplane, and you’re on your ass in jail. Got me?”

“I’ve got you. Can I talk to Bridges?”

“What for?”

“To get his story.”

“Why?”

“Maybe
he
put those initials on the wall.”

“Sure. And maybe I did, Cordell.”

I grinned. “You don’t really believe I hired out as a gun?”

“I think out loud,” Miskler said, “and I think a lot. You’re still not out of this, so don’t get cocky.”

“You know what I think?” I said.

“No. What do you think?”

“I think the case has you stymied and you pulled me in because you need a real pro to crack it.”

Mirthlessly, Miskler said, “Ha-ha. Take him down to see Bridges before he breaks into a soft shoe.”

* * *

Johnny Bridges was being held without bail in a place known as The Tombs. It is not a very cheerful place, nor was Johnny in a particularly cheerful mood when they led him into the visitor’s room. He sat down opposite me, the meshed wire separating us. He was already acquiring a prison pallor, which I am convinced is produced more by desolation than by lack of exposure to the sun.

“Have you had any luck?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“They wouldn’t set bail for me,” he said. “They really think I killed Dom, don’t they?”

“The magistrate sets bail, and his failure to turn you loose in a free society is no reason to believe the case is being prejudged,” I said. “Besides, the cops who are working on this aren’t at all convinced you did it.”