Walking the Perfect Square (21 page)

Facetiously, she asked: “What do crazy people sound like?”

“Not like this guy,” I said. “He sounded serious, not crazy.”

We went round and round like that for a little while longer. Could it have been a jealous boyfriend or husband of an ex-girlfriend? No. A relative? No, I’d be more apt to blow up one of their cars. A practical joke gone wrong? No. Did somebody owe me or did I owe somebody money? No. An old grudge from another cop or someone else I might’ve worked with? Maybe, but unlikely. A vendetta from the old neighborhood? No. And with that line of questioning out of the way, the easy part of the evening’s program had drawn to a close.

“Listen, Katy, I’ve gone over it until my head wants to explode, but the only thing I can think of is that someone doesn’t want me out looking for your brother.”

But instead of taking the next logical step, the only step I saw she could take, she fooled me. Smiling like she’d just stumbled over Judge Crater’s body, Katy said: “You’re right. You interviewed people, the people in Patrick’s dorm, for instance. You spoke with Theresa Hickey the day you spoke to me. I’m sure there are lots of others. Maybe you said the wrong thing to one of them, stepped on the wrong toes or hit a nerve. It’s not impossible that you came across some information that one of these people don’t want you to have.”

I hated admitting it to myself, but she had a point. Theresa Not-Hickey-No-More’s cop husband couldn’t have been thrilled with the nasty turn my interview with his hairdressing wife had taken. And Theresa had sent me to speak to Tina “Tits” Martell. If what Tina had told me about her sexual liaison with Theresa’s husband and his buddy was true, I could see where he wouldn’t want me nosing around in his business. As a cop, he’d have no trouble finding me. He’d know not to call the fire in through 911. I wouldn’t recognize him, never mind his voice over the phone. Maybe Tina’s biker friends didn’t like my attitude. I didn’t know many bikers in a meaningful way, but I didn’t figure they all spent their afternoons watching soap operas.

As I was opening my mouth to give Katy my grudging respect for her conclusions, she went and strengthened her case.

“The other night,” she said, “you mentioned Patrick having a new girlfriend. Moe, I’ll be honest with you, Patrick and me, we
didn’t exactly swap love stories. We aren’t close like that, so I don’t know about the girls he’s dated. But what . . .”

Katy’s mouth kept moving, but her words no longer registered. Nancy Lustig’s story was ringing in my ears. If Nancy’d broken down, confessing the truth of what had come between her and Patrick to her folks and told them that I too knew the facts, I could understand the Lustig’s desire for me to keep my mouth shut. To what extent they would go to insure that goal, I couldn’t say, but they had money, lots of money. And in some sense, that’s all I needed to know. Unfortunately, Katy was not so easily satisfied.

“. . . and my left breast speaks Mandarin Chinese,” I thought I heard her say. Then she snapped her fingers. “Ground control to Major Tom. Earth to Moses. Hello, anybody home?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t hear a word I said. What were you thinking about?”

Katy wasn’t the only one who could pull a rabbit out of a hat. It was my turn to surprise her. Instead of lying or making excuses, I answered her question. Like I said, I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell the whole truth either. If Enzo Sica’s sighting was just smoke and Patrick really was a lonely corpse somewhere, waiting for the winter thaw to wash up on a local beach, I couldn’t risk the whole truth. To hear me tell it, Patrick and Nancy liked each other very much. At first, maybe, she more than him. Later on, that would change. Oh, he was still Beauty to her Beast, but they had discussed a future together. She got pregnant. She lost the baby. They were both devastated. There was a screaming fight and a messy breakup. Club Caligula? Never heard of it. The essentials were left intact if not unscathed.

“That’s so sad. God . . .” is what Katy said before excusing herself from the table.

I’m not sure why I told her about Nancy. Did I hope the story would shake Katy up a little, elicit some response that would aim me in the right direction? Maybe. But it was just as likely out of frustration, because in a very real way it seemed to me I knew Patrick better than his own sister. I kept remembering how Francis Maloney had referred to his son as the boy. I wondered if the Maloneys had been so wounded and distant before Francis Jr. died.

“You okay?” I asked as Katy returned to the table.

“In the bathroom I was thinking . . .” she trailed off.

“About what?”

“About tonight, about our phone conversation today. And—” she stopped herself. “It’s just . . . I don’t know.”

“Say it Katy,” I urged, “I promise not to crumble.”

“You thought it was my dad, didn’t you? That’s what the ominous warning was about when we talked on the phone.”

“Yeah, I did think it was your dad, but now I don’t know. And I’m not just saying that. I mean I was never sure. I couldn’t help but think it was weird how right after Mr. Sica came forward, your dad cut me loose. I didn’t know what to think. Maybe he’s pissed off about the two of us. But now you got me thinking. There’s a lot of other candidates I never even considered till now. Don’t be mad, please.”

“I’m not.” She sounded like she meant it.

“But there’s one thing if it’s not your dad. You could be in danger.”

“I’ll take the risk,” she said. “Take me home. I want to introduce you to my bed.”

 

SHE HAD ONLY stopped laughing at me when we turned off West Broadway onto Prince Street. For some reason Katy found it hysterically funny I’d rented almost exactly the same car that had been torched. She was unmoved by my claim that renting another ’76 Fury was my way of giving the arsonist the cosmic finger.

“Cut it out,” I barked, brushing a loving hand across the dashboard. “It took me hours to find a place that rented these beauties. I nearly had to settle for a Pacer.”

“Why don’t I have trouble believing you?” she said, wiping tears out of the corners of her eyes. “Where’d you get it, Loan-a-Lemon?”

“What can I say? They were fresh out of Jaguars. You know, it’s not like the insurance company gives you a big budget for a rental.”

I parked up the block from her flat. She lived on Greene Street in a loft over an antiques shop that catered to the design trade. The shop pawned off art deco and art nouveau appliances as objects d’art. Only in New York could you make a mint selling old curvy toasters, broken radios and cigarette lighters. Somehow I didn’t see it as a viable business venture in Baton Rouge or Ulan Bator.

“They sell some artwork, too,” Katy argued in the shop’s defense.

Now it was my turn to be unmoved.

As she removed the keys from her bag, someone shouted: “Katy! Katy Maloney. Over here!”

“Oh shit!” Katy whispered, as we turned to look across the street. “It’s Kosta. He dates my roommate, Misty.”

“Misty! What, you live with a topless dancer?”

“Actress.”

“Come on, get over here,” Kosta insisted. “Misty got the commercial. We’re celebrating.”

“Do you mind?” Katy asked.

“Maybe a little.” I kissed her. “But I’ve always wanted to meet a Misty.”

It turned out to be pretty much fun. Kosta was a darkly handsome guy from an unpronounceable town in western New York. He worked sound boards for rock bands and was between tours. Misty was young, about twenty-two, blond, smoked French cigarettes and would’ve weighed a hundred pounds in wet football gear. She was a lingerie model by trade, but an actress by passion. She had just landed her first paying part.

“I’m the whiny teenage daughter in a cereal ad,” Misty announced, fluttering her eyelashes. “I get to say: ‘Aw come on, dad, do I have to?’ It ain’t Shakespeare, but it’s a start.”

And with that, she proceeded to down the three shots of tequila lined up on the bar.

When the conversation turned to me, Katy answered: “He’s a traveling tuna salesman.”

Kosta and Misty took it in stride. This was New York; why not?

“How’d you hurt the leg?” Kosta was curious.

Following Katy’s lead, I said: “Breaking up a fight between a yellow fin and an albacore. Nasty fish, tuna.”

Leaving the bar after a few rounds of handshakes and kisses, I could feel myself falling more deeply for Katy. I was attracted to her looks from the second I saw her. After the first time we had a conversation, when I was up in Dutchess County, I knew I liked her. Having kissed her, and held her, having woken up with her flavor on my mouth, there was no question of physical chemistry. But her sly, unexpected sense of humor was incredibly alluring.

When we crossed back over the street to Katy’s loft, a man stepped out of a doorway shadow. He asked: “Hey, Mac, you got the time?”

I don’t know what it was exactly, his Harry Lime entrance or his tone of voice, but I got the distinct impression he couldn’t’ve
cared less about the time. My cop brain screamed: “He wants you to look down at your watch so you can’t see what’s coming.”

Holstered beneath a blazer and overcoat, my short-barreled .38 was as much use to me as sharp edges on a bowling ball.

“Sorry,” I shrugged, “no watch.”

I sensed someone coming up behind me. I dropped my cane. Instinctively, I pushed Katy away and screamed for her to run. I leaned forward to try a shoulder roll. Anything, I thought, to buy time so I could get at my gun. Too slow. A pair of crushing hands pulled me back up straight. By chance, my right hand dropped into my coat pocket. My fingers latched onto the half roll of quarters that had gone unused the other night at Pooty’s.

Now the hands that had pulled me upright were snaking around my arms, rendering my upper torso immobile. My right hand yanked so fiercely out of my pocket, I nearly dropped the half roll of quarters.

“You don’t listen so good, do ya?” a voice I recognized from the phone whispered in my ear. “You were told the next time it wouldn’t be your car.”

And with that, Harry Lime buried a fist into my ribs. The wind went out of me so hard I nearly coughed up a lung. Even though Iron Hands hadn’t relaxed his grip, the power of the other man’s punch doubled me over. I’d lost sight of Katy. Where was she? Had they—

Something whooshed in the air behind me. A sharp crack, as if two pieces of oak had been slapped violently together, echoed through the SoHo streets. The arms bracing mine went utterly limp. Free, my right arm shot straight ahead, blindly, to where I hoped an unsuspecting jaw would be waiting. Whatever I hit made a sickening dull sound. Someone moaned. Something crumbled at my feet. I dropped to one knee, tossed the quarters and reached under my coat and jacket. But by the time I got my .38 unholstered, the man who had held me was holding a standard issue police special in his hand. His face was partially obscured by shadow. His gun hand, however, was perfectly visible.

“Even if you get the first shot off, I’ll blow a hole in her before I go down,” he warned through what sounded like clenched teeth.

Suddenly I was aware of Katy’s hard breathing. She must have been standing fairly close by, over my left shoulder, toward the gutter.

“Pick your trash up off the street and get the fuck outta here,” I snarled.

“First, back off, across the street, you and her.”

Standing slowly, the pain in my ribs almost made me crash down, but I managed to step back and brace myself on Katy’s shoulder. Anticipating my question, she whispered that she was all right.

“One thing:” I shouted in retreat, “tell your boss I know who he is and that I’ll be paying him a call real soon.”

On the opposite sidewalk, I tried to watch the gunman load his accomplice into a car parked almost directly in front of Katy’s door. It was no good, pain was making a disinterested party of me. As they pulled off, Katy said she’d gotten most of the plate number.

“Good,” I said, wincing as I spoke. “Write it down for me.”

“Don’t you want me to give it to the police?”

“We’re not calling the cops,” I insisted. “This is my business to take care of.”

I could see in her expression she wasn’t happy, but she was a bright woman. She knew I meant what I said.

“Okay,” Katy relented. “Let’s get you to the emergency room.”

To show her how silly her idea was, I stood straight up. “I’m fine.”

“Look at your hand,” she screamed. “You’re cut.”

Only then did I notice my right fist was wet with blood. I didn’t have much time to inspect the damage before the sidewalks of SoHo started spinning out from beneath my feet. I couldn’t hold my footing and went down in a heap. When my side connected with the pavement, even my hair screamed in pain. I could feel Katy fishing around in my pockets for the car keys. She told me not to move. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I must have closed my eyes.

Katy, Kosta and Misty were mostly asleep when I walked from the treatment area into the waiting room. The news was all good. My ribs were bruised, not broken, and the blood on my hand hadn’t been mine. Apparently, I’d broken the man’s nose, not his jaw. Bruised ribs for a broken nose; I’d gotten the better of the deal. With every breath, my ribs begged to differ.

Checking my watch, I offered to treat them all to breakfast, but even I thought it was a stupid idea. We piled into my rented car and, stubborn fool that I am, I insisted on driving. The plan was for me to drop them off before heading home. I was two for two in stupid ideas. After the first time I turned the wheel, Katy drove.

At Katy’s front door, Kosta took the wheel. He knew a cheap place to park the car until I was up and around. I wasn’t in any
position to argue. As Katy walked me from the car to the door, I first realized my cane was missing.

“Where’s my cane?”

“In the trunk of the car in two pieces,” she said. “I hit that guy over the back of the head with it.”