87th Precinct - The Last Dance Part 23

186.

He began playing.

Carella could not determine where any new songs had been added; to him, the music flooding the air in Connie Lindstrom's penthouse apartment sounded seamless. As Flynn sang in his raspy smoker's voice, Carella floated back to another time and place, this city in the year 1928, when everything seemed fresh and innocent to a young girl named Jenny, fantasizing in her room all the way downtown, in an immigrant area then called-as it still was-The Lower Platform.

But, oh, the differences between then and now.

Flynn sang of a young girl's yearnings and awakenings in a wondrous island bordered by confluent rivers and spanned by magical bridges. He sang of golden towers rising into the clouds, interlaced with immaculate streets, humming belowground with subways not yet sullied by time or wear. He sang of promise and hope for a population of immigrants that had brought with them customs to treasure and to nourish. As he sang, his voice became a choir of voices, the voices of a hundred tribes with as many different backgrounds, joining together in this s.h.i.+ning new land, to become at last a single strong united tribe.

Here beyond the windows in Jenny's room. . .

Ah, what a wonderland there had been.

Flynn struck the last chord of the last dance.

It was still snowing.

Carella looked across the room to where his partner stood solid and big and black against the white flakes swirling outside. Randy Flynn rose from the piano bench, placed the palms of his hands together like a guru, and bowed in transparently false modesty, accepting applause from the a.s.sembled guests. Brown's eyes scanned the room. So did Carella's.

Almost anyone in this room could have killed Andrew Hale.

187.

Ed McBain There was no way the detectives who caught the murder down in Hopscotch could have connected it with the murders uptown. No way. The first victim uptown had been a sixty-eight-year-old white man who'd been hanged from a door hook and then transported to a bed. The second one had been a nineteen-year-old black girl stabbed in the chest with a knife grabbed from her own kitchen counter. The prior ingestion of a drug called Rohypnol was the only connecting link between them-if, in fact, it was a link and not the sort of coincidence that plagued police work.

Except when they were reading novels, the cops in this city rarely came across serial killers. Serial killers in novels were enormously popular these days, but that did not mean they were running rampant all over the United States. Current estimates maintained that only some thirty-five to fifty of them were out there loose. In order for a murderer to qualify as a bona fide serial killer, he had to have killed three or more people within a relatively short period of time. On the other hand, a serial killer was not someone who killed Uncle George and two days later killed Cousins Mandy and Maude because they'd seen him commit the first murder. That was merely a careful murderer.

The cops in this city investigated some 2,000 homicides annually. Even if the detectives catching the downtown squeal had remotely suspected a connection between the Hale murder, the Cleary murder, and this new murder, they would not have jumped to the conclusion that a raving lunatic serial killer was loose in the city. The detectives catching the squeal early that Monday morning might have heard about the Hale murder from television, but they most certainly had not heard about the murder of an obscure little black girl in Diamondback. So it never once entered their minds that this new murder was somehow related to the previous two, serially or otherwise.

According to a birth certificate they found in a candy 188.

tin in the top drawer of her bedroom dresser, the victim's name was Martha Coleridge and she was ninety-eight years old. A thin, birdlike creature, she lay in her nightgown at the foot of the bed, her neck apparently broken. The detectives-an experienced First named Bryan Shanahan, and a newly appointed Third named Jefferson Long-went through the lady's belongings, sifting through browned letters and diaries, knowing they wouldn't find any clues in all this stuff, but going through the drill anyway. What they figured was that some junkie burglar had come in here, stolen the old lady's grocery money, and then snapped her neck for good measure. They kept looking through her old papers, tossing them onto the bed while the ME examined the body. One of the things they found was a blue binder with a typed label on it. The label read: MY ROOM by Martha Coleridge What was inside the binder looked like some kind of play or something. They tossed it on the bed with all the other c.r.a.p.

The first thing that attracted the Reverend Gabriel Foster to the case was the fact that the white suspect had been released on bail whereas his black counterpart had been denied bail and remanded to the Men's House of Detention. Same crime, same judge, two shooters, one white, one black, different disposition.

That was the first thing, but it wasn't enough to send him running through the streets, because what he was sensing here was a change in the public mood. Whereas Maxwell Corey Blaine and Hector Milagros had at first been treated like national heroes for disposing of that vilest of human beings, the informer, they were now 189.

Ed McBain being pilloried as monsters or worse because a second informer-who was now a media darling and something of an instant heroine-had for a substantial reward turned in the white man, who had at once copped a plea and given up his partner, the black man who'd been denied bail. The world was full of no-good dirty rats these days, but Foster wasn't about to take up the banner for a pair of universally reviled murderers.

Until a pair of ambitious detectives made life easier for him.

The partners were named Archie Bingman and Robert Tracey, familiarly called Bingo and Bop by the people who lived in Hightown, where Enrique Ramirez ran his pool hall and his drug operation. They had been d.o.g.g.i.ng El Jefe's tracks for the past year and a half now. Under the federal Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, murders committed in the furtherance of criminal enterprise were punishable by lifetime sentences. The Colombian cartel was most definitely a racketeer-influenced and corrupt organization. If they could tie the Guide's Pizzeria murder to El Jefe's drug operation, he'd be sitting on his a.s.s in Kansas for the rest of his life, Toto.

Bingo and Bop felt certain that the two shooters hadn't revealed anything that might incriminate Ramirez. The indicted pair knew well enough that the long arm of the cartel could reach into the loneliest of prison cells, and they did not long for an icepick in the eye one dark and stormy night. Better to ride the road upstate alone, do the time, and breathe easy. Besides, if the pair had traded Ramirez for some kind of Chinese deal, the grand jury would have already indicted him. Bingo and Bop knew of no such paper handed down.

It galled them to know that one of Ramirez's. .h.i.t men was sitting downtown in custody, where any police officer 190.

with a bit of ingenuity could gain access to him and perhaps learn something about who had sent whom to shoot the hapless little stoolie neither of the detectives had ever met or used. They already knew who had sent Milagros to that pizzeria because it was common knowledge up here in the Eight-Nine that Milagros and his partner Blaine were two ofEUefe's cleanup men. In the American criminal justice system, however, knowing something wasn't enough. You also had to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, worse luck.

That Monday night, the sixth of December, while two detectives in Hopscotch filed their DD-5 on the little old lady who'd had her neck broken, and the reverend Foster pored over that day's newspapers trying to figure out a way to turn the arrest of Hector Milagros to his advantage, Bingo and Bop drove downtown to the Men's House of Detention in its new quarters on Blanchard Street, and told the jailer on duty they were there to see the Guide's Pizzeria shooter. The jailer wanted to know on whose authority.

"We're investigating a related drug matter," Bingo said.

"You got to go through his lawyer," the jailer said.

"We already talked to him," Bop said. "He told us it's okay."

"I need it in writing," the jailer said.

"Come on, don't break 'em, w.i.l.l.ya?" Bingo said. "Where the f.u.c.k we gonna find his lawyer, this hour?"

"Find him tomorrow," the jailer said. "Come back tomorrow."

"We got something hot can't wait till tomorrow," Bingo said.

"You ever hear of hot pursuit?" Bop said.

"I never heard of hot pursuit leadin to a jail cell."

"Come on, we want to nail this c.o.c.ksucker sellin dope to your kids."

191.

Ed McBain "My kids are grown up and livin in Seattle," the jailer said.

"Ten minutes, okay?"

"The door was open, and you walked in," the jailer said.

Milagros was in his cell reading his Bible. One other cell in the hall was occupied by an old man mumbling in his sleep. Milagros had never seen these guys in his life, and he wondered how they' d got in here. His lawyer hadn't mentioned anything about anybody coming to see him. Far as Milagros knew, he'd be sitting on his a.s.s here in The Catacombs till his case came to trial. The way his lawyer had explained it, you couldn't convict somebody solely on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. Anyway, who was gonna believe a guy who tried to kill five cops and succeeded in hurting one of them pretty bad? n.o.body, that's who. Just sit tight and you walk, his lawyer had said, which was fine with Milagros. So who were these two guys, and what did they want here, this hour of the night?

The door clicked open electrically. Bingo and Bop entered the cell, and closed the door behind them. From the far end of the corridor, the jailer threw the switch that locked it again.

Bingo smiled.

Milagros had learned a long time ago all about guys who came at you smiling.

The other one was smiling, too.

"So tell us who sent you to the pizzeria," Bingo said.

"Who the f.u.c.k are you?" Milagros asked.

"Nice talk," Bop said.

"We're two fellas gonna send your boss away," Bingo said.

"What boss you talkin abou', man?"

"Enrique Ramirez."

"Don't know him."

"Oh dear," Bingo said.

192.

"Get the f.u.c.k outta here, I call d'key."

"The key is down the hall takin a leak," Bop said.

"I wake up dee whole f.u.c.kin jail you don' ged outta here," Milagros said.

"Oh dear," Bingo said again.

"Someone I'd like you to meet," Bop said, and yanked a nine from a shoulder holster. "Mr Clock," he said, "meet Mr Milagros."

Milagros looked at the semi.

"Come on, wha.s.s dis?" he said.

"Dis," Bop said, mimicking him, "is a pistol. Una pistola, maricon. Comprende?"

"Come on, wha.s.s dee matter wi' you?"

"Who sent you to kill that f.u.c.kin p.u.s.s.y-clot?"

"n.o.body. He owe us money, we go on our own."

"El Jefe sent you, didn't he?"

"You know who El Jefe is?" Milagros said, and tried a smile. "My mama is El Jefe. Tha.s.s wha' me an' my brudders call her. Jefita."

"Gee, is that what you call your mama?" Bingo said.

"Is that what you call your wh.o.r.e mama?" Bop said.

" 'Ey, man, watch your mou', okay?"

"You watch your mouth," Bop said, and rammed the barrel of the nine against Milagros's lips.

"'Ey, man . . ."

"Eat it!" Bop said.

"Man, what you . . . ?"

Bop swung the muzzle sideways across Milagros's mouth. There was the sound of something snapping. There was a spray of blood. Teeth clicked loose and spilled onto the air.

"Jesus Chri. . ."

"Shhh," Bingo said.

"Eat it," Bop said again, and slid the barrel of the gun into Milagros's mouth.

"Quiet now," Bingo said.

193.

Ed McBain Milagros began to blubber. His eyes were wide. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth, around the barrel of the nine.

"Who sent you to kill him?"

Milagros shook his head.

"No, huh?" Bop said, and c.o.c.ked the pistol. "Who?" he insisted.

Milagros shook his head again.

"You ought to go see your dentist again," Bingo said, and nodded.

Bop swung the gun against Milagros's mouth.

He almost choked on his own teeth.

The jailer didn't see what had happened to Milagros until he made his rounds at midnight. Long before then, he had clicked open Milagros's cell from his end of the corridor and had watched the two detectives approaching the steel door with its bulletproof viewing window, and had let them out into the small holding room, and then out of the complex itself. Now, as he came down the corridor, the old man in the cell next to Milagros's was sitting upright on his cot, his eyes wide, but saying nothing. The jailer knew right away something was very wrong.

Milagros was lying on the floor of his cell.

There was blood on the floor, and scattered teeth, and what looked and smelled like vomit. There was also another smell because Milagros had soiled himself while the two detectives were methodically knocking every tooth out of his mouth, but the jailer didn't yet know the full extent of what had happened here, he saw only the blood and a handful of teeth in the spill of light from the after-hours illumination in the corridor.

The jailer had read enough newspapers in the past few months.

He didn't even go into Milagros's cell. He went back 194.

down the corridor, past the cell of the old man with the wide accusative eyes, and he unlocked the steel door at the far end, and locked it again behind him, and walked directly to the wall phone by the officers' station, and called his immediate superior, the Security Division captain on duty.

The jailer's story was that two detectives had come into the lockup showing a piece of paper authorizing them to question Hector Milagros. He couldn't remember their names. He'd asked them to sign in, and he a.s.sumed they both had; he hadn't looked at the log book afterward. He told the captain they'd been in the prisoner's cell for about half an hour, and that he hadn't heard anything out of the ordinary during that time. Then again, there was a thick steel door at the end of the corridor. He said he couldn't remember having seen either of the detectives down here before, nor could he remember what either of them looked like, except that one had a mustache. The duty captain figured the man was covering his own a.s.s.

He read newspapers, too.

Lest anyone later accuse him of having delayed while a story was being concocted, he called an ambulance at once, and had the prisoner expressed to nearby St Mary's, the same hospital Sharyn Cooke had moved Willis from not four nights earlier. Then he telephoned the deputy warden of Security Division, who listened to the story from his bed at home, alternately expressing surprise and grave concern. The deputy warden in turn woke up the warden, who was commanding officer of the entire facility. The warden debated waking up the supervisor of the Department of Corrections, but finally called him at home. The Police Commissioner himself was awakened at close to three in the morning. It was he who informed the media at 195.

Ed McBain once, before anyone began thinking a cover-up was taking place here.

Gabriel Foster didn't hear the news until he turned on his television set the next morning.

That same morning, Carella first called Cynthia Keating's attorney to tell him he hoped he didn't have to yank her before a grand jury to get a few simple questions answered, and when Alexander started getting snotty on the phone, Carella said, "Counselor, I haven't got any more time to waste on this. Yes or no?"