The James Deans Part 12

"I didn't."

"Come on, Joe." I was incredulous. "Out of all the people you interviewed over the last nineteen months, you remember some little Cuban guy you spoke to a year ago for no more than fifteen minutes."

"I remember a lot of them. You get good at remembering. I was a U.S.-"

"-f.u.c.king marshal for twenty-two years," Pete and Larry Mac recited in unison.

"Yeah," Pete chided, "we heard that one."

Everyone laughed, even Spivack.

"Fair enough," I said. "I still remember the faces of people I wrote up for spitting on the boardwalk, of all things. But why do you remember Almonte? Was there something about-"

"His eyes," Spivack mumbled almost to himself. "He had those chilly black eyes. You know, the kind that make it difficult to distinguish the pupils from the irises, wet and opaque like the ocean at night."

I reached into my pocket and unfolded the front page of yesterday's Post.

"Dead eyes. Eyes like these?"

"f.u.c.k!"

Looking at Spivack's face, I knew. He knew. We all of us knew.

G.o.d slammed on the brakes and the world slowed down. My hearing changed too. I wasn't deaf, exactly. At first, it was quite the opposite. I became acutely aware of isolated sounds: the shuffling of paper, the chittering of office machines, individual rings of the phone, my own breathing. Then it blended together. It was like dipping your head beneath the surface of a pool at a party. All the music, the laughter, the chatter, melds into a muted, indistinct drone.

"Moe! Moe!" Larry McDonald screamed. "Are you all right? You look pale as a ghost."

I picked my head out of the pool. Now G.o.d hit the gas, the world spinning so fast I held on to the table for fear of falling off.

I heard Wit say: "Get him a drink." He would say that.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." I let go of the table. "It's one thing for me to have a theory, another thing for Spivack to recognize Ivan Alfonseca as Ishmail Almonte, but it's light-years from proving he abducted and murdered Moira Heaton. Until we do that, we got nothing, not even smoke and mirrors."

WE TOOK AN hour-long coffee break, Spivack having a.s.sorted sandwiches and pastries sent up from a local luncheonette. No one talked about the case itself. Although he was the only one of us without a law enforcement background, Wit spent enough time around cops to know this was not the moment to ask questions. Instead, we used the hour to bulls.h.i.+t, to trade war stories, to let off some steam. There was a small sense of relief, but not so the walls themselves sighed. The real hurdles were still ahead of us.

Just prior to starting up again, Spivack pulled me over to one corner.

"I feel like s.h.i.+t, Prager. I should have seen this months ago, but I've been preoccupied with the business. Maybe if I'd been paying more attention, I would have recognized him and-"

"Woulda, coulda, shoulda ... Come on, Spivack, you know better. Your man had a full beard and long hair. If I didn't listen to the radio two days ago or see that front page on the subway yesterday, I'd still be tripping over my own d.i.c.k. Anyway, like I said before, it wouldn't have mattered if you put two and two together sooner. To Moira Heaton, it would've had no meaning. Her fate had already been decided."

"I'll see if that helps me sleep tonight. One more thing. I know it's your case now, but what's the reporter doing here? He could walk out of this room and blow any chance we got to nail that psycho motherf.u.c.ker."

"First off, it's our case, all of ours. That includes Wit. Geary wanted him around, and wisely so. If and when we do get Alfonseca to cop to this, Wit's word will go a long way in giving credence to the process and reestablis.h.i.+ng Brightman's good name and reputation. Besides, he has his own reasons for keeping quiet. He has no love for Ivan the Terrible, believe me."

Spivack was curious, but didn't push.

We spent the next few hours dividing up tasks. The first step was gathering some substantive evidence establis.h.i.+ng that Ishmail Almonte was in fact Ivan Alfonseca. As Detective Gloria and Pete Parson had earlier pointed out, what we had to go on was thin. It was so thin, it would have been invisible if you turned it sideways. My conjecture about matching initials, the sign-in sheets, even Spivack's identifying Alfonseca, wasn't enough to get the most ambitious rookie ADA to do more than yawn. Spivack said he had a way to establish Almonte's ident.i.ty and cement the connection between him and Moira.

Wit raised his hand like a third grader asking for a hall pa.s.s. "Someone has to say this, but, I suspect, none of you will appreciate it."

"Go ahead." Larry Mac, so comfortable with authority, gave him permission.

"While Moira does roughly fit the profile of the suspect's other victims-single, white, professional between twenty and thirty years of age, living alone, etc.-she does not fit the crime."

Actually, Wit was wrong. We'd all thought the same thing. At least I had. That very notion had made me hesitate after my initial enthusiasm. Wit was also right. Someone had to say it.

"He's right," Detective Gloria seconded.

Pete kept on. "He never killed any of his victims, Moe."

"Yeah, I was thinking that," said Spivack.

"He didn't kill any of the victims we know about," I corrected. "We know about these twelve women, but that doesn't mean there weren't others, others he killed. Look, no one's found Moira's body. Maybe he killed and disposed of some of his victims."

"That's a fine theory," Larry Mac d.a.m.ned with faint praise. "You're just chock-full of theories today."

"Okay, here's another," I said. "Alfonseca f.u.c.ked up. I showed you Catherine Thigpen's account of the a.s.sault. He pressed his forearm across her trachea during the attack. She said she nearly lost consciousness because she couldn't breathe. You press a little too hard and ... So now he's killed Moira, probably not his intention, but he has. He's not the panicky type, this guy. So he-"

Wit wept quietly. He cradled his face in his hands. His shoulders shook. None of us said anything, because none of us knew what to say. Men are useless in the presence of tears, their own or anyone else's.

"The son of a b.i.t.c.h who murdered my grandson claimed he hadn't meant to kill him." Wit forced the words out in fits and starts. "As if torturing him with pliers and electric shocks would have been fair sport had he not had the bad manners to die."

Spivack made a silent drinking motion at me.

"Bourbon," I mouthed.

He slipped out of the room, and quickly back in with a bottle of Maker's Mark. He poured Wit a stiff one. We watched him drink it. No one begrudged him his grief or the flimsy hedge against it he quickly emptied down his throat.

"What Mr. Prager has suggested sounds reasonable and likely to me," Wit said. "I just thought the inconsistency needed to be pointed out. He's explained it to my satisfaction. I'm now prepared to do my part in this."

That was good, because a lot of things had to break right for us to get anywhere near connecting Ivan Alfonseca to Moira's disappearance. The scary part was that even if we all did our share and got all the breaks to go our way, a great deal of what we needed was completely out of our hands. Ironically, we were as dependent on Ivan the Terrible's own ego and vanity as on anything else.

Chapter Nine.

AN ENTIRE DAY and another night had pa.s.sed when I received the call. Katy said there was a Joe Spivack on the phone.

"Good news, Prager. I got it!"

"What?"

"The proof, the original sign-in sheets. I had one of the five dusted just to make sure we weren't wasting our time."

"And ...?"

"It's a match. And I don't mean a partial. He must have had something oily on his hands."

"Okay, so we can prove Almonte was really Alfonseca and we can tie him to Moira."

"Looks that way."

"Did you call Larry McDonald yet?"

"He knows. Called him the minute I got the results. You can exhale now, Prager. It's not just a theory anymore."

Although the theory was mine, I hadn't wanted to believe in it so much that I might be blinded to the chance I could be wrong. It seemed I needn't have worried. Beyond what Spivack had come up with, there was mounting evidence of Alfonseca's involvement. Just yesterday, the doorman at Moira's building had identified a picture of Alfonseca. He said he thought he remembered a delivery guy who looked a lot like the picture. Posing as a delivery boy was a ploy Ivan had used to stalk many of his victims.

"Funny," the doorman said, "this guy looks like that guy in the papers." I agreed, not wanting to make too much out of it. And Sandra Sotomayor, Brightman's longtime aid at the community affairs office, thought she recognized Alfonseca as someone she'd seen around, but not for a while. "His face is very familiar." I asked if she might not be confusing this man with someone she might have seen recently in the papers. She said she didn't think so. While we couldn't exactly go to the bank with either the doorman's testimony or Sotomayor's, they would help if we had to go to a prosecutor. Hopefully, that wouldn't be necessary.

"You see the paper yet?" Spivack continued.

"No, not yet. Why, is it in there?"

"Is it in there? Are you kidding? That Wit guy came through in a big way. Wait'll you see the stories. Alfonseca's gonna go apes.h.i.+t."

"Let's hope so. I'll speak to you later."

I showered and dressed, kissed Katy and Sarah, and headed to the newsstand under the subway station on Sheepshead Bay Road. Spivack was right. Wit had done more than we'd asked for. The Post headline said it all: MYSTERY VICTIM SAYS IVAN WAS TERRIBLE.

The story on page 3 detailed the saga of a woman, a thinly veiled Moira Heaton, who had been an intended victim of Ivan Alfonseca. The woman, abducted outside her office in late 1981, claimed to have been driven to an unknown location, where her abductor attempted to s.e.xually a.s.sault her. Her would-be attacker, however, proved to be "woefully" inept. Frustrated and embarra.s.sed, Alfonseca had strangled her, leaving her for dead. That was all she remembered, she said, having only recently awoken from a coma in an upstate hospital.

Of course the story was utter bulls.h.i.+t. The reporter credited several unnamed sources for the story and quotes contained within. Those quotes were full of particularly insulting and inflammatory adjectives. The alleged victim seemed very fond of the words "limp," "tiny," and "impotent." She said her attacker had "cried like a little girl when his laughable attempts at penetration failed." The story in the Daily News was equally d.a.m.ning. Wit hadn't bothered trying to plant the story in the Times.

I crossed the street to the bagel store and got a coffee. When the pay phone came free, I dialed Pete Parson's home number.

"Parson," he answered.

"See the papers today?"

"About old limp d.i.c.k? Yeah."

"Your son's on today, right?"

"Don't worry, Moe, Captain Peter Parson Jr. of the Department of Corrections, City of NewYork, will make sure Mr. Alfonseca gets complimentary copies of today's papers and all the translation help he needs. Anyways, you know what Rikers is like. That story got back to him before the papers ever made the island. His compadres are probably whistling at him already, calling him pato and maricon. He'll go f.u.c.kin' nuts."

"Yeah," I agreed, "let's hear him brag his way outta this. Thanks, Pete, and thank your son for all of us."

"He's glad to do it."

Now there was nothing we could do but wait. I went to the Brooklyn store to do it.

I WAS WRONG-waiting wasn't the only thing I would have to do. Klaus rolled his eyeb.a.l.l.s as I strode through the doors of Bordeaux in Brooklyn.

"If I were you," he warned, waving several pink message slips at me, "I'd start digging myself a foxhole in the bas.e.m.e.nt. If things get bad enough, I'll just shovel the dirt back over you."

"That bad, huh?"

"Worse. I don't know what you did to get these people so upset, but you did a very commendable job of it."

I s.n.a.t.c.hed the slips out of his hand and walked back to the office, which, I had forgotten, was still in disarray. My life had been so consumed by the case that I had neglected to clean up after my all-nighter. The files were everywhere, spread all over the desk, the floor, and the adjoining room. I picked up enough to allow safe pa.s.sage. I'd already suffered enough in my life from a careless piece of paper thrown on the floor. What I was actually doing was avoiding.

I turned on the radio, still tuned to the news channel which had first alerted me to Ivan the Terrible's existence. The papers, apparently, weren't the only branch of the media to run with the story Wit had so carefully planted. Someday, if I worked up the courage, I'd have to ask Wit how much personal capital this had cost him. I suspect he had called in more than a few favors.

I called John Heaton first because his pain and confusion would be worst of all, and lying to him would be most difficult.

"Where the f.u.c.k's my money?" he screamed in my ear. "It's been two days since you spoke to me."

Oddly, I was quite relieved. Either he hadn't yet seen the papers or he hadn't made the connection or he was too drunk to care. I wasn't about to ask which.

"How much do I owe you again?"

"Five."

"Okay, will you be at the club today?"

"After four."

"I'll be in later," I said.

"When?"

"Later."

"Cash." It was a demand, not a polite request.

"Cash."

I thought about calling Brightman back, but decided against it. Politicians can never be trusted to keep their traps shut, even when it's in their best interest. No, he'd have to stay in the dark. Thomas Geary, on the other hand, was technically my employer. If he hadn't called me first, he'd have stayed in the dark too. But he'd probably already called Spivack, who would have, as agreed, referred him to me. Unlike John Heaton, Geary would not be so easily placated.

Geary's wife, Elizabeth, picked up the phone. We chatted for a moment. She said the expected things about Katy. I thanked her on my wife's behalf and lied about what fun the fund-raiser at the Waldorf had been.

"Hold on, will you, please, while I fetch Thomas."

She placed the phone down softly. I could hear her retreating footsteps. Within seconds I heard another set of footsteps, these louder, much more rapid.

"How dare you tell Spivack not to talk to me? What are you playing at, Moe?" Geary demanded.

I decided not to pretend, but not to tell him the truth either. "Spivack's just following your orders. He's giving me his fullest cooperation. As far as playing goes, I'm not playing at anything."

"Then what's this nonsense in the papers. Obviously, this mystery woman is meant to-"