NICKY PRESSED THE button next to Geoffrey Coldicott’s name, but got no immediate response. He tried again. Nothing. He hoped Geoffrey hadn’t left. He tried again.
Finally the speaker offered: ‘Yes?’
‘Is this Geoffrey?’
‘Who is this?’ came the disembodied voice.
Once again, Nicky thought, this man likes to answer questions with questions.
‘Mr Coldicott,’ Nicky began, not knowing if he was indeed speaking to Geoffrey Coldicott at all, ‘It’s Nicholas Stella. With the Cleveland Chronicle.’ Shit. ‘I mean, you know, Esquire.’
Nothing.
‘From this morning?’ Nicky continued.
Silence.
‘We spoke on the phone?’
More silence.
Nicky plodded on, starting to get irritated. Here he was trying to save this man’s life and all he was getting was resistance. ‘And I just happened to be in Cleveland this week on a Bobbing for Walleye package tour and I was wondering if I could—’
The arm that encircled Nicky’s throat was massive. Thick and muscular. In an instant Nicky was yanked from his feet and slammed roughly to the hardwood floor of the vestibule, the force of the blow pummeling the air from his lungs. He then felt the crushing weight of two huge knees on his chest and four strong hands pinning his arms to the ground. He also felt a sharp, purely intentional elbow to his groin. The bright orange pain shot to the center of his brain, blinding him momentarily.
‘Now, I’m gonna count to three,’ said a raspy voice, just inches away from Nicky’s face, the sound drifting in on a moist cloud of onions, garlic, and tobacco. ‘And you’re gonna tell me what the fuck your business is with the man in 318.’
Nicky looked around the room, at the handful of forensic scientists working the scene – dusting for prints, bagging the cigarette butts, Band-Aids, coffee cups. His back throbbed, his head hurt, felt oversized. The sharp pain in his loins had now settled into a dull, pulsating ache he knew would be there for a day or two, seriously curtailing any romantic prospects for the near future. Maybe ever.
The primate who had slammed him to the ground was a huge uniformed cop named Sykes, a somber Goliath who now filled the doorway to the apartment, essentially becoming a six-foot-five security door between the crime scene and the outside world. He still looked at Nicky as if he were one hundred seventy-five pounds of fresh Genoa salami.
Geoffrey Coldicott’s apartment was a four-room affair – living room, bedroom, pullman kitchen, bathroom. Despite Geoffrey’s occupation, in spite of the fact that he probably spent half his time at estate sales, all the furnishings looked like items purchased by a man who couldn’t be bothered to make even a passing acquaintance with the world of interior design. Cheap chrome-and-glass tables, leather-look love seats, all barely functional. Mall art on the walls. A huge mirror over the mantel. It was easy to tell just what was central to Geoffrey Coldicott’s life, such as it was. Geoffrey clearly loved his computer. It was the only area of the apartment that was truly clean and tidy. Books organized, pencils sharpened, tabletop shining. Nicky knew enough computer nerds to know the look of a true propeller-head’s nook.
The big cop had said that he could sit in the corner and wait, far away from the victim – who looked to be sitting upright on the couch, covered with a sheet – until the detective in charge got there. Nicky had dutifully obeyed.
From where he sat, Geoffrey Coldicott’s body looked like a museum piece, draped with a white cotton cloth. The only things that clued Nicky in to the fact that this was not statuary were the red smudges near the top of the head, the erratic scarlet line that ran laterally across where the forehead should be, then down into what was beginning to look like a nose, a mouth.
The door to Geoffrey’s apartment, Nicky overheard, had been left ajar, and when Geoffrey’s neighbor stopped by to borrow a couple of tea bags, she had found the body. The neighbor, an elderly woman named Sadie Markman, was sedated, Nicky heard, and resting in her own apartment next door.
That was an hour ago, they said. Right around the time Nicky was stepping inside Half Price Books.
Then, from the hallway, came a voice that sounded vaguely familiar.
Nicky got to his feet as the owner of the voice turned the corner, ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape, and entered the apartment. The man was white, clean-shaven, about Nicky’s height and weight, a few years older. He wore a dark overcoat, tailored, and tinted glasses; a badge was pinned to his lapel.
‘Hi. Nicholas Stella. Esquire magazine,’ he introduced himself.
The man looked him up and down before extending his own hand. ‘Ivan Kral,’ he said. ‘Detective Ivan Kral, Cleveland Homicide Task Force.’
They shook hands and Nicky noticed how strong the man’s grip was. He tried, and failed, to match it. ‘Cleveland? What are you doing out here in the ’burbs, if I might ask?’
‘Sorry about the mix-up downstairs,’ Kral continued, ignoring the question.
‘No problem,’ Nicky lied, knowing that the Homicide Unit of the Cleveland Police Department usually worked exclusively within city limits. ‘And I’d just like to say how much I—’
‘But I’m still going to call them.’
‘What?’ Nicky replied. ‘Who?’
‘Esquire. I’m going to call them. Right now. If you lied to me, you’re going to fucking jail.’
The big cop, Sykes, burst out laughing, then covered his mouth.
And Nicky knew.
Detective Ivan Kral was the Birdman.
‘And you only met him this morning?’ Kral asked.
‘No,’ Nicky said. ‘I talked to him this morning. On the phone.’
‘At his place of business.’
‘Yes.’
‘And how did you come to call Mr Coldicott in the first place?’
Nicky had to tread lightly here. ‘Well, it’s kind of a long story.’
‘I have a great deal of time,’ Kral said.
They were sitting at Geoffrey Coldicott’s small dinette table, a gray and white Formica job that he had probably picked up at a Garfield Heights garage sale. They were drinking Geoffrey’s instant coffee, too. ‘Am I a suspect?’ Nicky asked.
‘Of course not,’ Kral said. ‘You’re a witness, Nicky. A very important one. You spoke to the deceased on the day he was murdered. Very important.’
Nicky’s mind began to sprint. How was he going to tell them the manner in which he got Geoffrey Coldicott’s name? Did Kral know of his recent meeting with Willie T? Had they talked? Because if they could prove that he had prior knowledge of a conspiracy, or that he had knowledge that a crime was imminent and he did nothing to prevent it, couldn’t they put him away for a lot of years?
He was certain of it. So he lied to a cop.
‘I’m doing a story on antique jewelry for a Cleveland Today supplement. I called Mr Coldicott this morning, at his place of business, and asked for an interview. He told me to meet him here at six. That’s the whole thing.’
Kral held his gaze for a few moments. ‘That’s your long story?’
‘Well, that’s the nutshell. You don’t want to hear about all my research into the fascinating world of antique jewelry, do you?’ Nicky tried a half smile, but it was not returned.
‘And who’s your editor over there at Cleveland Today?’ Kral said, his pen poised over his notebook.
Fucking cops, Nicky thought. It was one of the reasons he never got away with shit when he was a kid. ‘Okay, it’s not an assigned piece I was going to do it on spec.’
‘A spec piece on antique jewelry.’
‘Yes.’
‘You?’
‘Hey, a man’s gotta make a living, you know?’
Due to the thousands of times that the teenaged Nicholas Stella had been grilled by his father, one of the most decorated cops ever to work out of the Third District, Nicky knew that Kral wasn’t buying what he was selling, and that Kral wasn’t done with him. But he also knew that now was the time to strike, if he was going to strike at all.
‘How about an exclusive on this, Birdman?’
Kral studied him, not reacting to the ‘Birdman’ familiarity, which was a good sign for Nicky. So Nicky continued.
‘C’mon, man. I’ll write it up like the “Crack Alley Blues” piece, except this time we go national. Think about it. Esquire, GQ, Vanity Fair. A homicide investigation from the inside. What do you say?’
‘You want to write about this?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes,’ Nicky said. ‘Beats the crap out of a story on antique jewelry. What do you say?’
Instead of answering him, Kral stood up and walked over to where Geoffrey Coldicott’s body was slumped on the love seat, just a few feet from where they were sitting. Next to the body was a hypodermic needle and a GemPac. Kral removed the sheet.
And Nicky vomited on the table.
The skin, the assistant coroner said, had been removed from Geoffrey Coldicott’s face in one piece, and quite expertly at that. Whoever had done this, Dr Vikram Raj went on to say, had made an incision starting at the hairline in the middle of the forehead, down one side, in front of the ear, under the chin, then back up the other side. Incisions were also made around the eyes, nose, and lips. Then the skin was gently, slowly peeled away.
What remained, at least to Nicky’s eyes, looked like the bloody negative of a picture of a goalie, or maybe of Jason in the Friday the 13th series; a reddish brown hockey mask that glistened under the explosion of the flashbulbs.
While the photographers were at it, Kral asked for a picture of Nicky.
A half hour later, as the forensic activity died down, Detective Kral directed his pen flashlight at Geoffrey Coldicott’s blood-clotted cheek, at the small patch of grayish fluid near the corner of his mouth, fluid that looked to be drying semen. A slight parting of the dead man’s lips revealed more semen, the viscous liquid forming thin, sticky bars between his upper and lower lips.
Kral took his pen and began to probe around Coldicott’s clothing. The man’s belt was fastened, his trousers zipped. Instinctively Nicky and Kral simultaneously glanced over at the bed, which was still made, untouched.
Nicky wasn’t all that interested in Geoffrey Coldicott’s sexual proclivities. What he really wanted was a look at the computer. ‘Did anyone check his computer?’ he asked no one in particular, knowing he was pushing it, knowing he was only in this room as long as Kral allowed him to be. ‘Might be some clues in there. His itinerary for today, appointment book, calendar, stuff like that.’
Kral looked at one of the forensic team, a tall black woman named Billings.
‘Nothing there,’ Billings said.
‘What do you mean?’ Nicky asked.
‘Just what I said. The hard drive was wiped clean.’
When Nicky turned the corner onto the landing in front of his door and saw the figure sitting there, he nearly screamed. He was sure it was Frank Corso, and he was sure there was a gun pointed at him.
‘Hi, Nick,’ the man said.
‘Jesus, I was just gonna call you and—’ Nicky managed, but stopped when he realized that it wasn’t Frank Corso after all. It was Gil Strauss. Gil was there to pick up the canned goods for the food drive.
‘Hey . . . hi, Gil,’ Nicky said, finally exhaling.
Gil stood up, looking a little embarrassed. ‘Did I scare you? I’m sorry. Door was open downstairs.’
Gil had always struck Nicky as the kind of guy who would apologize for getting hit by a car. Always dressed in workman fatigues, he wore thick glasses that gave him the appearance of a bookworm, although Nicky believed him to be a lot better with a pair of vise grips than a volume of Marcel Proust. ‘I can take a look at this, you know,’ Gil said, pointing to the skewed hinge on Nicky’s door. ‘Got the tools downstairs.’
‘No, that’s okay,’ Nicky replied, unlocking his door. ‘That’s what the landlord gets paid to avoid.’
Gil laughed as they mounted the steps, then stepped into Nicky’s tiny kitchen.
‘Always wanted to ask you,’ Nicky said, opening some cupboards. ‘What’s Gil short for?’
‘Gillian.’
‘Oh,’ Nicky said. ‘I guess that’s better than Gilbert, no?’
‘Not when you’re ten,’ Gil said. ‘I was pretty fat when I was a kid. I got “Gillian weighs a million” all the time.’
‘Ouch.’
Gil looked around, as if remodeling the small apartment in his mind. Dormer here. Skylight here. Perhaps a direct-vent fireplace against that outside wall. He walked into the living room, picked up the picture of Meg. ‘Was this your wife, Nick?’
Was? Nicky thought. After being startled by the question at first – he didn’t know Gil Strauss nearly well enough to discuss his personal life – then realizing that Joseph must have told him about Meg, Nicky stepped into the living room, looked over Gil’s shoulder. ‘Yes. That’s Meg.’
‘She’s very pretty,’ Gil said.
‘That she is.’ He took the photo from Gil and, for the thousandth time, tried to brush that fine wisp of hair from Meg’s forehead. ‘She would’ve been thirty-two this year. Thirty-two. She used to think thirty was ancient.’
‘Didn’t we all,’ Gil answered.
Nicky placed the photo back into its easel. He looked up, into Gil’s eyes, eyes refracted in a dozen directions by the thick lenses. He asked, ‘Have you ever been in love, Gil?’
For a moment it looked as if the question had been a whip crack in the room. It looked as if Gil might turn and run. Then, just as suddenly, he began to smile, to redden.
‘Not really. I never . . .’ he began, giving what sounded to Nicky like the stock answer. Nicky helped him out.
‘Never met the right girl?’
‘Yeah.’
The reddening deepened. Nicky looked for a way out. ‘There’s still plenty of time,’ Nicky said, sounding way too fatherly, considering he was talking to a guy a few years older.
‘I don’t know,’ Gil said. ‘I’m pretty busy most of the time.’
‘Gotta take time out for life, though, Gil,’ Nicky said, wondering if this wasn’t advice he should be taking instead of giving.
Gil took it as a cue. He clapped his hands once and said: ‘Well, what do you say we take time out for the hungry right now? Point me toward the canned goods, my friend.’
‘Right this way,’ Nicky said.
Nicky hadn’t prepared any canned foods for the drive, so what Gil’s visit amounted to, as it had for three years running, was an emptying of Nicky’s cupboards. And he had just gone shopping at Food Fair. He grabbed a pair of empty cardboard boxes from under the sink and indicated to Gil that he should help himself. He did.
‘You know, your cousin thinks the world of you,’ Gil said, filling a box. ‘Talks about you all the time. Talks about when you were growing up. I love those stories.’
Nicky didn’t know if this was small talk or not, but Gil sounded sincere. ‘Yeah, well, Joseph’s the best.’ He winced, watching Gil put a sealed jar of Folgers crystals into the box. It was all the coffee in the house.
‘Father LaCazio talks about your writing to everyone, too. He’s very proud. Keeps three copies of everything you write. I especially like that story you did about the boxers.’
‘Oh, uh, thanks,’ Nicky said, standing corrected. ‘I’m pretty proud of that one myself.’
They finished filling the boxes and Nicky placed them near the head of the stairs. ‘Did you know that I was writing a story about Father Angelino?’
Gil stopped what he was doing, looked up. ‘No, I didn’t. But anything the rectory can do to help, you let me know.’
Nicky smiled. Gil sounded like a priest. ‘Thanks.’ He grabbed a box and headed for the stairs. ‘There’s cold Pepsi in the fridge. Help yourself.’
By the time Nicky reached the bottom of the stairs, the phrase came back to him with full force, a cold declaration of fact that frightened him: The hard drive was wiped clean.
They missed John Angelino’s Toshiba laptop, though, didn’t they? Nicky thought.
Whoever was doing this had missed the fucking laptop.
Nicky watched Gil load the last of the boxes into the St Francis station wagon. Gil got behind the wheel, rolled down the window.
‘Thanks, Nicky.’
‘Happy to do it.’ They shook hands again.
‘I have two more stops to make,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll be back in an hour or so. We’ll go over to the food bank together, okay?’
It was the last thing Nicky wanted to do, but he had made a promise to help out on the docks. And you don’t stiff the church. Ask any Catholic. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘See you in an hour.’
What did he know? He knew this: People were being shot full of dope and having parts of their bodies removed. Parts they were still young enough to need. Things like lips, skin, eyes.
So far, Nicky thought, he had been lucky to get out of this with his life. Four other people hadn’t, and the guilt of not having brought this straight to the police was weighing on him. There was some crazy shit going on here; it had something to do with poetry and dope and dead people, and that was about all he needed to know to get the fuck out of the way. Who was he kidding? He would talk Erique Mars into a story on something else. Christmas in Collinwood. Christmas with the Cleveland Indians. Something that didn’t involve scalpels and heroin, if you don’t mind. If not, then he’d have to get a job.
Sorry, Grampa.
Gil’s visit had left him without any food, so over soup at Sol’s he decided to do the wise thing. The moment he got back to his apartment he would call Kral and give him everything he had.
‘Fuck you, asshole.’
The fist attached to that greeting seemed to hurtle out of the darkness that led to the basement, shrieking through space, growing in size and velocity, catching Nicky high on his left cheek, slamming him back into the door. Luckily, it was a glancing blow because the fist was enormous and wrapped in some sort of hard leather.
But still Nicky visited an entire galaxy of yellow and orange stars; his legs felt al dente.
‘You think I’m fuckin’ stupid?’ the owner of the fist barked into his face as he pushed Nicky up the stairs. ‘Huh? You think you can play me night after fuckin’ night? I been lenient with you, asshole. Lee-nee-yent. Now I’m going to kick your fuckin’ ass.’
This time it was, of course, Frank Corso, but Nicky’s vision was so blurred at the moment that it could’ve been anyone. Anyone the size and shape of Pittsburgh.
With incredible ease, Frank shoved Nicky up the remaining six steps to his door.
They stood in Nicky’s cramped living room, five feet apart, and Nicky gave him all the money he had. Frank pulled his own huge roll of bills kept together in a rubber band, put it under his left armpit, and began to count Nicky’s money. He finished, looked Nicky in the eye. ‘It’s only three hundred.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Nicky said, his face throbbing, swelling. ‘That’s my payment.’
‘What did I tell you last week? I want the four large.’ He retrieved the roll from under his arm, unbanded it, added Nicky’s money. ‘Man, I thought you was hipper than that.’ He raised the gun – a .38 police special – and pointed it at Nicky. ‘Where’s the rest?’
‘What, are you kidding me?’
‘No,’ Frank said. ‘Drop down.’
Nicky pretended to be incredulous. ‘You were serious about that?’
‘Like ball cancer. Gimme my fuckin’ money.’
Nicky’s mind was reeling. He knew he had something like ten dollars available to him, and half of that was probably in dimes and quarters. He doubted if Frank Corso would take a check. It would only bounce and they’d have to do this all over again.
So Nicky, standing near the doorway to his bedroom, figured he had two options. One, to dive into his bedroom, slam the door, turn the key, and buy himself just enough time to jump out the window and fall thirty feet. Or try to bluff.
Okay, one option.
‘I gotta go to the ATM then. I can get maybe two thousand,’ Nicky said, hoping Frank Corso was too stupid to know that you can’t withdraw that much from an ATM machine.
Thankfully, he was.
‘Show me the card,’ Frank said, keeping the gun on him. ‘Slow.’
Nicky reached into his back pocket slowly, retrieved his wallet, keeping his eye on the barrel of the gun the whole time. Then, suddenly, a shadow appeared on the wall behind Frank, a steadily creeping shadow that grew in size for a moment, then narrowed into a human form.
And somehow, the Birdman was standing right behind Frank.
At first Nicky feared the worst. A flashback. Some kind of drug he had ingested once had just decided to kick in and he was hallucinating things. Cops showing up in the nick of time to save his life. Was this a dad thing? he wondered.
But the Birdman was real.
‘Don’t fucking move,’ Kral said coolly, putting the barrel of his nine-millimeter pistol to the back of Frank Corso’s head. He cocked his weapon and continued: ‘Now, I’m assuming you got through the third grade, but I’ll go slow anyway, just in case. We’re gonna count to three now. Okay?’
Nobody said a word. Nicky stole a glance at Frank Corso’s face. His eyes were darting from side to side, a rivulet of sweat was working its way down his forehead, over the bridge of his nose. But still he kept his revolver pointed at Nicky.
‘Nicky, you count with me, okay? I’m going to shoot him in the head on three.’
‘What?’
‘One . . .’
‘Un,’ Nicky said, coming in halfway through the word. The gun in Corso’s hand began to shake.
‘Two . . .’ Kral and Nicky said in perfect unison, drawing a breath afterward. On that upbeat of air, Nicky knew he was going to live through this. He saw the break in Frank Corso’s resolve. He also saw Frank mouth the words you are fucking dead, asshole as he slowly lowered the gun to his side and let it drop to the floor.
Nicky figured that Kral would now reach behind his back, grab a pair of cuffs, and slip them on Corso. What Nicky didn’t expect was what actually happened. The moment that Frank Corso’s gun hit the carpet, Kral leaned to his left, putting all of his weight on his left foot, spun in place, and slammed his right foot into Frank Corso’s liver. Hard. Frank Corso folded to the floor like an accordion pleat.
The banded roll of bills, which Corso still had in his left hand when the impact occurred, went flying across the room and rolled under the couch. Incredibly, Kral didn’t see it, and Frank Corso was far too busy puking to care. Nicky backed to the couch slowly, sat down, not having to feign relief at all. Kral spoke into his two-way radio, and within a few minutes two uniformed officers came up the stairs and took the folded-up version of Frank Corso into custody. While everyone’s back was turned, Nicky reached under the couch, grabbed the roll, and shoved it into his pocket.
He sat there, his pulse racing, waiting, the roll of bills against his leg like a big green erection.
Five minutes later, he got the shock of his life.
‘You’ve got two choices, Nicky,’ Kral said. ‘Downtown or here. But I will tell you that we have a policy at the Homicide Unit. Your first trip is always an overnighter.’
‘You gonna tell me what this is all about first?’ he asked, although he knew his bargaining power was nil.
‘Yeah, I’ll tell you,’ Kral said, as he put the handcuffs on Nicky. ‘Ronnie Choi is dead.’
Nicky, of course, told them everything. Rolled like a fat guy down Granger Road hill. This had gotten so out of control, so fast, that it had begun to teach him one of those indelible lessons that you carry with you the rest of your life. Never lie to a cop. Stay away from the crazy shit. He explained about Frank Corso and the loan, but not about the roll. It appeared that Kral believed him, and that there was nothing prosecutable about Nicky’s end of the matter. So Kral moved on.
‘The girl at the drug house identified you, Nicky. We showed her your picture and she tossed.’
Nicky recalled the pretty young hostess at Elegant Linda’s. The one with the small butterfly tattoo by her right eye. ‘Okay . . .’
‘Said you came in with a tranny. A hooker.’
‘She’s not a hooker.’
‘And you asked for Ronnie Choi.’
Nicky figured he’d save the argument regarding Beverly Ahn’s virtue for another time. ‘That’s right.’
‘And you just saw Ronnie Choi that one time. At the drug house.’
‘Yes.’
‘With this Beverly Ahn.’
‘Yes. But there’s no way she’s involved in any of this,’ Nicky said. ‘I mean . . . there’s just no way.’
‘You made her involved, Nicky. You dropped her right in the middle of it, didn’t you?’
‘She’s a transvestite. A show girl. The only things she’s interested in are makeup, magazines, and finding big shoes. She’s not a killer.’
‘She a user?’
Nicky knew he would have to lie again to stop this particular line of questioning. ‘Well, you know what kind of lifestyle she leads. I’m sure she smokes. Little toot now and then. But I’m sure she doesn’t—’
‘What exactly did she want to talk to Ronnie Choi about that day?’ Kral asked.
‘I told you. Beverly was trying to get an interview with him. Talk him into it for me. I figured if he was selling the killer smack, I would ask him how he felt about it. But I wouldn’t have even known about him if it wasn’t for you guys. Ask Willie T. He’s the one who told me where Rat Boy was going to be that morning. Talk to him.’
‘I have,’ Kral said.
‘And what did he say?’ Nicky asked.
‘He said what you said.’
‘Well, there you go. As to all this other shit, I had no idea. The doctor in Erie, this Coldicott guy.’
The cuffs were off, but they were sitting on Nicky’s coffee table. Alongside Nicky’s collection of memory sticks. For some reason, the stick with the poem and the e-mail was nowhere in sight.
It looked as if he might not be making that trip downtown after all, but the Birdman’s face, now that Nicky had gotten to look at it sans disguise for much longer than he liked, was nothing if not inscrutable. It still could go either way. But still Nicky pushed. ‘And let me ask you something now,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘Do I have a shot at an exclusive here? I mean, there are three murders here that seem to be related, right? Four, with the girl. I’ve got the rest of the names. What do you say?’
‘We had most of this, Nicky.’
Nicky was stunned for a moment. ‘What?’
‘The FBI is already looking into the connection between the Crane murder in Erie and the death of John Angelino. The jaguar and marmoset stamps – that is a marmoset, by the way, not a monkey – are being run through VICAP now. What we didn’t have was the poem and the list. And for that the people of the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania are grateful to you.’
‘It’s a marmoset?’
‘Yes.’
‘Got any idea what it means?’ Nicky asked.
‘Not yet,’ Kral said, rising to his feet. ‘But the bad news for us is that the feds are here already and they’re going to take this away from us. Needless to say, we want this asshole bad.’
‘Then let me help,’ Nicky said, remembering his father’s great disdain for the attitude of the FBI agents he had worked with. He reached over to the end table and opened a drawer. He pulled out the half of the hundred-dollar bill, held it up. ‘Let me have the story, Detective Kral. Look at my face. I’ve earned it.’
Kral studied him. He didn’t take the half C note. ‘We’ll see.’
Yes, Nicky thought. He put the bill in his pocket.
‘Now,’ Kral continued, ‘do you have that memory stick with the names here?’
‘Yeah. It must be in my car, though.’ Before he stood up, he looked to Kral for permission. Some things just rub off when you’re a policeman’s kid. Kral nodded and Nicky walked into his bedroom, retrieved his keys, ran down the steps and out the back door. As he was going through the papers on the passenger seat he noticed that Frank Corso’s Firebird was still parked out front. Then he remembered the roll. He took it out of his pocket and gave it a quick count.
It looked like fifteen hundred dollars!
Hang on, Grampa. We’re going to Atlantic City.
He put it in an empty McDonald’s bag, crumpled it, stuffed it under the seat. Except for the swelling on the left side of his face, and the fact that he had just narrowly avoided being booked for first-degree murder, it was turning out to be a fairly decent day.
But the memory stick was nowhere to be found.
He generally kept his memory sticks in a box in the glove compartment when he did any mobile computing, but the only things in there now were a dozen or so foil packets of ketchup and a hairbrush with a masking-taped handle.
Kral wrote down the name and address of a place called the Caprice Lounge.
‘You meet me here in an hour, Nicky. Bring the memory stick.’
‘No problem,’ Nicky answered, hoping he could put his hands on it. Where the hell had it gotten to? ‘I’ll be there.’
Kral held his gaze for a few moments before speaking. ‘Don’t fuck with me, Nicky. I’m giving you a pass here. I’m trusting you. You hear me?’
‘I hear you,’ Nicky said.
Kral gave Nicky a few more volts of attitude, then headed for the steps.
Twenty minutes later, when Gil returned to Nicky’s apartment, the two men tore the place apart. The memory stick was gone.
Nicky remembered copying the e-mail addresses into his notebook – but now that was missing too.
Shit.
Happy Hour at the Caprice Lounge was a jumble of eighties hard rock, shouted obscenities, and boisterous retellings of near-death encounters with the city’s vilest desperadoes.
Nicky and Gil slipped into a back booth, ordered two Michelobs. The bar was dark, half-full. The waitress arrived, served, left.
‘I appreciate you doing this,’ Nicky said. He hadn’t told Gil much, and to Gil’s credit, he hadn’t asked. All that was said was that Nicky had to meet a cop and give him something. ‘This shouldn’t take too long.’
‘This is police business, Nick. I respect the police.’
They went silent for a few minutes, listening to the music. Nicky looked at Gil – khaki chinos, Michelob in hand – and thought he looked rather at home in a blue-collar setting like this.
‘So you’re a beer drinker, eh?’ Nicky said with a smile.
Gil blushed a little, looked guilty. ‘I like it just fine, Nick. Needless to say, we don’t usually have it sitting around the rectory much.’
‘No keg parties with the St Francis nuns?’
‘Not too often,’ Gil replied, playing along, but reddening further.
‘Well, drink up,’ Nicky said, figuring Gil was probably not too comfortable with nun jokes. ‘Beers are on me.’
They clinked bottles, sipped. ‘Thanks, Nick.’
He took another sip of his beer, slipped out of the booth.
‘You can stay,’ Nicky said.
‘It’s okay,’ Gil replied, zipping his jacket. ‘I’m sure this is private. I’ll be in the car out front. Take as long as you need.’
Before Nicky could object, Gil turned on his heels and headed for the door.
Five minutes later there came a loud burst of laughter at the front of the bar. Nicky looked up and saw Kral standing by the front door with a stocky blond woman. He was telling her an animated story, one that ended with another thunderous cackle of boozy laughter. After a minute or two, the blonde hugged him, left. Kral wobbled a bit, then began glad-handing his way around the horseshoe-shaped bar.
Detective Ivan Kral was shit-face drunk.
‘Nicky. You good?’ Kral said, putting his jigger of bourbon carefully on the table. He slid clumsily into the booth opposite Nicky.
‘I’m okay,’ Nicky said, cautiously. ‘You look like you’re feeling no pain. Not on duty, are ya, Birdman?’
‘Never been better,’ Kral said. ‘Been off since six.’
Nicky glanced at the wall clock. It was six-ten. Nobody got this loaded that fast.
‘Well,’ Nicky began, ‘you’re not going to believe this, but—’
Kral held up his hand, interrupting him. ‘Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Well, let me at least—’
‘What I’m saying is, I don’t want to fucking hear it. Capeesh?’
Nicky’s heart sank. Was he going to jail? ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about how it isn’t my case anymore, see? The feds are treating this as a serial murder. We’ve got G-men up the fucking ass down at the Justice Center.’
Nicky figured it was now or never. ‘It’s gone. The memory stick is gone. Can’t find my notebook either.’
Kral looked at him for a few moments, focusing a bit drunkenly. He smirked. ‘Feds will want your laptop. Give them something to do. They’re really good at finding shit where shit don’t grow.’ Kral grabbed Nicky’s Michelob, took a long, hard swallow. ‘But we gave them the fact that all the victims went to CWRU. Right under their fuckin’ noses.’
He said it so casually. Nicky thought for a moment he had misunderstood. Geoffrey, too? Geoffrey went to CWRU, too? ‘What?’
‘Yeah. Angelino, Coldicott, Crane,’ Kral said, slurring his words a little now. ‘They all went to CWRU in the late eighties. It was the one thing that popped up on all their sheets. As soon as that surfaced, the feds pounced. It’s their case now. I’m out of it.’
‘No shit.’
‘None,’ Kral replied. ‘And what’s more, I don’t give a fuck.’ He threw back his shot, looked for the waitress.
‘Case Western Reserve,’ Nicky said, softly, new wheels beginning to spin. His cousin Joseph had gone to CWRU, too. ‘Well, would it be okay if I talked to people down at Case for background?’
Kral laughed, raised his hand, called the waitress. He looked at Nicky, his tinted glasses reflecting the neon beer signs scattered around the room. ‘As long as you keep it out of print until the feds close the case, I don’t care if you talk to the pope.’
‘Thanks,’ Nicky said with a smile, grateful for Kral’s inebriated mood, glad to be leaving the Caprice Lounge without handcuffs. Kral had given him inside cop stuff with the CWRU lead. He knew what was expected of him.
‘Are we square now, Birdman?’ Nicky asked, sliding his half of the hundred across the table.
This time Kral pocketed the bill without even looking at it. ‘Like Pat Fuckin’ Boone.’