| |
That made two things I’d learned in the last five minutes. Gil Tremain had withdrawn a thousand bucks — more than I made in two years — from his bank account two days before he vanished, yet according to Freeze, the account had still enjoyed robust health. I’d also learned the full name of a man who, even before Connelly’s reaction, I had known was a crime kingpin who, as nearly as I could tell, managed mostly to stay in the shadows. Not bad for an evening when I’d resolved to put work out of my mind. Maybe I should go on dates more often.
“Mind walking?” Connelly asked as we reached the sidewalk.
At heart he’d always be an Irish country lad. He missed walking. I shook my head.
“Matter of fact, I was hoping we’d look at the lights.”
“We’ll do that, then.”
The temperature still hovered just above freezing. Damp from the river beaded moisture on parked cars and gave the air a rawness independent of the thermometer. It wasn’t quite cold enough for our breath to make clouds, but little curtains of fog hovered in front of us when we spoke.
Drawing my hand through the crook of his arm Connelly held it in place. The closeness made conversation easier.
“Now then.” His eyes pierced me with his don’t-give-me-malarkey warning. “How do you come to even know the name Nico Caras?”
“I met him once.”
“Where?”
“In a vacant lot north of the river. Not recently. It was several years back. I needed information.”
I heard him swear under his breath.
“From what I’ve heard, I wouldn’t want to meet the man! Not without half a dozen other cops backing me up.”
“It probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”
He spun to face me. A couple leaving a restaurant a block past the one we’d been in stepped around us.
“Smartest? You’ve taken more than your share of daft risks since I’ve known you, but that takes the prize for stupidest.”
“Yeah, I know. He had two bodyguard in his car, and two goons in a car following.” I skipped the part where one of the goons had patted me down, and had a swell time doing it. “After we’d had our chat and I’d driven far enough to hope I wasn’t going to get a bullet in my head, I pulled over and thought I’d never stop shaking.”
Connelly resettled my hand in the crook of his arm and we walked on. His mouth was grim.
“So what have you heard about Caras?” I asked after a time. ‘What kind of rackets does he control? Numbers? Gambling?”
“Both.”
“So the lamp shop owner who up and left town for his health could have left because he owed Nico money.”
“In which case he might need to go pretty far to stay healthy,” Connelly said drily.
“Arizona, according to the forwarding address he left.”
“Which if he’s half smart is phony.”
Could Gil Tremain have owed the lamp shop owner money, I wondered? Could he have taken that thousand dollars to pay off a debt? Or help a man to whom he somehow had a connection?
“What about your man Tremain?” Connelly asked, his thoughts apparently traveling the same route. “He a gambler? Could he be the one Caras is hunting?”
“Not from everything I’ve learned so far. All he did was work and spend time with his daughter or his girlfriend.”
I couldn’t see a gangster like Caras dabbling in engineering developments and the prospect of making money on them. Since Connelly was the one who’d opened this door, I saw no harm in trying a few more questions.
“What about drugs? Caras mixed up in that?”
“Could be. Bear in mind, I’m only a beat cop. I get scraps, not a full plate like the detectives.”
“Heroin?”
Connelly fell silent. He was starting to realize I had more than passing interest.
“Not much heroin here. Mostly snow. It’s not like some cities.”
For two years before coming here, he’d worked a beat in Boston. I figured he was comparing. His arm flexed, pinning my hand to his ribs.
“If you think either man we’ve been talking about could be mixed up in that, leave it be, mavourneen. That’s an ugly world.”
We were in the center of downtown now. On our left was the courthouse. Up ahead, Rike’s department store blazed with lights. The marquee of the Victory Theater advertised its current bill. Hotels beckoned customers to dance and dine. Movie palaces, gin mills and dance halls offered enticements for Saturday evening.
And Gil Tremain was out there somewhere. Alive or dead. My job was to find him. His daughter trusted me.
“The thing is, Connelly, Freeze told me Tremain’s bank account still had a hefty balance, even with that chunk out at the end. If Tremain was a gambler who didn’t know when to stop, or if he was a dope fiend, it would be emptier, wouldn’t it?”
He rubbed a hand across his chin. “You’d think.”
“Should I pass it on to Freeze about muscle working for Caras sniffing around?”
“Yeah, I would. And I wouldn’t let grass grow before I did. It’s not likely to help with his homicide, but he’ll know the right person to tell. Someone at Market House is bound to be interested. And who knows, if it makes him look good, he might view you more favorably next time you want something.”
“I won’t hold my breath.”
He chuckled.
“Now then. The night is young. We’ve wasted enough breath on work. We’re supposed to be having a good time. What shall we do? Movie? Dance? Have a drink somewhere?”
Crossing Second had brought us to the first window of Rike’s department store. Mannequins depicted Mom and Dad beaming at son and daughter under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning. The kids were rapturous over a wee train running around its track, a little toy cookstove, and other delights. Grandma and Grandpa looked on in the background. Everyone was in robes and pajamas (for sale inside). They were cozy and happy.
It wasn’t the kind of family I’d grown up in, or Lucille Collingwood, or Eve Tremain, but maybe all of us needed to believe in families like that. I paused, along with several couples and a family with sleepy children in tow, to take in the scene. The crisp peal of a Salvation Army handbell above a collection kettle silvered the air.
“Maybe a drink later, but right now, if it’s all the same, what I’d rather do is just walk and look at things.”
“Window shopping?”
I smiled at the teasing in his voice as we moved on.
True, the windows also displayed items for Christmas giving — jackets and new toasters; humidors and jewelry. But somewhere ahead or around the corner would be scenes with Santa, and one with a snowman. The windows showed a world free of thugs and blood-soaked rugs and shattered families. I loved the once-a-year familiarity. The hope. The peacefulness.
“Mostly I just want to look at decorations and smell the air and pretend I’m a normal person,” I said.
Connelly spun to face me, gripping my shoulders.
“A normal person doesn’t meet gangsters in vacant lots,” he said fiercely. “A normal person doesn’t get herself beaten up or duck bullets.” The hardness of his face dissolved. “You wouldn’t be half the woman you are if you were one, Maggie mavourneen.”
His head bent so close to mine I could feel his breath on my face. Several moments crept by. Finally he turned my collar up and gave it a little tug and we set off again.
His hand rested gently at the base of my neck. It wasn’t a courting claim like holding hands. It was intimate. There were people in the streets, coming out of picture shows, going into clubs, gazing in windows the same way we were. Yet there in the midst of it, the two of us were alone in the world.