16 Hitman (21 page)

Alice waved it away. "That was how it could have happened. I
never said it did."

My mouth fell open. I was sure she said it did. I just couldn't
prove it. I wished, for the thousandth time, I had a microcassette
recording to back me up. "Well, I certainly got that impression."

She patted me on the cheek. "You're very impressionable."

"If Marsden wasn't following the schoolteacher, what was he
doing?"

"Not following the schoolteacher."

"Huh?"

"He was supposed to be following the schoolteacher. But he
wasn't. He was playing games with you. That's why he was killed.
For not following the schoolteacher."

"Isn't that the same as following the schoolteacher and not
killing him? In terms of motivation, I mean?"

"What's your point?"

I had no idea. As usual, when talking to Alice, I found my brain
two or three paragraphs behind. I had a feeling that Alice's theory
about the schoolteacher was probably important, if I were only
swift enough to pick up on it. But I wasn't, and Alice had once
again outdebated me.

She had also finished my scone.

I WAS IN QUEENS SHOOTING a wet floor inWendy's,always an iffy
assignment.You either sit there all day waiting for someone to spill
something, or you pour it on the floor yourself. Which makes me
feel like a real sleaze. Which is stupid, since any picture you take is
going to be staged. The soda the client slipped in isn't still there, it
evaporated, or got licked up by a dog, or the floor was mopped, or
whatever. So the photo for a slipped-in-water case doesn't mean
shit. The attorneys for the defense will have an easy time arguing
that it's inadmissible. But Richard will argue that it shows the layout
of the restaurant in question, and the judge will allow it for a limited purpose, and Richard will have won, because, limited purpose
or not, the jurors aren't going to ignore the water on the floor.

Anyway, I was contemplating buying a Diet Coke to spill, when
Wendy/Janet beeped me to call MacAullif, and he told me to
come in.

"Why?" I asked, but he'd already hung up the phone.

So I bagged the dubious photo assignment and headed back to
Manhattan.

MacAullif had a cigar out, a very bad sign. In fact, he was
already drumming patterns on his desk.

"What's up?" I asked him.

"You recall a talk we had earlier? About Tony Fusilli?"

"I'm not that senile, MacAullif. Get to the point."

"I'm wondering if you made pass at the guy."

"I'm not gay." I held up my hand. "Not that there's anything
wrong with that."

"Did you go anywhere near Fusilli, you make a move on
Fusilli, you talk to anyone related to Fusilli? I mean in a business
sense. Anyone in Fusilli's extended family. Anyone at all."

"You gonna tell me why you're asking?"

A large vein was bulging out in MacAullif's forehead. I couldn't
recall having seen it before. "Just once could you answer a fucking
question without asking one of your own? I need to know if
you're involved with Fusilli. I'd like to get that information before
someone else gets it who may not interpret it so kindly."

"Jesus Christ, what the hell happened?"

"Did you go see Tony Fucking Fusilli, yes or no?"

"I saw him."

"Jesus Christ!"

"You broke your cigar."

MacAullif had snapped it in two. He looked from hand to
hand, seemed surprised to find it that way. "Unbelievable!"

"You're the one who told me to do it," I protested.

"I did nothing of the sort."

"You said `Be my guest: When I asked if I could talk to him,
you said `Be my guest. "

"I was being sarcastic. Couldn't you tell I was being sarcastic?"

"Must have missed it. Anyway, I went over to Fusilli's place. Not
that he'd talk to me."

"Did anyone?"

"Now, that's another question."

MacAullif stood up so hard his chair hit the wall. "I'm trying to
cut you a break here.You don't seem to want it.' I

"That's because I don't know what the fuck you're talking
about, MacAullif. You want to stop being so cagey and let me in
on the secret"

I will if you'll answer one more question without asking one
of your own."

"Shoot"

"You happen to talk to Louie Russo?"

"Why, is he dead?"

"Jesus Christ! You couldn't do it! One fucking question, and
you couldn't fucking do it!"

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes, he's dead. Shot a couple of dozen times by someone who
was really mad at the fuck. Now, do you think you could do me
the courtesy of assuming I know my job and answer a fucking
question?"

"A couple of dozen times?"

"Yeah.Whoever killed Louie was really pissed off. I start thinking
what could piss someone off that much, and I think of you."

"I didn't talk to Fusilli."

"No, you talked to the guy who got shot. Which I'm sure is a
coincidence"

"You being sarcastic again?"

"Read my face."

"I didn't get the guy killed, MacAullif."

"How do you know?"

"Our conversation was unenlightening."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"You expect me to remember what we said?"

"I'd like the gist"

"Just what you'd expect. I ran a bluff, trying to get information."

"What did you get?"

"Not a damn thing. Guy called me cold, accused me of running a bluff, told me to get lost."

"What did he spill?"

"Not a goddamned thing."

MacAullif shook his head. "That doesn't compute. You talk to
the guy, he goes upstairs, someone's so pissed off they shoot him
six ways from Sunday. Now what did the guy let slip?"

"Not a thing."

"He must have"

"He didn't."

"All right, if that's what you think, he must have told you something you didn't get. He let something slip that would have meant
something to anyone with half a brain"

"Thanks a lot."

"Oblivious Man doesn't get it. But Tony Fusilli, who doesn't
realize he's dealing with Oblivious Man, thinks Louie's spilled the
beans."

"What beans? The guy didn't tell me anything"

"You just think he didn't.You gotta go back over the conversation, see if anything sticks out"

"It doesn't."

"Thank you for your open-minded attitude. That will make
this so much easier"

"I can't help it, MacAullif. The guy gave me nothing. I can go
over it and over it, and he still gave me nothing."

"All right. What did you tell him? What did you say that might
put his boss in a rage?"

"I didn't say a thing."

"That's how you bluffed him? I can't imagine why it didn't work."

"I told him Kessler was in protective custody and they'd never
get to him."

"That's not quite nothing."

"That's not quite news, either. He's been in it since yesterday."

"Nonetheless, it illustrates what you mean by nothing. Now,
what other nothings did you tell him?"

"I told him Marsden and Frankie Delgado were dead. I said the
cops knew they were Fusilli's button men, they just couldn't prove it"

"This is also nothing?"

"This is nothing that's going to send Fusilli into a rage and
make him shoot his own man. Why would he do that?"

I have no idea, because I don't know the context. Neither do
you, but you write it off anyway because you're too lazy to figure
it out"

"Come on, MacAullif. I told him the two dead guys worked for
him. This is not news to him. Why would it piss him off?"

"I don't know, because I wasn't privy to the conversation."

"Privy?"

"Right. Like an outhouse. Like your mind. Is there anything
you're not telling me?"

I thought about it.

"There was another guy there."

THE COPS SWEATED THE SECURITY guard for hours. He'd have
ratted me out if he'd known who I was, but the guy didn't know my
name. I'm sure Crowley would have loved to put us together, but I
was nowhere to be found. I wasn't answering my beeper, at least not
officially. I was knocking off cases, I just wasn't calling cops.

MacAullif didn't give me up, bless his heart. The minute I mentioned the security guard, he suggested I get out of there. I did, not
a moment too soon. I barely got to my car before my beeper
started going crazy.

To the cops' credit, they questioned Fusilli and his men, for all the
good it did them. As one would expect, Fusilli's henchmen presented a united front. Louie had stopped in the lobby to talk to some
troublemaker, and was never seen again. It was suggested that the
cops question the troublemaker. Since they couldn't find him, they
sweated the security guard instead. That was his comeuppance for
being an asshole. I wish I could have seen it. I would have in a book.

As things were, I wanted no part of Detective Crowley. Instead,
I wound up in another no-win conversation with my wife.

Alice was waiting at the door when I got home. "Stanley! Are
you crazy? You called on a mobster!"

"What, no amenities? No `Hi, honey, how's your day?"'

"Where have you been?"

"Working."

"It's eight thirty!"

"I worked overtime."

"Why didn't you call?"

"I didn't want to get my messages."

"I'll bet. The police called."

"Just once?"

"No, a lot. I let the answering machine pick up."

"Good girl."

"Bad boy.You called on a mobster?"

"Is that what the cops said?"

"The third or fourth time. You called on a mobster, and now
he's dead!"

"I don't think it's cause and effect."

"But you did?"

"We got anything to eat?"

"I made chicken"

"Great."

"Two hours ago it was great. Now it's food."

We went in the kitchen and Alice zapped the chicken curry in
the microwave while I gave her a rundown of my meeting with
Louie Russo.

"I don't get it," Alice said. "You didn't tell him anything. He
didn't tell you anything. And he gets killed."

"That's right."

"So you had nothing to do with it."

"I must have had something to do with it."

"Maybe it's just coincidence."

"How can it be coincidence?"

"What, exactly, did you tell him?"

"I told him Hitman Number 1 works for Tony Fusilli. And I
told him Hitman Number 2 works for Tony Fusilli."

"That's gotta be important."

"How can that be important."

"Maybe it's important that you knew it."

"He didn't kill me. He killed Louie Russo. Why is it important
if Louie Russo knows it? He already knows it."

"What if he didn't? What if this is the first Louie heard these guys
worked for Fusilli? So he goes to Fusilli with that information."

"That makes no sense"

"Why not?"

"Everybody knows they worked for Fusilli. The cops know it.
The mobsters know it. It's in their record. You check out these
guys, it's what you come up with."

"All right, so what else did you tell him?"

"I didn't tell him anything."

"You just think you didn't" Alice opened the microwave, took out
the plate of chicken. It smelled delicious."You want this chicken?"

"Of course I want that chicken"

"Then tell me one other thing you told this mobster."

"Alice!"

"What?"

"You're going to withhold food until I tell you?"

"Why not?"

"That's as bad as withholding sex."

"There's an idea."

"Alice!"

"Come on. Think. What else did you tell him?"

I took a breath, blew it out. "I told him the cops had the
schoolteacher and there was no way to stop him from talking."

"I'm not sure that's worth chicken"

"Alice"

"Come on. What else you got?"

"I told him if he didn't let me warn Fusilli, he'd be sorry."

"And he was." Alice slid the plate in front of me. "Interesting."

I'm glad Alice thought so. As far as I was concerned, it was
utterly irrelevant, boring as hell, and had nothing to do with
anything.

But the chicken sure was great.

I GOT A LATE START next morning. I stayed asleep, and Alice
walked the dog. I usually take Zelda out, but today I didn't even
hear her. I guess I was really wiped.

And not from lack of sleep. Just from stress. Just from being on
constant guard to defend myself on all sides. I don't mean from
physical attack. I'm a NewYorker. I'm generally wary. I mean from
getting in too deep. With cops. And mobsters. And lawyers. And
clients. And meter maids. And IRS auditors.

You're probably wondering where some of those personnel
come in. The tax man and the meter maid, for instance. Well, I live
in Manhattan, we have alternate side parking, and I keep the location of my car, and what day and time I have to move it, in my
head, or I risk a parking ticket even more expensive than a tank of
gas. That's where the IRS agent comes in. Deducting the ticket I
can't afford as a business expense and seeing if he buys it.

Anyway, I sprang out of bed at ten after nine with a full twenty minutes before my car, parked on the north side of 104th Street,
had to be moved. I showered at the speed of light, climbed into my
clothes. I was still tying my shoes when the elevator arrived. I
hopped in on one foot, pushed L, finished my laces, and started in
on my tie. I had it loosely knotted by the time we hit the lobby. I
snatched up my briefcase, and darted for the door, shirt collar up,
tie trailing behind me in the breeze.

I came out the door at nine twenty-nine. Sure enough, my
Toyota was the only car on the north side of the street. And there
on West End Avenue, waiting for the light, about to turn the
corner, was not just Lovely Rita, Meter Maid, but Courtesy, Professionalism, and Respect himself, a genuine police officer in a
genuine police cruiser, who would be happy to accept my illegally
parked car as quota from heaven, a gift from the alternate side
parking gods, the very second that nine thirty rolled around.