Last Chance for Glory (10 page)

A sudden, tinny cheer belched from the TV set, followed by a chorus of groans from the Cryders regulars. The Yankees were staging a typical late-inning rally. The regulars, or so Bela Kosinski, drawing on twenty years’ of police experience, surmised, had backed the Red Sox. Perhaps they’d been counting their money.

He turned back to his vodka, recalling the years when he’d loved the juice, more years when he’d hated it, even what he’d come to call “the decade of sobriety.” Now, he was neutral, believing there was no life without it and that was the end of that. That was
all
she wrote.

But then he’d once believed the same thing about the job, about the NYPD. He’d believed that once he left the job, his life would literally stop. He’d been wrong about that, because here he was, six weeks retired and still ticking. Like a time bomb.

He took a drink, felt the fire trickle into his belly, rebound up into his throat. Without thinking, he fished a roll of Tums out of his jacket and popped one into his mouth.

“No more water,” he said to his nearest neighbor, Emily Caruso. “The fire next time.”

Emily turned her beery breath on the ex-cop. “Looka this shit.”

Bela Kosinski glanced around the bar, noting the scattered tables and chairs, the bowling machine, the broken jukebox.

“Looks like home to me,” he announced.

“I’m talkin’ about that kid at the end of the bar. Only he’s too old to be a kid.” She tipped a half-empty Bud up to her mouth, drained it in two quick swallows. “He’s drinking Moussy.”

Kosinski watched her larynx bob twice, then come to a stop. He listened to the reflexive belch. Thinking, this is where I’m going to spend the rest of my life. This is where I’m going to die. And the sooner, the better.

“So what?”

“Moussy, you jerk. Nonalcoholic beer. What’s a guy doin’ in a fuckin’ bar if he don’t wanna get loaded?”

Kosinski, his attention caught, looked down the length of the bar. Unlike Emily Caruso, he believed there was a place for nonalcoholic beer, a place in some Manhattan singles’ bar. But not at Cryders. Kosinski was surprised that Cryders even
had
a bottle of Moussy in its ancient cooler. Maybe the jerk had brought it with him.

“Whatta ya think, Emily? Ya think he brought it with him?”

Emily Caruso laughed, then choked, then lit a cigarette. “You wanna take me home tonight?”

“Lemme think about it.” Kosinski kept his voice neutral. Just as if Mrs. Caruso wasn’t a seventy-plus great-grandmother. Just as if he had any interest whatever in sexual matters.

He lifted his glass, wishing that just this once he could really get drunk. Get happy or stupid or belligerent, the way he used to when he was a kid sneaking shots from his father’s bottle. Nowadays, all he got was straight.

“Bell, you ready for another one?”

Kosinski looked up at the sound of his nickname. O’Leary was smiling.

“The Yankees winning?”

“They’re even up.”

“Would ya take a tie here, Ed?” The Yankee relief staff was notoriously weak.

“Forget it, Bell. No ties in baseball. Somebody’s gotta win.”

Kosinski nodded at his glass. “Fill the fucker.” He waited while the bartender poured the ritual double, then raised the glass. “Who’s the asshole at the end of the bar?”

“The one drinking the goddamned Moussy,” Emily Caruso added.

“Never seen him before. Never served a Moussy before.”

“I’m surprised you even carry that crap.”

“We don’t. The distributor left it about a year ago. No charge. Part of a promotion.”

Kosinski turned his attention back to the man at the end of the bar, working him in typical cop fashion. He saw a white male, approximately thirty years of age, brown hair and eyes, light complexion, wearing a very loose short-sleeved shirt that tried, but failed to hide a weight lifter’s chest. That failed to hide forearms damn near the size of Bell Kosinski’s neck. Just as Kosinski finished his inventory, the man smiled and raised the bottle of Moussy.

Jeez, Kosinski thought, maybe my eyes are goin’ now. Do I know this guy?

He looked closer, decided that it didn’t matter whether he did or not, because the jerk was already off the stool and walking toward him.

Inspired by a purely alcoholic whim, Kosinski stuck his thumbs into his ears, fanned the palms of his hands out, waggled his fingers. Much to his delight, the weight lifter stopped, tilted his head to the left.

What he looks like, Bell Kosinski decided, is a confused bulldog.

“I don’t get it,” the bulldog said.

“I’m tryin’ to look moosy,” Kosinski responded, deadpan.

“I still don’t get it.”

“Horns. Like on a fuckin’ moose.”

“You mean antlers, right?”

“Whatever.”

“Well, I can accept the impression; it’s the point that’s giving me a problem.”

“The beer, jerk.” Kosinski noted the flinch, the underlying control, the funny lopsided smile as it emerged. “Moosy? Moussy? Get it?”

“Oh, sure.”

“So, what could I do for you?”

“Are you Bela Kosinski?”

“The one and only.”

“My name is Marty Blake. I’m a private investigator. Can I have a few minutes of your time?”

“You buyin’? Think twice before you make me an answer, because if you’re buyin’, I’m drinkin’.”

“Does that mean if I’m not buying, you’re
not
drinking?”

“It should only be.” Kosinski turned to the bartender. “Keep ’em comin’. Eddie. We’re gonna take a table.”

He led the way, aware of his steady walk, the ease with which he controlled the rickety chair as he sat. Deciding the guy was all right. Controlled-nasty, which meant they had something in common.

“So whatta ya want, Marty Blake?” He drained his glass, signaled to Ed O’Leary who was already crossing the room. “And how’d you find me?”

“I’m leavin’ the bottle, Bell,” O’Leary announced. “I can’t be comin’ every two minutes. The game’s in extra innings.”

Kosinski watched the bartender’s back for a moment, then turned to Blake.

“So?” He refilled his glass, emptied it, then refilled it again.

“You asked me two questions?”

“True. And if you should take any longer to make an answer, I’m liable to forget what they were.” He put on his best cop stare and drove it into Marty Blake’s eyes.

“Why I’m here is simple enough. I’m here about a kid named Billy Sowell. How I found you is a bit more complicated.”

“I like complicated. Remember, I used to be a detective.”

“Okay.” Blake took a deep breath. “I’ll make it as simple as I can. I was reading the police file on the murder of Sondra Tillson. You were in charge of the case right up until Billy Sowell came into the picture, then you disappeared. That caught my attention, so what I did was use my computer to access a data base called the National Credit Information Network and give it your name and your occupation. A minute and a half later, I had all the header information on a credit-card application you made in 1979. I …”

“Header
information. What the fuck is
header
information?”

“Look, what I
can’t
get—legally, at least—is a record of your actual transactions. When you used the card, what you bought, how you paid—like that. Everything else—the header information—is open to anybody who knows where to look. That includes your name, address, and phone number, among other things. What I did, when I called and you didn’t answer, was enter your name, address, and phone number in a crisscross data base. Six minutes later, I printed out a list of your twenty closest neighbors, along with
their
addresses and phone numbers. Then I let my fingers do the walking. You know something, Mr. Kosinski? You have a neighbor who hates your guts. Told me you
live
in this bar.”

Bell Kosinski, as he tried to digest the information being tossed in his face, felt his brain snap off like someone had thrown an electric switch. He was dimly aware of thoughts moving in and out of what should have been his consciousness, but they floated along at their own pace, like shadows in a dense fog. He couldn’t stop them long enough to take a look, couldn’t slow them down or speed them up.

When he came out of it, when something flicked the switch back on, Kosinski, who’d been through it before, was aware of the lapse in time. The question was how long and the answer was staring him in the face. The private eye (Blake, he remembered) was looking at him expectantly, but without alarm, so he couldn’t have been out very long. Not this time.

“You investigated me?” It was the first coherent response he could make to what he actually remembered. He waited a moment, but when Blake didn’t respond, added, “and now you’re throwin’ it up to me. Now you’re
braggin’
about it. I hope you don’t mind my sayin’ so, but your bedside manner could use a little work.”

Blake’s smile remained in place, but his eyes sharpened. “What happened, Kosinski, is I got bored. Forty-eight hours reading Grand Jury testimony, police reports, autopsy reports? It could happen to anyone. Now, some people relax with a glass of vodka and some people relax with a computer. Me, I belong to the latter group, so just for the hell of it I bet myself ten bucks that I could run you down inside of three hours. That was at seven-thirty. It’s now ten o’clock.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. But like I said, it was only a whim. I didn’t really expect you to answer my questions, but I didn’t expect you to shit all over me, either. In fact, when you stuck out your fingers, my first reaction was to break them. One at a time.”

Kosinski picked up his glass, spun it between his palms. “It’s a good thing you didn’t. A neighborhood bar like this? You’d be lucky to get out of here alive.”

“I did think of that.” Blake dropped the smile. “You wanna talk about William Sowell?”

“What makes you think I know anything about it?”

“It was your case.”

“One of how many thousands I handled while I was on the job?”

“A retarded kid was framed for a murder he could not have committed. You don’t forget that.”

“What makes you think he was framed?”

“You wanna start with the car?” Sure.

“The only blood in the vehicle was found on the backseat underneath the victim, whose throat was slashed. If she’d been killed in the front seat, then pushed into the back, which is the way it went down according to Sowell’s confession, the inside of that car would’ve been
covered
with spray. It was not, therefore she was dead before she was put into the car. But you know all this, right Kosinski? You know there was no blood found
around
the car, either, which meant the car was driven after the body was put into it. Billy Sowell can’t drive. He can’t read well enough to fill out the application for a license. So, again, let me ask you—do you wanna talk about William Sowell?”

“I don’t know anything about William Sowell.” Kosinski picked up his glass, drained it, set it back down. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”

“You were there when his name first came up. According to the report you filed on December fifteenth, you and Detective Brannigan were in the squad room when you received an anonymous tip informing you that Billy Sowell killed Sondra Tillson.”

“Is that what it said? It said I took the call?” Kosinski kept his voice neutral, but he was a good deal less than happy about his name being placed on a phony DD5 without his permission. Suppose he’d been called to testify? A little perjury might be good for the soul, but not when it’s involuntary.

“You’re telling me you didn’t?”

“I’m not telling you anything. What’s important here is that
you’re
telling me. Telling me things like who hired you. Who’s paying you. By the way, you got any ID? A business card’ll do.”

Blake, Kosinski noted, wasn’t smiling any more. His face was serious, composed. As if he knew something Kosinski didn’t. “I’m working for Billy Sowell’s lawyer, an attorney named Max Steinberg.”

“I thought the kid took a plea.”

“A minor inconvenience.” Blake tugged a card out of his wallet and passed it over.

“This Max Steinberg, is he the Max Steinberg with the fucked-up wig?

“The same.”

“Now, that’s very interesting. Tell me, Blake, who’s paying Steinberg?”

“Nobody. It’s a labor of love.”

“Pardon me?”

“He’s doing the work
pro bono.
A matter of conscience is what he told me.”

Kosinski looked down at his hands for a moment. He told himself it was time to get out, to get rid of Private Investigator Martin Blake before he said the wrong thing, got himself into the kind of trouble he didn’t need. After all, who (or what) was Billy Sowell to Bell Kosinski? Why should Bell Kosinski give two shits about a homeless retard who got himself caught in a hurricane? These things happen in the course of a career and if you’ve got half a brain, you forget about them.

“Tell me something, Blake, you have a lot of experience with criminal cases?” Kosinski noted the quick blush, smiled inwardly. “That’s what I thought. Well, you seem like a halfway decent kid, so I’m gonna tell ya somethin’ here, somethin’ you should already know. Watch your back at all times. At
all
times.”

“You’re admitting that Billy Sowell was framed?”

“What’re you, taping this? Man, I’ll shoot your ass right here in the bar.” Kosinski felt a small tremor in the back of his neck, recognized it as fear. Which seemed altogether strange, considering that he was retired and his pension guaranteed. Considering that he fully expected to drink himself to death before he collected any significant amount of that pension.

Blake unbuttoned his shirt, taking his time about it. His chest was hairy, but not hairy enough to hide a tape recorder.

“No bug, Kosinski.” He was smiling again. “Like I said, I came here because I was bored.”

“Is that right? Well, I hope the trip improved your mood, ’cause I’m gonna end this right now. I was on vacation when Brannigan picked Sowell up. By the time I got back, the case was in the hands of the prosecutors. What happened in between is none of my business. None of yours, either.”

“Is it Billy Sowell’s business?” Blake paused momentarily, then continued when he got no response. “Because I’m driving upstate to see him tomorrow morning. If you like, I could ask him. Maybe he
likes
being in prison.”