Peeper (20 page)

“Okay. I'm satisfied you've something to trade.” The reporter shifted in his seat. “You remember Abscam.”

“That thing where all them Democrats got caught with their hands up some camel jockey's burnoose.”

“Close enough. In that one, FBI agents posing as Arab nationals induced a number of congressmen to accept bribes for voting their way on trade issues. The transactions were videotaped and used as evidence in court.”

“I got to get me one of them cameras,” Ralph mused.

“Absolution is the code name for a similar Justice Department operation that went sour.”

“What'd they do, run out of sheets?”

“This one was more elaborate, with different targets. The scam involved dressing field agents in clerical robes and placing them in confessionals in Catholic parishes believed to include high-ranking figures in organized crime. The plan was to finesse them into incriminating themselves with the use of hidden surveillance equipment.”

“You made that up.”

“We're pretty sure Willard Newton did. It was his pet scheme.”

“It wouldn't hold up in court.”

“That's why it was abandoned a year ago. Also it was a disaster from a public relations viewpoint, mixing church and state and all. Not to mention the fact that a large percentage of the newer breed of crime bigwigs is Protestant.”

“Royal fuck-up.”

“A democratic one, actually. With a small
d
.”

“So what's the beef now?”

“There's no such thing as a bureaucratic secret. We had an informant whose conscience got the better of him finally. He contacted our Detroit bureau and they relayed the information to Washington.”

“Steelcase?”

“Hardly. We figure he was the one who panicked and called Newton when he got wind of the investigation. I don't think I'll tell you the name of our informant just yet.”

Ralph chewed on his swizzle in place of a matchstick. “What'd Newton do?”

“Something he shouldn't have.”

“Huh.”

“The election's next month. If Willard Newton is linked with a bonehead illegal operation that cost the taxpayers millions, he stands to do more than lose his job. He'll take down the present administration and his entire party with him. So he hired a killer to eliminate the informant.”

“You.”

“That's what he thinks. Government has nothing on the
Post
, Poteet; we've got deep-cover men in some impressive places. Our man in the Justice Department diverted Newton's requisition to us. I got the job of posing as the killer. I'd rather not say why.”

“It ain't necessary,” Ralph said.

Carpenter was solemn. “Willard Newton violated the First Amendment rights of every confessor who went into one of those booths looking to unburden his soul to someone he thought was a priest. The pilgrims didn't come here for that. Speaking less Constitutionally, I had barely begun my investigation when someone murdered Monsignor Breame.”

Ralph had been about to signal Richard for another round. He lowered his hand.

“Breame was our informant,” Carpenter said. “You didn't really think he died humping some cheap prostitute, did you?”

Ralph said, “A guy'd have to be pretty low to think a thing like that.”

Chapter 27

Richard brought over Ralph's third gin. “Last call, gentlemans. I got to close up and take Coleman out for a crap.”

“He won't be able to,” Ralph said. “He used up all his gas in here.”

Carpenter said, “Nothing for me, thanks.”

Richard regarded him. “You feeling okay, mister?”

“I'm fine. Why?”

“Ralph says you got AIDS.”

“I didn't neither. You never listen. I said he
looked
like he had it.”

“I have an overactive metabolism.” Carpenter waited until they were alone again. “Monsignor Breame had a heart condition, hardly unusual in a man with his weight problem. An overdose of digitalis would have brought on a very convincing coronary.”

“You saying
Lyla
offed him?” Ralph was incredulous.

“She certainly had opportunity.”

“How come the frame? They could of slipped him the mickey in the rectory or anyplace else. Why raise a stink?” Behind the bar, Coleman chose that unfortunate moment to raise one of his own.

“Our religion editor did some digging. The Vatican was developing an interest in the Detroit archdiocese. Maybe Breame made more than one telephone call. In any case, killing the monsignor and fixing things to look like he died in the saddle would be one way of forestalling a papal investigation. They might even aid in the cover-up.”

“There's no way Lyla done it. She called me to get him out of her bed.”

“Probably she lost her nerve. That kind of situation brings down a lot of heat on a working girl. So when you called the bishop and told him about Breame, he had no choice but to behave as expected and arrange for the body to be spirited away. It would also explain why an attempt was made on her life the same morning.”

“I thought the blast was for me.”

“No, whoever wrote the scenario would have known the prostitute they had cast lived alone. What happened to her was her payment for upsetting the applecart.”

“Jesus, that's a relief.”

“Why? You're the next logical target.”

“Yeah, but I got pictures.”

Carpenter smiled. The expression transformed his cadaverous features like a bubble in a bottle of formaldehyde. “You're forgetting that they
want
the apparent circumstances of Monsignor Breame's death to come out.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ralph's pleasant buzz began to recede. “So who's the killer?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Hey, I thought it was you.”

“He's good, whoever he is. Assuming we're dealing with only one, which let's hope, his methods range from induced heart attack to arson to strangling to shooting. You don't see too many general practitioners at that level.”

“That's good to know. I wouldn't want to be squiffed by no amateur. Ain't you got files?”

Carpenter nodded. “Impressive ones, too. If he's a corrupt public official as well as a hit man, he's in there.”

“You're saying you got nothing?”

“If we had anything, do you think I'd be here?”

Ralph drank. He was beginning to lose his faith in the restorative properties of inexpensive alcohol. “What do we do?”

“What do you mean
we
, paleface?”

“Hey, you need me.”

“For what? You obviously know less than I do. But that's the risk I took when I proposed this meeting. Here.” He picked up the envelope full of bills and flipped it at Ralph. “If I were you I'd invest in an airline ticket. Say hello to Alvin when you get to Anchorage.” He started to rise. Ralph caught his sleeve.

“Okay, you got the pictures.”

Carpenter sat back. “Where are they?”

“With a friend.”

“That would be Neal English.” The formaldehyde formed another bubble. “I said I looked you up.”

“What makes you think it ain't some other friend?”

“You have no other friends. Even Neal English is stretching the term. How soon can you get them?”

“As soon as I get back from his place.”

“Fine. I'll hold this until then.” Carpenter snatched the envelope out of his hand. Ralph made a noise as if his liver had been extracted.

“What do I get when you got the pictures? I already earned the grand by showing up here.”

“We can arrange protection.”

“What, some cheesy bodyguard?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of using our influence with the local police to hold you as a material witness.”

“In
jail
? Fuck that. I can get that by walking out of here and giving myself up.”

“And take a shiv between your ribs while you're in the tank. Anyone who would murder a bishop and a monsignor wouldn't be above slipping heroin to some addict to kill an out-of-work detective. Material-witness status will get you a cell to yourself and a guard around the clock.”

“Well, I ain't giving up my hole card for county food. If talk's worth a thousand, them pictures gotta be worth five.”

“In your dreams. As I said, the pictures are incidental at most.”

“Bullshit. Five grand's the price.”

Richard appeared at their table with Coleman on a leash. Ralph swore his drink curdled. He gestured understanding and the bartender led the dog to the door to wait.

“I can let you have five hundred,” Carpenter said. “I'm over my expense budget as it is.”

“Five thousand.”

“Six-fifty.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Ralph shrugged. “Before this week, a hundred was as high as I ever got. A man should know when he's ahead.”

“Six-fifty, then. Where should we meet?”

“Give me a number where I can get you and I'll call you from Neal's bank. That's where he put the pictures.”

Carpenter gave him the number of the cellular telephone in his station wagon. Ralph borrowed the reporter's pen to write it on a shirt cuff.

“I'll go out first,” Carpenter said. “It's better if not too many people see us together.”

“I had a wife felt the same way. Uh, I need cash to get around. Them cabs is murder.”

The reporter took out the envelope and counted five ten-dollar bills into Ralph's palm.

“That's it?”

He gave him another ten. “For the tip.”

“You
sure
you don't work for the government?”

“My pen,” Carpenter said.

“Huh? Oh.” Ralph took it out of his shirt pocket.

“Keep it.”

Carpenter left. Ralph was still timing his own exit when Lieutenant Bustard and a uniformed officer Ralph had never seen before came out of the men's room with their guns drawn.

The plainclothesman looked gangsterish as always in his narrow-brimmed hat and a tight navy overcoat. His pinched face appeared ruddy in the red light of the Budweiser sign in the window, the natty moustache pasted on.

“Assume the position, criminal,” he said. “You're under arrest for suspicion of homicide and being a general pain in the ass.”

As Ralph was being frisked by the uniform, Richard said, “Sorry, man. I got a liquor license to look out for.”

“Don't sweat it.” Ralph allowed himself to be handcuffed by the uniform. “Sal the Hippo will be glad to hear you been skimming the Saturday night take for that little redhead from Ferndale.”

“Let's go, killer,” said Bustard.

“What about my rights?”

“Looks a little more pink than your left, but I'm no expert on ladies' bedroom slippers. It isn't your color.”

Ralph exercised his right to remain silent.

The interrogation room was a little larger than the bathroom of Ralph's apartment and contained a yellow oak library table with one short leg and three mismatched chairs. Ralph sat on one, rubbing his freshly unmanacled wrists and watching the clumsiest spider he had ever seen trying to spin a web in a corner of the ceiling. It kept falling off.

He had been sitting there ten minutes when Lieutenant Bustard came in. Bustard didn't have his hat on, exposing a pale bald head whose dark fringe of hair ended precisely where the hat had begun. He looked smaller without it, a bonsai cop on the bottom lip of the minimum height requirement. Ralph watched him take off his blue pinstripe suitcoat and arrange it carefully over the back of one of the vacant chairs. Everything the lieutenant wore was built to scale, from his eyelash-width moustache to his small tight vest to the delicate-looking revolver in his belt holster with its mother-of-pearl grip. When he was through smoothing the seams on the suitcoat, he drew a slim cassette tape recorder from a pocket of his vest and put it in the center of the table without turning it on.

“Comfortable?” he asked pleasantly; or as pleasantly as he could manage considering that his voice reminded dog-shy Ralph of a terrier's yap.

“My shorts are riding high. Thanks for asking.”

Bustard fashioned a smile, small and pinched. “Not as tight as the fix you're in, I bet.”

Ralph said nothing. He couldn't take his eyes off the uncoordinated spider. It was wobbling on the edge of its web, directly above Bustard's naked scalp.

“Who was the man you were talking to in the bar?” asked the lieutenant.

“My Mary Kay lady.”

“You got a smart mouth for a dumb guy, Poteet.”

“It's the shorts.” It felt like he had a rock stuffed up there.

“They'll fix that in Jackson. They give you those sturdy cotton skivvies to go with the denims. Have you ever been inside? Prison, not just jail.”

“My mother used to take me to visit her brother in Joliet.”

“What was he in for?”

“He fell in love with a cop.”

Bustard stroked both sides of his moustache. Above his head the spider was hanging on by one leg, waving the others frantically for balance. “Well, you're going to get a taste of what it's like from the wrong side of the bars. You were the last person seen with your landlord just before he disappeared.”

Ralph felt some small relief. They hadn't guessed Vinnie was dead at the time. “That don't prove nothing.”

“We tossed your place. The boys in the lab found some fibers imbedded in Vinnie's neck. We matched them to a tie we found hanging in your closet.”

“Vinnie was always borrowing my stuff, sometimes when I wasn't home. They could of been from before.”

“Normally, a man doesn't tie a tie around his bare throat.”

“Who said Vinnie was normal?”

Bustard shifted gears. “You sticking to that story about your gun getting stolen before Bishop Steelcase was killed with it?”