Saints Of New York (18 page)

Larry
Temple was no different from the rest of them. They all
had
bad skin. They gave off a smell - body
odor, cheap disinfectant, the underlying decay that came with their
predilection. As if
they
were
deteriorating from within, dying from the inside out,
the
odor escaping through their pores.

He
was predictably resistant until Parrish mentioned
Swede,
told him if he answered questions he and
Swede would be
quits.
With
that Larry Temple stepped back and allowed them entry to his apartment. Here
there was no scattered garbage, no greasy burger boxes or damp mattresses; here
was a man who at least was trying his best to
appear
normal. An upstanding citizen. One of
the good guys.

'You
owe Swede?' Parrish asked.

Temple
shrugged.

'You know who we are, you don't
want us in here, I mention his name and you're Mister fucking Sociable all of a
sudden?'

'I don't have anything to hide,'
Temple said.

Parrish looked at Radick. Radick
smiled.

'How many times you been inside,
Larry?' Parrish asked.

'Just the once,' Radick
interjected.

Parrish's eyes widened. 'I
remember you now. You got busted for kiddie porn a ways back. You lived over
in—'

'That was a long time ago,'
Temple said. He was nervous. He kept smoothing his hand over his hair.

'And you're not like that
anymore, right?' Parrish asked. 'You're not into that shit anymore, eh?'

'No,' Temple replied. 'I got some
help. I'm all clean now, all clean.'

'Not what we heard.'

'From Swede? Swede don't know
shit—'

'Swede?' Parrish asked. 'Where
the hell did that name come from? Hey, Jimmy, did you mention Swede?'

Radick turned his mouth down at
the corners. 'I didn't mention Swede, no—'

'You just told me—' Temple
interjected. 'You motherfuckers. You're messing with my head. What the hell is
this?'

'We were telling you that we
heard a few things, Larry.'

'From who?' Temple asked. 'If
it's not Swede, then who's been saying shit about me?'

'Doesn't matter,' Parrish said.
'We got someone who's trying to work himself a deal downtown. He wants to give
up on some people, you know? Lessen the burden he's carrying an' all that. Your
name got mentioned, a few things of interest, and we figured we'd come over,
say hi, chat for a while, see what's happening in your neck of the woods.'

'You ain't got nothin' on me,'
Temple said defensively.

'We got word about a girl who was
up for a porno. Kid sister of someone you know.'

Temple opened his mouth to speak,
and once again he hesitated.

'You shouldn't do that if you
don't want any trouble, Larry,' Parrish said.

'What? Shouldn't do what?'

'Look so fucking guilty.'

'Look guilty? I don't look
guilty.' His complexion warmed. His eyes were back and forth from Parrish to
Radick, real deer-in-the- headlights.

'Tell us about Danny Lange,'
Parrish said matter-of-factly.

'Oh w-wait a fu-fucking minute
here,' Temple stuttered, and started backing away. Radick took a step to the
right and blocked him. He had cuffs in his hands.

'Wait a goddamned minute here,'
Temple said. 'I heard about that. I heard about Danny and his kid sister, but
you don't have anything on me and the—'

'Who said anything about a kid
sister?' Parrish asked.

'You did. You said someone's kid
sister was up for doing some porno . . .'

Parrish frowned. 'Did you hear me
say anything like that Jimmy?'

Radick shook his head. 'Nothing
like that, Frank. I think
you
were
talking about the weather or something.'

'Oh fuck off! What the fuck is
this shit? What the fuck are you doing here? You can't pin this on me. Who the
hell do you think you are?'

'Couple of cops doing our job,'
Parrish replied.
'I
went to
see
Swede
on this Danny Lange double homicide, he mentions
your
name, we come over here to just check
things out and all
of a
sudden
you bring up Danny Lange's kid sister and how you
were
going to do a porno with her.'

'What?
What the fuck—'

'Heard it loud and clear, right,
Jimmy?'

'Loud and clear, Frank.'

'You guys—'

'Start talking, Larry.'

'About what? Talking about what?
What the fuck does this
have
to
do with me?'

'You're into this shit up to your
neck,' Radick said.
'You've
already
got a bust for this kind of business on your sheet. You know who's who. You
know who's in the market at the
moment,
what
they're doing, where they're working from—' 'I don't know
anything
like that,' protested Larry, almost
hysterical now.

'Larry,'
Parrish said. 'Larry, let's calm the fuck down for a minute, eh? Take a seat.
Let's talk this out all civilized, okay?'

'Talk
what out? There isn't anything to talk out. . .'

'Larry,
sit the fuck down right now!'

Temple
dropped into a chair and looked up at Parrish and Radick.

Parrish
sat facing him. Radick stood to the right.

Larry
Temple - wide-eyed, anticipating the worst - swallowed audibly.

'This
is really, really simple, Larry. You know who we need to talk to. Danny Lange
was setting up his kid sister for doing a porno, and you know who he was talking
to.'

'Wha—'

'Just
cut the crap, will you? You know who we need to talk to, Larry. Tell us who we
need to talk to or I'm gonna leave Jimmy here with you while I go get a search
warrant for your place, you understand?'

'You
can't do that—'

'Try
me.'

Larry
Temple inched forward on the chair and then sat with his hands on his knees,
his head bowed. He stayed that way for a moment or two, and then he looked up
at Frank Parrish.

'I
heard something,' he said quietly. He waited for Parrish to respond, but Parrish
said nothing.

'I
heard word of something, just a maybe, but this was some time back. Only reason
I mention it is because Danny said something when I last saw him and it might
have been connected.'

'When
d'you see Danny?' Parrish asked.

'I
don't know . . . three, maybe four weeks ago.'

'And
you spoke to him?'

'Some,
yeah.'

'And
what was it he said?'

Temple
hesitated, and then he looked away towards the window. 'He said he had a good
score going on. He said he was gonna do a thing that would make a difference.'

'And
what made you think there was some connection to what happened with him and his
sister?' 'What he said after that.'

Parrish
raised his eyebrows.

'He
said he had someone lined up to do a skin flick, that he was gonna get some
serious money for it—'

'And
you thought that this might have a connection,' Parrish said sarcastically.

'Hey,
this is like a month ago. I'm just shooting the shit with the guy and he says
he might have someone for a skin flick. He didn't say anything about his
sister, he just said that. It was only when I heard that he'd gotten himself
killed, that his kid sister was killed too, that I wondered if she was the one
that he might have lined up for it.'

'And
if she was?'

'Then
. . . well . . . then something must've gone wrong.'

'A
bit of a fucking understatement, Larry.'

Larry
Temple lowered his head again.

'So
who would Danny Lange have gone to if he was selling his sister into this
shit?'

'You
know as well as me,' Temple said.

'This
isn't small-time shit, Larry. This is someone who's into it deep enough to kill
two people.'

'How
the fuck would I know?'

'Because
this is your world, Larry. This is what you do. These are the people you go
hang out with, the other sick fuckos who watch this—'

'It's
an illness,' Temple interjected. He looked confounded and hurt. 'It's a mental
illness. It's something you're born with. It's not something you can just turn
on and turn off whenever you feel like it.'

'Don't
give me the fucking sob story, Larry, just tell me who Danny Lange might have
been talking to.'

'I
don't know, Detective Parrish, I really don't. I've told you what I know, and
that's
all
I know. I'm not so close with the crowd anymore. Things have changed.'

Parrish
was quiet for some time. He believed Larry Temple. There was just something in
his expression, something in his eyes; Parrish had seen enough liars to know
what they looked like. And he knew Danny Lange for what he was, so much the
same as so many others. Big ideas, all mouth. I'm doing this, I'm

doing
that, today will be different, today I have
a thing,
today I'm gonna get out of the life.
And they never did, and they never would. Addiction was addiction.

Did
Parrish believe that Danny Lange might have sold his sister to do a porno? Yes.
Did Parrish believe that Rebecca might have been into it? That Danny sold her
on the idea that it was a cool thing, that she'd wind up with money, and her
name in lights? Sure. It changed his perspective on the girl, but he was no
stranger to this kind of thing. This shit went down all the time. And then what
happens? She winds up dead, Danny either wants his money or he's going to the
cops, and he gets whacked too.

Parrish
rose to his feet.

Temple
watched him stand, braced himself for a beating. The beating never came.

'You
hear anything more you let me know,' Parrish said. 'You know how to get hold of
me. I track some other line on this and find out you didn't tell me something,
well I'm gonna come back here and I ain't gonna knock on the door, know what I
mean?'

Temple
didn't speak, but the recognition of what Parrish meant was in his eyes.

Parrish
led the way, didn't speak to Radick until they reached the stairwell, and it
was Radick who spoke first.

'You
think he gave us everything?'

'Yeah,
I think so. He knows the same names as me. I don't think there's some big fish
that he's aware of that we don't know about.'

'So
who do we start with?'

'I
want to go back to the office first,' Parrish said. 'I want the tox results
before anything else.'