The Perfect Crime (16 page)

“Is it okay if I wait here?”

“Sure,” he said. “Turn the TV on. It shouldn’t take long.”

When he was done, she asked him what he wanted to do.

“Well,” he said, “I was kinda on my way out. I’m glad you came by, though. I was...thinking of you.”

“Oh,” she said. “Is it someplace I can come or is it business?”

He thought for a second. Where he was headed wasn’t dangerous--all he planned to do was check out Eddie’s place--and maybe snoop around a little...and it’d certainly be a lot pleasanter to have her company on what promised to be a boring stakeout.

“I’m going to drive over to this guy’s place, look around. ItPll probably be boring.”

“This guy...” She paused. “Does this have anything to do with the dog that was killed? Or...with your brother?”

“Maybe,” he said. “A guy named Eddie Delahousie.” He was pretty sure it was the guy who’d bought the dog from Pelkerson.

She stood up. “Well, then, it’s settled. I’m definitely coming with you. Are you going to arrest him?”

“Can’t do that, Whitney. No, this isn’t the guy I’m really after, but I think he can lead me to the guy I want. I just want to see where he lives, see if I can get a line on the guy. Truth is, I’m hoping he can lead me to this Reader Kincaid. I’ve got a hunch he can.”

“Besides,” he said, opening the door for her. “I can’t arrest anybody down here anyway. I’m out of my jurisdiction.”

“You mean, even after he’s murdered your brother, you still can’t arrest him?” She was astonished. Typical layperson, he thought. They all thought it was like in the movies.

“I have to have proof, Whitney,” he said. “I could arrest him, yeah, but it’d be an illegal arrest and I sure as hell couldn’t extradite him officially. Even if I was to snatch the guy and get him back up to Ohio, he’d be out in an hour and I’d probably be looking at a lawsuit. That’s no big deal. The bad thing is that I’d probably never get him then. No, I have to play this thing out, get enough evidence to convict his ass. Then, I’ll arrest him. You can watch, only I guarantee you that won’t be a Hallmark moment.”

When she was settled in the car, he warned her she was probably in for a boring afternoon.

“I don’t think so,” she said, smiling. “I’ll be with you, won’t I?”

He tried to be cool, nonchalant. Not show the feeling bubbling inside, the same kind of feeling he hadn’t felt about a woman in a long, long time.

“Same here,” he mumbled, backing up.

A few minutes later, they were gassed up and heading for Metairie and Eddie Delahousie’s apartment. His watch read two-thirty on the nose.

“This guy,” she said. “Reader. He’s kinda smart? Is there such a thing as a smart criminal?”

“Yeah,” Grady replied, “there is. Younger cops don’t always think so, but there are a few. This is one of those. The smart ones. I don’t only wish Jack was still alive, I wish he was here to help me on this thing. I’ve got a feeling I’m gonna need all the brainpower I’ve got to figure this one out.”

He told her some more about his brother. She listened, sympathy in her eyes. Her eyes opened wide in admiration when he told her about the Boroni case.

“Jeez, he was smart, wasn’t he! I wish I could have met him.”

He wondered what Jack would think about the woman sitting in his car. Hell, that was a no-brainer. He’d think the same thing he did. That Grady had maybe lucked into something--
someone
--who was way too good for him...

CHAPTER 23

ST. IVES TURNED OUT to be a simple-minded chump, at least as far as guarding the security of his apartment. Getting in was simple. Reader told him, through the door, he was there to collect for the Sunday paper, for his kid who was quitting the route. When the banker made the mistake of opening the door a tiny crack, to protest that he didn’t take the paper, that he must have the wrong apartment, all Reader did was shove the door back hard into thbanker and he was in, Eddie following behind.

“You broke my nose,” C.J. said, in a whiney, petulant voice, lying on the floor and looking up, his eyes shining with fear, blood trickling down his lip onto his chin.

“Check it out, see if the girl’s in one of the bedrooms,” Reader ordered Eddie who was standing like a pet dog behind him. “See if he’s got a gun anywhere around.”

“Your nose isn’t broken,” he said to C.J. “It’s not bleeding that much. You oughta be more hospitable when guests come around. Invite the paper boy in for milk and cookies.” He liked his joke.

He jerked him up and patted him down.

“Christ! You an Eskimo?” The apartment was freezing. He went over and flipped the air conditioner off. “Sit down, Mr. St. Ives.” He motioned toward the couch.

“Where’s your warrant?” C.J. said. He retrieved a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and held it to his nose, taking it away from time to time to see how much blood was on it. The bleeding had about stopped.

“Warrant?” Reader crossed over, pulled the easy chair directly in front of the couch and sat down facing the banker.

“Oh, you think we’re cops. That’s rich.”

Eddie walked in from the other room.

“She’s not here, huh? Probably out shopping. You give her her own charge card, St. Ives? Payday for your fucking?” Reader grinned.

“She’s here all right, Reader,” Eddie said, coming out of the bedroom. “In there. She was in the closet. I was you, I’d turn the air-conditioning back up.”

Reader stood up. “Well, get her in here. You crazy? Let her alone in there? What if she’s got a gun hidden someplace and comes out and wants to play O.K. Corral?”

“She don’t have no gun, Reader. Wouldn’t matter if she did.” He looked over at St. Ives and showed his teeth. “You want to tell him? Y’all have a lovers quarrel, St. Ives?”

C.J. put his head in his hands and moaned.

Eddie said again, with a knowing leer, “You might want to turn the air back up, Reader.”

***

The way it turned out, C.J. St. Ives was a pushover for a head slap or two. His nose seemed especially tender and was obviously connected directly to his vocal cords. Reader thought about that again and told himself to remember the joke, tell it sometime. He tried it out on Eddie.

“Here’s a biology lesson for you, Eddie. Notice how the tongue of the banker species is connected directly to the nose. You want to know something, tap the nose a little.” He demonstrated, enjoying the way the cartilage cracked.

C.J. moaned. He began rocking back and forth, his hands cupped protectively around his face.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said in a whining voice, after a minute. “I’ve told you everything.”

That was not quite true. One thing Reader was sure of was that either St. Ives was neglecting to fill in the whole picture or was misleading him on several important parts. He went through the papers that were lying on the dresser.

“So this is the deal, eh? Your old lady kicked you out, you and your girlfriend there had a little argument and you iced her. Little accident, is that it?”

“Yes.” C.J. put his hands down tentatively and peered at Reader. “That’s precisely what it was.”

“Okay,” said Reader. “I believe you, Mr. St. Ives. The problem is, Eddie’s a skeptic. And since he’s my partner I got to humor him. Eddie, look in that box you brought in and get me those pliers. The needle-nosed ones. And see if there’s a pair of scissors in there. Don’t worry, Eddie. I know Mr. St. Ives is the truthful sort. He wouldn’t mislead us intentionally, but to set your mind at ease, I’ll ask him again.”

Eddie was one big grin. He didn’t know what was on Reader’s mind, but whatever it was, it was going to be fun; he was sure of it.

C.J.’s eyes got about as wide as possible as Reader went over and foraged around in the box himself, coming out with two pairs of handcuffs and a roll of two-inch gray tape.

“What are you doing?”

Reader didn’t say anything, only cuffed St. Ives’ ankles together and then his wrists.

“Mr. St. Ives is the noisy type, I think,” he said to Eddie, who was watching over his shoulder as he tore a piece of tape from the roll and pressed it over C.J.’s mouth.

“Come here, Eddie,” he said. “I think you better hold Mr. St. Ives’ arms. He’s liable to get a little twitchy.”

“Nice manicure,” he said, holding up the banker’s hands.

The whole time he worked, C.J. screamed, only it sounded more like a turbine warming up, what with the tape over his mouth. When Reader was done, he held up the fingernail from C.J.’s right forefinger in front of the sweat-drenched man’s face. A single drop of blood hung suspended from it. There was a lot more on the finger itself.

“I’m sorry, Mr. St. Ives,” he said. “I do believe I’ve chipped a nail. It’s these pliers. I probably don’t have the right kind for a delicate job like this. I think I’ve got the hang of it, though. The next one’ll be perfect. You’ll see. You know, Eddie, I suspect you may be right. Mr. St. Ives might be holding out on us. I believe if he is, we’ll find out though. I mean, looky here. We’ve got nine more nails to get at the whole story. Oh. I almost forgot. There’s ten toenails, too. Unless he’s one of those odd ones and has more. How many did your mother count the day you were born, Mr. St. Ives?”

That’s when C.J. fainted, the first time.

***

Grady didn’t voice this to Whitney, but secretly he wondered if he was making the right move. Maybe he should have gone across the river instead and checked out the neighborhood at Kincaid’s last address some more to see if he still lived in the area.

No, Eddie was the one. Wait on him on Arnoldt by his apartment. He’ll show. He’d be easier to follow. Kincaid was the brains of this operation, whatever it was. He’d get farther faster sticking to Eddie. See where he went, what he did.

If he showed up, that is. Grady got one of those hunches old cops get from an instinct born of years of dealing with punks and perverts, that the timetable for whatever the two were scheming was drawing close.

“That bastard!” Whitney was talking about Eddie. “Anyone who would hurt a dog deserves to be executed!”

From time to time he turned on the engine and ran the air conditioner. This place is too godawful hot for humans to live in, he thought. I’d have to stay inside all day and all night if I lived down in this place.

“Wait a minute,” he snapped. “I think it’s a shame, sure, to hurt some dumb animal, but this is a lot more serious than that. These guys kill
people.
”

Whitney looked at him, her eyes registering her blunder.

“I’m sorry,” she said, finally.

Grady immediately felt bad for jumping down her throat. Her head was lowered and she was staring at her lap.

“I am, too,” he said. “All I want to do is catch this creep. For
all
his crimes. Against people
and
animals.”

The traffic to and from Eddie’s apartment complex was amazing. Nobody stayed long, ten, fifteen minutes at the most. Fat City was drug central, Veronica’d told him, and she was right about that. There seemed to be a lot of hookers around, as well. He could see into the complex, which was centered around a pool, and every once in a while a guy would pull in and go up to one of the four or five girls around the pool and they’d disappear into an apartment. Watching all the action made him want a shower. A cesspool is the way he’d describe where Eddie lived. He must feel right at home, Grady thought.

“Is what’s going on what I think?” Whitney asked, at one point.

“Yeah,” he said. “Busy little place, isn’t it?”

He went over the little bit that he knew about the situation. Whatever they were planning looked like it was going to be done with a pipe bomb. Why did they blow up a dog?
If
they did, but it was pretty clear at least that this Eddie’d been the one to blow up the German shepherd across the lake. It didn’t make any sense. The dog wasn’t worth anything. Hell, they
bought
the damn thing so it wasn’t some dognapping from some rich animal lover, gone hinky. So what was it? He came to the conclusion it must have been a trial run.

What did he know about this Reader? What was it Veronica said? A genius. She said he was a genius. He liked killing and he liked supermarkets, banks, places with big numbers. What did all that have to do with bombs and dogs?

Grady felt a headache coming on. The whole thing was screwy. Go through it again, he told himself. It connects. You’ve got to put the details together in the right way. Try to make some sense of it. He recalled an old movie with James Garner where they used these dogs to hold up a bank. Dobermans trained to rob banks. Maybe this Kincaid has figured out a new twist where he hooked them up with pipe bombs.

Possible, but he didn’t think so, the more he thought about it. He saw the picture of Reader in his mind. There was a huge ego involved. Genius type. Geniuses, especially pathological criminals like this guy, wouldn’t use someone else’s plan no matter how clever it might be. No, this would have to be an original thing, something nobody else would have ever thought of. The money probably wasn’t that important to a guy like this. The money would be a way of illustrating his importance, show how smart he was. A control freak, Grady was sure. Probably didn’t drink, at least to excess and despised those who did, figured them for weaklings, no self-control. Probably smoked on purpose to get the habit and once he was good and hooked, quit, cold turkey, merely to demonstrate to himself his iron self-control. He kept turning what little he knew about the guy over in his head, trying to get a handle on him.

The criminal mind, particularly the
superior
criminal mind--fascinated him even as it repelled him. The ultimate challenge, especially for a plodder like himself. He had to admit that, as much as he abhorred what Reader had done to his brother, in a way, he was enjoying the chase. He’d been up against some pretty slick cookies in his time, but he had a feeling this Reader made them all look like morons.

He wondered how much money was at stake.

I wish Jack was alive, he thought. I wish he was alive and sitting right here with me. He’d have this figured out in no time. How would you approach this, Jack? Think like a genius criminal? That’d be ea if I happened to be a genius criminal; however, I am just a dumb schmuck cop. Ex-cop, in fact, retired. I think my brain is retired, also.

He shook out his fifth Marlboro medium in the last hour and lighted it. He sensed displeasure at the act from the woman sitting next to him but dammit, she’d asked to come with him and if he was going to sit out here for hours he needed his smokes. I need some of that self-discipline, he thought ruefully, feeling the ache in his lungs as he inhaled deeply. I guess I ain’t the genius type. Not this millionaire, genius cop.

He turned the key in the ignition again and winced at the warm air that blasted out at first before cooling off and feeling like air-conditioning. How can anybody think in all this heat, he wondered. It was a miracle anything ever got solved! He glanced at the gas gauge to see if he needed any. There was a chance they might be in for a long wait.

***

Reader was talking about Indians again. The three men, him, Eddie, and C.J. St. Ives were all sitting in the living room. St. Ives had come to, but he didn’t look too good. His color was mostly gray.

Reader said, “See, Eddie, this guy’s an Indian, too. He’s a little more advanced Indian than you are, but he’s for sure an Indian.”

Eddie stopped his reading, put down the TV Guide, and said, “Why you goin’ off about the goddamned fucking Indians again? I told you, I’m French-Canadian, not no goddamned Indian. You know what, Reader? I’m your fucking partner. Why don’t you treat me like a partner? I might not be as smart as you, but I’m not a complete idiot, either. I’ve done a few things. Why’d you pick me if you think I’m so dumb? This is bullshit, your always raggin’ on me.”

Reader decided to ignore what he said.

“See? He’s got part of the package, thinks he’s got it all, thinks he’s in the twentieth century with both feet. Only he doesn’t realize this is almost the twenty-first century. See these passports, birth certificates?”

They’d made a search of the apartment after C.J. came to and told them what they wanted to know. Eddie found the papers, taped up under a dresser drawer.

“He’s got a pretty good plan, shows intelligence. Only notice I said a ‘pretty good plan’? Shows no matter how much he thinks he’s on top of the game, he’s still thinking like an Indian. He’s been thinking about all the good things that were going to happen with his scheme and not enough about things that could go wrong. That’s the way the Indians would do it. Sit around the bonfire, whooping and hollering and counting in advance all the scalps they were gonna collect, all the white men they were gonna erase. Never thought too much about what if there were more white men than Indians or if their guns were bigger. Or if maybe the white man was sitting around
their
campfire planning to do something to the Indians.

“The smart guys,” he said, “spend more time figuring out what to do when things go bad than they do in thinking about how they’re going to celebrate when they win. I’ll bet that’s what you do, isn’t it, Eddie? I’ll bet you thought a whole lot about how many shoes you’re going to buy when this deal’s done, how many different women you’re going to screw. I bet you haven’t thought once about what might go wrong and how to fix it if it does. Am I right?”

Eddie didn’t answer.

“Water. Can I have some water?” St. Ives croaked from the couch.