Saratoga Payback Read online

  There he was kept in a windowless interview room with the heat cranked up to about ninety degrees. The gray walls were bare except for a few sets of scratched initials. Sweat beaded on his brow and damp half circles formed around the armpits of his shirt. The mirror built into the wall indicated a sheet of one-way glass, making Charlie think that his smallest gesture was being noted and written down. By the time someone came to get him forty-five minutes later, he was down to his T-shirt, with his shirt, sport coat and raincoat folded neatly on the table in front of him.

  A patrolman took him to Chief Novak’s office and he was told where to sit. Charlie held his folded clothes on his lap. No-Neck Novak was seated behind his desk, and in an armchair by the window sat Lieutenant Hutchins, who glanced at Charlie’s clothes, or lack of them, as if they formed one more example of Charlie’s degeneracy. The black T-shirt had been a gift from his oldest stepdaughter, a souvenir from a hip-hop concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. On the front were the words “Public Enemy” in yellow and on the back “Fear of a Black Planet.”

  The only articles in the office that suggested the sort of man who inhabited it were half a dozen weight-lifting trophies—small golden men hoisting free weights over their heads. The walls were bare except for a 9/11 tribute poster with three firefighters raising a flag before the wreckage of the World Trade Center, and a poster of former president Reagan sitting at his desk in the Oval Office above the words “Gone But Not Forgotten.”

  Novak stared down at a legal pad on which he was making notes. He seemed unaware of Charlie’s presence. Hutchins studied his nails with an appreciation that suggested they’d been trimmed by Michelangelo himself. Charlie knew this was supposed to make him nervous. Instead, he tried not to lose his temper. There was no point, at the moment, to shout at them and demand to see his lawyer. They were, to the best of their abilities, doing their job. His only regret was that he hadn’t worn some other T-shirt.

  After a few minutes, Charlie turned to Hutchins. “Catch the snake?”

  Hutchins looked up as if seeing Charlie for the first time and grunted.

  “Boy, I’ve never seen anyone move as fast,” said Charlie appreciatively. “You know, pythons aren’t poisonous, if that’s what you were afraid of. They just squeeze you to death.”

  “You’re on thin ice here, Bradshaw,” said Novak. The police chief had very large, pink hands that were folded before him on the desk. They resembled a small pagan temple.

  Charlie tried a mildly curious tone. “Why’s that?”

  “You’ve got no license anymore, remember? You could get two years in the clink if it turns out you’re working. To tell you the truth, I’d love to see that happen.” Novak affected a slight southern drawl. Though raised in Connecticut, he’d spent a year stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, some thirty years before.

  “Look, I found a corpse and immediately called the lieutenant. What’s your problem with that?”

  “You broke in,” said Hutchins.

  “Prove it.”

  “Your prints were on the doorknob and faceplate,” said Hutchins.

  “That doesn’t prove I got the door open.”

  “Then how’d you know that Parlucci had his throat cut? How’d you know to tell me to bring a snake handler?”

  “Maybe I looked under the door.”

  “Give me a break,” said Hutchins.

  “What were you doing there anyway?” asked Novak.

  “I heard Parlucci was looking for me.”

  “Who’d you hear it from?”

  By now the police had surely talked to the old woman on the first floor, who would have told them that Charlie had knocked on her door. Either tonight or tomorrow they would talk to the woman who lived in Parlucci’s old room on Van Dam. They’d even find their way to the Greasy Mattress and talk to Bad Maud. If Charlie refused to answer Novak’s question, he had no doubt he’d be locked up in a holding cell within the next five minutes. And he could easily be prosecuted for doing PI work without a license. Even if Charlie were acquitted, he’d have to pay his lawyer, which could be a substantial amount of money.

  “My friend Vic Plotz told me. Parlucci talked to him last night at the Parting Glass and Vic gave him my address. Parlucci said he had a hundred bucks of mine he wanted to repay. Instead of waiting for Parlucci to find me, I went to look for him.”

  Novak nodded to Hutchins, who got up and left the room. It was eleven thirty. Charlie hoped that Victor hadn’t gone to bed or wasn’t in the hot tub or seeing his colonoscopy movie, because very soon he’d hear a heavy knock on his door.

  “So how long you been friends with Parlucci?” asked Novak.

  “We weren’t friends. He was just somebody I’d seen around town for years. Sometimes we’d talk.”

  “You lent him a hundred bucks, that seems pretty friendly.”

  “That’s what he told Vic, but I had absolutely no memory of it. He wasn’t the sort of person you’d lend money to.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’d either drink it or put it up his nose.”

  Hutchins reentered the room, walked to the armchair and nodded at Novak.

  “So Parlucci wanted to know where you lived and then he didn’t come by?”

  “Well, I was out for much of the day, so he might have come by without my knowing. My stepdaughter got home from school around three thirty; my wife got home at five. They didn’t see him.”

  There was a pause as the two policemen ran through their repertoire of skeptical expressions. Then Hutchins said, “I want to know exactly what you did from when I left you around six a.m. till when you called about Parlucci. Give it to me in detail and don’t leave anything out.”

  So Charlie began with his inability to get to sleep the previous morning, to Victor waking him up to tell him about Parlucci and then on to his visit to the Home Depot, enumerating the contents of the accessory kit that he’d bought to accompany his 18-volt drill-and-driver combo—nut setters, titanium nitride twist drills, hex shank spade bits, masonry bits, brad-point drills and so on. He talked about the pork chops Janey had cooked the previous evening and what he’d seen on TV. He didn’t mention Fletcher Campbell, Artemis or Eddie Gillespie, but he mentioned going to his office for a while.

  “You still have that private slum?” said Hutchins. “You’re retired. I thought you’d have given it up.”

  “Friends drop by,” said Charlie.

  He continued to detail what he had done during the day and had just reached the point when he had arrived at the rooming house on Adams Street when a patrolman pushed open the door and there was Victor, his royal purple pajama bottoms poking out from under his overcoat.

  Victor was unhappy. “You know how fuckin’ much I dislike this?” he shouted. “I know right where you live, you no-neck monster; you wait till I come pounding on your door some midnight!”

  “Parlucci’s been murdered,” said Charlie. “His throat was cut.” Charlie knew that Hutchins had no reason to bring Victor to police headquarters when he could have questioned him at Rosemary’s diner. But Hutchins disliked Victor and had done it only out of meanness.

  “Yeah, that’s a shame,” said Victor. “Couldn’t it have waited till morning?”

  “Bradshaw found the body,” said Hutchins. “He said you told him Parlucci was looking for him and you gave him Bradshaw’s address.”

  Victor gave Charlie an exaggerated disappointed look and turned back to Hutchins. “Well, maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. What the fuck business is it of yours?”

  “Take him downstairs and put him in a cell,” said Novak.

  “Wait, wait,” said Victor in a milder tone. “I seem to remember something like that after all. Would it have been at the Parting Glass?”

  Novak rubbed his forehead as if suddenly tired. “Just tell us what happened.”

  So
Victor retold his story as he stood before Novak’s desk, only leaving out the part about the waitress and her cleavage.

  At the end Hutchins turned to Charlie. “You really thinking of opening a bar? You’ll never get a license.”

  “No,” said Charlie, “he was just saying it.”

  Novak slapped a hand down on his desk. “Don’t you people ever tell the truth?”

  Just then Charlie’s cell phone began to play the jaunty staccato notes of “The Mickey Mouse Club March.” Conversation ceased. It seemed to Charlie that if he’d farted, Novak and Hutchins couldn’t look at him with any greater disgust. As for Victor, he appeared smugly superior. “My daughter . . .” Charlie began, and then stopped. He’d started to say that his stepdaughter gave him different rings as a joke—last week it had been “Whistle While You Work”—but he didn’t want to blame her and he disliked excuses. Instead, he put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

  It was Fletcher Campbell. He had heard from the horse thieves. He needed to talk to Charlie right away. “Did I wake you up?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t talk right now. I’m over at the police station.”

  Campbell grew concerned. Did it have anything to do with his horses?

  “No, no, it’s just a small thing. I should be home soon.” But glancing at Novak, Charlie saw he’d made the wrong remark. In Novak’s world, there was no such creature as a “small thing,” especially if Charlie was being questioned about a murder.

  “On the other hand,” Charlie continued, “Novak might lock me up till I turn to dust. I’ll let you know one way or the other when I’m free. I mean, when I get the chance.” He closed his phone before Campbell could respond, then he turned it off. He glanced at the three faces staring at him. “The wife,” he said.

  “Cute phone, Charlie,” said Victor. “Mine plays ‘Stars and Stripes Forever.’ What does yours play, Chief?”

  Novak ignored him. “What you don’t seem to realize, Bradshaw, is that Parlucci was most likely murdered by the same person who killed Mickey Martin. The modus operandi is virtually identical. Both had their throats cut, while in the first case the tongue was excised and in the second the nose was removed. In each case the amputations were performed by a sharp instrument, presumably the same one responsible for their throat wounds, maybe a bayonet or hunting knife—”

  Victor interrupted, “Are you saying Mickey had his tongue sliced out and Parlucci had his nose lopped off?” He seemed appalled. “Jesus, Novak, what kind of nutcase are you dealing with?”

  “That’s what I thought you could help us with.”

  “Don’t give me that. I got some weird friends, but none are nut jobs. Did you know about this, Charlie?”

  “I just learned this evening.”

  “Well, you should’ve let me know right away. These jerks haven’t taken away my pistol permit yet. I should have greased that sucker and loaded up. It’s probably not even safe here in the cop station. Bring out the fuckin’ shotguns, is what I say.”

  Charlie was the only one who knew Victor was having a little joke. Novak waited for Victor to calm down and then asked, “What makes you think you’d be in danger?”

  “You got a madman slashing throats and excising body parts, and you got some amateur cops waving their Glocks at a harmless snake. Believe me, innocent people can get hurt. I know what I’m talking about. I seen it happen.”

  It went on. Victor had to explain his movements over the past two days, while both Charlie and Victor had to describe their contacts with Mickey Martin and Parlucci going back to the third Ice Age. Neither mentioned that Eddie Gillespie had talked to Mickey in Home Depot. Novak would have given another nod and Eddie would have been dragged from bed and brought to the police station. He’d have no time to do his hair.

  “Why should Mickey have been going to your house?” asked Novak.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Why’d you go to Parlucci’s? Do you have a client?”

  “I’m not investigating anything. Victor said Parlucci was looking for me.”

  Novak again slammed his large, pink hand down on his desk. “You really want to be locked up, Bradshaw? We’ve got two murders here.”

  “And I tell you, I know nothing about them.”

  It went on for another half hour and the only information Charlie concealed, or almost, was about Eddie Gillespie and Fletcher Campbell. It seemed that Parlucci had been killed to keep him quiet; that he had been the one to tell the killer where Charlie lived and the killer was shutting him up. And the nose? Perhaps it meant Parlucci had been sticking his nose in other people’s business, or maybe, like Pinocchio, he’d been lying. But Charlie expected it was more than that.

  “Tell me,” said Charlie, interrupting another of Hutchins’s repeated questions about Parlucci, “had either Mickey or Parlucci been in prison?”

  “They both had.”

  “Why’re you telling him that?” said Novak. “It’s police business.”

  Hutchins shrugged. “What harm does it do? It’ll be in the paper.”

  “Were they in prison together?” asked Charlie. “I mean, did they know each other?”

  “Don’t answer him,” said Novak. “Don’t you see you can’t trust him? How many times has he made you look like a jerk in the papers? Neither of them have a lick of truth or integrity. Get out of here, Bradshaw, and take your friend with you! If I find you playing detective, it’s prison. Don’t forget it.”

  Charlie started to ask, “What have I ever done to you?” But he already knew the answer. He’d solved cases the police couldn’t solve, which had led to unfriendly editorials in The Saratogian.

  Once out on the street, Victor asked, “Why’d you keep quiet about Eddie?”

  Charlie was buttoning his shirt. The drizzle had stopped but it was cold. “The same reason as you.”

  “Yeah, he’d lose his job for sure. Consorting with lowlifes and known murder victims. But it means the guy who Parlucci gave your address to was the same guy who killed him.”

  “That’s what I figure.”

  “Was that really Janey who called a while ago?”

  Charlie paused a second too long. “Yeah.”

  “Hey, Charlie, you got to practice your lying. Stand in front of the mirror five minutes every morning and say, ‘I am a very truthful person.’ That should do it.”

  It was about one o’clock. Charlie’s car was still over on Adams Street and Victor had been brought into town by a patrolman. Charlie called Janey, waking her up, and explained their predicament. Closing his phone, he said, “She’s coming.”

  “You’re sure lucky you’ve got a nice wife. The Queen of Softness would guffaw and hang up.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “Nah, I like them tough. And you’re not going to tell me who called you?”

  “Maybe some other time.”

  By two o’clock, Victor had been delivered back to Rosemary’s diner, Charlie’s car was again parked in front of the house and he and Janey were in the kitchen as Charlie made himself a salami and cheese sandwich and a cup of chamomile tea.

  “I’ve always liked snakes,” said Janey, sitting at the table with a cup of warm milk and honey. “It was probably lonely over there, lonely and scared.”

  “Ten feet long is too long to cuddle.” Charlie brought his sandwich and tea over to the table and pulled out a chair.

  “I suppose it would be silly to try to find the poor thing. It’d probably eat the dog. A Chihuahua would be no more than a gumdrop for a python.” Janey had exchanged her coat for a white terry-cloth robe and was in the process of cleaning out the clogged holes of a saltcellar with a pin. “That man who was killed out in front, Mickey Martin, I remember when he made that scene at Lillian’s last spring, how nasty he was to the woman. What was her name?”

  “He called her
Lizzie. I don’t know who she was.”

  “He tore her up like bits of paper. Why was he coming here?”

  “That’s what everybody wants to know. I don’t think I’d seen him since that night at the restaurant, so I doubt he wanted to do me a good turn.”

  “But he must’ve been killed to keep him from telling you something. Wouldn’t cutting out his tongue suggest that? What could he tell you that was so important? And Dave Parlucci getting his nose cut off, as if he had been interfering with someone else’s business . . .”

  “Both Mickey and Parlucci had been in prison. I don’t know the details. But sometimes a man makes an enemy in prison, then years later, when the other man is released, he comes to take revenge.”

  “Payback,” said Janey.

  “That’s right.” Charlie hadn’t peeled the skin from the salami and a piece of it was stuck between his teeth. He was picking at it.

  “I suppose someone might also want to get even with the person who put him in prison, like the man who arrested him or testified against him or fingered him in some way. You must have put a lot of people in prison, Charlie.”

  He grinned. “A few. And I expect some get paroled or released every year.”

  “Does it worry you?”

  “No. I mean, I might wonder about someone, but that’s about it. I was doing my job, that’s all. I wasn’t mean or sadistic; I didn’t make fun of them. I don’t expect them to like me, but I was just doing my job. It was nothing personal.”

  “When people learn how Mickey and Parlucci were killed, they’re going to be terrified. It’s bound to be in the paper tomorrow.”

  “I’m pretty terrified myself.” He paused to sip his tea. “It makes the act of just plain shooting someone in the head seem almost wholesome.”

  At that moment the house phone rang. Both Charlie and Janey jumped.

  “Oh, a man’s been calling you,” said Janey, getting the phone. “I bet that’s him.”

  Campbell, thought Charlie.

  Fletcher Campbell was angry. “What the hell were you doing at the police station, Charlie? I hope you didn’t say anything.”