Saratoga Payback Page 9

  The man had stumbled back. He was nearly bald, rheumy-eyed and as thin as a fat broom. His gray T-shirt and jeans hung on him loosely. Two black cats watched Charlie from a tattered couch, next to which were a half-dozen empty wine bottles. Not French.

  “I didn’t tell anybody else, I swear it.”

  “Sure you did. You told the guy who killed him. How much did he give you?”

  “No I didn’t, I swear.”

  “So who killed him?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “It was the same guy who killed Mickey Martin, except Mickey got his tongue cut out and Dave got his nose sliced off.”

  “I tell you, I don’t know nothing about it. I don’t even know Mickey Martin.”

  Charlie took out his cell phone. “Okay, I’m calling the cops. You can tell them instead.” He began punching in a number.

  “Wait!”

  Charlie waited. He didn’t like being a bully; he didn’t like the small pleasure it gave him.

  “I don’t know who killed them, really. But I knew Mickey; I was lying about that. I known him about ten, twelve years.”

  “You knew him in prison?”

  “Yeah, up in Adirondack.”

  “What was he in for?”

  “Maybe for some kind of insurance fraud. You know how it is, he said he’d been framed.”

  “Is that where he met Parlucci?”

  “No, Parlucci was down in Albany. The county jail. He got fifteen months for hanging paper. Mickey was brought down there a few months before his release. They knew each other.” He spoke haltingly, as if fishhooks were dragging the words from his gut. He hardly looked at Charlie when he spoke.

  “You were there as well?”

  “Both places, at least some of the time. I was getting out, too.”

  “What were you in for?”

  “Robbery, mostly. Convenience stores. Couldn’t do it anymore. Takes too much running. You’re not goin’ to tell anyone we talked, are you?”

  Charlie glanced around the room. A TV was on, the sound turned down to a mutter. Piles of clothes, some dirty, some clean, covered most of the surfaces. The bed had no sheets, just two cheap baby-blue blankets. There was one wooden chair that looked fairly sturdy. “Let’s sit down,” said Charlie, trying to make his voice less threatening. He took the chair.

  The man sat down next to his cats. His hands were shaking, maybe from palsy or alcohol, maybe from fear. The room had two windows, each covered by a drawn yellow shade. The windows were shut and the room had a sour smell.

  “What’s your name?” asked Charlie.

  “Milo Rutkowski.”

  “What’re you doing in Saratoga?”

  “I get some work in the backstretch, mostly in the summer. Some of the grooms know me. And I work a little at the harness track.”

  “Were you friends with Mickey and Parlucci?”

  “I’d done them favors. Running errands, picking up bits and pieces of stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Information. Who people were, what they’re saying.”

  “You’re a snitch?”

  “No, nothing like that, I mean, not really. It’s just information. Anyway, you need people to look out for you. They looked out for me.” Milo picked up a wine bottle and checked if anything was left. He sighed and set it back on the floor.

  “Did you know that Mickey had wanted to see me?”

  “No way. I don’t even know who you are.”

  “Charlie Bradshaw.”

  There was no look of recognition on Milo’s face. “All I know is something was bothering him. Like he saw somebody or heard about somebody, I don’t know.”

  “When did this start?”

  “Last week sometime.”

  “Do you know Lizzie?”

  “Lizzie? Never heard of her.”

  “Did Parlucci seem scared too?”

  “Not so much. But he was concerned. I gotta say he was concerned. That’s why he moved. The landlord don’t give a fuck if he had a snake or not. It kept down the mice.”

  “Did Mickey have any enemies up in Adirondack?”

  Milo thought about it. “He was never a popular guy. I mean, we knew each other, like there were those favors, but we didn’t hang out. Some guys said he was a snitch. Like there was a drug bust they said he’d snitched on. And he had money. Nobody trusted him, but then in prison, trust isn’t a big thing. There might have been guys who hated him, I mean white guys, but I couldn’t put a name to them. Colored guys didn’t seem to like much of anybody ’cept other coloreds. Then the Ricans were a whole ’nother story. For that matter, Mickey had some coloreds working for him. You know, protection, and he paid them.”

  “And this person that Mickey saw or heard about that frightened him, what can you tell me about him?”

  “Nothing, except Mickey didn’t know him personally.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “’Cause I heard him talking to Dave. He said he didn’t know how to recognize him. ‘How’ll I know his face?’ he said.”

  “Mickey was killed on my sidewalk; he was coming to see me. And you know who told the killer where Mickey could find me?”

  “Who?”

  “Parlucci did.”

  Charlie saw he’d said the wrong thing. Milo seemed to take a breath he couldn’t release. His waxed-paper skin grew waxier.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Charlie.

  “I gotta get out of here.” Milo got to his feet.

  “You know something, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know nothing; I just need to get moving.”

  “You know who Parlucci talked to, don’t you?”

  “I tell you, I don’t know nothing.” Milo took a torn plastic travel bag from under the couch and began putting clothes in it.

  “I can still call the police.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll be safer in jail.” Milo hurried back and forth across the room, grabbing a few things, dropping others on the floor.

  “Who’d Parlucci talk to?”

  “Nobody, nobody, I tell you, I don’t know nothing.”

  Charlie asked a few more questions but it didn’t make any difference. Milo was too frightened. At last Charlie gave Milo two twenties and his card with his phone number. It was a card to match his stepdaughter’s joke on his office door: “Charles F. Bradshaw, Consultant, Legal and Otherwise.”

  “Call me if you change your mind. I can make it worth your while.”

  “Believe me, you can’t make anything worth my while.”

  —

  This time Bad Maud’s only customers were two middle-aged women in leather jackets and pants watching Jerry Springer on the TV. They kept clapping and hooting when somebody said something embarrassing, which was often.

  “My pal,” said Bad Maud. She stood at the bar with a deck of cards, playing solitaire. She still wore her black vest, but instead of a cap, she wore a red bandanna wrapped around her head like a bit of rope. The top of her head had a sprinkling of black bristles like Wooly Willy.

  “Not quite.” Charlie sat down at the bar. “Let me have a draft, will you? And do you have any chips or peanuts? I missed lunch.”

  “I got some jerky a friend made. It’s moose.”

  “I guess it’ll have to do.”

  “I read about Dave getting cut. Some people, right? I gave him that python when he came to town five years ago. I wouldn’t of done it if I’d known he wasn’t going to treat it right. I’m like a snake-type person.” Bad Maud raised her arms, and her snake tattoos appeared to wiggle.

  “How’d he mistreat the snake?”

  “He went and got killed and now the snake is on the loose, terrorizing the neighborhood, though nobody’s seen it. I call that mistreatment.”

 
“You can’t blame Dave for getting killed.”

  “He was a fuck-up. He wouldn’t of gotten killed if he wasn’t a fuck-up.”

  “How long did he work here?”

  “’Bout a year. But it was hardly work. He used the place as his private clubhouse. Gave away beer. I had to dock his pay. Said he used to have a Norton, but it was bullshit. Fell over the first time he got on a bike. ’Course, he was drunk, but he didn’t know the brakes from the gas. That’s the sort of fuck-up he was. I’d have fired his ass if he hadn’t gotten sliced.”

  “Still,” said Charlie, searching for some sympathy, “he’s dead.”

  “You’re right, I gotta count my blessings.”

  Charlie chewed on the moose jerky. Its taste and texture were like the tongue of a shoe but with a smoky flavor. “Any idea who killed him?”

  Bad Maud looked philosophical. “Now, that’s a question I make a point not to ask. Who’re you going to make happy asking questions like that? Like I won’t even speculate about who didn’t kill him. Let bygones be bygones, it’s safer.”

  “What about Mickey Martin?”

  “Same thing, ’cept Mickey was an even bigger fuck-up. Piss-breath. I’ve known guys who’d of killed Mickey just because he breathed on him. Guy came in here with a fresh carnation in his buttonhole and Mickey breathed on it. Carnation curled up like a dead baby’s fist. How’s that not going to get you in trouble?”

  “Maybe he had a gum disease.”

  “Then they should’ve been amputated. Thing is, Mickey didn’t just get in another guy’s space, he stamped on it. So the other day somebody stamped back.”

  “Do you know a girlfriend of Mickey’s named Lizzie?”

  “I seen her but not for some time. Scared little thing. Mickey’d pick her apart like the wings off a fly.”

  “You know anything about her? Like where she lives or anything?”

  “Nope, like I say, it’s been a while. She used to work in one of those stores on Broadway that sells smelly candles.” Bad Maud turned to stare at the door. A tightness crossed her face like a mask. Charlie knew who she’d seen even before he turned.

  “I wouldn’t have thought this was your kind of place, Bradshaw.”

  Lieutenant Hutchins walked toward the bar as if he meant to buy it. He was accompanied by an overweight plainclothesman whom Charlie knew only by the name of Goofball Godfrey.

  “Maud and I go way back,” said Charlie.

  “Yeah, you both crawled out of the sea together.”

  “Hey,” said Bad Maud, “I pay my taxes . . .”

  “What are you doing here, Charlie?”

  “I told you, Maud and I—”

  “Just beat it. I want to talk to Maud without your help.”

  Charlie moved toward the door. He’d been trying to decide whether to tell Hutchins about Milo Rutkowski. Now it seemed a bad idea.

  —

  The man sat at the table with a square of cardboard cut from a box on which he’d drawn a figure. He had stuck his knife into the cardboard and was easing the blade along the black line of his drawing, chewing slightly on the inside of his cheek as he cut. The figure represented another man, but thin, very thin. On one side of the table, four figures were still standing; on the other side, two lay facedown.

  This is what the man didn’t like. He was modifying his plans; he was adding another figure. It would just make more trouble for himself. And the other figures, well, everything wasn’t ready yet. One of his figures was missing; that is, he had the figure right there on the table, but the man was missing. It meant he’d have to wait.

  But for the guy he was cutting out of the box, there’d be no waiting. In fact, he’d have to hurry. And what would he stick on his face? He’d give him ears, two big red ears. The kind of ears you’ve got if you’re a snitch.

  Seven

  Later that Saturday, when he thought about it, Charlie realized that even in his dream he’d known the increased thumping had been a policeman’s heavy feet ascending the stairs to his bedroom. It didn’t matter that the policeman in question wasn’t wearing standard-issue duty boots, but regular black oxfords. The man had worn duty boots as a rookie and for many years afterward. Even walking barefoot he’d have a heavy tread. This was a man who had been trained to stomp. Moments later, as Charlie opened his eyes, Lieutenant Frank Hutchins opened the bedroom door.

  “You’re a real prick, Charlie,” said Hutchins.

  Charlie sat up in bed. His blue pajamas had a pattern of red and blue Red Sox logos—a birthday gift from his stepdaughter. “Aren’t you breaking and entering?” The clock on the dresser said seven fifteen.

  “Your daughter let me in.” Hutchins reached into the pocket of his suit coat, wadded something up, something small, and threw it at Charlie.

  It landed on the comforter in the area of Charlie’s lap. He didn’t need to unwad it to know that it read, “Charles F. Bradshaw, Consultant, Legal and Otherwise.” Since he’d given out few cards in the past six months, it required little thought to know that this one had been given to Milo Rutkowski.

  Charlie got out of bed and reached for his robe. “What happened?”

  “This old guy was found behind the bus station with his throat cut. He had your card in his pocket. Milo Rutkowski. Why didn’t you tell me about him? It could have saved his life.”

  Briefly, it seemed to Charlie that he could see Milo’s rheumy and frightened eyes in the air in front of him. Then he thought, He wasn’t an “old guy,” he was my age. And lastly he thought: Hutchins is right.

  “You must have talked to him, too.”

  Hutchins still stood in the door. “Yeah, but I didn’t know he was connected to Dave Parlucci. You did.”

  It occurred to Charlie to lie, which, he knew, would require another lie and another after that. It was too early in the morning to conjure up the intricate twists and turns of drawn-out deception.

  “Milo knew both Parlucci and Mickey Martin,” said Charlie. “He knew Mickey up in Adirondack and he’d met Parlucci in the Albany county jail. You must have all the information on one of your computers.”

  This made the lieutenant angrier. By now Charlie had put on his slippers and robe, and felt reasonably respectable, not that he felt better about Milo. It would have been wiser to bring the “old guy” back to his house and put him in the spare bedroom.

  “And why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” asked Hutchins.

  Charlie knew it was because Hutchins had been rude to him at the Greasy Mattress, and the foolishness of this had struck him only seconds after leaving the bar. “Would you have paid any attention? Anyway, you kicked me out of the bar before I had a chance to.”

  Hutchins didn’t bother to answer this.

  “I thought he wasn’t in real danger. Obviously, I was wrong. Parlucci told somebody where I lived. That was the person who killed him and killed Mickey Martin. And probably Milo, too, for that matter.” Charlie went on to describe what he had learned from Milo Rutkowski.

  “I should lock you up right now.” Hutchins pushed his hand up across his forehead, his anger changing to apparent fatigue.

  “I’m not investigating anything,” Charlie insisted. “I just wanted to find out why Mickey’d been looking for me. Can’t you see that?”

  “Cut the crap, Charlie.”

  They talked some more, or rather Hutchins talked and Charlie listened. Mostly it was about keeping out of police business, but also there was more about the deaths of Parlucci and Milo Rutkowski and how they might have been avoided. Again Hutchins said he was sure that Charlie knew what Mickey Martin wanted to see him about and to refuse to reveal it was an obstruction of justice. As for Hutchins’s own liability in the matter, he probably knew he should have spent more time looking for Parlucci and more time talking to Milo. And, as Charlie said, he could have checked out their
prison history online. But he had other cases he was working on and most likely he had court appearances to make as well.

  “Charlie, I’ve been up since three this morning about this business. I won’t lie to you; I know you’ve helped us in the past. But things have changed. You’re still back in the seventies. You’re a fucking romantic, for God’s sake. This is the twenty-first century and you’re an antique.” Hutchins made a noise in his throat resembling laughter. “Besides, Novak hates you.”

  Charlie tried to think of something to say. He was touched by Hutchins’s trace of concern, but he disliked what he heard. He even disliked that Hutchins was straying from the two-dimensional stereotype that Charlie had created for him.

  “You got one more chance, Charlie,” said Hutchins, his anger reasserting itself. “If you fuck up, we’ll put you away.”

  Charlie nodded somberly. The stereotype had been reestablished. “Maybe so, but I’ll be out on bail pretty quick. And then there’ll have to be a trial, which will be months away. Nothing’s certain, Hutch. You know that.” Then he thought of something. “Was Milo mutilated like the other two?”

  Hutchins gave him an angry look. “Yeah, both his ears were cut off.” Then he tromped back down the stairs.

  After Charlie dressed, he sat down in the small chintz-covered armchair by the bedroom window. It was snowing: wet, fat flakes that clung to the branches and few remaining leaves, the kind of snow that cracked limbs and bent bushes to the ground. The small Victorian house across the street, which its owners had painted purple with yellow trim, was a ghostly configuration of color in a white and gray landscape.

  Charlie watched the snowflakes coat the lawn and wondered what was wrong with him. It was more than eccentricity; it was a form of sickness. When Hutchins had told him to forget about Mickey and Parlucci, to leave the case alone or go to jail, it only encouraged him to dig deeper. He disliked being told he was out of date, that he was a romantic. He tried to justify his interference in the case: Mickey had been coming to see him; Parlucci had wanted to talk to him and Milo perhaps could explain why. But now Milo was dead and Charlie bore some responsibility. He also felt he’d been more interested in questions than in answers. It was the process of investigating more than the results that he enjoyed. He liked talking to people and poking around. But his modest explanation of his behavior—“I’m just poking around”—was a falsehood. It disguised his passion. And he’d used the phrase for years to minimize his intrusion in police affairs. Its very appearance of humility seemed to render his actions innocent, at least in his own mind.