Seven ways to die

28

Frank Rizzo was leaning on the wall of a five-story building on the opposite side of the alley. He was facing the Venezia’s back exit, scoping out the adjoining area with his camera. Cody walked the forty or so feet to join him, unconsciously setting his pace with the sound of the camera-c lick, whrrrr, click, whrrrr- and remembering Rizzo’s initial disdain for the idea of learning to use a camera until he realized he had a natural eye for capturing details. Now the crew had to practically pry it out of his hands when he got started.

“See anything interesting?”

“Actually, it’s what you can’t see from here that’s interesting. Look around. There are no lights on this side of the alley. If you stood right here at, say, midnight nobody could see you. It’s black as a coal mine. But when Ricky comes out for a smoke, Androg can look into the kitchen and see the freezer. Step five feet to his right, he can see through the window, see the kitchen, see through the double doors into the bar, see Tony’s office door.

“Day or two later he drops into the bar for a quick drink, goes back to the men’s room, takes a leak, comes out and he can grab a look into the kitchen. Now he’s got the whole place scoped out.

“Now what does he know? He knows the help is out by eleven. He knows Tony goes down to the ATM and maybe stops off for a cup a tea and is back by one. He knows Ricky steps outside for a quick smoke, goes back inside while Tony’s gone and polishes the floor in his office. He knows Ricky takes about fifteen minutes to get that done. And Androg can hear the polishing machine so he goes over, enters the back door, spikes the glass of wine and the bottle, and vanishes around the corner into the ladies room. He’s inside and safe in a minute or two.

“Then he just waits for Ricky to shutter the kitchen windows and leave. The door’s locked. All the ambient light from the kitchen is blocked so nobody will see him when he finishes at, what? Two, two-thirty. The snake can take all the time he wants killing the rabbit.”

He was right, Cody agreed. The alley behind Venezia was like a boxed canyon; blocked at one end by a tall building, at the other by an unlit parking lot; tall structures crouched around it like sentinels. In the dark, even residual light from Hester Street would fade by the time it got to the alley. From their vantage point, Cody studied who might have caught a glimpse of the killer. Perhaps someone leaving the parking lot? Customers in the restaurants and shops to their right on the opposite side of Hester? Were any of them even open at two-thirty in the morning? Once again their wily nemesis had left little room for mistakes.

“I’ve set up some help from the Fifth,” Rizzo said. “I got three detectives and five uniforms to Q and A the joints over on Hester. One of them talks Chinese which’ll help, a lotta of the old guys don’t parlay English. But, y’know, let’s face it, there ain’t a lot of action around here that time a day. I’m figuring Androg parked in the lot, maybe down by that warehouse so he wouldn’t be too obvious. Maybe we can cop a description, something about the car, a tag number…” He paused, looked around, looked at upstairs windows in buildings. “…something.”

They needed a break. A little luck. The one thing they could never count on, Cody thought. His frustration was getting palpable.

“A major sicko, freezing the old fella like that,” said Rizzo.

“Yeah,” Cody growled. “This one’s too cute for our own good.”

He walked to the mouth of the alley, looked up and down the street. There was a small warehouse on the Elizabeth Street end of the lot. The lot was divided into four long rows with two cars parked bumper to bumper in each and a drive-out between each one. He estimated it would accommodate at least a hundred and twenty or thirty cars. But at two or three a.m., probably just a handful in the whole lot. From the other side of Hester it would have been too dark to see much of anything.

“I think maybe the lot’s our best bet,” Cody said. “If we got a bet at all.”

“I agree. We’ll zero in on it. And the restaurants. Maybe one or two of ‘em were still open at that hour.”

“Anything will help. Anything! Is Androg short, tall, skinny, fat, male, female?”

“Pigeon-toed, knock kneed?”

“Bow-legged?”

Rizzo chuckled. “There’s a thought. Maybe he’s a cowboy.”

Cody, too, started laughing off the tension. “That’s it. The ghost of John Wayne.”

“Or Randolph Scott.”

They both started to chuckle.

“How about one of the Three Stooges?” Cody said, their chuckles escalating into nervous laughter.

“I think we both need to relax,” Rizzo said, putting his arm around Cody’s shoulder. He looked past his boss and nodded. “What’s with Charley?”

The dog was walking toward the parking lot, his head moving slowly back and forth, his nose working the ground. Cody walked up behind him and followed the dog’s slow progress.

“He’s on to something,” said Cody. He stopped and looked back at the rear entrance to the restaurant. ”Let’s see, after the work gang leaves, Ricky mops the floor to the back door. Then he steps outside for his smoke and goes back inside leaving the door cracked. Androg walks over and waits near the door in the dark and when he hears the polisher he goes in. Tony comes back from the bank drop, he and Ricky do their inspection. Ricky serves him dinner, closes the shutters and leaves. Androg does his dirty work and leaves. So the last person out was the killer. He turned the lights off and left.”

“You figure he’s got Androg’s scent?”

“Think about it, Frank. We have about five million scent receptors in our nose. Charley there has 220 million. He picked up Androg’s scent inside and he picked it up again when we came out. He can separate a scent easier than you can pick a daisy.”

Charley stopped for a moment and looked back at Cody. “Keep going, son,” Cody said and they continued another fifty feet to the parking lot. The parking spaces were each marked with white oblong stripes. Charley stopped for a minute, sniffing the concrete, then walked several car lengths down, stopped again, and followed his nose about three-quarters of the length of the parking spot and stopped. He raised his head, sniffed the air, looked back at Cody and sat down.

“I’ll be damned,” Rizzo said.

“This is where the scents end,” said Cody. “This is where Androg got in the car. Mark it with yellow ribbons. Maybe somebody over on that strip of restaurants on Hester Street noticed the car. Maybe even saw Androg when he left.”

“Or when he got here which would have been, what? A little after twelve maybe?”

Cody nodded. “Get lucky, Frank. We can use a little help.”