Bread

4

Carella eased the door shut behind him and drew his pistol. He did not know if Reardon’s killer was still in the warehouse. He had been shot twice in his lifetime as a cop, both times unexpectedly, once by a punk pusher in Grover Park and again by a person known only as the Deaf Man. He had not particularly enjoyed either experience, since getting shot in reality is hardly ever like getting shot on television. He had no desire now to emulate Reardon’s present condition; he stood stock-still, and listened.

A water tap was dripping someplace.

A fly buzzed around one of the sticky open holes in Reardon’s face.

On the street outside, a truck ground into lower gear and labored up the hill from the river.

Carella listened and waited.

Three minutes passed. Five.

Cautiously, he stepped over Reardon’s body, flattened himself against the wall, and edged his way past the telephone. The door to the adjacent small room was partially open. He could see a hot plate on a counter and above that a hanging wall cabinet. He shoved the door wide and allowed his gun hand to precede him into the room. It was empty. He came back up the corridor, stepped over Reardon’s body again, and looked into the main storage area. Sodden ashes and charcoal, scorched metal tables, broken hanging light fixtures, nothing else. He kept the gun in his hand, went to the entrance door, and threw the slip bolt with his elbow. Ignoring Reardon for the moment, he went back to the small room in which Lockhart and Barnes had brewed their coffee and tippled their sauce. In the cabinet, he found a fifth of cheap whiskey. He put the gun down momentarily, wrapped part of his handkerchief around the neck of the bottle, a corner of it around the screw top, and twisted off the cap. Chloral hydrate has a slightly aromatic odor and a bitter taste, but all he could smell was alcohol fumes, and he wasn’t about to take a swig of whatever was in that bottle. He screwed the cap back onto the bottle, put the handkerchief back into his pocket, and the .38 back into its holster. He tagged the bottle for later transmittal to the lab, and debated whether or not he should call Andy Parker and suggest that not only had he missed the probable cause of the fire, but he had also overlooked a bottle that most likely contained a sizable quantity of CC1₃CH0.H₂0. He went out into the hallway again.

Reardon was still lying on the floor, and Reardon was still dead.

The first bullet had taken him in the right cheek, the second one just below his nose, in the upper lip. The hole in the cheek was neat and small, the one below the nose somewhat messier because the bullet had torn away part of the lip, shattering teeth and gum ridge with the force of its entry. Carella didn’t know any medical examiner who would risk his reputation by estimating the size of the bullet from the diameter of the hole left in the skin; bullets of different calibers often left entrance wounds of only slightly varying sizes. Nor did the size of the entrance wound always indicate from what distance the gun was fired; some small-caliber contact wounds, in fact, looked exactly like long-range shots. But there were powder grains embedded in Reardon’s cheek and around his mouth, whereas there were no flame burns anywhere on his face. Carella guessed he’d been shot from fairly close up, but beyond the range of flame.

His initial supposition was that Reardon had opened the door on his killer and been surprised by a quick and deadly fusillade. But that didn’t explain the unlocked gate in the cyclone fence. That gate had been padlocked when Carella visited the warehouse earlier today, and Reardon had opened it from the inside with a key from his belt ring. He had locked the gate again before leading Carella to the warehouse, and when the visit was over, he had walked back to the gate, unlocked it, let Carella out, and immediately locked it behind him again. So how had the killer got inside the fence? He would not have risked climbing it in broad daylight. The only answer was that Reardon had let him in. Which meant one of two things: either Reardon had known him and trusted him, or else the killer had presented himself as someone with good and valid reasons for being let inside.

Just inside the entrance door, Carella found two spent 9-mm cartridge cases, and left them right where they were for the moment. He went to the wall phone and dialed the precinct. He told Lieutenant Byrnes that he’d left Frank Reardon at approximately 1:30 that afternoon, and had returned to the warehouse not ten minutes ago to find him dead. The lieutenant advised Carella to stay there until the Homicide boys, the man from the ME’s office, the lab technicians, and the police photographer arrived, which Carella would have done anyway. He asked if Hawes was back from Logan yet, and the lieutenant switched him over to the squadroom outside.

“Get anything up at Grimm’s house?” Carella asked.

“Just one thing that may or may not be important,” Hawes said. “There were no lights on until just before the fire.”

“That may tie in with what I found here.”

“You think it’s the old electric-bulb gimmick?”

“Could be,” Carella said. “I’ve also got a bottle that may or may not have chloral hydrate in it, a pair of spent 9-mm cartridge cases...”

“Oh-oh,” Hawes said.

“Right. We’ve got a homicide, Cotton.”

“Who?”

“Frank Reardon, day watchman here at the warehouse.”

“Any idea why?”

“Probably to shut him up. It’s my guess he doctored the booze the night watchmen would be drinking. Do me a favor and run a routine check on him, will you?”

“Right. When’re you coming back here?”

“The loot’s contacting the clean-up boys now,” Carella said. “Knowing them, I’ll be here at least another hour. One more thing you can do while I’m gone.”

“What’s that?”

“Run a check on Roger Grimm, too. If this was an inside job...”

“Got you.”

“I’ll see you later. Few things I’ve got to tag and bag before the mob arrives.”

“Take your time. It’s very quiet up here right now.”

It was not quiet when Carella got back to the squadroom at a quarter to six. Detectives Meyer and Brown had already come in to relieve the skeleton team, and they were busy in the corner of the room, yelling at a young man who sat with his right wrist handcuffed to a leg of the metal desk. Hawes was sitting at his own desk, oblivious of the noisy confrontation going on behind him. He looked up when Carella came through the gate.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

“So do you want a lawyer or don’t you?” Brown shouted.

“I don’t know,” the young man said. “Tell me my rights again.”

“Jeee-sus Christ!” Brown exploded.

“Took a little longer than I expected,” Carella said.

“As usual,” Hawes said. “Who’d Homicide send over? Monoghan and Monroe?”

“They’re on vacation. These were two new guys, never saw them before. What’d you get from the IS?”

Meyer Meyer, hitching up his trousers, walked over to Hawes’s desk. He was a burly man with china-blue eyes and a bald pate, which he mopped now with his handkerchief as he sat on the edge of the desk. “Explained his rights four times,” he said. He held up his right hand like an Indian war bonnet. “Four goddamn times, can you imagine it? He still can’t make up his mind.”

“Screw him,” Hawes said. “Don’t tell him his rights.”

“Yeah, sure,” Meyer said.

“What’d he do?” Carella asked.

“Smash-and-grab. A jewelry store on Culver Avenue. Caught him with six wristwatches in his pocket.”

“So what’s with the rights? You’ve got him cold. Book him and ship him out.”

“No, we want to ask him some questions,” Meyer said.

“What about?”

“He was carrying two decks of heroin. We’d like to know how he got them.”

“Same way as anybody else,” Hawes said. “From his friendly neighborhood pusher.”

“Where’ve you been?” Meyer said.

“On vacation,” Hawes said.

“That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you don’t know what’s going on.”

“I hate mysteries,” Hawes said. “You want to tell me what’s going on, or you want to go back and explain that kid’s rights to him?”

“Brown’s doing that,” Meyer said, glancing over his shoulder. “For the fifth time. I’d better go see if he’s making any progress there,” he said, and walked back to where Brown was patiently explaining Miranda-Escobedo to the addict, who kept looking up at him solemnly.

“So what’d you get from the IS?” Carella asked Hawes.

“Nothing on Reardon, clean as a whistle.”

“What about Roger Grimm?”

“He took a fall six years ago.”

“What for?”

“Forgery/Three. He was working for an import-export house at the time, sold close to a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of phony stock certificates before he got caught. Seventy-five thousand was recovered, stashed away in a bank.”

“What about the rest?”

“Spent it. Bought himself a new Cadillac, was living high on the hog at a hotel downtown on Jefferson.”

“Was he convicted?”

“Oh, sure. Sentenced to three years, and a two-thousand-dollar fine. Served a year and a half at Castleview, and was released on parole... Let me see,” Hawes said, and consulted his notes. “Four years ago, this June,”

“How about since?”

“Nothing. Honest as the day is long.”

“Except that all of a sudden he has two fires.”

“Yeah, well, anybody can have a fire, Steve.”

“Anybody can sell phony stock certificates, too.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“I’ve got Reardon’s address from his driver’s license. I’d like to hit his apartment tomorrow morning, see what we can turn up there.”

“Okay. Shall we go together, or what?”

“What’s tomorrow?”

“Friday. The sixteenth.”

“You take it alone, Cotton. I want to get a search warrant before the weekend, and the way the courts are jammed, I’m liable to be there all day.”

“What do you plan to do? Shake down Grimm’s office?”

“Yeah, the Bailey Street place, where he keeps his books. That seems like the next logical step, don’t you think?”

“Sounds good to me,” Hawes said.

“So let’s go home.”

“Half-a-day today?” Meyer called from where he and Brown were still explaining Miranda-Escobedo to the kid.

“So what do you say, sonny?” Brown asked. “You want to talk to us or not?” He was standing in his shirtsleeves near the chair in which the addict sat, his sleeves rolled up over powerful forearms, a huge black man who dwarfed the kid sitting in the chair with his wrist handcuffed to the desk.

“What if I tell you about the scag?” the kid said. “Will you forget about the wristwatches?”

“Now, sonny,” Brown said, “you’re asking us to make deals only the DA can make.”

“But you want to know about those two decks, don’t you?”

“We’re mildly interested,” Brown said, “let me put it that way. We got you dead to rights on the burglary...”

“The robbery, you mean.”

“No, the burglary,” Brown said.

“I thought a burglary was when you went into somebody’s apartment and ripped it off.”

“Sonny, I don’t have time to give you a lecture on the Penal Law. You want the charge to read robbery, well be happy to oblige. You also got a rape or a homicide you want to tell us about, why, we’ll just be tickled to death to listen. But Third-Degree Burglary is what we got you on, and that’s what we’re going to book you for. If that’s okay with you.”

“Okay, fine,” the kid said.

“Now, if you want to cooperate with us,” Brown said, “and I’m not making any promises because that’s expressly forbidden by Miranda-Escobedo... but if you want to cooperate with us and talk about how you got that heroin, why maybe we can later whisper in the DA’s ear that you were helpful, though I’m not making any promises.”

The kid looked up at Brown. He was a skinny kid with a longish nose and pale blue eyes and hollow cheeks. He was wearing dungarees and a striped, short-sleeved polo shirt. The hit marks of his addiction ran up the length of his arm, following the veins like an army of marauding ants.

“What do you say?” Brown asked. “You’re wasting our time here. If you want to talk to us, speak now or forever hold your peace. The sergeant downstairs is waiting to write your name in the book.”

“Well, I don’t see no harm talking to you,” the kid said. “Provided...”

“Never mind ‘provided,’ ” Meyer said. “He just told you we can’t make any promises.”

“Well, I realize that,” the kid said, offended.

“Well, fine,” Meyer said. “So shit or get off the pot, will you?”

“I said I’d talk to you”

“Okay, so talk.”

“What do you want to know?” the kid asked.

“How about starting with your name?” Brown said.

“Samuel Rosenstein.”

“You Jewish?” Meyer said.

“Yes,” the kid said defensively. “What of it?”

“You stupid son of a bitch,” Meyer said, “why’re you shooting that poison into your body?”

“What’s it to you?” the kid said.

“Dumb bastard,” Meyer said, and walked away.

“All right, Sammy,” Brown said, “how’d you get those two decks you were carrying?”

“If you think I’m going to tell you the name of my connection, we can quit talking right this minute.”

“I didn’t ask you who, and I didn’t ask you where. I asked you how.”

“I don’t follow,” Sammy said.

“Now, Sammy,” Brown said, “you and I both know that two weeks ago there was the biggest narcotics bust we’ve ever had in this city...”

“Oh, is that it?” Sammy said.

“Is what it?”

“Is that why it’s so tough to score?”

“Don’t you read the papers?” Brown asked.

“I ain’t got time to read the papers. I just been noticing the stuff is scarce, that’s all.”

“It’s scarce because the 5th Squad busted a dope factory and confiscated two hundred kilograms waiting to be cut and packaged.”

“How much is that?”

“More than four hundred pounds.”

“Wow!” Sammy said. “Four hundred pounds of scag! That could keep me straight for a year.”

“You and every other junkie in this city. You know how much that’s worth pure?”

“How much?”

“Forty-four million dollars.”

“That’s before they cut it, huh?”

“That’s right. Before they put it on the street for suckers like you to buy.”

“I didn’t ask to be a junkie,” Sammy said.

“No? Did somebody force it on you?”

“Society,” Sammy said.

“Bullshit,” Brown said. “Tell me how you got those two decks.”

“I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore,” Sammy said.

“Okay, are we finished then? Meyer, the kid’s ready for booking.”

“Okay,” Meyer said, and walked over.

“I been saving it,” Sammy said suddenly.

“How’s that?”

“I been a junkie for almost three years now. I know there’s good times and bad, and I always keep a little hid away. That was the last of it, those two decks. You think I’d’ve busted a store window if I wasn’t desperate? Prices are skyrocketing, it’s like a regular junk inflation. Listen, don’t you think I know we’re in for a couple of bad weeks here?”

“Couple of bad months is more like it,” Meyer said.

“Months?” Sammy said, and fell silent, and looked up at the two detectives. “Months?” he said again, and blinked his eyes. “That can’t be. I mean... what’s a person supposed to do if he can’t...? I mean, what’s gonna happen to me?”

“You’re going to break your habit, Sammy,” Brown said. “In jail. Cold turkey.”

“What’ll they give me for the burglary?” Sammy asked. His voice was quite low now; he seemed drained of all energy.

“Ten years,” Brown said.

“Is this a first offense?” Meyer asked.

“Yeah. I usually... I usually get money from my parents, you know? I mean, enough to get me through the week. I don’t have to steal, they help me out, you know? But the prices are so high, and the junk is so lousy... I mean, you’re paying twice as much for half the quality, it’s terrible, I mean it. I know guys who’re shooting all kinds of shit in their arms. It’s a bad scene, I got to tell you.”

“How old are you, Sammy?” Meyer asked.

“Me? I’ll be twenty on the sixth of September.”

Meyer shook his head and walked away. Brown unlocked the handcuff and led Sammy out of the squadroom, to where he would be booked for Third-Degree Burglary at the muster desk downstairs. He had told them nothing new.

“So now what?” Meyer said to Carella. “Now we book him on the smash-and-grab, and he’ll be convicted, of course, and what did we accomplish? We sent another addict to prison. That’s like sending diabetics to prison.” He shook his head again and, almost to himself, said, “A nice Jewish boy.”