Bust

Nineteen

Homicide Detective Louis Ortiz pressed the record button on the digital recorder on the desk and said, “As you might’ve heard we have a suspect in the case. There’s also been another victim.”

“Why are you taping me?” Max said. “I don’t get it – am I being interviewed or interrogated?”

“Maybe you should answer that question for me.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. I thought you were going to fill me in on what happened to my wife and niece. But if this is some kind of-”

“If you want to call a lawyer you can.”

“What do I need a lawyer for? Only guilty people need lawyers.”

“Then shut up and answer my damn questions,” Ortiz said. “As you may have heard, my partner, Kenneth Simmons’ body was discovered this afternoon.”

“Yeah, I heard about that on the news.”

“What did you hear?”

“That a Detective Simmons was killed.”

“And you realized that this was the same man who was working on your wife’s murder case?”

“The name rang a bell.”

“Did the news come as a surprise to you?”

“Excuse me for getting off topic here,” Max said, “but I don’t see why you’re talking to me. From what I heard on the news the suspect you’re looking for is a skinny guy with gray hair. Does my hair look fucking gray to you?”

Max had some extra edge in his tone, letting this prick know he was a respectable businessman, a pillar of the community, the guy who paid the cops’ goddamn wages.

Ortiz breathed deeply then said, “Kenneth Simmons was following you when he was killed.”

“Following me?” Max said. “What the hell for?”

“That’s not important now,” Ortiz said. “What’s important is we found his car in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania on Thirty-third Street. Can you tell me what the car was doing there?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Max said. He had always been a horrible liar, especially under pressure. Foggiest. What the fuck was he, British?

“Maybe it’ll come back to you,” Ortiz said. “I questioned the clerks at the hotel. They said at around eight o’clock on Monday evening, Detective Simmons inquired at the desk about a couple that had checked in under the name Brown in room 1812. You don’t have an idea who that couple is, do you?”

Max was shaking his head.

“I don’t have to tell you what I think,” Ortiz continued. “Unfortunately, the woman who was working at the desk that night said she couldn’t remember what the couple looked like, but I have people taking a look at the security video from that night and I think it’s going to show you and a woman checking into that hotel. Now if you’re as innocent as you say you are you could just save us some time and tell us who that woman is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Max said as calmly as he could. “I was never in that hotel.”

“All right,” Ortiz said. He turned off the recorder then got up and went behind Max. Resting his hands on the back of Max’s chair, his mouth almost touching Max’s left ear, he said, “You wanna do this the hard way, we’ll do it the hard way. But I’ll tell you right now – if I find out that was you in that hotel I’m gonna make your life a fucking nightmare. You ever get fucked up the ass? Well, I hope you enjoy it because I’m gonna put you in a cell with a psychotic, white-boy-hating motherfucker who’s got a big, fat, fourteen-inch dong. Then we’ll see how much you like fucking around with Louis Ortiz.”

Ortiz stayed there for a few seconds, letting his words sink in, then he returned to his seat and turned the recorder back on.

Max felt wetness on the back of his neck – either sweat or his spray-on hair was dissolving. He wasn’t sure what he was accomplishing by not admitting he was in that hotel; when Ortiz saw that surveillance tape that ridiculous wig would be no disguise. But, at this point, he didn’t see what he had to lose by continuing to lie.

“Look, I want to do everything I can to help you,” Max said, “but I think you’re forgetting that my wife and niece are dead. You know what it’s like to come home and find the brains of your loved ones splattered on your wall? Believe me, it’s not very pleasant. But what’s even worse is having to put up with some ignorant fucking detective, making up ridiculous stories, trying to implicate you. Don’t you people have any sense of decency?”

Max thought that his speech had affected Ortiz and was proud of himself for performing so well, but then Ortiz said, “You want me to spell it out for you, Fisher? I think you hired somebody to kill your wife. I think your niece was just unlucky, got mixed up in it by accident. Detective Simmons thought the same thing – fact, he was more sure about it than I was. That’s why he was following you that night. Oh, and by the way I do know what it’s like to lose somebody close, like a partner you’ve been working with for the last seven fucking years.”

Max said, “That’s it. I’m not doing any more of this bullshit without my lawyer.”

“I thought you told me only guilty people need lawyers?”

“Guilty people and people who are being harassed.”

“All I’m asking is that you tell me the truth.”

“I’m telling you the fucking truth, but you don’t want to hear it.”

“All right,” Ortiz said, “then tell me – where did you go Monday night after work?”

“I took a cab home.”

“You have anybody who can vouch for that?”

“Not unless you can find the cab driver who drove me.”

“Speaking of cab drivers,” Ortiz said, “we did find a driver who claims he picked up a man fitting Kenneth Simmons’ description in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania at approximately eight-forty Monday evening. Simmons ordered him to follow another cab which ended up going to the corner of Twenty-fifth and First. A woman got out of the first cab – the driver couldn’t ID her except that she was white and had ‘big blond hair’ – and Kenneth Simmons got out of the cab and followed her. The driver of the cab that the woman was in hasn’t been found. You don’t, by any chance, know anybody who lives around that area, do you?”

Shit, Twenty-fifth was Angela’s block. But she hadn’t mentioned anything about talking to a cop that night.

“No,” Max said after taking a few moments to mull it over. “I don’t.”

“What about a gold pin, two hands almost touching? You ever see one of those suckers?”

Max had no idea what Ortiz was talking about, said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“My partner had a pin. It wasn’t on his body when his body was discovered.”

Then Max remembered the weird pin that Popeye had been wearing at the pizza place. Like the idiot didn’t have enough heat on him already, he had to steal the pin off a cop he’d killed.

“Lemme ask you something,” Max said. “Let’s say I was in that hotel with a woman that night – which I absolutely wasn’t – and let’s say we checked in under – what did you say the name was?”

“Brown.”

“All right – let’s say we checked in under the name Brown. How the hell would that help you find out who killed my wife?”

“We think the gun that was used to kill Kenneth Simmons was the same one used to kill your wife and niece. He was either killed on Twenty-fifth Street or else he was taken to Harlem and killed up there. But the only reason he ended up in either place was because he followed your girlfriend – excuse me, Mrs. Brown – out of the Hotel Pennsylvania. If we know what went on in that hotel it may tell us why he followed her when she left.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“So, then, Mr. Fisher,” Ortiz said, “are you ready to tell me anything?”

Max thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“What about the man in the sketch?” Ortiz took out a copy of the sketch from his drawer and slid it across the desk for Max to look at. “You ever seen him before?”

Max stared at the sketch of Popeye for a good ten seconds, trying to make it look like he was really studying it, then said, “No, never.”

Ortiz glared at Max. “Where were you before you got home today?”

“I was at work. You gonna try to book me for that too?”

Ortiz pressed the stop button on the recorder.

“Maybe we should do this again,” he said. “This time without all the bullshit.”

“I’d rather not.”

“How about taking a polygraph?”

“Not without my lawyer.”

“It won’t matter anyway,” Ortiz said, “after I take a look at that surveillance tape.”