Detective Cross

Chapter 27

We all glanced at one another.

“That works,” Mahoney said, and knocked at the door.

“Go away,” Vincente yelled. “Whoever the hell you are, go away.”

“FBI, Mr. Vincente,” Mahoney said. “Open up.”

Before we heard footsteps inside Vincente’s place, a few doors to our left and right opened, revealing residents peeking out at us. Vincente’s door creaked as if he’d put both hands on it. The light filtering through his peephole darkened.

Mahoney had his ID and badge up. So did Bree.

“What’s this all about?” Vincente said.

“Open or we break the door down, Mr. Vincente.”

“Jesus,” Vincente slurred.

Deadbolts threw back. The door opened, and a barefoot, narrow-shouldered man in gray sweatpants and a Washington Nationals jersey peered out at us with bloodshot eyes. It was hard not to look away.

From scalp to jawline, the entire left side of his head was badly disfigured. The scarring on his face was ridged and webbed, as if the skin of many ducks feet had been sewn over his flesh.

He seemed amused at our reactions.

“Can we come in, sir?” Mahoney asked.

“Sir?” Vincente said, and laughed bitterly, before throwing the door wide. “Sure. Why not? Come in. See how the Phantom of the Opera really lives.”

We entered a pack rat’s nest of books, magazines, newspapers, and vinyl records. Stuff was almost everywhere. On shelves and tables. On the floor along the bare walls. And stacked below a muted television screen, showing C-SPAN and the live feed from the US Senate floor.

Streaming across the bottom of the screen it said, DEBATE OVER SENATE BILL 1822, VETERANS’ APPROPRIATIONS.

I noticed an open bottle of vodka and a glass pitcher of tomato juice on a crowded coffee table. The ashtray next to them reeked of marijuana.

Vincente threw up his hands. “You’ve basically seen it all. My bedroom’s off limits.”

Mahoney said, “Nothing’s off limits if I think you have something to do with the bombings on the National Mall, Mr. Vincente.”

“The what...?” He threw back his head and laughed again, louder and more caustic. “You think I got something to do with that? Oh, that’ll seal it. Just put the dog-shit icing on the crap cake of my life, why don’t you?”

Bree gestured at the screen. “You’re following this debate pretty close.”

“Wouldn’t you if your income depended on it?” he said darkly. He reached for a half full Bloody Mary in a highball glass. “I decided to treat the floor debate like it was draft night for fantasy football leaguers. Right? Have a few Bloody M’s. Scream at the screen, Senator Pussy, or whatever. No federal offense in that, is there, Agent Mahoney?”

I said, “You ride the Hospital Center bus, Mr. Vincente?”

“All the time.”

“How about the Circulator? The Monuments bus?”

He shook his head. “They won’t let someone like me ride the Circulator. Upsets the tourists. Don’t believe me? I’ll let you check my bus pass. It’ll show you. I only use the D8.”

“That would help,” Mahoney said.

Vincente sighed. “Hope you got time. Gotta find my wallet in this mess.”

“We got all day,” Bree said.

He sighed again, and started ambling around, looking wobbly on his feet.

“We hear you get angry on the bus,” Bree said, putting her hand on her service weapon.

Vincente took a sip of his Bloody Mary, and raised it to us with his back turned, still searching.

He squatted down and moved aside some record albums, saying, “From time to time, Chief Stone, I speak my mind forcefully. Last time I looked, that’s still guaranteed under the Constitution I was maimed for.”

Mahoney also put his hand on his weapon and said, “Even under the First Amendment, the FBI takes seriously any threat to bomb Congress.”

Vincente chuckled, stood unsteadily, and turned. Both Bree and Mahoney tensed, but he was showing us a wallet in one hand and a Metro bus pass in the other.

“It was a turn of phrase,” he said, holding out the pass to Mahoney. “I’ve had this for three years. It’ll show I have never once been on the Circulator. And look at my record. I was a camp cook, ran the mess, not the armory in Kandahar. I honestly don’t know the first thing about bombs. Other than they hurt like hell, and they screw you up for life.”