Nocturne

3

The gun they'd fished out of the sewer was registered to a man named Rodney Pratt, who on his application for the pistol permit had given his occupation as "security escort" and had stated that he needed to carry a gun because his business was "providing protection of privacy, property, and physical wellbeing to individuals requiring personalized service." They figured this was the politically correct way of saying he was a private bodyguard.

In the United States of America, no one is obliged to reveal his race, color, or creed on any application form. They had no way of knowing Rodney Pratt was black until he opened the door for them at five minutes past three that morning, and glowered out at them in undershirt and boxer shorts. To them, his color was merely an accident of nature.

What mattered was that Ballistics had already identified the gun registered to him as the weapon that had fired three fatal bullets earlier tonight.

"Mr. Pratt?" Hawes asked cautiously.

"Yeah, what?" Pratt asked.

He did not have to say This is three o'fucking clock in the morning, why the fuck are you knocking my door down? His posture said that, his angry frown said that, his blazing eyes said that.

"May we come in, sir?" Hawes asked. "some questions we'd like to ask you."

"What kind of questions?" Pratt asked.

The "sir" had done nothing to mollify him. THere were two honkie cops shaking him out of bed in the middle of the night, and he wasn't buying any thank you. He stood barring the door in his tank undershirt and striped boxer shorts, as muscular as a prizefighter at a weigh-in. Hawes now saw that tattoo on his bulging right biceps read Semper Fidelis An ex-Marine, no less. Probably a sergeant. had seen combat in this or that war the United State seemed incessantly waging. Probably drank the bl of enemy soldiers. Three o'clock in the momingl Hawes bit the bullet.

"Questions about a.38 Smith amp; Wesson reg to you, sir."

"What about it?"

"It was used in a murder earlier tonight, sir. May come in?"

"Come in," Pratt said, and stepped out of the frame, back into the apartment.

Pratt lived in a building on North Carlton Street, the intersection of St. Helen's Boulevard, across way from Mount Davis Park. The neighborhood mixed black, white, Hispanic, some A rents price-fixed.

These old prewar apartments boasted high ceilings, tall windows and parquet In many of them, the kitchens and bathrooms were hopelessly outdated.

But as they followed Pratt toward a lighted living room beyond, they saw at a glance that his kitchen was modern and sleek, and an open-door of a hall bathroom revealed marble and shed brass. The living room was furnished in oak wood and nubby fabrics, throw pillows , chrome-framed prints on the white walls. upright piano stood against the wall at the far end of the room, flanked by windows that overlooked the park. "Have a seat," Pratt said, and left the room. Hawes looked at Carella. Carella merely shrugged. He was by the windows, looking down at the park stories below. At this hour of the night, it appeared ghostly, its lampposts casting eerie illumination on empty winding paths.

Pratt was back in a moment, wearing a blue robe over his underwear. The robe looked like cashmere. It conspired with the look of the apartment to create a distinct impression that the "security escort" business paid very well indeed these days. Hawes wondered if he should ask for a job recommendation. Instead, he said, "About the gun, Mr. Pratt."

"It was stolen last week," Pratt said.

They had seen it all and heard it all, of course, and they had probably heard this one ten thousand, four hundred and thirteen times. The first thing any criminal learns is that it is not his gun, his dope, his car, his burglar's tools, his knife, his mask, his gloves, his bloodstains, his semen stains, his anything. And if it is his, then it was either lost or stolen.

Catch a man red-handed, about to shoot his girlfr a gun in his fist, the barrel in the woman's mouth, and he will tell you first that it isn't his gun, hey, what kind of individual do you think I am? Besides, we're only rehearsing a scene from a play here. Or if they won't quite appreciate that one in Des Moines, then how about she was choking on a fish bone, and I was trying to hook it out with the gun barrel while we were waiting for the ambulance to take her to the hospital? Or if that sounds a bit fishy, how about she asked me to put the barrel in her mouth in order to test her mettle and her courage? Anyway, isn't even my gun, and if it is my gun, it was stolen lost. Besides, I'm a juvenile.

"Stolen," Carella said, turning from the windows No intonation in his voice, just the single unstresse word, spoken softly, and sounding like a boomin accusation in that three A.M. living room.

"Yes," Pratt said. "Stolen."

Unlike Carella, he did stress the word. "When did you say this was?"

Hawes asked. "Thursday night."

"That would've been…"

Hawes had taken out his notebook and was pointing to the calendar page.

"The eighteenth," Pratt said. "A hoodoo jinx ofa day. First my car quits dead, and next somebody takes my gun from the glove compartment."

"Let's back up a little," Hawes said.

"No, let's back up a lot," Pratt said. "Reason putting me through this shit at three A.M. in the mornin is I'm black. So just do your little ritual dance and get the hell out, okay? You've got the wrong party here."

"We may have the wrong party," Carella said, "but we've got the right gun. And it happens to be yours."

"I don't know anything about what that gun was doing earlier tonight. You say it killed somebody, I'll take your word for it. I'm telling you the gun has not been in my possession since Thursday night, when my car quit and I stopped at an all-night gas station to have it looked at."

"Where was that?"

"Just off the Majesta Bridge."

"Which side of it?"

"This side. I'd driven a diamond merchant home and was coming back to the city."

The location marked him as a native. This sprawling city was divided into five separate distinct geographical zones, but unless you'd just moved here from Mars, only one of these sectors was ever referred to as "the city."

"Started rattling on the bridge," Pratt said. "Time I hit Isola, she quit dead. Brand-new limo. Less than a thousand miles on it." He shook his head in disgust and disbelief. "Never buy a fuckin American car," he said.

Carella himself drove a Chevrolet that had never given him a moment's trouble. He said nothing. "What time was this?" Hawes asked.

"Little before midnight."

"This past Thursday."

"Hoodoo jinx of a day," he said again. "Remember the name of the gas station?"

"Sure."

"What was it?"

"Bridge Texaco."

"Now that's what I call inventive," Hawes said. "You think I'm lying?"

Pratt said at once. "No, no, I meant…"

"When did you discover the gun was missing?" Carella asked.

Get this thing back on track, he thought. Pratt wasn't quite getting all this. He thought two white cops here hassling him only because he was black when instead they were hassling him only because he owned the gun used in a murder. So let's hear about the gun, okay?

"When I picked the car up," Pratt said, turning on him. He still suspected a trap, still figured they were setting him up somehow.

"And when was that?"

"Yesterday morning. There weren't any mechanics on duty when I pulled in Thursday night. The man told me they'd have to work on it the next day."

"Which they did, is that right?"

"Yeah. Turned out somebody'd put styrene in my fuckin crankcase."

Carella wondered what styrene in the crankcase had to do with buying an American car.

"Broke down the oil and mined the engine," Pratt said. "They had to order me a new one, put it in on Friday."

"And you picked the car up yesterday?"

"Yes."

"What time?"

"Ten o'clock in the morning."

"So the car was there all night Thursday and all day Friday."

"Yeah. And two hours yesterday, too. They open eight."

"With the gun in the glove compartment."

"Well, it disappeared during that time."

"When did you realize that?"

"When I got back here. There's a garage in the I parked the car, unlocked the glove conpartment to take out the gun, and saw it was gone."

"Always take it out of the glove compartment when you get home?"

"Always."

"How come you left it at the garage?"

"I wasn't thinking. I was pissed off about the car quitting on me.

It's force of habit. I get home, I unlock the box, reach in for the gun. The garage wasn't home. I just wasn't thinking."

"Did you report the gun stolen?"

"No."

"Why not?" Hawes asked.

"I figured somebody steals a piece, I'll never see it again, anyway. So why bother? It not like a TV set.

A piece isn't gonna turn up in a hockshop. It's gonna end up on the street."

"Ever occur to you that the gun might be used later in the commission of a crime?"

"It occurred to me."

"But you still didn't report its theft?"

"I didn't report it, no."

"How come?"

This from Hawes. Casually. Just a matter of curiosity. How come your gun is stolen and you know somebody might use it to do something bad, but you don't go to the cops? How come?

Carella knew how come. Black people were beginning to believe that the best way to survive was to keep their distance from the police. Because if they didn't, they got set up and framed. That was O.J."s legacy. Thanks a lot Juice, we needed you.

"Talked privately to the day manager," Pratt said. "Told him somebody'd ripped off the piece. He said he'd ask around quietly."

"Did he ask around? Quietly."

"None of his people knew anything about it." Naturally, Carella thought.

Hawes was thinking the same thing.

"And you say the glove compartment was locked when you got back home here?"

"I think so, yeah."

"What do you mean, you think so?"

"Why do you guys think everything I say is a lie?" Carella sighed in exasperation.

"Come on, was it locked or wasn't it?" he said. "That isn't a trick question. Just tell us yes or no."

"I'm telling you I don't know. I put the key in the lock and turned it. But whether it was locked or not…"

"You didn't try to thumb it open before you put the key in?"

"No, I always leave it locked."

"Then what makes you think it may have been unlocked this time?"

"The fucking gun was missing, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but you didn't know that before you opened the compartment."

"I know it now. If it was already unlocked when I turned the key, then what I was doing was locking it all over again. So I had to turn the key back again to unlock it."

"Is that in fact what you did?"

"I don't remember. I might have. A glove compartment isn't like your front door, you know, where you lock it and unlock it a hundred times a day, and you know just which way to turn the key to open it."

"Then what you're saying now, in retrospect, is that it might have been unlocked."

"Is what I'm saying in retrospect. Because the gun was missing. Which means somebody had already got in there."

"Did you leave a valet key with the car, or…?"

"I lost the valet key."

"So the key you left in the ignition could have unlocked the glove compartment, is that it?"

"That's it."

"So you're saying someone at the garage unlocked it and stole the gun." exactly what I'm saying."

"You don't think whoever put styrene in the crankcase might have stolen the gun, do you?"

"I don't see how."

"You didn't notice the hood open, did you?"

"Yeah, the hood was open. How would they get at the engine without liftingthe hood?" ,"I mean, before you took it to the garage.

"No, I didn't see the hood open."

"Tell us where you went with the car that Thursday. Before somebody did the styrene job"

"I don't know when the styrene job was done."

"Tell us where you went, anyway, okay? Help us out here, willya?"

"First, I drove an actress over to NBC for a television interview that morning…"

"NBC where?"

"Downtown. Off Hall Avenue."

"When was that?"

"Six-thirty in the morning."

"Did you go inside with her?"

"No, I stayed with the car."

"Then what?"

"Drove her back to her hotel, waited downstairs for her."

"Leave the car?"

"No. Well, wait a minute, yeah. I got out of the car to have a smoke, but I was standing right by it."

"Gun still in the glove compartment?"

"Far as I know. I didn't look."

"You said you waited for her downstairs…"

"Yeah."

"What time did she come back down?"

"Twelve-fifteen."

"Where'd you go then?"

"To J. C. Willoughby's for lunch. She was meeting her agent there."

"And then?"

"Picked her up at two, drove her to…"

"Were you with the car all that time?"

"Come to think of it, no. I went for a bite myself. Parked it in a garage."

Where?

"Near the restaurant. On Lloyd."

"So somebody could have lifted the hood and poured that styrene in."

"I guess."

"Did you leave the key in the car?"

"Of course. How else could they drive it?"

"Then someone could have unlocked the glove compartment, too."

"Yeah, but…"

"Yeah?"

"I still think somebody at the gas station swiped that piece."

"What makes you think that?"

"Just a feeling. You know how you get a feeling something's wrong? I had the feeling those guys knew something about the car I didn't know."

"Like what?"

"I don't know what."

"Which guys?"

"All of them. The day manager when I went to pick it up, all the guys working…"

"When did you pick up your diamond merchant?"

"What?"

"You said…"

"Oh, yeah, Mr. Aaronson. I was with the actress all day, stayed with her while she shopped Hall Avenue. She was doing some shopping before she went back to L.A. Drove her to meet some friends for dinner, took her back to the hotel afterward."

"Stayed with the car all that time?"

"Didn't budge from it. Picked up Mr. Aaronson at ten-thirty, drove him home. He was heavy that night."

"Heavy."

"Lots of gems in his suitcase."

"What'd you do then?"

"Started back over the bridge, heard the car starting to conk out."

"Would you remember where you parked the car while you were having lunch?"

"I told you. Place on Lloyd, just off Detavoner. Only one on the block, you can't miss it."

"You wouldn't know who parked it, would you?"

"All those guys look the same to me."

"Can you think of anyone who might've put that styrene in your crankcase?"

"No."

"Or stolen the gun?"

"Yeah. Somebody at the fuckin gas station."

"One last question," Carella said. "Where were you tonight between ten and midnight?"

"Here it comes," Pratt said, and rolled his eyes.

"Where were you?" Carella asked again.

"Right here."

"Anyone with you?"

"My wife. You want to wake her up, too?"

"Do we have to?" Carella asked.

"She'll tell you."

"I'll bet she will."

Pratt was beginning to glower again. "Let her sleep," Carella said.

Pratt looked at him.

"I think we're finished here. Sorry to have bothered you."

"Cotton? Anything?"

"One thing," Hawes said. "Do you know who worked on your car?"

"Yeah, somebody named Gus. He's the one who signed the service order, but he wasn't there when I picked the car up yesterday."

"Do you know if the day manager asked him about the gun?"

"He says he did."

"What's his name?"

"The day manager? Jimmy."

"Jimmy what?"

"I don't know."

"How about the night manager? The one you left the car with?"

"Ralph. I don't know Ralph what. They have their names stitched on the front of their coveralls. Just the first names."

"Thanks," Hawes said. "Good night, sir, we're sorry to have bothered you."

"Mm," Pratt said sourly.

In the hallway outside, Carella said, "So now it becomes the tale of a gun."

"I saw that movie, too," Hawes said.

Bridge Texaco was in the shadow of the Majesta Bridge, which connected two of the city's most populous sectors, creating massive traffic jams at either end. Here in Isola simply and appropriately named since it was an island and Isola meant "island" in Italian. the side streets and avenues leading to the bridge were thronged with taxis, trucks and passenger vehicles from six A.M. to midnight, when things began slowing down a bit. At three-thirty in the morning, when the detectives got there, one would never have guessed that just a few hours earlier the surrounding streets had resonated with the din of honking horns and shouted epithets, the result of a stalled track in the middle of the bridge.

There were two city statutes, both of them punishable by mere fines, that made the blowing of horns unlawful. Using profanity in public was also against the law. The pertinent section in the Penal Law was 240.20, and it was titled Disorderly Conduct. It read: "A person is guilty of disorderly conduct when, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he uses abusive or obscene language, or makes an obscene gesture." Disorderly conduct was a simple violation, punishable by not more than a term of fifteen days in jail. The two statutes and the Penal Law section only defined civilization. Perhaps this was why a uniformed cop on the street corner had merely scratched his ass at midnight while an angry motorist leaned incessantly on his horn, yelling "Move it, you fuckin cocksucker!"

Now, at 3:30 A.M." all the horn-blowing stopped, all the profanity had flown on the wind. There was only the bitter cold of the January streets, and a gas station with fluorescent lights that seemed to winter's chill. A yellow taxicab was parked at one of the pumps. Its driver, hunched against the cold, jiggling from foot to foot, was filling the tank. The paneled doors opening on the service bays were closed tight against the frigid air. In the station's warmly lighted office, a man wearing a brown uniform and a peaked brown hat sat with his feet up on the desk, reading a copy of Penthouse. He looked up when the detectives came in. The stitched name on the front of his uniform read Ralph.

Carella showed the tin.

"Detective Carella," he said. "My partner, Detective Hawes."

"Ralph Bonelli. What's up?"

"We're trying to trace a gun that…"

"That again?" Bonelli said, and looked heavenward. "Any idea what happened to it?"

"No. I told Pratt nobody here knew anything about it. That hasn't changed."

"Who'd you ask?"

"The mechanic who worked on it. Gus. He didn't see it. Some of the other guys who were working on Friday. None of them saw any gun."

"How many other guys?"

"Two, They're not mechanics, they just pump gas."

"So Gus is the only one who worked on the car."

"Yeah, the only one."

"Where'd he Work on it?"

"One of the service bays in there," Bonelli said, and gestured with his head. "Had it up on the hydraulic lift."

"Key in it?"

"Yeah, he had to drive it in, didn't he?"

"How about when he was finished with it? Where'd the key go then?"

"Key box there on the wall," Bonelli said, indicating a grey metal cabinet fastened to the wall near the cash register. A small key was sticking out of a keyway on the door.

"Do you ever lock that cabinet?"

"Well… no."

"Leave the key in it all the time?"

"I see where you're going, but you're wrong Nobody who works here stole that gun."

"Well, it was in the glove compartment when Pratt drove the car in…"

"That's what he says."

"You don't think it was, huh?"

"Did I see it? Did anybody see it? We got only jig's word for it."

"Why would he say there was a gun in the compartment if there wasn't one?"

"Maybe he wanted me to write off the repair job, who knows?"

"What do you mean?"

"A trade, you know? He forgets the gun, we forget the bill."

"You think that's what he had in mind, huh?"

"Who knows?"

"Well, did he actually suggest anything like that?"

"No, I'm just saying."

"So, actually," Hawes said, "you have no reason to believe there wasn't a gun in that glove compartment?"

"Unless the jig had some other reason to be about it."

"Like what?"

"Maybe he had some use for it later on. Claim it was stolen, build an alibi in advance, you follow?"

"Can you write down the names of everyone who was working here while the car was in the shop?" Carella asked.

"Would anyone else have access to that key cabinet? Aside from your people?" Hawes asked.

"Sure. Anybody walking in and out of the office But there's always one of us around. We would have seen anybody trying to get in the cabinet."

"Addresses and phone numbers, too," Carella said.

Despite the cold, the blonde was wearing only a brief black miniskirt, a short red fake-fur jacket, gartered black silk stockings and high-heeled, red leather, ankle-high boots. A matching red patent-leather clutch handbag was tucked under her arm. Her naked thighs were raw from the wind, and her feet were freezing cold in the high-heeled boots. Shivering, she stood on the corner near the traffic light, where any inbound traffic from Majesta would have to stop before moving into the city proper.

The girl's name was Yolande.

She was free, white, and nineteen years old, but she was a hooker and a crack addict, and she was here on the street at this hour of the morning because she hoped to snag a driver coming in, and spin him around the block once or twice while she gave him a fifty dollar blow job.

Yolande didn't know it, but she would be dead in three hours.

The detectives coming out of the gas station office spotted the blonde standing on the corner, recognized her for exactly what she was, but didn't glance again in her direction. Yolande recognized them as well, for exactly what they were, and watched them warily as they climbed into an unmarked, dark blue sedan. A white Jaguar pulled to the curb where she was standing. The window on the passenger side slid noiselessly down. The traffic light bathed the car the sidewalk and Yolande in red. She waited until she saw a plume of exhaust smoke billow from the dark sedan up the street. Then she leaned to the window of the car at the curb, smiled and said "Hey, hiya. Wanna party?"

"How much?" the driver asked.

The changing traffic light suddenly turned everything to green.

A moment later, the two vehicles moved off opposite directions.

The night was young.

They found Gus Mondalvo in an underground club a largely Hispanic section of Riverhead. This was a little past four in the morning. His mother, refused to open the door of her apartment repeated declarations that they were police, told them they could find her son at the Club Fajardo "up block," which is where they were now, trying to convince the heavyset man who opened the door that they weren't here to bust the place.

The man protested in Spanish that they weren't serving liquor here, anyway, so what was there bust? This was just a friendly neighborhood club having a little party, they could come in and see for themselves, all of this while incriminating bottles and glasses were being whisked from behind the bar and off the table tops By the time he took off the some five minutes later, you would have thought it was a teenage corner malt shop instead of a club selling booze after hours to a clientele that included kids. The man who let them in told them Gus was sitting at the bar drinking… "But nothing alcoholic," he added hastily. and pointed him out to them. A Christmas tree stood in the corner near the bar, elaborately decorated, extravagantly lighted. The detectives made their way across a small dance floor packed with teenagers dancing and groping to Ponce's Golden Oldies, moved past tables where boys and girls, men and women alike were all miraculously drinking Coca-Cola in bottles, and approached the stool where Gus Mondalvo sat sipping what looked like a lemonade.

"Mr. Mondalvo?" Hawes asked.

Mondalvo kept sipping his drink.

"Police," Hawes said, and flipped a leather case open to show his shield.

There are various ways to express cool when responding to a police presence. One is to feign total indifference to the fact that cops are actually here and may be about to cause trouble. Like "I've been through this a hundred times before, man, and it don't faze me, so what can I do for you?" Another is to display indignation. As, for example, "Do you realize who I am? How dare you embarrass me this way in a public place?" The third is to pretend complete ignorance. Cops.

Are you really cops? Gee. What business on earth could cops possibly have with me?" Mondalvo turned slowly on his stool. "Hi," he said, and smiled.

They had seen it all and heard it all.

This time around, it would be pleasant indifference.

"Mr. Mondalvo," Hawes said, "we understand you worked on the engine of a Cadillac belonging to a Rodney Pratt on Friday, would you remember doing that?"

"Oh, sure," Mondalvo said. "Listen, do you think we'd be more comfortable at a table? Something to drink? A Coke? A ginger ale?"

He slid off the stood to reveal his full height five-six, five-seven, shorter than he'd looked while sitting, a little man with broad shoulders and a waist, sporting a close-cropped haircut and mustache.

Carella wondered if he'd acquired the weight lifter build in prison, and then realized he was someone who was, after all, gainfully employed as automobile mechanic. They moved to a table near the dance floor. Hawes noticed that the club was discreetly and gradually beginning to clear out, slipping into their overcoats and out the door. If a bust was on the cards, nobody wanted to be here when it came down. Some foolhardy couples, enjoying music and maybe even the sense of imminent clan. flitted past on the dance floor, trying to ignore them but everyone knew The Law was here, and sideswiped them with covert glances.

"We'll get right to the point," Carella said. "Did you happen to notice a gun in the glove compartment of that car?"

"I didn't go in the glove compartment," Mondalvo said. "I had to put in a new engine, why would I go in the glove compartment?"

"I don't know. Why would you?"

"Right. Why would I? Is that what this is about?"

"Yes."

"Because I already told Jimmy I didn't know anything about that guy's gun."

"Jimmy Jackson?"

"Yeah, the day manager. He asked me did I see a gun, I told him what gun? I didn't see no gun."

"But you did work on the Caddy all day Friday."

"Yeah. Well not all day. It was a three-, four-hour job. What it was, somebody put styrene in the crankcase."

"So we understand."

"Styrene is what they use to make fiberglass. It's this oily shit you can buy at any marine or boat supply store, people use it to patch their fiberglass boats. But if you want to fuck up a guy's engine, all you do you mix a pint of it with three, four quarts of oil and pour it in his crankcase. The car'll run maybe fifty, sixty miles, a hundred max, before the oil breaks down and the engine binds. Pratt's engine was shot. We had to order a new one for him. Somebody didn't like this guy so much, to do something like that to his car, huh?

Maybe that's why he packed a gun."

Maybe, Carella was thinking.

"Anybody else go near that car while you were working on it?"

"Not that I saw."

"Give us some approximate times here," Hawes said. "When did you start working on it?"

"After lunch sometime Friday. I had a Buick in needed a brake job, and then I had a Beamer had something wrong with the electrical system. I didn't get to the Caddy till maybe twelve-thirty, one o'clock.

That's when I put it up on the lift."

"Where was it until then?"

"Sitting out front. There's like a little parking space out front, near where the air hose is?"

"Was the car locked?"

"I don't know."

"Well, were you the one who drove it into the bay and onto the lift?"

"Yeah."

"So, was the car locked when you…?"

"Come to think of it, no."

"You just got into it without having to unlock the door."

"That's right."

"Was the key in the ignition?"

"No, I took it from the cabinet near the cash register."

"And went to the car…"

"Yeah."

"And found it unlocked."

"Right. I just got in and started it."

"What time did you finish work on it?"

"Around four, four-thirty."

"Then what?"

"Drove it off the lift, parked it outside again."

"Did you lock it?"

"I think so."

"Yes or no? Would you remember?"

"I'm pretty sure I did. I knew it was gonna be outside all night, I'm pretty sure I would've locked it."

"What'd you do with the key after you, locked it?"

"Put it back in the cabinet."

"You weren't there on Thursday night when Mr.

Pratt brought the car in, were you?" Carella asked.

"No, I go home six o'clock. We don't have any mechanics working the night shift. No gas jockeys, either. It's all self-service at night. There's just the night manager there. We mostly sell gas to cabs at night. That's about it."

"What time did you get to work on Friday morning?"

"Seven-thirty. I work along day."

"Who was there when you got there?"

"The day manager and two gas jockeys."

Carella took out the list Ralph had written for him.

"That would be Jimmy Jackson…"

"The manager, yeah."

"Jose Santiago…"

"Yeah." … "And Abdul Sikhar."

"Yeah, the Arab guy."

"See any of them going in that Caddy?"

"No."

"Hanging around it?"

"No. But I have to tell you the truth, I wasn't like watching it every minute, you know? I had work to do."

"Mr. Mondalvo, the gun we're tracing was used in a homicide earlier tonight…"

"I didn't know that," Mondalvo said, and looked around quickly, as if even mere possession of this knowledge was dangerous.

"Yes," Hawes said. "So if you know anything at all…"

"Nothing." … "About that gun, or who might have taken off the cross gun from the car…"

"Nothing, I swear."

"Then you should tell us now. Becaus otherwise…"

"I swear to God," Mondalvo said, and made the sl "Otherwise you'd be an accessory after the fact. Carella said.

"What does that mean?"

"It means you'd be as guilty as whoever pulled the trigger."

"I don't know who pulled any trigger."

Both cops looked at him hard.

"I swear to God," he said again. "I don't know." Maybe they believed him.