Pleading guilty

XIV.

A. The Murder Suspect Friday a.m. I was heading in through the revolving doors of the Needle when a young guy stopped me, pockmarked skin and a slick-backed do and a fancy jacket made from the skin of some creature with a two-chambered heart. Familiar from someplace, like an actor you've seen on TV.

'Mr Malloy?' He flipped his tin at me, and naturally I recognized him then, Pigeyes's wormy companion, Dewey. You guys,' I said.

'Gino'd like a word with you.' I looked in all directions. I didn't believe I could get within one hundred yards of Pigeyes without picking up some sensation of him, like a missile detector homing on infrared. Dewey was indicating the curb where I saw only a rusted conversion van. I asked what would happen if I said no.

'Hey, fella, you do what you wanna do. Me, I wouldn't fuck with him. You're in a lotta deep doo-doo.' Pigeyes was in a mood, Dewey was saying. There was a vaguely plaintive quality to his address. Life forges all kinds of fraternities and Dewey and I were in one of its strangest: partners of Pigeyes. There were only so many people on earth who could understand his plight, and dogmeat or not, I was still one of them. We looked at each other a moment as the Center City crowd scurried past, and then I followed him to the curb and the van, which looked like a weary delivery truck bearing sclerotic rust marks on its rocker panels and six of those grayed-over bubble-type portholes, two in the back and two on each side.

When Dewey opened the rear doors, Pigeyes was inside, along with a black guy, another copper. It was a surveillance van. No way to be sure how long they'd been watching me; long enough to know I wasn't upstairs. They could have followed me from home or, more likely, called Lucinda and learned that I hadn't arrived. There were video cams mounted on swivels over each of the portholes and two rows of recording equipment in small wooden consoles behind the driver's seat. The entire interior had been carpeted in a mangy gray shag, which had matted and worn away on the floor and was marked here and there with cigarette burns. Guys spent long nights in here, begging each other not to fart, watching whoever they watched, dopers or Mafia dons or nuts who'd said they wanted to kill a senator. There were cup holders fixed to the walls and carpeted benches over the wheel wells. Pigeyes was sitting next to the electronics, wearing one of those short-billed county caps. I suppose this was his getup when he was undercover. I nodded rather than use his name and Dewey took my elbow to help me up. Inside, the van smelled of fried food.

I was impressed by Pigeyes's access to this equipment. Surveillance was a separate department unit. When I was on the Force, they would have shitcanned a request for assistance from Financial Crimes faster than junkmail. But Pigeyes sort of had his own police department, his own affiliations and rules. His cousins were coppers and so were two of his brothers, and he had one of 'his guys' as he put it, in every nook and cranny of the Hall. He could fix up any little problem – leave or sick days, expense money to take care of a snitch. Naturally he'd return favors -outside the Force, too, for that matter. The guys he grew up with, fellas who these days were importing tunas stuffed with brown heroin or gambling for a living, were all the time giving him a holler when they got in a jam and Gino'd always help out. No questions asked. The Pigeyes National Bank of Favors Owing and Owed. The only thing I found disconcerting was that he was spending his markers to watch over me.

As soon as I took a seat on the wheel well, Pigeyes was on his feet. Make no mistake, he was unhappy.

'I know one fucking douche bag, Malloy, who isn't as fucking smart as you think you are.' He waited for me to buy the straight line but I wouldn't bite. 'You knew I was sitting on the goddamn credit card, didn't you?'

I looked at the black copper, tall, wearing a tweed jacket and a wool vest but no tie. He was lurking around near the equipment. The van, I would bet, was assigned to him. 'He's having those visions again,' I said.

'Don't smart around.' Pigeyes pointed. 'That's some story he's tellin, this kid. How much did you pay him?'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' but of course I did now. Pigeyes had been tracking Kam Roberts the same way I had – with the Kam Roberts credit card. Being a police officer, and one in Financial Crimes, he had clear advantages. The bank card people needed pals in Financial, guys who'd maybe visit some deadbeat who was twenty grand over his limit to suggest that a payment was due soon, otherwise this could go down as a criminal fraud. Now it was payback. Every time a transaction was posted to Kam Roberts's account, the computer center down in Alabama would call Pigeyes. He could track Kam all over the planet, and when Kam showed up in the tri-counties, Gino could skedaddle over to wherever, collar Kam if he was lucky, or at least ask where Kam had been and what he looked like and tell the store owner, the hotel manager, if this guy or anyone asking for him popped up again, to pronto give Pigeyes a jingle. That, I now realized, was how he'd set up on me at U Inn.

All well and good, but apparently Gino and Dewey had spent the last day chasing all over the North End, exploring a rash of purchases of CD players, high-top sneakers, Starter jackets and video games, receiving consistent descriptions of a thirteen-year-old Latino who was not a twenty-seven-year-old black man with receding hair.

Dewey was using a fingernail to pick at his teeth as the three of them watched me. 'I didn't pay him,' I said.

'Sure you didn't,' said Dewey. 'He says he took your wallet off you while you're passed out in some Chevy near the projects.' 'Sounds right to me.'

'Not to me,' piped in Pigeyes. 'What I hear, you're on the Life Plan down there at AA. They take attendance?'

I looked pretty clever from Pigeyes's perspective. On the street, everyone knows you use a juvenile to do dirty business, because practically speaking, there's no such thing as jail for a kid that age. The gangbangers employ twelve-year-olds to make dope runs, even as triggermen. Pigeyes figured I gave the kid the Kam Roberts card and told him it was Shop-Till-You-Drop or the coppers come round, in which case here's your story.

'You're buying him time to run, Malloy.' I wasn't sure if Gino meant Bert or Kam Roberts, or if they were actually one. 'What's this guy to you?' 'Who?' I asked. 'Who am I looking for, fuckface?' 'Kam Roberts?' I really was guessing.

He mimicked me, a long face, a bit of Brando. ' "Kam Roberts?"' He repeated the name half a dozen times, his voice capering up the scale. Then he turned vicious. There was a rheumy turn to his eyes and something inflamed near the bridge of his nose; I could see why people were talking about Pigeyes and dope. On the other hand, he'd always been fast to anger. 'You fuckin tell me right now where he is. Now.'

'You holding paper on him?' I still wanted to know what it was for, what Kam, whoever he was, was supposed to have done.

'Uh-uh, no way, Malloy. You give, you get. No one-way streets.'

'You have the wrong address, Pigeyes. I don't know a thing about this guy beyond what I told you last time.' I raised two fingers. 'Scout's honor.'

'You know what I think, Malloy. I'm thinkin, you're dirty here.' Pigeyes's instincts were highly reliable and his inclination to view me with suspicion did not need to be explained. ‘I think it's adding up. We been looking for your friend Mr Kamin.' Pigeyes placed his hands on his knees. He put his face right in mine. His breath was heavy; his flesh was laden with a dense, cruel light. 'You wouldn't happen to have been in his apartment in the last couple days?'

I'd known for seventy-two hours this was coming, but the papers were already writing about Archie, and the homicide dicks have all got deals with the reporters -dinner and drinks and spell the name right before the sixth graph – and I thought for sure we'd be hearing an item on News Radio 98, with one of the secretaries scooting down the hall going, Oh my God, did you hear about Bert's place? So this one caught me by surprise.

You probably know it already, U You, but I really am crazy. Saying that, I mean what people usually do, not that I act without reason, but that my reasons, lined up with each other, don't make too much sense. Contradictory, you'd say. In conflict. I'm such a smart-guy who has all the answers, then I whistle in the dark with all these fears racing inside me and, worse yet, pull stunts like breaking into hotel rooms and apartments that would give the heebie-jeebies to the daring young man on the flying trapeze. But now and then even a knucklehead like me gets a wake-up call from reality and without warning I felt, in the radiance of Pigeyes's usual aura of menace, that I was in danger. Somehow with all my preoccupations, my good-time visions about what I'd do when I caught Bert, I hadn't recognized the opportunity I'd handed Gino. I'd known he'd vet me, give me a proctoscope, the third degree. But I had touched a lot of things in Bert's apartment. Doorknobs inside and out. The mail. Homicide was there now, taking lifts off every surface. My sworn enemy, Detective Gino Dimonte, finds a dead body, my prints, and evidence of a lot of peculiar behavior on my part. Guess what comes next? The panic arrived with the same sudden welling power as tears.

'I told you, the guy's my partner. I go to his place all the time.' Gino knew just what I was up to. If I admitted I was in the apartment recently, I'd give him the break-and-enter cold, a forcible felony, and a leg up on the murder, since I put myself close to the body. If I denied it, I'd have no way to explain my prints.

'Bull,' Pigeyes said. 'You're such a pal of his, you know his friends? You know a bookie named Vernon Koechell?' 'No.' 'Never heard of him?' 'Don't know him.' 'That's not what I asked, Malloy.'

I'd been down at the Russian Bath talking about Archie, and it would not take too much bullying to turn somebody's memory around about who'd brought up the name. Pigeyes could monkey with a lot of things, in fact, the evidence techs and the path reports. The people who owed him and played his way were all over the department, and I'd broken their code. A lift off the doorknob could be identified as coming from the refrigerator or the vegetable crisper. My hairs found in the kitchen might eventually appear on Mr Koechell's lapel. I suddenly knew why there'd been no news flash about Archie's body. It would be easy to mum this in the papers, for a few hours anyway, if the coppers needed time to lay hands on the killer. In the folds beneath my chin, I could feel a slick of telltale dampness beginning to gather.

'This bird Koechell – I been looking for him. Did you know that?' 'No.' I was relieved to give one honest answer.

'Some questions I need to ask him about his buddy Kam Roberts.'

In the midst of all this sensation, mixed up and intense, I suddenly knew what Pigeyes was investigating – at least what it had been to start. It came into clear view like a birdie flapping through a cold sky as I recalled my conversation with Toots. Fixing games. Kam Roberts and Archie. That's why it was being looked at out of Financial Crimes instead of Vice. 'Kam's Special – U five.' Bert maybe had been in on this too.

'I got lucky, sort of. One of those good news, bad news things. Run into some rummy asshole I used to know, sort of sweat him a second, and bingo, this guy gives me the name of Robert Kamin, tells me go look for this dude, seems he knows Kam Roberts. And I do. I even take a look round Robert Kamin's place.'

'With a warrant?' I asked. It was a question, an obstacle. The fear was still all over me now, like a brick on my heart.

Pigeyes sneered. 'Listen, jagbag, a warrant for his apartment don't make any difference for you.' We both knew he was right. 'Here. Show him the warrant.'

Dewey reached for a briefcase next to the passenger's seat. I closed my eyes briefly, in spite of myself.

'Now I'm asking you again, Malloy, you didn't happen to be in that apartment, did you?'

I was a copper during those years when it was starting that the police had to give somebody arrested Miranda. I never saw the point. It was a nice idea, I recognized that, put everybody on the same footing, rich guy and poor, they'd all know the same rules. But the problem was human nature, not social class. Because a man in a corner is never going to shut up. If he shuts up, if he says what I knew I should say, call my lawyer, then he's going to the station, he's going to get booked, he's going to court. For a guy in a jam, there's only one way out, to keep explaining, hoping that somehow bullshit buys liberty. 'Pigeyes, what do you think I did?'

'I asked if you were in that apartment.' He pointed at Dewey to make a note. 'That's twice he's not answering.'

'Gino, I'm the guy who gave you Bert's name and told you to go shag him. Write that down,' I said. Dewey, of course, didn't move. 'What kind of sense does that make, if I'm hiding something?' He knew where I was going – if I killed Archie, why would I suggest they go looking for Bert? But I knew the cop answer: If everybody didn't do dumb things, nobody'd get caught.

'Malloy, nothing with you makes sense. You're not a sensible guy. You tell me why you send some punk with pimples on his ass to run all over the city with that fucking credit card? You tell me why the guy I'm looking for and the guy you're looking for got the same names inside out? You tell me why you're looking for this Robert Kamin in the first place? Or how come you don't know nothing about his asshole pal Vernon Koechell? You tell me why you're fronting for this fucking homo?'

Homo. I wasn't making the reference. I didn't know if he meant Archie or Kam or Bert.

'Now maybe,' said Pigeyes, 'third time's the charm. We'll try it again, and listen up. Yes or no. Last few days, were you in that apartment?' I felt like he'd shoved his whole fist into my throat. 'Pigeyes, do I need a lawyer?'

'Hey, I thought you were a lawyer.' All three of them laughed. The black guy covered his face with his hand. My, my, my. He was wearing a square diamond ring that was bright on his fingers. 'See, here's why I ask. Cause I looked all over that place, Kamin's. Checked the dust on the window ledges, postmarks on the mail. I opened the fridge to see any food spoiled, pull date on the milk carton and orange juice. Know what I found?'

'No,' I said. Without looking away from me he pointed at Dewey to make another note. I tried to be resolute but he was drilling holes in my peepers, reading every thought in my head. He knew he had me. He'd seen me frightened before. He knew the look and he savored it. And I knew him too. I'd watched him drag these poor kids into the station for questioning and go put on a stained butcher's apron he kept in his locker, knowing there was nothing these young bloods wouldn't believe about the Kindle police. He had the same expression. He was going to deliver the rabbit punch now, the body, and how the path report, the hair samples, the digestive track enzymes, somehow spelled Malloy. He bent close, he put his harsh face right back in mine. Mr Stranger Danger in person.

'Not a fuckin thing,' he said. 'That's what I found: not a goddamn fuckin thing. This guy's gone two weeks at least. And if you ain't been in that apartment, you tell me how you come up with a credit card that the bank says they only mailed twelve days ago?' He took a real bite on the words and smiled a little bit as he did it. And so did I.

B. He Looks Like Kam Roberts I felt mostly cold in the wake of my panic. I might have belched or sung a song. I felt a little like I could fly. Gino had said, distinctly, that there was nothing in the refrigerator, and so far as I could see, he was having too much fun intimidating me to bother to lie. Who had moved the body and why were questions for later.

Satisfied he had nailed me, Pigeyes stumbled back through the divide between the front seats and sat to have a chuckle; he laughed so hard he held on to his hat. He'd had a great time. His buddies here, Dewey and the black guy, they were smiling right along. Nobody was feeling sorry for Malloy.

Pigeyes finally wiped his eyes. 'Let's be straight guys, okay? I don't give a flying foreign fuck what you're up to, Malloy. Robert Kamin? I don't care if he diddled the senior partner's wife – or the senior partner, for that matter. All I want is this guy Kam Roberts, whoever he is. You gimme that, he gimmes that – Go have your fucking little life. Sincerely.' Gino touched his chest. I thought he was wearing the same shirt he had on the other day. 'You gonna tell me why you need him?' 'You gonna tell where I find him?'

'Gino, I don't know.' He weighed that, the doubt hinged in his eyes. 'I never met the guy in my life. The card gets billed at Kamin's place. Don't ask me why. That's all I know.' That, and Infomode, one or two little things. But they were my business. Besides, who knew better than Pigeyes that sometimes I lie? 'That's it. Okay? You did a great job breaking my balls.' Pigeyes motioned to Dewey. 'Show him.'

Dewey went for the briefcase. They had a sketch. It was on mat board, done with pencil and stored in a little plastic sleeve. Surveillance van. Police artist. Pigeyes had a lot of support. Dewey handed the drawing to me. A black guy, late twenties, nice-looking, receding hair. 'Ever see him?' Dewey asked. And this was the strangest goddamn part. I had. 'I'm not sure,' I said. 'Maybe?'

Where? I would never remember. Not now anyway. If it was coming, it would hit me when I was half asleep, or scratching my fanny, or trying to recollect some clever gambit I had meant to include in a losing brief. Maybe he was the guy at the cleaner or a fella on my bus. But I had seen him. I kept shaking my head. 'This is him? Kam?' Pigeyes rolled his tongue over his teeth. 'Who is he?' he asked.

'Gino, I swear to God, it beats me. I see him on the street, I'll make a citizen's arrest. You're the first guys I call.' 'Would Robert Kamin know?' 'I'll have to ask Robert Kamin next time I see him.' 'When would that be?' 'No telling. He seems to be somewhat indisposed.'

'Yeah, he seems to be.' He shared looks, a smile, with the two other coppers. Finding Bert, I suspected, had recently occupied a lot of their time. 'What about Koechell?' 'Honest to God, I never met him.' I raised a hand. 'Honest. And I have no idea where he is now.' That was true too. Pigeyes contemplated all of this.

'Which one's the homo, by the way?' I asked. 'Koechell?'

Pigeyes put his hands on his knees again, so he could get up in my face. 'Why ain't I surprised that's of interest to you?'

'If you're trying to disparage me, Pigeyes, I'm going to have to call the Human Rights Commission.' We were heading back to where we had been. Fun and games. Gino's bladder had run dry on the hot piss of vengeance for only a moment. The reservoir was filling and he was ready again to lower his fly. It came back to him as the lodestar of his universe: he really did not like me.

'Suppose I tell you,' he said, 'that you could fit a Saturn rocket up Archie Koechell's hind end, you gonna tell me how come you're so curious?'

'I'm just looking for clues to Bert's social life. That's all. Guy's out of pocket. You know that. My partners are worried and asked me to find him.' I gave an innocent little shrug.

'You find him, I wanna know. He talks to me about Kam, he can go home. But you screw around, Malloy, it's the whole load: break and enter, credit card fraud, false personation. I'll fuck you up bad, big guy. And don't think I won't enjoy it.'

I knew better than that. Dewey opened the van door from inside and I stepped down to the street, enjoying the daylight and the cold, the greatness of all outdoors. Twice now, I thought, two miracles. I spoke words of thanks to Elaine. Pigeyes had let me go.