Speak of the Devil

41

THE LITTLE GIRL IN THE BAGGAGE-CLAIM AREA LOOKED SO MUCH LIKE Shirley Temple that I did no fewer than three double takes. The mass of ringlets, the bright, intelligent eyes, the swollen-apple cheeks. She wore a short bell-shaped plaid dress and shiny black shoes, and I had no trouble imagining her hoofing it up the stairs to the arrivals hall with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson himself. Her mother was somewhat less glamorous. Around five foot four, she had her daughter’s cheeks, though to less cute effect. No ringlets, and her face was etched with anticipation. The two were each wearing an oversize button with the face of a young bristle-headed man posing in front of an American flag. As the passengers began descending the stairs into the baggage area, the mother reached into her purse and handed her daughter a small American flag on a stick. Little Shirley Temple began jumping up and down; she could barely contain herself.

Me, I was able to contain myself. Airports generally put me to sleep. I positioned myself behind the phalanx of limo drivers who stood holding handwritten signs for the arriving passengers. BENNETT. FISK. WELCH. DALY. I spotted a discarded sign sticking out of a nearby trash bin and fetched it on a whim. I asked one of the drivers if I could borrow his Magic Marker, and I scribbled DORIS DAY on the back of the sign. A few minutes later, a real Shirley appeared. I spotted her as she was coming down the stairs. She was walking alongside a young serviceman on a pair of crutches. I recognized his face. The two were laughing about something. The little girl darted forward, waving her flag and shrieking. The serviceman gave my mother a quick nod and hopped on one foot quickly down the rest of the stairs, letting his crutches drop to the side as he leaned down to scoop his daughter up into his arms.

My mother turned and spotted me. Her face opened in a frozen laugh. “Ha! Doris Day! In your dreams.”

I came forward and gave her a peck on the forehead. “Welcome home.”

“You’re cute, in your way, but where’s Rock Hudson?”

“Rock’s dead.”

“Gay, too. How many times is one man going to break your mother’s heart?” She raised a warning finger. “Don’t answer that.”

“You’re looking good,” I said, lifting her bag from her shoulder and slinging it over mine. “California must agree with you.”

“It does. The people are as batty as they come, but they seem to be enjoying themselves. Half the girls are made of silicone, but they seem to be enjoying themselves, too. Tell you the truth, I couldn’t live there.” She flashed me a smile. “But I enjoyed myself.” She gave me the once-over. “Say, you’re looking nice and formal. This must be what it’d be like to have a lawyer for a son.”

“They’re burying Tommy this afternoon,” I said.

She caught her breath. “Ah, Jesus. Tommy Carroll. Between your father and Tommy, that job’s not holding such a good track record, is it? At least Tommy gets a full-fledged funeral. At least that.”

“Let’s get your suitcase.”

We waited a few rounds at the carousel before her bag finally showed. The soldier with the crutches was standing nearby, his wife and his daughter hanging all over him. Shirley indicated him as I stepped forward to fetch her bag. “We were seated together. He told me I was pretty.”

“Did you ask him, or did he just volunteer it?”

“What do you mean, did I ask him? Christ, you’re a rotten son. He said I have nice eyes.”

“You do. He’s right. There’s no green greener than the emerald green.”

She made a soft clucking sound. “I could use a drink.”

“Let’s get into the city. I thought maybe you’d want to go to Tommy’s funeral.”

I wasn’t just humoring her. About the eyes, I mean. They were still plenty sharp, plenty arresting. The old man used to wax like Yeats about Shirley Malone’s eyes. And his blood wasn’t even Irish.

“I see you let the place fall to hell without me.”

“It’s a tough old town,” I said. “It bounces back.”

She glanced quickly over at the soldier, then back at me. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

A MASSIVE POLICE SWEEP OF ANYONE WHO HAD EVER EVEN PRONOUNCED the name Angel Ramos had been launched within an hour of his death. Immunities, bargains and outright bribes were all employed. Sometime around three o’clock in the morning, Philip Byron had been located-alive-chained to an overturned washing machine in the basement of an abandoned row house about a mile from the Flea Club. He was dehydrated and suffering from almost no sleep in over seventy-two hours. He was taken immediately to the hospital for treatment. The infection that had set in on his mutilated hand was not as bad as it might have been. He made a brief nonspeaking appearance on television from his hospital bed, giving a wan thumbs-up with his good hand. The doctors expected a full recovery.

Patrick Noon pulled through as well. Tommy Carroll’s bullet had shattered a rib and damaged a lung, but Noon was out of the hospital in a few days. Leonard Cox also survived his wounds. He was absent four feet of his small intestine, and he’d be in the market for a new kneecap, but the prognosis was that he would live to see both his trial and the many, many years of prison time that likely stretched beyond that.

I’d huddled for two days with Remy Sanchez and lawyers from the district attorney’s office and laid out for them all that I knew or presumed I knew concerning Margaret King, Leonard Cox, Roberto Diaz, Angel Ramos, Tommy Carroll and Mayor Martin Leavitt. I was, may I say, the center of attention.

When it became clear that Cox was going to survive his wounds, I suggested a tactic that was debated for several hours and finally agreed upon. I proposed that Cox not be informed of Tommy Carroll’s suicide. He was kept away from radio and television and newspapers and from all personal visitors. His lawyers cried foul and declared that their client was also being kept away from his civil rights. Cox’s doctors announced-per instruction-that the health of their patient required this near-complete isolation and that yes, they would duly testify to that effect in court if requested to do so.

Apparently, the health of their patient did allow him extensive visits from a particular Hispanic police captain. Remy Sanchez informed Cox that Tommy Carroll was not only alive but singing a most fascinating tune. Perhaps, Sanchez suggested, Cox would like to gargle some salt water and weigh in with a tune of his own.

“He thought he was singing a duet,” Sanchez informed me over drinks at McHale’s after a long session at Cox’s hospital bedside. “But it was pure solo.”

According to Sanchez, it was a strong performance. Cox set his sights on Police Commissioner Tommy Carroll. He was under the impression that by handing over Carroll, he was to receive substantial leniency in his own case. “Gosh, I don’t know where he got that impression,” Sanchez said. “He might claim it came from me, but I guess a guy in his position-all that medication and pain and everything-sometimes they just hear things.”

Cox explained that it was Angel Ramos who had murdered Officer Thomas Cash out at the Brooklyn junkyard. Cash had arranged to meet with Ramos and had been wired to record their conversation in hopes of gathering information on his own partner, Jay Pearson, who was in thick with Angel. Or so said Cox. What Cash hadn’t known was that word had leaked to Pearson about Cash becoming a stoolie, so Pearson had directed Ramos to take the officer out. Ramos did. Somehow he managed to wrest Cash’s own service revolver from him and fired twice into the man’s heart. Pearson then appeared on the scene. Cox’s guess was that Pearson was planning to kill Ramos, thus mopping up two potential problems at once. But Ramos caught the drift and shot Jay Pearson point-blank in the forehead. Angel fled. Cox and McNally answered the 911 call about shots being fired in the junkyard, and while Cox was attempting CPR on Cash, he discovered the wire. He removed the wire and the recorder while McNally was off radioing for assistance.

“Cox had the whole damn thing on tape,” Sanchez told me. “I.A. was taking gas. They knew Cash was wearing the wire, and they knew it was missing when Cash’s body got to the hospital. Because Ramos had used a service revolver on both men, Cox convinced McNally that they should rig the scene to look like a murder-suicide. No one really bought it. Cox swapped Pearson’s and Cash’s guns around, since Cash’s gun was the one that had been fired. He put the gun in Pearson’s hand and fired it into the ground, to get prints and residue. That was picked up on right away-the gun switch. The whole scene just didn’t quite fit right. It was a hack job. They let the story go out there anyway. They decided two ‘bad’ cops taking their own justice was better than a double cop killer on the loose.

“Carroll knew Cox. Cox’s old man had been with homicide out in Brooklyn, and Carroll had tracked the son’s career, especially once it became clear that the son was going sour. Cox says that Carroll contacted him about a month ago. He said he wanted him to recruit a lowlife to take a shot at someone during the Thanksgiving parade. Just to shake things up, Cox says. Just to get the city on edge. He said he had fifty thousand dollars to play with.

“Cox knew immediately who his man was. He had the tape recording of Angel Ramos taking out not one but two New York City cops. Between the squeeze and the money, Ramos was an easy recruit. Cox told Carroll about Angel Ramos and added that Ramos had picked up some rudimentary bomb-making skills at Incarceration U. That’s what got Carroll thinking on a larger scale. Ramos brought in Diaz to do the parade hit. The idea was that Cox and McNally would nab Diaz and whisk him away in the patrol car, presumably to let him escape later. That was crap, of course. It was just the way to let Diaz think he was safe. Diaz was an idiot. They were going to kill Diaz no matter what. According to Cox, though, it was Carroll who shot Diaz at the Municipal Building. Shooting McNally at the parade had not been part of the plan, and Carroll was furious. He personally took Diaz out for it. Then Ramos left the bomb at Barrymore’s that night. It was supposed to be a small bomb, just a little flame-up, it wasn’t necessarily supposed to kill anyone. Then Ramos did that nun act you told me about when he dropped off the next note. Sometime after he left the note at the convent in Riverdale, he went free agent. He nabbed Byron and decided to take over the game. From that point on, according to Cox, Carroll’s orders were to find Ramos and kill him on the spot.”

Sanchez added an extra matter that I had already figured out by then. According to Cox, his instructions as of the morning I went up to Riverdale and spoke with Sister Natividad had been to take me out as well. Carroll could see that I was beginning to deduce that Margaret King was somehow pivotal. He feared that I’d uncover why Leavitt was being blackmailed and, eventually, who was behind it. I suppose it’s nice to know that the commissioner thought so highly of my skills.

It was Charlie who explained to me that when Carroll showed up at the house, the visit had been presented as a general query as to where I was in my investigation. As Carroll had said, he knew I’d be sharing whatever I was learning with Charlie. If it appeared that I had already shared too much, Carroll would decide how to proceed with Charlie. When Margo stumbled onto the scene with Donna Bia’s cell phone, Carroll’s dilemma doubled. According to Margo, it was when Carroll saw me on television from Pier 17-alive-that he ordered her at gunpoint to call me. No fool, Tommy. He knew I’d come flying.

SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT WOMEN TAKING FOREVER TO GET DRESSED to go out; Shirley Malone wasn’t issued that chip. I dropped her off in front of her building, and by the time I’d located a parking spot two blocks away and made my way back to her place, she was waiting at the curb looking like the widow Jackie Kennedy herself. Well, as skinny, anyway. I made her go back inside and take off the veil. There are a lot of good things I can say about the woman, but you do have to keep an eye on her. It’s just her temperament that she has a tendency to want to upstage.

My mother’s apartment is located on Forty-eighth Street, a few doors in from Eleventh. We walked over to the Church of the Sacred Heart on Fifty-first near Tenth. There was already a large crowd milling about outside the church. As many were onlookers and press as were actually there for Tommy Carroll’s funeral service. My mother had her arm looped through mine, and I felt it stiffen when she spotted Phyllis Scott emerging from a limo, followed by her son, Paul.

Shirley muttered, “Brunhilde and the pussycat.” She stopped and produced a mirror and took a few pokes at her makeup. Phyllis and Paul made their way into the church without seeing us.

“I’m going to park you inside,” I said. “I’ve got a little business to attend to.”

“What sort of business?”

“Man stuff.”

“Can I watch?”

I got her settled into a pew on the aisle about halfway down. Tommy’s flag-draped casket was already positioned in the front of the church. The place was abuzz with low murmuring. My mother crossed herself and crawled onto the prayer bench. I noticed that there was a run going up the back of one of her stockings.

I continued to the front of the church and paused in front of Tommy’s casket for as long as I could manage. Just how many police commissioner memorials is a person expected to attend in one lifetime? I moved over to the front pew and spent a few minutes with Betsy Carroll. She was holding up well enough.

“Bastard went out with his boots on,” she said to me in a soft hoarse voice.

The press had been lavishing praise on the life and career of Tommy Carroll over the past several days. The impending ravages of his inoperable cancer were the explanation so far as to why the police commissioner had taken his own life. The smarter of the reporters sensed that there was a larger story to be told. I doubted they had any clue as to exactly how large. Soon enough they would.

“We’ll get him into the ground,” I said to Betsy. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a short-lived peace.”

She understood. Her husband’s pathetically desperate hopes of going out with a clean legacy weren’t going to be realized.

“He panicked,” she said. “Big strong man like that. But in the end, he panicked.”

I said nothing. She was right. Pride and fear. As far as I was concerned, making things right by Margaret King was simply how Tommy Carroll had attempted to justify his actions. Possibly in his own mind, he had believed in those motives. Maybe he had truly convinced himself. But ultimately, it was his determination not to allow Martin Leavitt to set the terms of his final public moment that had stuck in his craw. That was clear from the night I had seen him at home. That was what he couldn’t stomach, and it was what had brought him to his poisonous decisions.

Betsy looked past me at her husband’s casket. “What about that other thing?”

“I’m going to check on that right now,” I said. “We’re doing our best.”

“I know Tommy doesn’t deserve it, but I still hope-”

I cut her off. “We’ll just have to see.”

As I headed to the front of the church, I spotted my half sister. Elizabeth was crouched down in the aisle, talking with my mother.

Sanchez and I met outside the church. As planned. As I approached him, he gave a nod. “It’s done. We’re ready to roll.”

As if on cue, there was a burping of police sirens and a black limousine was escorted to the open spot cordoned off by traffic cones directly in front of the church. The first to get out of the back was the mayor. He blinked a smile at the crowd, then turned to help Rebecca Gilpin make her way out of the car. Her maneuvering was made a little difficult on account of her crutches. The crutches were a deep maroon, matching the large clip half buried in her hair. The actress gave her high-wattage smile, then seemed to remember where she was and settled her features into pleasant repose.

Sanchez took a breath. “Here goes.”

Before he had taken two steps, a figure came out of the crowd and planted herself in front of the couple. It was Tommy Carroll’s assistant, Stacy. She said nothing. She simply stood there, her arms crossed loosely, and gave the mayor a withering look. Leavitt was clearly taken aback for several seconds, then found his footing.

“Um, Rebecca, I’d like you to meet Stacy…” He hesitated on the last name. “Kendall. Stacy worked very closely with Tommy. Stacy, this is-”

She cut him off. “I know who she is.” Her normally monotonous voice wavered. “Does she know who I am?”

Leavitt’s mouth opened, but for once there were no ready words.

Rebecca smiled sweetly. “Well, who are you, dear?”

Stacy’s answer came in a hiss. “I’m you.” She glared at Leavitt. “Except I guess I’m stupider.”

Rebecca turned to Leavitt. “What?” Leavitt’s face was nearly the color of the crutches. The sweet smile had drained from the actress’s face.

Leavitt sputtered. “S-she’s upset.”

Rebecca gave him a withering look of her own. Stacy glanced over at Sanchez. Something in her eyes told me. She knew already. Friends in the right places. Sanchez came forward. As far as I could remember, this was the first time I’d ever seen an arrest come as a rescue.

“Mr. Mayor?” said Sanchez. “I need to see you for a moment.”

Leavitt’s response came out angrily. “What is it?”

“Sir? I think in private would be better.” Sanchez tapped his fingers against his lapel.

Leavitt still hadn’t caught on. “What is it, Captain?”

Sanchez kept a low, steady voice. “It’s a warrant, sir. For your arrest. Multiple counts.”

“My- I’m giving Commissioner Carroll’s eulogy, Captain.”

My cue. I stepped closer. “Actually, Mrs. Carroll says she would prefer it if you didn’t,” I said. “Sir.”

The mayor grew bug-eyed. He was staring at Remy Sanchez’s lapel. Maybe he could see the slight bulge of the warrant. “But… but it’s been arranged.”

“It’s been unarranged,” I said. “It’s what the widow prefers. Tommy will receive a perfectly fine send-off, nothing to worry about.” Lord help me, I couldn’t keep the shit-eating grin off my face. “Sir.”