87th Precinct - The Last Dance Part 4

"At least two mills."

"Would've knocked him out in half an hour. It's supposed to be ten times stronger than Valium, no taste, no odor. You really never heard of it?"

"Never," Carella said.

"It's also called the Date-Rape drag," Meyer said. "When it first got popular in Texas, kids were using it to boost a heroin high or cus.h.i.+on a cocaine crash. Then 35.Ed McBain some cowboy discovered if he dropped a two-mill tab in a girl's beer, it had the same effect as if she drank a six-pack. In ten, twenty minutes, she's feeling no pain. She loses all inhibitions, blacks out, and wakes up the next morning with no memory of what happened."

"Sounds like science-fiction," Carella said.

"Small white tablet," Meyer said, "you can either dissolve it in a drink or snort it. Ruffles is another name. The Forget Pill, too. Or Roofenol. Or Rib. Costs three, four bucks a tab."

"Thanks for the input," Carella said.

The men were on their way to Andrew Male's bank.

They were now in possession of a court order authorizing them to open his safe deposit box. Inside that box, by Cynthia Keating's own admission, there was an insurance policy on her father's life. Her husband had also told them that his law firm was in possession of her father's will, which left to husband and wife all of the old man's earthly possessions-which did not amount to a h.e.l.l of a lot. A pa.s.sbook they'd found in the apartment showed a bank balance of $2,476.12. The old man had also owned a collection of 78 rpm's dating back to the thirties and forties, none of them rare, all of them swing hits of the day-Benny Goodman, Harry James, Glenn Miller-played and replayed over and over again until the sh.e.l.lac was scratched and the grooves worn. There were a few books in the apartment as well, most of them dog-eared paperbacks. There was an eight-piece setting of inexpensive silver plate.

True enough, in a city where a five-dollar bill in a tattered billfold was often cause enough for murder, these belongings alone might have provided motive. But not for two people as well off as the Keatings. Besides, this had not been a case of someone choosing a random victim on the street and then popping him, something that happened all the time. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble 36.here, first drugging the old man and next hanging him. The prize had to be worth the trouble.

Carella pulled the car into a No Parking zone in front of the bank. He flipped down his visor to show the pink police paper that normally warned off any cop on the beat, and then stepped out of the car and dashed through the rain toward the front of the bank, Meyer pounding along behind him.

Their court order opened the dead man's safe deposit box, and sure enough, they found an insurance policy for $25,000, with Andrew Male's daughter and son-in-law listed as sole beneficiaries. The policy did, in fact, contain a suicide exclusion clause: Section 1.5 SUICIDE If the insured dies by suicide within one year from the Date of Issue, the amount payable by the Company will be limited to the premiums paid. But the policy had been issued almost ten years ago.

Thursday night was the night in question.

According to what Cynthia Keating had told them, she'd spoken to her father at nine that night, and had found him hanging dead at nine-thirty or so the next morning. A check with the telephone company confirmed that she had indeed called his number at 9:07 the night before, and had spent two minutes on the phone with him. This did not preclude her later taking the subway across the river and into the trees, going up to his apartment, dropping a few pills in his wine or his beer or his bottled water, and then hanging him over a hook.

But- Cynthia maintained that after having telephoned her father, she had gone to meet her girlfriend Josie at the movie theater a block from her apartment and together 37.Ed McBain they had seen a movie that started around 9:15 and ended around 11:45, after which she and her friend Josie had gone for tea and scones at a little snack bar called Westmore's. She had returned home at around twelve-thirty, and had not left the apartment again until the next morning at around twenty to nine, at which time she had taken the subway across the river, and walked to her father's apartment, only to find Dad, poor Dad, hanging in the closet, and I'm feeling so bad. The movie she'd seen was part of a Kurosawa retrospective. It was t.i.tled High and Low, and it was based on a novel by an American who wrote cheap mysteries. A call to the theater confirmed the t.i.tle of the film and the start and finish times. A call to her girlfriend Josie Gallitano confirmed that she had accompanied Cynthia to the movie and had later enjoyed a cup of tea and a chocolate-covered scone with her. Cynthia's husband, as was to be expected, confirmed that he had found her asleep in bed when he got home from a poker game at around one o'clock. She had not left the apartment again that night.

There had been six other men in that poker game. Keating claimed that the game had started at eight o'clock and ended at around a quarter past midnight. The six other men confirmed that he had been there during the times he'd stated. His wife, as was to be expected, confirmed that he'd come home at around one A.M., and had not left the apartment again that night.

It appeared to the detectives that their two prime suspects had airtight alibis and that whoever had dropped Rohypnol into Andrew Male's drink and draped him over a closet hook was still out there boogying someplace.

At Hale's funeral on Sunday morning, they listened to a minister who had never met the man telling his sole remaining relatives what a fine and upstanding 38.human being he'd been. Cynthia Keating and her husband Robert listened dry-eyed. It was still raining when the first shovelful of earth was dumped onto Male's simple wooden casket.

It was as if he had never existed.

From home that Sunday night, Carella called Danny Gimp.

"Danny?" he said. "It's Steve."

"Hey, Steve," Danny said. "Whatta ya hear?"

This was a joke. Danny Gimp was an informer. He- and not Carella-was the one who heard things and pa.s.sed them on. For money. The men didn't exchange any niceties. Carella got right down to business.

"Old guy named Andrew Hale . . ."

"How old?" Danny asked.

"Sixty-eight."

"Ancient," Danny said.

"Got himself aced Thursday night."

"Where?"

"Apartment off Currey Yard."

"What time?"

"ME puts it around midnight. But you know how accurate PMFs are."

"How'd he catch it?"

"Hanged. But first he was doped with a drug called Rohypnol. Ever hear of it?"

"Sure."

"You have?"

"Sure," Danny said.

"Anyway," Carella said, "the only two people who had any reason to want him dead have alibis a mile long. We're wondering if maybe they knew somebody handy with a noose."

"Uh-huh."

39.Ed McBain "He's a lawyer . . ."

"The dead man?"

"No. One of the suspects."

"A criminal lawyer?"

"No. But he knows criminal lawyers."

"That doesn't mean he knows. .h.i.t men."

"It means there could've been access."

"Okay."

"Ask around, Danny. There's twenty-five grand in insurance money involved here."

"That ain't a lot."

"I know. But maybe it's enough."

"Well, let me go on the earie, see what's what."

"Get back to me, okay?"

"If I hear anything."

"Even if you don't."

"Okay," Danny said, and hung up.

He did not get back to Carella until the following Sunday night, the seventh of November. By that time, the case was stone cold dead.

Danny came limping into the place he himself had chosen for the meet, a pizzeria on Culver and Sixth. The collar of his threadbare coat was pulled high against the wind and the rain. A long, college-boy, striped m.u.f.fler was wrapped around his neck, and he was wearing woolen gloves. He peered around the place as if he were a spy coming in with nuclear secrets. Carella signaled to him. A scowl crossed Danny's face.

"You shouldn't do that," he said, sliding into the booth. "Bad enough I'm meeting you in a public place."

Carella was willing to forgive Danny his occasional irritability. He had never forgotten that Danny had come to the hospital when he'd got shot for the first time in his professional life. It had not been an easy thing for Danny 40.to do; police informers do not last long on the job once it is known they are police informers. Danny's eyes were darting all over the place now, checking the perimeter. He himself had chosen the venue, but he seemed disturbed by it now, perhaps because it was unexpectedly crowded at nine A.M. on a Monday morning. Who the h.e.l.l expected people eating pizza for breakfast? But he couldn't go to the station house, and he didn't want Carella to come to his s.h.i.+tty little room over on the South Side because to tell the truth, it embarra.s.sed him. Danny had known better times.

He was thinner than Carella had ever seen him, his eyes rheumy, his nose runny. He kept taking paper napkins from the holder on the table, blowing his nose, crumpling the napkins and stuffing them into the pockets of his coat, which he had not yet removed. He did not look healthy. But more than that, he looked unkempt, odd for a man who'd always prided himself on what he considered sartorial elegance. Danny needed a shave. Soiled s.h.i.+rt cuffs showed at the edges of his ragged coat sleeves. His face was dotted with blackheads, his fingernails edged with grime. Sensing Carella's scrutiny, he said in seeming explanation, "The leg's been bothering me."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, it still bothers me. From when I got shot that time."

"Uh-huh."

Actually, Danny had never been shot in his life. He limped because he'd had polio as a child. But pretending he'd been wounded in a big gang shoot-out gave him a certain street cred he considered essential to the gathering of incidental information. Carella was willing to forgive him the lie.

"You want some pizza?" he asked.

"Coffee might be better," Danny said, and started to rise.

BMiimCi Ed McBain "Sit," Carella said, "I'll get it. You want anything with it?"

"The pastry looks good," Danny said. "Bring me one of them chocolate things, okay?"

Carella went up to the counter and came back some five minutes later with two chocolate eclairs and two cups of coffee. Danny was blowing on his hands, trying to warm them. A constant flow of traffic through the entrance doors and past the counter kept bringing in the cold from outside. He picked up his coffee cup, warmed his hands on that for a while. Carella bit into his chocolate eclair. Danny bit into his. "Oh, Jesus," he said, "that is delicious," and took another bite. "Oh, Jesus," he said again.

"So what've you got?" Carella asked.

$25,000 was a big-enough prize in a city where you could buy anyone's dead a.s.s for a subway token. If Robert Keating and his wife Cynthia had been otherwise engaged while her father was being hoisted and hanged, the possibility existed that they'd hired someone to do the job for them. In this city, you could get anything done to anybody for a price. You want somebody's eyegla.s.ses smashed? You want his fingernails pulled out? His legs broken? You want him more seriously injured? You want him hurt so he's an invalid the rest of his life? You want him skinned, you want him burned, you want him-don't even mention it in a whisper-killed! It can be done. Let me talk to someone. It can be done.

"I've got quite a lot, actually," Danny said, seemingly more involved in his eclair than in doing business. "Oh really?" Carella said.

On the phone last night, Danny had said only that he'd come up with something interesting. This morning, it seemed to be more than that. But perhaps this was just the prelude to negotiation.

Actually, Danny knew that what he had was very good 42.stuff. So good, in fact, that it might be worth more money than Carella was used to paying. He hated negotiating with someone he considered an old friend, though he was never quite sure Carella shared the sentiment. At the same time, he didn't want to pa.s.s on information that could conceivably lead to a bust in a murder case, and then have Carella toss fifty bucks or so across the table. This was too good for that kind of chump change.

"I know who did it," he said, flat out.

Carella looked surprised.

"Yeah, I got lucky," Danny said, and grinned. His teeth looked bad, too. He was clearly not taking good care of himself.

"So let me hear it," Carella said.

"I think this is worth at least what the killer got," Danny said, lowering his voice.

"And how much is that?"

"Five grand," Danny said.

"You're joking, right?"

"You think so?" Danny said.

Carella did not think so.

"I'd have to clear that kind of money with the lieutenant," he said.

"Sure, clear it. But I don't think this guy's gonna hang around very long."

"What can I tell him?"

"Who?"

"My lieutenant."

Five thousand was a lot of money to hand over to an informer. The squadroom slush fund sometimes rose higher than that, depending on what contributions went into it in any given month. n.o.body asked questions about a few bucks that disappeared during drug busts. .h.i.ther and yon, provided the money went into what was euphemistically called "The War Chest". But a big drug intercept on the docks downtown had slowed traffic in the precinct 43.Ed McBam these past two months, and Carella wondered now if there was that much contingency cash lying around. He further wondered if the lieutenant would turn over that kind of money to a stoolie. Danny's information would have to be pure gold to justify such an outlay.

"Tell him I know who did it and I know where he is," he said. "If that ain't worth five grand, I'm in the wrong business."

"How'd you get this?" Carella asked.

"Fellow I know."

"How'd he get it?"

"Straight from the horse's mouth."

"Give me something I can run with."

"Sure," Danny said. "Your man was in a poker game."

"You talking about Robert Keating?" Carella said, surprised.

"No. Who's Robert Keating?"

"Then who do you mean?"