Bruce DeSilva - A Scourge of Vipers

Nothing.

Had Parisi found Romeo Alfano dead? Probably. Had he killed him for the money? Until now, I wouldn’t have believed he was capable of murder.

I twisted around in the seat. As usual, Allens Avenue was nearly deserted at this time of night. Only one car was behind us now, and it had fallen back about a hundred yards.

Parisi turned left into a cluster of unlit waterfront warehouses. Some of them were abandoned, and at this hour, all of them were empty. He punched the headlights off and drove slowly toward the water, the car rocking over pavement riddled with potholes.

“You haven’t thought this through,” I said.

“I think everything through.”

Not this time, I thought, but I kept that to myself.

It was a black night, so dark that I could barely see the outlines of the warehouses against an overcast sky. Parisi braked to a stop, shoved the car into park, opened his door, and climbed out. It was so quiet that I could hear the waters of upper Narragansett Bay lap against the shore.

He pulled my Kel-Tec from his jacket pocket and opened the back door on the driver’s side. He was going to shoot me with my own gun.

I was on the verge of panic now. I took two deep breaths, and it helped a little.

“Get out of the car.”

“No.”

“Do it!”

I retreated to the passenger side and swung my legs onto the backseat, my cuffed hands trapped beneath me.

“If you’re going to shoot me, you’re going to have to do it right here.”

“You think I won’t?”

“I think you’ll have a hell of a time explaining the blood spatter on the backseat.”

“I’ll clean it up.”

“You’ll never get all of it, Captain. There’ll always be a trace.”

“Get out of there, or I’ll drag you out.”

I had a dozen years, four inches, and thirty pounds on him. I didn’t think he was up to it. He hesitated a beat, then decided that he was. He transferred my gun to his left fist, leaned in, and grabbed my left ankle with his right hand.

I kicked him square in the face with my right foot.

His nose exploded.

The gun discharged.

For a moment, I thought I was dead; but the round had gone wild, crashing through the window behind me.

Suddenly, two flashlight beams lit us up.

“Providence PD. Drop your weapon.”

The order resonated in two-part harmony, the sweetest sound I’d heard since Yolanda played Norah Jones for me.

“Down on your knees, hands behind your head.”

I swung my feet to the floor, stuck my head out the door, and saw Parisi kneeling on the pavement. Freitas and Wargart stood over him, their guns drawn. Wargart swung his pistol my way.

“Get out of the car and drop to your knees.”

“He was going to kill me,” I said.

“That’s a lie,” Parisi said.

“Just do it, Mulligan,” Freitas said. “By and by, we’ll all pop into the station for a nice little chat. See if we can get this thing sorted out.”

Freitas covered us while Wargart cuffed Parisi. Ten minutes later, a squad car with two patrolmen inside pulled up. Wargart shoved Parisi into the backseat, and we watched it roll away. The homicide twins holstered their weapons, gripped my arms, and led me through the gloom, lighting the way with their flashlights. They’d left their car near the street.

It was a gray Honda Civic.

Wargart shoved me into the backseat and climbed in beside me as Freitas took the wheel.

“Where’s your Crown Vic?” I asked.

“At the station,” Wargart said.

“Where’d you get this heap?”

“Borrowed it from impound. Been using it for undercover.”

“For tailing me, you mean.”

“From time to time.”

“Why?”

“We thought you’d eventually lead us to the rest of Alfano’s money.”

“So why were you following Parisi tonight?”

“We weren’t. We were sitting on your Mustang outside the Omni. When Parisi grabbed you, we decided to tag along. See what was up.”

“Lucky for me,” I said.

At the station, the homicide twins escorted me to an interrogation room, removed Parisi’s handcuffs, and recuffed me with my hands in front. Then they nudged me into a chair, locked me inside the room, and swaggered off to get Parisi’s side of the story. I figured they’d be gone for an hour or two. But in five minutes they were back.

“Parisi must have lawyered up,” I said.

“Good guess,” Freitas said.

“Going to read me my rights?”

“Why would we do that?” Wargart said. “I thought you were claiming to be the victim here.”

“I’ve got nothing to say until I speak with my lawyer.”

Yolanda stormed in a half hour later, kicked the homicide twins out, sat across the interrogation table from me, and took notes as I spilled my story. When I was done, and she finally looked up, her face was a battlefield of fear and suppressed rage. She reached into her bag for a tissue to wipe tears from her eyes.

“I almost lost you tonight.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

She reached across the table and held my cuffed hands in hers for a moment. Then she regained her composure, summoned the homicide dicks, and stood in the corner while I answered a barrage of hostile questions.

“That’s quite a tale,” Wargart finally said.

“It’s not a tale,” Yolanda said. “Charge him or release him.”

“We’re gonna need more time to sort this out,” Wargart said. “So for the time being, we’re charging him with possession of stolen goods.”

“Stolen goods?” Yolanda said. “What stolen goods?”

“The money we found in his apartment,” Freitas said.

“That was planted,” Yolanda said.

“We don’t know that,” Freitas said.

“Can you hold Parisi as well?” Yolanda asked.

“For illegally discharging a firearm,” Freitas said. “It’s a bullshit charge, but it will have to do for now.”

I spent the next three days in a holding cell.

Late Thursday afternoon, the homicide twins cut me loose without an explanation or apology. When I walked out of the station house, I found Yolanda waiting at the door. She hugged me hard and drove me to the Omni to pick up Mister Ed. Three parking tickets were tucked under the wipers.

That evening she cooked for me again. This time, the music was by Michael Bublé, but the dinner conversation was all business.

“Parisi has been charged with kidnapping and attempted murder,” she said.

“Can they make it stick? It’s just my word against his.”

“They’ve got more than that,” she said. “For one thing, he broke into your apartment before he scooped you up and left a suicide note on your computer.”

“How can they be sure he wrote it?”

“One of your neighbors spotted him sneaking down the fire escape. The time stamp on the note is a match for the time and date.”

“Have you seen the note?”

“No, but Freitas pulled me aside and described what was in it.”

“Tell me.”

“You confessed to killing Romeo Alfano and stealing the two hundred grand. You knew the cops had found some of the money in your apartment, and you felt the walls closing in. You didn’t see any way out. So you decided to take your own life.”

“Anything else?”

“He included a sorrowful farewell to the woman you love.”

“That would be you,” I said.

“So I’ve heard.”

“Okay,” I said. “Now I get how he was planning to get away with it. He was going to say that he picked me up for questioning and then cut me loose. His questions panicked me, so I wandered down to the waterfront and shot myself with my gun.”

“Sounds about right.”