Jerry Labriola - Murders at Hollings General

They reached the leveling-off point of the district, the center park, the hub from which all cracked, ice-heaved roads radiated. It was a container for broken benches, bottles and cement walkways submerged in dirt and yellow grass, compressed weeds that no one had bothered trimming. Peeling tenement houses with open stairwells cluttered the corners and back edges beyond a ring of storefronts, half of them vacant. David saw few people, fewer cars and no patrol cops.

"Where is everybody?" he asked, pulling over to a curb and turning off the ignition.

"They're around. In the bars. In their rooms-sleeping, or shooting up or turning tricks. And the street dealers are here, too. I don't know who they are any more but you can bet they're here, crawling the back alleys, counting their bread. So are their suppliers. Little higher up, but they're here, more out in the open though-maybe running the butcher shop or the cleaners, or something like that."

"Shouldn't they be the ones we show the pictures to?" David knew enough about drug hierarchies to understand that the individuals of "Suspect-6" wouldn't deal directly with lowlifes or street peddlers, but with the mid-levelers.

"We could do it that way, but my buddy over at that first bar we passed? He's the guy who'd be just as good as all of `em put together. Get my drift?"

"How reliable is he?"

"Meaning?"

David reached around to the back seat for Friday. He removed an envelope of photos he had picked up at Kathy's office: Foster, Corliss, Sparky, Nick. He shuffled through them. "If we ask him if he's seen any of these people and he says 'no,' how valid is that answer on a scale of one-to-ten?"

"Minus one."

David crossed his arms and looked down at Musco. "Then what are we doing here?"

"Hey, it's your show, not mine." Musco paused. "But you didn't say it the other way around."

"You lost me," David said, bewildered.

"What if he says 'yes'?"

"Okay, what if he does say 'yes'? How valid is that?"

"Eleven."

David doubted a bartender or anyone else in the depraved North End would embrace the truth, but he had to plow on, to run the gamut.

"So you'd expect your friend to cooperate?" David asked.

Musco waved his hand to start up the car and proceed, "Let's try and see," he said. "Willie used to be my closest friend when I was down and out in these parts. And you know how I know? I don't remember much from those days-but he refused to serve me drinks. That I do remember. Probably saved my life."

They retraced their route to the Blue Rock Cafe where Willie Daniels, its proprietor/bouncer, struck a black Bunyanesque pose behind the bar. David thought Willie's plastic bow tie was an insult to Bow-tiers International but he wasn't in a North End barroom-wearing his floppy hand-tied version-to make a fashion statement.

"Well, look what the wind blew in," Willie said, "the man who made Red Checker famous." He put down the glass he was shining. Musco's hand disappeared in Willie's.

"Willie Daniels, this here's Dr. David Brooks from over at Hollings General-you know-where they been having all those … ah … accidents." The room smelled of beer and vulcanized rubber. Chitchat dwindled.

David and Willie shook hands, a standoff.

"Pleasure to meet you," David said. "You know you've got a lifetime friend and admirer here?" He grabbed Musco's shoulder and pleated his upper body against his own flank. Musco struggled to cough.

"No way a friend if I have to pay full fares in his hack," Willie said, winking.

"Shit, man, I should charge you double for the over-weight," Musco cracked.

The Blue Rock was a favorite watering hole for the after work crowd from the region's rubber factory. The bar was lined with men caught between ardent discussion and a game of "Chicago." Several drained their beers and left, leering back at David as they headed for the door.

"Two Buds," he said, nodding to Willie.

"No, no, none for me. I'll stay pat," Musco said.

They drifted to the end of the bar, near the cash register. David remained standing and Musco climbed onto a stool. Willie joined them after sliding down a tall glass of beer, its foamy head intact. David snatched it off the bar as if they had rehearsed the maneuver.

"So, Dr. Brooks, I hear you're helping the cops on those murders. How's it going?"

David knew that Willie knew he wasn't paying Blue Rock a visit simply to down a few suds. "We're making progress," he answered. "And that's why we're here. Wonder if you could help us?"

"Sure, if I can. Always glad to oblige the law." Willie looked at Musco and mocked, "But I don't know about that millionaire cabby you dragged in with you." Musco, his mouth crammed with peanuts, delivered a scathing salvo with his eyes.

David removed the photos from the envelope and handed them to Willie, along with the picture of the Bugles brothers. "Do you remember seeing any of those six men-either in here or in the area?"

Willie inspected the front and back of each photo separately while David zeroed in on his expression. He learned nothing.

Willie handed them back. "Can't say that I have … no, I'm afraid not. The killer's one of them?"

"We don't know yet." It was the response David had anticipated. He exaggerated neatness in returning the photos to the envelope while he thought of his next move. "Well, thanks anyway," he said, his voice as even as Willie's. He turned and gazed about the sparsely occupied tables and then out the front plateglass window, into the darkening and empty tangle of streets. He turned back to Willie.

"Awfully quiet around here," he said. "No yelling, no sirens. What's your best guess? Crime down? Drug dealing down?"

"Neither, but I have no inside information, know what I mean?" He scratched his stubbly chin. "The crime won't pick up for a few days. Second or third of the month. It's like clockwork. That's when the state checks come in.

David finished the beer, dropped a twenty on the bar and handed Willie his card, asking to be notified if he came across any useful information.

"About what I expected," David said as they walked to the Mercedes. "A minus one."

In the car, he felt his cellular phone's vibration and checked his watch. It was five-ten.

"He just left," Kathy said, her voice a shade above a whisper.

"Who just left?"

"Nick. He said again he's going up to the North End. Are you still there?"

"We were about to leave, but not now. A white Park Avenue, right?"

"Right."

"Is he alone?"

"He left here alone. Did you find out anything?"

"Nothing more than I could have by phone. At least so far."

David drove up and down several dimly lit side streets, settling on the darkest one. He parked the car in shadows, a vantage point allowing full view of the moonlit Blue Rock and, if he leaned forward, the two other bars as well.

"Wake me if there's any action," Musco said, yawning.

David used the time to evaluate the encounter with Willie Daniels and the up-front behavior of Nick Medicore. Despite a minus-one answer and the blank face, big guy Willie knows more than he lets on. His face was too blank. And Nick? Why wouldn't professional police procedure dictate being up-front with a colleague? But if his intentions are other than professional, then the announcement to Kathy was pretty clever: eliminate any suspicion over his presence in the North End.

In an hour's worth of ten minutes, a white Buick angled into a parking space in front of the Blue Rock. David checked his watch; it was five-thirty. He decided to hold off waking Musco and arched back in his seat. Nick emerged from the car and walked around to the sidewalk. Under a lamplight, he tugged on the brim of his fedora, flicked a cigarette into the gutter and looked up and down the street. He took two steps back toward the curb and checked the crude and faded signs above the row of establishments.