Joe Gores - Interface

“Neither. The bullet went into the ceiling. Marquez pulled the trigger, his prints were all over the gun. Addison had been clipped on the chin and knocked cold.”

“The Mex kid coked up?”

Wylie leaned back in his chair and chuckled. In telling his story he apparently had momentarily forgotten his antipathy to Neil Fargo. “That’s a funny one. Just got the doc’s report on him, he’s a heroin addict but had shot himself a twenty-mill ampule of speed in the apartment. Said he found it in the medicine chest.”

“If he’s hooked on H—”

“I find out from Narco that lots of ADs will use meth when they can’t get heroin — apparently it helps kill the withdrawal pains. There was a second ampule of speed busted on the bathroom floor, but Rosas says that was there when he got there. That suggest anything to you?”

“That whoever killed Marquez and laid down Addison might have been high on methedrine. What has Addison told you?”

“His lawyer’s phone number. Period. We ran him through R&I, all we got is that he’s a chemist for a drugstore down on Market Street. He’s clean, but... a chemist.”

“Yeah. Any other fingerprints except mine in the flat?”

Wylie shrugged niggardly. “You know.”

Something in his voice made Neil Fargo lean forward, face taut.

“How about glove smudges? Overlaying some of my fingerprints, maybe?”

“Yeah,” Wylie admitted sourly, after a marked pause.

“Any of mine overlaying anybody else’s?”

Wylie shrugged. He seemed suddenly abashed. “Deming’s. The realtor’s.”

“Beautiful!” Neil Fargo’s face wore a sardonic grin that seemed to have genuine amusement in it. He said without heat, “You fucking bastard, you haul my ass up here—”

“You rented the place,” said the homicide inspector stubbornly. “It wasn’t busted into — whoever got there first this morning used a key.”

“Sure. And I got one key — one — from Deming when I rented it, and none of the locks have been changed. What about this Docker you mentioned? Where does he fit in?”

“His name’s on the mailbox.” He shot a sharp look at the private investigator. “He ring bells with you?”

Neil Fargo’s eyes had changed. Something glinted in them.

“What do you have on him?”

“Big cat, big or bigger than you, long blond hair to the shoulders, hornrim glasses, slight limp—”

“Deep cleft in the middle of his chin, like Cary Grant,” said Neil Fargo in a very fast, very excited voice. “Spatulate fingers, excessively thick earlobes, mole up high on the left buttock—”

Wylie slapped the desk in delight. “You do know him. All right, goddammit, now I will read you your rights. You have...”

His voice ran down. Neil Fargo had given one short, vicious burst of triumphant laughter, then had gotten very busy lighting another cigarette. The brick color rose sharply up the back of Wylie’s neck again. His fingers flexed as if seeking a nightstick around which to curve. Neil Fargo met his eyes lazily through the drifting smoke.

“Docker,” he said in a thoughtful voice. He shook his head in a parody of regretfulness. “Never heard of him.”

Wylie was silent for nearly a minute. The flush receded. He had been shooting judicious looks at Neil Fargo’s pack of Pall Malls. He succumbed and reached across the table and speared one. When he spoke, only the thinnest edge of his bottled rage touched his voice.

“All right. Call it square.”

“You said the name was on the mailbox. Couldn’t he just be a former tenant?”

“Could be.” Wylie’s voice was soothing as cough syrup now. “Maybe, when you rented the place, you saw his name already on the mailbox and just forgot it? Maybe you just left the old nametag on there?”

In flat, indifferent tones, Neil Fargo began. “Maybe. I didn’t look at the mailbox, I knew I wasn’t going to get any mail there, all I want the place for is this witness who has a thing about hotels...” He suddenly chuckled. “What happened, the lab boys tell you that nametag on the mailbox was brand new? And you hoped I’d say I saw it there two weeks ago?”

Vince Wylie’s silence was eloquent. He lit the cigarette he had bummed. Neil Fargo went on without heat.

“How do you tie that description you gave me to the name Docker? The realtor?”

“You dealt with him, Fargo. It ain’t long enough between drinks for his records to be anything but a handful of flea dirt.”

“Then who gave you the description? Addison? Marquez, speaking from the dead?”

Wylie’s voice was almost ashamed. “Rosas.”

“The hype ?” Neil Fargo started to laugh. “Jesus Christ , Vince, you ever hear the one about Little Red Riding Hood and—”

“All right, all right, but the guy’s story was goddam rational. He was waiting around for a new pusher to show up in Franklin Square, his other connection got busted—”

“Did he?”

“Narco confirms a collar there yesterday. Anyway, Rosas says this big blond guy with the limp we think is Docker comes out of seventeen-forty-eight around seven-thirty this morning. Rosas is desperate for a fix, he thinks this cat might be the new connection, so he follows him. This guy makes him, knocks him around a little, acting high himself, you follow me? Erratic, paranoid, hyperactive.”

“Speed freak?” mused Neil Fargo.

“Then the blond guy tells Rosas there’s a dead guy and an unconscious guy in this flat that he can rob, and some speed in the medicine chest he can sell for smack, and the key’s in the mailbox and good luck.”

Neil Fargo nodded. “And then this Docker — if there is a Docker — calls the police himself in hopes Rosas will be blamed for Marquez.” He looked keenly at the Homicide cop. “Awfully talkative hype, isn’t he, this Rosas? What do the people in the downstairs flat say?”

“It’s empty.”

Neil Fargo stood up, smeared out his cigarette. The flat Indian planes of his face were carefully devoid of emotion.

“You take a name off a mailbox and tie it in with some big blond guy nobody’s seen but a heroin addict who’s strung out to the point he’d sell you his left nut for a fix, and you have the guts to haul my ass down here—”

“You rented the apartment,” repeated Wylie stubbornly.

“That don’t mean I killed anybody in it. You got two live ones besides this — maybe — Docker at the scene, why pick on me?”

“Addison? Rosas?” Wylie shook his head. “No way. You ain’t got the picture, Fargo. Marquez got knocked right over the couch. Over it, friend. From behind. Got his neck broke landing on the floor. That looks great on TV, but it takes one fuck of a lot of raw power to really do it.”

Neil Fargo had his topcoat back on, was standing wide-legged in front of the desk like a captain on the bridge unconsciously braced against the roll of his vessel.

“When can I get my apartment back? I’m still gonna have a witness to stash, no matter who got knocked off where.”

An almost triumphant look came into Wylie’s pale cop’s eyes. He said, “It’s got a police seal on the door, so maybe you better leave your key with me for the time being.” He paused expectantly.

“I don’t carry it around with me, for Chrissake.”

Wylie’s face lit up; he opened his mouth.

Neil Fargo said, “Call my secretary, tell her to drop it in the mail, you want it so fucking bad.”

He stopped there, laughed again when he saw how sullen Wylie’s face had gotten.

“The key in the mailbox. You hoped I’d given it to Docker.” He stared at Wylie, then shook his head in apparent disbelief. He said, “Cops. Jesus Christ.”