Robert Knightly - Bodies in Winter

‘Tell me what you want to do?’ I asked. ‘With Linus?’

‘I need to pay him back, Corbin. Personally.’

‘You need to be a lot more specific here, partner, because that part I already figured out.’

Adele smiled then. We were now thinking alike and my only fear, as we began to discuss strategy, was that Linus Potter, deterred by the weather, wouldn’t be in Sparkle’s when we got there.

I needn’t have worried. When Adele and I stepped through the door a few minutes after midnight, Potter was sitting at his usual table, his back to the room, staring into an empty mug. Otherwise, the bar was deserted except for the boss, Mike Blair. Blair was standing in front of a small sink, washing and drying glasses. He looked up as we came through the door, then tossed the dish rag into the sink and pulled a bottle of Dewar’s off the shelf. By the time I reached the bar, he’d poured me a double.

‘You still drinkin’ through a straw?’ he asked Adele.

‘I’d like a glass of whatever white wine you have in the refrigerator.’

Blair shuddered, perhaps recalling a day when cops had simpler tastes, then ducked under the bar to fetch a half-empty bottle of Chardonnay. It even came with a cork.

I waited until Adele’s wine was poured, then turned to Sparkle and raised my glass. ‘To the job,’ I said. For some reason, my ex-partner failed to echo the toast.

‘I heard you had some trouble tonight.’ Always nimble, always suspicious, Blair’s eyes flicked from me to Adele. ‘I heard you had a close call.’

I think Blair was searching for that line in the sand, the one you have to draw for yourself. True, Adele and I had brought disgrace on the job. But did that merit assassination? Perhaps there was some sort of technical exception that allowed the blue wall of silence to be momentarily breached. Or, perhaps, any hole in the dike would bring on a catastrophic flood.

‘They were Paco Luna’s men,’ I said.

‘You sure?’

‘I’d be willing to bet my next six pay checks on it.’

‘And you say there were cops involved in this?’

Adele finally spoke up. ‘We were investigating cops and ex-cops, not Paco Luna. If Luna came after us, they sent him.’

That wasn’t entirely true because I’d talked up Luna to my snitches, then again to Nina Francisco. But I didn’t correct my partner. Instead, I picked up my drink, took a sip, then carried it to Linus Potter’s table.

I sat down without asking, on the far side of the table with my back to the wall. Potter’s eyes opened, but he didn’t look up. Myself, I was in no hurry. I simply allowed the clock to run for several minutes as I carefully centered myself. Under no circumstances would I show Potter the rage boiling just beneath the surface. Under no circumstances would I let him know just how much I wanted to kill him. This was especially important because I’d already passed my back-up Smith amp; Wesson to Adele. My job was to provoke. The honor of killing him, if it came to that, was hers.

Finally, I asked, ‘Back when you were still in uniform? What was your rep?’

Potter laughed, his eyes blinking rapidly. ‘On the street, they called me Robocop. Tell ya the truth, Harry, I was flattered.’ He hesitated for several seconds, his eyes still fixed on the mug resting between his fingers. ‘What about you?’

‘I was a “necessary force” kind of cop. It took a lot to get me pissed off.’

‘But I somehow managed to accomplish the trick? I gotta say, Harry, I find that flattering, too.’

It was after twelve and detectives just coming off the four-to-midnight tour would ordinarily be stopping by to wet their whistles. But not tonight. Through a window in the front of the bar, I could see dark lines of snow silhouetted against a street light on Knickerbocker Avenue. If anything, Mike Blair was looking to close up and head home.

Potter broke the silence a few minutes later. ‘You wired, Harry?’

‘No need, Linus.’

Potter considered my response for a moment, then nodded. ‘I knew you wouldn’t stop. I knew you’d keep coming. I knew it from the first time you spoke to me. Dante thought you’d quit, but I knew you’d keep coming.’

‘That’s why you sent me Russo’s photo. It’s why you told me to connect Russo, Jarazelsky and Szarek. It’s…’ I paused when something flickered through Potter’s eyes. He caught my hesitation and smiled, but chose not to speak. Perhaps I’d made one too many assumptions, a technical error, but we were both professionals. We knew that it wouldn’t matter, in the short or the long run. Still, I changed the subject.

‘Can I assume you’re not connected to Greenpoint Carton?’

‘Yeah, you can.’

I gave it a few beats, then shifted gears again, putting more distance between our conversation and my gaffe. ‘We got a problem here. You want to know why and I want to know what. You can see how this creates a certain dilemma.’

‘When,’ Potter replied.

‘When?’

‘I want to know when, too.’

‘When did I know for sure?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’

Though I hadn’t been certain of Potter’s involvement until Adele identified him as her attacker, I straightened in my seat and assumed a positive tone as I got to work.

‘Last Sunday, when I met Tony Szarek’s girlfriend, that’s when I knew. What was it you said about Tony? Something about traveling from a rented room to a bar stool all the days of his miserable life? That was very poetic, Linus, but it was complete bullshit. By all accounts, the Broom was a happy man. Now I admit, in and of itself, that wouldn’t mean a whole lot. Maybe you and Tony were hardly acquainted, maybe you were just telling a good story. But you knew where Tony was buried. You said it right out, “Mount Olivet Cemetery.” That indicates a closer relationship.’

Potter looked down at his mug for a moment, then carried it over to the bar. His jacket was unbuttoned far enough for me to catch a glimpse of the weapon snugged behind his hip as he got to his feet. But Potter’s intent was not on mayhem, not at that moment. He waited patiently for his mug to be filled, then came back to the table without once looking at Adele.

‘My mother,’ he said as he sat down, ‘was a very religious woman. One of the things she used to tell me was that I should live every day as if it was my last. Now I drink every beer as if it was my last. You think that’s what she meant?’

He raised the mug to his mouth and drained it, his neck so muscular his Adam’s apple was little more than a shadow moving beneath his skin. ‘Fire away,’ he said.

‘If you remember, you told me you worked on the Clarence Spott case.’

‘I was a fly on the wall.’

‘Then you should have known about the car. The one Clarence Spott was driving when Russo and Lodge pulled him over, the amazing vanishing car that was never heard about again.’ When he grinned at that, I continued. ‘Me, right from the first, I wanted to know what happened to that car. But you, Linus, you never even mentioned it.’

‘Is there a question here?’

‘I want to know what was in the car.’

‘Seed money. Or a commodity that could be turned into seed money.’

‘Seed money for what purpose?’

‘To buy Greenpoint Carton. The owner was an old man named Epstein. His kids didn’t want any part of the business and he was willing to sell cheap. It was an opportunity certain parties couldn’t resist.’

‘But not you?’

‘Not me.’

‘Glad to hear it. Now tell me what set off David Lodge. Tell me what he remembered. Being as you and Davy were such good friends, I’m sure he confided in you.’

‘He didn’t. The only story I got comes from Pete Jarazelsky, who I don’t consider a reliable source.’