William Bayer - Mirror Maze

Janek rang the bell. When he didn't get an answer, he went back out to the street and phoned Timmy from a booth on the corner.

"Yeah?" Timmy didn't sound too good.

"It's Frank."

"That you ringing downstairs?"

"I need to see you."

"Come back later." "Now!" Janek said. The battery pack he'd taped to his stomach was starting to itch.

"Tough today, aren't we, partner?"

"I got news for you."

"What kinda news?"

"Your friend Dakin may be going to jail."

"That's good news. Come on up!"

Timmy's khaki pants were dirty, his shirt was stained, he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, his thick hair was out of control and his eyes glowed like a thirsty drunk's.

He cleared a chair, sweeping off a mound of clothing, then sat down on his unmade bed. Janek sat and looked around. There were stacks of newspapers on the floor, a heap of laundry in the corner. When he followed Timmy into the kitchenette, he noticed a pile of discarded orange rinds in the sink.

"How can you live like this?"

Timmy shrugged. "Free country, isn't it?"

Janek thought: A man who lives like this doesn't like himself much.

Mugs of coffee in hand, they resumed their seats. Then Tiimmy asked what he had on Dakin.

"Conspiracy to obstruct justice," Janek said. "When Komfeld came in, her story was different from what we were told. She said another detective had paid her to forge the Metaxas note. Dakin persuaded her to finger you."

"You're kidding!"

Janek peered at him. "So, what'd you do, Timmy, that made Dakin hate you so much?"

"I was an honest cop doing an honest job. Dakin's a psycho. You know that."

Sure, but Janek also knew that when Dakin went after someone he had a reason. And why doesn't Timmy ask who the other detective was?

"Last time we got together-"

"A most unpleasant occasion," Timmy reminded him, raising, his brows.

"-you said something I haven't been able to shake."

"What?" "You said: ' by some fluke you happen to stumble into the real heart of the thing, something bad might befall you.

Timmy grinned. "Still think I bombed your car?"

"I'm not talking about the threat. It's that real heart of the thing."

What is the real heart of the thing, Timmy? What do you know that you haven't told anyone all these years?"

"What do you know, Frank?"

"Maybe more than you think."

"You were always a good bluffer."

"Not this time." "That's what a bluffer always says."

They stared at each other. Then Janek spoke: "Maybe you bought into Metaxas a little too quick, Timmy. Maybe you knew he'd been set up, but didn't care. Maybe you wanted Mendoza so much you were willing to overlook certain problems with your evidence."

Timmy began to pace. "That afternoon, when I walked into his hotel room-it seems like… just yesterday. I can still remember the way the furniture was arranged, how the light broke in through the gauzy curtains. The smell from the bathroom, too-steam and blood. Soon as I walked in there, saw Gus lying in the pink bathwater, I thought of you, Frank. A phrase of yours started going through my brain."

"What phrase?"

"I remember just how you used to say it: ' slick, I'm not buying in, partner." it was those words that hit me when I walked into that bathroom. Gus in the tub, wrists cut neat, knife in the soap dish, suicide note on the dresser. It was just… too goddamn perfect. As was the money order, and the real sincere look in Pefia's eyes when he confirmed Gus's story. Too slick, too good to be true. But then I thought: ', someone's left me a nice package here. If the writing on that note checks out, I could wrap this thing up, put Mendoza away for offing Clury, come out a cop hero from this thing." " Timmy paused. "You know how r it is, Frank. You always want to catch a great case. That's how you build a legend. That's what makes the young guys look up to you, whisper about you when you pass them in the hall. '! There goes Sheehan.

He's the one broke Mendoza. Great case, great detective.

You can learn a lot from him." You were already a legend, Frank. This was my chance to be one. So I bought the scene, just the way it was laid out, even though I knew it was phony. And once you do a thing like that … there's no turning back."

Timmy let his arms hang loose. The gesture seemed to be an expression of regret, but Janek wasn't satisfied.

"All right," he said, "you made a deal with yourself. The scene felt wrong, but you bought it anyway. Still, you must have asked yourself:

Who laid it out so neat?" Timmy shook his head. "I didn't care."

"Of course you did. You had to."

"it looked good, so maybe it was good. And if it was fake, I didn't give a shit. I liked what I saw so I bought it. Like buying something pretty in a store."

"Pretty?"

"Attractive. You know what I mean."

"When you see something that appealing you never ask yourself why?"

"That's you, Frank. Not me. I buy what I like. I don't torment myself."

Could be true, Janek thought. Timmy never doubted his hunches. But as for torment, Janek couldn't agree. Timmy was clearly tormented. The crazy look in his eyes, his crummy grooming, stained clothes, poor housekeeping all spoke of a person in distress. M@l, be his problem is he's tormented and doesn't know it. But still, he thought, there had to be more. "The real heart of the thing." What had Timmy meant?

"Your instincts were good," Janek said. Timmy tipped an imaginary hat.

"I mean it. You were right about Mendoza. He did have Edith killed.

And you were right about Metaxas-he was too good to be true."

"So, who was the hit man?"

"Now you're curious, Couple minutes ago, when I told you Komfeld IDed someone else, you didn't even ask me who."

"You've aroused my curiosity."

"Gotta be one of the players, right?" "Guess so." Timmy paused. "Who?

The maid?"

"Not the maid." Janek stood, looked at his watch. ' 11 gotta go.

Nice to see you."

"The, fuck!"

Janek turned to him from the door. "What's the matter, partner?"

"Who're you kidding, Frank? If you know who the hit man was, tell me, for God's sake.

"maybe I will… when you tell me why Dakin hated you. Bye, Timmy."

Janek slipped out the door.

A minute later, leaving the building, he imagined Timmy standing at his window, watching him walk away. He was about to turn to see if Timmy was really there, but then decided not to. Better if he doesn't think I care. That'll torment him even more.

They had tasty morsels for him at Special Squad:

Sue and Ray went first. There'd been two Cubans at Green Haven, since released, who'd fraternized with Jake Mendoza: a car thief named Cabrera, living in Albany, where he reported regularly to his parole officer; and a drug dealer named Villavicencio, believed to be a member of a major importing ring, who'd managed to transfer his parole obligation to Miami so that he could take care of his aging mother.

"Things can get fairly lax in South Florida," Ray added.

As for a Texas connection, Sue and Ray believed they'd struck gold. A suspected mafia strong-arm named Tony Collizzi had been Jake Mendoza's cellmate. Collizzi, residing in Houston, had been released, after serving fifteen years for homicide, just one month before the copycat killing in El Paso.

"I may have a match on that," Aaron said. "Just before Collizzi's release, there was a fifty-thousand-dollar disbursement, and shortly after the copycat job, another fifty thousand was paid out. The transfers were made by Mendoza's lawyer, Royce Andrews, to an account Mendoza maintains in the Cayman Islands Bank. Impossible to trace money going in and out of there, but if we could find Collizzi's name on flight manifests around those dates, Texas cops might want to haul him in."