Эд Макбейн - Ice

“Let’s hear it one more time,” Carella said.

“How often do I have to tell you?” Moore said. “Maybe I should’ve asked for a lawyer.”

“You still can,” Carella said, making sure for the record that Moore was volunteering all this information of his own free will. They were sitting in the Interrogation Room, a tape recorder whirring on the table between Moore and the four detectives with him. From where Carella sat, he could see past Moore to the two-way mirror on the wall behind him. Moore’s back was to the mirror. No one was in the viewing room beyond the wall.

“Why would I need a lawyer?” Moore said. “I’m admitting the cocaine. You found the cocaine, you’ve got me on the cocaine.”

“Two keys of it,” Meyer said.

“Less than that,” Moore said.

“But you bought eight keys in Miami. The letter you wrote—”

“I never should have written that letter,” Moore said.

“But you did.”

“Dumb,” Moore said.

“So’s murder,” Kling said.

“I killed a man who came into my apartment with a gun,” Moore said, almost by rote now. “We struggled, I grabbed the gun from him, and shot him. It was self-defense.”

“The same gun that was used in three other murders,” Brown said.

“I don’t know anything about any other murders. Anyway, this wasn’t murder, it was self-defense.”

“I thought you were a medical student,” Kling said.

“What?”

“Are you also studying law?”

“I know the difference between cold-blooded murder and self-defense.”

“Was it cold-blooded murder when you killed Sally Anderson?” Carella asked.

“I didn’t kill Sally.”

“Or Paco Lopez?”

“I don’t know anybody named Paco Lopez.”

“How about Marvin Edelman?”

“I never heard of him.”

“Then how do you account for those diamonds we found in your kitchen?”

“I bought them with the money I realized on the sale of the six keys.”

“Who’d you buy them from?”

“How is that relevant? Is it against the law to buy diamonds?”

“Only if you later kill the man you bought them from.”

“I bought them from somebody whose name I never knew.”

“An anonymous diamond dealer, huh?” Meyer said.

“Passing through from Amsterdam,” Moore said, and nodded.

“How’d you get onto him?”

“He contacted me. He heard I had some ready cash.”

“How much cash?” Carella asked.

“I bought the eight keys for four hundred thousand.”

“A bargain,” Brown said.

“I told you, the man was doing me a favor.”

“The man in Miami.”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t have to tell you that. He was doing me a favor, why should I get him in trouble?”

“Because you saved his son’s life, right?” Meyer said.

“Right. The kid was choking to death. I did the Heimlich on him. The father said he wanted to do something for me in return.”

“So that’s how you got in the drug business, right?” Brown said.

“That’s how.”

“Where’d you get the four hundred thousand?”

“From my mother. The money my father left her.”

“She had four hundred thousand bucks under her mattress, huh?”

“No. Some of it was in money market funds, the rest in securities. She was getting something like thirteen percent, I promised her fifteen percent in a month’s time.”

“Did you pay back the money?”

“Every cent.”

“Plus the interest?”

“Fifteen percent.”

“You gave back... what does that come to, Artie?”

“Fifteen percent on four hundred thousand?”

“For a month.”

“It’s five thousand dollars,” Moore said.

“You returned the four hundred plus five, is that right?” Carella asked.

“I did.”

“When?”

“At the end of September. I gave my mother the money shortly after Fatback opened.”

“Is that how long it took you to cut and resell those eight keys?”

“Only six of them.”

“What’d you get for selling off the six?”

“Twelve, by the time I cut them. I got sixty thousand a key.”

“What does that come to, Artie?” Carella asked.

“It comes to seven hundred twenty thousand dollars,” Moore said.

“And you returned four hundred five of that to your mother.”

“Yes.”

“Which left you with—”

“Three hundred fifteen.”

“Three hundred of which you spent to buy diamonds from Edelman.”

“I don’t know anybody named Edelman,” Moore said.

“But that’s how much you spent for the diamonds you bought, isn’t it?”

“Close to it.”

“From this Dutchman who was passing through, right?”

“Right.”

“What’d you get for that kind of money?”

“About twenty-five carats. I got a break because it was a cash transaction.”

“So how many stones did you buy?”

“About three dozen. Most of them quarter- and half-carat stones. A few one-carat stones. Different sizes and cuts, American, European — well, you saw them.”

“Just enough to fit in an ice cube tray, huh?”

“I thought of that later.”

“First place a burglar would look,” Meyer said.

“I don’t know anything about burglars.”

“Why’d you pick diamonds?”

“A good investment. Over the past thirty years — before the bottom fell out — diamonds have gone up in value more than a thousand percent. I figured they had to start going up again.”

“You’re just an enterprising young businessman, right?” Brown said.

Moore said nothing.

“Where’d you sell those six keys?”

“I don’t have to tell you that.”

“Why’d you hang on to the other two?”

“That was Sally’s idea. She figured we could get more for it by selling them off to gram dealers.”

“Like Paco Lopez.”

“I don’t know anyone named Paco Lopez. Sally figured it might take a while longer, but over the long run we’d make maybe an extra fifty thousand on those two keys. By ouncing it out to gram dealers.”

“Another enterprising young businessman,” Brown said.

“Woman,” Meyer said.

“Person,” Kling said.

“So why’d you decide to kill all these people?” Carella asked casually.

“I didn’t kill anyone but the man who broke into my apartment,” Moore said. “And that was self-defense. The man came in with a gun, we struggled, I took the gun away from him, and shot him. He was trying to hold me up. It was self-defense.”

“Knew you had two keys of dope in there, huh?”

“I don’t know what he knew. Anyway, it was less than two keys. We’d been dipping into it ever since I got back from Miami.”

“Selling it here and there around town.”

“Sally took care of that.”

“Made her deliveries on Sundays, did she?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what the del stood for, right? Not ‘delicatessen.’ ‘Deliveries.’ ”

“Deliveries, yes.”

“Did Paco Lopez put her onto the other gram dealers she—”

“I don’t know anyone named Paco Lopez.”

“Why’d you kill him first?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Why’d you kill Sally?”

“I didn’t.”

“And Edelman.”

“I don’t know who Edelman is. You’ve got me on the dope, so charge me with the dope. I killed an armed intruder in self-defense. I don’t know what you can charge me with on that—”

“Try homicide,” Carella said.

“If self-defense is homicide, fine. But no jury in its right mind—”