Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“You can tell the cops by the hats,” Hal said, examining a new print. “Everyone else just rushed out, I guess. Look, back there in the alley. You can always tell, can’t you?”

“So why is he in the alley, not with the others? He’s just someone off the street. Who’s the woman next to him? Can we get in closer on her?”

“Closer? Not much. A few more degrees, you’ll get a blotch. But let’s try one.”

When the print was done, it was just clear enough. Ben looked, then went rigid, stunned.

“She looked better in the dark,” Hal said. “But the hat-pure cop. You still think he’s in off the street?”

“No, he’s a cop,” Ben said slowly. “Ex-FBI.”

His parking space was behind Admin B, but when he got there he put the keys back in his pocket. He could use the walk to clear his head. He passed the choked line of cars at the gate, all heading home at once, then the small knot of picketers, and turned down Gower. Where they used to shoot Westerns, under roofs of cheesecloth. Today they wouldn’t need to filter the light-the day, cloudy before, was overcast and thick, already growing faint. How long had Riordan been in the alley? In the picture, he’d been craning his neck to see, just another curious bystander. But how could he have been? Someone Danny knew. Who had never made himself known, not on any of the reports, a hat in the crowd. Wanting to see, maybe wanting to make sure.

Lucey’s was more than a few blocks, a longer walk than he expected, so he was late when he pushed open the door and took a second to adjust to the dim light inside. The after-work drinkers had already piled in from Paramount, but Riordan had managed to get a table and he signaled Ben through the crowd with a two-finger wave.

“I went ahead and ordered,” he said, pointing to two glasses. “Try getting a waitress in this. Beer okay?”

Ben sat down, putting the envelope next to Riordan’s hat. “So,” he said, letting Riordan take the lead.

“So you need to do something about the pool doors.”

“Oh,” Ben said, looking over at him, the same military short hair, steady eyes, but everything different now, someone who’d been in the alley. “Is that how you got in?”

“They’d be easy to jimmy,” he said, not picking up on this. “I noticed at the funeral.”

“And that’s why you didn’t bother going over today.”

Riordan said nothing.

“Or because you already knew how he got in Saturday. Did you do it yourself, or did you send someone else? In case.”

Riordan picked up his glass, staring at Ben over the rim as he drank, buying a minute.

“If I’d done it, you wouldn’t have known anybody was there,” he said finally.

“So someone else. But you’d tell him what to look for. Now you want to tell me?”

“You think I knocked over your place? What for?”

“For something you didn’t get. Maybe I can help.”

“You’re going in circles.”

“And I keep coming back here. You were tailing him. You’re still tailing him. A dead man. What do you want? Didn’t you have enough on him already? A nice big file down in Tenney’s office.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you work for Tenney. Take love notes to Polly. God knows what else. Keep tabs on Liesl’s father, dangerous characters like him. So we can sleep safe at night. While you’re breaking into the house.”

“I don’t work for Tenney.”

“Were you getting stuff on Danny while he was paying you? Maybe little notes on his love life. Tenney likes that, I hear.”

“Where is this coming from?” Riordan said evenly. “Your information’s old. I don’t work for Tenney. I did. A while ago. But that’s a while ago. And by the way, I’m not tailing Ostermann.”

“You just like having lunch at the Farmers Market.”

Riordan sat back, his eyes steady on Ben.

“You going to tell me what this is all about?”

Ben slid the envelope to Riordan. “Have a look.”

Ben watched him open the envelope and take out the picture, his face registering no emotion at all, a practiced blank. But when he did raise his eyes, they had a new directness.

“Where did you get this?”

“The police had it. They just didn’t know what they had.”

“What did they have?”

“Someone he knew, right at the scene, who didn’t identify himself. Just stood there watching him bleed out. They might be interested in that. I was.”

“And?”

“And they might want to know more. Show your picture around- do those things the police do. To see what connection there might be.”

“They have any reason to do that?”

Ben shrugged. “A courtesy to the family. After they start making noise. Plus interfering with police procedures. Getting a report changed. They really don’t like that. Unless they’re the ones doing it, but that can’t be all of them, can it?”

“And I’m supposed to be the one asking.”

“Continental asked. But the studio had to get a call from somebody who was there. Otherwise it’s too late, the time doesn’t fit. I’ve been looking for the girlfriend, whoever he must have been meeting. But the girlfriend wasn’t there. You were. The meeting was with you?”

Riordan said nothing.

“So we’re back in the circle again-what were you doing there?”

“Maybe I happened to be passing by.”

“Passing by.”

“Who can say different?”

“Well, there’s the call. Why call Bunny if you’re just passing by.”

“He told you this?”

“Not a word. Loose lips sink ships. Your secret’s safe with him. I just figured. But put him under oath and he’s not going to keep ducking and weaving-he’ll have other things to think about. So will you. The police might want to change the accident report again. Make it a criminal case this time.”

“What are you saying? You think I killed him?”

“Somebody did.”

Riordan looked at him sharply. “Nobody else thinks so.”

“Just the two of us, huh?”

Riordan paused for a minute, staring at him, then nodded. “But I don’t know it. Neither do you.”

“Then you won’t mind if the police give us a hand. So we’ll all know.” Ben slid the picture back. “I can get more made, if you’d like one.”

Riordan sat forward, his shoulders hunched. “We need to talk.”

“Start.”

“You think you know something, but you have things a little confused. So let’s put them straight. First, I didn’t kill your brother. And you don’t think so either or you wouldn’t be sitting here. Kind of a dangerous thing to say to somebody if it were true.”

“Why? Because you’d plug me here in Lucey’s?”

“You won’t always be in Lucey’s,” Riordan said calmly. “And you can save the tough guy talk. I know people who really are tough.”

“What are they like? You?”

“They don’t talk much at all. Second, you’re not going to the cops. You don’t have anything to give them except a picture that doesn’t mean much. And you start anything, they’ll mess it up. You don’t want any mess with this. They closed it out as an accident, keep it that way.”

“Thanks to you.”

Riordan opened his hand, conceding the point.

“You don’t want anybody nosing around. Trust me on that.”

“I know what Danny was. You must, too, or you wouldn’t have been hounding him. More Red meat. Is that why you didn’t want it as a suicide? They’d blame you for hounding him?”

“I wasn’t hounding him.”

“Then what were you doing at the Cherokee? We’re back there again,” he said, tapping his finger on the photo.

“I was keeping an eye.”

“Jesus,” Ben said, turning his head in disgust. “And what did you think when you saw him there? What was in your head? One less Red? Keeping an eye.”