Lawrence Block - Everybody Dies

"Dude who shot your friend."

"That's one. Right now the main thing we know about him is he's black."

"Narrows it down."

"It does, as a matter of fact, because we also know he's a professional. And he screwed up, he shot the wrong person."

"Word might get around."

"It might," I agreed. "Second, there's the gunman at Grogan's."

"Asian dude."

"Southeast Asian, from the looks of him."

"That's right, you saw the man. I was thinkin' they didn't show his face on the TV, but you got to see him up close."

"Closer than I'd have liked. They haven't released his name or anything about him, but that doesn't mean they don't know it."

"Get his name, trace him back, see who he used to hang out with."

"That's the idea. Our third opening's the two guys who jumped me a few blocks from here."

"Pounded on you, till you went and pounded on them."

"I got a good look at one of them," I said. "I'd recognize him again."

"You figure he lives in New York?'

"He'd pretty much have to. Why?"

"'Cause that's how we'll do it, Hewitt. Just drive around lookin' at people, an' pick him out of the eight million faces we see."

"Well, that's one way."

"But you can think of another."

"I can," I said. "The trouble is, it's not a whole lot better than your way."

"Well, we flexible," he said. "We try your way, an' if it don't work we try mine."

"George Wister's not a bad guy," Joe Durkin said. "A good cop and a bright fellow. He doesn't know what to make of you. You want to know something? I'm not so sure I know what to make of you myself."

"What do you mean?"

"You were having dinner with your friend last night. You went to the can and he got shot. And you couldn't think of a reason on earth why somebody'd want to kill good old Jim."

"I still can't."

"Bullshit," he said. "That the same jacket you were wearing last night?"

"So?"

"Same as your friend had on. Don't jerk me around, will you? You were the intended vic. Only reason you're here now is you picked the right time to take a leak."

We were in a Greek coffee shop on Eighth, just a block down from the Lucky Panda. I'd have preferred a different meeting place, but I'd already rejected his first suggestion, the squad room at Midtown North, and he hadn't liked my idea of getting out of the neighborhood altogether and meeting somewhere down in Chelsea or the Village.

When I'd got there he was at a back booth, drinking coffee and halfway through a piece of cherry cheesecake. He said it was good and I ought to have some, but I told the waiter I'd just have a cup of coffee. Joe said it was good we'd stayed in the neighborhood, that it was going to rain. I said they kept predicting rain and it kept not raining. He said they'd be right sooner or later, and the guy brought my coffee and we got down to it.

Now I said, "I guess that's true. I was evidently the shooter's actual target."

"It took you until today to figure that out?"

"Wister suggested as much last night. In an offhand way, after he'd gotten through floating the idea that Jim had been printing up green cards and bearer bonds for the Five Families. I took it about as seriously."

"When did you change your mind?"

"When I talked to Mick Ballou."

"Your friend,"

"He's a friend of mine, yes. You know that."

"And you know what I think about it. A lot of guys on the job have made themselves grief that way, having friends like that. Buddies from the old neighborhood, guys who went one way while they went another."

"I'm not on the job anymore, Joe."

"No, you're not."

"And Ballou and I don't go back that far. I put in my papers years before I met him."

"And the two of you just hit it off, huh?"

"Since when do I have to explain my friendships to you? You're a friend of mine, and I don't get a grilling from Ballou on the subject."

"Is that a fact? I guess he's more broad-minded than I am. Where were we? You were saying you changed your mind when you talked to your good friend the murderer. When was this?"

"After I finished with Wister. I stopped at his place on my way home."

"Not exactly on your way. You walked over to Ninth and turned left instead of right I don't suppose you dropped in for a drink."

"I'd just lost one friend and felt the need to say hello to another," I said. "And when I got there he told me how he'd been having problems."

"Oh?"

"There was a fellow who did some odds and ends for him who wound up in a garbage can on Eleventh Avenue."

"Peter Rooney, and the odds and ends had to do with Ballou's shylocking operation. What'd he do, hold out a few dollars and Ballou put him in the Dumpster?"

"He didn't know who'd killed Rooney, but I gather there had been other incidents as well, and the implication was somebody was trying to muscle in on him. His take on Jim's shooting was that I'd been the target, and it was because I was a friend of his."

"That's what he told you."

"Yes."

"And I don't suppose he mentioned who was putting the screws to him."

"He said he didn't know."

"Like getting roses from a secret admirer? Except instead of roses it's death threats?"

"Maybe he knew and didn't say."

"Yeah, and maybe he said and it's you that doesn't want to say. And then what happened?"

"What happened?"

"Yeah. What did you do next?"

"I went home. I can't say I took it all that seriously. Why should a friendship make me the target of a presumably professional hit?" I shrugged. "I couldn't sleep. I was up late, drinking coffee in the kitchen and grieving for my friend."

"That's your friend Jimmy."

"Jim. Nobody ever called him Jimmy."

"Your friend Jim, then. As opposed to your friend Mick."

I let that go. "Then Elaine woke me around noon," I said, "after she heard about the incident at Grogan's."

"The incident."

"The bombing, although I gather it was more than that. There was gunfire as well, wasn't there?"

"You tell me."

"How's that?"

He picked up his empty coffee cup and tapped it against the edge of the saucer. "The way I hear it," he said, "you were there."

"I just got through telling you I was there. Then I went home, and it must have been two hours later that the shit hit the fan."

"Two hours later."

"Maybe three."

"Not the way I heard it."

"You heard I was there when it happened?"

"That's right, Matt," he said, looking straight at me. "That's exactly what I heard."

"Who's saying that?"

"Information received. You want to rethink your story?"

"My story? I haven't got a story. I told you what happened."

"And you were nowhere to be seen when the crap was flying."

"No."

He frowned. "I blame it on all those years on the job," he said. "If there's one thing a cop learns it's how to tell a lie and stick with it. And it's like riding a bicycle, right? You never forget how."

"You think I lied to you?"

"What gives you that idea?"

"Well, I think you lied to me. 'Information received.' You never heard I was at Grogan's. You were on a fishing trip."

He spread his hands. "We had a description, couple of guys seen leaving the scene. One was Ballou and the other could have been you."

"What did they say, it was a white male with two arms and two legs?"

"All right, point taken. The description we had could fit half the precinct. If they'd thrown in pain in the ass, then I'd have no doubts. Maybe I was fishing, but that doesn't make me wrong. Goddamn it, I still think you were there."

"Well, it's a free country. You can think whatever you like."

"I'm glad I've got your permission. While you're at it, you want to give me your word you weren't there when it all went down?"

"What for? You just got through telling me my word's not worth shit."