Part 6 (1/2)

That was true. She had always loved danger. And Larry was part of it. But she was determined to grow up.

”The defendant in my case is gonna jump on tomorrow. I should work on the cross.” She provided a little sealed grin meant to reflect just a vapor of regret, then turned toward the P.A.'s Office across the street.

”Muriel,” Larry said to her. When she revolved, he had his hands jammed in the pockets of his long jacket and he flapped them against his side. His mouth moved, but he clearly had no idea what to say next. Instead, they stood in the night, facing each other, and let her name, spoken with the faintest woeful echo, remain the last word.

Chapter 8.

October 8, 1991 Squirrel ”SQUIRREL?” asked Carney Lenahan. ”We're always chasin after that birdbrain.”

”What is he?” Larry asked. ”A doper?”

Lenahan's partner, Christine Woznicki, answered. ”He's the ring around the bowl.” She gave Larry Squirrel's proper name, Romeo Gandolph, and he wrote it down. They were in the squad room at Area Six, a little after 8 a.m. The watch commander had just finished briefing the new s.h.i.+ft and the two officers were ready to go out on patrol. Woznicki was awfully nice-looking, but with a tough set to her jaw and a lanky dryness that reminded Larry of a leather strop. Probably that kind, not that he cared either way. Her father had been on the job when Larry started his career here in Six more than fifteen years ago. Stan Woznicki had also ridden with Carney. The longer you live, Larry thought, it's just a big wheel.

”A thief is what he is,” said Lenahan. ”And a fence. Steal it or sell it, preferably both. Worse than a gypsy. We run his screwy little a.s.s in here once a month, at least. Ed Norris had him on the ring yesterday.”

”For?”

”S.O.S.” Same old s.h.i.+t. ”Lady Carroll got a wig store on 61st. That's what she calls herself, Lady Carroll. So Lady Carroll gets a little wrecked and don't lock her back door. This birdcage, Squirrel, that's his thing, back doors, hiding in a cabinet till after closing time. Yesterday a.m., half her stock has taken a walk. And most of the trade on 61st is wearing a new mop. So Ed let Squirrel lounge here for the evening but he wouldn't cop. It was him. Believe me. Fenced it for sure.”

Carney had to be right at the end of the trail, sixty if he was a day. Everything about the guy was gray, even his face under the wan interior light. Larry loved cops like this. They'd seen it all and done it all and still had something good left. When Larry came on the job in 1975, Carney was still complaining that the Force had bought air-conditioned cruisers. That was just looking for trouble, he said, encouraging the element that didn't want to get out of the car in the first place.

”Any property?” Larry asked. ”When Norris grabbed him?”

Lenahan flicked a look at Woznicki, who shrugged.

”What he gets he unloads fast,” she answered.

Larry said he'd like to see Norris's report. When he asked if Squirrel had any connection to Gus, Carney laughed deeply.

”Mongoose and cobra, those two,” he said. ”Gus figured Squirrel had a hard-on for his cash register. I guess he tried to get his hand in there once. Gus caught Squirrel so much as sittin at his counter for a coffee, he'd run him out.” At Paradise, anybody who paid his tab was equal. Gang lords sat next to pols and $20 hookers. When there was trouble, local kids getting noisy, vagrants who took up residence, or morons like Squirrel, Gus preferred to deal with it himself, even if a copper was in one of his booths. ”One time I saw Gus go at him with a butcher knife,” Lenahan said. ”Don't think those two were writing love letters.”

Larry felt a sensation travel through him. He was the doer. Squirrel.

”What about drugs?” he asked. ”He use?”

Woznicki answered. ”He don't have any kind of jones. He gets high like the rest of them. For a long time, he was sniffing paint,” she said, referring to toluene, ”which may be part of his problem. He's a few sandwiches short of a picnic, that one. Squirrel, you know, he's just livin the life. He wants to steal enough to get completely noodled come nightfall, so he can forget how strange he is. You ain't gonna have to consult the Buddha to figure him out.”

”Does he carry?” Larry asked, meaning a gun.

”Not so I seen. Kind of a weak puppy, actually,” Christine said. ”He'll run his mouth, but I don't know if he'd actually go to war. You figure him for the guy who capped Gus?”

”I'm starting to.”

”I didn't think the little f.u.c.k had it in him.” Marveling, Woznicki tossed her narrow, long-jawed face about for a second. That was one of the sad lessons of police life. People were a lot more likely to be worse than you expected, before they were better.

Lenahan and Woznicki left for patrol. In the front, Larry asked the records clerk to pull doc.u.ments. Rommy's criminal history arrived by fax from downtown in half an hour, but the clerk said Norris's report from last night must still have been in filing. While the clerk was looking, Larry called Harold Greer.

Harold was in a meeting, which was just as well. Larry talked to Aparicio, Harold's right hand, who was too amiable to ask many questions. There was one other call Larry needed to make.

”You want a warrant?” Muriel asked. She was in her office waiting on her jury.

”Not yet. Just stay close.”

”Always,” she told him.

Always, he thought. What the h.e.l.l did that mean? The other night, outside the jail, he had looked at Muriel in her go-to-court outfit, her red high heels elevating her scampish height, and suddenly felt the world was only empty s.p.a.ce. The fiber of feeling that connected him to her was the most certain thing in it. The strength of that sensation, which was not only the welling of desire but some larger yearning, had left him speechless after uttering her name. ”Always,” he muttered, cradling the phone.

After another hour, he asked dispatch to round up Lenahan and Woznicki. They were only a few blocks away and he met them behind the station. It was past noon now and the lot was as crowded as a shopping center.

”What's up?” asked Woznicki through the driver's window of the cruiser. ”You still looking for that report?”

”As a matter of fact.”

”I called Norris a while ago.”

”Okay, but right now I could use some help scooping up Squirrel. Where do I find him?”

”Usually the street,” said Lenahan. ”It's not cold enough yet for him to take the hike to the airport. Whenever he's run one of his little jobs, we find him at the same pizza parlor on Duhaney.”

”What's he do there?”

”Eat. I don't know if he gets high from the thrill or he's just hungry.”

”Probably hungry,” said Woznicki. ”Hop in and we'll take a ride.”

Today, Squirrel had skipped the pizza. After a couple of hours, they ended up at the joint where Collins said he'd encountered Gandolph. It was called Lamplight and it was strange it had any name at all. It was a s.h.i.+thole. You knew you were in trouble when a place kept cyclone fencing across the window while it was open. Near the door, there was a small liquor counter, the merchandise locked behind heavy gratings, and a dim barroom in back. Larry had made this scene a thousand times before: only a few lights that worked, including the reflecting beer signs, and what they revealed was aged, filthy, and broken. The paneling in the room was so old it had started to fray, like worn cloth, and the toilet in the one john was stained, with a seat that had been cracked in half and a cistern that leaked and was always running. Even from the front door, the whole place smelled of rot and a vague gas leak. There were customers back there all day, little groups of young men standing around, talking stuff n.o.body believed, now and then dealing dope in little coveys in the corner. It was that activity, in all likelihood, that had brought Collins around.

Outside, on the sidewalk near the door, there was more of the same: smacked-out hookers trying to score a john or a fix, guys with disability checks or habits of their own. The paper-bag crowd. When the three officers strolled up, they all scattered. Carney and Christine went in the front and Larry ambled around to the alley, in case Squirrel opted for the stage door.

He heard Lenahan whistle for him a minute later.

”Detective Starczek, make the acquaintance of Romeo Gandolph.”

The man Carney was pus.h.i.+ng along was a scrawny, crazed-looking little thing, with eyes flas.h.i.+ng around like Mars lights. You weren't going to have to convene a grand jury to figure out how he got the name Squirrel. Larry pushed him against the patrol car and patted him down. Rommy whined, asking several times what he had done.

”s.h.i.+t,” Larry said. ”Where's the locket, Romeo?”

Romeo, as expected, said he didn't know nothing about that.

”s.h.i.+t,” said Larry again. Gandolph wouldn't have held the cameo for months, only to sell it now. Larry described the piece, but Squirrel kept saying he hadn't seen nothing like it.

Larry thought of Erno's warnings about Collins. This wasn't the first time a jailhouse snitch had run changes on Larry. He was ready to let Squirrel stroll, but Lenahan unexpectedly grabbed Gandolph by the scattered hairdo and pushed him into the back of the cruiser. Squirrel was moaning that his arm still hurt from last night, when he'd been cuffed for most of the evening to an iron ring above his head on the wall.

At Six, Lenahan pointed Rommy to a bench”he knew the way himself”then took Larry's biceps. He could tell there was a problem from the way Carney kept looking up and down the hall.