No Show of Remorse (29 page)

HIGHWOOD LUMBER & BUILDING SUPPLIES

As Frankel had said, the dining room closed at eleven. Most of the dinner crowd seemed to be gone by then, anyway, and after that the lights in the windows to the left of the front entrance gradually dimmed to almost nothing. The bar, though, visible through the windows to the right of the entrance, kept going strong until midnight.

A few patrons hung on past that, but eventually they left and the lights in the bar, too, went out. By twelve-thirty the bright outdoor
Le Chantier
sign, and the parking lot lights, had all been switched off. Only a handful of cars remained, all gathered at the far end of the lot. Employees, obviously. Over the next half hour they came out, too, the last one being the manager, Mr. Alberto, who locked the door behind him. Once they were gone the lot was empty and lit only by spill-over from a security light in front of Ricci's Nursery. Dim night lights glowed through the windows on both sides of
Le Chantier
's darkened entrance.

Those Weather Channel people seemed to have gotten it right. The wind was rising a bit, so maybe thunderstorms were on their way to punctuate the mind-numbing rain. And the temperature was dropping, too. I knew, because by then I'd parked the Bonneville several blocks away and stationed myself behind the row of evergreens by the fence beyond the edge of the parking lot. A sign on the fence warned me that the buildings and property behind it, the abandoned lumber yard, were vacant and unsafe, and that the fence was equipped with an electronic alarm system. Trespassers would be arrested and prosecuted. I kept my distance.

It was one-fifteen and I'd been standing there in the dark and watching for half an hour. My new plastic coat kept the rain on the outside, but also kept the perspiration on the inside and soaking into my clothes. Surprising how a person can sweat and still be shivering from the cold. For a moment a desk stacked high with legal papers, in a warm, dry office, seemed a little more tolerable than usual. But only a brief moment, and only very little.

At one-twenty-five by my Timex Indiglo, a Chevy Corvette—old, but in mint condition, and don't ask me what year—pulled up and parked near the restaurant entrance. A man got out and ran through the rain to the door. It was Arthur Frankel. He dug into the pocket of his trench coat, came up with a key to his own restaurant, and let himself in. An outside light above the door went on. I waited.

Several minutes later, a cab pulled up beside the Corvette. A man paid off the driver and got out. It was Richie Kilgallon, in a hip-length black leather coat and what looked like blue jeans. The cab drove away and Richie made a dash for the entrance. It wasn't locked, and he went inside. I waited some more.

Several minutes later I was still waiting, but nothing more happened. Something was supposed to happen, dammit, according to my plan; but nothing did.

What was supposed to happen was that Breaker Hanafan would drive up and Yogi would get out of his car. Breaker had told me that Doctor Tyne said Yogi was weak, but gaining strength and able to walk short distances. I'd take Yogi inside, with my Beretta handy and with Breaker and his muscle outside as backup. Not that I trusted Breaker, but we at least shared a similar interest in Richie Kilgallon's future and … well … he was the help I had available. Which right about then didn't seem to be quite enough.

What else was supposed to happen was that I'd get Frankel and Richie both talking and Yogi would listen and tell me if he recognized either voice as the voice of the cop who'd pureed his kidney and left him to die on the street. Not that Yogi gave a damn about vengeance, but I thought some
quid pro quo
was in order and I figured Yogi would at least tell me who it was.

Then, once I'd accomplished item one on my agenda I'd send Yogi back out to Breaker and move on to item two. But ten more minutes passed and I realized that item one wasn't going to happen—and that I wasn't going to have my backup.

I walked through the rain to the door of the restaurant. It was unlocked and I went inside.

CHAPTER

46

I
N THE DIM LIGHT
inside
Le Chantier,
Arthur Frankel was standing behind the hostess station. He'd ditched the trench coat and had on a dark-colored crewneck sweater. He closed the cover of a large book which might have been used to keep track of reservations and seating.

“You're late,” he said. He switched off the tiny desk lamp and then the only light came from the exit sign behind me above the door. That, and what little spilled out through the archway from the dining room, past Frankel and to my left. The bar area, on the right, was a separate room and that door was closed.

I took off the plastic raincoat and dropped it on a bench seat beside me. My pants were soaked from the knees down and my feet were wet and cold and I stamped them on the floor to stir up the circulation a little. “Kilgallon here yet?”

“Why do I have the feeling,” he said, “that you know that already?” He turned. “Follow me, and—”

“Bring him up here.” Anywhere he and Kilgallon wanted to meet, I didn't.

I walked past Frankel and into the dining room. For brunch last Sunday there'd been placemats on the round, glass-topped tables, and with all the bright light and windows and plants, there'd been the feeling of eating on a patio. But now the tables were spread with clean white cloths, ready for more formal dining the next day.

“I'll pick out a nice table in here,” I said.

“But in the back we'll be more comfortable.” As if comfort were a factor. “And,” he added, “the dining room has all those windows. Someone might—”

“Nobody's around,” I said. “Besides, are you expecting something illegal to happen? I mean … it's not like we're dealing drugs or something.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. He turned around and, dragging his foot, went across the room and through a set of swinging doors into the kitchen.

Picking a table for four in the middle of the large dining room, I removed the salt and pepper shakers, the tiny flower vase, and the white cloth, and put them on a nearby chair. The glass tabletop was pebbled, not smooth and slippery, but transparent enough to see hand or leg movement through it. I sat down, but then got up again right away and took one of the four chairs, the one for the person to my right, and stuck it at another table. I wanted the two of them sitting close together.

Then I sat down again, laid the Beretta on the glass in front of me, and rested my hands, palms down, on the metal rim that ran around the edge of the table, one on either side of the gun. The light in the room, from one tiny ceiling bulb, was too dim to cast much of a reflection on the windows, so if I looked to my right I could see through them, out to Frankel's Corvette. Across the room straight ahead of me was the archway we'd come through and, beyond that and out of sight, the hostess station and the waiting area. Off to the left were the kitchen doors.

Just then those doors swung open and Frankel came limping through; and behind him, Richie Kilgallon. Richie still had his leather coat on, and a bottle of beer in his hand.

I didn't move. When they got close they stopped, side-by-side. “The fuck is this?” Richie asked, nodding down toward the gun.

I left my hands resting where they were. “I like to have everything out on the table,” I said, “like the fact that we're all armed and we all know it.”

“Really,” Richie said. “And you want me to put mine on the table, too?”

“I don't care what you do with it. As long as you don't reach for it. While we chat.”

“And if we don't like talking across a gun?” That was Frankel.

“Then we don't talk. And my sense is you
want
to talk, or we wouldn't all be here. So, sit down.”

Frankel sat down to my left and Richie started to move the third chair around the table to sit across from Frankel—and to my right.

“No,” I said, not lifting my right wrist from the table, but wagging my index finger, then pointing it. “
Across
from me, Richie boy.”

“Fuck you, Fo—” He stopped short and stared at the Beretta in my hand, pointed up at his face. He pulled the chair back and sat down across from me. “So,” he said, and grinned, “I guess the heat make you ‘the man' now, hey bro?” He put his sarcasm into black dialect, and I thought of Zorro, talking white. “Yassuh,” he said, “you the—”

“Richard,” Frankel said, “shut up.”

I laid the gun back on the table, wondering how many thousand times I'd practiced that pickup-and-aim movement. “I know what happened at Lonnie Bright's that night,” I said. “I always knew part of it. Now I know it all.” Or at least I had a strong suspicion.

“Bullshit.” Kilgallon sucked on his beer—it was a Bud Light—and put the bottle on the table.

“What happened is in the police reports,” Frankel said. “But suppose you knew something different, just for the sake of argument, I mean. So what?”

“So I can make trouble for you. You, and Richie boy here; and Jimmie Coletta, too. Trouble like, say, indictments, and trials, and hard time. Maybe worse.”

Kilgallon leaned forward, but Frankel waved him silent. “What you know,” Frankel said, “is a couple of fuckin' animals shot down some honest coppers doing their jobs, and ended up on slabs themselves. No evidence of anything else. Case closed.”

“
Not
closed, though,” I said. “Not by a mile. You got a transaction involving police officers and a controlled substance, and conspiracy to participate. You got a cop paralyzed, shot in the back by an unknown party. You got a homicide by an unknown party. Uh-uh. Not closed.”

“There was no evidence of any cocaine,” Kilgallon said. “Or … you know … heroin,” he added, “or any other controlled substance.”

“Careful, Richie,” I said. “Your mouth'll bring you trouble every time.”

“It's true, though,” Frankel said. “No evidence of any drug deal. And it's also true that one bad guy—the one that shot Jimmy Coletta—got away. But there's never been a clue as to his identity.”

“Fuckin' shine's dead by now, anyway,” Kilgallon said. “Dopeheads don't have much of a life expectancy.”

“And as for homicide by an unknown party,” Frankel said, “what's that? It was the bitch put Sal Coletta down; and both her and Lonnie were shot by police officers in the line of duty, and ruled justifiable. Self-defense. So you're wrong on that.”

“I'm talking about a more recent homicide,” I said. “And you know what I mean.”

But I couldn't tell whether Frankel knew I meant Maura Flanagan's murder or not, or whether the look in his eyes was surprise, or confusion, or a cover for something else. And I couldn't read Kilgallon, either, for a different reason. His arrogant, sullen expression never looked anything
but
guilty to me, for everything.

So I didn't take it any farther right then, and nobody said anything for a long several seconds.

Frankel finally spoke up. “Look, you call me on the phone claiming you'll tell the world what you say you know if Richard and I don't show up here tonight. Well, here we are. Because we wonder what kinda bullshit lies you've made up about what happened at Lonnie Bright's. But it's been ten minutes and you haven't said one damn thing to make me think you can cause trouble for anyone but yourself.”

“What I know is this,” I said. “Sal Coletta and his partner Richie boy here happened onto a truckload of cocaine in the course of their business of protecting the public, and made a deal to sell it to Lonnie. Lonnie was as dumb as he thought he was smart. He figured he was ready for prime time and he was gonna do this deal independent of his handlers, to set himself up. Sal decided to bring his brother Jimmy in on it, which meant bringing you in, too, Jimmy's partner. Maybe Sal didn't think he and Richie boy could handle it alone; or maybe he had a burst of brotherly love; or maybe Jimmy threatened to talk otherwise. I don't know.”

“You don't know
any
of this crap,” Kilgallon said.

“I know the plan was to take the money,” I said, “send Lonnie off on a one-way trip, and then sell the shit again to someone else.” I paused, but nobody responded. “You all knew this was a secret deal for Lonnie and he was supposed to be alone, but he had his nephew there. Marlon Shades. Just a punk kid, but he had to be dealt with. So,” I nodded at Frankel, “you watch from the front. Jimmy stays in the alley with Marlon to keep him busy moving the shit from one car to another, while Richie here, and Sal, go upstairs to get Lonnie's money. Well, they get the money and then Richie boy—”

“The name is
Richard.
” Kilgallon was ready to blow. “Cut out the ‘Richie boy' shit, if—”

“Oooh. Well, then, they get the money and
Richard
here pops Lonnie. One shot. Forehead, front and center. But then, surprise! Out jumps Fay Rita, Lonnie's woman. She's freaked and she opens fire on whatever moves. There's a lot of shooting then and that's when you run up to help,” nodding to Frankel. “Sal goes down. You go down. Fay Rita goes down. Meanwhile, Richie boy here ducks his ass into a closet and—”

Kilgallon slammed the table forward at my belly and I grabbed the gun as the Bud Light bottle went flying. We were both on our feet and he came around faster than I thought he could move. But when he got there I sliced the barrel of the Beretta across the side of his face. It opened a gash and hurt him enough to make him stop for a second and think. But he came up with the wrong thought. He went for his gun.

While he fumbled under his leather coat I hit him again, much harder. That one put him on the floor, and by the time he'd shaken the popcorn out of his brain his coat was off and over the back of a chair behind me. The Sig-Sauer 9mm from his shoulder holster, as well as the .38 snub-nose from his ankle, were both in the coat pockets.