Authors: Edward Conlon
The basement was a warren of drearily uniform little rooms, brick walls and concrete floors, all painted battleship-gray. A storage room, padlocked; a utility room that was not, with mops and buckets, white plastic jugs emitting chemical smells, a box of glossy black plastic garbage bags. No laundry room, no superintendent’s apartment, which was good—no visitors or interruptions, no witnesses. Nick caught himself. What was the matter with him? This wasn’t a secret, let alone a scandal. It was perfectly legal, laudable, a good thing, even great. This was a matter for the lieutenant, the police commissioner, the whole city to know. This was not how Nick should live, in fear of exposure, flinching at the thought of it like an abused child ducking every raised hand. Still, for now, it was best to avoid any public interference. A boiler room with a couple of milk crates, that would do.
Nick had Costa face the wall again as he searched him, patting him down, then going from pocket to pocket. A second gun was unlikely, but a knife, a razor blade, was not. Wallet and keys, a dirty handkerchief, two pens. Good. Nick needed one. A cherry lollipop. Who was that for? He could ask. He would. Talking would pass the time, and talking was the
next task. Nick wanted a confession, of course. Did he need one? He didn’t look forward to a long night of conversation. As it was, he had Costa on the one rape and the attempted kidnapping during today’s misadventure. The rest of the pattern would be locked in with the DNA—all science. The stories didn’t matter. Even if none of the victims could identify him, if half of them decided they couldn’t go forward, Costa was done for life. Nick dreaded the idea of spending hours with him, attempting to connect. But he knew he needed to—there were almost certainly more rapes, unreported—and he had to try to get to him, have a peek inside his head. Would he need a flashlight, or sunglasses?
Nick saw Costa tense, lower his shoulders, begin to crouch. Nick stepped back to avoid a kick, hand on his gun.
“Easy …”
“I can’t take this! If you’re gonna do it, just do it!”
Nick hadn’t thought about how all of this might have seemed to Costa, with his vastly different preoccupations and assumptions. His day had not gone as planned, either. He had no more expected for it to end here in the basement than Nick had, but he’d drawn an entirely different conclusion about what would follow. Costa had been shocked on the landing, disappointed on the stairs, resigned in the lobby, and now terrified in the boiler room. Quite a circuit, but Nick didn’t know which feeling would most dispose him to talk, alone or in their cocktail combination. Nick turned him around, refusing to show any emotion in his own face, as confusion was added to the mix in Costa’s.
“What’s happening?”
“We’re waiting here, until a ride comes. Sit down.”
Nick pointed to a milk crate and backed up a few paces, so he was near the other. They could sit and talk awhile, pass the time. The boiler was an old hulk of steel piping and grimed-over gauges. The room was warm and smelled of diesel and disinfectant.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Are you in a rush?”
As Costa kicked his milk crate, Nick reflected whether shooting him wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. No, no more conspiracies, not after today. Nick had to decide how to come at him, considering the approaches. Man of Authority, Scary Weirdo, New Best Friend. A catalogue of them, available for the modern inquisitor. He slid his own crate so that it sat squarely in front of the door, and eased himself down onto it.
“Don’t sit, then. Suit yourself.”
The crate was more comfortable than he’d expected. It was a relief to sit, and Nick didn’t want Costa to see how tired he was, how weak and sore. Costa held his wary stance as they looked at each other, breathing heavily, and then he righted his crate with a foot. When he sat, they resumed looking at each other, sizing it all up. No staring contest for Nick, no eyeball-to-eyeball challenge. When Costa tried one, Nick looked away, then down, pretending to think. He was thinking. You couldn’t pretend that, after all; even pretending to think was thinking. Should he take out his notepad? Not yet. They should start talking first, about something not quite to the point. The boiler gurgled and groaned, let out a hiss.
“Do you remember me?”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Do I think you’re stupid? No, I don’t. I answered your question. Will you answer mine?”
“Why should I?”
“I answered yours. It’s fair.”
“This is fair?”
So this was how it would go.
I know you are, but what am I?
Five minutes in, Nick was exhausted, by the pettiness as much as anything else. Costa hadn’t showered or changed, but he wasn’t shivering; he didn’t seem tired, even though he’d walked as far as the detectives had—exactly as far, to the step, at the subway.
“What do you think is unfair about it?”
“You grabbed me, for nothing. And your partner wrecked a picture of my mother, like some vicious retarded kid who has no respect for nothing. You think I did something? Prove it, shoot me, or let me go. You think I’m gonna talk to you, you’re stupider than you look.”
“I don’t need you to talk. There’s DNA.”
“You can suck my dick.”
“That would work, but we usually just swab the cheek.”
The little tantrum, the school yard slur, maybe they weren’t so bad. Costa was rattled and humiliated. If the approach to take was to break him down instead of building him up, Nick’s indifference to the insult was a worse insult than Costa’s. Nick read him the Miranda warnings in an apathetic mutter. “Now that I’ve read you your rights and whatever, are you willing to answer questions?”
“I’m gonna sue you. I’m gonna have your salaries. I’m gonna be rich.”
“It’s gonna take a lot more than my salary for you to get rich.”
Nick took out his pad, flipped to a clean page, pretended to write. It was better when Costa feared the worst. Just like the last time, the first time in his apartment, when detectives had come in to not-catch him. He’d gotten cocky then, too, disbelieving his luck before concluding that luck had nothing to do with it.
It must be that I’m just that good
. If every criminal was by definition an optimist, reckoning they wouldn’t get caught, Costa must have believed he could move mountains. It was time to bring him back down, keep his mind on the little things, take the first steps.
“What’s your name?”
“You know what it is. You think you do.”
“ ‘Raul Costa.’ That’s the name I’m putting down, for the paperwork. If I’m wrong, you should correct me. Otherwise, it’ll look bad. For your lawsuit.”
Costa considered the possibilities, and nodded.
“Your address, date of birth? Like I said, if you’re suing, if this is all a big mistake—our big mistake—this is basic stuff. I don’t know what happened. I know what you’re going to be accused of. You can talk about it or not. I know you know your rights. You’ve seen TV, you can talk or not talk. I got my own problems with the guy I work with. Bigger than yours. Why do you think he wasn’t there with me? It’s a long story—anyway, I don’t trust him. You saw him maybe once. I have to see him every day. I’m not just saying that, as a game, to play you. You’re smarter than that. I wouldn’t try it on you.”
“Is he coming?”
“God’s honest truth, I have no idea where he is.”
Nick was both disappointed and relieved that Esposito wasn’t listening by the door. Esposito wouldn’t have minded the line of argument so much—he’d try it himself, if he thought it might work—but he would have been discomfited by the depth of feeling, the lack of acting in the method. Still, it had broken the ice between them. This was progress. Nick asked for his address again, how old he was. All business—height, weight, Social Security number, scars and marks, next of kin. Nick dutifully wrote down the information supplied, but for the last question,
there was no response. Nick looked at Costa, and he looked back; he was tough again. This was regress.
“Nobody?”
“No.”
“No brothers, sisters? Mother?”
The corners of Costa’s mouth dropped, and his eyes concentrated darkly. “No.”
The mother lode, the mother line. Before Nick could venture another word, Costa rolled his eyes and spat on the floor. “You just said you don’t get paid enough. Now you wanna play psychiatry, go deep on me? C’mon! Are you lockin’ me up, or can I go?”
“Like I said, this is just basic information. I’m not your enemy, I’m not your friend, I’m just doing the paperwork. And you are locked up. Didn’t I tell you that? Sorry if I didn’t.”
Nick remembered the last talk with Malcolm at Rikers. If the man on the other side of the table knocks you down ten feet, you should dive another twenty. If he wants to keep talking, he has to come get you, he has to reach, and now you’ve got his hand in yours. Nick scribbled his own name, the date, the time on the pad, so he wouldn’t have to see so much space on the page.
“What am I being arrested for?”
“Do you mean today?”
“Don’t mess around. Don’t play games.”
“No, Raul, I won’t. Right now, it’s kidnapping and rape. Attempted kidnapping, for today, my mistake. But also burglary. I forgot that.”
“What? I never stole nothing in my life!”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“Why you saying it, then?”
“What burglary is, Raul—your lawyer will tell you the same thing—under the New York State Penal Law, is to trespass with the intent to commit another crime. Mostly, you’re right, it’s guys breaking into a house to steal something. I didn’t say you did that. But what your lawyer will tell you is that you’re being accused of going somewhere you weren’t supposed to be, to do something you aren’t supposed to do. That’s what burglary is.”
Let him chew on that for a while. No, let it choke him. It had been such a long day. Nick shouldn’t have spoken after that, not even a vowel.
After ten minutes, he did—only two letters, one consonant, one vowel, nothing more. But it showed Nick was more eager than his opponent.
“So.”
A mistake.
“Are you kidding me?”
“About what?”
“That’s the best you got? All of this, this is a joke. You’re a clown. This is a game. Nothing happened. It’s all a lie. They all lied. You’re lying to me, too. You’re not even as good as your partner. He’s just a regular retard, but at least you know where you stand with him. I do. Do you? You stabbed him in the back in two minutes. You’re the one who’s gotta explain. Not me. Nick? Is that your name?”
Nick had given him real emotion, knowing Costa could taste it like blood in the water. To separate from Esposito had been tactical, an opportunity in the conversation. Nick didn’t care that Costa knew his first name. He didn’t care if he learned his last name. If Costa found out where he lived, he’d have to get in line with the other half-assed assassins. Well, he could move to the front of it. So what? Nick put his chin in his hand and nodded, philosophical. What would Esposito say? He’d say, if you’re still talking, you’ve won. That was hard to keep in mind, at the moment.
“Yeah, my name, you picked it up. I asked for yours, so it’s fair. Raul, Nick—Nick, Raul. I should have introduced myself at the beginning. And I should have apologized. My partner shouldn’t have drawn a mustache on your mother. And for hitting you. But you were out of line, too. One thing I don’t get is that you think this is some big ‘Gotcha!’ when I was the one who told you in the first place that I don’t like him. So what? Maybe tomorrow, I’ll put in a request to shift my cubicle. You know how it is at work. What do you do for a living, Raul?”
“I have asthma. I get a check. But also I work in groceries, sometimes.”
The topic of employment seemed to depress him, so Nick pushed it.
“Yeah, so you know! All the lifting, all the long hours, the bullshit with the boss, the people. Anyway, it’s just a job. You’re just my job today. It’s nothing personal. Somebody says this about you, you can fight it in court. I’ll go home to my girlfriend—she’s Dominican. She’s hot, but it’s complicated. I’ll push her over to get half the bed. First she’s gonna complain, then maybe I’ll get laid, but probably I’ll get slapped. In the morning, she’ll probably leave me a sweet little note. You know how it is.”
The show of barstool camaraderie seemed false to Nick, but there was
nothing he wouldn’t try. Costa’s body seemed to droop as if it were a plant cut off from the root, but then he sat up again and spat, “Call the cops again. I’m sick of this. Let’s just go.”
Nick was thinking the same thing, but since Costa had suggested the course of action, it was no longer possible. The indifference was the real insult. Nick knew how that worked. He stood up and stretched, as if to rub in his freedom of movement. He thought of Grace, the broken promises that he hoped to repair. Her last words to him: “Sorry … I know you tried.” Maybe she was with Special Victims now, looking at mug shots. The case would not be his for much longer. Maybe Ivan was with the lieutenant, telling him about how Nick had lied, that he never knew about the sting at school. Maybe a lawsuit there, maybe a transfer. And depending on how things went with Esposito, this could be Nick’s last real night on the Job. Yes, he would see this through, unsure whether it was pride or despair that roused him, whether he was striving for triumph or begging for pardon.
Nick forged ahead. There were appeals to Costa’s vanity, how clever he was to have avoided getting caught for so long. The media would be all over it—he’d be the lead story in every paper, on every TV station. Costa saw through the flattery, and while it clearly pleased him, he was content not to share his satisfaction. Inspiration struck, and Nick lied. “We found all your clippings from the paper about it in the apartment.” Costa’s dismissal was weak. “A lot of people were interested in … that guy.” Suggestions that there might be a psychiatric defense offended Costa; exhortations to be a man about it bored him. The irony of the appeal to manhood escaped both of them at the time. Every time Nick was tempted to quit, to leave the basement, he reminded himself of what awaited him outside—maybe nothing good, nothing good enough. “I know you tried.” Onward and forward and backward, over and over. Proofs and persuasions, offered with feeling when he could manage, faking it when he had to. Nick delved into Maria Fonseca, who’d killed herself; Mercedes Fonseca, who would want to, when she learned the truth of who he was, what had happened. Nick didn’t know enough about the pattern—the two dozen others—to work with details, but the ventured gibes about Costa’s lack of endowment or endurance seemed to make him proud. Worse—the upper lip lifted in what must have been a grin, vain and simpering at once. He spread his legs, pushed out his crotch, and laughed.