“How do I know the two crimes are even related? The cops don’t know that.”
“Of course they know that.”
“But they don’t credit it. They’re not buying the guy next door theory. There’s no reason for them to even notice.”
“Now you’re dreaming.”
“They don’t credit the guy next door because they think I did it. If the guy next door is connected, I’m no longer a suspect.”
“Dream on.”
“Come on, MacAullif, they can’t have it both ways.”
“Oh, no? Try this. You’re connected. The guy next door’s connected. You’re both connected. When you get picked up, you try to put the blame on him. He doesn’t take kindly to this, and the end result is you have to rub him out.”
“Jesus Christ. How’d you put that together so fast?”
“I’m a cop. It’s what I do.”
“Interpret extraneous facts to frame an innocent man?”
“Well, it’s more challenging. The guilty ones have the disadvantage of having actually done it.”
“It’s good to hear you say that.”
“Why?”
“It means you’re getting your sense of humor back.”
“Oh, you think so? Just wait until that dumb fucking motel manager IDs me as the guy who got the address. Then we’ll see how much sense of humor I have about this.”
“I’d kind of like to head that off.”
“Oh?”
“I was thinking if we could solve this thing—”
MacAullif exploded. “Jesus Christ! You never learn, do you? You bring me a steaming pile of shit and expect me to find a pony. Well, I ain’t playing.”
“You object to catching this killer?”
“I got no problem catching this killer. As far as the Jersey cops are concerned, I just caught him. I could drive you there now, collect the reward.”
“Except they’d want to know how I got the line on my victim.”
“You’re pushing your luck.”
“Come on, MacAullif. What you said before. About me and the guy next door working to set this guy up. That didn’t happen, but something similar did. You and I have the inside track in knowing that. Now, setting aside the great solution that I killed this guy, how does he wind up dead?”
“Which guy?”
“The second guy. The mafia guy. Vinnie what’s-his-face.”
“He winds up dead so he won’t talk.”
“What’s he gonna say?”
“He’s gonna say he rented the motel room for high-level wise guy whatever-the-hell-his-name-is. Who, as far as he knows, was shackin’ up with a broad. It would have come as a real shock to him to find out the guy in the motel room next to the one he rented wound up dead.”
“If that’s true, why is he dangerous?”
“He’s dangerous because he can name the guy who rented the room. He doesn’t know that makes him dangerous, but it does. Someone else knows it makes him dangerous.”
“Yeah, the guy who killed him.”
“No,” MacAullif said. “The guy who
tipped off
the guy who killed him. The way I see it, there’s only one person that could be.”
“The motel manager?”
“That’s how I figure.”
“You’re right. We gotta take him apart and see what makes him tick.”
“No, we don’t!”
“Why not?”
“We’d just give him reason to go to the cops.”
“Not if he’s the guy who tipped off the killer. If he’s in on this thing, he’s not running to the cops.”
“Assuming he tipped off the killer,” MacAullif said. “Which is still just an assumption.”
“Who else could have done it?”
“I don’t know. But my ass is hanging fairly far out on this one. And prodding the motel manager could fuck me good. Which is why you’re not going to do that.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? What do you mean, ‘oh’? Are you telling me you already did?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. Because talking to the motel manager would be just about the stupidest thing you could do right now. Short of talking to the dead guy’s wife.”
I blinked.
MacAullif nearly gagged. “Oh, my God!”
“MacAullif—”
“I don’t believe it! Are you telling me after you found the dead mobster’s body you spoke to the widow?”
“No, of course not.”
“Did you talk to her before?”
“Well—”
“You did, didn’t you?” MacAullif’s voice was rising. “You talked to her
before
you found the mobster’s body, but
after
I got the credit card receipt from the motel manager. You talked to her to see if she’d hire you! To investigate the murder of her husband! Whom she suspects you of killing! You figured if you were going to check out the guy anyway, you might as well have someone pay for it!”
“It wasn’t the money.”
“No, of
course
not,” MacAullif said scathingly. “That would be
logical
. That would make
sense
. That would be a simple, basic motive anyone could relate to. But you—correct me if I’m wrong—you want her to hire you because you want to convince her you’re a basically good person who would never harm her husband.”
“I’m accused of murder. She’s a witness against me.”
“Exactly! She’s the last person in the world you should be talking to! But you figure you can charm her! What did you do, appeal to her better nature? Show her your dick?”
MacAullif wrenched the car out of the spot, sped down the street.
“Where we going?”
MacAullif said nothing, just kept heading west.
“My car’s back there.”
“I know where your car is.”
He got on the West Side Highway, headed uptown.
“It’s nice of you to drive me home, MacAullif, but I’d rather have my car.”
We seemed to be passing a lot of cars. I peeked at the dashboard. MacAullif was doing ninety.
“I guess if you’re a cop you got a right to drive any speed you want.”
MacAullif ignored me. If anything, he accelerated.
“That’s my exit,” I said as we passed Ninety-sixth Street.
MacAullif zigzagged through traffic, went up the ramp to the Cross Bronx Expressway and the George Washington Bridge. He kept right, swerved around the entrance to Martha Washington, the bridge’s lower level.
“We going to Jersey?” I said. I remembered Al Pacino saying the same thing in
The Godfather
when Michael Corleone was in the car with Sollozzo, and his heart was in his throat because they were heading for Jersey, and the restaurant where they’d planted the gun in the bathroom for him was in the Bronx. “I thought you said it would be a bad idea to talk to the motel manager.”
MacAullif pulled out in front of an eighteen-wheeler, passed a slow-moving panel truck and got in the right-hand lane to exit.
We weren’t going to the motel. I had a sudden paranoid thought,
Good god, he is going to turn me in to the cops
. Which shows how stressed out I was. Because that couldn’t possibly compute. After all, what conceivable explanation could he come up with for putting me under arrest?
We weren’t going to the police station either. MacAullif got on the Palisades Parkway, heading north, and hit the gas.
One good thing, he was obeying the speed limit. At least compared to New York. He was only doing seventy. I guess because he wasn’t a Jersey cop and couldn’t count on their cooperation. Not because he was afraid they’d stop him and take charge of his prisoner.
“Where the hell are we going?”
MacAullif steamed on by exit one and kept going north. Finally he slowed, put on his blinker.
I looked.
There was a roadside rest area up ahead on the right. Not with amenities. Just a place you could pull off the road and park.
MacAullif drove in. There was no one around. He parked behind a grove of trees, killed the motor.
“Get out.”
My mouth fell open. I wasn’t Michael Corleone in
The Godfather
. I was Adriana in
The Sopranos
, Chris’s cop-collaborating girlfriend being taken for a ride by Bruce Springsteen’s guitarist, Silvio.
“Am I getting whacked?”
“I wish.”
He jerked his thumb.
I opened the door, got out, waited for MacAullif to join me.
He didn’t.
Before it dawned on me what he was doing, MacAullif started the car and drove off.
18
“I
CAN
’
T BELIEVE HE LEFT
you there,” Alice said.
It was not the first time she had said so. I guess her disbelief was ongoing. I had accepted the situation. At least the fact that it happened. Of course, I had a lot longer to think about it, having had to get home from Jersey.
It involved crossing the northbound lanes of the Palisades Parkway, not fun in rush hour, to get to the southbound lanes. Then crossing the southbound lanes, slightly easier, to get to the right-hand side of the road.
Then trying to hitchhike on the Palisades Parkway, a fruitless, bad, and illegal enterprise. At least no one tried to pick me up, which probably would have resulted in a ten-car pileup or me getting arrested or both.
Then it required walking several miles south to exit one, I couldn’t tell you how many as my internal odometer is somewhat faulty. Then attempting to hitchhike south on 9W for several blocks, until finally giving up and just walking the damn thing.
Then taking a bus over the George Washington Bridge, catching a subway downtown to pick up my car, and then driving home.
If you’re wondering, yes, I had my cell phone, yes, I could have called Alice to come get me, but that would have required her going downtown to get my car and fighting her way through rush-hour traffic to pick me up, with the end result that
she
would have had all that time to come to grips with MacAullif stranding me in New Jersey, and move on to new subject matter, such as what I had done to deserve it.
Not that she didn’t get there anyway.
“So, MacAullif is pissed off because you found another body and happened to run away without telling the cops?”
“What’s your point?”
“What the hell were you thinking? You’re out on bail for a murder so you go breaking into a mobster’s house.”
“I thought my number was on his caller ID.”
“Yes, you did. Tell me, what would have been easier to explain, getting caught in the guy’s house, or having dialed him on your cell phone, a call that could have been made from anywhere on earth?”
“There’s still some pockets you can’t get service.”
“It’s not funny, Stanley. This whole thing’s got me freaked out.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, I know. But I’m not going to be on your jury.”
“This isn’t going to court.”
“You copping a plea?”
“I thought it wasn’t funny.”
“It isn’t. I’m trying to boost my spirits by ridiculing you.”
“How’s that working?”
“It’s not really satisfying.” Alice shook her head. “I can’t believe you ran away.”
“I didn’t run away.”
“You didn’t stay. You found a dead body and you took off.”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“If the cops found me there, they’d think I did it.”
“With what gun?”
“How the hell should I know what gun?”
“You can’t shoot a guy without a gun. Was there a gun there?”
“Not that I noticed. There could have been one under the body. There could have been one under the bed. There could have been one in the trash. There could have been one anywhere in the house. It didn’t matter where. If there was one there at all, the cops would assume I used it and that would be that. Even if there wasn’t a gun, there was no way I could explain what I was doing there.”
“You were investigating the murder.”
“How did I get a line on the guy? If I don’t tell them, they suspect me of murder. If I do tell them, I implicate MacAullif.”
“MacAullif left you on the Palisades Parkway.”
“Right. I should pay him back by getting him convicted of a felony?”
“That’s silly.”
“Conspiring to conceal a crime is a felony.”
“You didn’t conspire to conceal a crime. You conspired to
solve
a crime. It’s not the same thing.”
“Tell it to the cops.”
“Stanley. Wake up. You didn’t kill anyone. You didn’t
commit
a crime. You can’t conspire to conceal a crime that isn’t a crime.”
“You don’t have to sell me, Alice.”
“It sounds like I do. If you want to feel guilty about getting MacAullif in trouble, you gotta remember that is provisional on you being convicted of murder. Do I have to explain to you what torturous logic is in play here?”
“No. You have to explain it to MacAullif. Because he’s the one making the claim.”
“Oh, give me a break. MacAullif may rant and rave and curse you to the high heavens, but even he doesn’t think you’re going to get convicted of murder and he’s going to be charged as an accessory and kicked off the force. Not in his wildest dreams.”
“I don’t have to get convicted to get him in trouble. If it turns out he’s been meddling in the case his ass is grass no matter what the outcome.”
“Great. Just great. And who is this schmuck who got killed?”
“The guy who rented the room next to the other schmuck who got killed.”
“Which could be totally unrelated.”
“Not any more, or he wouldn’t be dead. Which is why MacAullif getting a line on him while he was still alive is such a red flag.”
“Are you sure he was still alive?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it possible he was killed
before
MacAullif found out who he was?”
“We don’t know the time of death. And the way things stand, nobody’s about to tell me.”
“Would it be a lot better if the guy was dead when MacAullif was asking?”
“No.”
“Why not? If he was dead, MacAullif couldn’t have given you the guy’s address so you could kill him.”
“If he was dead, everyone’s gonna think MacAullif
knew
he was dead and that’s why he was asking.”
“If MacAullif knew he was dead, why would he have to ask?”
“Huh?”
“How could MacAullif know he was dead and not know who he is? I mean, ‘Someone’s dead, I wonder who. Let me ask the motel manager.’” Alice shrugged her shoulders, spread her hands. “See? It doesn’t compute.”
“No. ‘The
guy who rented the motel room
is dead, let me find out who he is.’”