The Snake Tattoo (29 page)

“Forget it,” he said.

“Where do we stand on favors?” I asked.

That wasn't quite fair. He owed me a big one and he knew it.

“What do you think I could help you with?” he said finally. “And watch out for that damn BMW.”

“Bimmers can take care of themselves,” I shot back. “You think he wants to crease that fancy paint? I thought you might be able to help retrieve my client's green card. She needs it.”

“Carlotta, you lose a green card, you go to Immigration and fill out forty-seven forms in triplicate and they give you another one.”

“I have a feeling my client doesn't want to go through the process again.”

“Shit,” Mooney said.

I followed a long line of cars that went through a yellow light at Park Square. I actually thought about stopping, but the Town Taxi behind me didn't. He probably would have driven over me if I had.

“So?” I said. Mooney was looking around for a traffic cop. He could have looked for a long time.

“This meeting shouldn't take too long.”

“Where have I heard that before?” I said.

“There'll be a guy from INS there. Afterward we could talk, the three of us.”

“How long?”

“An hour, no longer.”

I screeched to a halt in front of headquarters. “I'll pick the two of you up here in an hour,” I said.

“Absolutely not,” Mooney yelled, jumping out at the curb. “Ditch the car. Go buy yourself coffee and a doughnut across the street. We finish early, we'll pick you up there. Otherwise be here, near the steps. Wherever we're going, we'll walk.”

“Absolutely not.” That's the kind of thing Mooney usually says to me: “Absolutely not.”

3

Two hours later I was cooling my butt on the stone front steps of headquarters, watching cops come out, felons go in, and vice versa. I took note of a few undercover narcs and carefully refrained from greeting them even though all the handcuffed punks entering the station seemed to know who they were. I also moved my car in what I was sure would be a vain attempt to fool the downtown meter maids, infamous women who not only ticket you for overrunning your meter but actually nail you for refilling the damn thing. These zealous guardians of the public purse make note of every license plate en route, honest to God, and even if you stick in your extortionate quarter per fifteen lousy minutes, if you stay in one space for over the hour limit, it's a traffic ticket for sure.

I scorn downtown parking lots. They're barely cheaper than tickets. And I guess I enjoy the challenge, the thrill of the chase, the contest between me and the meter maids. I wonder if they get a charge out of ticketing my poor Toyota, wonder if they recognize the car and say: “Aha! Gotcha again!”

Lately the thrill-of-the-chase aspect has come into question, what with fewer legal spaces and more cars competing for each one. Instead of a duel between equals, the traffic-ticket game is starting to feel more like the fox versus the hounds and the hunters. The fox, I think, gets considerably less enjoyment from the chase.

But then he doesn't always get caught. And I like to imagine him back in his den, tail and ears intact, giggling at all those stuffed-shirt red coats and riding breeches.

I'd just made up my mind to stick my car in the cop lot with a scrawled sign declaring it an undercover unit when Mooney saved me from a felony by coming down the steps.

He was followed by a scrawny guy wearing a three-piece suit, dark blue Sears model, and a red tie that might have been described as a power tie on somebody else. On this guy it just drew attention to his bobbing Adam's apple. He had thin brown hair, parted low on the side and scraped across his skull in an attempt to cover his baldness. He clutched a briefcase like he was scared somebody was going to snatch it.

The scrawny guy looked me over when I stood up. I was maybe six inches taller than he was.

“This your source?” he said to Mooney with ill-disguised skepticism. Or definite intent to demean.

“This your INS agent?” I said to Mooney in the same tone.

“Children, children,” Mooney said mildly, “let's go have a drink before we start insulting each other. If you'd been at that meeting, you'd need one, too, Carlotta.”

So we tagged together through the crowded streets, down Stanhope to a Red Coach Grill that stopped being a Red Coach years ago. I still think of it as the Red Coach, no matter what the neon over the door says.

We grabbed a table near the bar and I got introduced to the Immigration and Naturalization man. He didn't say his name. He didn't offer a handshake. He slid a brown leather folder across the table. I opened it a bit too ostentatiously to suit him. His photo had been taken when he'd had a bit more hair. His name was Walter Jamieson.

“It's
Jameson
,” he murmured from across the table. “You don't pronounce the
i
.”

I slid my card across the table, placing it facedown, imitating his routine with the folder. He stared at it for a while, and we were spared more hostilities by the waiter, who took our drink orders. I passed, it being slightly before noon. The other two ordered Scotch, Mooney's a double.

“Must have been some meeting,” I commented.

“We're not here to talk about that,” Jamieson snapped. Then he turned his charm on the waiter. “Bring me a corned beef on rye and hop it. I'm in a hurry here.”

Mooney and I exchanged glances. If ever there was a white-bread-and-mayo place, we were in it. I smothered a grin in anticipation of the culinary delights awaiting Jamieson, then I ordered a chicken club; Mooney, a salad.

“The lieutenant said you had some information concerning the identification card found on the deceased,” Jamieson said as soon as the waiter was out of earshot.

“You mean, the dead woman?” I said, giving Mooney the eye, as if to say, how could you have brought me this unbelievable clod. The deceased, my ass.

“Carlotta,” Mooney said softly while kicking me gently under the table, “why not just tell him what you told me?”

Because he's an obvious idiot is what I felt like saying. Instead I gave him the story, slightly abbreviated. I'd skimped a bit on the tale, even with Mooney, not mentioning the part about my Manuela saying she was illegal. With Mooney, put it down to my normal disinclination to share a client's confidences with a cop. With Jamieson, I figured it would just confuse him.

“We'll have to pick up this woman,” Jamieson said. “Pronto.”

Pronto. He really said that.

“Any chance of getting her green card back?” I asked. “I mean, why should she suffer, just because somebody lifted her card?”

“She can come down to the Federal Building. Here's my number. Have her call, and my secretary will make an appointment.”

“Somehow I don't think she'll like the idea of the Federal Building,” I said.

“That's the way it's done,” he said stiffly. “Of course, she can file a lost card report and go through the usual formalities. I'm offering a shortcut.”

“Then there's no way for me, acting as her agent, or for, say, a lawyer in her employ, to get the card back?”

The drinks came. Jamieson checked his watch and demanded his sandwich, which the cowed waiter brought, along with Mooney's salad, even though my order wasn't ready yet. Mooney sipped his Scotch. Jamieson bit deeply into one of the driest-looking bread-and-meat concoctions I ever hope to see and came up talking.

“Are you aware,” he said, eyes narrow, tone low, mouth full of stringy corned beef, “of what this sounds like? It sounds to me like some sort of scam to get hold of a green card.”

“The murder?” I said incredulously.

He wiggled his index finger in my face. “I mean, your woman reads the story in the newspaper—”

“Never mind that she barely reads English. Neither paper mentions a green card. They say something about an identifying document found on the body. What did she do? Take a lucky guess?”

“You have no idea what these people will do for legal documents.”

The man had a shred of something green caught between his two front teeth. I hoped it was lettuce, although why anybody would stick lettuce in a corned beef on rye, I have no idea. I tried another tack. “Can you tell me this? The document you found on the, uh, deceased, is it the genuine article?”

Jamieson glanced at Mooney to see whether I could be trusted with such valuable information. Mooney must have stopped downing his Scotch long enough to give me the okay, because Jamieson nodded his head. He didn't actually say yes. Secret agents might have overheard him.

“So it's genuine and it doesn't belong to the dead woman,” I said.

“We're not a hundred percent clear on that,” Mooney said slowly. “The way she was cut up, we'll have a hell of a time identifying her.”

Jamieson removed a probing index finger from his mouth where he'd been using it instead of a toothpick. “Unless your mystery woman knows who she is.”

“My client said she didn't know the dead woman.”

“I'd like to ask her myself. Make sure she contacts me before five o'clock today.”

“Maybe you weren't listening,” I said slowly and distinctly. “I have no idea where my client might be.”

“Sure,” Jamieson said, gobbling down sandwich moistened by Scotch. “Yeah, but when she calls you, make sure she gets in touch. Otherwise you can get in some pretty serious trouble yourself.”

“Mooney,” I said, “I am so shaken by this man's threats that I'm going to have a beer. How about you?”

“I'll pass,” he said. I called over the waiter and ordered. He assured me my sandwich was on the way. He didn't ask Mr. INS if he wanted anything else.

“Can I see the green card?” I asked.

Mooney opened his mouth, but Jamieson beat him to it. “That would be police property now, Ms. Carlyle. I'd doubt it very much.” He had a nasty way of saying
Ms
.

He was going to go on, but the digital watch on his wrist gave a feeble squawk. He shook it and looked perfectly appalled by the time he'd wasted interviewing me. I hope I looked just as appalled. He was exactly the type of guy who'd wear a cheap digital watch with an alarm.

“I have another appointment,” he said brusquely, comparing his watch with the clock over the bar while he wrapped a remaining sliver of sandwich in a wadded napkin. “Remember what I said.”

“What was that,” I asked blandly, “that you said?”

“I want to hear from your client, this Manuela Estefan, within the next few days. Or you could be in some serious trouble.” He opened his briefcase furtively, taking care that no one could see the contents, and shoved the napkin-wrapped bundle inside. I wouldn't want anyone to see the inside of my briefcase, either, if all I stored there was leftovers.

“I'm a citizen,” I said. “I thought you just made trouble for aliens.”

“You don't want to try me,” he said. And he grabbed his briefcase and stalked off without reading me my rights.

“Gee, Mooney,” I said after a long pause, “thanks so much for introducing me to your friend.”

My belated club sandwich arrived. Mooney hadn't touched his salad, so we ate together in companionable silence.

“You want to see the green card?” he said when we were done, by way of apology for subjecting me to Jamieson.

So we paid up and walked to Berkeley Street. The INS jerk hadn't even left money on the table to cover his lunch.

The card was in a plastic evidence bag. Mooney liberated it for me so I could get a good look. I assumed it had already been dusted for prints.

The more I stared at the card, the more confused I got. The photograph was smaller than a passport shot, slightly blurry. The woman in the photo was shown three-quarter profile, her right ear exposed. She had long, dark hair like my client. Brown eyes like my client. But her face … well, there was a definite resemblance, but I couldn't swear to it. If my client had worn her hair behind her ears, I'd have done a better job. Ears are distinctive.

The name on the card was Manuela Estefan. It looked genuine, the INS man had pronounced it genuine, and my client had called herself an illegal alien. I flipped the card over. This was no easy piece of counterfeiting. The front side, the one with the picture, had a white field with pink wavy lines running through it. It also boasted the photograph, an impressive seal in dark blue, and an index fingerprint in a square box. The back of the card was off-white with a beige wave and a white silhouette of the U.S.A. Three rows of numbers.

The card had been laminated. Its edges were rough, as if the job had been done in one of those drugstore machines.

It would have been easier to counterfeit a hundred-dollar bill.

Was my client lying about being illegal? Why?

Was the INS agent lying about the card being genuine?

My fingers played with the edges of the card. I wished I could just pocket the damn thing and give it back to her, case closed. But it wasn't going to be that simple. Not with a woman dead.

Mooney apologized for Jamieson, and I told him he wasn't responsible for all the jerks in the world.

On the way out I asked where they'd found Manuela's card. In a handbag? With any other ID?

“She didn't have a handbag,” Mooney said. “Or else the perp snatched it.”

“Yeah?”

“Not for publication,” he said, “but the card was in her shoe.”

“And one more thing: How come you're not absolutely sure about the ID? With the fingerprint and all?”

“Still not for broadcast?” he asked.

“Cross my little heart,” I said.

“Victim didn't
have
any prints. He cut off her hands.”

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people have been kind enough to read this novel in various manuscript stages, offering suggested changes and needed encouragement. Chief among them are James Morrow, Karen Motylewski, Richard Barnes, Susan Linn, the ladies who lunch—especially Bonnie Sunstein—and Cynthia Mark-Hummel. My thanks to all of them.