Douglas DiNunzio [Eddie Lomba Hot Wired in Brooklyn (retail)

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.I finished my coffee, paced the room a while, then stared silently out the window.I was searching for an answer to my questions about Arnold, hoping to snatch it right out of the gray winter sky.When none came, I drove to Prospect Park, walked out by Swan Lake, and sat on a bench.Prospect Park is a beautiful place in the winter, especially in the morning before the fog lifts.It’s a place to think, to sort things out, and my Arnold problem needed a lot of sorting.“The kid’s not that stupid,” I heard myself say out loud.I was watching a cop on horseback on the far side of the lake.He sat tall and erect in the saddle.The horse, a huge black stallion, was high-stepping.My eyes drifted to the lake itself.A blanket of fog hugged its far bank, obscuring the boathouse and a small stand of bare trees beyond.An entire landscape in shades of gray.A sheen of ice lay over the water.No telling how thick, but probably unsafe for skating or ice fishing.Thin ice, Eddie.Danger.Stay where you are.The kid’s trouble.Let them have him.Let him go straight to Hell…But what if he hadn’t done it?The cop on horseback watched me as he rode along the lake path, sizing me up as a possible vagrant or escaped lunatic.The horse watched me, too, as alert and skeptical as its rider.Its head reared as it snorted, warm breath pouring from its deep, black nostrils like plumes of factory smoke.As much machine as beast, just like the rest of us, gadgets and gizmos operating on autopilot, working from memory instead of thinking.Did the thinking part ever overcome the part that was machine? Did memory ever lose out to thought? Hard questions, but I was trying to answer them on that park bench, trying to reason past my history with Arnold Pulaski and overcome memory with a little common sense.It wasn’t easy.Memory doesn’t like to be overruled, so it didn’t like the decision that common sense told me to make.Finally, I just shouted “Damn it!” across the lake, fully expecting the mounted cop to circle back and put me in cuffs.Memory works the same way for cops, but he hadn’t heard me.I shouted it again, a few decibels higher, for Gino and his endless do-gooder meddling.But this wasn’t Gino’s doing anymore.Whatever happened now, whoever got hurt, it would be my own damn fault.CHAPTER9The Raymond Street Jail was actually on Ashland Place, along the western edge of Fort Greene Park.It was known officially as Brooklyn City Prison, but nobody in Brooklyn called it that.It was just Raymond Street.Like its better-known Manhattan counterpart, the Tombs, it was what a prison should be: dark and soulless; the home of dreams gone wrong, of errant roads taken.Nick DeMassio had pulled a few strings to get me in that morning.I was in no mood to wait for regular visiting hours.I was in no mood for Arnold at all.As soon as I was certain he’d really killed Joe Shork, I’d happily leave the little bastard to his well-deserved fate.I waited in the visiting room while one of the guards went to fetch him.I’d asked the desk sergeant not to give my name.“Just tell him he’s got a visitor.” In the interim, I did a slow look-see around the room.It wasn’t much: four long tables with glass dividers down the middle, a line of plain wooden chairs on both sides.The walls were institutional lime-green, the floors well-worn linoleum over well-worn wood.It was quiet enough now, but when the visitors and prisoners spilled in that afternoon, it would take on its usual ambiance, a combination of short-term optimism and longer-term despair.Smiles and tears, hope and hopelessness for an hour.Then the room would empty at the officers’ command, and it would be quiet again.Arnold saw me as the guard ushered him in, did a quick about-face and tried to bull his way back to the door.Having none of that, the guard took him by the collar, dragged him across to the visitors’ table, pushed him hard into the chair, and stood behind him.“You want me to keep him here?” the guard asked.“I’d enjoy that.” I smiled as if to say I’d enjoy it, too, but then I just shook my head.The guard gave Arnold a parting scowl, turned to me and said, “I’ll be right by the door if he gives you trouble.”Arnold offered a blank stare and silence, so I just started talking.“Nice to see you’ve already made friends here in the Big House,” I said, smiling over the glass panel that separated us.“You’ll like Sing Sing even better.I hear they’ve done a swell job redecorating Death Row.New electric chair, upholstered leather seat and everything.Just for you.”Arnold switched to one of his hard looks, but I didn’t return it because I was studying him.He’d put on weight and muscle in the right places since I’d last seen him.His pimply complexion had cleared up, his hair was shorter, the duck’s-ass was gone, and his face was clean-shaven, like mine.He was almost handsome, except for that hard look.It told me he was still carrying a small forest on his shoulders, and that meant trouble all around.“So,” I prompted.“Are we going to sit and glare at each other, or do you want to know why I’m here?”“Your one-eyed lawyer pal’s an asshole,” said Arnold, as if I hadn’t spoken.“I’ll tell him that the next time you’re bailable, if there is a next time.”He laughed as if there’d be next times to spare.“Okay,” I said, “if you’re not going to talk, I guess I will.I figure you stole the D.A.’s car, all right, but for your own reasons.Anybody who works for Dom Scarpetti has to steal his fair share, but it’s all strictly low-profile.Stealing the D.A.’s car wasn’t low-profile, Arnold.Shork wouldn’t have told you to steal it unless he was setting you up for something.But that isn’t likely, either.He was smart enough to know he’d catch hell from Big Dom if the operation called that kind of attention to itself.And as for that bullshit about Shork sending you to Manhattan, that was strictly for your father’s benefit.He’s an okay guy, but you’re his soft spot.Nobody else, especially not the D.A., will believe it.Now, I don’t figure you killed Shork, for reasons I won’t waste time explaining; but there’s already plenty that says you did.More than enough for a jury, anyway.Give me a reason to believe anything you tell me, and I might decide to help you.”He laughed.The joke was somehow getting funnier, and it was on me.“You got a cig?” he asked, the way you’d address a stooge.“Pleeease,” he added, grinning, his tone thick with sarcasm.“I don’t smoke [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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