Night Work (28 page)

When Lucky was finished, they moved on. Jane took Cassidy's arm as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do, more intimacy. “Did he tell you anything about his life? Did friends come by, anything like that?”

“Just the brother-in-law when he needed help with the work, and no, we didn't talk much about his private life. He was married, but I don't think he had children. You know how it is when someone is working for you. You make polite conversation, but no one let's down his hair.”

“What can you tell me about the brother-in-law? What was his name?”

“His name. Oh, god. What was it? He was only there a few times, and sometimes I was gone. Let's see, Casey, and Curt, Carl? No. Cameron? That sounds close, but it's not quite right. But it was something like that, a hard ‘C' sound. I didn't like him much, so I didn't pay attention. He was one of those men who thought he was God's gift to women, undressed you with his eyes. Not that women aren't used to that, my god.” She laughed and squeezed his arm. “Still, one wants to choose, and I found him kind of creepy.”

“Did you ever see Casey outside the house, outside of work?”

“What do you mean?” A glance and a touch of frost.

“I don't know. Bump into him on the street, see him in a restaurant, that kind of thing.”

“I don't think Casey Allen and I eat in the same restaurants.”

“So, no.”

“No. Just at the house. Or on the block, coming or going.”

“Uh-huh. What about at Brooks Brothers or Church's shoe store over on Madison?”

She yanked on the leash to pull Lucky away from a piece of trash. “No, Lucky, no.” And it covered any reaction she might have had to Cassidy's question. When the dog obeyed, she started walking again. “Oh, yes, that. Of course.” Easily said, with almost no tension. “Casey was an ambitious young man. He wanted to better himself. He'd ask what books to read and how people behave in certain situations. He paid attention to how Bob dressed. He seemed genuinely interested in learning things. Bob and I both admired that. I told him about Brooks Brothers and about Church's, but he seemed a bit intimidated by them, so I said I'd go along and help him choose.” She checked him for his reaction. He smiled encouragement. “He asked me. I thought, why not?”

“Expensive stores for a man in his line of work.”

“That's what I told him, but he quoted one of the homilies Bob loves so much: ‘You have to spend money to make money.' Bob's talking about spending millions to make millions, but I suppose the principle is the same. Casey thought that if he presented himself correctly he might get more work in our neighborhood. I think he was right.”

“And he had the money.”

“No, no. I paid. We had an agreement that involved dropping his hourly wage on the work he was doing until he paid off the debt.”

She had an answer to everything. Or she was telling the truth.

They walked on for a minute without speaking, and then she put a hand on his arm and stopped him. “You think I had an affair with him.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“And what, Bob found out and killed him in a jealous rage.” She laughed. “That is priceless. One, I was not having an affair with Casey Allen, the hunky construction guy. That is just too
Lady Chatterley's Lover
. And two, Bob doesn't do jealous rage. Bob does cool and calculated. Bob does cost-benefit analysis. Bob weighs avenging honor against going to Sing Sing. Guess which comes out on top? Uh-uh. Sorry.”

“A week ago Friday, did you see him?”

“We left a week ago Friday. We went to San Francisco.”

“Did you walk Lucky before you went?”

“I don't remember. I assume so.”

“Where do you usually walk him?”

“Here, in the park.”

“Here, or down at Seventy-second Street?”

“Sometimes here. Sometimes there. Why does it matter?” She tried to make it casual. The dog tugged at the leash, and she jerked him back abruptly and he yelped in surprise.

“Casey Allen was shot and left on a chair near the Seventy-second Street entrance to the park. We think he was left as a message to someone who was used to going in there in the mornings.”

“Me? What could the message possibly be to me?”

Cassidy shrugged.

She opened her purse and thrashed through it until she found her cigarettes. She lit one and slammed the pack back into her purse.

“Oh, I get it. This would be Bob's way of telling me he disapproves. Is that the best you can do? Why couldn't it be some business rival? Why not someone he had a fight with in a bar?”

“Was the trip to San Francisco planned, or spur of the moment?”

“Bob does not do things on the spur of the moment.”

“What about Lucky? What happens with him?” He scratched the dog's ears, and it butted him on the leg for more when he stopped.

“We have a dog walker who takes care of him. It was arranged before we left.”

That, he knew, was a lie. Naomi, the dog walker, said that they had left unexpectedly and had left her a note about walking the dog.

Cassidy walked back to the precinct and called the company that sent the town car to pick up Robert Hopkins. The day Casey Allen was found, the driver arrived at the regular time, but instead of taking Mr. Hopkins down to Brown Brothers Harriman, he took Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins to TWA at Idlewild Airport. Cassidy called TWA. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hopkins took the morning flight to San Francisco. They made their reservations by phone at seven thirty the same morning and paid for the tickets with cash at the airport desk.

 

16

Cassidy and Orso walked the platform under Penn Station as the train pushed in slowly and stopped, hissing steam. They nodded to the uniformed patrolmen spaced every ten feet. The doors opened, and passengers disembarked, and the two men worked against the tide of people headed for the exit stairs.

“How many have we got?” Orso asked.

“Twenty uniforms down here. A hundred in the concourse, a hundred outside. Twenty plainclothes here and there.”

“Jesus. They must really think someone's going to go for this joker.”

Ahead of them a knot of cops blocked anyone trying to get back to the last car. A tall, thin lieutenant with red hair and a freckled face as Irish as a shamrock separated from the group. “How're you doing, detectives?”

“Connolly, right?” Cassidy asked. “Do you know Detective Orso?”

“Yeah, sure. I came up through the academy with your cousin Frankie.” The three men shook hands. “I sent Perez in to tell Castro and his people they were going to have to hang back till the other passengers cleared the platform. I guess we're pretty much good to go now.”

“How many of them?” Cassidy asked.

“Thirty-two.”

“They told us fifty,” Cassidy said.

Connolly shrugged. “They sent an advance party on an earlier train without telling us. Thirty-two here including Castro.”

“Shit, it's going to be like herding cats,” Orso said.

“Could shoot 'em all now, save everybody the trouble,” Connolly said. The men who heard it laughed. “Perez, go back in there and tell them they can get off.”

Fidel Castro's followers straggled out of the doors at either end of the car and coalesced near the middle around the tall figure of their leader. Like Fidel, most of the men were bearded, and most of them, like their leader, wore khaki fatigues as if about to go out on patrol. There were a number of women in the group, and all of them were dressed in fatigues. Some of them glanced at the cops who watched them and looked away again, and their laughter had a nervous edge of bravado. Cops had never been their friends in Cuba. Castro seemed unaffected. He looked out over their heads with genial curiosity, a large cigar clenched in his teeth.

“All yours, Detective,” Connolly said. “And good luck to you.”

Cassidy approached the Cubans with Orso at his shoulder, and people stepped aside and nodded to them, deferring, but when they got close to Castro, two men stepped in to block them. Cassidy looked past them to Castro and said in Spanish, “My name is Michael Cassidy. I'm a detective with the New York Police Department. We're here to escort you to your hotel.”

Castro gestured to the two men, and they stepped aside. He stepped forward and offered his hand, taking the cigar out of his mouth with the other. “Michael Cassidy, you are a friend of Carlos Ribera, my friend. He said you are a good man. I am happy to meet you.” His English was heavily accented. He was a big man, tall and bulky, and his beard, though full, was scraggly and unkempt. His hand, when Cassidy shook it, was surprisingly soft, the hand of the lawyer he had been, rather than the guerrilla fighter he had become. His fatigues showed no insignia of rank, but the way people looked at him, waited for him, moved around him made it clear that he was their leader.

“Is Carlos here?”

“He is somewhere. He was on an earlier train. You know Carlos. He goes where he wants when he wants.” He laughed. “So, show us where we are to go.”

They went up the stairs to the main hall, cops at the front and at the back, leading fast and pushing hard. They wanted Castro and his party across the street and under cover in the hotel, but he did not seem to feel their urgency. He stopped in the middle of the vast main concourse and looked up at the vaulted ceiling. He raised his arms wide as if to embrace it all and told his followers in Spanish, “It was modeled after the Baths of Caracalla in ancient Rome, and is as big inside as St. Peter's.” Then he laughed. “Of course this was not built to the glory of God, but to the glory of commerce.” He waved his cigar like a baton, and charged the wide marble steps that led to Seventh Avenue, and his police escort hurried to keep up.

When Castro led his followers out onto the sidewalk at Seventh Avenue, they found thousands of people packed behind the wooden sawhorses the Department had set up for crowd control. At the sight of Castro cheers exploded, “
Viva la revolución!” “Viva Fidel!” “Cago en la leche de Batista!” “Arriba el Movimiento 26 de Julio!”
Signs and placards supporting Castro and the 26th of July Movement danced and swung above the heads of the crowd that surged against the barriers and the uniformed cops who manned them. Among the shouts of approval, Cassidy heard other voices of protest. “
Abajo Fidel.” “Donde esta mi hermano?” “Asesino, asesino.”
A fight broke out deep in the crowd. A man went down with his head bloodied by the wooden pole of a placard that read, “
Fidel brings peace and prosperity.”

“This way,” Cassidy said, and took Castro's arm to lead him through the cleared area between the barriers and across Seventh Avenue where four cops wearing white gloves had brought traffic to a halt. Horns blared in protest. Castro pulled away and plunged into the crowd grabbing hands, hugging, kissing women. He was quickly surrounded by people, cut off from his escort. Past him, Cassidy could see two men fighting through the crowd toward Castro. One of them carried a placard calling for Castro's death. The other held a heavy pole from which he must have ripped a sign, because pieces of white cardboard were still stapled near the top. The man swung the pole like a bludgeon, and two people went down, and the path cleared in front of them. Cassidy pushed into the crush, but the dense pack of admirers trying to get near the Cuban leader held him back.

“Orso! Orso!” His partner saw the problem and slammed into the crowd. His charge threw people back, but the two men coming for Castro were going to get there first. Cassidy dug for his gun, but someone hit him hard on the ear, and the only reason he did not fall was there was no room. And then in front of him a man drew a silver revolver from under his shirt. “Gun! Gun! Man with a gun!” He threw himself forward. Someone grabbed his jacket. He jerked an elbow back and it smacked something hard. He heard a grunt of pain, and whoever it was let go, and he plunged ahead. Where was Castro? There, head and shoulders above the crowd, an easy shot, not twenty feet away. The gunman struggled to turn. Cassidy grabbed the back of someone's collar and jerked him to the ground and went into the gap the man left and jumped on the gunman's back. He crooked his left arm hard around his throat. As he rode him to the ground he reached over the man's shoulder with his right hand and clasped it over the gun. The gunman pulled the trigger and the hammer came down on the web between Cassidy's thumb and forefinger, tearing the flesh. Cassidy ripped the gun from the man's hand and slammed it against the side of his face, and he grunted and tried to throw him off. Cassidy hit him again; the man sagged. He pulled his handcuffs from his belt, jerked the man's hands behind his back, and cuffed him.

Orso put a hand under his arm and pulled him to his feet. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Castro?”

“Not a scratch. Looks like he didn't even know it was happening.”

Castro was still glad-handing his admirers. “There were two guys who were headed for him, one with a sign, one with just the post.”

“I guess they took off. You're bleeding, Mike. Your hand.”

“Yeah. Goddamn it. Here, give me your handkerchief, will you?”

Orso hesitated. “It's silk.”

“Oh, for christ's sake.”

“Yeah, yeah. Here.”

Cassidy wrapped his hand. The man on the ground groaned and tried to roll over. Cassidy got his good hand under the man's arm and levered him to his feet. There was blood, and dirt from the street on the side of his face. He glared at Cassidy. “¿
Por qué
hiciste esto a mí?
”

“Shut up.”

“What'd he say?” Orso asked.

“He wanted to know why I did it to him.”

Orso laughed.

Castro was suddenly at Cassidy's shoulder. “What happened to José?” He looked concerned. “He's bleeding.”