The Snow Angel (31 page)

“I guess that's one point of view,” Kane said quietly.

Vitale stopped pacing and calmed himself. He examined his old adversary thoughtfully. “So what was it like for you? Growing up, I mean?”

“It sucked.”

“Yeah,” Vitale said. “It's all over your face. You never lose that pain, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“You know, when I was a kid? You won't find this in your intelligence files, either, but I loved poetry, art, opera—those great Italian singers. But my old man, he said those things were for faggots—no place in the family for that kind of bullshit. So, he beat it out of me.”

Kane checked his watch. “Listen, can we talk about this some other time?”

Vitale again studied Kane's distressed face, then shrugged. “Sure thing, officer. You have work to do. Important work.” He smiled. “You might even say it's God's work.”

“Yeah, you could say that.” Kane stood up to leave. “Thanks for the help.”

But then he stopped at the door and turned back to the old mobster. “Vito, there's something I've been wondering about for years. You don't have to answer if you don't want to.”

“You mean that shit about the drill through the shylock's head?”

“How did you know?” Kane asked.

Vitale laughed. “That's the one question everyone is afraid to ask. You do have balls, Ralph.”

“Well?”

“That story's the biggest joke of my life. It never happened.”

“What do you mean it never happened? I've seen the pictures.”

“Oh, the murder happened all right. But it's Jimmy Delvecchio does that one, not me. He's Santo's chief button. I'm a kid learning the ropes, so I'm along for the ride. But Jimmy makes me wait in the car. I don't even see it happen—which is okay with me. Who wants to witness something like that?”

“No shit?”

“No shit. Now Jimmy's a stone psycho. He gets clipped by the Purples a week later. So I kinda take the credit, you see what I mean? It
adds to my legend, helps me build my empire.”

“Well,” Kane said, “live and learn. I'm glad I asked.”

“Don't tell nobody,” Vitale said. “I'd like to keep the legend, in case someone writes a history book.”

“It's been half a century, Vito. I don't think anyone gives a shit any more.”

“Probably not.” Vitale rang for the servant girl. “Good hunting, Ralph. God be with you.”

Kane followed the girl back to the front door, considering the old don's commentary. Very few things surprised him any more. But this visit was pretty amazing.

He thought of Vitale's personal advice: “Get some love in your life…God's work…God be with you.”

Jesus Christ, how many more weirdos are going to give me free advice?

B
yron Slaughter rang Easterly on her private line to tell her the raid was set for fourteen hundred hours. They agreed it should be a joint Crime Suppression-Homicide operation. A Crime Suppression SWAT crew would hit the dwelling in a lightning raid. After they secured the house, the detectives would seal and search it.

Slaughter instructed Easterly to assign the best crime-scene people in the department. After they had gone over the house meticulously, then—and only then—would Demarest's FBI agents be allowed inside.

Then Slaughter startled her. He dropped his voice and requested a private meeting, somewhere away from either of their offices. “It's important,” he said.

His tone worried her. So Easterly suggested the roof of headquarters. Ten minutes later, she casually walked out of her office without a coat, in order not to arouse Stan Jablonski's curiosity.

Slaughter was already on the roof, waiting in the shadows between a huge generator and a cluster of radio antennas. Easterly walked over to join him, looking around to make sure they were alone.

The sun was even warmer now. Melting snow had created huge ponds on the streets below. “From up here, the city looks almost beautiful,”
Slaughter said. His face was a study in melancholy.

“Skipper, why are we sneaking around like this?”

“I found out Mosely had his own internal spying system within the Dallas P.D. Some Dallas cops believe he even planted bugs in the offices of his command staff.”

“Oh, for God's sake,” Easterly said. “This is turning into a bad movie.”

“I don't think he's that bright. But you never know.”

“So what's on your mind, Byron?”

“When you take over my job, you'll have enormous power.”

“I'm familiar with the organization chart.”

“Bobbie, you'll have far more power than even you realize.” Slaughter sighed. “As you know, the clandestine units also answer to the Chief of Detectives. Internal Affairs, Special Investigations, all of the intelligence bureaus… “

“What are you driving at?”

“As you may also know, those cloak-and-dagger types have unofficial alliances with their counterparts all over the country—in some cases, all over the world.”

“So I've been told. I've always found the idea disturbing.”

“But it's effective.” Slaughter pulled a folder out from under his suit coat and handed it to her “One of my best OSI officers has a friend in Dallas. The friend provided him with these.”

Easterly opened the folder. Inside were dozens of black-and-white surveillance pictures. The first two photos were of a black man and a white woman entering and leaving a motel. The man was Jefferson Mosely.

“As you know, our new chief is a married man, with a wife and three teenaged kids,” Slaughter said quietly. “He promotes the family image. But the word in Dallas is that he was a major player. He's especially fond of white women.”

Easterly was stunned. “What difference does it make?” she blurted out. “The race, I mean.”

“Only in the motivation of the rednecked officer who gave these to our OSI. Dallas, as you know, is not a model of social progressiveness. They hated Mosely from the start, and this behavior clinched it.”

“Boss, this
reaiy
bothers me. Not the screwing around so much as the spying. You're offended by Mosely running a spy operation. What do
you call
this?
And what right do I have to this material?”

“Other pictures in that envelope are far more explicit. There's also an audio tape of Mosely, from a room bug.”

“You're dodging my question.”

“Bobbie, there were a
lot
of women. Several were themselves married.”

“Why are you giving me these things?” Easterly cried.

“For your protection.”

“My
protection?”

“In case this creep tries to sabotage you.”

“I don't like this. I don't like this one bit.” She glanced at more of the photographs, then looked out at the city. “Skipper, I can't play this game. It's like something Nixon might have dreamt up. Or Stalin.”

“You don't have to play any game unless he forces you to.” Slaughter gently touched her shoulder. “This is for your own sake, Bobbie. Keep these in your safe—in case you ever need them.”

Easterly did not answer. Slaughter walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down. “The problem with being a career police officer is that you learn things you'd rather not know.”

“I already have too many of those,” Easterly said. “I don't need any more.” She walked over and forced him to look at her. “You know, this is the same kind of thing J. Edgar Hoover did to Martin Luther King,”

“Jefferson Mosely is
not
Martin Luther King.”

“The principle's the same. We're cops, all right, but we're cops in a democracy. Since when are we the morality police?”

Slaughter looked out at the city and smiled sadly. “The irony of this conversation is that your high-mindedness is the main reason I respect you so much.” He turned to her. “The problem with that is, few in the police world are as high-minded.”

“Does that mean we descend to their level? Is that the price of ambition? What does that do to our souls?”

“Now you know the primary reason I'm depressed.” He checked his watch. “I need to get back. Make your own decision. If you don't want the pictures, burn them. But think it over carefully first. You never know.”

Easterly leaned her back against the rail for a long moment, clutching the manila envelope. Then she followed Slaughter back to the stairwell.

B
ell located Garland McQueen in the back room of the deserted Lucky Deuce Lounge. Today McQueen's Motown suit was a festive red and green. He was eating take-out Chinese. The old hustler was an expert with chopsticks.

“Where'd you learn that shit?” Bell asked.

“Taiwan,” McQueen said. “With the Air Force.”

“I never could get my fingers to cooperate.”

“Well, it's not exactly a black thang.” McQueen licked his fingers. “You have a line on the assholes?”

Bell handed over a package of mug shots. “We have warrants. We're going public today.” He gave the old bookie a quick rundown on the two suspects.

McQueen examined the photographs. “Pretty average looking dudes. Don't look like killers to me.”

“And you don't look like the owner of a tittie bar.”

“You say the Caucasian frequents establishments like this?”

“Yeah, but white joints, most likely. I doubt he wants to be conspicuous. But you never know. His prison wife was a brother.”

“You imagine being that horny, Deacon? Man'd have to be real horny to be punkin' another male.”

Bell shrugged. “Who am I to throw the first stone?”

“Yeah,” McQueen said. “I heard you found religion, real and righteous, not just that play-acting Deacon shit.”

“Pretty hard for a man to keep a secret nowadays.”

“Hey, I wasn't judgin' that, neither. Ain't nothin' wrong with knowing the Lord. My mama was a believer, God rest her.”

“It's hard to imagine you with a mama, Garland.”

“Kindest woman ever lived. Worked her whole life as a cleaning lady in white folks' homes, over to Chicago. That's where I was raised.”

“I know. I memorized your jacket.”

Bell was astonished to notice McQueen's eyes misting up. “Sweetest, lovingest woman ever did live, my mama,” McQueen said. “This is the time of the year when I miss her the most.”

McQueen opened his desk drawer and poured a shot of bourbon. This time he did not offer Bell a taste.

“No daddy, just a mama,” McQueen continued. “Her name was
Lucille, died right before Christmas one year. She worked her fingers to the bone to give me and my two sisters an education. Died when she was only forty, some kinda cancer she got from toxic chemicals. She worked herself to death, on her knees all day, scrubbing floors and toilets for the white folks.”

“There were lotsa black women like your mama,” Bell said.

“Thousands,” McQueen said. His eyes were even wetter now “Invisible heroes.”

“Yeah,” Bell said softly, “heroes, sure enough.”

“Me, I was a hopeless fuck-up when I was young. Mama finally gave up on me, said it was because I was a boy.”

“Where are your sisters?”

“Damnedest thing, Isaiah. One went to medical school at the University of Michigan, the other became a hooker. Died of a heroin overdose when she wasn't but thirty.”

“Sorry, man.”

“Hey, one success out of three ain't bad, for black folks. My baby sister, she did good, a pediatrician in Detroit. Works with AIDS and crack kids. So who knows how things turn out?” He sipped his bourbon. “How about you, Deacon? How many years I been knowin' you? And I don't know a
thang
about you.”

“Some other time, Garland. I have work to do.”

“Of course.” McQueen smiled. “I didn't mean to get emotional. There's something about this time of the year.”

“It's okay, man.”

“You know the trick to life?”

“No.”

“The trick to life, my friend, is to live in a way that'll give you happy memories when you're old.”

Bell smiled, then looked at his watch. “I have to go.”

“I figured that out way too late.” McQueen pointed at the pictures of Blackstone and Whitman. “I'll put the word out among my colleagues. Maybe we can come up with these motherfuckers.”

“Much obliged,” Bell said. He started out the door.

“Hey, Deacon,” McQueen called after him. “You know, I really like you a lot better now that you're on the wagon.”

“Merry Christmas, Queenie.”

“Find those baby killers, mister po-lice.”

Out in the street, Bell considered the irony of that expression, “baby
killers.” That's what some anti-war protesters at the Los Angeles airport had called him and other Special Forces guys the day they returned home. They'd put it on hand-lettered signs and waved them at the troops. TV cameras caught it all; it had made for great theater.
Those fuckers were lucky we didn't kill
them
.

Then he thought of all the dead children he had seen in Vietnam.
I didn't kill any of them, as far as I know. At least it was never my intention.

Not like these bastards who killed Darryl Childress.