"Sure, sure," Danny said.
Byrnes looked at him, and perhaps because it was almost Christmas, he added, "you know how it is. This Gonzo character shooting Carella hasn't…"
"Who? Did you say Gonzo? Is he the one shot St—Detective Carella?"
"That's the way it looks," Byrnes said.
"What are you telling me?" Danny asked. "A punk kid like that? He took Steve Carella?"
"Why?" Byrnes said. He was interested now, but only because Danny had referred to Gonzo as if he knew him. "What do you mean, a punk kid?"
"He can't be more than twenty, not the way I got it."
"What do you know, Danny?"
"Well, like Ste— Well, Carella asked me to scout around on Gonzo, and I didn't come up with nothing. I mean, I scouted around because Ste…"
"For Christ's sake, call him Steve," Byrnes said.
"Well, some cops are touchy about…"
"What have you got to say, Danny, goddamnit!"
"Even Steve don't like me calling him Steve," Danny admitted, and then—seeing the look on Byrnes' face—rapidly went on. "Nobody knew this Gonzo, you dig? So with me, it becomes a mathematical problem. How come these three kids coming to make a buy from this guy know him by Gonzo, and how come nobody on the scene knows him? It figures he ain't from the neighborhood, am I right?"
"Go ahead," Byrnes said, interested.
"Then I ask myself, if he ain't from the neighborhood, how come he inherits the dead Hernandez' junk route? This don't figure. I mean, it looks like he at least knew Hernandez, don't it? And if he knew Hernandez, maybe he knew the sister, too. This is the way I was thinking, Lieutenant, putting together all the things Steve told me."
"So what'd you get?"
"I got a guy who's a stranger in the neighborhood, but who maybe knew the Hernandezes. So I went to see the old lady, Mrs. Hernandez. I talked to her, you know, fishing around, figuring this Gonzo was maybe a cousin or something, you know these Puerto Ricans—strong family ties."
"Is he a cousin?"
"She don't make a cousin named Gonzo. She was talking true, too, because she knows me from the neighborhood. Gonzo don't ring a bell."
"I could have told you that, Danny. My men questioned Mrs. Hernandez also."
"But she tells me her son had a friend. He used to belong to the Sea Scouts, she says, and he used to go to these meetings up in Riverhead at a high school there. I check around, and I find out this is called the Junior Navals, a thing where some ex-Navy jerk got a bunch of kids together and slapped them in monkey suits so they could march around once a week. Only Hernandez don't go there to march. He goes there to push his junk. Anyway, the kid he knows there is called Dickie Collins."
"How does this tie with Gonzo?"
"Well, listen," Danny said. "I start snooping around about this Dickie Collins kid. He used to live around here, moved a while ago, his old man got a job selling storm doors up in Riverhead, so the little extra dough enabled him to get the hell out of the neighborhood. But Dickie's still got ties here, like that, you know? Comes back every now and then, and visits with the boys—including Aníbal Hernandez, the late. Met the sister a coupla times, too. Okay, so one night there's a card game. Small time, penny-ante stuff. This was only about two weeks ago, so it explains why there's nobody knows this Gonzo bit except four people, one of which is now dead. Luckily, I latched onto an alive one."
"Spill it," Byrnes said.
"There was four people in the game. A kid named Sam Di Luca, this kid Dickie Collins, Maria Hernandez, and an older guy from the neighborhood."
"Who was the older guy?"
"The Di Luca kid don't remember—and Maria Hernandez can't say any more. From what I could gather, they were shooting up that night, and this Di Luca's only sixteen, so he was probably blind. I got to explain this Di Luca kid, he calls himself Batman. That's his nickname. They all got nicknames, which is maybe why this Gonzo thing appealed."
"Get to the point, Danny."
"Okay. Sometime during the night, the four of them having a ball and playing cards, the older guy mentioned something about a cheap gunsel in the neighborhood. Well, it turns out this kid Dickie Collins, he's never heard the word 'gunsel.' It's kind of a dead expression, you know, Lieutenant? I mean, hardly anybody but oldtimers use it nowadays. Like 'torpedo,' you know? Out of fashion. So it's understandable, him being a snotnose kid, that he never heard it. But dig this. He says, 'A gonzo? What the hell's a gonzo?' Now this broke up the joint. Maria fell off her chair, and the older guy was practically rolling on the floor and Batman damn near wet his pants, it was so funny."
"I see," Byrnes said thoughtfully.
"So for the rest of the night, they kept calling him Gonzo. That's what this Batman tells me, anyway. But like there's only the four of them who know about it—just Batman, Maria, Dickie, and the older guy. And like Maria's pretty dead now, you know."
"Dickie Collins is Gonzo," Byrnes repeated blankly.
"Yeah. Batman, he forgot about the whole thing after that night. He was stinking drunk, anyway. But when I start asking about Gonzo, he remembers. The older guy, Christ alone knows who he is."
"Dickie Collins is Gonzo," Byrnes repeated blankly.
"Sure. Lives in Riverhead now. One of the cheaper neighborhoods there. You going to pick him up?"
"He shot Carella, didn't he?" Byrnes asked. He reached into his wallet and took out a ten-dollar bill. "Here, Danny," he said, offering the money.
Danny shook his head. "No, Lieutenant, thanks."
Byrnes stared at him unbelievingly.
"One thing you can do for me, though," Danny said, somewhat embarrassed.
"What's that?"
"I'd like to go upstairs. I'd like to see Steve."
Byrnes hesitated a moment. Then he walked to the desk and said, "I'm Detective-Lieutenant Byrnes. This man is working on the case with us. I'd like him to go upstairs."
"Yes, sir," the girl said, and then she looked over toward Danny Gimp who was smiling from ear to ear.
Chapter Fifteen
They caught Dickie Collins on Christmas Eve.
They caught him as he was coming out of church, where he had just lighted a candle for his dead grandmother.
They took him to the Squad Room of the 87th Precinct, and four detectives surrounded him there. One of the detectives was Peter Byrnes. The others were Havilland, Meyer and Willis.
"What's your name?" Willis asked.
"Dickie Collins. Richard."
"What aliases do you go by?" Havilland asked.
"None."
"Ever own a gun?" Meyer asked.
"No. Never."
"Know Aníbal Hernandez?" Byrnes asked.
"The name sounds familiar."
"Did you know him, or didn't you?"
"Yeah, I knew him, I guess. I knew lots of kids in the neighborhood."
"When did you move?"
"Coupla months ago."
"Why?"
"My old man got a new job. I go where he goes."
"Did you want to move?"
"Makes no difference. I'm a free agent. I travel where I want to, no matter where I live. What's all the questions for? What did I do?"
"What were you doing on the night of December 17th?"
"How do I know? When the hell was that, anyway?"
"A week ago today."
"I don't remember."
"Were you with Hernandez?"
"I don't remember."
"Start trying to remember."
"No, I wasn't with Hernandez. What was that, a Saturday night?"
"It was a Sunday night."
"No, I wasn't with him."
"Where were you?"
"In church."
"What?"
"I go to church every Sunday night. I light candles for my grandmother."
"How long did you stay in church?"
"About an hour. I say a coupla prayers, too."