Tommy and I turned away and walked through the sloppy earth, weaving our way amongst headstones, stands of leafless trees, cracked slabs. In the bleak shadow of an ornate burial vault we found more diggers at work. We got there just as they struck wood.
Tommy looked at me. “Eddie Wisk,” he said. “Numbers runner. He was gunned down three weeks ago.”
The workers brushed dirt from the lid of the casket and opened it. They didn’t have to bust open the catches because somebody beat them to it. Wisk was gone, too. You could see the grayed impression on the silken pillow where his head had been. A beetle ran across it. But that was all.
Tommy’s boys jumped down there and started dusting for prints.
“Gone,” Tommy said. He shook his head. “This is connected, ain’t it, Vince?”
“Has to be.”
“Still clinging to the ‘cult’ theory?”
I sighed, slapped a nail in my kisser and gave it some heat. “I’m not sure of anything just yet.” Quickly, I filled him in on my visit to the funeral home. “I’m thinking whoever wrote that is the one that was here last night.”
“And you think it’s this Franklin Barre character?”
I blew out smoke. “Just a guess. It was his office I was in.”
“I’ll have him brought in. See what we can sweat out of him,” Tommy said. “What about this Marianne Portis broad?”
“I think you should hold off on her for now. Give me a day or two.”
Tommy looked at me. “You know what kind of shit I could get into if I did that?” He shook his head. “Two days. That’s it. This stinks, Vince. Stinks bad. I got pressure on me now like you wouldn’t believe. I got uniforms out looking for Stokes too.”
Stokes was the night watchman at Harvest Hill. Nobody seemed to know where he was and maybe he wasn’t tied up in this, but neither Tommy or I believed that for a minute.
Conspiracy? You’re damned right. One that involved killing prosecutors and robbing graves and making off with dead bodies in the still of the night. But what was the thread? There was something, but I just couldn’t make the connection.
“See ya, Tommy,” I said walking off.
“Where you going?”
“I gotta see a guy about a grave.”
6
Thirty minutes later I was in Little Italy. Parked just up the street from a warehouse called Frenzetti amp; Sons. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a warehouse and was: inventory in the form of furniture came in and went out. But if you happened to know the right people, you could get invited down below into the basement where the Italians operated an illegal casino. Blackjack, roulette, craps, slot machines, high and low stakes card games-you name it. The mob ran it and took a lucrative cut of everything that went down. The mob, in this case, being Slick Jimmy Conterro. A guy I grew up with and who happened to be an underworld soldier. I never held that against him and he never held being a cop against me.
I knew that right now, Bernie Stokes, night watchman of Harvest Hill boneyard was down in the casino. And would be for fifteen or twenty minutes more.
I knew I could go down there and get him anytime, but I didn’t. I’ve gambled at Jimmy’s place plenty. Lots of cops do. He gives good odds. Better than you’ll get in Vegas. He runs clean games. But I also knew Jimmy wouldn’t like me barging down there and manhandling a customer. You didn’t make waves in this neighborhood; even the cops were on the payroll here.
So I sat there in the heap chewing a salami on Jewish rye and dipping my bill in a quart of beer. The minutes ticked by. I finished the sandwich, the beer, was halfway through my second butt when Stokes came out.
You should’ve seen him.
Looking over his shoulder, keeping his head low trying to blend into the crowd. But he blended in like a nun in full habit at a stroke parlor. Maybe it was how he acted-so jittery and afraid-but the guy was marked. You could see that.
I called him over and he almost left his skin lying on the walk.
“ Jesus, Bernie,” I said. “What gives? You don’t look so good.”
“ Don’t feel so good,” he said, sliding through the passenger side door.
He was a tight little guy with a beak on him like a doorstop. Good guy as far as that went, but you could trust him like you could trust a rattlesnake in your shorts. He stank of hair oil and cheap rum. His eyes were red as the setting sun and his face hadn’t seen a razor in a week or more.
“ I got my problems, Vince. You know? I got my problems.” He kept his eye on the rearview. In fact, he kept an eye out everywhere. “You can’t be too careful these days.”
“ Give you a ride somewhere?”
“ Sure. Uptown. You know the place.”
I did. Bernie had a place over an Irish saloon. “Somebody after you, Bernie?”
He was trying desperately to light a cigarette, but his fingers were trembling too much. I lit it for him. His face was pale as a whitewashed fence. “Yeah, somebody’s following me. I know it.”
I wasn’t sure what that was about. Jimmy’s goons weren’t known for their subtlety; they wanted you, they kicked right through the front door like the First Marine Division hitting a beach. “Probably cops, Bernie.”
“ You think so?” He was even paler now.
“ I know it.” I explained to him how I was unofficially working with the precinct. “It’s this bit about Tanner. The papers didn’t have the particulars, Bernie, but he was partially eaten. Chewed up like a drumstick.”
“ Jesus.”
He looked like he was going to be sick, so I turned the screw a bit.
“ They want to talk to you about what happened out at Harvest Hill. Some ghouls hit it last night, snatched a couple stiffs. Caretaker found the graves all messed-up this morning.”
Bernie stared off into space. “You think they’d put the graves back in order when they were done.”
Some cabbie laid on his horn and I gave him the finger. “Who are they, Bernie? Listen, you might as well be square with me on this bit. Better me than the bulls, you understand? They put the pinch on you, you’ll be wearing a state suit.”
“ I don’t know nothing about nothing,” he said.
But he knew. He knew, all right. “You know a cop name of Albert?” I asked him. “Big ugly flatfoot? Know the guy?”
“ Never heard of him.”
I smiled…then frowned, shook my head before he saw me. “Well, this Albert, this big ugly shit-eating ape, he’s really something. He’s handling all this. You sure you never heard of him? No? Damn, guy gives me the creeps. They should’ve thrown him off the force years ago. Things he does to guys… boy. Anyway, he’s in charge. He’ll be coming to see you real soon. You can count on it.”
Bernie looked at me. “What…what kind of things this Albert-guy do? I mean, what? Knocks guys around? Rubber hose or what?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Only if they’re lucky. See this Albert…boy, he’s something. Some kind of pervert, I guess. Likes to get a guy alone. Strip search him and stuff. But that’s just the beginning with this freak…man, makes me sick, Bernie. I just hate the idea of him pawing you up and all. Forcing himself on you-”
“ Christ!” Bernie said, desperate now. “I’ll just talk to you, okay, Vince? You can keep him off me, right?” He dragged off his cigarette and he could barely hold it still. “All I know is these people come to me. They say they’ll pay me a hundred just to look the other way. But when I found out what they want…I’m, no sir, no goddamn way…”
“ Not unless they up the sugar?”
He shrugged. “Well, you know how things are these days. So five-hundred they give me. I tell ‘em, okay, just put everything back the way you found it. First couple times they did too.”
I swallowed. “How many times this happen?”
“ Three, four times. I don’t know what their thing is. Don’t wanna know. Last night, though, Vince, that was my night off. They must’ve just come in and did what they wanted.”