Blue Belle (26 page)

122

I WALKED Belle over to the Pontiac, let her in the passenger side.

"What happened to the Plymouth?"

"On vacation."

"I'm glad you didn't have to dump it. That's one fine machine."

"Yeah."

"What d'we do now?"

"Wait. There's stuff out there—I have to wait for a bite."

I drove back to Queens. Stopped at a deli in Forest Hills, waited in the car while Belle picked up some food. It was the first time I'd been to her house in the middle of the day. The street was quiet. Working people at work, kids at school. Belle saw me sweeping the street with my eyes.

"It's real quiet here until the summer. Once they start coming out to the water with their boats and all, it fills up."

"It'll all be over way before then."

"You're sure?"

I didn't answer her. I parked the Pontiac behind her Camaro. "That car's been moved since the last time."

"I took it down to the gas station. Changed the oil, front–end alignment."

I looked a question at her. "Just in case," she said.

"I don't need a driver on this, Belle."

This time she didn't answer me.

We brought the food inside. I called Mama. Nothing. Nobody looking for me. On the phone, anyway.

Belle made some sandwiches. Roast beef, boiled ham, lettuce and mustard. Opened a bottle of beer for herself, ginger ale for me. I opened the
Daily News
, scanned it quickly for any news of the Ghost Van. Nothing. I flipped to the race results out of habit, but I couldn't concentrate.

"Is it good?" she asked.

"What?"

"The
food
."

"Oh. Yeah. Great."

Her face went sad. "I'm not a good cook. Sissy was a
fine
cook. She was going to teach me…."

"Who cares?"

"I thought you would. Remember when I cleaned your place? I did a good job, didn't I?"

"Perfect."

"Well…"

"Let it go, Belle. It was so important to me, I would have learned how to do it myself."

She pulled her chair next to me. "You can't do everything for yourself."

"Where's this going?"

She got up, moved in little circles. Like she was lost. "You're walking around with that ugly thing in your hand….Maybe we won't have a little house with a white picket fence and all that…but I'm not gonna sit around and make plans for a funeral."

I slipped my hand around her waist, pulled her against me. "I know. But you got it wrong. I'm back on track now, I can feel it. This is just in case, like I told you. It's coming together. There's a way to take him down and walk away too. I need a couple more bits and pieces…"

"And you'll know where to look?"

"Yeah. In my head. I have to keep feeding stuff in, work it around. I can't go in the street and look for him—I have to figure it out. Where he is. This thing in my hand is only if he finds me first."

"What if you don't get any more information?"

"I
have
to. What I got, it's not enough. There's pieces missing. Maybe only one piece. I don't know yet. But if you don't feed the fire, it goes out. You get trapped."

She sat next to me again, her hand on my arm, watching me close.

"Trapped?"

"Patterns. Like I told you. I'm looking for a guy, right? I think he's holed up in a certain neighborhood. So I walk around, ask questions, leave notes. Sooner or later, he's looking for
me
."

123

LATE AFTERNOON. I called Morelli.

"Anything?"

"Yeah. I'm not finished. Can't talk now—I gotta work the phones before the record rooms shut down for the day."

"Can I call you later?"

"I'll be here till nine."

"Eight–thirty," I said, hanging up.

Mama said it was all quiet. Asked me when I was coming around. I told her soon.

I put the phone down. "I got to get out of here."

"Why, baby?"

"I wasn't kidding about inertia, Belle. If there's an answer, it's in my head. No matter what kind of bites I get out there, I have to put it together. I can't work here. I need my stuff."

"Stuff?"

"In my files. It's not that I can't think here. I can think in a cell. But that stuff I've collected—it's like having a conversation….I ask it questions, sometimes it talks back. Okay?"

"Okay," she said, opening her bureau drawers. "As long as I'm around when you have that talk."

124

BELLE SAT in the front bucket seat of the Pontiac, watching the road. She giggled to herself.

"What's so funny."

"The Prof. I told him. About me. Not the whole thing, but enough. That's what he meant about blood only tells in hell."

"What's funny about that?"

"He said when the Lord made people He made them all the same for starters. But life marks people. If you know the way, you can read them like maps. He said the Lord made you so ugly for a test."

"What?"

"That's what he said. I told him I thought you were real good–looking. He said that was the test—I wasn't deep in love with you, I couldn't say such an outrageous lie."

"He should fucking talk."

"Burke! He is a handsome little man. I thought that nurse was gonna claw my eyes, she saw me with him." She giggled again. "He told me God only made one mistake. He said, you see a red–haired, blue–eyed nigger, you're looking at a stone killer."

"Sure, everybody knows that."

"Don't be crazy. He was just playing."

"Hell if he was. Every one I ever saw was a life–taker."

"That's ridiculous."

I shrugged.

The highway slipped by. Battery Tunnel coming into view.

"Burke?"

"What?"

"Why would the Prof call somebody a nigger?"

"It's just a word. Anybody can use words. I can't really explain it….You say some words—say them the right way—they lose their power to hurt. The Prof, he'll say, 'That's my nigger,' he means that's his main man. Somebody
else
says the word, he's ready to rumble."

"But why…"

"I told you the truth. I really can't explain it. Maybe the Prof can, I never asked him, not really."

"Maybe I will, someday."

125

THE OFFICE was quiet. Pansy was her usual sluggish self. She brightened a bit when I rolled the extra roast beef and ham into a fat ball and tossed it in the air for her.

Belle curled up on the couch with the newspapers. Pansy jumped up there too, growling. "What does she want?"

"Television."

"She wants to watch television?"

"Yeah. See if you can find pro wrestling; that's her favorite. But leave the sound on low, okay?"

Belle gave me one of her looks, hauled the portable over to the end of the couch. Pansy sat up, tail wagging. I went back to my work.

"Honey," Belle's voice broke through to me.

"What?"

"It's eight–thirty. Don't you have to make a call?"

I looked at my watch—I'd been out of it for three hours. I snatched the phone, hoping the hippies weren't discussing their latest dope deal. The line was quiet.

"Morelli."

"It's me."

"Come over to Paulo's tonight. Eleven. We'll have some supper."

I hung up quick. Looked over at the couch. Belle and Pansy were both watching me.

"Good girl," I said. Pansy came off the couch, strolled over to me. "I meant her," I told the beast, pointing at Belle. Pansy slammed a paw on the desk. "You too," I told her. I let Pansy out to her roof. Walked over to the couch, turned off the TV set.

"That's one strange dog, honey. She really does like pro wrestling. I thought dogs couldn't see TV. Something about their eyes."

"I don't know if that's true or not. Maybe she just likes the sound."

I lit a smoke. "Was I asleep?"

"I don't think so—I think you were somewhere else. Your eyes were closed some of the time. But you smoked a lot of cigarettes."

I rubbed my face, trying to go back. I gave it up—it'd come when it was ready.

"Burke, could I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"You know about this?" she said, pointing to a headline in the paper. I knew the story—it had been running for weeks. High–school cheerleader, sixteen years old. Father started raping her when she was eleven years old. While her mother was dying of cancer in the hospital. She finally told her boyfriend, he told somebody else. Ended up she hired another kid to kill her father. For five hundred bucks. Drilled the old man right in his driveway. Everybody pleaded guilty. The kid who did the shooting got a jackpot sentence, seven to twenty–one years. The radio talk shows took calls from freaks who said the little girl should have told the social workers—that is, if it "really" happened. Some people thought the father got what was coming to him. Not many. The judge sentenced her to a year in jail.

"Yeah. I know about it."

Her eyes burned. A little girl asking a priest if there really was a god. "Burke, do you think the little girl did anything wrong?"

"Yeah."

Belle's face twisted. "What?"

"She hired an amateur."

"The lawyer… the one who pleaded her guilty?"

"Not the lawyer. The shooter."

Her face calmed, but she was still struggling with it. "But he killed the guy…"

"He wasn't a pro, Belle. Left a trail Ray Charles could follow. Talked about it to everyone who'd listen. Kept the gun. And he opened up when they popped him. You hire a killer, you buy silence too."

She took the cigarette from my mouth, pulled on it. "I'd like to break her out of that jail."

"Forget it, Belle. She wouldn't go. The kid's no outlaw. She's a nice middle–class girl. It wasn't simple for her—she didn't work it through. She still feels guilty about the guy getting killed. Incest, you don't just walk away from it like if a stranger raped you. That was her father. He's dead. Her mother's dead. She's gonna need a lot of help—she can't go on the run."

Tears spilled down her face. "My mother saved me from that."

"I know," I said, holding her.

126

TEN–THIRTY. I put on a dark–gray suit, black felt hat. I hated to rip the sleeve, but I had to make the sacrifice. Belle did a neat, clean job. "I'll sew it back together later," she said, concentrating, the tip of her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth.

"I'll be back in a couple of hours."

"I'll be here."

I kissed her. Her lips were soft. I slipped my fingers around her neck, pulling at the necklace, making it bounce against her chest, coaxing a smile.

"Me and Pansy, we'll have a beer, watch some TV."

127

PAULO'S ISN'T one of those new restaurants in Little Italy. It was built when they were working on the third chapter of the Bible. When Morelli started working the police beat as a reporter, he would eat there every day. His mother came over, made sure her son was eating the right food. Marched right into the kitchen, told them what was what. They still have a couple of dishes on the menu named after her.

He was there when I walked in at eleven, sitting in a far corner. I started over to him. Two guys with cement–mixer eyes got in my way. I nodded over to Morelli's corner. One of the guys stayed planted in front of me; the other turned, caught the signal. They moved aside.

Morelli had a thick sheaf of papers next to him, glass of red wine half empty. I sat down. The waiter came over, looking at me like I was his parole officer.

"What?"

"Veal milanese. Side of spaghetti. Meat sauce. No cheese."

"No cheese?"

"No cheese."

"No wine?"

"No."

He moved off, mumbling something in Italian. When he came back, he had my food. Morelli had linguini with white clam sauce. The waiter said something to Morelli, moved off again.

I cut into the veal. It was perfect, light and sweet. We ate quietly, talking about the magazine he worked for, his kids, the neighborhood.

The waiter cleared the plates. "You want a hot fudge sundae?" he asked me.

"Tortoni," I said.

He bowed. I never saw a guy do that and sneer at the same time before.

When we finished, I lit a smoke, waiting. Morelli leaned forward. "We have a deal?"

I nodded.

He spoke quietly, one hand protectively guarding his papers. "You want the whole package or just the bottom line?"

"Bottom line."

His finger traced a path through the bread crumbs the waiter left behind on the white tablecloth. "Sally Lou," he said.

"Yeah."

"Adds up?"

"I think so."

Morelli sipped his espresso. "Burke, explain something to me. I grew up with these guys, I got no illusions. That dog you got… the Neapolitan? I know one of the old boys, has one just like yours. Keeps him in the back of the house. Every day he sends one of the kids to the pet store. Comes back with a couple of live white rabbits. The old man, he throws the rabbits over the fence. The dog catches them in the air, crunches them like a trash compactor. The old man, he thinks it's the funniest thing he ever saw." He took another sip of his espresso. "I know they put up with Sally 'cause he's a good earner. What I don't understand…where's the market?"

"You know where it is."

"No. I really don't. This whole porno business, most of it's bullshit. They make this triple–X film, tell the world it grossed fifty million dollars—it's just a laundry for dope money."

"So?"

"So why mess with the heavy stuff? Kiddie porn, stuff like that? The penalties are stiffer, they're taking all kinds of risks. There can't be that many freaks out there?"

Morelli's face was tight. Maybe having your own kids raises the stakes.

"There don't need to be that many," I told him. "Every one of them is a bottomless pit. It's not like dope—too much dope and you die, right? But these freaks, they can never get enough. One little piece of videotape, they can sell it again and again."

"Sally Lou, he's bent that way?"

"I don't think so. That's the hell of it—the market's so good, the wise guys are getting into it. It used to be just the freaks, making their own stuff. Mostly with their own kids. Now it's a business. The Postal Inspectors, they nail the end users. That's all. It's like when the DEA busts a bunch of mules—the processing plant keeps making the coke."

I ground out my smoke. "I'll let you know," I said.

His eyes held me. "Where do they get the kids? For the videos?"

"Same way they get anything else. Some they buy, some they steal."

"You going after Sally Lou?"

"No. He's not on my list."

"He's on mine," Morelli said.