Bread (87th Precinct) (7 page)

“Happen to be there last Monday and Tuesday night?”

“
Never
been there.”

“What do you do for a living?” Hawes asked.

“I’m unemployed.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Ever work?”

“I used to be a waitress.”

“When was that?”

“Few years ago.”

“Haven’t worked since?”

“Nope.”

“How do you support yourself?”

“I got friends,” Elizabeth said.

“Like Charlie Harrod?”

“Charlie’s a friend, yes.”

“Frank Reardon’s dead,” Hawes said, and watched the back of her neck.

This time she was ready. Without missing a beat, she said, “I don’t know any Frank Reardon, but of course I’m sorry to hear he’s dead.”

“Tell Charlie when you see him, will you? He might be interested.”

“I’ll tell him, but I doubt he’ll be interested.”

Hawes turned toward the cabinet hanging over the sink. “This is Detective Cotton Hawes, 87th Squad,” he said, “investigating arson and homicide, concluding the questioning of Elizabeth Benjamin at exactly”—he looked at his watch—”eleven twenty-three
A.M.
on Friday, August sixteen.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Make it easier for them,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elizabeth said.

“Tell Charlie I’m looking for him,” Hawes said.

He unlocked the door, went out into the hallway, and closed the door behind him. Immediately he put his ear to the wood and
listened. He heard nothing at first, and then he heard the water tap running, and then nothing again. He did not hear Elizabeth dialing the telephone, but that’s exactly what she must have done, because the next thing he heard was her voice saying, “Charlie, this is Liz. We just had a visit from the fuzz.” Silence. In that moment of silence, Hawes tried to understand what was happening. If they knew about the bug over the sink, they undoubtedly knew the phone would be tapped as well. Yet Elizabeth felt free enough on the instrument to tell Charlie they had just had a visit from the police. Had they unscrewed the mouthpiece and removed the mike? “When will you be leaving there?” Elizabeth asked, and then said, “Wait for me downstairs. I’ll be over in ten minutes.” Hawes heard her replacing the receiver on its cradle. He moved away from the door and went swiftly down the steps to the street.

She had changed into her street clothes, a short blue skirt, a red-ribbed jersey top without a bra, high-heeled navy-blue patent-leather pumps, dangling earrings, and a red-leather sling bag. She stepped high and fast, and he had trouble keeping up with her. If she wasn’t a hooker, he would eat his shield and his service revolver.

The streets of Diamondback were teeming with a populace driven outdoors by the heat; however hot it was on the sidewalk, it was hotter inside the tenements. There is no relief in the slums. In the summer you are hot, and in the winter you are cold. Summer or winter, spring or fall, you are infested with roaches and plagued with rats, and you are reminded constantly that you are an animal because you are forced to
live
like one. If Clearview across the river had been euphemistically named, Diamondback was a true and apt label for an area as deadly as a coiled rattlesnake.

Hawes walked on the opposite side of the street, following Elizabeth at a discreet distance, never losing sight of her. He
walked past pimps in fancy dude threads, and he walked past men who were cabdrivers and letter carriers and sanitation employees; he walked past junkies sitting on the front stoops of boarded tenements and staring vacantly into space, nodding with their dreams of an America realized only in dope fantasies; he walked past candy stores taking numbers bets, and past women rushing home with grocery bags before heading downtown to work cleaning white apartments; he walked past young girls peddling their asses; he walked past young men in gang jackets and old men sitting on wooden crates, watching their shoes, and young men shooting dice on a hallway blanket, and men who were bootblacks and lavatory attendants and some who worked for ad agencies downtown (but who had trouble getting a taxi uptown after work, unless a brother was a hackie); he walked past short-order cooks and pushers, waiters and train conductors and muggers. He walked past honest men and thieves, victims and victimizers alike, who in their desperation called each other “brothers” though the only thing that linked them together was the color of their skins.

Hawes did not share the opinion of those who believed that slums were exciting because at least they were alive. The way Hawes looked at it, slums were at least
dying,
if not already
dead.
The idea depressed and angered him as much as any assault or homicide would. He wondered why it did not depress or anger those men in high government positions who, instead, seemed to prefer looking away from what was an open, bleeding, possibly fatal wound.

Go make your speeches on your high podiums, Hawes thought, in your blue serge suit and your polished brown shoes. Promise us equality and justice and tell us how the poorest son of a bitch on our welfare rolls would be considered a wealthy man in a nation someplace that’s just coming out of the Stone
Age. Grin, and shake all the hands, and exhibit your smiling wife, and tell us what a tireless campaigner she was, and explain how we are a nation on the edge of greatness. Tell us everything’s all right, pal. Assure us, and reassure us. And then take a walk here in Diamondback. And keep your eyes on that girl ahead, because she is most likely a hooker, and she is living with a man who may be involved in a homicide, and
that
is America, too, and it isn’t going to change simply because you tell us everything’s all right, pal, when we know everything may just possibly be all wrong.

The girl stopped on the comer to talk to two men, jostling one of them with her hip, giggling, and then moving on again with her practiced prance, tight little behind wiggling in the short skirt, high-heeled pumps tapping a rapid tattoo on the pavement. On the corner of Mead and Landis, she went into a three-story tenement that had been converted into an office building. Hawes took up position in a doorway across the street. There were three street-side windows on each floor of the building Elizabeth had entered. On the first floor of the building, the middle window was lettered in gold with the words A
RTHUR
K
ENDALL
, A
TTORNEY AT
L
AW,
the flanking windows decorated with large red seals and the words N
OTARY
P
UBLIC
. Two of the windows on the second floor of the building had been painted out; the middle window read D
IAMONDBACK
D
EVELOPMENT
, I
NC.
The third floor of the building was occupied by a firm that announced itself, in fancy script lettering, as
BLACK FASHIONS.

Elizabeth came out of the building not a moment after she had entered it.

She came out at a dead run, shoulder bag flying, skirt riding high on her long legs as she ran in seeming panic up the street. Hawes did not try to stop her. He crossed the street quickly and went into the building. A well-dressed black man was lying in the lobby, bleeding onto the broken blue-and-white-tile flooring.
His eyes were rolled up in his head and he was staring sightlessly at the naked light bulb in the ceiling. A four-inch-long scar ran jaggedly through the cuts and bruises and open bleeding wounds on his face.

Hawes figured he had found Charlie Harrod.

In Roger Grimm’s office, downtown on Bailey Street, Carella did not yet know that another body had turned up in Diamondback. All he knew was that two arsons and a homicide had already been committed, and that Roger Grimm had a police record. (It was true, of course, that Grimm had paid his debt to society. But some debts can never be paid, and a police record is rather like a stray wolf you’ve taken in on a dark and snowy night: it follows you for the rest of your life.)

Carella had spent all morning in court and was armed with a search warrant, but he preferred not to use it unless he had to. His reasoning was simple. Grimm was a suspect, but he did not want Grimm to know that. And so both men went through a pointless dialogue: Carella trying to hide the fact that he already had a warrant in the pocket of his jacket lest Grimm suspect he was a suspect; and Grimm trying to hide scrutiny of his records, a maneuver suspicious in itself.

“When did I become a suspect in this?” he asked, straight for the jugular.

“No one’s even suggesting that,” Carella said.

“Then why do you want to go through my files?”

“You’re anxious to clear up this business with the insurance company, aren’t you?” Carella said. “I assume you’ve got nothing to hide…”

“That’s right.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I’m a businessman,” Grimm said. “I’ve got competitors. I don’t know whether I like the idea of someone having access to my files.”

“Consider me a priest,” Carella said, and smiled.

Grimm did not smile back.

“Or a psychiatrist,” Carella said.

“I’m not religious, and I’m not crazy,” Grimm said.

“I’m merely trying to say…”

“I know what you’re trying to say.”

“That I’m not about to run to the nearest importer of little wooden animals and reveal the inner workings of your operation. I’m investigating arson and homicide. All I want…”

“What’ve my records got to do with arson and homicide?”

“Nothing, I hope,” Carella said. “Frankly, I’d like nothing better than to go through them and be able to report to your insurance company…”

“Companies.”

“
Companies,
that you’re clean. Isn’t that what
you
want, too, Mr. Grimm?”

“Yes, but…”

“Officially, the warehouse arson is Parker’s case. Officially, the fire in Logan belongs to the Logan police. But the Reardon homicide is mine. Okay, I’m here for two reasons, Mr. Grimm.
First, I’d like to help you with your insurance company…
companies.
That’s why you came to me, Mr. Grimm, remember? To get help, remember?”

“I remember.”

“Okay. So if, first, I can help establish your innocence with the insurance people, and, second, get a lead onto the homicide, I’ll go home happy. What do you say, Mr. Grimm? You want to send me home happy, or you want my wife and kids to eat with a grouch tonight?”

“My books and my correspondence are my business,” Grimm said, “not the Police Department’s.”

“When Parker gets back from vacation, he’ll probably want to look at them, anyway. And he can get a warrant, if he has to.”

“Then tell him to get one. Or go get one yourself.”

“I’ve already got one,” Carella said, and handed it to him.

Grimm read it in silence. He looked up and said, “So what was the song and dance?”

“We try to be friendly, Mr. Grimm,” Carella said. “You want to unlock your file cabinets, please?”

If Grimm had anything to hide, it was not immediately apparent to Carella. According to his records, he had started the import business in January, eight months ago, with a capital investment of $150,000…

“Mr. Grimm,” Carella said, looking up from the ledger, “the last time we talked, you told me you’d come into some money last year. Would that be the hundred and fifty thousand you used to start this business?”

“That’s right,” Grimm said.

“How’d you happen to come into it?”

“My uncle died and left it to me. You can check if you like. His name was Ralph Grimm, and the will was settled last year, in September.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Carella said, and went back to the ledger. He had no intention of taking Grimm’s word for anything.

The first business transaction listed in Grimm’s books was for the initial purchase of a hundred thousand little wooden beasties back in January. There was a sheaf of related correspondence starting in December, in which Grimm haggled back and forth over the price with a man named Otto Gülzow of Gülzow Aussenhandel Gesellschaft in Hamburg. There was also a customs receipt indicating that Grimm had paid an 8-percent duty at the port of entry. There were three separate canceled checks: one for 37,120 marks paid to the order of Gülzow Aussenhandel and totaling approximately 10 percent of the agreed-upon purchase price (presumably to cover Gülzow for the risk of packing and shipping); another for 9,280 American dollars paid to the order of the Bureau of Customs; and the last, a certified check for 334,080 marks, paid to the order of Gülzow, and dated January 18, presumably the date the shipment had been handed over to Grimm. The three checks totaled close to $125,000, the price Grimm had said he’d paid for the first shipment. Everything seemed in order. An honest businessman doing business, legally shipping in his little wooden creatures, paying the import duty, and then selling them to retail outlets all over the United States.

According to Grimm’s records, the wooden menagerie had indeed caught on like crazy. His files substantiated that there had been orders for the entire first shipment, and payments to his firm (which incidentally was called Grimports, Inc., Carella realized with a wince) totaling $248,873.94, somewhat less than the $250,000 Grimm had estimated but close enough to establish his veracity. There followed another batch of correspondence with Herr Gülzow, during which Grimm argued for a lower price on the next shipment, since he was ordering twice as many little wooden dogs, cats, turtles, rabbits, horses, etc. Gülzow
argued back in Teutonically stiff English that no discount was possible, since he himself purchased the carvings at exorbitant prices from peasants who whittled them in cottages here and there throughout the Fatherland. They finally compromised on a price somewhat higher than what Grimm had desired. Again, there was a canceled check for 10 percent of the purchase price, a check to the Bureau of Customs, and a certified check to Gülzow Aussenhandel. Again the total came near to the $250,000 Grimm had stated to be the cost of the second shipment from Germany. This had been the shipment lost in the warehouse fire.

In corroboration of Grimm’s earlier statement, there were orders from retail stores all over the country for the entire stock on hand, and there was return correspondence from Grimm promising delivery on or about August 12. There was also a new batch of correspondence with Gülzow, ordering another 400,000 of the animals, at a further slightly reduced price, and several letters from Grimm instructing that the shipment should be delivered first to a packing firm in Bremerhaven, since a portion of the previous shipment had arrived partially damaged and he wished to make certain this did not happen again. (Grimm was quick to assure Gülzow that he was in no way holding Gülzow Aussenhandel responsible for the damage en route, but that since precautionary packing measures would be costing him 6,000 marks, could not Gülzow adjust the price on the new shipment to take into account this additional expense? Gülzow promptly replied that his firm “packed quite well the animals,” and that any additional packing Grimm felt necessary would have to be undertaken at his own expense. It was agreed that the animals would be sent to Bachmann Speditionsfirma, a packing house in Bremerhaven, on or about July 15, and that Bachmann would in turn ship them to the United States. Gülzow asked for the customary 10-percent check before sending the goods to Bachmann.
There was a canceled check in the files, indicating that Grimm had complied with the request on July 9.

There was also a sheaf of correspondence with Erhard Bachmann, the Bremerhaven packer, chronologically overlapping the letters to and from Gülzow. The first letter in the Bachmann file outlined the method of packing he proposed to use; the carvings would first be individually wrapped in straw-filled brown paper, and then packed in wooden crates stuffed with excelsior. A condition of the contract with Bachmann (dated July 3) was that he would be held financially responsible for any portion of the shipment that arrived in anything less than perfect condition. Grimm’s letter in reply agreed to the method of packing. The next letter from Bachmann advised Grimm that he had received the 400,000 animals from Hamburg on July 17, and was proceeding to pack them as per instructions. The last letter was dated July 26, and advised Grimm that the animals had been packed and would be shipped aboard the cargo vessel
Lottchen
leaving Bremerhaven on August 21 and arriving in America on August 28. It further mentioned that Bachmann had been advised through Gülzow that a certified check in the amount of 1,336,320 marks was expected to be turned over to his company representative at the port of entry before delivery of the cargo was made. There was only one puzzling paragraph in Bachmann’s letter. The paragraph said:

We have today received your payment for packing as per our contract of July 3, for which thank you. Please be assured the cargo will reach you in excellent order.

Carella searched through the canceled checks again. He could find no check made out to Bachmann Speditionsfirma. He glanced up at Grimm, who was sitting at his desk and watching Carella in silence.

“This payment Bachmann mentions,” Carella said. “When was it made?”

“Sometime at the end of last month,” Grimm said.

“I don’t see a canceled check for it.”

“It sometimes takes time for checks to clear,” Grimm said. “Payment was made in marks. Where foreign exchange is involved…”

“Well, this is the sixteenth of August,” Carella said. “It should have cleared by now, don’t you think?”

“It should have, but it hasn’t. I’m not in charge of international banking,” Grimm said with some irritation.

“Mind if I see the stub for the check you wrote?” Carella asked.

“The checkbook is in the top drawer of the filing cabinet on your left,” Grimm said.

Carella opened the file drawer and took out the company checkbook. “July when, did you say?”

“I’m not sure of the exact date.”

Carella had already opened the checkbook and was leafing through the stubs. “Is this it,” he asked. “Six thousand marks made payable to Bachmann Speditionsfirma on July twenty-fourth?”

“Yes, that’s the check.”

“He sure got it fast enough,” Carella said.

“What do you mean?” Grimm said.

“You sent the check on July twenty-fourth. He acknowledges receipt of it in his letter of July twenty-sixth.”

“That’s not unusual,” Grimm said. “The mails between here and Europe are very fast.”

“Are you saying it normally takes only two days for a letter to get from here to Germany?”

“Two days, three days,” Grimm said, and shrugged.

“I thought it was more like five days, six days.”

“Well, I don’t keep track of how long it takes a letter to get there. Sometimes it’s faster, sometimes it’s slower.”

“This time it was faster,” Carella said.

“That’s what it looks like. Unless Bachmann made a mistake in dating his letter. That’s possible, too. These Germans pride themselves on their efficiency, but sometimes they make incredibly stupid mistakes.”

“Like mistakenly dating a letter acknowledging a check, right?”

“You’d be surprised at the mistakes they make,” Grimm said.

Carella said nothing. He turned back to the ledger and the file of correspondence. The next sheaf consisted of carbons of Grimm’s letters to the Allied Insurance Company of America and originals of their letters to him. He had apparently begun doing business with them in June, when he had requested a schedule of rates for insuring 200,000 carved wooden animals, worth half a million dollars, while they were awaiting shipment from his warehouse. Allied had written back to ask for verification of the value of the stock, which he had supplied by sending them Xerox copies of the orders he had on hand. They had then informed him that $500,000 was a rather large risk for one company to take, and that they would be willing to share the risk with Mutual Assurance of Connecticut if Grimm was amenable to this arrangement. There then followed several letters in a similar vein between Grimm and Mutual Assurance, and the whole thing was finally settled by the end of June, with Grimm getting his insurance shortly before the second shipment arrived from Germany. There was no record in the files of Grimm having insured the
first
shipment. It almost seemed he was
expecting
a fire the second time around.

“I notice you didn’t insure that first shipment,” Carella said. “The one in January.”

“Couldn’t afford it,” Grimm said. “I had to take my chances.”

“Lucky you insured the second batch,” Carella said dryly.