Bread (87th Precinct) (8 page)

“Yeah,” Grimm said. “If they
pay
me. If they don’t, I’m not so sure how lucky I was.”

“Oh, they’ll pay you sooner or later,” Carella said. He closed the ledger and began copying the addresses, telephone numbers, cable addresses, and Telex numbers of both German firms into his notebook.

“Later isn’t soon enough,” Grimm said.

“Well,” Carella said, and shrugged.

“What’ll it take?” Grimm asked suddenly.

“What’ll
what
take?”

“To get a clean bill of health from you.”

“I’m not sure my word alone would convince your insurers that…”

“But it would help, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe, maybe not. What would
really
help is if we caught the arsonist.
And
the man who killed Frank Reardon. Assuming they’re one and the same, which they might not be.”

“I think if you went to them and told them I had nothing to do with the fire, they’d release the money,” Grimm said. He was standing just directly to the left of where Carella sat now, looking down at him intently. “Will you do it?”

“No,” Carella said. “I don’t know
who
burned down your warehouse, Mr. Grimm. Not yet, I don’t.”

“How much?” Grimm said.

“What?”

“I said how
much
.”

The office went still.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Carella said.

“I meant how much
time
,” Grimm said quickly. “How much
time
will you need to…?”

“I’m sure you did,” Carella said. He rose, put on his jacket, and went to the door. “If that canceled check shows up, give me a ring,” he said, and left the office. He had not mentioned Grimm’s police record, and Grimm had not volunteered the information. But then again, if everybody was always totally honest with everybody else, Diogenes wouldn’t have had a job, either.

Meanwhile, back at the scene of the crime, Hawes was going through the building at 2914 Landis Avenue with a detective from the 83rd Squad, in which precinct Diamondback happened to be located. The detective was named Oliver Weeks. He was affectionately called Big Ollie by his colleagues on the Eight-Three. (He was not so affectionately called
Fat
Ollie by various despicable types he had busted over the years.) Big/Fat Ollie was both fat
and
big. He also sweated a lot. And he smelled. Hawes considered him a pig.

“Looks like he was beat to death, don’t it to you?” Ollie asked.

“Yeah,” Hawes said.

They were climbing the steps to the first floor of the building, where the offices of Arthur Kendall, Attorney at Law, were located. Ollie was just ahead of Hawes, puffing up the stairs, a powerful aroma wafting back down the stairwell.

“Not with fists, though,” Ollie said, panting.

“No,” Hawes said.

“Sawed-off stickball bat,” Ollie said. “Or maybe a hammer.”

“Medical examiner’ll tell us,” Hawes said, and took out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

“You getting a cold there?” Ollie asked.

“No,” Hawes said.

“Summer colds are the worst kind,” Ollie said. “You know this guy Kendall?”

“No,” Hawes said.

“He’s a jig lawyer, represents half the punks who get in trouble around here.”

“Who represents the other half?” Hawes asked.

“Huh?” Ollie said, and opened the door to Kendall’s office.

Kendall’s secretary looked up from her desk in surprise. She was perhaps twenty-three years old, a good-looking black girl wearing an Afro cut, a pale blue jumper over a white blouse, her legs bare, her pastel-blue pumps off her feet and resting to the side of her swivel chair. Her surprise seemed genuine enough, but Hawes wondered how she could possibly have missed all the excitement downstairs—a dead man lying on the floor of the lobby, radio motor patrol cars at the curb, the police photographer taking pictures, the assistant medical examiner bustling about, the ambulance waiting to carry the body to the morgue.

“Yes?” she said, and bent over to put on her shoes.

“Detective Weeks,” Ollie said, “83rd Squad.”

“Yes?” the girl said.

“What’s your name?” Ollie asked.

“Susan Coleridge.”

“We got a dead man downstairs,” Ollie said.

“Yes, I know,” Susan answered.

“Hear anything happening down there?” Ollie asked.

“No.”

“How come? It’s just down one flight of steps there.”

“I was typing,” Susan said. “And the radio was on.”

“It ain’t on now,” Ollie said.

“I turned it off when I heard the police cars. I went out in the hall to see what was happening. That’s when I realized Charlie’d been killed.”

“Oh, you knew him?”

“Yes. He worked upstairs.”

“Where?”

“Diamondback Development.”

“Your boss in?”

“He’s in court.”

“Keeping you busy these days?” Ollie asked.

“Yes,” Susan said.

“So you didn’t see nor hear nothing, is that right?”

“That’s right,” Susan said.

“Thanks,” Ollie said, and motioned for Hawes to follow him out. In the hallway, Ollie said, “These jigs
never
see nor hear nothin.’ This whole neighborhood’s deaf, dumb, and blind.”

“If she was typing…”

“Yeah, they’re
always
typing,” Ollie said. “Or the radio’s on. Or the washing machine. Or something. It’s always something. These jigs stick together like peanut butter and jelly. Nothing they like better than to see us busting our asses.” They had reached the second-floor landing now. The lettering on the frosted glass door at the top of the steps read D
IAMONDBACK
D
EVELOPMENT
, I
NC.
Ollie glanced at it sourly, said, “Sounds like a bullshit operation,” and pushed open the door.

Two black men in shirtsleeves were sitting at a long table near the windows. One of the men was tall and thin, light-complected, with a rather long nose and mild amber eyes. The other was quite dark, a heavyset man with brown eyes magnified by thick-lensed glasses. He was chewing on the stub of a dead cigar. The wall to the left of the table was hung with large photographic blowups of rows and rows of tenements, alongside of which were pinned architectural drawings for what looked like a city of the future. Half a dozen of the buildings in the blowups had large red Xs taped across their faces. The tabletop was covered with eight-by-ten glossies of tenements and empty lots. The heavyset man was holding a stack of photographs of gasoline stations and putting
them on the table, one by one, before the amber-eyed man, who then consulted a typewritten sheet. Both of them looked up together as Ollie walked briskly toward the table.

“Detective Weeks,” he said in his abrupt, direct manner. “This is Detective Hawes. Who’re you?”

“Alfred Allen Chase,” the amber-eyed man said.

“Robinson Worthy,” the man with the glasses said, and put down the gasoline-station pictures and shifted the dead cigar stub to the opposite side of his mouth.

“I’m investigating the murder of Charles Harrod,” Ollie said. “I understand he worked here.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Chase said.

“You don’t seem too broken up over his untimely demise,” Ollie said. “Business as usual, huh?”

“We’ve already called his mother, and we tried to reach his girlfriend,” Chase said. “What else would you like us to do? He’s dead. Ain’t nothing we can do about that.”

“What kind of job did he have here?”

“He took pictures for us,” Worthy said, and gestured toward the wall of tenement photographs and then the glossies on the desk.

“Just went around taking pictures of old buildings, huh?” Ollie said.

“We’re a development company,” Chase said. “We’re trying to reclaim this whole area.”

“Sounds like a big job,” Ollie said in mock appreciation.

“It is,” Worthy said flatly.

“How much of it have you reclaimed so far?” Ollie said.

“We’re just starting.”

“How do you start reclaiming a shithole like Diamondback?” Ollie said.

“Well, I don’t know as it’s incumbent upon us to explain our operation to you,” Worthy said.

“No, it ain’t incumbent at all,” Ollie said. “How long’ve you been in business here?”

“Close to a year.”

“You sure you ain’t running a numbers drop?”

“We’re sure,” Chase said.

“This is just a nice legit operation, huh?”

“That’s what it is,” Worthy said. “We’re trying to make Diamondback a decent place to live.”

“Ah, yes, ain’t we all,” Ollie said, imitating W. C. Fields. “Ain’t we all.”

“And we’re trying to make a buck besides,” Chase said. “Ain’t nothing wrong with the black man making a buck, is there?”

“Don’t bleed on me about the black man,” Ollie said. “I ain’t interested. I got a black man lying on the floor downstairs, and chances are he was done in by
another
black man, and all I know is that black men give me trouble. If you’re so goddamn beautiful, how about starting to
act
beautiful?”

“Reclaiming the area is a legal, responsible, and proud enterprise,” Worthy said with dignity. “Charles Harrod worked for us on a part-time basis. We have no idea why he was killed or who killed him. His murder in no way reflects on what we’re trying to do here.”

“Well put, Professor,” Ollie said.

“If you’re finished,” Worthy said, “we’ve got work to do.” He picked up the glossy photographs of the gasoline stations, turned to Chase, and said, “This one is on Ainsley and Thirty-first. Have you…?”

Ollie suddenly reached over, clamped one hand into Worthy’s shirtfront, yanked him out of his chair, and slammed him against the wall of tenement blowups and architectural drawings. “Don’t get wise with me,” he said, “or I’ll ram those gas stations clear down your throat, you hear me?”

“Cut it out, Ollie,” Hawes said.

“You keep out of this,” Ollie said. “You hear me, Mr. Robinson Worthy, or do you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you,” Worthy said.

“What’d Harrod
really
do for this bullshit operation?”

“He took pictures of abandoned tenements that we…”

“Don’t give me any crap about your development company. You and your friend here probably got records as long as…”

“That is not true,” Worthy said.

“Shut up till I’m finished talking,” Ollie said.

“Let go of him,” Hawes said.

“Go on home,” Ollie said over his shoulder. His fist was still clamped into Worthy’s shirtfront, and he was still holding him pinned to the wall like one of his own architectural drawings. “The stiff downstairs is mine, and I’ll handle this any way I want to.”

“I’ll give you thirty seconds to turn him loose,” Hawes said. “After that, I’m calling in to file departmental charges.”

“Charges?” Ollie said. “
What
charges? This man is running a phony bullshit operation here, and he’s scared to death I’m going to find out just what he’s covering. Ain’t that right, Mr. Robinson Worthy?”

“No, that’s not right,” Worthy said.

Hawes walked slowly and deliberately to the telephone on one corner of the desk. He lifted the receiver, dialed Frederick 7-8024, and said, “Dave, this is Cotton Hawes. We’ve got a police officer manhandling a witness here—unnecessary use of force and abuse of authority. Let me talk to the lieutenant, please.”

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Ollie said, but he released Worthy’s shirtfront. “Put up the phone, I was just having a little fun. Mr. Worthy knows I was just kidding around. Don’t you, Mr. Worthy?”

“No, I don’t,” Worthy said.

“Put up the phone,” Ollie said.

Hawes replaced the phone on its cradle.

“Sure,” Ollie said. He sniffed once, tucked his shirt back into his trousers where it had ridden up over his belt, and then walked to the door. “I’ll be back, Mr. Worthy,” he said. “Soon as I find out a little more about this company here. See you, huh?” He waved to Hawes and walked out.

“You okay?” Hawes asked Worthy.

“I’m fine.”

“Were you telling the truth? Did Charlie Harrod
really
take pictures for you?”

“That’s what he did,” Worthy said. “We’re looking for buildings that’ve been abandoned. Once we find them, we do title searches and then try to locate the landlords—which isn’t always an easy job. If we can get to them before the city repossesses a building…” Worthy paused. In explanation, he said, “If a building’s been abandoned, you see, the landlord stops paying taxes on it, and the city can foreclose.”

“Yes, I know that,” Hawes said.

“What the city does then is offer the building to any city agency that might want to use it. If none of them want it, the city offers it for sale at public auction. They have seven or eight of these auctions every year, usually at one of the big hotels downtown. Trouble is, you get into a bidding situation then, and so we try to find the landlord before it comes to that.”

“What do you do when you find him?” Hawes asked.

“We offer to take the building off his hands. Pay the back taxes for him, give him a little cash besides, to sweeten the pot and make it worth his while. Usually, he’s delighted to go along. You’ve got to remember that he
abandoned
the building in the first place.”

“What do you use for capital?” Hawes asked.

“We’re privately financed. There are black men in Diamondback with money to invest in projects such as this. The return they expect on an investment is only slightly more than we would pay a bank for interest on a loan.”

“Then why not go to a bank?”

“We’ve been to every bank in the city,” Chase said.

“None of them seem too enthusiastic about the possibility of developing property in Diamondback.”

“How many buildings have you bought so far?”

“Eight or ten,” Worthy said. He gestured toward the wall again. “Those marked with the red crosses there, plus several others.”

“Did Harrod find those buildings for you?”

“
Find
them? What do you mean?”

“I take it he served as a scout. When he saw a building that looked abandoned…”