Judging Time (19 page)

Mike saluted. "Yessir."

Kiang ignored the gesture. "If you can fit Liberty in the time frame, we'll have motive and opportunity— probable cause to do a search of his place. Meanwhile, keep him talking all day, casually tell him what a trial will do to him, see if you can get him to confess. It would make things a lot easier." Kiang was finished with them. He checked the gold watch again. "See you later."

"We don't have a motive for this guy. What an asshole," Mike muttered as they left.

"And Liberty won't be there," April murmured. "Today's his wife's funeral."

A few minutes later
a
wrathful April stalked up Mott Street with Mike striding beside her.

"Come on, April, talk to me."

The temperature had dropped to nearly zero. Zero in New York was really cold. The unappetizing, weary-looking leaves and stems that Chinatown grocers clipped from their produce and threw in the gutters were now frozen still lifes in black ice. Mike crunched over them in his cowboy boots. The boots were new, black and white snakeskin. With thick socks, they kept his feet warm and dry. He wondered what April was up to. Chinatown was pretty shut down in weather like this. Al the little stores that hung their merchandise in the doorways and stacked it on flimsy tables on the sidewalks in good weather had moved operations inside. Only the Chinese newspapers were stacked outside on the tables today. April's face was muffled in a long scarf. As animated as she had been with Kiang before Mike arrived, she was shut down now. He figured it was time for a showdown.

"Where are you going?"

April stopped her uphill trudge on Mott for a moment and lowered her scarf. "Do you have any idea what you looked like in there, Mike?"

"What?" Mike was wearing his new black leather, three-quarter-length coat, heavy enough for any weather, new snakeskin boots, a slick gray jacket with a silvery shine in the weave, charcoal trousers, and a black shirt with a green knit tie. He'd taken great care with the combination, had deodorized, perfumed himself, combed his hair many times to get it just right. He'd even trimmed his mustache so it didn't look too wild for the occasion. He thought he looked his best ever.

"How could anybody tell the bad guys from you? You're crude. You talk and look like a dealer."

Mike was called worse nearly every day. But not by anybody he cared about. He was taken aback for a moment, then he made a huge effort and smiled. "Nah, I don't look that good. No gold, no rings, no bracelets. I'm a poor honest cop." Mike took it a little further and laughed. "Yo, you think I should let my hair grow and wear a ponytail?"

He knew where April was coming from, figured her feet in the prissy little East Side boots were completely numb by now. The cloth, Upper-East-Side-lady coat and tailored skirt were a dead giveaway. She was not dressing for the job. She was dressing to attract the DA. Yep, he could see that her feet hurt and she was freezing. She blew a cloud of steam out of her mouth, started walking again. She was so stupid that he feared she actually liked the guy.

"You're steaming, baby, you getting primed by the DA?"

"Trust you to have a filthy mind," she spat out. "We're working a case, remember?"

"Hey, you can't fool me. You've got the hots for that dumb DA. You slept with him yet,
querida?"

The muffler was up again, but April's eyes could not disguise the erupting volcano behind it. "You acted like an asshole in his office, and now you're acting like an asshole with me. What's your
problem?"

"Hey, I may be a dumb cop. I may not wear a monkey suit and loafers with little tassels like your little
pendejo
lawyer. But lady, you better watch who you're calling an asshole."

"You were out of line in there. You call that smart?' '

"You think suits make a man, huh? Tassels,
cojones?"

"Pubic hairs and balls, very cultured, Mike. I'm impressed with your style." April plunged her hands deep in her coat pockets.

"You brought it up."

"Well, I guess you don't understand what any of this is about." April stopped in front of a dirty window with displays of ugly dried twigs and leaves and powders. Chinese labels on different colored pieces of paper, but the prices in dollars and cents.

"Oh, I understand what it's about. You don't care if a guy's an asshole. You just want the asshole to wear a suit."

"Hey. It's not that."

"What is it then? He's Chinese? He's sexy and I'm not?' '

April didn't answer.

"Oh, great. This is great. I've always been straight with you. You wanted respect. I respected you. I met your parents. I took you to meet my mother. I didn't just throw you over my shoulder and take you to my cave, show you how a real man makes love, so you don't think I'm sexy. This is a switch. I didn't grab you, so now you think I'm dumb and crude." God, he was loco, a gored bull. His face burned with the pain.

Hers was white. "Look, I like you. Why don't we leave it at that."

Like you. "Like you" meant she didn't find him sexy. That meant he saved her face all these months only to lose his own.

"I have to go in here. You all right?" Her voice was soft now, seemed to quaver in the frigid air.

Chinese apothecary. Sold disgusting powders made of insects, dead animals, mold, ghosts and dragons, fish guts and bone, leaves and twigs. For every ill known to man and woman. Not sexy, not lovable. Ugly and crude. Mike's heart was splitting. He turned to go back down the hill to find his car.

"Meet you at the Park Century in half an hour?" April asked anxiously.

He called over his shoulder, "That's where I'll be. Hey, and while you're in there, why don't you check out if they have anything to cure assholes."

20

W
ally Jefferson did not find Julio that day in any of his usual hangouts in Queens. He found him in the Magic Club off Broadway in West Harlem at 9:39 in the evening. Julio was leaning against an un-painted side wall, drinking a Corona from the bottle. From the way he was standing it did not look like the beer was his first. But the five or six other men weren't standing at all. They were sprawled on chairs scattered around the otherwise unfurnished room in various states of nodding off. Only one grizzled grandfather was watching the basketball game on the TV in a corner, smoking a cigarette and talking to himself.

As Wally gave the signal to the one vigilant man at the door and was let in, Julio turned away from him. He wore a scarf with three knots tied on his head. Wally knew the knots were some kind of code for bad. He'd been frightened by Liberty and chilled from his daylong search and Julio's lack" of acknowledgment. He wasn't in the mood for a display of bad dude. He crossed the space between them on the tips of his toes like the boxer he used to be.

"Hey, man, I told you I needed to talk to you."

Julio's eyes were dead. He shrugged.
"Diga me."

"Don't give me any of this Spanish
mierda.
I need that car back. And I need it now."

"Why need?"

"Because my boss is dead and so is Liberty's wife."

"So people die."

"These people are
muy importante,
Julio. You have Liberty's car. He reported it stolen. His wife is dead

and because of the damn car he thinks I had something to do with it."

"Thees is no my
problema."

Wally bunched his broken hands. "This
is
your problem. The car has to go back."

"Why?"

"I told you. He and the police think I killed them. I ain't going to prison for killing no woman."

Suddenly Julio smiled. Seven gold teeth flashed at Wally. "Man, wo-man, what difference?"

"Hey, I didn't have nothing to do with this killing."

"No se nada."

"Don't give me that shit, man. They're going to tie this all together, they're going to tie you into it. You're not safe if that car doesn't go back to the garage."

Julio laughed. "Thees is no my
problema.
Is yours."

"Okay, you want to see it that way, just tell me where the car is. I'll pick it up."

"Thees is the
problema.
I don't know where the car. "

"What do you mean you don't know? You used it. Where did you put it?"

"Other guy take."

"What guy took it?"

"Don't know name."

"The guy took the car?" Wally was stunned.

Julio nodded. His hollow eyes held a glimmer of amusement. "Took limo."

"You let him take my car?" Wally couldn't believe it.

"Not your car."

"Jesus, are you crazy? The guys in the garage know me. They know me on the street. Why'd you let him take it?"

Julio shrugged.

"What happened? Did something go wrong?"

"Yeah, went wrong."

Wally looked around and took a deep breath. No one was interested in their conversation. Wally's buddies were all too wasted to join a fight on either side. Julio was a small man who owed him a car and a lot of money. "Went wrong" didn't sit well with him. He considered busting Julio's head, then decided to be smart.

"I want the car and my share of the money."

Julio shook his head. "Don't know about the car, but I'll get you some money. You take off. Okey-doke?"

Wally nodded. "Fine, but don't shit me. I want the whole amount."

"Okeydoke. I'll get."

"When? Don't make this hard," he warned.

"Sabado."

"What the hell is that?"

"Saturday. "

"How about tomorrow? .

"Saturday."

Wally chewed on his lips, looked around at his wasted buddies, then nodded. He didn't want to push this Julio too hard. The little man was known to carry a machete under his jacket. Saturday it was.

A
s the elevator door opened, Rick Liberty could see that the reception area was empty just as Marvin had promised it would be. The door to Marvin's office was open. He sat alone at his enormous desk, his head bent over some papers. Rick pushed back the hood covering his head and the lower part of his face. He unzipped his down jacket that covered the laptop he clutched close to his chest. Underneath the parka, he was dressed in the same well-tailored gray trousers and sweater he'd been wearing for four days.

By rote he'd taken the clothes off to shower several times when he tried to cleanse his mind and find a way out of the tunnel. But the showers didn't help. He was deep inside a pit of darkness and couldn't find a way to go. The stock market had taken a huge dip of 350 points in the last two days on the threat of a rise in interest rates. The market fall looked like a major correction. His clients' portfolios were lined up like soldiers in his laptop computer, demanding his attention and review. But he didn't care about the market.

Other thoughts disturbed him, and he wanted to hide away like a wounded animal. Tor and Merrill were dead, and Rick Liberty knew there was something wrong with him. In the instant of their death he'd been robbed of himself. The famous Liberty, who'd always known how to tum a bad situation into a good one, was suddenly completely at odds with the world, too ashamed to face it.

Marvin looked up and gestured him in. For some reason the gesture frightened Rick. Suspicious of some kind of trick, he quickly pulled the door toward him and looked behind it, then felt stupid to see the space was filled with a Health Rider. Something new in the lavish private office of Marvin Farrish, president and chairman of the board of FCN, the largest black-owned cable-TV network in the country.

"Come in, Rick. Don't worry, no one else is here." Like a cat stretching, Marvin unfolded his compact body from the tilt and swivel orthopedic chair specially designed to ease his lower back pain. The chair and the Health Rider clashed with the massive brass-and tortoiseshell-inlaid French Empire desk and the rest of the priceless antiques. Everything fought for attention in the huge and ornately decorated office that had its own kitchen and private elevator to which only a few of Marvin's closest associates—and his bodyguard—had access.

Marvin Farrish liked to tell white folks that because he had not been tall enough to be a basketball player, dense enough to be a football or baseball player, musical or funny enough to be an entertainer, or handsome enough to be a movie star, he had had to invent some new little thing for a man, black as coal, to be. The white folks usually laughed uneasily when he said this, not sure exactly where the barb was aimed.

"We missed you at the funeral." Marvin opened his arms and crossed the room, eyeing his famous friend as uneasily as white men sometimes regarded him. He tried to give Rick a hug but was prevented from getting close by the computer Rick still held to his chest as if it were the only thing keeping him alive. Drawing away, Marvin waved a hand at one of the two huge armchairs placed in front of his desk.

"Go ahead, sit down. You look like you need a drink."

"I need more than a drink, Marv." Rick sat in the chair, making it look small.

"You sure? I have everything." He waved at the liquor cabinet hidden behind closed doors.

"I know you do."

"Okay." Marvin sat in the other chair, making it look large. "What did you do to your hair?"

Rick reached for the top of his head. "Nothing. What's wrong with it?"

"You've gone gray, man. What happened?"

Gray? Rick was startled and lost his train of thought, didn't know what to say. There was no sound in the office but the ticking of a clock that told the time in six major cities around the world. The ticking clock reminded Rick of the shrink, Jason Frank.

"You're going to need time, a lot of time to deal with this, Rick," Jason had told him. "There are a lot of stages people go through after a death, before they begin to feel better." Jason had never sounded so clinical to Rick before. Since his interview, he now understood where they were going with these questions, what he was looking for. He hadn't told Jason everything. How could he?