Keegan 00 Soft Case (20 page)

“Hey.”

I walked over and gave her a hug. It was more obligatory than out of genuine emotion. We just weren’t that way with each other. I would have felt more comfortable giving her a jab on the arm and messing up her hair.

“You okay?” I asked.

My mother glared at me.

“I’m fine, why?”

“Just asking.”

“She’s fine,” my mother said.

“I was just seeing how she was.” I looked around the room. “Where’s Donny?”

“He’s in the bathroom. What are you doing here?”

I looked at my father, slyly. “I took the day off. Being that I don’t get to see you guys all that much, I figured I’d stop by.”

“You in trouble?” Laura asked.

“No.”

“You sure? You look like you’ve been in some sort of trouble,” my mother said. She was good, I’ll give her that.

“No. I just haven’t slept very well lately. A lot of stress at work.” That was the understatement of the year.

“Okay.”

From behind me, I heard Donny walk into the room. Despite the fact that I didn’t the situation with him and my sister, we got along okay. I knew how to be diplomatic when I had to be, and we had some things in common. He came over and shook my hand. “Hey, Johnny. What’s going on?”

“Not much. Usual.”

“You got that big case. Heard your name mentioned on TV.” “That’s me.”

“So, what happened? Did that Mullins guy really kill himself?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Yeah, I read about that,” Laura said. “Didn’t he run Microsoft or something?”

“Not Microsoft. Techdata,” Donny said. He liked to correct her and she did the same to him. No wonder they fought all the time.

“Whatever,” Laura said.

“So what’s going on with the whole thing?” Donny asked.

“I can’t talk about it.”

“He-he, you always can’t talk about it, like it’s some CIA stuff or something. I think he was murdered.”

Thank you for your expert analysis, Donny-boy.

“We haven’t found anything yet,” I said, hoping he would just shut up. He really wasn’t capable of that.

“Come on. Something’s going on.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear him,” Laura said. “He’s trying to tell you that he can’t talk about it.”

Donny seemed like he wanted to say something but wisely chose to disengage. He was learning. We all needed to do that. He looked directly at me. “You really can’t talk about it, huh?”

“No.”

“Oh, sorry. It’s just that it seems like such an interesting case, you know?”

“I do.”

“I’ll get lunch ready,” my mother said. She looked at me and smiled, happy that I didn’t blow up. She knew I wanted to. Hell, she wanted to as well. I feared for the day that we all exploded on him at the same time. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

“Good, I’m starving,” Donny said.

“I could eat too,” I said.

Mom made us one of her great lunches. She took food seriously, being Italian, and what we ate that day would have qualified as a good dinner for anyone else. She made some pasta, salad, and garlic bread. It was good, but I felt like I was about to explode after I was done. Dad had a few beers at lunch, but I had to limit myself to one because of the stares I was getting from Mom. She didn’t like to see me drink. Made me feel like a kid, but there were worse things in life to worry about.

Donny had kept to his usual tricks with my sister, and they traded barbs across the table. I tried sneering ever so discreetly at Donny, but he didn’t seem to pick it up.

After we were done, we moved into the living room, where Mom had some cookies, Entenmanns’s chocolate chip mind you, and coffee. Man, it was good to be home.

Donny started bothering me about the case again.

“He really killed himself?”

“I said I don’t know.”

“Jesus Christ, leave him alone already,” Laura said.

Donny shot her a look, but decided not to say anything. He got up and walked toward the bathroom. Mom went into the kitchen to finish cleaning up, and Dad started to fall asleep.

“How is everything going, Laura?” I asked.

“Fine.” she said. She seemed uncomfortable.

“What’s the problem?”

“Nothing,” she said sternly.

“Don’t bullshit me. Something’s up. What is it?”

“It’s nothing, Johnny, really. We’re just having problems, that’s all. Donny got laid off of work and, to be honest, I want us to get our own place. It’s been four years already.”

“Is he treating you right?”

“He’s treating me fine. Really.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“It’s fine. Stop trying to make something out of nothing.

“I am worried about it.”

I could see she had enough. The protective older brother thing didn’t always work out so well. And besides, I didn’t see it all and could easily be wrong about the whole thing.

“Just leave it alone, okay?”

I really didn’t have a choice.

“You just let me know if you have any problems,” I said.

Mom came back into the room, saw us sitting next to each other, and smiled. I think she really wanted me to say something to my asshole brother-in-law.

She looked at my father who was completely passed out.

“I don’t know why he does this to himself.”

“He’s just tired,” I said. A feeble attempt at his defense.

“He’s drunk. He must have had at least seven beers.”

Nine, actually. And that was all I counted. Lord knows what he’d had before I got there.

“He’ll be alright.”

I stayed there for another hour or so. I would have stayed longer, but I couldn’t get my mind of my situation. I wanted answers. I wanted a solution. My father was probably right about speaking to my uncle at the FBI. I wasn’t sure what he would be able to come up with, but at least it would be something. It would offer me direction.

After we had run the small talk down to nothing, I caught my mother in the kitchen.

“Mom, do you have Uncle Paul’s number?”

She looked at me sideways, the way she did when I said something that didn’t seem to make sense.

“What do you want to speak to him for?”

“It has to do with this case. I think he might be able to get me some information that might help.”

“It’s in my blue phone book, in the drawer underneath the television.”

I went to the drawer and came up with three blue phone books. “Which one?”

“The blue one.”

“They’re all blue.”

“Jesus Christ, you lived her for 22 years. You know which one I called the blue phone book. The one with the gold lettering.”

I found it. It was battered, the spine shot and loose pages falling out. Why my mother didn’t just buy a new one and transfer all the names from all the books was beyond me. Each phone book held some sort of significance, but I never could decipher what that was.

I fumbled through the book, trying to remember what my mother’s system was. Some people were listed by first name, some by last, and some by title. For instance, Uncle Paul could have been listed under “P” for his first name, “S” for his last name, Shortino, or “U” for Uncle. I found him under “S,” surprisingly, and jotted the number down on a business card I had in my wallet. “Thanks Mom,” I said,

“You sure everything’s okay?”

“Yes. But I need one more favor.”

“What do you need?”

“I need to borrow the car for a few hours.”

“The Toyota?”

“I could use your car, that’s fine.”

She went over to her pocketbook and handed me the keys. “When are you going to get a car of your own?”

I didn’t want to tell her that I might have to do that soon. “When I need one.”

“Just don’t leave me on empty, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I said my goodbyes to my mother and sister, shook Donny’s hand when I went through the living room, and walked outside. I really didn’t know what I was going to do. I couldn’t imagine having to face my mother and tell her that I was being kicked off the force, or worse, going to jail, even if I was innocent. She had been so proud of me when I’d graduated from the academy, and even more so when I got the gold badge. Her father had been a cop. Though she was worried about me, she beamed every time she talked about my job

Sixteen

I drove aimlessly for about an hour in my mother’s Cadillac Deville. It was an older model, a 1984, the long squared one. It was a coupe, only because my mother wouldn’t drive anything else, and it was in perfect condition. I felt like an idiot with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary rising up from the dash, but there was no way to take that off. The car was a steel blue, with shiny spoke rims and whitewall tires. I didn’t even know they made those anymore.

I looked at the odometer. The car had just a little over 27,000 miles on it. No wonder she still had the whitewalls. The tires were probably original.

I was headed back toward my apartment when my cell phone rang.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Keegan,” was all the man at the other end replied. It was Geiger.

“Hey, boss.” I was at first happy to hear from him, but then I remembered what my father had said about him. Even though I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

“Big mess Keegan. Big mess.”

“Don’t I know it. I’m the one they are going to hang.”

“No, they probably won’t even pursue the charges.”

“How do you know that?”

“They don’t have anything on you. They’ll just carry out the suspension for a short time, and then everything will go back to normal.”

“They planted evidence on me.”

“You really think our guys did that? Come on John, use your

head.”

I couldn’t figure out what Geiger’s angle was.

“Who else, then?”

“How about Mrs. Mullins? Ever think that maybe she did that?”

Was he trying to get the information out of me that the IA guy and Peters couldn’t the day before? I didn’t even want to think that, but I did. Alarms were going off in my head.

“Listen, I can’t talk right now.”

“Come in and talk to me. We’ll work this whole thing out.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

It was then that I realized I could trust no one. I was being pinched for someone’s satisfaction, pretty much. The rotted line of corruption ran high, from what I could tell. They had gotten to Rick, and it seemed they had gotten to Geiger. I was on my own, and had to fight my way out. Odds were that I would lose, but I had to try.

I pulled over, got out the business card with my uncles number, and dialed it. I couldn’t speak directly to him at first. When I finally got through, I had to tell him right away that the line wasn’t safe.

“My favorite nephew, how are you?”

“I’m fine, but a little tangled.”

He knew what that meant. He was the one who taught me that line.

“Yeah, it happens often. I had a feeling.”

“I just need to run a few things by you.”

“Sure. Remember the last place I saw you?”

I did. It was a steakhouse in the twenties. Angelo and Maxie’s.

“Yes.”

“Meet me there by four.”

“I will.”

I hung up the phone and made my way toward Manhattan. I felt a little better because, if nothing else, I was going to give as much hell as I received.

I had a few hours to kill before I had to meet my uncle, so I went to my apartment to pick up a few things. One of the things was a gun that I hadn’t given to the guy the night before. It was a small Walther PPK 380. It fit in the back of my jeans nicely. Yeah, I was breaking the law by carrying a gun that wasn’t registered, but I didn’t feel comfortable not carrying one.

I scanned the apartment. Part of me thought that maybe someone had been there, but I was just spooked. I didn’t trust anything or anyone. Nothing looked like it was touched. But, of course, I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t like the fact that I didn’t feel safe in my own home. I felt violated.

The restaurant, on the corner of 21st was packed as usual for a Friday. It was a place I went to fairly often. I liked it because the food was good, the prices were decent for a city joint, and there were always a ton of women there. It was new, but it had a sort of old feeling to it, like Smith and Wolensky. The place was decorated in wood, and was dark. As soon as you walk in, you see the main bar. There were about thirty people standing around it, more than half of them female. I smiled at a few, and made my way through the restaurant, into the glass-enclosed smoking area.

The smoking area attracted all the cigar smokers, and the air was stale with that smell. Four men were seated at the bar, which was on the right, and two of the eight tables were occupied. I sat at the bar, and the bartender came over to me.

“What can I get you?”

“Scotch on the rocks,” I said, “Johnnie Black.”

He grabbed the bottle, poured my drink, and handed it to me. It was a large glass, about twice the size of the average rocks glass. The last time I was there, I had four drinks and had problems speaking my name.

I placed a twenty on the bar, and he gave me my change, nine bucks. I know I said the prices were reasonable, but I meant the steaks. Any place in the city of any status charged double figures for a drink.

I took a sip, and it burned. I hadn’t drank scotch in a while. I pulled out my pack of cigarettes, which was near empty, and the bartender was quick with the lighter. I inhaled this cigarette deeply, to get the smell of cigars out of my nose. I hated cigars, and I hated the fact that it was cool to smoke them.

I waited about fifteen minutes for my uncle to show up. He walked in the room, dressed in his usual brown suit and tan raincoat. He smiled when he saw me at the bar.

“Just where I expected to find you,” he said, taking a seat next to me.

I shook his hand. “Can I get you something?”

“Citron on the rocks.”

I didn’t even have to tell the bartender. He poured the drink, and placed it in front of Uncle Paul. I handed him another twenty, and he brought back the same change. What a guy.

“How are things?” I asked Paul.

“Busy, as usual. Working on a couple of big things.”

I knew not to ask him about it.

“How are your parents,” he asked. Uncle Paul was my mother’s other brother, the one who did things right. He didn’t talk to the drunken Uncle Ralph, and from my experience, he never mentioned his younger brother either.