Known Devil (11 page)

It took about two and a half hours to reach the conclusion that this so-called crime scene was going to be about as fruitful as a dead apple tree. Lieutenant Russo from Homicide had taken over by then, and he finally turned us loose. Since my shift was already long over, I didn’t have to go back to work. I’d been feeling hungry the last hour or so, so I decided to stop for something to eat on my way home.

I didn’t go to Jerry’s Diner this time – I had a hankering for something that wasn’t served with a light coating of grease. Fortunately, Wohlstein’s Deli and Eatery downtown serves everything on their menu all day long.

Whoever wrote “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” must have been thinking of Manny Wohlstein’s turkey club sandwich – and if not, he should have been. I was halfway through mine when I saw the ghoul come in and take a seat at one of the corner tables.

You can’t ID a ghoul just by looking – although if you get close enough to smell their breath, it’s what you might call a dead giveaway. But this one I recognized. He goes by “Algernon”, and he’s the brother of a guy everyone calls Barney Ghougle, a local undertaker and one of my most reliable informants.

I knew who Algernon was because he’s got a little problem that sometimes gets him into trouble – a habit of taking his cock out in front of people and waving it around. I hoped he’d be able to resist the impulse as long as he was in Wohlstein’s – I was off duty. Besides, I’d seen ghoul cock before and hoped never to have to look at any again.

Taking another bite out of my sandwich, I began to wonder what the hell Algernon was doing there. Wohlstein’s offers a large menu, but they don’t serve the kind of stuff that ghouls eat. Just as well, really – a menu item like
Human thigh, sliced
thinly and served au jus
would probably turn off a lot of human customers, me included.

All of the waitresses are Manny’s daughters, and the tall one, whose name is Clara, stopped at Algernon’s table, order pad in hand. The ghoul said something that I couldn’t hear, but Clara went away and returned a minute later with what looked like a glass of iced tea. She said something to Algernon, who shook his head, and she went off to her other tables.

I continued eating but kept an unobtrusive eye on Algernon. I was waiting for him to drink some of his iced tea. But although he tapped the straw out of its paper wrapper and put it in the plastic tumbler, it never touched his lips. He just sat there, staring off into space.

After a while, one of the busboys came over to Algernon’s table. I didn’t recognize him, but that meant nothing. Manny has four daughters but no sons, so busboys come and go. But I did think it was strange for a busboy to wipe down a table while the customer was still sitting there.

The busboy, was a slim, red-haired human in his early twenties. He gave the table a quick once-over with a damp rag and said something to Algernon without looking at him. Then he turned, stashed the rag in his apron, and walked across the dining area to the men’s restroom. Half a minute or so later, Algernon stood up and went in there, too.

The two of them were in the bathroom together for a couple of minutes, then the busboy came out and went directly into the kitchen. I started counting silently to myself, one thousand
one
, one thousand
two
… When I got to ten, Algernon came out and headed for the door without returning to his table.

I knew what I’d just witnessed, as any cop worth his badge would. Restaurants are prime locations for drug dealing – always have been. You’ve got people coming and going all the time, and nobody pays much attention.

Sometimes the restaurant owner is in on the action, other times not. I’d known Manny Wohlstein for years, and I’d have bet my pension that he had no idea how one of the employees was supplementing his salary. If Manny ever found out, I hoped the busboy had some
very
good health insurance – the kind with catastrophic coverage.

Ordinarily, this kind of thing was none of my business. I’d just drop a word to a guy I know in Vice, Gus McDorman, and let him deal with it. But one of the parties in the transaction I’d witnessed was a supe, which meant that the drug for sale had almost certainly been Slide. And that
made
it my business. The only question was what I was going to do about it.

It didn’t take me long to make up my mind.

 

Manny Wohlstein can usually be found in his office at the back of the restaurant, but I decided against paying him a visit. The busboy might see me and ask somebody who was in there talking to his boss. All of Manny’s daughters knew me by sight, and I didn’t want one of them putting the busboy on his guard by telling him that Manny was talking to a cop.

I finished my sandwich, paid the check, and went out to my car. The Yellow Pages app on my phone gave me the deli’s number, and I called it.

“Wohlstein’s Deli,” a cheerful female voice said. “How can I help you?”

“I’d like to speak to Mister Wohlstein, please.”

“Can I say who’s calling?”

I was pretty sure the voice belonged to Naomi Wohlstein, and I didn’t want her saying my name where the busboy might overhear it.

“This is Lou Pastorelli,” I told her. “From Mid-Atlantic Produce Distribution.”

“Just a minute, Mister Pastorelli.”

Then Manny’s voice was saying in my ear, “This is Manny Wohlstein. What can I do for you?”

“Manny, it’s Stan Markowski. I’m sorry for giving Naomi a false name, but I didn’t want her saying my right name out loud. I’d rather you didn’t say it, either.”

“Why do you want me to do that?” His voice sounded wary.

“I’m calling to ask about one of your employees, who’s still in the building. I didn’t want him to hear you say my name, in case he’s heard it before. I don’t want him to start wondering why you’re talking to a cop.”

“You said ‘him’, so this isn’t one of my girls you’re asking about.”

“No, of course not.”

“Alright, then.” Manny’s voice relaxed a little, and I could hear that old desk chair of his creak as he leaned back. “So how can I help you, Mister… Pastorelli?”

“We can drop the charade as long as he’s not close enough to overhear you.”

“And who would that be?” Manny asked.

“You’ve got a busboy, early twenties, red-haired, tattoo on the inside of one arm.”

“Oh, sure, that’s Roger Gillespe. Not to worry, Stan. He never comes back here, except to pick up his check, and that’s on Friday. He couldn’t overhear us even if he had ears on him like an elephant.”

“Great,” I said. “How long has this Gillespe worked for you?”

“He’s been with us over a year, I know that. Could be as long as eighteen months. You want I should look it up?”

“No, that’s OK; it doesn’t make much difference. But what I
would
like you to look up is his schedule, and whether he’s gonna be working tomorrow.”

“That I can do.” I heard the chair creak again, then the sound of a file drawer opening. “This busboy of mine – he’s in some kind of trouble, Stan?”

“Not necessarily,” I lied. “That’s something I’m still trying to find out. Could be he’s just an innocent bystander who might be a useful witness in a case I’m working.”

Manny’s got a temper, and I knew he’d have trouble controlling it if I told him his busboy was dealing drugs right there in the restaurant. Even if he didn’t fire the kid – or break both his arms and
then
fire him, which was more likely – he’d act differently toward Gillespe, which might spook the redhead into a disappearing act. And that bastard wasn’t going anywhere until we’d had some conversation.

Manny came back on the line. “Stan? Roger works six in the morning till two in the afternoon. His days off are Monday and Tuesday, which means he should be here tomorrow – unless he calls in sick, which he doesn’t do often, it looks like.”

“Have you got a home address for him?”

I listened to papers rustle for a second or two. “Yeah, here it is – 144 Spruce Street, Apartment 9.”

“Terrific. Thanks, Manny. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t let this guy know that we’ve talked. In fact, it would be good if you didn’t give him any indication that something’s up.”

“Not a problem, Stan. I hardly see him anyway, except for two minutes on payday.”

“I’ll be done with him before then,” I said.

 

I finally got home around noon. As I undressed, I told Quincey about the latest developments in the case. The little guy always seems interested in what I have to tell him, which is more than I can say for some of the people I know. I went to bed and grabbed about five hours’ sleep.

Over breakfast, I told Christine what I’d learned in the last twenty-four hours. It didn’t amount to much.

She looked at me over the rim of her mug. I noticed she’d slept in a T-shirt that said in front, “‘For the blood is the life’ Deut. 12:23.”

“What are you going to do about this busboy?” she asked.

“Talk to Karl about him,” I told her. “Then we’ll see.”

“Whatever his customer base is, he’s not selling to vampires – not at work, anyway. Manny doesn’t have vamp food on his menu.”

“How do you know?”

“I know,” she said. “Word gets around – about the places we’re welcome, and the ones where we’re not.”

“Manny’s not prejudiced,” I said. “If he doesn’t sell blood, it’s probably some kind of religious thing.”

“Maybe,” she said, and took another sip of warm Type O, her favorite. “But the result’s the same.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say about that.

Christine put her mug down. “I went for a walk last night, during my break,” she said. “Came across something interesting.”

“What was that?”

“A Patriot Party rally. They were holding it at Abington High School’s football field.”

I smiled a little. “Home of the Fighting Warlocks.”

“That’s the place. They’ve done some renovations since I was there last. It looks nice.”

“Good turnout?”

She nodded. “The bleachers were packed.”

“The Patriot Party’s gone from zero to sixty in, like, six months,” I said. “And they’re local, not part of some bigger movement, far as anybody knows.”

“Maybe they’ll catch on,” she said with a shudder. “But I hope not.”

I drank some of my coffee, which wasn’t remotely as good as McGuire’s. “Yeah, they don’t care much for supes, do they?”

She snorted. “That’s putting it mildly. Phil Slattery, their candidate for Mayor, was speaking when I passed by. He called supernaturals ‘a cancerous growth that threatens our city’s purity.’”

“I never could stand a politician who mixes his metaphors,” I said.

“I wish that was the worst you could say about him. But he’s quite the rabble-rouser – got a standing ovation when he was done and everything. That was when I decided it was time for me to get back to work, before the audience noticed me and turned into a lynch mob.”

“That bad, huh?”

“At least,” she said.

“Good thing you can fly, if need be.”

“Good thing I didn’t have to.”

 

I got to work a few minutes early and was catching up on my email when Karl plopped down into his desk chair opposite mine.

“I thought vampires were supposed to be silent as death,” I said, without looking up.

“We are,” he said. “When death is the objective. But since it’s just you, I figured it was OK to be my old, noisy self.”

“Works for me,” I said. “It beats having to jump halfway out of my chair every time you appear from out of nowhere.”

While Karl’s computer was booting up, he asked me, “So, what went down at Ricardo’s Ristorante last night?”

“Not a damn thing, far as I can tell.”

He tilted his head a little. “False alarm?”

“All depends on how you define your terms,” I said.

I explained how we’d found nothing in the street outside Ricardo’s except some bullet holes that would surely prove worthless as evidence, and some fresh stains on the street that might have been blood – the lab report hadn’t come back yet.

“Sounds like Calabrese won that round,” Karl said.

“How do you figure?”

“If the Delatassos had taken out a bunch of Calabrese’s soldiers again, what incentive would they have to clean up after themselves? They’d want plenty of evidence lying around, just like last time. They probably figure all the carnage is gonna intimidate Calabrese into giving up.”

“Yeah, and good luck with that,” I said.

He nodded. “I don’t figure you could scare Calabrese with anything less than a nuclear bomb – and it would have to be a
big
bomb to do the job.”

“That’s a pretty good theory you came up with, though – that the lack of bodies means a win for Calabrese. You should share it with McGuire.”

“OK, if you think it’s worth the effort.”

“Everything’s worth the effort at this point,” I said. “But I’m not done with my story yet – it gets better. We canvassed the neighborhood and came up with absolutely shit, as you might expect. So, after a couple of hours, they finally let us leave. I was in no hurry to go home, since Christine was already sacked out, so I headed down to Wohlstein’s Deli for something to eat….”

I told him about the busboy who I’d observed in what had to be a covert business transaction with Barney Ghougle’s brother, Algernon.

Karl shook his head a couple of times. “Stupid fuck. First indecent exposure, now street drugs. Looks like Algernon’s bucking for a slot in the Loser Hall of Fame.”

“He’ll get my vote,” I said. “But I’m a lot more interested in that busboy, Gillespe.”

“Yeah, he’s a link in the chain – the first one we’ve come across so far.”

Thor and Car, the two gun-toting elves, had hired attorneys and now weren’t saying anything to anybody. I figured the DA would eventually offer one of them a deal that would have the little bastard singing like a drunk on karaoke night, but it hadn’t happened yet. Like everything else in city government, the District Attorney’s office is understaffed and underfunded.