Known Devil (20 page)

“Is that why you wanted to meet here – because nobody in his right mind would bomb a bar full of cops?”

“The thought had crossed my mind. Now, you said you wanted to talk – so talk.”

“I said I wanted to talk to your boss, remember?”

“Mister Calabrese is otherwise engaged. But you may be sure that I will relay to him the details of this conversation, although it has been singularly uninteresting thus far.”

Lawyers know more ways to say “Fuck you” without ever using those exact words than any bunch of people I’ve ever met.

“Somebody set off a car bomb outside of Ricardo’s Ristorante last night,” I said. “You know anything about it that I don’t?”

“Detective, the sum total of what I know that you don’t would probably fill the Scranton Eagles Stadium.”

Arrogant prick. “Maybe we could focus on the bombing and leave all that other stuff for some other time – like maybe some Friday night when we’re knocking back a few brewskis at the Polish-American Club.”

Maybe to hide the distaste that had appeared on his face at the thought of hanging out with me socially, Loquasto took another pull from his drink. Setting the glass down, he said, “Some of our people saw the arrival of the car containing the bomb.”

“Did they, now?”

“They didn’t know what it was at the time, of course. The car, which was described as a late-model blue Mazda Skinwalker, stopped in the street outside the restaurant, blocking one lane of traffic.”

“Probably stolen,” I said.

“Yes, I expect so – although I gather so little was left of it after the explosion that identification would likely be impossible, anyway.”

“So this car parks in front of Ricardo’s – then what?”

“Almost immediately, what appeared to be a gnome got out from behind the wheel, dashed across the street, and hopped into the passenger seat of another car that had apparently been waiting, its engine idling.”

“A gnome.” I realized that I’d just taken another swig of beer without really thinking about it.

“That’s what our people say. Short, nimble, white beard. He even wore that little conical hat they’re known to sport.”

“You trust the accuracy of the description your guys provided?” I asked him.

“By and large, yes,” Loquasto said. “They are reliable people, or they would not be in Mister Calabrese’s employ. Further, each was questioned separately – and provided essentially the same account.”

I nodded slowly. My head protested the movement, but not quite as loudly as it had been doing yesterday.

“In that case, somebody’s fucking with you.”

He gave me the kind of look you’d expect from a duchess who’s just been patted on the ass by one of the help – but I don’t think his heart was in it. After a couple of seconds, his face lost its haughty expression and returned to its default setting of cold and hostile. His voice was flat when he said, “Explain.”

“Don’t take it personally,” I said. “They’re fucking with me, too. Maybe they’re fucking with all of us.”

“Is that your idea of an explanation?”

“No, but this is:
gnomes don’t wear conical hats
.”

Loquasto scratched his jaw. “I was under the impression that such headgear was a trademark of the species.”

“You and lots of other people,” I said. “It’s a cultural stereotype, like vampires wearing capes or witches riding brooms. Maybe once upon a time, in Europe or wherever, gnomes actually used to wear those stupid things. Stereotypes have to start someplace, I guess.”

“But the gnomes don’t do so any longer – that’s what you’re telling me.”

“Exactly. I’ve met quite a few gnomes over the years, Counselor. They might wear baseball caps in the summer or stocking caps in the winter like the rest of us. When the weather’s nice, lots of them don’t wear anything on their heads at all. But those conical hats? No fucking way.”

Loquasto swirled ice around in his glass but didn’t drink this time. “I see.”

“For a gnome to wear one of those cones out in public would be like a black guy walking down the street with a bucket of fried chicken in one arm and a watermelon under the other one.”

I know, I know. Some black people actually like fried chicken, with watermelon for dessert. So do I. But I was trying to make a point here, political correctness be damned.

“So, it’s your contention,” Loquasto said, “that the driver of the car bomb couldn’t have been a gnome?”

“Not necessarily. Shit, you can find members of
all
species, including human, who’ll do just about anything if the money’s right. Maybe the guy was a gnome, maybe not. My point is, whoever sent him wanted us to
think
he was a gnome.”

Loquasto gave me a dubious look. “Why on Earth would the Delatassos do something like that?”

I paused for a second – dramatic effect, I guess. “
Maybe
they didn’t
.”

Loquasto stared at me, then picked up his glass and drained it. “I need another,” he said. “You want another beer?”

“No, I’m good, thanks.”

Loquasto was smart – he wouldn’t be a Mafia
consigliere
otherwise. By the time he was back at our booth, he’d figured out what I meant and started considering its implications.

“How could whoever sent this faux gnome with a car bomb be sure that there would be surviving witnesses to describe him?”

“Last time I was at Ricardo’s, my partner and I were braced by three guys from Calabrese’s crew, all vampires. Are those guys out there all the time?”

“Ever since the war started, yes. Mister Calabrese stationed some soldiers at the door. They were in place for as long as the restaurant was open every night. Rotating shifts, of course.”

“Vampire soldiers,” I said.

“That’s what the Family consists of now.” He gave me a thin smile. “With a few notable exceptions.”

“Vampire soldiers,” I repeated, then said, “Vampires… wouldn’t be killed in an explosion, no matter how powerful it was.”

Loquasto stared down at his drink, as if he hoped to find the answers floating in the cheap glass along with the ice cubes. “Guaranteed eyewitnesses. Very clever.”

He looked up at me. “Who’s got it in for gnomes so badly that he wants to frame them for an explosion that’s killed…” He pulled out his smartphone and tapped the screen a few times. “Eleven people so far, with four others on the critical list. Who hates gnomes that much?”

“I think you’re being too narrow in your thinking, Counselor.”

His eyebrows rose slowly. “Am I indeed? Then please enlighten me.”

Ignoring the sarcasm, I said, “Could be that whoever’s behind it isn’t just trying to set up gnomes. Maybe his target is the whole supe community.”

One thing I liked about Loquasto – one of the few things, actually – was that you didn’t have to draw him a diagram.

“The Patriot Party,” he said softly. “I know politics is a dirty business, but that’s just…
absurd
.”

I gave him half a smile. “Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

“I’ve heard of placing bugs in someone’s campaign headquarters, or breaking into a psychiatrist’s office to look for dirt on your opponent, or using magic to alter the other side’s billboards and campaign signs, but this…”

He took a big gulp of his bourbon. “And it isn’t a national campaign, or even a state-wide one. They’re not playing for the White House, or the Governor’s mansion in Harrisburg. This is all to win an election in
Scranton
?”

“Yeah, I know. A buddy of mine named Ned, who teaches at the U, once told me, ‘The reason that academic conflicts are so vicious is because the stakes are so low.’”

Loquasto used one hand to make an impatient gesture. “Very clever, I’m sure,” he said. “But it makes no sense in this context. We’re not talking about stealing someone’s research, or messing up an assistant professor’s tenure file, or some such nonsense. Eleven people are dead, Markowski, including two children who were sitting in their parents’ apartment, watching TV. Nineteen more, wounded. Immense property damage. All so a bunch of proto-fascists can gain political control of Scranton?”

“Doesn’t make a lot of sense, when you put it that way,” I said.

I was suddenly distracted by a man’s voice on the other side of the big room saying loudly, “
Yeah, well, fuck you, too
!” I looked over and watched a couple of half-drunk off-duty cops get into a shoving match that was quickly broken up by other guys sitting nearby.

“Unless it’s supposed to be some kind of pilot project,” Loquasto said, “in which case I fail to see–”

I looked back at him. “Wait – what did you say?”

He gave me an annoyed look. Probably wasn’t use to being interrupted, especially by his social inferiors. “What I
said
was it might be some kind of pilot project, although why anyone would choose Scranton to run it in is quite beyond me. Why – what’s the matter?”

“That phrase, ‘pilot project’. Somebody else said that to me, a while back.”

“Were they talking about our little problem?”

“No, probably not,” I said.

“Then I suggest we stick to the matter at hand.”

“OK with me,” I said. “Does the matter at hand include John Wesley Harding?”

I don’t know what I expected, throwing the name at him from out in left field like that, but I didn’t get anything dramatic. He didn’t gasp, or go pale, or spill his drink. All he did was blink, twice, as soon as I’d said Harding’s name. It looked like the tip Karl had received about a certain Boston hit man had been true.

Loquasto took a sip of his bourbon with hands that were as steady as when he’d first sat down. He lowered the glass, gave me a tiny smile, and said, “I don’t believe I’m familiar with that individual, Sergeant.”

“Uh-huh. A usually reliable source told me that Calabrese has brought in a life-taker from Boston by that name.”

Loquasto tried for a casual shrug. I have to admit, he pulled it off pretty well – but then, he would.

“Then perhaps you need to find some new sources,” he said.

“Or maybe you need to remember that fucking with me is not in your best interest – yours, or Calabrese’s.”

Loquasto sat back and looked at me for a second or two. The shrug he gave me this time was less elegant and more on the irritated side.

“Let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that your information is correct,” he said. “What business is it of yours?”

“It’s my business if this war between your boss and the Delatassos is about to get a whole lot worse.”

“Worse than what happened on Moosic Street last night?”

“I thought we were operating on the assumption that the Delatassos had nothing to do with that,” I said.

“I never operate based on assumptions, Sergeant. I much prefer facts.”

“Yeah? OK, here’s a fact for you.” I leaned forward across the table. “Just because I cut Calabrese a little slack once doesn’t mean he should start expecting a free pass from me. Not now, not ever. If Calabrese – or anybody who works for him – gets caught shooting up the streets, then he’s going down. One way or another.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that information along,” he said in a bored voice, as if I’d just told him it might rain tomorrow.

Loquasto began sliding out of the booth. “This has been an illuminating conversation, Sergeant Markowski,” he said, and stood up. “Perhaps we’ll have another one sometime. Do have a good evening.”

He turned and walked to the door without looking back. I waited, half-expecting to hear gunfire or another explosion as a sign that the Delatassos had tracked him here. But the street outside remained quiet.

At least he’d paid for his own booze.

 

My conversation with Loquasto had taken longer than I’d planned, which meant that Karl beat me in to work. As I pulled out my desk chair, I saw that he was busy on his computer – whether paperwork or another game of “Angry Bats” I didn’t know.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, yourself,” he said. “Don’t sit down – Rachel wants to see you.”

“Rachel Proctor?”

“I don’t know any other Rachel around here,” he said. “Do you?”

“Guess not. What’s she want?”

“Didn’t say. But I’m pretty sure that she’s down in her office now.”

“OK, I’ll go see what’s up. Buzz me if we get a call to go out, will you?”

“Ten-four on that, Sergeant.”

Normally I’d walk the two flights down to Rachel’s office, but I decided that the elevator would make my head hurt less than bouncing on the stairs. I was pushing the button for Rachel’s floor when it occurred to me that Karl hadn’t once looked up from his computer during our brief conversation. What was his problem?

Rachel’s office door was open and I could see she was at her desk, writing something on a pad. She looked up at my knock.

“Hi, Stan.”

“Hi, Rachel. Karl said you wanted to see me about something.”

She hesitated a moment before speaking, and I thought,
Why the fuck is everybody in this place acting weird tonight?

“Yes, that’s right,” she said, finally. “Come on in.”

As I approached, I saw that the usual clutter had been cleared away from the top of her desk. A clean white cloth had been dropped over it, and I could see that Rachel had laid out there some items of we laymen like to call “magic stuff”.

What looked like a perfectly round circle had been drawn on the cloth in some kind of orange ink or paint. Inside the circle was a squat yellow candle, unlit. Two small ceramic bowls held small amounts of powder – red in one dish, blue in the other. In between the bowls was a small bottle with an ornately carved stopper. It contained a clear liquid with what looked like tiny flakes of metal floating in it. Next to the bottle was a small knife with a handle that might have been ivory, or maybe white bone. Its four-inch blade was shiny and looked very sharp.