Reversible Errors (15 page)

Larry fastened the other cuff through the bolthole in one of the lockers behind Gandolph.

"I gotta go to the head," Larry said.

He took his time, returning in about twenty minutes. Squirrel was writhing, bucking back and forth in the chair.

"Whose cameo?"

"Whoever you say, man."

"And how'd you end up with a dead woman's jewelry, Squirrel?"

"Lemme go, man. Please lemme go. This ain right a-tall, man."

"You killed Gus, Squirrel."

Squirrel began to whine and moan, much as he had in the cruiser pretending to be on the verge of tears.

"Okay, I kill't him. Lemme go. I'm beggin here, man."

"Who else?"

"Huh?"

"Who else did you kill?"

"I didn't kill no one. Come on, man."

Larry left him alone for another hour. When he came back, the stink was phenomenal.

"God almighty," he said. "Jesus." He threw open a window. The weather had turned in the last few days and winter was more than an idea. The air was dry and cool, about forty-five degrees. Squirrel had begun crying again as soon as Larry was through the door.

Larry returned with a garbage bag and a newpaper. He had Gandolph, who wore no underwear, peel off his trousers and toss them in the bag.

"Don't I get a lawyer or nothin?"

"I'll get whoever you want, Squirrel. But what do you need a lawyer for? How do you think that looks?"

"Looks like he gone sue your ass, man. Makin me shit my pants. That ain right. That ain legal or nothin."

"What kind of stuff is that, every creep can crap all over himself and call the cops bad guys? I don't think that works."

Squirrel cried harder. "Man, that wasn't how it was a-tall."

There was a little smear of shit on one of his shoes and Larry told him to throw it in the bag, too. Squirrel sobbed as he dropped it inside.

"You cold, man. You the coldest po-lice I ever met. Where'm I gone get shoes, man? These here, they the onlyest shoes I got."

Larry replied that it might be a little while before Squirrel left. He covered Gandolph's chair with newspaper and told the man, who remained naked below the waist, to sit again. Mumbling to himself, Squirrel appeared too distraught to listen. Larry slammed his hand on the table to shut him up.

"Squirrel, what happened to Gus? Good Gus? What happened to him?"

"Dunno, man." He lied like a child, his face cast down.

"You don't know? He's dead, Squirrel."

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I think I done heard that."

"Bet that broke your heart. Guy who wumped you the way he did."

Dumb as he was, Squirrel saw where that would go. He used his fingers to wipe his nose.

"I dunno, man. All kinda folk wump me. Seem like. Po-lice wump me."

"I haven't wumped you, Squirrel. Not yet."

"Man, why you doin me like this? Shittin my pants and makin me sit in it like I'm some baby, man. Strippin me naked."

"Now listen, Squirrel. You're runnin around with the jewelry of a dead woman. Who was killed at the same time as a man who beat down on you whenever he saw your spotty little face. Now are you telling me that's just a funny fucking coincidence? Is that what you're saying?"

"Man, it's cold in here. I ain got no clothes on. Look here. I got goof bumps and everythin."

Larry slammed the desk again. "You killed them, Squirrel! You shot Gus. You shot him and you shot Luisa and you shot Paul. You rifled that register you were so hot to get your mitts on. That's what happened. Then you dragged those poor people into the freezer, and you cornholed Luisa Remardi. That's what happened."

Squirrel shook his head no. Larry figured it was time for something else.

"We have your fingerprints, Squirrel. At the scene. Did you know that? All over the register."

Gandolph stilled. If he hadn't been inside, or near the register, then he'd have known Larry was lying. But there was no chance Squirrel was going to cash him in on this.

"I ain said I wasn't never there. I been in there. Lots of folk tell you that. Kinda liked to play with Gus and all."

"Play? Is that what you call killing him?"

"Man, bein in there, sayin howdy and all, that ain the same as killin."

"Keep saying no, Squirrel. We have plenty of time. I got nothing better to do than have you lie to me."

Larry turned off the radiator before leaving the room. Forty minutes later, he re-entered with Wilma Amos, his Task Force partner, who had finally arrived. Squirrel was hunched down by the lockers, perhaps hoping to work the cuff off, or just to withstand the cold, and he screamed out.

"Don't you bring no lady in here when I don't got no pants on."

Larry introduced Wilma, who straightened her stout form to cast an appraising look in Squirrel's direction. Squirrel had turned as far from her as he could, covering himself with his one free hand.

"Just wanted to ask in Detective Amos's presence, Squirrel. You want food? You want a cold drink?"

He told Larry he was a mean po-lice, no question about that.

"I guess the answer's no," Larry told Wilma. They'd agreed in advance that she'd leave, but stand outside the door to make notes.

"I want some pants, man. Tha's what I want. I'm gone die or somethin from the cold."

"You have pants, Squirrel. You can put them back on any time you like."

Squirrel began crying again. With gusto. He was beat now.

"Man, what cl I do, you gotta do me like this?"

"You murdered three people. You shot Gus and Luisa and Paul. You robbed them all. And you screwed that lady up the poop chute."

"You keep sayin that, man."

"Because it's true."

"Is it?" Squirrel asked.

Larry nodded.

"If I done somethin like that, kill three people and all, how come I don't 'member nothin about it."

"Well, I'm helping you remember. I want you to think, Squirrel."

They always said they couldn't remember. Like a drunken husband coming home. Larry frequently said he couldn't remember. And he couldn't. If he didn't want to. But sooner or later as you talked to the perps, it came back. There was always something critical, details the cops themselves hadn't tumbled to yet, which emerged.

"When all this happen?" Gandolph asked listlessly.

"July Fourth weekend."

"July Fourth," Squirrel repeated. "Seem like I wasn't even around July Fourth."

"What do you mean not around? Were you on a cruise?"

Squirrel wiped his nose again against the back of his hand. Larry took his wrist once more.

"Rommy, look at me. Look at me." Awestruck and overcome, Gandolph raised his soupy brown eyes. And Larry felt some of the thrill - he couldn't resist. He had Squirrel now. He owned him. "You killed these people. I know you killed these people. Now tell me. You tell me if I'm wrong. I say you did. I say you killed them and had a good time with that lady."

"I never done nothin like that to no lady."

"Well if you didn't, who did? Was there somebody with you?"

"Nnn-uhh," Rommy said. Then he seemed to recollect himself. "Shit, man, I don't even 'member none of this. How I gone know if somebody with me? All I'm sayin is I wudn't do nothin like that to no lady, no matter how bad I hate her."

Larry scratched his ear, a gesture of studied casualness. But he'd heard something new.

"Did you hate Luisa?" he asked.

"Well, hate, you know, man. 'Hate no man.' Ain that what Jesus said?"

"Well," said Larry, flicking his ear the same way, "what did you have against Luisa?"

Squirrel moved his hands around ineptly. "She just one of them bitchy-type bitches. You know? Promise you one thing and doin the next. You know how that go."

"Sure," said Larry. "And I forget now. How did you know her?"

For the first time, Gandolph seemed to be grappling with memory.

"You know, she just some cutie pie I'd be rappin to at the airport."

The airport, Larry thought. Some flipping detective he was. Maybe somebody should have just beat him over the head with a brick a couple of times. So Squirrel knew Luisa from the airport. It was falling in place now.

"You and she ever get together?"

"Naw." Rommy laughed bashfully, both shamed and flattered by the idea. "Wasn't never nothin like that. I don't aks out many them ladies."

"Well then, why'd you say she was a bitchy bitch? She play you? She do you wrong?"

"Man, you got some funny ideas about this."

"Do I? I don't think so. I'll tell you what's funny, Squirrel. You said you didn't know any of these people. But you did. You knew Gus. You knew Luisa."

"No way, man. I didn't say that a-tall. All I'm sayin is I didn't murder none of them."

"Just like you didn't know any of them, either."

False in one thing, false in all: the logic of the law. Squirrel understood that, judging from his sudden motionlessness.

"Look, Rommy. Honestly, I'm trying to help you here. I want to understand the way it looked to you. I mean, you pass Gus's window, you notice this bim who's been trickin on you. You come in. You're a little hot with her. And Gus is trying to run you out. I can see how maybe this got out of control. I mean, you don't look like a killer to me. You're not a killer, are you?"

In the end, that was how you got them all to cop, by saying you understood, by nodding when they said, What choice did I have?

"Not how I ever thought I was," Gandolph answered now.

"So how'd this happen?"

Squirrel didn't reply.

"Rommy, what kind of stuff you use? Wack? You use wack?"

"Man, you know. I don't do much of nothin. Sometimes I sniff some paint is all. Only the last time I was in Manteko, the doc there
,
he said it wasn't so good for me, said I didn't have enough cells to spare."

"But you've dusted yourself now and then, right?"

Squirrel agreed.

"You think maybe you were dusted on July Fourth? Guys don't remember much. And it makes them pretty ornery, Squirrel. Lot of nice dudes do a lot of bad stuff on PGP."

"Yeah," said Squirrel. He liked that part.

"Come on, Squirrel. Tell me the story."

Squirrel very briefly dared to look at him squarely.

"Don't bring no more ladies in here."

"No," said Larry.

"And can you shut that damn window there?"

"Well, let's talk some," said Larry.

In another fifteen minutes, he shut the window. By then, Wilma had brought in an army blanket. Squirrel hunkered within the folds, while Wilma sat in the corner, scratching out notes as Gandolph confirmed the basics: he saw Luisa through the glass as he was passing by Paradise. On reflection, his best memory was he'd taken a hit of PCP

"Okay, so you walk in there one in the a
. M
. What happened then?" Larry asked.

"Man, I can't hardly 'member none of this. Cause I was dusted and all."

"Come on, Squirrel. What happened?"

"Man, old Good Gus. He say, like he always done, to get out."

"And did you get?"

"Well, if I shot them all, how could it be I done git?"

"And where'd the gat come from?"

Rommy shook his head, truly puzzled by the question.

"Man, I ain never had me any gun. Like to shoot myself soon as anyone else, how I always figure."

He probably had that right.

"Well, you had a gun that night, right?"

Gandolph stared at the gray enamel on the steel leg of the desk.

"Seem like Gus have him a gun."

Larry glanced at Wilma. No one had said that. But it made sense.

In Gus's neighborhood, you wouldn't want to just wait for the cavalry.

"Yeah," said Rommy. "Gus had him a pistol. Pointed it at me one time when he throwed me out. Winter, man, snowin and ice comin right down, and I's standin shiverin and he tole me to git."

"So you knew where the gun was?"

"Back under the cash register. Under them cigarettes and the Her- shey bars in that glass thing."

"And that's where you got it?"

Squirrel looked around. "Man, can't you turn the heat on in here or nothin?"

Larry stood by the radiator. "Is that where you got the gun?"

Squirrel nodded. Larry opened the valve and brought Squirrel over. Typical Task Force bungle, Larry thought. No one ever asked the family if Gus owned a gun, because each detective assumed somebody else had covered it.

He left Wilma with Squirrel while he phoned Gus's son, John. Somewhat warily, John confirmed that his father kept a revolver behind the counter. He didn't remember much, except that Athena had insisted on it, but he put Larry on hold and in a few minutes had found the bill of sale in his dad's files. Four years ago, Gus had purchased a .38 Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special, a five-shot revolver- the murder weapon Ballistics had identified from the land grooves on the slugs at the scene. Nor had the techs, for all their searching, found any casings. With a revolver, the cartridge casings remained in the chambers.