The Big Bad City (31 page)

Sal is slumped in one of the big black leather chairs, T-shirt all sweaty, legs stretched out, beginning to doze. Charlie is kneeling in front of the safe, having difficulty with his balance, reciting the combination out loud as if there’s no one in the room with him, three to the right, stop on twenty. Two to the left, past twenty, stop on seven. One to the right, stop on thirty-four—but the safe won’t open. So he goes through the same routine once again, and then another time after that until he finally hits the right numbers, and boldly yanks down the handle, and flamboyantly flings open the safe door. All grand movements. Everything big and baroque. Like drunken Charlie himself.

The night’s proceeds are in there. Charlie’s crowd is composed largely of teenagers, and they pay in cash. He starts counting out the bills, has to count
them
three times, too, before he gets it right. He puts the rest of the money back in the safe, hurls the door shut, gives the dial a dramatic twist. He’s now holding a wad of hundred-dollar bills in his left hand. With his right hand, he braces himself against the safe and pushes himself to his feet.

He turns to Sal where he’s sprawled half-asleep in the black leather chair.

“Hey, Piano Boy,” he says, and staggers over to him. “You want this money?”

Sal opens his eyes.

“Would you like to get paid?” he says.

“That’s why we’re here, boss,” Katie says.

“You want this money?” Charlie asks again, and shakes the bills in Sal’s face.

“Stop doing that,” Sal says, and flaps his hands on the air in front of him, trying to wave the money away.

“Sweet Buns, you want this money, here’s what you got to do,” he says, and shoves the wad of bills into the right-hand pocket of the jacket. They bulge there like a sudden tumor. He unzips his fly. And all at once he’s holding himself in his hand.

“Come on, Charlie, put that away,” Katie says.

“Whut you want me to put away, girl?” Charlie says. “The money or my pecker?”

“Come on, Charlie.”

“You want me to put this money back in the safe? Or you want me to put my pecker in little Sally’s mouth here?”

“Come on, Charlie.”

“Which?” Charlie says. “Cause that’s the way it’s gonna be, Katie. Either the boy here sucks my dick, or you don’t get paid.”

Sal doesn’t know how to deal with this. He’s a city boy unused to the ways of wildland crackers. He thinks for a moment he’ll run outside and get the others, all for one and one for all, and all that. But Charlie has grabbed Sal’s chin in his hand now, and he is squeezing hard and moving in on him with a drunk’s bullheaded determination, waving his bulging purple cock at him the way he waved the wad of money only minutes ago. City-boy coward that he is, Sal sits frozen in Charlie’s grip, incapable of movement.

It is Katie who says, yet another time, “Come on, Charlie,” and hits him from behind with the beer bottle he left on the safe. Beer flies in a fine spray as she swings the bottle at his head. The man staggers, but he is not essentially wounded, Katie’s blow is ineffectual at best. But Sal is instantly on his feet, shoving out at Charlie’s chest, pushing the fat drunken fool through
the open French doors and out onto the deck, and then lunging at him one last time, his fingers widespread on Charlie’s chest, a hiss escaping his lips as he pushes him over the railing. There is a splash when he hits the water, and then, instantly, a terrible thrashing that tells them the alligators are getting to him even before he surfaces.

Sal is breathing very hard. He has just killed a man.

“The money,” he says.

“You killed him,” Katie says.

“The money. It was in his pocket.”

“Never mind the money.”

“Do you remember the combination?”

“Sweet mother of God, you
killed
him!”

“The combination. Do you remember it?”

On the river below, there is an appalling stillness.

Three to the right, stop on twenty, two to the left, past twenty, stop on seven. One to the right, stop on thirty-four.

Katie recites the numbers aloud to him as he slowly turns the dial to the right, and to the left, and then to the right again. He opens the door. From the wad of money in the safe, he peels off the money due them, and returns the rest to the safe, and closes the door, and twists the dial to lock it again. Katie watches as he wipes the dial and the handle clean. She is moving from foot to foot, like a little girl who has to pee. He wipes the beer bottle, too, and puts it back on the safe top where Charlie had earlier left it. He looks around one last time, and then they leave the office.

In the van, he says, “Got the bread, let’s go,” and Katie pulls her T-shirt away from her body, encouraging the cool flow from the air conditioner.

·  ·  ·

They were afraid he might spook. They had read him his rights and taken him back to the precinct, and now they were fearful he might not say another word. He was still in tears. They didn’t want him to collapse entirely, so they decided to let Carella handle it alone, less threatening that way. They were in the Interrogation Room now. The other detectives were behind the one-way mirror in the room next door, watching, listening, scarcely daring to breathe. Carella turned on the video camera, and read Roselli his rights again.

Sometimes they spooked when they heard the Miranda recitation for the second time. It made everything seem irrevocable beyond that point. Made them think Hey, maybe I
should
ask for a lawyer. With professionals, there was never any question. They
always
asked for a lawyer first thing. With the amateurs, like Roselli, they either figured they could outsmart the police, or else they were so guilt-ridden they wanted to spill it all. Carella waited. Roselli nodded. Yes, he understood his rights and was willing to answer questions without a lawyer present. Carella needed it in words.

“Okay to go on then, Mr. Roselli?”

“Yes.”

No more Sal. Now they were equals. Mr. Roselli and Mr. Carella, two old friends sipping cappuccino and discussing politics at a round outdoor table in the sunshine. But the light was fluorescent, and the table was long and cigarette-scarred, and the coffee was made down the hall in the Clerical Office and served in cardboard containers, and the subject was murder.

“Want to tell me what happened, Mr. Roselli?”

Roselli sat there, looking at his hands.

“Mr. Roselli?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me?”

“Yes.”

Carella waited.

“I spotted her by accident.”

“Katie?”

“Yes.”

“Katie Cochran?”

“Yes. I hadn’t seen her in four years, she’d changed a lot.”

He fell silent, remembering.

“She used to look like a teenager,” he said. “Now she looked … I don’t know. Mature?”

Carella waited.

“She seemed so …
serious,
” Roselli said. “I didn’t know she was a nun, of course. Not just then. Not when I first saw her.”

He began weeping again.

Carella moved a box of tissues closer to where Roselli was sitting. The tears kept streaming down his face. Carella waited. The room was still except for the sound of Roselli’s sobbing and the faint whirring of the video camera. Carella wondered if he should risk a prod. He waited another moment.

“Where’d you run into her?” he asked.

Gently. Softly. Casually. Two gents sipping their coffees. Sunshine gleaming on white linen.

“Mr. Roselli?”

“At St. Margaret’s.”

He took another tissue from the box, blew his nose. Dried his eyes.

“The hospital,” he said, and blew his nose again. He
sighed heavily. Carella was hoping he wasn’t about to quit. Call it off. That’s it. No more questions. He kept waiting.

“I thought a friend of mine had OD’d, I rushed him to the emergency room,” Roselli said. “It turned out he was okay, but Jesus, his face had turned blue! Katie just walked through, I couldn’t believe it. I was busy with my friend, I thought he was going to die. I see this woman who looks like Katie, but doesn’t look like Katie. I mean, you had to know Katie back then. When she was singing? A million kilowatts, I swear. This woman looked so … I don’t know … serene? Walking into the emergency room. Straight out of the past. Composed. She stopped to say a few words to one of the nurses, and then
whoosh
, she was out the door and gone. I asked the nurse who she was. She said That’s Sister Mary Vincent. I said
What?
Sister Mary Vincent, she said again. She’s a nun. Works upstairs in Extensive Care. Sister Mary Vincent? I thought. A nun? I figured I’d made a mistake.”

He shook his head, remembering, remembering.

Carella glanced up at the video camera. The red light was still on. The tape was still rolling. Don’t quit on me now, he thought. Keep talking, Sal.

“I went back. I had to make sure this wasn’t Katie. Because if it
was
her, I wanted to ask her about that night four years ago. The way you want to ask your mother things about when you were a kid, do you know? I wanted to ask Katie about what had happened that night. Wanted to make sure that night
had
really happened. That night with Charlie Custer. When we killed him.”

It occurred to Carella that the only one who’d killed
Custer was Roselli himself. He was the one who’d pushed him over that railing to his death. Yes, technically, they’d acted in concert, Katie hitting him with the bottle, Roselli shoving him over to the alligators. And technically, yes, a prosecutor could make a case against both of them. Katie’s intent hadn’t been to kill, though, and Roselli had been acting in self-defense. A defense attorney could make a case for that as well. There were times when Carella was grateful he was merely a cop.

“I waited outside the emergency room door,” Roselli said, “in the parking lot there, where the ambulances come in. This was two or three days later. Nurses were walking in and out. It was Katie, no question about it. I didn’t approach her because I wasn’t sure what she might do. She’d quit the band and disappeared. She’d become a nun and taken a new name. Had she run because she was afraid of the law? Or afraid of
me?
Had she become a nun because she was hiding? From the law? Or from
me?
”

He nodded again, remembering. Kept nodding. Trying to understand. Hands folded on the tabletop. Fingers working. Kneading his hands on the tabletop.

“I looked her up in all the phone books, but there were no listings for anyone named Mary Vincent. So I followed her home one day,” he said. “She lived in a walk-up on Yarrow. I checked the mailboxes and found one for Mary Vincent. So now I knew how to reach her if I wanted to. But why would I want to?”

And now Roselli seemed to drift, his voice lowering almost to a whisper, confiding to Carella as if indeed the two of them were basking alone in the sun somewhere. Unaware of the camera now, he turned his gaze
inward, and words spilled from his heart like shattered glass.

Carella listened, pained.

I knew a nun wouldn’t have a pot to piss in, but she came from a well-to-do family, you know. In Pennsylvania someplace. On the road, she was always talking about them. Her father was a university professor, her mother was a psychiatrist. That was money there. What would a couple of thousand mean to a family like that? I didn’t know her parents were dead, of course. I learned that later. That night in the park. I didn’t know her brother had inherited all their goddamn money. I just thought … you know … if I asked her for a little money, just to tide me over, just until I could square myself with the man, get a steady gig someplace, then maybe she could get it from her parents, you know? I know if one of
my
daughters was a nun, I’d give her the world. The world. I love those little girls. I’d give them the world. So maybe Katie’s parents would help
her
out
.
Was what I thought.

I couldn’t phone her, she wasn’t listed, but I didn’t want to walk up to her on the street, either. Hey, Katie, remember me? Remember the night you and I killed Charlie Custer? Remember the alligators eating him? A laugh riot, remember? Do you remember all of it, Katie, the way
I
remember all of it except when I’m lost in Dopeland? Do you remember, Katie?

I wrote her a letter.

It was dated Monday, August tenth. I know because I read it again after I broke into her apartment to get it back. I tore it up the minute I got home. Flushed the
bits and pieces down the toilet. The letter said Hi, Katie, it’s good knowing you’re still alive and well. I don’t want to bother you, Katie, I know you have a new life now, but I’m in a little trouble, and maybe you can help me out. This is what it is. I need a couple of thousand dollars to square a debt. I was hoping you could ask your parents for a loan until I get on my feet again. Do you think that would be possible? I would appreciate your help. Please call me, Katie. I’m living out on Sand’s Spit just now, in a small development house. The number there is 803-7256. I mean you no harm. I just need money. Considering our past together, I feel certain you’ll help. Please call.

She never called.

I figured she must have got the letter sometime that week. Even if she got it
late
in the week, say Thursday or Friday, she should have called. But she didn’t.

So I wrote her a second letter. This one was dated Saturday, August fifteenth.
It
went down the toilet, too, right after I found it in her apartment. What it said was I really had to have the money right away because the man I owed it to was making serious threats. I told her I knew her parents were wealthy, so please ask them for it, can you? All I need is two thousand. I asked her to meet me the following Friday in Grover Park. August twenty-first. Six-thirty
P.M
., I said. Come in on Larson Street. Go to the third bench on the right. I’ll be sitting there waiting for you. Please bring the money. I won’t harm you, Katie. I promise. Please meet me, Katie. We are old friends. Don’t you remember, Katie? Please help me.

I was waiting there for her at six-thirty that night.

She didn’t arrive until seven. I was just about to
leave. She told me she’d been walking through the park. She told me she’d been praying. Affirming that God still approved of the decision she’d made. That was the word she used. Affirming.