The Sniper's Wife Part 8

"That's true," Nate agreed. "You got the eye. But he's still okay."

Jesse weighed that in his mind for a moment, and then gave a single nod with his large head. "Well, then I guess he's okay with me, too."

He took one step toward the rear of the small room and pushed a b.u.t.ton w.i.l.l.y didn't see. A back door opened with a click, and they were instantly met with the sounds of laughter and music and ice c.h.i.n.king against gla.s.s. Nate had taken them to an after-hours bar, the new century's equivalent of a flapper-era speakeasy, and as big a business during the predawn hours now as any of its predecessors had been all through the 1920s. New York prided itself on being a twenty-four-hour town, and it wasn't going to let any arbitrary bar curfew stand in its way.

Nate exchanged greetings with half a dozen people as he led the way around a pool table and down a row of booths to a bar at the far end of the room.

There the bartender instructed them, "Place your orders, gentlemen," as if they'd just arrived at the Ritz. The place wasn't that fancy, but it wasn't a dive. Dimly lit and simply but tastefully decorated, it could have held its own against any of its legitimate brethren. There was also a decent CD player leaking out good jazz, and since almost everyone present was over fifty, there was the mellow feeling of an old-fashioned men's club.

Nate ordered a rum, w.i.l.l.y merely bought an overpriced tonic water and was handed a warm bottle without a gla.s.s.

"Over here," Nate said, indicating a tiny table wedged against the far wall near a back door labeled, "Outhouse."

They settled down, comfortably far from the music, and sat almost knee to knee.

Nate had the contented look of a man watching an old home movie. He shook his head, took a sip of his drink, sighed with a contented smile, and said, "Officer Kunkle. Man, oh, man. I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again. I thought maybe you were like the nomad in the desert or somethin'-the righteous man who delivers the word of truth and then vanishes forever." He pointed at the arm and added, "And I guess if you'd been standing a few inches in the wrong direction, that'd be the fact of it, too. You ever get my letter?"

"I got it." w.i.l.l.y didn't detail its effect on him.

"Well, I meant every word in it, and I still do. That was an act of grace in an ungenerous world. You did yourself proud that night."

"That's just because it was your bacon I spared. You would've called me a patsy if I'd cut someone else the same slack."

Nate laughed and took another drink. "I am disappointed at the depth of your cynicism, but I can't deny your point. In any case, you did me the big favor, and I will always be grateful."

w.i.l.l.y removed the evidence photo he'd stolen from Ogden and laid it on the table before Nathan Lee. "You know where this stuff comes from? It's called Diablo."

Nate looked at the picture without touching it, his face suddenly grim. Narcotics were what got him in touch with Kunkle the first time, and he'd never dabbled in them again. The fact that the same man was back discussing the same topic didn't bode well.

"I know what it's called," he said shortly.

"Comes from around here, right?"

"Why you want to know?"

w.i.l.l.y hesitated. A cop's first impulse in a conversation is to never volunteer anything. Every word you say is to get the other guy talking. And you sure as h.e.l.l never reveal anything personal.

But w.i.l.l.y was the one asking favors here, and, training and paranoia aside, there wasn't much to be lost sharing a little with Nate.

"My ex-wife was found dead with that s.h.i.t in her arm."

Useful or not, the effect of this admission was telling. Nate's eyes opened wide and he stared at Kunkle in amazement. "No wonder you're lookin' a little ragged. She live around here?"

"Lower East Side."

That surprised the older man. "Huh. It happens, but usually a home brew like that doesn't travel far from home. The local appet.i.te's enough to keep the dealer happy."

"So, it is made nearby?"

Nate ignored the question, trying to step back a bit first. "Officer Kunkle, I know I owe you, so don't get me wrong, but is this something you want to do?" As w.i.l.l.y's face darkened, he quickly added, "Now, hold on, don't get me wrong. I'll help you out. I will. But see it from my side, too. That's all I'm askin'."

w.i.l.l.y's expression didn't soften, but he didn't say the harsh words that first came to mind. Instead, he asked, "What do you want?"

Nate waved both his hands at him. "Nope. That ain't it, either. I don't want a thing. But you come back after all this time, and you got one arm messed up and you say you're still a cop and then you show me the picture and say that dope killed your ex-wife. If you were me, you gotta ask yourself: What's goin' on here? You see what I'm saying?"

Once more, w.i.l.l.y fought the urge to react impulsively and tell him to mind his own business, and struggled instead to address Nate's concerns.

He took a swallow from his warm tonic water and then explained, hoping for the best, "I am a cop, but not from here anymore. I work in Vermont."

Nate's eyebrows shot up. "Vermont?"

w.i.l.l.y cut him off. "Yes, Vermont. I'm kind of a state cop up there, like a statewide detective. It doesn't matter, for Christ's sake. The point is, I got a phone call that my wife had died and I had to come down. They're writing it off as an accidental overdose-locked doors, needle in the arm, history of drug abuse. They just want to clear their books."

"They wrong?"

"I don't know for sure. I think they might be." w.i.l.l.y knew Nate would have liked more, but he was disinclined to hand it over. He also wasn't sure he wanted to actually air his misgivings, for fear they might lose credibility even to him.

Fortunately, Nate seemed comfortable working with that little. "I do know somethin' about this Diablo. That's why I was surprised you found it downtown. It don't really go there. She have a reason to come up here to get it?"

w.i.l.l.y thought of his brother, but he couldn't see how that fit. "Not that I know of. We've been apart a long time."

Nate stared at the tabletop thoughtfully. "Sounds kind of funny," he finally admitted, looking up. "Especially if it wasn't an accident. I don't know how much I can do, though. It's not like these people keep records, you dig?"

w.i.l.l.y opened his mouth to say something when they both heard a loud crash at the bar's entrance. The large bouncer was being propelled backward into the room by a flying wedge of men in uniform.

w.i.l.l.y responded first. "s.h.i.t. Cops."

Nate recognized them more specifically. "Vice," he said, and grabbed w.i.l.l.y's good arm as patrons and cops began falling over each other near the front. "Head out to the bathrooms and take the second door on the right."

w.i.l.l.y left his seat like a sprinter out of the blocks. "You coming?" he asked over his shoulder.

Nate merely flashed a smile and said, "Too old. Good luck."

w.i.l.l.y slammed through the "Outhouse" door and found himself in a short, dark corridor. With the noise escalating behind him, he pulled open the second door on his right and plunged through without hesitation, stumbling over a couple of steps and sprawling into the middle of a dimly lit landing with a staircase leading upward.

Scrambling back to his feet, he took the stairs two at a time, and had climbed two floors before he heard the door he'd used crash open and the sound of voices shouting.

"Upstairs, upstairs. I hear one of 'em headin' up."

Using his right hand on the banister to help propel himself, w.i.l.l.y increased his speed, peering into the gloom for some alternate way to what was looking like a straight shot to the roof. But every door he saw appeared shut tight, and he didn't have time to do more than look. He was pulling ahead of his slower, more heavily laden pursuers, however, so if the door to the roof was open, there might still be some way to escape.

He wasn't optimistic, though. New York was nothing if not a haven for the security-p.r.o.ne. Home of the fox lock, the LoJack, pepper spray, and more miles of razor wire than it took to tame the West, this city wasn't known for having rooftop doors left open.

Except when they'd been propped that way by a strategically placed brick. As soon as w.i.l.l.y made this discovery, now six floors above the speakeasy, he remembered from the old days how some drug runners would leave themselves a way out, just in case they needed an emergency back door.

Silently, he thanked this particular guardian angel's prescience, stepped through the door onto the gravel-covered roof, and shut the door behind him, hearing with satisfaction the spring-loaded lock snap to.

The roof was flat, bordered by a three-foot-high wall, and pinned in place by an enormous, ancient, otherworldly water tank which stood in the center on lacy legs of steel and loomed overhead like a captured blimp. It was as symbolic of New York as that odd sound manhole covers seem to make only when taxicabs. .h.i.t them at high speed, and was duplicated a thousandfold all across the five boroughs.

The light was better up here-the city's perpetual ocher glow a veritable sunshine compared to the darkness of the stairwell, and w.i.l.l.y took advantage of it to jog to the edge of the roof, step over it onto the neighboring building, and continue trying to distance himself from his starting point.

Just as he was beginning to think he might have pulled it off, however, he saw his luck begin to sour. Simultaneous to hearing a heavy ram repeatedly smashing into the door he'd locked behind him, w.i.l.l.y saw the beam of a flashlight clear the top of the distant fire escape he'd been aiming for, followed by the silhouette of a cop carrying a shotgun and rolling commando-style over the top of the low wall to vanish from view against the darkness of the roof's surface.

w.i.l.l.y began looking around for another way out, already knowing in his gut that he'd run out of options. He hadn't made five steps in a new direction before the door flew open and a voice from the fire escape yelled, "Police, Don't move. Get face down on the ground with your hands above your head. Do it. Now."

w.i.l.l.y instead ducked briefly into the shadows cast by one of the water tower's legs, quickly removed his wallet, his shield, and his weapon, and slid them all under a flap of tarpaper he found extending from the footing of the tower leg.

"Get out into the light, you son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h, or I'll blow you away where you are."

w.i.l.l.y stepped out where they could see him, his right hand up. "Okay, okay. You got me. My left arm is paralyzed. I can't move it."

One of the cops, winded, adrenalized, and angry at having given chase in what should have been a routine bar sweep, came up behind him, threw him to the ground, wrenched his left hand free of where he parked it in his pocket, and kicked him in the ribs for good measure, frisking him roughly for weapons and contraband. Grunting with the pain, w.i.l.l.y also had to admit he would have done the same thing had the roles been reversed.

The cop finished his search by handcuffing w.i.l.l.y's wrists behind his back and rolling him over to shine a light in his face.

"What the h.e.l.l did you think you were doing, a.s.shole? You think we haven't done this before?"

He didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he looked up at someone w.i.l.l.y couldn't see and yelled, "We got him, Sarge. Any others up here?"

"Negative," came the distant reply. "Nuthin' with two legs, anyway. You got anything on that guy?"

The answer, w.i.l.l.y thought, was telling: "Nah, just looks like a cripple rummy. No ID, no nuthin'. Better search the area to make sure, though."

He was yanked to his feet and escorted back down the stairs, less troubled by the jam he was in, and more frustrated by the fact that his investigation has been put on hold.

Chapter 10.

The trip to the Tombs downtown, more formally known as the Manhattan Detention Complex, brought back memories to w.i.l.l.y of life in boot camp-lots of yelling, manhandling, shuffling together in groups, and a general sense that one's position in the human race had almost slipped from sight. That impression was driven home by his being cuffed and chained not just to a heavy belt around his waist, but to another man beside him. Fifteen of them, only a couple of whom he recognized from the bar, and certainly not Nathan Lee, were driven by guards like a small herd of clanking animals, first to a general processing center designed to handle large groups, then into a van with caged windows for transportation to the Tombs. The mechanisms involved in all this, and the clear point of it all, heightened a small tidal pool of dread w.i.l.l.y had been trying to ignore.

He'd hidden his badge and ID not solely from embarra.s.sment, although that had been a factor. He'd also been keenly aware of what could happen to a cop in a prison environment. And the Tombs housed almost a thousand prisoners.

Years ago, just back from Vietnam, in an attempt to return to normalcy, w.i.l.l.y had gone out on a blind date with a college girl. They'd chosen a movie house in Greenwich Village, very trendy and filled with the sweet smog of marijuana, to see a black-and-white silent movie by some German pessimist. It had been about a future of brain-dead automatons, ruled by an unseen autocratic force, inhabiting a world of oversized, jagged, steel-andstone structures, all designed with an indefinable but clearly industrial styling. The humans-as-cogs-in-a-machine point of the show hadn't suffered from any subtlety, but the image-unlike the name of the girl-had never left him.

As the guard from the van pounded on the roll-down steel door of the detention center's sally port off Baxter Street, sending up a rolling, clattering echo between the dark, high walls around them, the memories of that movie set, along with everything it implied, returned with the clarity of a prophecy come true.

Like the members of a chain gang, w.i.l.l.y and his coprisoners were off-loaded from the van, paraded through the newly opened gap-actually a narrow alleyway between the two buildings const.i.tuting the Tombs-and told to stand still while the metal curtain rattled down behind them, cutting off the exterior world with a guillotine's finality. They were herded through a small door beyond a guard station, brought down a set of tiled concrete steps, and told to line up along a sterile, hard-surfaced, Lysol-smelling hallway whose only decorations were warnings of what they'd better not be doing, carrying, or even thinking about while they were there.

The most telling environmental detail for w.i.l.l.y, however, wasn't the harsh lighting or the antiseptic odors or the constant presence of mostly overweight people in uniform. It was the sounds of incarceration-the constant slamming of heavy metal doors, far and near, the harsh buzzing of electronic locks, and the nonstop chatter of people on portable radios, usually asking for some door or another to be sprung open on screeching hinges. That hard-edged, piercing, brain-grating symphony gnawed at him like a rat chewing a wire behind a wall, and was made all the more insidious by the steady, upbeat, dismissive laughter and bantering among the correctional officers.

For a man who didn't like being boxed in by people, routine, or impenetrable walls, the c.u.mulative effect of all this began taking its toll. By the time it was his turn to be interviewed by the booking officer, w.i.l.l.y Kunkle's only thought was to keep his mouth shut.

"What's your name?"

w.i.l.l.y stared at the counter between them.

"What's you name, bud?"

Again, he kept silent.

The officer didn't react as the cop on the roof had. He simply sighed, looked over to his partner, said, "You deal with him," and beckoned to the next prisoner in line, reinforcing how little w.i.l.l.y's choices mattered to his eighthour day.

And so it went throughout the entire procedure. Various people with various tasks asked him the questions a.s.signed to them, got nothing for their pains, and simply pa.s.sed him down the line. He was photographed, logged in as a John Doe, electronically fingerprinted on an AFIS machine, checked out for any injuries, strip-searched with a thoroughness even he found impressive, told to sit on a magnetic chair sensitized to any metal objects hidden in any body cavity, and finally relegated to a cell in the quarantine section reserved for the ill, the mad, the truly filthy, and the otherwise uncla.s.sifiable. For the time being, until the police could find out who he was, he would sit there, alone and thinking, trying to pitch the cool logic of the puzzle pieces he'd discovered so far against the personal demons that were nestling in the hard, bland, tiled walls of his cell.

Joe Gunther got the phone call the next day, sitting at his desk in Brattleboro. As soon as he recognized the nasal New York accent on the other line, he knew, if not the nature of the call, at least its subject.

"This is Officer Denise Williams of the New York City Department of Correction. We have a man in holding down here who seems to be one of your detectives."

"Is his name Kunkle?"

Williams's voice, which up to then had sounded half asleep, perked up with interest. "You know we got him?"

"I knew he was in New York. Not that he'd been locked up. What're the charges?"

"Disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration, and resisting arrest."

Gunther winced at the bureauspeak aspect of the second charge, thinking w.i.l.l.y had made a career out of that one. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"That's not my job, but from what I heard, he was in an after-hours bar."

"Drinking?" he asked in alarm.

There was a pause. "Well...it is a bar."

"He's a recovering alcoholic-hasn't touched a drop in years."

"Oh." There was a slight ruffling of papers in the background. "There's nothing about drunk and disorderly here, but if he was on police business, we don't know about it and he's not talking. Hasn't said a single word since we arrested him. We only found out about him 'cause the fingerprint machine kicked back his ID."

Gunther mulled that over for a moment before asking, "Why was he arrested in the first place?"

"It was a sweep. Looks like just a wrong-place, wrong-time kind of thing, but I don't really know. I was just told to contact you."

"What happens now?"

"Not much. As soon as we found out who he was, he was arraigned and moved upstairs. I'm not exactly sure, but he might be on Rikers already, waiting for his case to be heard. Anyhow, if he's not there now, he will be. You want to find out, here's the name and number you should contact." She rattled off the information in rapid fire, forcing Gunther to ask her to repeat it.

He hung up the phone and looked across the small room. Sammie Martens was staring at him, a piece of paper frozen in her hand.

"What's he done?" she asked.

"Nothing much. He was picked up in a sweep at an illegal bar. They're minor charges, but it doesn't sound like they're cutting him any slack. He's on Rikers right now, from what it sounds."

She put the paper down on her desk slowly, as if it were a thin sheet of ice. "A bar. What's it mean?"