The Sins of the Fathers

You know what those fucking autopsies are like. I had one a couple years ago, the asshole in the medical examiner's office said the victim had been killed with a hatchet. We already caught the bastard on the premises with a croquet mallet in his hand. Anybody who could mistake the damage done by splitting someone's skull with a hatchet and beating it in with a mallet couldn't tell a razor slash from a cunt."

I nodded. I said, "I wonder why he did it."

"Because he was out of his fucking mind, that's why he did it. He ran up and down the street covered with her blood, screaming his head off and waving his cock at the world. Ask him why he did it and he wouldn't know himself."

"What a world."

"Jesus, don't let me get started on that. This neighborhood gets worse and worse. Don't get me started."

He gave me a nod, and we walked together out of his office and out through the squad room. Men in plainclothes and men in uniforms sat at typewriters, laboriously pounding out stories about presumed miscreants and alleged perpetrators. A woman was making a report in Spanish to a uniformed officer, pausing intermittently to weep. I wondered what she had done or what had been done to her.

I didn't see anybody in the squad room that I recognized.

Koehler said, "You hear about Barney Segal? They made it permanent. He's head of the Seventeenth."

"Well, he's a good man."

"One of the best. How long you been off the force, Matt?"

"Couple of years, I guess."

"Yeah. How're Anita and the boys? Doing okay?"

"They're fine."

"You keep in touch, then."

"From time to time."

As we neared the front desk he stopped, cleared his throat. "You ever think about putting the badge back on, Matt?"

"No way, Eddie."

"That's a goddam shame, you know that?"

"You do what you have to do."

"Yeah." He drew himself up and got back to business. "I set it with Pankow so he'll be looking for you around nine tonight. He'll be at a bar called Johnny Joyce's. It's on Second Avenue, I forget the cross street."

"I know the place."

"They know him there, so just ask the bartender to point him out to you. He's on his own time tonight, so I told him you'd make it worth his while."

And told him to make sure a piece of it came back to the lieutenant, no doubt.

"Matt?" I turned. "What the hell are you gonna ask him, anyway?"

"I want to know what obscene language Vanderpoel was using."

"Seriously?" I nodded. "I think you're as crazy as Vanderpoel," he told me.

"For the price of a hat you can hear all the dirty words in the world."

Chapter 3

Bethune Street runs west from Hudson toward the river. It is narrow and residential. Some trees had been recently planted. Their bases were guarded by little picket fences hung with signs imploring dog owners to thwart their pets'

natural instincts. WE LOVE OUR TREE/PLEASE CURB YOUR DOG.

Number 194 was a renovated brownstone with a front door the color of Astroturf. There were five apartments, one to a floor. A sixth bell in the vestibule was marked SUPERINTENDENT. I rang it and waited.

The woman who opened the door was around thirty-five. She wore a man's white shirt with the top two buttons open and a pair of stained and faded jeans. She was built like a fireplug. Her hair was short and seemed to have been hacked at randomly with a pair of dull shears. The effect was not displeasing, though. She stood in the doorway and looked up at me and decided within five seconds that I was a cop. I gave her my name and learned that hers was Elizabeth Antonelli. I told her I wanted to talk to her.

"What about?"

"Your third-floor tenants."

"Shit. I thought that was over and done with. I'm still waiting for you guys to unlock the door and clear their stuff out. The landlord wants me to show the apartment, and I can't even get into it."

"It's still padlocked?"

"Don't you guys talk to each other?"

"I'm not on the force. This is private."

Her eyes did a number. She liked me better now that I wasn't a cop, but now she had to know what angle I was working. Also if I wasn't on official business, that meant she didn't have to feel compelled to waste her time on me.

She said, "Listen, I'm in the middle of something. I'm an artist, I got work to do."

"It'll take you less time to answer my questions than it will to get rid of me."

She thought this over, then turned abruptly and walked into the building.

"It's freezing out there," she said. "C'mon downstairs, we'll talk, but don't figure on taking up too much of my time, huh?"

I followed her down a flight of stairs to the basement. She had a single large room with kitchen appliances in one corner and an army cot on the west wall.

There were exposed pipes and electrical cables overhead. Her art was sculpture, and there were several examples of her work in evidence. I never saw the piece she was currently working on. A wet cloth was draped over it. The other pieces were abstract, and there was a massive quality to them, a ponderousness suggestive of sea monsters.