doors, three choices. The only things missing were Monty Hall and a trio of women in gowns.
John Stancik was in a Crown Vic a few cars down on the left. He wore dark aviator glasses, and the newspaper he pretended to be reading was propped on his steering wheel. Even from a distance I could see a cardboard tray holding two large cups, the way a similar one had the night before.
On my right, waiting at the traffic light, was a taxi, its roof light indicating it was free. Having the turtlelike peripheral vision of the experienced New York cabbie, the driver glanced in my direction with the barest tilt of his head. At the slightest encouragement or eye contact from me, he’d wait and I could jump in and be spirited away.
And in between, parked illegally at a fire hydrant, happily munching a donut, was Guy Anzalone. The cab took off and I was down to two options. Or maybe not.
I turned left and started walking. Going in this direction would add two blocks to the trip but I didn’t think either man would drive backward down a one-way street simply to offer me a lift, whatever it was they wanted to discuss—business or personal. I kept my chin tucked into my collar as if I hadn’t noticed Guy, and he seemed genuinely surprised I didn’t run over to his car as if we were headed down to the shore or a weekend in Atlantic City. I wasn’t much of a lip-reader but he seemed to be repeating aw, schucks, or perhaps it was the Brooklyn version of that expression.
Stancik was quicker to react and automatically rolled down the passenger’s side window of the car just as I approached. He leaned across the empty seat to say something, knocking over two cups of steaming liquid onto the dashboard, his newspaper, a small notepad, and the front seat. He did not say aw, schucks.
I intended to keep walking, but the scene was comical and I took pity on the poor man. Besides, he had given me information the night before—perhaps he’d do it again. I backtracked.
“It’s cloudy. Are those glasses supposed to be a disguise?” I asked.
If they were, they did nothing to hide the scruffy brush cut and dimpled chin that I hadn’t paid much attention to before but found suddenly vulnerable and appealing as Stancik juggled the dripping items.
“Use the newspaper to sop it up, then I’ll throw it in the trash out here.” He did as he was told and I pitched the soggy mess in a Doe Fund trash can on the corner.
I strolled back to the car, feeling smug. I drew the line at occupying the still wet seat in the front and climbed into the back, despite the way it looked. “You must be pretty wired. Have you been out here drinking coffee all night?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Just the last hour or so, since we picked up Jamal Harrington. I came back to talk to you.” I stopped feeling smug.
According to Stancik, Jamal must have stayed on the terrace until about six A.M. when the neighborhood would be coming to life with the sounds of delivery trucks and people lining up for the soup kitchen at the church next door. He’d stopped at the Koreans and had the bad luck to bump into a couple of uniformed cops hassling a truck driver who was triple-parked while delivering cut flowers to the grocery store. “They recognized his description from a radio call. He slipped into a subway station, but one of the officers nabbed him while he was fumbling with his MetroCard,” Stancik said.
“If he was a bad kid, wouldn’t he have jumped over the turnstile to get away?”
“When was the last time you took the subway? It’s not that easy to do anymore. A lot of those old turnstiles have been replaced. So what did you and the kid you barely know talk about until the wee hours?”
“I had no idea he’d be there.”
“You’re lucky Labidou isn’t here. He’d be making cougar jokes. For someone who doesn’t know these boys, you do seem to be in the thick of it.”
“I am, now that I’m getting daily visits from the NYPD.”
Jamal told the cops about Garland’s jacket, so I didn’t have much to add except to repeat that he thought Otis Randolph had witnessed the exchange and would have been able to tell the cops it was a friendly one.
“You don’t really think Jamal is your man, do you?”
“I don’t
Jamal had said nothing to us about money or a passport.
“Could Garland have forgotten those things were in his pockets when he gave the jacket to Jamal?”
Stancik looked over his sunglasses. “Would you forget your passport and money if you were blowing town?”
I did drive all the way to New Hampshire once without my wallet, but it wasn’t the same thing.
“And now,” he said, “we have a statement from someone who claims the two men were in business together.” He gently pulled apart the coffee-splashed pages of his notepad, but I put two and two together faster and knew who the informant was before he said the name.
“Emma Franklin,” I said.
Fifty-one
Stancik was lousy at hiding his reaction. “How did you guess?”
“The Great Holliday never guesses. She knows.” I tapped my forehead with two fingers. I was tempted to call Emma a pathological liar but forced myself to exercise restraint.
“I’d be very suspicious of anything that girl tells you. She may have a sweet and disarming exterior, but she is one of the most facile liars I’ve ever encountered.”
“She’s a kid from Pennsylvania,” he said. “Never been in trouble. Her mother’s a doctor, stepdad’s in the import business. Are you basing this on something real or some women’s intuition thing?”
“You’ve been hanging out with Labidou too long. He’s rubbing off on you. What does Emma say her role is in all this?” I asked.
“An innocent duped by a new and unscrupulous boyfriend who wasn’t what he seemed to be.”
“How did you find her?” I asked.
“Painstaking detective work. She walked right into the precinct last night around midnight.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Fear? Remorse? She had no place to go?”
“Did you hold her?”
“We’re not in the habit of incarcerating people who come in of their own free will to make statements.”
By the time we’d pulled up at the Wagner, I told the cop everything I knew, up to and including my firm belief that any incriminating evidence found in Jamal’s possession had been planted there by Emma—or whatever her real name was—most likely when he and J. C. had gone into the basement to get the sleeping gear and I’d briefly followed them.
“Where is she now?” I asked.
“Anywhere from here to Timbuktu. How should I know?”
“That girl is literally unbelievable,” I said, amping up a notch. “She may be Emma Franklin or that may be another identity she’s temporarily borrowing. She’s like Scheherazade, spinning a different tale every time she opens her mouth.”
“Maybe she’s doing it to stay alive, too. But it gets worse.”
“How much worse could it get? She’s pregnant with Garland’s child?”
“Not for her. She’s suggested that you and some older woman are also involved. That you’re in cahoots with this Jamal and maybe even with the people Garland was supposed to get money from. We’re gonna assume that the money wasn’t a belated Christmas or Hanukkah present. It was most likely a drug deal or extortion.”
“Well, now you know she’s nuts, right? Right?”
Wrong. I could almost hear him. All he knew was that I, too, had been seen with the dead man. That, according to Emma, and maybe even Rolanda, I’d tried to smuggle Garland into the convention center, that I was the last person to have possession of his missing bag. I’d also been seen at a local diner having breakfast with Jamal and the wife of a man who may or may not be a mobster.
Emma didn’t know, but if the cops had asked around further, they’d find that I’d had drinks with the
