“All I have,” Zannoni said, still standing, as though she might change her mind if she knew no other offer was forthcoming. “All I drink. I'm the only Italian in the world doesn't like coffee. You sure?”
When Laura said she was, Zannoni sat.
“I appreciate your seeing me,” she began. Based on the phone call, the sight of him on his balcony, and the handshake, she'd taken on a frank and direct demeanor with a faint undertone of gratitude that acknowledged Zannoni was in charge. The role she was playing was that of a straightforward reporter who did not play roles. “I'm sorry about interrupting your dinner—”
“No problem. Caught me by surprise, is all.”
“I know what you mean. I don't like surprises, either.”
“Yeah.” He nodded, sipped his tea, and said, “Your boy Jesselson says you're interested in the Mark Keegan thing, from back then.”
Laura gave up trying to find a position on the sling chair that made her feel professional, or at least adult. She swung herself sideways so she was facing Zannoni and fished her pad, her pens, her recorder, from her bag. “Is this all right?” she asked Zannoni, setting the recorder on the table.
He eyed it without love. “For now. Might ask you to turn it off, though.”
“Of course. Do you want to start with me asking questions, or do you just—”
“What's your interest?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your interest in Keegan. Jesselson hunted me up, asked if I'd talk to you. Why?”
“I don't know if you've been following the stories in my paper—”
“Yeah.” Zannoni nodded. “You're the guys saying Jimmy McCaffery was laundering Eddie Spano's money through that lawyer, paying off Keegan's widow.”
Laura jumped right on it: “Is that what was happening?”
“What's your interest?” His eyes under thick brows held hers, not fiercely, not tight. An old cop, used to interrogations. A man who could sip tea on his balcony all day long asking the same question, while a stranger decided whether or not to answer him.
“The reporter on the original story,” Laura said. “The one who died. He was a friend of mine.”
“Good friend?”
“Yes.”
Zannoni stared into the distance. Probably, Laura thought as she blinked back tears, the view from where he sat had not suddenly started to shimmer and melt.
He said, “Jesselson says you think someone killed him.”
Laura answered, “That's true.”
“Any idea who?”
She shook her head. Zannoni, still watching the water, answered his own question. “Well, me either.”
“I didn't—”
“Just wanted to make sure, in case that's what you came for. I'm not going to guess. Speculate. Any of that bullshit. But back then.”
“That's why I came,” Laura said. “To hear about back then.”
At that Zannoni turned to her. Laura sat still and returned his look.
“I was a detective at the 124 then,” he said. “Later got transferred to the Bronx. Christ, what a schlep. Those days, right after the Knapp Commission—you heard of that?—they didn't have this community policing thing, like now. They wanted you to live outside your precinct. Keep down graft. Pile of crap. Cops running all around the goddamn city, damn waste of time. I retired eight years ago.”
Zannoni took a gulp of tea. A fresh breeze blew in from the Narrows, got trapped in the cul-de-sac of the balcony. It lifted a page from Laura's notebook; it brought with it the scent of the sea.
“Officers responded to a shots-fired, found Molloy,” Zannoni said. “Called in me and my partner, Jeff Miller. Jeff retired fifteen years ago. Condo in Tucson. Died there last year. The desert, Jesus.” He looked toward the water and shook his head. “Keegan showed up half an hour later. Said he did it, ran because he lost his head but came back to do the right thing. You know the story—Molloy and Keegan?”
“I know what the papers reported.”
Zannoni waited. Laura went on. “They were drinking in a house under construction. Jack Molloy got wild, waved a gun around, and Mark Keegan shot him by mistake.”
“Helluva mistake,” said Zannoni. “Right through the heart.”
Laura said, “Couldn't it still be an accident?”
Zannoni shrugged. “Close your eyes and squeeze, likely to hit something as something else. That's how the defense played it, anyway.”
“Phillip Constantine?”
“That was him, the lawyer. But he came later. Right then Keegan said it himself: I was scared, he shot twice, I just pointed and pulled the trigger. Never figured I'd hit him. I'm not real good with guns, he kept saying.”
