the extent of insect larvae in the corpse.
I was sprawled on the sofa holding my throat when Socolow came in. He took a look at the body and said, “Looks like somebody saved the state some money.”
“Abe, do you try to be an asshole, or does it come naturally?”
“Oh, excuse me, counselor, I forgot. This was one of your minions. Presumed innocent until proven an asshole.” He looked at the red welt forming on my neck, did a double take, and smiled. If I’d been shot, he’d probably bust a gut laughing. “Somebody doesn’t know you, Jake, they’d say you struggled with your client, then shot him.”
“Somebody doesn’t know you, Abe, they’d say you were a supercilious son of a bitch. In fact, somebody who knows you would say the same thing. So, before you shoot off your mouth anymore, let me tell you something. Francisco Crespo was more than a client. He was a friend, and you keep it up, the only arrest you’ll make today is for assault on a state official.”
“Okay, okay, keep your cool. Don’t be so touchy.” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and turned to a uniformed cop. “Must be the weather. Makes everybody crazy.”
An assistant medical examiner opened the door, followed by Doc Riggs. A homicide detective came in, then the crime scene investigators, then a man in a gray suit who looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him. Maybe he was a homicide detective I didn’t know. Cops like to travel in flocks, stand around and shoot the bull, reminisce about other cases, and gossip about who’s screwing the new divorcee in communications. One of the lab technicians was shining a laser at every nook and cranny in the trailer, trying to pick up invisible fingerprints. Another was using a portable computer to draw the crime scene.
“What the hell was he doing, making potato salad in the bedroom?” Socolow asked nobody in particular.
Charlie Riggs scratched his beard. “A silencer,” he said.
Socolow wrinkled his forehead. He didn’t enjoy someone else figuring out something first. The man in the gray suit whispered something to Abe Socolow, and then it occurred to me. He was the guy in the courtroom who came up to Socolow during voir dire. Now Socolow was listening attentively. Something in Abe’s body language showed deference, a trait for which he was not well known.
“The gunman used a potato for a silencer,” Riggs continued. “Or two potatoes, actually, one for each shot.”
“A potato silencer?” Abe Socolow repeated, incredulous.
“Messy, but effective,” Charlie said.
Somewhere in my mind, a children’s rope-skipping rhyme was singing to me. One potato, two potato, three potato, four…
The man in the gray suit walked to the sofa where I was sitting. He had a lean leathery face and walked on his toes. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, and his body gave the impression of rangy strength underneath the baggy business suit. His hair was short, dishwater brown, and had a cowlick at the peak of his forehead. A vein protruded from his neck as he spoke to me. He asked me to tell my story, and I did. He tossed a pad and pen on the sofa and pointed with an index finger. “Would you write it out and sign it,” he said. He didn’t make it sound like a question. The lawyer in me said not to do it. But now I was a client, and I knew I didn’t kill Crespo, so I scribbled a statement, going through it step by step, then signed my name, putting an “Esq.” at the end of it, which sounded more impressive than ex-linebacker.
When he asked whether I could identify the assailant, I told the truth for once. When he asked whether I had left anything out, I lied. Then it was my turn. I asked his name, and he handed me a card.
Robert T. Foley and a phone number, area code 703. No gold stars, embossed titles, or even an address. I’ve known some heavy-hitting businessmen like that. Maybe you’re just supposed to know who they are. That might work with Galileo or da Vinci, but Robert T. Foley didn’t mean anything to me.
Socolow was scowling. Silencers meant assassinations, organized crime, or Colombian cowboys. Not just a murder of a nobody in a trailer park. Even worse, a potato silencer was screwy enough to interest the newsboys. Socolow looked straight at Charlie Riggs. “You can buy a silencer on the street for a hundred bucks. Why would anyone use a potato?”
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.
“Maybe he wasn’t going to kill Crespo,” Charlie said, “at least not here. Maybe he wanted to talk to him, didn’t like how it was going, and made a hasty decision. Maybe Jake spooked him by coming to the door. Or maybe it was just a botched robbery.”
Socolow looked around the tiny trailer. “What would you steal from this place?”
Nobody answered him.
“Jake, you know anybody who would want to kill your client?”
I shrugged. Inside my pants pocket a gold bunny rabbit was growing warm. “Maybe Vladimir Smorodinsky had a friend.”
“My thought exactly,” Socolow responded. “Maybe just a revenge killing, one slimeball’s pal knocking off another slimeball. Crespo tell you anything we ought to know?”
“I don’t know any more than you do, Abe.” I’m not sure why I didn’t tell Socolow and his gray-suited friend about the gold rabbit. Part of it had to do with Emilia Crespo. She had trusted me to protect her son, and I had failed. I was responsible. Part of it was Francisco Crespo. He had trusted me, too. He took my advice, and my advice killed him. I had owed him something-everything-and I let him down. Now, it seemed, I owed him even more, and I needed to set things straight on my own.
Finally, part of it was my natural suspicion of authority. I remembered the reporter’s line from Graham Greene’s book about the French-Indochina war. Something about not giving information to the police because it saves them trouble.
Socolow turned back to Charlie Riggs. “Doc?”
“Who knows? Maybe it was the weather. It’s well known that violent crime goes up seven to ten percent during a heat wave.”
“C’mon, Doc. You can do better than that.”
“Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non prohat.”
Socolow squeezed his eyes shut. He looked like he had a migraine.
“A wise man states as true nothing he cannot prove,” Charlie translated.
“Good advice for opening statement,” Socolow agreed, “but I’m looking for some leads here.”
Charlie shrugged and Socolow turned away to speak to one of the cops. Before opening his mouth, Socolow swung back to Charlie Riggs. “Where?”
“Where what?” Charlie asked.
“The potato silencer. Where was it used before?”
“Why, Russia, of course,” the bearded wizard said.
12
harlie Riggs shoved an oversized book in front of me, tapped the cover with a pudgy forefinger, and leaned back in his chair, chewing a cold pipe.
“Not another one, Charlie. My eyes are bleary, and I need a beer.”
“Perhaps if you’d had a well-rounded education, this wouldn’t be necessary.”
“Hey, I studied every linebacker’s assignment in the split six and knew every cheerleader by the shape of her thighs, so give me a break.”
Charlie tsk-tsked his chagrin at the decline of the liberal arts. We were on the second floor of the downtown library, huddled into a corner with every book Charlie could find on Russian art museums. After five hours, everything looked alike. Still, I worked, looking at pictures and turning pages like a robbery victim scanning mug shots.
I had told Charlie that Soto’s painting looked “sorta, I dunno, modern.” Charlie regarded me skeptically, then
