office. Somehow he almost always is in his office, morning or evening. Perhaps because, as the captain himself says, it may be evening or morning out in the streets, but in his dim and silent office it is always midnight.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me Jones was Andy’s girl?’
‘You didn’t ask, and it was none of your business,’ the captain said. He looked very tired. Too tired to amuse himself with me. ‘It still isn’t your business, Dan.’
‘It’s even money he’s after Jo-Jo Olsen,’ I said. ‘It’s better than even he beat up my client.’
‘No,’ Gazzo said.
‘Yes!’ I said. ‘It’s a thousand-to-one Andy killed her, and Andy never liked a witness! Christ, Gazzo, who would dare kill Andy Pappas’ girl friend?’
‘No,’ Gazzo said.
I swore. ‘No, what?’
‘No to everything,’ the captain said. ‘Pappas didn’t kill her.’
‘Alibi?’ I said. ‘Of course Andy would have an alibi. Andy would have the best alibi money could buy. Foolproof, airtight, beyond reproach.’
I was at that moment feeling bitter. Who else could kill Tani Jones? And Jo-Jo had seen enough to make him run very far. I would have run if I could place Andy Pappas on that street at the right time.
Gazzo slammed his hand flat on his desk. ‘Knock it off!’
The captain glared at me. ‘You think maybe I haven’t been a cop long enough to know a real airtight alibi when I see one? Or maybe you think Pappas can buy me?’
Nobody can buy Gazzo. I know that more cops than I like to think about have their hands out for a fast buck every chance they can get, and I know they have found whole burglary rings actually run by policemen, but Gazzo cannot be bought. There are a lot of honest cops. Maybe it is only that Gazzo never needed extra money. Behind every five-dollar bill a patrolman takes there is a need, real or imagined. But that is another story.
‘I’ll listen,’ I said.
Gazzo spelled it out for me. ‘At the exact time of the burglary and killing Andy Pappas was in Washington in front of that congressional committee investigating waterfront crime. If you had a brain, you’d have remembered that. If you think hard, you’ll remember that the committee had been sweating Andy for three days solid. On the day of the killing he’d been on the stand all day; the session didn’t end until eight o’clock that night. Even Andy can’t turn time back.’
‘He had it done,’ I said. ‘Sure, it’s just the time he would pick. Were all his boys with him?’
‘No, but they all have alibis.’
‘Sure, probably each other.’
‘No,’ Gazzo said as if he were reading a very easy book to a dumb four-year-old. ‘Jake Roth was at Pappas’ place down on the Jersey shore. Pappas admits he had Jake out of sight and under wraps because Jake would make a lousy witness down in Washington. Pappas had a sort of gentleman’s agreement with the committee that he would show voluntarily if they wouldn’t subpoena any of his boys. But Andy wasn’t taking chances.’
‘How about Max Bagnio?’
‘Little Max was in Philadelphia on business. I didn’t ask what business, but Pappas says he can trot out the witnesses if needed. They’ll be hoods, but there’ll be a lot of them. Most of the others were in Washington with Pappas or have alibis.’
‘Airtight alibis?’
‘Not like Pappas,’ Gazzo said evenly. ‘No one saw them who couldn’t be bought, I admit that. Roth has the best. He was at Pappas’ private beach all day. We checked that his car never left the shore. Bagnio was seen by enough reliable people in Philly, but it’s a short trip up here. The rest can account for most of their time, but not all.’
‘So none of them have real alibis,’ I said.
‘Who does, Dan?’ Gazzo said. ‘You’ve been around long enough to know that an alibi without an area of doubt hardly exists. Who can prove what he was doing every minute of a day unless he plans to do it or is lucky like Pappas. You know we have to go on probability. The boys all have alibis just good enough to make it hard for them to have killed the girl for Andy. Nothing is sure in this world.’
I swore again. ‘It’s got to be Pappas himself!’
I wanted it to be Andy. It’s good to think that evil always trips itself up; that a deadly machine like Andy Pappas would be finally betrayed by his one weakness — that he was, after all, human enough to have a girl and be jealous. Only that was unlikely as the motive. With Andy it was more probable that the Jones girl had learned too much, that it was bad business to let her live — love or no love.
Gazzo sighed. ‘Give me some credit, Dan, okay? Don’t you think I want it to be Pappas? You think maybe I wouldn’t like to nail him on this? My mouth waters when I think of it. I lie awake at night telling myself that this is just the kind of mistake that nails a guy like Pappas. Sure. Only I’ve been a cop too long to kid myself.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that I’ve got to be honest. I’ve got to go on what my experience and judgment tell me, and I know, as much as anyone can know anything, that Andy didn’t kill her or have her killed.’ Gazzo stopped and stared moodily into the shadows of his office. He picked a cigarette from his package and lighted it. His eyes were seeing something not easy to see. ‘I was there when we told him, Dan. I mean, I wanted to be there. I was sure we had him. We didn’t know about him until the maid told. We told him cold. I’m human, I wanted to see him squirm. Only I didn’t like it when I saw his face.’
Gazzo smoked, looked at me. ‘He almost fainted when we told him, Dan. I’ve told a lot of people about the death of someone they loved. I’ve seen a thousand faces when they get that news. I know what those faces look like, and I know a real shock and a real faint when I see one.’
The captain seemed to find the cigarette bitter to his taste. ‘He cried, Dan. I mean, Andy Pappas really cried. You ever see Andy cry? Even when he was fifteen? I remember the day his old man was crushed to death on the docks. Andy just looked at what was left of the old man. This time he cried. He told me to get who killed her.’
‘Touching,’ I said.
But I wasn’t as hard as I sounded. It was just, as I said, that I wanted Andy to make his mistake that way. I wanted Andy to get it from something as stupid, as simple, as human as a jealous rage; some lousy little mistake anyone could have made. I wanted that real bad. Gazzo knew what I was thinking.
‘I’ve been a cop a long time, Dan, and I know about Andy this time. Sure, we’ve checked it all ways and upside down, too. As far as we can learn, the girl was just a dumb kid who was proud to be Pappas’ girl. Word says she never even knew exactly what Andy does. Everything says that Pappas was really hooked on the girl, treated her almost like a daughter.’
‘Daughters cheat,’ I said, ‘and maybe she learned something she didn’t even know she knew. Andy takes no chances.’
‘Everything is possible, Dan,’ Gazzo said, ‘but we dug deep. There isn’t a whisper against Pappas. It doesn’t look like she even knew who he really was. They kept it pretty quiet, and she was like a toy to him. The worst you can say is she was dumb, and liked the men too much.’
‘Maybe one man too many,’ I said. ‘Andy’s human, maybe.’
‘For God’s sake, Dan, we’re talking about Andy Pappas!’ Gazzo roared at me. ‘You think Andy would do such a lousy job of killing his own girl friend? You think he’d shoot her in her own apartment and just fake a burglary? You think he couldn’t come up with a better cover than that?’
It was the best argument Gazzo had offered. Yes, I thought that Pappas would have done better. The girl had been closely tied to him. There would have been a more plausible ‘accident’. And a sudden rage was out. Pappas had been in Washington. I did not see anyone else killing Pappas’ sweetie on purpose. No, the burglar theory looked better now.
‘That’s why you weren’t surprised that the loot hasn’t turned up,’ I said.
Gazzo nodded. ‘Every fence in New York has those diamonds and pearls engraved on his brain. Pappas would see to that. To try to sell them would be a death warrant.’
A very quick death warrant. The question was: whose name was on that warrant? Someone was looking for Jo-Jo Olsen, and looking very hard. The next question was: Was it Pappas who was looking for Jo-Jo, or someone else? From the way Andy had acted when he warned me to lay off Swede Olsen and family, it did not seem that Andy was looking for Jo-Jo or had any idea that Jo-Jo might be connected to the death of Tani Jones. But Pappas is
