He picked up his beer from the bar and we took a table in back.
Our waitress had a snub nose and infectious good humor, and she knew my companion. When he asked her about the pastrami she said,
'It's not lean enough for you, Kelly. Take the roast beef.' We had roast beef sandwiches on rye, the meat sliced thin and piled high, accompanied by crisp french fries and a horseradish sauce that would bring tears to the eyes of a statue.
'Good place,' I said.
'Can't beat it. I eat here all the time.'
He had a second bottle of Molson's with his sandwich. I ordered a cream soda, and when that got a headshake from the waitress I said I'd have a Coke. I saw this register with Kelly, although he didn't comment at the time. When she brought our drinks, though, he said, 'You used to drink.'
'Your father mentioned that? I wasn't hitting it all that heavy when I knew him.'
'I didn't get it from him. I made a few calls, asked around. I hear you had your troubles with it and then you stopped.'
'You could say that.'
'AA, I heard. Great organization, everything I hear of it.'
'It has its good points. But it's no place to be if you want a decent drink.'
It took him a second to realize I was joking. He laughed, then said,
'That where you know him from?
The mysterious boyfriend?'
'I'm not going to answer that.'
'You're not prepared to tell me anything about him.'
'No.'
'That's okay, I'm not about to give you a lot of grief on the subject.
You got her to come in, I have to give you that. I don't exactly love it when a witness shows up holding hands with her lawyer, but under the circumstances I got to admit it's the right move for her. And Kaplan's not too much of a sleaze. He'll make you look like a monkey in court if he can, but what the hell, that's his job, and they're all like that.
What are you going to do, hang the whole profession?'
'There are people who wouldn't think it was such a bad idea.'
'You're talking about half the people in this room,' he said, 'and the other half are attorneys themselves.
But what the hell. Kaplan and I agreed to keep this dark as far as the press is concerned. He said he was sure you'd go along.'
'Of course.'
'If we had a good sketch of the two perps it'd be different, but I put her together with an artist and the best we could come up with is they each got two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. She's not too sure about ears, thinks they had two apiece but doesn't want to commit herself. Be like running a picture of a smile button on page five of the Daily News:
'Have You Seen This Man?' What we got is linkage of three cases which we're now officially treating as serial homicide, but do you see any advantage in making it public? Besides scaring the shit out of people, what do you accomplish?'
* * *
WE didn't linger over lunch. He had to be back by two to testify in the trial of a drug-related homicide, which was the sort of thing that kept him from ever getting his desk clear. 'And it's hard to keep on giving a shit if they kill each other,' he said, 'or to break your back trying to nail them for it. I wish to hell they'd legalize all that shit, and I honest to Christ never thought I'd hear myself say that.'
'I never thought I'd hear any cop say it.'
'You hear it all the time now. Cops, DAs, everybody. There's still DEA guys playing the same old tune.
'We're winning the war on drugs. Give us the tools and we can do the job.' I don't know, maybe they believe it, but you're better off believing in the Tooth Fairy. Least that way you might wind up with a quarter under your pillow.'
'How can you rationalize making crack legal?'
'I know, it's a pisser. My all-time favorite is angel dust. An ordinary peaceable guy'll go get himself dusted, and he goes straight into a blackout and acts out violently. Then he wakes up hours later and somebody's dead and he doesn't remember a thing, he can't even tell you if he enjoyed the high. Would I like to see them selling dust at the corner candy store? Jesus, I can't say I would, but would they move any more of it that way than they do right now, selling it on the street in front of the candy store?'
'I don't know.'
'Neither does anybody else. As a matter of fact they're not selling that much angel dust these days, but it's not because people are going away for it. Crack's taking a lot of the dust market. So there's good news from the world of drugs, sports fans. Crack is helping us win that war.'
We split the check, and on the sidewalk we shook hands. I agreed to get in touch if I thought of anything he ought to know about, and he said he'd keep me posted if they got any kind of a break in the case. 'I can tell you there'll be some manpower on it,' he said. 'These are guys we really want to take off the street.'
