in Queens.”
“Right.”
“I mean, so what could I hold him on, Artie? He had a few tats, but I couldn’t hold a guy for some body ink, could I? He didn’t have no dirt on his shoes that matched the cemetery where we found the victim.”
“You got good people working homicide here, Jimmy?”
“Yeah. One of the best there is. Let me see if he’s around.” He left the office. I figured he’d reappear with Radcliff. Instead, Wagner returned and said to me, “Dawes is coming in to say hi.”
“Anybody I ever met?”
“I doubt it. He’s good. Julius Dawes, straight up by the book. Too methodical for some of the younger guys. You know, they watch TV, they want to solve a crime in an hour, not including commercials, so they take stupid chances and then we can’t indict.”
The cop in uniform who had brought me in passed, and Wagner bellowed out, “You got smokes?”
The uniform nodded, went away and returned with a crumpled pack and Jimmy lit up, coughed until I thought he was going to puke his lungs out, then leaned back and took another drag on his cigarette.
“I hate this fucking weather,” he said. “If the snow gets worse, it’ll be bad. We don’t have enough guys, we already got a pileup over on the West Side Highway. No money in the city, more homeless.”
“Listen, Jimmy, I hate to bother you, with everything you got going on, but I was wondering if you knew anything about a building called the Louis Armstrong Apartments. Friend of mine looking at a place there.” It was an easy lie.
“Sure,” said Wagner, then stopped and looked at his office door. “Hey, Dawes, come meet my pal, Artie Cohen,” he said to the middle-aged black detective. Wagner told Dawes I’d done the translation. We shook hands.
“Artie’s been asking about the Armstrong.”
“I can’t stop long,” said Dawes. “Got to get over to my daughter’s place in Riverdale. But what’s your interest in the Armstrong?” he said, putting on his overcoat. Medium height, compact, about fifty, Dawes wore his gray hair short and had a small, trim beard.
“I have a friend who’s thinking of getting a place there.”
“I didn’t think they ever sold those apartments at the Armstrong, unless somebody dies,” said Dawes. “My aunt lived over there for quite a while. Who’s your friend, then, detective?” He was polite but distant. I got the feeling he knew I was lying, or maybe he was just in a hurry.
“Just someone I know,” I said. “Looks like you’re busy.”
“I have to get going now,” Dawes said. “But if I can help you out, Detective Cohen, please be in touch. Tell your friend if they’re thinking of moving in to the Armstrong, make sure they know what they’re doing.”
“How do you mean?”
“Great building. Definitively one of the finest. Built to show off Sugar Hill. But a lot of tension over there, old folks wanting to keep it like it is, younger people wanting to fix it up, raise the maintenance, don’t care about who gets turned out on the street. No reason not to take it if your friend can get in, but just make sure the contract’s solid,” he said. “So, if I can help, you can get my number from Captain Wagner. That your red Caddy outside, by the way?”
“Yes.”
“Nice paint job,” he said, and I suddenly knew Dawes had intended to ask me about the car from the moment he saw me.
“Thanks,” I said, as Dawes took a green peppermint out of the bowl on Wagner’s desk and left the office.
“Man, I wish he wasn’t taking off right now,” said Wagner. “He’s the best I got, but he planned this break with his family for almost nine months, ever since his oldest girl got pregnant.”
“He’s been here a while?”
“Long time. Before me. What’s with this Armstrong business?”
“Just looking for enlightenment.”
“Dawes is your guy. He’s like us; he came up through the ranks. He walked a beat down around 125th Street in the worst fucking times, late eighties, crack fucking dealers in every door. He’s good and he’s straight, and even in the bad times at this house I don’t think he ever took so much as a free cup of coffee from anyone. He’s got cast-iron morality stamped on his soul, that guy.”
“Thanks.”
“So that’s what you wanted, this thing about the Armstrong?” Wagner looked at his watch.
I didn’t move.
“Artie?”
“Yeah?”
“You wanna tell me what this is really about?”
CHAPTER 13
I told Wagner a string of little lies, just knit them together the way an old aunt of mine used to knit the hideous brown wool scarves I had to wear as a kid. “I’ve been hearing this area is really good now-they call it the New Harlem,” I said to Wagner.
He shrugged. “Lot of people coming uptown, buying in, before the crash, I mean. Nobody’s buying nothing with this subprime shit, with those bastard fucks downtown on Wall Street. I know a lot of good cops gonna lose their houses. All they care about, those fuckers like Madoff and the others, sharks, you know, bastards, is money. I’d fry them if I could, motherfucking bastards,” he said, echoing the fury of working guys all over town. “They just pocket the bonuses and leave us all swinging in the wind.” Crushing out his smoke, lighting up a fresh one, he leaned back in his chair, told me his guys had been told to give the Armstrong special attention, in case I wanted to tell my friend.
“Who told you?”
“Somebody on the City Council, far as I recall. But the Armstrong residents usually call the firehouse anyway. People don’t like calling cops, you know, Artie, not in Harlem; no love lost, right? I hear people say, ‘Well, the fire guys always show up if you’re stuck in an elevator.’ There’s people around here that still think of us as pigs, you know? I can’t help it if we have other things to take care of, like homicides, instead of getting a cat out of a tree.”
“They got cats in trees in Harlem?”
“Metaphorically, man. I mean, some old lady needs help because she got locked out, you know, Artie?” Wagner was irritated. “Me, I don’t understand if you got the dough and you could buy a house, why would you want an apartment? Everybody stacked up in boxes, one under the other, like those graves where they stick in extra people when they run out of space,” he said. “Manhattan! Well, whatever, maybe I’m just a suburban asshole that likes my privacy. My house on Staten Island is free and clear. It took me thirty years to pay it off,” he said. Wagner’s cell phone rang. He picked it up, turned to me and said, “Excuse me a sec, Artie. I got something to take care of.”
After Wagner left his office, I noticed a picture of the Twin Towers on the back wall of the office. Beside it was one of George W. Bush. Frank Sinatra was up there, the heavyset Sinatra with the rug on his head, and his signature in white. I’d seen it on a lot of walls. Also there was a color picture of Jesus with a bleeding heart, same as I always see on the wall over at Pino’s, the butcher on Sullivan Street. Finally, there was a photograph of a pair of basketball players, signed and framed. In between them stood Jimmy Wagner.
I got up and looked at it closer. The players were Earl Monroe and Amahl Washington. Both black. Both a lot taller than Jimmy.
I was interested in it because I’d always been a fan of Monroe, at least from what I read, because I never saw him play.
“She white? If you don’t mind my asking,” said Wagner returning to his office.
“Who?”
