wouldn’t believe. Fact is, he tracked down my cousin Violetta, hadn’t seen nor heard from her in ten years. She was working in a hospital in L.A., but he found her. Didn’t take him more ’n a couple of days, neither. You ought to be trying that approach.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Ricky answered.
“Big help if you got Social Security number or something like that, too,” the clerk said. Her accented voice was melodic, and it was clear that talking to Ricky was an interesting break from her daily routine. It was almost as if, although she was telling what he was searching for was beyond his grasp, she was reluctant to let him go. It was closing in on the evening, and probably, he thought, she could leave after dealing with him, and so wanted to keep him handy for just the right amount of time. He thought he should leave, but was unsure of his next step.
“What kinda doctor you be?” she asked abruptly.
“A psychoanalyst,” Ricky said, watching the answer cause the clerk to roll her eyes.
“You able to read people’s minds, doc?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” he said.
“No, maybe not. That would make you some kinda witch doctor, huh?” The clerk giggled. “But I’ll bet you’re good at guessing what people gonna do next, right?”
“A little bit. Not as much as you probably think.”
The woman grinned. “Well, in this world, you get a little information, know how to hit the right keys, you can make some good guesses. That’s the way it all works.” She gestured with a thick forearm toward the computer keyboard and screen in front of her.
“I suppose so.” Ricky paused, then he looked down at the sheets of paper he’d received at the hospital records office. He turned to the police report and saw something that might help. The officers who had questioned Rafael Johnson, the dead woman’s abusive boyfriend, had taken down his Social Security number. “Hey,” Ricky said, suddenly, “if I give you a name and a Social Security number, will that computer of yours find someone for me?”
“They still live here? Vote? Get arrested maybe?”
“Probably yes to all three. Or two at least. I don’t know that he votes.”
“It might. What’s the name?”
Ricky showed the woman the name and number from the police report. She looked around quickly, to see if anyone else in the office was watching her. “Not really supposed to do something like this,” she muttered, “but you being a doctor and all, well, we’ll see.”
The clerk clicked red-painted fingernails across a keyboard.
The computer whirred and made electronic beeping noises. Ricky saw an entry come up on the screen, and simultaneously, the woman’s narrowly plucked eyebrows rose in surprise.
“This be some bad boy, doctor. You sure you need him?”
“What is it?”
“Well he got a robbery, another robbery, an assault, a suspect in a car theft ring, did six in Sing Sing for aggravated assault. That be some hard time. Man, some kind of very nasty record.”
The woman read further then said suddenly, “Oh!”
“What?”
“He isn’t going to be no help to you no more, doctor.”
“Why?”
“Somebody must have caught up with him.”
“And?”
“He dead. Just six months ago.”
“Dead?”
“That’s right. Says
“What’s it say?”
“Seems like after they beat him, somebody strung him up over a pipe, using his own belt. That’s not nice. Not nice at all.” The woman shook her head, but she wore a small grin on her face. No sympathy for Rafael Johnson, a type who’d probably passed through her door once too often.
Ricky reeled back. It wasn’t hard for him to guess who’d found Rafael Johnson. And why.
From the same pay phone in the lobby he was able to track down the detective who’d filed the criminal investigation report on the death of Rafael Johnson. He did not know if the call would yield much, but thought he should make the call, regardless. The detective had a brisk, but energetic manner over the phone line, and after Ricky identified himself, seemed curious as to why he would be calling.
“I don’t get many calls from midtown medical types. They don’t usually travel in the same circles as the late and little-lamented Rafael Johnson. What’s your interest in this case, Doctor Starks?”
“This man Johnson was connected to a former patient of mine some twenty years ago. I’m trying to get in touch with her relatives and was hoping that Johnson might be able to steer me in the right direction.”
“That’s doubtful, doc, unless you’d been willing to pay. Rafi would do anything for anybody, as long as there was some cash involved.”
“You knew Johnson before he was killed?”
“Well, let’s just say that he was on the radar screens of a number of cops up here. He was a bad news kinda guy. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone around here who’d say one damn nice thing about him. Petty drugs. Muscle for hire. Break-ins, robberies, a sexual assault or two. Pretty much the whole sorry useless badass package. And he ended up pretty much as one might have expected, and, to be frank, doc, I’m not thinking there were too many tears shed at that man’s funeral.”
“Do you know who killed him?”
“Doc, that’s the million-dollar question. But the answer is, we got a pretty good idea.”
Ricky’s mind leapt at this statement.
“You do?” he asked excitedly. “Have you arrested someone?”
“No. And not likely to, either. At least not too quick.”
As quickly as he’d filled with some hope, he plummeted back to earth. “Why is that?”
“Well, case like this, generally speaking there’s not a whole lot of forensic evidence. Maybe some blood work, if there’d been a fight, but none available, because it seemed old Rafi was trussed up pretty tight when he was beaten up, and whoever worked him over was wearing gloves. So, really, what we’re looking for is to squeeze one of his buddies, come up with a name, build a case that way, with one guy ratting out the next, right up the ladder to the killer.”
“Yes. I understand.”
“But no one wants to rat out the guy who we think did up Rafael Johnson.”
“Why not?”
“Ah, prison loyalty. Code from Sing Sing. We’re looking at a guy that Rafael had some trouble with, while they were sharing state-sanctioned accommodations. Seems they had a real problem in prison. Probably arguing over who owned what piece of the drug trade. Tried to do one another while up there. Homemade knives. Shivs, they call ’em. Very unpleasant way to go, or so I’m told. Seems like the two bad boys carried the bad blood out to the street with ’em. This is, maybe, one of the oldest stories in the world. We’ll get the guy who lit up old Rafi when we get something a little better on one of his jerk-off buddies. One of them will trip up sooner or later and then we’ll wheel and deal. Need to be able to squeeze a little tighter, you see.”
“So, you think the killer was someone Johnson knew in prison?”
“Absolutely. A guy named Rogers. You ever run into anyone that name? Bad dude.
