I opened the door and there was Franny Boyle, the SIU prosecutor, a foggy-drunk look on his face. He clutched his keys in his left hand. His right hand shook visibly. Franny’s tie was stuffed in his coat pocket, and his shirt was open, revealing a frayed T-shirt collar. ‘You scared the piss outa me, pal,’ he grumbled. Booze had thickened his Boston accent, which I would not have thought possible. ‘Just gonna grab a little snooze here, a’right? I’m not payin’ for a cab and I can’t deal with the fuckin’ T.’ He brushed past me.
‘Sure. Whatever, Franny.’
He shuffled down the hall. His thick torso rolled with each step so that he rocked like a little tugboat. ‘It’s alright, Opie, I do it all the time.’
‘You sure you’re alright, Franny?’
‘Swell.’
‘Where’s Caroline?’
‘How the fuck should I know?’
‘I was just… She didn’t say good-bye.’
He stopped, then turned to face me. ‘Are you porkin’ her?’
‘No!’
‘You sure, Opie?’
‘Pretty sure, yeah.’
‘Why aren’t you? You don’t like her?’
‘Do you always cross-examine people this way?’
‘She’s divorced. Did ya know that?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Well it’s true.’
Boyle nodded as if we’d just cleared up a misunderstanding, then he moved off again. At the conference- room door he stopped and stared. The file boxes — shit! Boyle regarded the conference table, piled with papers and boxes. Comm. v. Braxton was written on each box in thick Magic Marker. He puffed his cheeks with a sort of sigh. ‘What are you doing, reading that shit?’
‘Reading about Braxton, that’s all.’
‘You want to hear the truth someday, you come ask me.’
‘Sure, Franny’
Boyle gave me an exhausted look and continued down to his office, where he promptly tumbled onto the couch. ‘Hey, don’t tell Caroline I said she was fuckin’ you, alright? She might take it the wrong way’
‘Oh, I don’t think she’d take it the wrong way, Franny.’
‘She’s not wild about me anyway. She thinks I’m crooked.’
‘That’s not true.’ I dragged an old wool blanket over him.
‘She hates me. She wants to get rid of me but Lowery won’t let her.’
‘Just sleep it off, Franny. I’m sure she doesn’t hate you.’
‘She told some people once, “Franny’s so crooked he has to screw his hat on.” Like it was a joke. She doesn’t think I know that, but I heard about it. She said, “Franny’s so crooked he has to screw a rubber on.”’
‘She said that?’
‘Yeah. Charming, isn’t she? It’s not true anyway’
‘About the hat or the rubber?’
‘You know what I mean. I’m not crooked. I’m not crooked…’
I was prepared to reassure him again, but Boyle was asleep before I could get the words out.
Back in the conference room, I gathered up the papers, put them back in the boxes, and moved the whole mess into Danziger’s office. Boyle’s snuffling snores carried from the next room.
And then I had it. I saw the importance of the Trudell case.
Now, when you’re exhausted, it’s easy to mistake ordinary thoughts for profound ones. This trick of the tired mind explains why our deepest insights always seem to arrive at three A.M. and why there is such exquisite, tantalizing pleasure in trying to recover those threeA.M. thoughts the next morning. It is a pleasant misperception to think yourself profound, and tired as I was that evening, well… I thought I understood the situation.
The Trudell case — all the hidden acts and secret motives became clear. I knew that Raul did not exist — not the Raul described in the warrant, anyway. Detective Julio Vega had invented Raul as a well-intentioned scam to trick judges into issuing search warrants. The courts had insisted that Vega do better than the junkies and rats who fed him information on the street, so Vega invented the informant to end all informants, a street-corner oracle so reliable he could exist only in a judge’s fantasy. And then it all blew up. With one shot, Harold Braxton not only murdered Vega’s partner, he exposed the whole fraud. He converted a routine bogus search warrant into a cause. And he converted Julio Vega from an obscure and unexceptional cop to a bumbling, lying villain with his face on the front page of USA Today. That’s how Harold Braxton got away with murdering Artie Trudell.
In Danziger’s office I stood in front of the photo of the original SIU team, the photo showing Artie Trudell with that big rump roast of an arm on Bobby Danziger’s shoulder.
And I knew.
With three-A.M. certainty, I knew how it galled Danziger to see Braxton on the street after he’d killed Trudell. I knew that was why Danziger had kept the file — he wanted to reopen the case. And I knew whom Danziger must have contacted. Not Franny Boyle or Martin Gittens, neither of whom seemed to be aware that Danziger had revived the old case. No, it had to be the only other member of the old guard who knew what really happened that night: Julio Vega.
19
It was not Caroline but a little boy who answered the door. He was nine or ten, and his manner suggested that the doorbell had interrupted some very important activity in the life of a nine — or ten-year-old. Before I could open my mouth, the kid moaned, ‘Mom, there’s a cop here for you.’
‘What makes you think I’m a cop?’
‘You’re here to see my mom, aren’t you?’
‘Your mom?’ It occurred to me I might be at the wrong apartment. I actually checked the number on the door to be sure.
Caroline came around the corner, wiping her hands on her jeans and pushing the hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. ‘Ben! What are you doing here?’
‘I need to talk to you about something. I was looking through Danziger’s files-’
‘This is Charlie,’ Caroline interrupted, with a pointed look. ‘Charlie, this is Ben Truman. Ben is a friend of your Grandpa’s, and that’s why Grandpa’s in trouble.’
The kid mustered a little wave.
‘Charlie, you know better than that. What do you do when you meet a new person? Go on.’
Charlie rolled his eyes, then extended his hand. ‘It’s very nice to meet you, Mr Truman.’ He gave my hand a firm squeeze, just as Caroline had instructed him, I’m sure.
‘Ow, ow.’ I fell to my knees and grabbed my hand as if the kid had broken every bone from wrist to fingertip.
Charlie’s eyes widened, then he smiled. Boys are nothing but very small men (and vice versa); the surest way to their hearts is through their egos. He stepped back and leaned against Caroline, who crossed her hands over his chest.
‘Go do your homework,’ she said, with a pat on his chest.
‘I don’t have any homework.’
‘Then go do tomorrow’s homework.’
‘How can I do tomorrow’s homework if I don’t have it yet?’ He twisted his neck to look up at her, but she would not listen to reason. Charlie emitted a world-weary groan, then padded off.
‘You can get up now, Ben. Male-bonding time is over.’
‘Male-bonding time is never over. It’s just suspended if there happen to be females in the area.’
