knowledge to any schoolyard kid who'd ever been frisked for a firearm.
Maxie Blaine knew instinctively and through bitter experience on his meteoric rise through Georgia's criminal justice system that 'Silence Is Golden' was really and truly a terrific rule to follow whenever you were dealing with law enforcement types. He also knew that he had just now popped a cop, and he knew in his secret heart of hearts that a month or so ago he had killed a man the media had later identified as a police informer, so long, Ratso. He suspected the reason the cops had come a-rappin on his door at two in the morning was they needed desperately to know had he really done that little rat bastard. Which he wasn't ready to admit since he wasn't pining just yet for a massive dose of Valium.
In an instance such as this, where they already had him on inadvertently plugging a cop in a moment of panic, the damn girl shrieking like a banshee and all, Blaine shrewdly calculated that maybe there was a deal to be made if he played his cards right. So whereas he asked for a lawyer— no experienced felon ever did not ask for a lawyer when he was in custody—he nonetheless figured he'd answer their questions until he saw where they were going. The minute he figured out what they really had here—he didn' t see how they could possibly tie him to the pizzeria shooting—why that was when he could maybe squirm his way out of this, maybe talk the D.A. into covering everything he'd done including the Guido' s thing for a plea that might grant him parole in twenty years, maybe even fifteen. In other words, he thought the way many criminals think: he thought he could outsmart two experienced detectives, a lieutenant who' d seen it all and heard it all, and even his own attorney, a man named Pierce Reynolds, a transplanted good ole boy from Tennessee, who naturally urged silence.
The interrogation started in the lieutenant's office at six o'clock on that morning of December , by which time Blaine's attorney had arrived and consulted with him, and Blaine had been read his rights and verified that he understood them. To protect his own ass in any subsequent client-lawyer law suit, Reynolds went on record as having advised Blaine to remain silent and Blaine went on record as having been so advised. All the bullshit out of the way, the questioning proper began at six-fifteen a.m. with Detective-Lieutenant Peter Byrnes himself eliciting from Maxwell Corey Blaine his full name, address, and place of employment, which was a pool parlor in Hightown, or so he said, but then again he wasn't under oath.
If Blaine was in reality breaking heads for someone linked to the Colombian cartel, as Betty Young had informed them, he couldn't very well tell the cops this was his occupation. Not if he hoped to outfox them and cut a deal later. There was no official police stenographer here as yet, and no one from the District Attorney's Office. Blaine figured the deck was stacked in his favor. The cops figured they could nail him on shooting Willis whenever the spirit moved them. Getting someone to ride uptown from the D.A.'s Office was a simple matter of making a phone call. But they were angling for bigger fish. They were looking for Murder One.
Byrnes opened with a laser beam straight to the forehead.
'Know anyone named Enrique Ramirez?'
Blaine blinked.
'Nossir,' he said, 'I surely do not.'
'I thought you might have done some work for him,' Byrnes said.
'Is that a question?' Reynolds asked.
'Counselor,' Byrnes said, 'could we agree on some basic ground rules here?'
'What basic rules did you have in mind, Lieutenant? I thought I was familiar with all the rules, basic or otherwise, but perhaps I'm mistaken.'
'Mr Reynolds,' Byrnes said, 'we don't need courtroom theatrics here, okay? There's no judge here to rule on objections, there's no jury to play to, your man isn't even under oath. So why not just take it nice and easy, like the song says, okay?'
'Does the song say anything about a cop getting shot tonight?' Reynolds asked. 'Which is why my client is here in custody, isn't that so?'
'Well, Counselor,' Byrnes said, 'if you'd let him answer my questions, we could maybe find out why we're here, okay? Unless you want to call the whole thing off, which is your client's right, as you know.'
'For Chrissake, let him ask his goddamn questions,' Blaine said. 'I got nothing to hide here.'
Famous last words, Byrnes thought.
Reynolds was thinking the same thing.
So was Kling.
Brown was wondering if the son of a bitch was going to claim police brutality cause he'd smacked him upside the head back there in his apartment.
Blaine all of a sudden thought he had to be very careful here because somehow they'd learned about his relationship with Enrique Ramirez, and that was a road that led directly to Guide's Pizzeria and a lot of spilled tomato sauce.
Byrnes was thinking he had to walk a very careful line here because they'd promised Betty Young sanctuary, they'd asked her to trust them, and he couldn't now reveal her name or how he'd come into possession of the information she'd given them.
'This pool parlor you work for?' he asked. 'Who owns it?'
'I got no idea.'
'You don't know who the boss is?'
'Nope. The manager pays me my check every week.'
'What's the manager's name?'
'Joey.'
'Joey what?'
'I haven't the faintest.'
'How'd you get this job?'
'Friend of mine told me about it.'
'What's your friend's name?'
'Alvin Woods. He's gone back home to Georgia.'
Go find him, he was thinking.
Doesn't exist, Byrnes was thinking.
'Know a man named Ozzie Rivera?'
'Nope.'
'Oswaldo Rivera?'
'Never heard of him.'
'How about a man named Joaquim Valdez?'
'Nope.'
'That wouldn't be the Joey who pays you your check every week, would it?'
'I don't know what Joey's last name is.'
'Rivera had both his legs broken last April. Were you living in this city last April?'
'I surely was. But I don't know anything about this Ozzie Rivera or both his broken legs. That sure is a shame, though.'
Like to smack him again, Brown thought.
'What were you doing on the morning of November eighth?' Byrnes asked.
Here we go, Blaine thought.
'November eighth, let me see,' he said.
'Take all the time you need,' Byrnes said.
'Would that have been a Saturday morning? Cause Saturday's my day off. I sleep late Saturdays.'
'No, this would've been a Monday morning.'
'Then Fd've been at the pool hall.'
'Doing what? What do you do at this pool hall, Maxie?'
'I'm a table organizer.'
'What's that, a table organizer?'
'I see to it that there's a flow.'
'A flow, uh-huh. What's that?'
'I see to it that the tables are continuously occupied. So we don't have people waiting for tables or tables not being played. It's an interesting job.'
