After a moment, an older Italian man came into the room. He was wearing a red silk bathrobe and holding a cigar.
“Nina, you don’t have to shout all the time,” he said in a weary voice. “I hear you fine.”
“Lorenzo Bianchi?” Webb asked.
“Yes?”
“I’m Lieutenant Webb, NYPD Major Crimes. This is Detective O’Reilly and Detective Neshenko.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve come to arrest me?”
“Would you like me to?”
The Bianchi patriarch looked at him with sad, tired eyes. “Is it quiet in jail?”
“Not particularly.”
Lorenzo sighed. “Then there’s no point. Nina, get some coffee for our guests, would you?”
“What am I, your maid? Get it yourself,” she retorted.
“You’re killing me,” he grumbled. “A piece at a time.”
“I’ll get it, Dad,” Paulie said, surprising Erin. She hadn’t thought he had a helpful bone in his body.
Lorenzo sank into an armchair. “Thanks, Paulie,” he said. “At least youngsters got some respect. Now, Lieutenant, take a seat and tell me what I can do for you.”
“If we could wait for Paulie to come back, that’d be best,” Webb said, settling into the chair across from Lorenzo. Erin took the other end of the couch from Mrs. Bianchi. Rolf sat bolt upright beside the couch. Vic remained standing next to Webb’s chair, arms crossed.
“Paulie?” A look of concern crossed Lorenzo’s face. “What’s Paulie got to do with anything?”
Webb acted like he hadn’t heard. He sat perfectly still, watching the other man.
Erin had learned a lot from the way Webb questioned suspects. Sometimes the best thing to say was nothing at all. Let the other guy squirm a little, worry about what you knew. With weak-willed guys, that was sometimes all you needed to get them talking. What they said would clue you in to their state of mind, which could direct the interview.
Lorenzo Bianchi wasn’t having any of it. After a minute or so, he nonchalantly picked up the sports page of the New York Times.
“So that’s it?” Nina demanded. “You’re just gonna sit there reading your paper? What the hell’s goin’ on here?”
“Spring training’s off to a good start,” Vic observed. “You like the Yankees’ chances this year?”
Lorenzo glanced at him over the top of the paper. “Maybe. I’m not sure about the starting rotation. I don’t know if Tanaka can make up for losing Pettitte. Plus, with Rivera gone, they may not be able to close.”
“Yeah, retirement’s a bitch,” Vic said.
Lorenzo sighed. “Sometimes, you just get too old for the game. Then you gotta hang up the towel, before they bench you for good.”
“You’re gonna talk baseball?” Nina said. “With the police?”
“I like baseball,” Lorenzo protested. “Bitch,” he added in an undertone.
Paulie came back into the room with a tray of coffee cups, a pitcher of cream, and a sugar bowl. Erin took a cup and added a dash of cream. The kid sat down between Erin and his mom. He was twitchy and nervous.
“Relax, Paulie,” Lorenzo said. “Nobody’s getting arrested here.”
“How you know that?” Paulie replied.
“This is a fishing trip,” Lorenzo said, folding his paper carefully. “Though I don’t know what they’re hoping to catch. You must have something better to do than harass a retired Italian gentleman, Lieutenant.”
“What line of work were you in, Mr. Bianchi?” Webb asked.
“Sanitation.”
“That why they call you ‘Sewer Pipe?’” Vic asked.
“Who’s ‘they?’” Lorenzo fired back.
“Your colleagues,” Vic answered. “In your other job.”
Lorenzo shook his head. “I honestly got no idea what you’re talkin’ about, Detective. I ran daily operations for a waste-collection service, but I been retired more than a decade.”
“Garbage pays pretty well,” Erin said, looking around the suite.
“I’m an American businessman,” he said. “Lots of people look down on garbage, ‘cause it’s smelly. But that just means they gotta pay to haul it away. The more it stinks, the more they’re willin’ to pay. There’s a lotta cash in garbage.”
“Valentine’s Day was a few days ago,” Webb said.
Lorenzo blinked. “Not sure how you got from garbage to hearts and flowers, Lieutenant. I don’t follow.”
“Maybe he’s thinking about his love life,” Paulie snickered.
“You got a girl, Paulie?” Webb asked, turning his attention to the younger Bianchi as if noticing him for the first time.
“I got so many I can hardly keep ‘em straight.”
“That’s because you hardly bother remembering the names of those tramps,” Nina said. “I tell you once, I tell you a hundred times. You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”
Erin glanced involuntarily at Rolf, who stared intently back.
“You’re pals with Rocky Nicoletti,” Webb said. He was deliberately jumping topics, trying to keep Paulie off-balance.
“What’s Rocky got to do with anything?” Paulie asked. He’d been nervous and belligerent. Now he just looked confused.
“You gave him something for Valentine’s Day,” Webb said.
“The hell I did!” Paulie snapped. “What you think I am? I just told you I got lots of girlfriends!”
“This is the twenty-first century, kid,” Vic said. “No one cares if you got a boyfriend.”
“I think you misunderstood,” Webb said. “You gave him a spare box of chocolate, to give to his girlfriend.”
“What if I did? It’s just—”
“Paulie,” Lorenzo said. His voice was quiet, but the steely undertone in it made Paulie swallow whatever he’d been about to say.
“Is there a problem, sir?” Webb asked.
“The problem is, you’re tryin’ to get my boy to admit to something,” Lorenzo said. He was angry now, and his accent was slipping back into the street accent of his younger days. “When he ain’t done nothin.’ I seen it a hundred times before. Maybe there’s a box of candy you found at some crime scene. Maybe there ain’t no candy, you just want him to admit to a connection wit’ some other guy who’s in trouble. Maybe that guy wants to save himself, he makes up a story about my boy. Point is, guys like us talk to cops, we gotta be careful. Otherwise, we take a fall for somethin’ we didn’t do. I think maybe I oughta call my lawyer.”
“No one’s being accused of anything, Mr. Bianchi,” Webb said. “I’m sorry for intruding. Thank you for the
