Frank and Jose took a table at the back along the wall. At a table toward the front, an old man sat by himself, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper.
“This is a clean and pleasant cafe,” Frank said. “It is well lighted.”
Jose squinted at Frank. “You been reading Hemingway again?”
Frank smiled. “Can’t help myself.” He watched the old man get up and take his cup to the front for a refill. “You know, don’t you, how IAD’s going to go after R.C.?”
Jose nodded. “But R.C.’s a man with faith in the system.”
“Let’s hope he’s not disappointed.”
Muhammad called their numbers. Frank added a Diet Coke to his tray, Jose picked out a cranberry juice. For several minutes they ate in silence, concentrating on keeping their overstuffed sandwiches together.
“I’m full.” Jose put down the last of his sandwich and wrung out a paper napkin. He wadded the napkin and dropped it on the table. “R.C.,” he began experimentally, “you don’t think there’s a chance IAD can tag him with something? Anything? I mean, Emerson needs a scapegoat bad.”
Frank shrugged. “I think there’s always a chance. But do I think there’s any probability?” He shook his head, answering his own question. “Slim and none. R.C.’s too meticulous.”
“Yeah.” Jose nodded.
“So?”
“So maybe we ought to talk to Milt some more.” After a second thought, Jose finished off his sandwich.
The two men locked eyes.
“IAD investigation’s under way,” Frank cautioned. “Milt’s a material witness.”
“Unh-hunh.”
“We go talking to Milt, that could bring down a load of shit.”
“Unh-hunh,” Jose agreed. “Sure could.”
First the sleek sound of precision-milled metal turning. Then light breaking the darkness, framing a man in a doorway. The figure flicked a wall switch. Nothing. A muttered curse. The man closed the door behind him and made his way through the dark. A table lamp suddenly snapped on. The light caught Milton in the middle of the living room, keys still in his right hand.
“Evening, Milt,” Frank said.
“Hi, Milt,” Jose chimed in.
“What the fuck?”
Frank motioned to the sofa. “Why don’t you sit down, Milt? We’d like to talk.”
Surprise kept Milton rooted in the middle of the room.
“Renfro Calkins,” Jose rumbled. “Frank and I think a good man’s being railroaded to save Emerson’s ass.”
“So? So why the fuck does that give you the right to bust in here?”
“Sit down, Milt,” Frank said pleasantly.
Milton paused, as though weighing what to do.
“Sit down, Milt,” Frank repeated, this time not so pleasantly.
Milton took a seat on the sofa, both feet on the floor, hands guarding his crotch, fingers interlaced.
“We’d like to understand better how you came to close the Gentry case. You had to rely on this snitch.”
“Yeah.”
“The snitch told you that Zelmer Austin’s woman said that Austin did Gentry.”
“Right.”
“The snitch have a name, Milt?”
Milton mumbled something.
“I didn’t hear you,” Frank said.
“Cookie.”
“He have a last name?”
“Yeah, but he wouldn’t give it to me. Real hard on that. Like he was scared. And look, Frank, Jose, the guy knew the hold-out details. He knew stuff he couldn’t a read in the papers or see on the tube… how many times Gentry was shot, what time it was, no money taken.”
“You find him, Milt?” Jose asked. “Or did he find you?”
Milton took a deep breath of resignation. “He called me. We met.”
He looked at Frank and Jose, pleading with his eyes. “Emerson and the chief put the squeeze on me. I didn’t want to close the case on the snitch alone. But before I could say anything, they were out with a press release saying we’d found the killer.”
“You didn’t say anything to Emerson?” Jose asked. “Like hold up on the release?”
Milton’s face clouded. “I…” He began, then stopped.
His chin dropped a fraction, his shoulders sagged. “Emerson called me in,” Milton whispered hoarsely. “Asked me how I was doing. I told him we had good poop from the snitch… about how the guy knew the hold-out details. Emerson damn near danced around that desk of his. I told him I wanted more before signing off on the Three-oh- four-point-one. But he waved me off. Said he’d already told the chief, the chief had already called the mayor.”
“Essentially, Emerson told you to shut it down.” Frank said.
Milton looked at Frank, then at the ground. “Not exactly… not so many words… but I knew what it was he wanted.”
Frank looked at Jose, who was staring at his shoes with the embarrassed expression of a man who’d stumbled on another man’s private weakness.
We’ve all been there, Frank wanted to tell Milton. Maybe we didn’t make your mistake. But we know what it was like… how close we came.
The three men sat silently, all aware of what had happened, none wanting to say any more about it.
Jose started the car and checked the rearview. “You’ve had a hot day,” he told Frank. “Gave your blood pressure a workout.”
Frank slumped in the passenger seat. His anger gone, in its place a debilitating fatigue.
“Emerson really got to him,” Jose said, pulling out into the evening traffic.
“One thing about Cookie what’s-his-name…”
Jose nodded. “About getting the story from Austin’s woman?”
“Funny that Austin would tell her the hold-out details.”
“Ha-ha?”
“No,” Frank said, gazing at the headlights of the oncoming cars. “Not ha-ha funny.”
Jose was quiet for a block or two. “You think this is just a case of Emerson covering his ass?”
Frank looked at him. “Or?”
“Or something else?”
You got it made,” Frank said.
Monty sat on a nearby chair, giving Frank the look that said he wanted dinner, not conversation.
Frank mixed a half-cup of shredded chicken with some pureed pumpkin and banana, and put the result in a bowl by Monty’s door. The big gray cat pondered whether to make the effort, then leaped, achieving a cushioned four-point landing on the floor. He sent a cool glance to Frank, then began working on his dinner.
Frank turned to the refrigerator. He foraged listlessly through the freezer compartment. The sausage sandwich from lunch was still with him, dulling his appetite. Nothing in the emergency cache of Lean Cuisine appealed. Two beers would have worked. But you didn’t drink dinner. You ate at the end of a day, even a day as shitty as this one.
Groping at the back of the freezer, he found a plastic container. He brushed the frost off and held it to the light. It came to him-the last of a batch of his father’s chili.
He bounced the container in his palm. Nothing else came to mind. “What the hell,” he muttered, and started the microwave.
Monty glanced up, then nosed back into his dinner.
Frank watched the microwave timer on its countdown. A restless pulse hit him.
Call Kate?
He stopped his hand halfway to the phone.
