Shadow of a Broken Man

hands jammed into his pockets, staring after me. I liked the man; he was groping blindly, sifting through the ashes of the past because he thought it could help his wife. I was convinced those ashes weren't cold, only banked; they could still burn.

I turned at the corner and Foster blinked out of sight.

6

The Olds was big, powerful, smooth-riding. Slipping out of Manhattan through the stone umbilical of the Lincoln Tunnel, I made good time in the light weekend traffic. Within an hour I had passed through the depressing yellow air of northern New Jersey and was immersed in the flat, deadly monotony of the New Jersey Turnpike.

I was off the Turnpike by two thirty. A gas-station attendant gave me some directions and I headed northwest.

Sunny Acres was a pleasant retirement community, spacious and clean, at least on the outside. I parked in a visitor's space and approached an elderly couple who were walking hand in hand. I introduced myself and asked about Patrick O'Connell. After a few giggles, they went into conference and eventually agreed that O'Connell could probably be found shooting pool in the recreation hall. They gave me directions, and we wished each other a nice afternoon.

Inside the recreation hall, I immediately spotted O'Connell as the lion among the lambs. He was silver-haired, with the aura of a good man slightly tarnished by the residue of cynicism and roughness that being a New York City cop leaves on you like a second layer of skin. His ruddy complexion blended with the garish colors of his short- sleeved Hawaiian shirt. Doughy flesh that had once been muscle now swung loosely under his arms, but there was still plenty of strength there. He limped slightly; the sides of his shoes had been slit to make room for his bunions.

O'Connell and a few of the other men in the room turned to stare at me, but they soon turned their attention back to the game in progress. O'Connell was the star; it was obvious that he was used to the role, and enjoyed it. He took ten minutes to beat a wily-looking old man at Rotation, interspersing a variety of trick bank shots with a running stream of banter delivered in an exaggerated Irish brogue. When he got tired of the game, he turned his cue over to another man and made his way to a small self-service bar in a corner of the hall.

He found a beer in a small refrigerator in the back, then came around and sat down on one of the stools with a contented sigh. I sat down beside him. His gray eyes flicked over my face, then returned to gaze at the foaming beer can in front of him. He was too much of a New Yorker to ask what a dwarf was doing in a retirement community, sitting beside him at the bar.

'My name's Frederickson,' I said as I took out my P.B.A. courtesy card and laid it next to his elbow. 'I'm a private investigator working out of New York. I'd like to talk to you about a case you were involved in.'

O'Connell examined my card like a cop looking for evidence of forgery; finally he nodded his approval. 'I've heard of you, Frederickson.' The Irish brogue had acquired a heavy Brooklyn accent. 'Don't you have a brother on the force?'

'Garth,' I said. There was nothing the matter with O'Connell's mind. 'May I ask you some questions, Mr. O'Connell?'

'You want a beer, Frederickson?'

'Yeah. Thanks.'

'Get it yourself, if you don't mind. My goddamned feet are killing me. Bunions.'

I helped myself to a beer and returned to the bar. The beer was warm.

'Don't think too much of private cops?' O'Connell said, staring at me hard. 'Some of them have been known to interfere with the work of duly appointed police officers.'

'You check with Bardeen,' I said, invoking the name of Garth's precinct commander. 'He'll tell you I always cooperate with the police.' I cleared my throat, swallowed some warm beer. 'I'd like to talk to you about a man named Victor Rafferty.'

That struck a chord. He grunted and spun around on his stool to face me. 'What's up?'

'Frankly, I was hoping you might be able to tell me. I've been hired to investigate Rafferty's background. I know you were involved with him, at least for a few hours.'

'Craziest few hours I've ever spent in my life!' O'Connell said with feeling, his eyes coming alive,

'Those are the hours I'm interested in. I can see they stick in your mind.'

He nodded his gray head slowly. 'And that's for sure.'

'You were in Roosevelt Hospital with Rafferty. Do you know why he was taken there?'

O'Connell shrugged. 'I suppose he was sick.'

'With what?'

He seemed slightly embarrassed. 'I haven't got the slightest idea. As far as I was concerned, it was a routine bit of business. I just happened to be the closest cop to the restaurant when Rafferty had his accident. Somebody pulled me in off the street.'

'Do you remember the name of this restaurant?'

'Uh, Cakewalk. Jack's Cakewalk, I think. I'm pretty sure it was near West Thirty-fourth. Anyway, I walked in and found this guy lying on the floor, out cold.'

'Had anybody inside the restaurant seen what happened?' 'A waiter. Must have been ninety if he was a day. It was hard to understand him because he didn't have any teeth, and he'd left his bridge home that day.' O'Connell shook his head in admiration. 'Tough old son-of-a-bitch. Still working. He'll probably live forever.'

I hoped he'd made ninety-five. 'Do you remember his name?'

'No, but I do remember that he told a weird story. Didn't make a bit of sense. He kept on babbling about Rafferty throwing food.'

'Throwing food?'

'Yeah. Throwing food. I told you it didn't make sense. The ambulance boys were just loading Rafferty in when I got a call from the precinct house. The chief told me in no uncertain terms that I was to stay with Rafferty and make sure they locked him up good when we got to Roosevelt.'

'He was on a Missing Persons list, right?'

'I guess so.'

'The police don't usually go around locking up missing persons, do they?'

'No. I was curious too, but I had my orders. I got in the ambulance and went with Rafferty to the hospital. I made sure they took him up to the security ward on the fourth floor.'

'How secure was security?' I asked.

He thought about it for a moment. 'Roosevelt isn't really set up for that kind of thing. Security? I'd say maximum inside the room, minimum outside. There weren't any gates in the corridors, no bars on the windows. But the room was bolted from the outside, and the door was absolutely solid, flush to the wall on the inside.'

'Was Rafferty admitted by a particular doctor?'

'No. I think they had their orders too. They just wheeled him in and locked us both up.'

A feisty old man with a moustache and wearing red Bermuda shorts three sizes too big for him came over, cue stick in hand, and tried to entice O'Connell back to the table. O'Connell promised him a game later, and he tottered away.

'Too many old guys here,' O'Connell said quietly. 'Nice guys, but…' He let the sentence trail away.

I tried to keep his mind from wandering off. 'What were your instructions, besides keeping an eye on him?'

He removed a handkerchief from his pocket, slowly and methodically wiped up a puddle of beer. 'That was it,' he said when he'd finished. 'I was just told to keep him on ice until this guy got there to relieve me.'

'Was this man coming from Washington?'

'Yeah. They told me that.'

'Was his name Lippitt?'