“Okay. I like it better that way. Let’s say he was the intended victim. Then, why?”
“Up for grabs, Zoo.” Mangiapane consulted his notepad. “No problem that anybody could uncover with his wife. They were close. She broke down when she was informed. She’s in St. John’s Hospital now, recovering.”
“Hmmm. No girlfriend?”
“Not that we can find.”
“Who’d want to shoot a reporter? Talk about killing the messenger! And a religion writer at that. Who gets mad at religion writers?”
“The people who were here for that meeting were pretty worked up, Zoo.”
Tully considered that for a moment. “Yeah, that’s right, isn’t it? Any kind of make on the perp?”
Mangiapane smiled. “Everybody went to the bathroom.”
Tully smiled, but more grimly. Either because they were afraid or did not want to become involved, lots of witnesses routinely offered unlikely excuses for seeing, hearing, and saying nothing. It was as if, at the crucial moment, the witness insisted he or she was somewhere-anywhere-else. The bathroom would do.
“The few who would talk had pretty contradictory stories. It was a man. It was a woman. He was tall. She was small. About the only points of agreement were that the perp was adult, with a long black coat that could easily conceal the weapon, and a dark hat pulled low over the face.”
Tully rubbed his chin. “Sounds like the perp came to do business. Somebody who didn’t plan on shooting wouldn’t have covered up so completely. No reason to unless you know beforehand that you’re going to off somebody.”
Mangiapane nodded agreement. “As soon as the shooting started, everybody out here on the street hit the deck. The people inside could hear the shots, but they weren’t sure right off what it was. Then within seconds everybody knew what had happened, and-pandemonium. In that time, the perp faded away. It was dark-no moon-and the streetlights here are few and far between. Besides, most of ’em weren’t working.”
“As usual,” Tully commented.
“Right. So when the dust settled, everybody out here got up except three-two wounded and one dead.”
“A make on the weapon?”
Mangiapane glanced again at his notes. “MP5-KA4.” He was impressed.
So was Tully. A nine-millimeter machine pistol, he reflected. Able to be adjusted to fire either semiautomatically, as a full automatic, or in bursts of three rounds. A very powerful weapon.
“There seemed to be some agreement,” Mangiapane said, “that the shooting was bam-bam-bam, bam-bam-bam. So he probably geared it to fire in three-round bursts. They were fully jacketed, military style bullets.”
No wonder a couple of others got it, Tully thought. Bullets like that don’t deform when they hit, so they tend to go through things-people. Probably had to buy both pistol and bullets somewhere out on the street. That might prove to be a break, out on the street where so many breaks originate. Follow the gun. Trace it, and when you find the last guy who sold it, you find the perp.
Tully verbalized his thoughts. “Probably bought from one of our gunrunners. On the street, at any rate. Manj, see if any of our guys are out there looking for whoever sold it. If they’re not on the street, get ’em looking. Get some uniforms on it. Call in some markers. This is the best lead we’ve got so far.”
“Okay, Zoo. Where you gonna be, just in case?”
“For starters, I think I’ll go down to the News. See if I can pick up something from the paper.”
Tully easily could have swung onto the Lodge and sped his return downtown. But he wanted a few minutes to himself for thinking. So he turned down the one-way Fourteenth Street. In any case, when possible he preferred traveling the streets of his city rather than the freeways. State Police patrolled the expressways quite adequately. The streets were his, and he knew them like he knew his own body.
Damn that DeVere broad! His life had been in such a comfortable rut. Alice was well and their life together very satisfying. Work, as usual, was challenging and fulfilling. Since these were the only two areas of his existence that mattered to him, all was well. Until that bitch dredged up that nonexistent affair between him and Pat Lennon.
To be honest, Pat had entered his life at a time when he was in a state of depression. Alice had been suffering from a prolonged and indeterminate illness. In effect, he had found her depression infectious. For the first time in their relationship, he’d found it painful to go home to her. Enter Pat Lennon.
Their paths had crossed in a singles bar. Not technically, but in reality each had cheated in going to that bar. Technically, neither was married. But both Tully and Lennon had “life companions.” Except that Tully’s was ill and Lennon’s had needlessly abandoned her at a critical time.
In truth, something very probably would have happened had Pat not been the morally stronger of the two. Not that she would have shied from an affair with him had there been no extenuating factors. Pat had sensed that he was committed to Alice but that he was physically hungry-not for just anyone, but the “right” woman. And she had refused to compromise his situation.
While that may have been commendable, now, thanks to DeVere, they had the name without the game.
And damn Alice too, while he was at it! Why in hell didn’t she have more faith in him? He had never been unfaithful to her. The only time he’d even come close was with Lennon. But the fact remained, he had not strayed.
Still, what if this situation were reversed? What if some gossip columnist had written something implicating Alice and someone else? He found it difficult to imagine. But, what if? If she denied it, would he believe her? Would he believe in her even without a denial?
As it happened, the situation had never arisen. To his knowledge, Alice had never been involved with anyone besides him … at least not since their relationship had begun. But … what if she had? What if, at very least, someone implied that Alice was interested in seeing someone else? What if she were seen dining … or in a car … with another man? Would Tully still trust her? Implicitly.
Tully had to smile, at least briefly. He simply couldn’t even imagine Alice two-timing him. And if someone were to suggest that she was, he would just refuse to believe it.
Then why in hell couldn’t she react to scurrilous innuendo against him in the same way? Wasn’t there something in the Bible about do unto others? Or was it, in the jargon of the streets of Detroit, do unto others, then split!
Ah, the streets of Detroit. They had their own language. You had to be savvy enough, alert enough, experienced enough to understand that language.
This guy walking up Fourteenth, the upper torso like Rambo, spindly legs can barely support him, yet a definite swagger to his walk: He’s a graduate of Jacktown-Jackson State Prison. He went in there a ninety-eight-pound weakling. He got treated like a toy. Then he started pumping iron. He was really motivated. Eventually, he could break most of his tormentors in two. Mostly, he no longer looked like a fragile boy. He was big. He was powerful. And he had developed the joint swagger.
And he’s walking very purposefully. He is definitely going somewhere. He is going to a dope house. If he leaves that house scratching his head, he hasn’t scored. He’s got to figure out where to go next to find some crack or whatever. If he leaves the house striding securely, he’s got his fix. He’s got something to do.
Tully shook the image from his mind. This wasn’t what he wanted to consider on his way downtown. Damn that DeVere broad! She had proved to be a distraction. Intolerable!
Back to Salden. Was it a random shoot? So common on the streets of so many big cities. So terribly common on Detroit streets. Because somebody wants a classy jacket, a stylish pair of shoes. A drug turf war. A case of mistaken identity. For no good goddam reason at all.