"Give me a crime stopper."
"Huh?"
"You know, a Dick Tracy crime stopper. Something I can use in the investigation."
"Okay. If you want to take notes, it's fine. You ready?" Eichord grunted he was. "Don't step on your dick. That's a crime stopper!"
"Hell. There's no chance of that."
On the way back in, Leech told him about the special Intel unit. The functions had ranged from dignitary protection to maintaining an active watch file on the organized-crime dudes. Sometimes it worked as an independent unit. At other times it coordinated with state, county, or federal agencies, task forces like McTuff, DEA; it was big with the narcs. Their byword was informants. IRS, Leech called it: Informants, Research, and Surveillance.
Eichord knew all about informants. They became friends. Even though you never wanted to "go to bed" with them figuratively or any other way, you ended up doing it. There was a strong, undeniable bonding pattern that develops over the years between a cop and a snitch. Even the worst degenerate junkie is a human being just like you are. And if that person gives you important information and helps you make cases of any consequence, it is difficult not to look for their redeeming qualities.
They talked about it and Leech said, "I've got people I've been close to for nine, ten, eleven years. They don't owe me and I certainly don't owe them but they still give me good shit. Maybe nine, ten years back they got jammed up some way. Arrested, waiting trial, or trying to get clear of something, and that was how we got hold originally, but now there's nothing hanging over them and still they give. Same with you?"
"Yeah. Absolutely. And they do become friends."
"Right. Somebody helps you and it's just the nature of the relationship. If you're human, pretty soon you feel very friendly for them. It's weird."
"Love is strange."
"I remember that one, too. Mickey and Sylvia?"
"Chee-rist. You're even older than you look."
"I'm bigger than I look, too. So watch it, pal."
"You can't be bigger than you look, Godzilla. You look big enough to hunt geese with a rake." That broke him up.
"That's the second time I heard that one," he said, shaking his head.
"Only the second time?"
"Yeah. The first time I was nine years old."
Every crime scene Eichord remembered you'd get hit with a little shot from the sudden-death thing. It didn't matter how many times you saw it, even the most crusty, hardened ME felt something at the bad ones, some sense of waste, some nicker of remorse at the loss, or perhaps it would come on them slowly, layering its cumulative effect in a tiredness, manifesting itself in world-weary humor or black, low comedy. Anything to get you through it.
Eichord had seen the bad ones. The kids. The pets. The old folks. Whole families. Mass graves. Torture scenes that made paintings of hell look like Wyeth landscapes. There were some he'd never completely shake loose from.
Rolling through the night traffic they passed a place where the highway had been blasted through some boulders and on a rock about the size of Providence, Rhode Island, some moron had left a bit of late-twentieth-century wit and wisdom. There across the huge boulder, fading in the sunny passage of time, crudely spray-painted in shaky letters is the legend,
DEBBIE SUX
The lost generation. The beat generation. The megeneration. The hightech generation. And now, the Debbie Sux generation. Fucking words to live by.
Some future archeologists from the planet Garbanza X will have a time trying to decode some of our more primitive hieroglyphics. Jack Eichord thought to himself that he'd like to be there when the Exalted Chief Expositor of the Eleusinian Mysteries is called in to translate the profound meaning of "Debbie Sux."
John-boy was not so easy. He didn't drive a bright-yellow Volkswagen with vanity plates reading SOLDIER. But professional or not, Johnny Picciotti would go down like a stone. Easy and greasy.
He lived in an apartment hotel — didn't any of these assholes own a fucking home? — But, no problem. Spain used a man he'd farmed a couple of jobs out to in the past. Told him to be in front of the place at a certain time. To wait. A woman would tell him when he could go up.
Spain was across the street in another vehicle watching his worker as he talked to Greta about some mythical duties she would be fulfilling in the future, but both watching his watcher and waiting for Picciotti, whom he'd nailed to a fairly regular schedule. Johnny usually left for Blue Kriegal's place about a quarter to ten every morning. He was on time this morning.
"We'll be bringing in about five thousand boxes at a time. They'll be flats, and what you'll do is hire a couple of kids to put these together and stack them up when we start . . . Uh, say listen, do me a favor, I've got to go meet someone. See that man in the blue car there?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Do me a favor." Spain pulled a money clip out of his pocket and peeled off a twenty. "Walk over there and tap on his window and just say, Go on up. He'll know what you mean."
"Go on up?"
"Right. It'll save me a couple minutes 'cause he always wants to talk to me and I just don't have the time to waste and, you know, I just don't like to be rude but he's one of those guys who never shuts up." They both smiled.
She said, "Sure. Just say, go on up. I don't need to tell him anything else?"
"No." He put the twenty-dollar bill in her hand. "Then just walk back across the street and ..." He turned around. "See that cab-stand over there?" She nodded. "Just take a cab on back to the office." He had to check himself from telling her to keep the change. He knew she would account for the fare the next time he saw her and probably agonize over what percent tip to give the driver. He thanked her and she got out and started across the street as he pulled away from the curb.
He drove around the block. Waited a sixty-second count. Slowly eased up into a parking area next to a business down the block from the cabstand. He waited until he saw the woman walking across the street, going over to the first taxi. Driver gets out. Opens a door. She gets in. They seem to sit there forever. Finally the cab pulls out. Spain starts the engine, pulls his car up in front of the apartment hotel. Goes straight on in and takes the elevator up to Picciotti's floor. The door is unlocked, which is what he has just paid a man he's never allowed to see him over a thousand dollars for.
Spain goes in and starts brewing coffee, making himself right at home. He's locked the door. Now all he has to do is settle down, relax and wait for Mr. Picciotti to return home. The maid's laundry cart from the fourth floor has mysteriously disappeared. It's in Picciotti's bedroom. Johnny won't be leaving here on his feet, I'm afraid, Spain thinks with a smile.
It is three-thirty in the afternoon when Spain, relaxed, reading on Johnny's satin bedspread, hears the key in the door and he quickly gets to his feet and waits behind the bedroom door. No noise for a minute, then a blaring television set is turned on and Spain reaches for his .25 automatic and eases into the room.
"Don't," he says, pointing at Johnny Soldier's surprised face. "Don't even think about it, Johnny. If this was a hit you'd already be greased, right?"
"Wha' the fuck ya wan'?"
"Attaboy," Spain says, pulling a piece out of the man's holster. He can barely get it loose. "Some fast-draw rig you got there. A PPK." Spain laughs. "What are you, James fucking Bond?"
"Who d' fuck are ya?"
"This is who I am, asshole." He kneecaps him and Picciotti drops to the carpet in pain.
"You're dead, you piece a' shit," Picciotti grunts.
"Yes, eventually we all end up that way. Well," He goes over and snicks cuffs on the man, but Johnny pulls away before Spain can get them both on properly so he kicks Johnny in the head, catching him with a pointed toe in the side of the neck, and finishes getting the cuffs on.
"How d'ya like working for Blue, Johnny? Good job, is it?" He kicks the man again, in the face this time, then goes into the bathroom and gets a couple of hand towels and a washcloth for a gag.
"You're going to tell me all about Blue and the boys. All about the operation, you wop peckerhead, but first we'll take a little ride. Okay?" He wheels the maid's cart in. Johnny is bleeding out of his mouth and Spain soaks one of the towels in it and puts the towel in a plastic bag.
After Picciotti is off-loaded, his next chore is to take Johnny's car keys and unlock the man's vehicle and wipe the bloody towel across the headrest. Just a bit of theater. This done — they leave.