Claude Loring flashed onto the wall, sweaty in his sawed-off Levi’s jacket, striding into the entrance of the Inferno.
It began with something vague. Babe just stared, still and silent.
The photo exuded a terrific sense of cocaine tension, cocaine power, cocaine violence, all held under tight Valium control.
Cardozo could feel she was beginning to make a connection. Her face tightened and paled. She was on the brink of something.
“His eyes look so cold. He makes me feel afraid.”
“Do you know him?”
“Should I?”
“There are no shoulds about it. Maybe you’ve seen him somewhere, maybe you haven’t.”
“Seven years ago he would have been a child.”
“But you feel something.”
“Yes, I feel something, but … Vince, I’m sorry, I just can’t tell. Maybe it’s just that he looks so intense.”
“What does that remind you of, someone looks so intense?”
“It makes me think … I’d like to draw him.”
38
“THE DEFENDANT WILL RISE.”
Claude Loring rose. Babe leaned forward. She was sitting in the front row of the courtroom, next to Cardozo. Her gaze took Loring in, from the short-cropped hair to the neat regimental tie to the tailored dark suit.
Ted Morgenstern hadn’t bothered coming to the sentencing. He’d sent Ray Kane, balding and young in his Armani suit, looking restlessly at his wristwatch, as though he had a helicopter to catch three minutes ago.
Judge Francis Davenport adjusted half-moon spectacles on his nose, surveyed the almost-empty courtroom, and peered down at the defendant. “Claude Loring, you have pleaded guilty to the crime of negligent manslaughter.”
Babe’s eyes were pinned to the man at the defendants’ table.
Claude Loring’s head was bent now, his face gaunt; there was no light, no life in his eyes.
“It is the sentence of this court,” the judge said, “that you serve not more than twenty-five and not less than six years imprisonment at the New York State penitentiary at Ossining, New York.”
Loring’s head dropped.
Cardozo calculated rapidly that Loring would be out on parole in two years. He could feel hate come out on his body like sweat.
Two guards came forward and led Claude Loring away.
Ray Kane stuffed papers into a briefcase, twirled the combination lock.
Cardozo quickly shouldered his way after the prisoner. He flashed his shield at the guards. “Hey, fellas, I want to talk to Claude a minute.”
Loring turned around.
“Someone I want you to meet, Claude.”
Babe came slowly across the courtroom on her crutches. She looked searchingly at Loring. Her brow wrinkled, questioning.
Claude stood squinting at her, one finger poked through his pants pocket, scratching his balls. Something was rumbling inside him, a lot of anger coming to a boil under his skull. His voice snapped out like sandpaper. “What the fuck do you want, bitch?”
Cardozo slapped the killer hard across the jaw.
A guard stepped between them. “Easy does it, Lieutenant. He’s state property now.”
“Can I use the phone, long distance?”
“Of course,” Babe said.
They were in her livingroom. Cardozo stared a long time at the phone and he could feel her watching him, curious.
Finally he picked up the receiver and punched out a number. Three shades of white noise came over the line and then three buzzes and then the voice of Lockwood Downs from the middle of Illinois.
“Loring got six to twenty-five,” Cardozo said.
There was a silence. “What does that mean?” Downs said.
“He could be paroled after he serves a third.”
“A third of what?”
“A third of six.”
“Two years.” The voice had crumpled.
At that moment Cardozo experienced an overpowering melancholy. Lockwood and Meridee Downs would hurt. They would hurt for the rest of their lives. Every time they saw a young man in the pride of youth with all the promise of life before him, they would think, That could have been our son.
Cardozo felt pitifully small. “I’m sorry.”
He hung up.
Babe was giving him that piercingly blue look.
“Vince—why did you make that call from here?”
She was staring at him and he wasn’t sure what he was reading in that stare. Her eyes were gentle and questioning, but there was a strangeness in them too.
“I don’t understand why you wanted me to hear. And I don’t understand why you took me to that trial.”
“So you could see the defendant.”
“Why?” she said.
“Why did you think you knew him?”
“I didn’t. I thought I might like to draw him.”
“Still want to draw him?”
“Why are you testing me? You’re acting as though I’m somehow involved.”
“You are involved.” For the next twenty minutes Cardozo told Babe about the Downs killing. He could see it was shocking her and he could see too that it wasn’t connecting to anything in her head.
“This is what you said under sodium pentothal.” He put the cassette player on the coffee table between them. He pushed the start button.
When the tape was over she looked up at him, frightened, eyes begging for the sort of assurance he couldn’t give, a promise that the world wasn’t crazy, that she wasn’t.
“It’s impossible,” she said.
“Right,” Cardozo said. “It’s impossible.”
Cardozo laid two lists on the table. “She ID’ed these twelve from the photo file. She was definite. These seventeen are maybe’s—she didn’t know their names, but she dawdled, like she knew the faces. And this is her personal address book. Don’t lose it—it’s a loan.”
“So what do you want from me?” Charley Brackner asked.
“You have some other lists on that computer. Beaux Arts Tower and the Inferno. Can you pull the matches?”
Charley gave a happy little smart-ass grin, his way of saying the task was pathetically uncomplicated. “Sure. We create a directory called B DEVENS and when we get the names in we’ll tell Maisie to COMP.” His fingers began flying over the keyboard and the names began lighting up the screen.
An hour and a half later the names were on the computer and Charley typed in SEARCH: INFERNO.
The screen flashed back: SEARCHING.
Charley swiveled around in his chair and lit a Camel. “Maisie’s random access,” he told Cardozo. “Sometimes she’s lucky and hits it on the first go, sometimes she takes a few seconds.”
The screen flashed: ENTRY NOT FOUND.
“Okay, let’s try Beaux Arts.”
The screen flashed: ENTRY NOT FOUND.
“Not found, what does that mean?” Cardozo said.
“Not found means not there.”
“I know those files are in the computer,” Cardozo said.
“Did these three files have anything in common?”
“Try Jodie Downs or Downs murder.”
Charley typed *DOWNS*.
The screen flashed SEARCHING and a moment later
DOWNS, JODIE, MURDER
THIS DIRECTORY CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING SUBDIRECTORIES
AND/OR FILES
BEAUX ARTS TOWER
INFERNO FRATERNAL AND SOCIAL CLUB NINTH AVENUE
LOCKWOOD DOWNS
MERIDEE DOWNS
CLAUDE LORING
LEWIS MONSERAT
FAYE DI STASIO
“Can you match lists to the names in those files?”
“Sure.” Charley typed in the COMP order.
The screen flashed SEARCHING.
“Son of a bitch is going to do it,” Cardozo said.
“Tell you what else Maisie can do. Every time she matches a name, she can call up all files under that name and search them for new names.”
“What’s the point?”
“It’s a sieve. Eventually the net’s so fine you’ll catch everything—like B. Devens mail-ordered slippers from the same dealer in Cleveland as one of Monserat’s artists.”
“Do it.”
Two hours later Charley brought Cardozo ninety single-space accordion-folded leaves.
Cardozo looked at the quantity of print-out. His eyes had the pain and disbelief preceding sudden death. “Charley, you’re a good man. Too good.”