“Klein,” Johnny said, “meet Detective Nick Fazio, late of the NYPD.”
I shook his hand. He shook back. Whatever Fazio had against MacClough apparently wasn’t going to be held against me.
“Look,” I said, “it’s nice that you guys go back. I’m all for reunions, but I’m here to talk to Detective Caliparri.”
“Then I guess you’re gonna have to hold a seance. Caliparri’s dead. Someone broke into his house last night and decided to give him a haircut with a shotgun.”
“Robbery?” MacClough wanted to know.
“The place was ransacked,” Fazio answered, “but the perp left a few grand in cash and jewelery untouched. So whatever he was there for, it wasn’t money. What did you want to talk to him about Mr. Klein?”
“My nephew, Zak Klein. My older brother reported him-”
“Here it is!” Fazio pulled a folder off his desk, waved it at me, stopped and read through it. He looked up and flicked his cigarette butt at MacClough’s feet. “So you’re Jeffrey Klein’s brother.”
“I have that dubious distinction,” I confessed.
“So now I understand why you’re here, sort of. What’s his excuse?”
“He’s a close family friend.”
“Really!” Fazio stood, walked by me, and got right in MacClough’s face. “Geez, and I thought it might have something to do with Hernandez, this being a missing kid and all.”
There was that name again, Hernandez. Ten years we’d known each other and the name Hernandez had only come up in relation to Mets’ baseball. Now, two days in a row, it surfaces in connection with one of MacClough’s cases. Weird. Over the past decade, I thought I’d heard every lurid detail of every big case-good and bad-involving John MacClough. Apparently, one case had slipped his mind. It hadn’t, however, slipped the minds of Jeff Klein or Nick Fazio. On the contrary, the Hernandez case seemed like a very hot topic.
“Show the man some respect, Fazio,” MacClough said coolly. “His nephew is missing and he buried his old man yesterday. You think he gives a shit about us?”
“Sorry about your father,” the detective said, finally facing me. “Look, Mr. Klein, I know the file. I’ll tell you what Caliparri probably told that big macher brother of yours; the kid split. Maybe the pressure of school got too much for him. Maybe he knocked up some girl. Maybe it’s drugs, maybe booze. Maybe it’s all of the above. In this town, the major cash crop is dysfunctional teenagers. Money fucks ‘em up. Now don’t get me wrong. We’ll keep the file open, but he’ll show of his own accord. In this town, they always do.”
I wanted to argue. I didn’t. He made sense. I hoped like hell he was right. I peeked over my shoulder at MacClough, but his expression said nothing to me.
“Thank you, Detective. I hope you don’t mind if I check in with you every few days.”
“Not at all, Mr. Klein. Sorry again about your dad.”
“Sorry about Detective Caliparri,” I said.
He was too busy lighting up to respond. I was by the door, but MacClough had yet to move. He seemed distant, preoccupied.
“Do you think they’re related?” MacClough spoke to Fazio.
“Is what related,” the detective asked rhetorically, “a dead cop and a missing college boy? You been off the job too long. They happened weeks apart. And you’re forgetting, technically the kid went missing all the way the hell upstate in Riversborough. What’s the connection?”
“Just a thought,” MacClough said, “just a thought.”
As I began pulling Fazio’s office door open, someone on the other side pushed it hard. That displeased my right knee greatly.
“Sorry!” It was Sergeant Hurley.
“For chrissakes, Hurley, what is it?” Fazio was impatient.
“Private security firm reports a 1030.”
“Call out the fucking National Guard!” Impatience turned to sarcasm. “I got a dead cop here. On a good day I don’t give a rat’s ass about a 1030. What makes today any different?”
“I think it’s kinda relevant,” Hurley sneered.
“Why? Where’d the break-in happen, at the mayor’s residence?”
“No Detective Fazio, it happened at 5 Lovesong Lane. That’s Mr.-”
I cut her off. “That’s my brother’s house!”
Either Zak’s room had been ripped apart by someone who had a grudge against electronic equipment and wall-board or it had been visited by the world’s most discerning tornado. It even looked worse than most teenagers’ rooms. The rest of Jeffrey’s Victorian nirvana up there overlooking the Hudson had remained untouched.
Before we went in, MacClough said just this: “You know nothing.”
That was a pretty accurate assessment, I thought. But I knew what he meant. Insurance investigators play this game with police all the time. I was to keep private anything I might notice. Fazio and his uniformed minions were to be frozen out, at least for the time being. It was especially easy to play the game that day, for, as I kept reminding the local constabulary: I didn’t live there. I didn’t know where things went. I didn’t know what was missing. It got so tedious, I wanted to run to the nearest print shop and have cards made that read: “My brother will be here shortly. Ask him!”
MacClough had kept his mouth shut until Fazio, frustrated with my inconvenient lack of knowledge and my ban on his smoking in Jeffrey’s house, dismissed us: “You can go.”
“Still think there’s no connection?” MacClough wondered aloud.
“What I think is police business and you ain’t police, not anymore.”
“Same M.O. as Caliparri minus the body?” MacClough guessed.
“Same answer as before. Only now, I’m ordering you to leave.”
When John sensed that I was going to argue, he pulled me out of the house by the arm. He may have been on bad terms with Fazio, but apparently it was important to maintain some measure of goodwill with the detective.
“Where we going?” I asked as we walked to his old Thunderbird.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“And me?”
“You’re going to college.”
Long Sleeves
The cab fare back to Sound Hill was roughly equivalent to one quarter of the advance to my first book. God knows, I wrote the damned thing in less time than it took to get home. I stopped by the Scupper to pass on a few instructions from MacClough to his brother Billy and to wash the day down with a pint. One pint turned into two and two into three. Billy gave me a lift after I helped him close the place.
Procrastination time was over once I’d showered and shaved. I went to my writing desk and dug out Larry Feld’s business card. I flipped the card over to where he’d written down his home number. I punched in the numbers and half prayed to get his answering machine.
Larry Feld was sort of a lawyer from the dark side of the force. Stated politely, Larry was an attorney who represented outcasts, societal pariahs, and miscreants. In fact, he was a Mafia lawyer who defended the occasional serial rapist or pedophile. But Larry Feld was also a guy who’d grown up on my block, a guy who used to invite me over for Passover seder. He had gotten me my first jobs as an investigator and always made sure to feed me enough work to pay the bills. Problem with Larry Feld was, he never did anything out of the goodness of his heart. It was a toss-up as to whether he just didn’t understand goodness or had no heart. The jury was still out. What Larry did understand was the system and what he did have was connections. He was not unlike my brother Jeffrey in those respects. If you needed information, he could get it. The bill, however, was almost always too steep.
“What is it?” He was home.
“It’s Dylan, Larry.”
“Sorry about your dad.”
“How the fuck did you-”
“One hears things. I sent a basket,” he said. “Your dad always hated my guts. At least he wasn’t a phony about it and he treated my folks with respect.”