"Artie, you better come over here," Genero said. "The Burgundy on Culver and Sixth."
"What is it you found in hellip;?"
But Genero had already hung up.
Brown slipped into his shoulder holster.
Hawes clipped his holster to his belt.
Parker picked up the telephone receiver.
"Peaches Muldoon, here I come," he said.
5:40 P.M. on Halloween night, the streets dark for almost an hour now, the city off daylight savings time since the twenty-sixth of the month. All the little monsters and goblins and devils and bats out in force, carrying their shopping bags full of candy from door to door, yelling "Trick or Treat!" and praying no one would give them a treat with a double-edged razor blade in it.
Brown looked at his watch.
Along about now, his wife, Caroline, would be taking Connie around. His eight-year-old daughter had previewed her costume for him last night. She'd looked like the most angelic witch he'd ever seen in his life. All next week, there'd be sweets to eat. The only people who profited from Halloween were the candymakers and the dentists. Brown was in the wrong profession.
He had chosen to walk to the Burgundy Restaurant on Culver and Sixth. It wasn't too far from the station house, and a cop mdash;if Genero could be considered one mdash;was already on the scene.
The night was balmy.
God, what an October this had been.
Leaves still on the trees in the park, dazzling yellows and reds and oranges and browns, daytime skies a piercing blue, nighttime skies pitch-black and sprinkled with stars. In a city where itchy citizens took off their overcoats far too early each spring, it now seemed proper and fitting that there was no need to put them on again quite yet. He walked swiftly toward Culver, turning to glance at E.T. hurrying by with Frankenstein's monster on one side and Dracula on the other. Smiling, he turned the corner onto Culver and began walking toward Sixth.
Genero was waiting on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.
He looked pale.
"What is it?" Brown asked.
"Come on back," Genero said. "I didn't touch it."
"Touch what?" Brown asked. But Genero was already walking up the alleyway on the right-hand side of the restaurant.
Garbage cans flanked either side of the restaurant's back door, illuminated by an overhead flood light.
"That one," Genero said.
Brown lifted the lid on the can Genero was pointing to.
The bloody upper torso of a human body was stuffed into the can, on top of a green plastic garbage bag.
The torso had been severed at the waist from the rest of the body.
The torso had no arms.
And no head.
"Why does this always happen to me?" Genero asked God.
CHAPTER 2
"I once found a hand in an airlines bag," Genero said.
"No shit?" Monoghan asked without interest.
Monoghan was a Homicide cop. He usually worked in tandem with his partner Monroe, but there had been two homicides in the Eight-Seven tonight, a few blocks apart from each other, and Monoghan was here behind the restaurant on Culver and Sixth, and Monroe was over at the liquor store on Culver and Ninth. It was a shame; Monoghan without Monroe was like a bagel without lox.
"Cut off at the wrist," Genero said. "I almost puked."
"Yeah, a person could puke, all right," Monoghan said.
He was looking down into the garbage can where the bloody torso still rested on the green plastic bag.
"Nothing but a piece of fresh meat here," he said to Brown.
Brown had a pained look in his eyes. He merely nodded.
"M.E. on the way?" Monoghan asked.
"Called him ten minutes ago."
"You won't need an ambulance for this one," Monoghan said. "All you'll need is a shopping bag."
He laughed at his own little witticism.
He sorely missed Monroe.
"Looks like a man, don't it?" he said. "I mean, no knockers, all that hair on the chest."
"This hand I found," Genero said, "it was a man's, too. A great big hand. I nearly puked."
There were several uniformed cops in the alley now, and a couple of technicians sniffing around the back door of the restaurant, and a plainclothes lady cop from Photo taking her Polaroids. Crime Scene signs already up, even though thiswasn't a crime scene in the strictest sense of the word, in that the crime had almost certainly taken place elsewhere. All they had here was the detritus of a crime, a piece of fresh meat mdash;as Monoghan had called it mdash;lying in a garbage can, the partial remains of what had once been a human being. That and whatever clues may have been left by the person who'd transported the torso to this particular spot.
"It's amazing the number of dismembered stiffs you get in this city," Monoghan said.