City of Woe Read online

  Tizzie smiled back. “C’mon, this is too good to be true.”

  It was, but not completely.

  FOUR

  The NYPD stormed the diner and came up empty. When Tizzie, Mallory, and Gunner elbowed their way up to the booth where the waitress said he had been, all that was left was a crumpled up wad of paper napkins, three dollars and a half empty cup of coffee, black.

  Mallory took three singles from his wallet, handed them to the waitress. “We’re going to keep those for evidence, you take these,” he said. She nodded and walked over to the counter, away from all the cops.

  Still wearing the plastic gloves, Mallory picked up the money. Underneath them was one index card, lined side up. Nothing was written on those lines, but the card had already said enough.

  Mallory sneered. “Just in case we weren’t sure.” He glanced at Tizzie. “We need a description from her.”

  Tizzie smirked, took another detective’s notepad. “Regular guy. Get this — regular eyes, regular face, average height and weight. She didn’t see his pants. The only help she could offer was that he kept the hood of his Yankee sweatshirt up so she didn’t really see his hair. He can ditch the hoodie in about ten seconds.”

  Gunner frowned. “So we get nothing out of this.”

  Mallory had picked up the card. “I wouldn’t say that.” He held the back of the card up for all to see. Three stick figures had been drawn in black ink: a thick one, then another with what looked like aviator shades, then one with a thick mustache — Gunner, Mallory, Tizzie. Below the middle figure a Roman numeral was printed: IX. The artist had also drawn crude bull’s eyes over the first and third figures. They were in dark red. Blood red.

  With his free hand, Mallory shook out the pile of crumpled napkins. A small, bloody pinky landed on the table.

  FIVE

  The bloody bull’s eyes over two of their own ignited the fury of the NYPD. Sweeps of the area were doubled, all local cabs, cars, and buses were pulled over and searched, and trains became crowded with uniforms searching for any “regular looking” guys in hoodies or wearing Yankees gear. Anyone even remotely fitting the description was hauled in for questioning. The local precincts were quickly flooded with vague suspects.

  And it all came to nothing.

  Sixty cops questioning suspect after suspect came up with legitimate alibis, witnesses testifying to whereabouts, and other proof. The enormous effort proved fruitless and infuriating for most of the squad. Mallory and Gunner, however, left that exercise in futility for Tizzie to oversee, and pursued Gunner’s initial hunch: Madison Square Garden. They were in the lobby, cleared to investigate, passing huge glass encased posters of Billy Joel, Ace Frehley, Walt Frazier, and the circus.

  “Here he comes, ladies and gents, The Man Without a Bull’s Eye on Him.” Gunner had been breaking Mallory’s stones on the issue all morning.

  “I guess I don’t rate.”

  “Clearly only we dangerous warriors merit such attention.”

  “Tizzie’s a warrior now?”

  “I’m writing that off to the suspect’s deranged need for symmetry.”

  Mallory grunted a laugh. “And the Roman numeral nine?”

  “Also a clear signal; I’m a classic, almost perfect; a nine out of ten.”

  “What, you don’t rate a ten?”

  “That’s still reserved for Bo Derek. Girl aged well, baby.”

  They entered the cavernous performance space, walked past the seating area, toward the stage. Actually Mallory walked, Gunner practically bounced. “Sorry, pal, but do you realize whose gear that is? And we’re gonna get to walk right up to it. Sometimes having a gold shield is just fucking cool.”

  “I always felt there was something, I don’t know, regal about this place,” Mallory offered. “Lotta memories here.”

  “Classic Knicks games, Rangers, Ali/Frazier, when we were kids,” Gunner was buzzing as they walked up the orchestra section, just a few yards from the stage now. “And the shows! Mal, I saw Dylan here in ’78! And ’86 with Tom Petty! And I saw Yes! Stood right over there for Led fucking Zeppelin! And these guys!

  “Yeah,” Mallory found himself grinning. “Gets you going doesn’t it?”

  “Better memories than any of the girls I ever been with. Shows don’t wanna talk in the morning.”

  Mallory laughed. “The Who? They just about saved my life. Quadrophenia? I wore out three copies of that album,” Mallory’s smile widened. “Then I finally got to see them perform it, me and Ross, after all those years, after he got sober, we came here and saw them do the whole album, right up there. Perfect night.”

  Gunner spread his arms. “This place is magic.”

  Mallory forced those thoughts aside. “Unfortunately, that’s not why we’re here.”

  “Party pooper.”

  He and Gunner moved toward the mostly dismantled stage, observing the various roadies, security people, and clean-up crew. They focused on the Teamsters, sizing up which one might give them a straight answer, trying hard not to relapse into fanboy stupid while watching them pack the remaining equipment into crates bearing The Who’s logo.

  At least that was what Mallory was doing. Gunner was scrutinizing the floor of the stage area. Mallory chuckled. “What, you looking for Pete Townshend guitar pics?”

  “And I’ll pick’em up too, even with my shield hanging out. Man’s gotta have priorities.” Gunner checked his watch, sighed. “Speaking of which, we best get this moving or Callabuffo is gonna be denied some serious civil service.”

  “Pig.”

  “Can’t help myself. I’m sworn to erect and service.”

  “C’s or D’s?”

  Gunner spotted something, bent down picked it up. Plastic, but not a guitar pic. “Gotta be D’s, maybe even double D’s. Thirty-eights at least.”

  “Impressive. Most impressive. Maybe we get lucky, free ourselves up by noon. We do, you’re buying us clams before sneaking off on your nostalgia trip.” Mallory eyed a guy across the stage who seemed to be the crew chief.

  “Hey, she held up pretty good.” Translation: she still had all her limbs. Gunner was easy to please.

  The crew chief was a short, hard-muscled gristle of a man. He eyed them with suspicion. “Whattayou, from downtown? Get outta my face. My guys’ dues are paid in full. Comes right outta their paychecks, first thing.”

  Mallory held up his badge. “Relax. We’re not here about your guys. But we need your help.”

  That stopped him in his tracks. “This I gotta hear. How we gonna help youse?”

  “We’re tracking any lead on this kid from last night’s concert—”

  “Can’t help ya. My guys get here right before the show ends and start working. We got no time for groupies.”

  “It’s not about a groupie. This is a guy—”

  “Hey, my guys don’t swing that way.”

  Mallory lifted his hands, palm up. “Are you going to let me get a word in edgewise, or am I going to have to break balls like you keep assuming?”

  Crew Chief shut his mouth, nodded for Mallory to continue.

  “Did anything odd happen at the end of the show last night?”

  “No!” Crew Chief said it so fast he even seemed to annoy himself. “You know what? Hold on a minute.” He searched his guys then called out, “Rusty! C’mere!”

  Rusty c’mered. He might have had red hair once, but most of it had moved on, and the few stragglers left were white.

  “What you need, Cap?”

  “Tell these guys your Daltrey story.”

  Rusty grinned a perfect denture grin. Teamsters apparently had good dental plans. “Daltrey and Pete, they’re finishing up the show with ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again,’ right? So Townshend’s windmilling his arms like all get out, and Daltrey’s swinging that mike chord like everyone paid to see’em do. And he pulls that chord back in, catches the mike to finish the song, right? And all of a sudden, this bottle comes hurtling down, whacking his forearm. Boom! Haven’t s
een that shit happen in 25 years. And it hurt, you could tell. But Daltrey’s one tough old bastard. He storms over, swipes up the bottle, and marches back, inviting the thrower on-stage, right? He even shouts into the mike that he’ll shove it up the guy’s ass! And here’s the kicker — it ain’t no beer bottle, no liquor bottle, none of that. It was a bottle of Diet Coke! Die-it Coke! Man, if that ain’t a sign a’the times.”

  “Any idea where it came from?”

  “Sure.”

  Mallory waited.

  Rusty shrugged. “Some asshole in the first mezzanine is my best guess. Looked like that was where it came from, right up there.” Rusty pointed stage right, and up about midway.

  “And you would know because…?”

  “Because I was watching Pete and Daltrey from right over there.” Now Rusty pointed stage left behind where amps would have been during the show.

  “But if you were watching Townshend and Daltrey, how did you see the bottle get thrown?”

  “I didn’t see who thrown it. I just saw a flicker come outta the dark, there, that’s what caught my eye. ‘Fore I knew what I was seeing, it hit Daltrey. Then everyone was watching it bounce across the stage. Damn thing didn’t even break. And it was more’n half full too. Who fans can’t even hold their soda nowadays!”

  The detective looked up at the mezzanine seats. None of them confessed. He swung a glance over to Gunner, who was counting a palmful of pics he had just gleefully snatched from a pile of swept debris. “Thank you, Rusty. We may need you down the line, to make a formal statement.”

  Rusty paled, looked at Crew Chief. The Crew Chief patted his shoulder. “He means you might get to tell this story again, to other cops, maybe even in court. Get paid for not working. Just like you been getting paid all shift for endlessly telling this story instead of humping them crates like you’re supposed to.”

  Rusty looked shaken for a moment, then grinned his perfect grin again. “I’m on it, Cap.” And he was.

  Crew Chief handed Mallory his card. “You need that statement, you call me, understand? Rusty would think he was being arrested. You call me, I’ll make sure he does the right thing.”

  “Thank you.”

  Crew Chief hesitated, then changed his tone. “I gotta ask here, detectives, what’s this got to do with anything? Some asshole kid threw something on stage. Daltrey’s fine. Where’s the crime?”

  “We believe the kid who threw that bottle might be the same guy who wound up murdered after the show.”

  “Like maybe he pissed somebody off, and they followed him?”

  “See? Nothing gets past you guys.”

  Crew Chief looked out at the empty seats. “Shit, that’s a lotta potential suspects.”

  Mallory pulled out the victim’s ticket, looking from it to the area Rusty had indicted. “Yeah, but your man just narrowed it down a bit for me.”

  SIX

  A Sterns Security guard in a cheap, ill-fitting jacket with a dull logo patch stitched over its breast pocket led Mallory and Gunner up to section 126. Mallory scanned the letters on the sides of the aisle, and the floor alongside, searching for row G. Gunner followed behind, happily windmilling his beefy arm, index finger and thumb squeezing one of the guitar pics he’d recovered from the stage.

  The guard glanced at him dismissively.

  “Townshend’s pics man. Want one?” Gunner offered.

  “Townshend?”

  “From The Who, kid. C’mon, you hearda The Who, a rockin’ city kid like you?”

  The guard took it, studying Gunner’s rock artifact with a calculating intensity. “Into Lil Wayne, not those old dudes. But I could get a good couple of bucks for this on eBay.”

  Gunner swiped the guard’s hand, snatching the pic back. “eBay my ass! This is sacred.”

  “It’s just a bit of plastic, dude, that’s all.” The guard shook his head, walked off.

  Gunner stared after him. “Kid don’t know what he had in his hand.”

  Mallory chuckled. “He’s what, 20? How’s he going to appreciate The Who?”

  “If you have half a brain, if you have a soul, you just know.”

  “Not how it works. Their souls belong to Lil Wayne, not some rock star.”

  Gunner sneered, “Lil Wayne. My dick is taller than that little ex-con.”

  “Before or after Viagra?”

  “No way. This is all natural penis right here.”

  Mallory snorted, searching for the seat indicated on the late Willie’s ticket: row G, seat 14. He found it, sat, looked down. It was two sections over, so the person sitting there would spend the show looking down and slightly to the left. He stood up, pretending to throw something toward the stage. About 35, 40 yards. Most adults could toss it that far, he decided, sitting back down.

  Gunner sat two seats over. “The kid definitely could have reached from here.”

  “He’d need amazing aim.”

  “He just wanted it to hit the stage, maybe spray the audience,” Gunner said. “By his own assholian logic, he was trying to be part of the show. Hitting Daltrey was an accident.”

  “Somebody disagreed with that interpretation.”

  “Violently.”

  “So, pardon the pun but, who?”

  Gunner waved an arm to indicate all the seats below them. “Not these people. None a them woulda seen him throw it.”

  “Agreed.”

  Both men stood up, turned, looked behind them, considering various angles. Mallory spoke first. “We can count out anyone from the left — facing the stage — after about three seats over. They would have been looking toward the stage on an angle that would keep Willie out of their line of sight. But—”

  Gunner followed, sweeping an arm to indicate an area behind and to the right of the victim’s seat. “Anywhere here, you’re looking down at the stage, somebody throwing something gets right in your way. Can’t help but notice.”

  “But how far back?” Mallory climbed over the victim’s seat to row H seat 12. “This would be right in the line of sight.” He moved again, to Row I, seat 10. “Here as well.” Then to Row J, moving to seats 12, 10 and 8. He nodded, climbed further. Row K. Row L. Row M. The last one seemed a bit shaky, so he stopped. “But from here on it becomes a matter of height, angle, focus. Less likely.”

  Gunner nodded. “I’d take it two rows further, just to be sure. And from, say, three seats to the left of this Willie kid’s position to, what, five or six seats to the right? That oughta do it.”

  “Great.”

  “Now we just gotta find the people who sat in these seats,” Gunner nodded. “On the off chance that one of them decided to kill this mook for throwing a bottle at The Who.”

  “Nice work, Columbo.”

  “Hey, that’s solid deductive reasoning right there. None of your Kolchak the Night Stalker shit.”

  Mallory smirked. “The classic original with rumpled suit and goofy hat, or that crappy version that was on for about a minute, the one with the GQ kid and the fine black girl?”

  “Classic all the way. I’ll go one better; you’re the two great Night Stalker TV movies, not the campy series. How’s that for showing the love?”

  “Thanks for the support.”

  “Now all we gotta do is find, what, close to 100 suspects, including everyone in Willie’s row?”

  Mallory nodded. “In a city of eight million.”

  “I’d say outta the whole tri-state area.”

  “Even better.”

  “Slam dunk. We are some detecting motherfuckers.”

  “This case is almost closed, huh?”

  Gunner swung another windmill arm. “Thankyew! Good night!”

  SEVEN

  Detective “Tizzie” Dunn called Mallory’s cell phone, confirming the victim was, in fact, William Hill, of apartment 3-E, 923 Third Avenue at 92nd Street, Bayridge, Brooklyn. As the de facto primary, Tizzie offered to notify the parents, but Mallory felt he needed to make this first home contact himself. He and Gunner fought t
hrough typically dense Manhattan traffic all the way to Brooklyn to break the news to William Hill’s family in person.

  Mallory surveyed the dim but clean lobby. “A walk-up.”

  Gunner tossed an empty, extra large paper coffee cup into a nearby garbage can, then groaned. “I don’t think my bladder can handle stairs right now.”

  “No other way.”

  Gunner mumbled curses. Like the lobby, the stone stairwell was clean but worn. Fifty years ago, this place was impressive, but now it looked tired, the years blackening crevices beyond a mop’s reach, the sheen scrubbed off the walls, overuse dulling the brass door fixtures and mailbox grill.

  On the second floor, Gunner stopped. He touched Mallory’s elbow slightly, cocking an ear to listen.

  The screaming came from 2-B, to their left.

  Male voice. Young. “I’m the man of the house now! You do as I say!’

  Female. Older. “Stay away from me! I’ll call the cops.”

  Gunner was at the door before Mallory could protest. He reluctantly followed, staying two steps back and to Gunner’s left. The bigger detective banged the door melodramatically. “POLICE! OPEN UP!”

  Silence, then the locks tumbled, and an awed 13-year-old boy opened the door, slowly. “She… didn’t even… dial…”

  Gunner used his advancing bulk to brush the kid back without touching him. With his best menacing glower, he locked eyes with the kid. “Moms don’t have to dial. One thought and we’re here.”

  Mallory, biting his lip to keep from laughing, leaned in the doorway to watch the show. Gunner raised his badge to the kid, more thoroughly to the mother, a 40ish woman whose face was beginning to display the worry lines her son was clearly etching. Mallory caught Gunner’s eye lingering, just a bit lower. Even through the loose gray sweatshirt, they both could see she possessed a serious figure.

  To her credit, the mother played along. “Thanks for coming so quickly, officer.”

  “Detective, ma’am. Detective Gennero. And it’s not a problem. Part of the service,” Gunner looked back at the kid, growled, nodding toward the woman. “Get over there, you.”