Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [24]
Mrs. Columbo had solved another homicide.
“Took less than a week,” Russo said, washing down a Snickers bar with a slurp of Bud. “Mary spots the bottle of wine, squeezes the spinster, and nabs the brother. We coulda called this one in from home.”
“I like the we part,” Stanley Johnson, senior detective on the squad, said to Russo. “What’d you do? Drive?”
“Brother break easy?” John Rodriguez asked. He was the new badge, working Homicide less than a month, promoted from the pickpocket division in Midtown South.
“He cracked in the car,” Mary said, sipping from a scotch straight. “Cried all the way to the station.”
“You gotta really hate your brother to slice him like that,” Captain Jo Jo Haynes, precinct commander, said. “Corkscrew the throat and then cut his feet off. Christ! And I thought my family was fucked up.”
“If I got a fuckin’ nickel, I’m not lettin’ my brother know about it,” Russo said. “And I like the guy.”
“It wasn’t just the money,” Mary said.
“What else?” Rodriguez asked.
“The brother, Albert, has some sort of muscular disease,” Mary said. “And his insurance doesn’t pick up all the costs. So he’s always behind the financial eight ball.”
“He know this Jamie’s pullin’ in a few thou a week?” Johnson asked.
“No,” Mary said. “Thinks the guy’s on the balls of his ass. In fact, Albeit lends him money. Feels sorry for him.”
“What a prick,” Jo Jo Haynes said.
“Albert’s over at the apartment,” Mary said, finishing her scotch. “Sees a bottle of wine and looks for a corkscrew.”
“He finds it,” Russo said. “In a cabinet drawer next to a folded-up paper bag. Albie, curious as well as thirsty, pops open the bag.”
“And finds the money,” Johnson said.
“He sat on the bed for three hours,” Mary said. “Holding the corkscrew and staring at all that cash.”
“Jamie walks in,” Russo said. “Sees poor little Albie sittin’ next to his stash and starts yellin’ at the guy.”
“Albert snaps,” Mary said. “All those years being suckered by Jamie melt down into a couple of bloody minutes.”
“He sliced and diced the fucker,” Russo said. “Left him hangin’, took the money, and walked out.”
“And he never got to drink the wine,” Johnson said.
“That’s the sad part,” Rodriguez said. “Guy comes in thirsty. Goes out the same way.”
“Except this time with a murder rap,” Russo said. “And Mrs. Columbo here smellin’ his ass out in no time flat.”
“What happens to the old lady?” Haynes asked. “What’s her name? Walker?”
“Who gives a fuck, Cap,” Russo said. “She still got her feet and can swallow anything she chews.”
“She’ll die alone,” Mary said in a low voice. “Jamie was her only real friend. After this, she’ll never let herself get close to anyone. She’ll be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And she’ll die alone.”
“Think Albert cops an insanity?” Johnson said.
“Wouldn’t you?” Russo said. “He comes up Mr. Clean on the sheets. Not even a parking ticket. One of those jaboes goes through life nobody notices.”
“Two lives ruined and one ended,” Mary said. “All for a glass of wine.”
“Let this be a lesson,” Russo said, holding up a bottle of Bud. “Drink beer. You don’t need a fuckin’ weapon to open a bottle, and anybody who drinks it sure as shit don’t have a paper bag filled with cash.”
“I guess this means you’re not buying,” Mary said.
“Not unless one of you got a corkscrew in your pocket,” Russo said, standing up from the table.
“Hey, Cap,” Johnson said with a smile. “Whatta we get if we each put a bullet into Russo right here and now?”
“A raise,” Jo Jo Haynes said.
Mrs. Columbo and the detectives ended their night of victory over death on a loud laugh.
• • •
MARY PARKED HER car four blocks from her Whitestone row house. The rain had stopped and the air was cool and clean, early morning smells wafting down from the trees. Overhead lights cast broken shadows across cars and patches of lawn. It was closing in on three A.M. and the streets were empty as she walked with a slow step, head down, her purse hanging from a strap off her shoulder. Sated with drink, she let her mind ease past the events of the day.
The emptiness