A Walk Among the Tombstones

"You said a week," he said. "You promised."



THE money all seemed to be there. We filled one suitcase. The other was in the basement, and nobody much wanted to go get it. "I'd say for TJ to go," Kenan said, "but I know how he got in the cemetery, so I guess it'd spook him too much to go down there with a dead body."



"You just sayin' that so I'll go. Tryin' to psyche me out."



"Yeah," Kenan said. "I figured you'd say something like that."



TJ rolled his eyes, then went for the suitcase. He came back with it and said, "Man, it stinks pretty powerful down there. Dead people always smell that bad? I ever kill somebody, remind me to do it from a distance."



It was curious. We worked around Callander, treating him as if he weren't there, and he made such treatment easier than it might have been by staying put and keeping his mouth shut. He looked smaller sitting there, and weak and ineffectual. I knew him to be none of those things, but his blank passivity gave that impression.



"All packed up," Kenan said, fastening the hasps of the second suitcase. "Can go right back to Yuri."



Peter said, "All Yuri wanted was to get his kid back."



"Well, tonight's his lucky night. He gets the money, too."



"Said he didn't care about the money," Peter said dreamily. "The money didn't matter."



"Petey, are you saying something without saying it?"



"He don't know we came here."



"No."



"Just a thought."



"No."



"Whole lot of money, babe. And you been takin' a bath lately. That hash deal's gonna go down the tubes, isn't it?"



"So?"



"God gives you a chance to get even, you don't want to spit in His eye."



"Awww, Petey," Kenan said. "Don't you remember what the old man told us?"



"He told us all kinds of shit. When did we ever listen?"



"He said never to steal unless you can steal a million dollars, Petey. Remember?"



"Well, now's our chance."



Kenan shook his head. "No. Wrong. That's eight hundred thousand, and a quarter of a mil is counterfeit and another hundred and thirty thousand is mine to start with. So what's that leave? Four-something. Four-twenty? Something like that."



"Which gets you even, babe. Four hundred this asshole took off of you, plus ten you gave Matt, plus expenses, comes to what? Four-twenty? Goddamn close to it."



"I don't want to get even."



"Huh?"



He stared hard at his brother. "I don't want to get even," he said. "I paid blood money for Francey and you want me to steal blood money from Yuri. Man, you got that fucking junkie mind, steal his wallet and help him look for it."



"Yeah, you're right."



"I mean for Christ's sake, Petey-"



"No, you're right. You're absolutely right."



Callander said, "You paid me with counterfeit money?"



"You simple shit," Kenan said, "I was beginning to forget you were here. What are you, afraid you'll get picked up trying to spend it? I got news for you. You ain't gonna spend it."



"You're the Arab. The husband."



"So?"



"I was just wondering."



I said, "Ray, where's the money you got from Mr. Khoury? The four hundred thousand."



"We divided it."



"And what happened to it?"



"I don't know what Albert did with his half. I know it's not in the house."



"And your half?"



"Safe-deposit box. Brooklyn First Mercantile, New Utrecht and Fort Hamilton Parkway. I'll go there in the morning on my way out of town."



Kenan said, "You will, huh?"



"I can't decide whether to take the Honda or the van," he went on.



"He's kind of spaced, isn't he? Matt, I think he's telling the truth about the dough. The half in the bank we can forget about. Albert's half, I don't know, we could turn the house upside down but I don't think we're gonna find it, do you?"



"No."



"He probably buried it in the yard. Or in the fucking cemetery or someplace. Fuck it. I'm not supposed to have that money. I knew that all along. Let's do what we gotta do and get outta here."



I said, "You have a choice to make, Kenan."



"How's that?"



"I can take him in. There's a lot of hard evidence against him now. He's got his dead partner in the basement, and the van in the garage is going to be full of fibers and blood traces and God knows what else. Pam Cassidy can ID him as the man who maimed her. Other evidence will tie him to Leila Alvarez and Marie Gotteskind. He ought to be looking at three life sentences, plus an extra twenty or thirty years tacked on as a bonus."



"Can you guarantee he'll do life?"



"No," I said. "Nobody can guarantee anything when it comes to the criminal justice system. My best guess is that he'll wind up at the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Matteawan, and that he'll never leave the place alive. But anything could happen. You know that. I can't see him skating, but I've said that about other people and they never did a day."



He thought it over. "Going back to our deal," he said. "Our deal wasn't about you taking him in."



"I know. That's why I'm saying it's your choice. But if you make the other choice I have to walk first."



"You don't want to be here for it."



"No."



" 'Cause you don't approve?"



"I don't approve or disapprove."



"But it's not the kind of thing you would ever do."



"No," I said, "that's not it at all. Because I have done it, I've appointed myself executioner. It's not a role I'd want to make a habit of."



"No."



"And there's no reason why I should in this case. I could turn him over to Brooklyn Homicide and sleep fine."



He thought about it. "I don't think I could," he said.



"That's why I said it has to be your decision."



"Yeah, well, I guess I just made it. I have to take care of it myself."



"Then I guess I'll be going."



"Yeah, you and everybody else," he said. "Here's what we'll do. It's a shame we didn't bring two cars. Matt, you and TJ and Petey'll take the money to Yuri."



"Some of it's yours. Do you want to take out the money you lent him?"



"Separate it out at his place, will you? I don't want to wind up with any of the counterfeit."



"It's all in the packages with the Chase wrappers," Peter said.



"Yeah, except it all got mixed around when this dickhead here counted it, so check it out at Yuri's, okay? And then you'll pick me up. Figure what? Twenty minutes to Yuri's and twenty minutes back, twenty minutes there, figure an hour. You'll come back here and pick me up on the corner an hour and fifteen minutes from now."



"All right."



He grabbed a bag. "C'mon," he said. "We'll take these out to the car. Matt, watch him, huh?"



They left, and TJ and I stood looking down at Raymond Callander. We both had guns, but either of us could have guarded him with a flyswatter at this point. He seemed barely present.



I looked at him and remembered our conversation in the cemetery, that minute or two when something human had been talking. I wanted to talk to him again and see what would come out this time.



I said, "Were you just going to leave Albert there?"



"Albert?" He had to think about it. "No," he said at length. "I was going to tidy up before I left."



"What would you do with him?"



"Cut him up. Wrap him. There's plenty of Hefty bags in the cupboard."



"And then what? Deliver him to somebody in the trunk of the car?"



"Oh," he said, remembering. "No, that was for the Arab's benefit. But it's easy. You spread them around, put them in dumpsters, trash cans. No one ever notices. Put them in with restaurant garbage and they just pass as meat scraps."



"You've done this before."



"Oh, yes," he said. "There were more women then you know about." He looked at TJ. "One black one I remember. She was just about your color." He heaved a sigh. "I'm tired," he said.



"It won't be long."



"You're going to leave me with him," he said, "and he's going to kill me. That Arab."



Phoenician, I thought.



"You and I know each other," he said. "I know you lied to me, I know you broke your promise, that was what you had to do. But you and I had a conversation. How can you just let him kill me?"



Whining, querulous. It was impossible not to think of Eichmann in the dock in Israel. How could we do this to him?



And I thought, too, of a question I had asked him in the graveyard, and I fed his own remarkable answer back to him.



"You got in the truck," I said.



"I don't understand."



"Once you got in the truck," I said, "you're just body parts."



WE picked up Kenan as arranged at a quarter to three in the morning in front of a credit jeweler on Eighth Avenue, just around the corner from Albert Wallens's house. He saw me behind the wheel and asked where his brother was. I said we'd dropped him off a few minutes ago at the house on Colonial Road. He was going to pick up the Toyota, but changed his mind and said he'd go straight to sleep.



"Yeah? Me, I'm so wired you'd have to hit me over the head with a mallet to put me out. No, stay there, Matt. You drive." He walked around the car, looked in back at TJ, sprawled across the rear seat like a rag doll. "Past his bedtime," he said. "That flight bag looks familiar, but I hope it's not full of counterfeit money this time."



"It's your hundred and thirty thousand. We did our best. I don't think there's any schlock mixed in."



"If there is it's no big deal. It's just about as good as the real stuff. Your best bet's the Gowanus. You know how to get back on it?"



"I think so."



"And then the bridge or the tunnel, up to you. My brother offer to take my money into the house with him, keep an eye on it for me?"



"I felt it was part of my job to deliver it personally."



"Yeah, well, that's a diplomatic way to put it. I wish I could take back one thing I said to him, telling him he had a junkie mind. That's a hell of a thing to say to a person."



"He agreed with you."



"That's the worst thing about it, we both of us know it's true. Yuri surprised to see the money?"



"Astonished."



He laughed. "I'll bet. How's his kid?"



"The doctor says she'll be all right."



"They hurt her bad, didn't they?"



"I gather it's hard to separate the physical damage from the emotional trauma. They raped her repeatedly and I understand she sustained some internal injuries besides losing the two fingers. She was sedated, of course. And I think the doctor gave Yuri something."



"He should give us all something."



"Yuri tried to, as a matter of fact. He wanted to give me some money."



"I hope you took it."



"No."



"Why not?"