“He’s been giving a friend of mine a hard time, that’s all. A good friend of mine.” Roberto knew better than to mention Rudy Graveline’s name, and John Murdock knew better than to ask.
Joe Salazar said, “It’s a crime to threaten a person. Did Stranahan make a threat?”
“Nothing you could prove,” Roberto said. “Look, I’d appreciate it if you guys would keep me posted.”
“Absolutely,” John Murdock promised. He wiped the food off his gun and shoved it back in the shoulder holster.
“This is very important,” Roberto Pepsical said. “Extremely important.”
Murdock said, “Don’t worry, we’ll nail the fuckwad.”
“Yeah,” said Joe Salazar. “It’s only a matter of time.”
“Not much time, I hope.”
“We’ll do what we can, Commissioner.”
“There might even be a promotion in it.”
“Oh boy, a promotion,” said John Murdock. “Joey, you hear that? A promotion!” The detective burped at the commissioner and said, “How about some green instead?”
Roberto Pepsical winced as if a hornet had buzzed into his ear. “Jesus, are you saying—”
“Money,” said Joe Salazar, chomping a pickle. “He means money.”
“Let me get this straight: You guys want a bribe for solving a murder?”
“No,” Murdock said, “just for making the arrest.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Sure you can,” Joe Salazar said. “Your friend wants Stranahan out of the way, right? The county jail, that’s fucking out of the way.”
Roberto buried his rubbery chin in his hands. “Money,” he murmured.
“I don’t know what you guys call it over at Government Center, but around here we call it a bonus.” John Murdock grinned at the county commissioner. “What do you guys call it?”
To Roberto it seemed reckless to be discussing a payoff in the middle of the detective squad room. He felt like passing gas.
In a low voice he said to John Murdock, “All right, we’ll work something out.”
“Good.”
The commissioner stood up. He was about to reach out and shake their hands, but he changed his mind. “Look, we never had this meeting,” he said to the two detectives.
“Of course not,” John Murdock agreed.
Joe Salazar said, “Hey, you can trust us.”
About as far as I can spit, thought Roberto Pepsical.
Three days before Mick Stranahan, Christina Marks, and Reynaldo Flemm arrived in Manhattan, and four days before the man called Chemo showed up, Maggie Gonzalez walked into a video-rental shop on West 52nd Street and asked to make a tape. She gave the shop clerk seventy-five dollars cash, and he led her to “the studio,” a narrow backroom paneled with cheap brown cork. The studio reeked of Lysol. On the floor was a stained gray mattress and a bright clump of used Kleenex, which, at Maggie’s insistence, the clerk removed. A Sony video camera was mounted on an aluminum tripod at one end of the room; behind it, on another stem, was a small bank of lights. The clerk opened a metal folding chair and placed it eight feet in front of the lens.
Maggie sat down, opened her purse and unfolded some notes she had printed on Plaza stationery. While she read them to herself, the clerk was making impatient chewing-gum noises in his cheeks, like he had better things to do. Finally Maggie told him to start the tape, and a tiny red light twinkled over the Sony’s cold black eye.
Maggie was all set to begin when she noticed the clerk hovering motionless in the darkest corner, a cockroach trying to blend into the cork. She told the guy to get lost, waited until the door slammed, then took a breath and addressed the camera.
“My name is Maggie Orestes Gonzalez,” she said. “On the twelfth of March, 1986,1 was a witness to the killing of a young woman named Victoria Barletta … “
The taping took fourteen minutes. Afterwards Maggie got two extra copies made at twenty dollars each. On the way back to the hotel she stopped at a branch of the Merchant Bank and rented a safe-deposit box, where she left the two extra videotapes. She took the original up to her room at the Plaza, and placed it in the nightstand, under the room-service menu.