Gavigan’s laugh rattled. “Not too bright. Didn’t he know we was friends?”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean. He was telling people he was you, trying to find out where my house was.”
“But he didn’t tell you he was me?”
“No,” Stranahan said.
Gavigan’s blue eyes seemed to light up. “Did he find your place?”
“Unfortunately.”
“And?”
Stranahan thought about how to handle it.
“Hey, Mick, I haven’t got loads of time, okay? I mean, I could check out of this life any second now, so don’t make me choke the goddamn story out of you.”
Stranahan said, “It turns out he was a bad guy from back East. Killer for the mob.”
“Was?” Gavigan grinned. “So that’s it. And here I thought you’d come by just to see how your old pal was hanging in.”
“That, too,” Stranahan said.
“But first you want me to help you figure it out, how this pasta-breath tied us together.”
“I don’t like the fact he was using your name.”
“How d’you think I feel?” Gavigan handed Stranahan the dinner tray and told him to set it on the floor. He folded his papery hands on his lap, over the thin woolen blanket. “How would he know we was friends, Mick? You never call, never send candy. Missed my birthday three years in a row.”
“That’s not true, Timmy. Two years ago I sent a strip-o-gram.”
“You sent that broad? I thought she just showed up lonely at the station and picked out the handsomest cop. Hell, Mick, I took her to Grand Bahama for a week, damn near married her.”
Stranahan was feeling better; Timmy knew something. Stranahan could tell from the eyes. It had come back to him.
Gavigan said, “Mick, that girl had the finest nipples I ever saw. I meant to thank you.”
“Anytime.”
“Like Susan B. Anthony dollars, that’s how big they were. Same shape, too. Octagonal.” Gavigan winked. “You remember the Barletta thing?”
“Sure.” A missing-person’s case that had turned into a possible kidnap. The victim was a twenty-two-year-old University of Miami student. Victoria Barletta: brown eyes, black hair, five eight, one hundred and thirty pounds. Disappeared on a rainy March afternoon.
Still unsolved.
“We had our names in the paper,” Gavigan said. “I still got the clipping.”
Stranahan remembered. There was a press conference. Victoria’s parents offered a $10,000 reward. Timmy was there from Homicide, Stranahan from the State Attorney’s Office. Both of them were quoted in the story, which ran on the front pages of the Herald and the Miami News.
Gavigan coughed in a way that startled Mick Stranahan. It sounded like Timmy’s lungs had turned to custard.
“Hand me that cup,” Gavigan said. “Know what? That was the only time we made the papers together.”
“Timmy, we got in the papers all the time.”
“Yeah, but not together.” He slurped down some ginger ale and pointed a pale bony finger at Stranahan. “Not together, bucko, trust me. I save all the clippings for my scrapbook. Don’t you?”
Stranahan said no.
“You wouldn’t.” Gavigan hacked out a laugh.
“So you think this Mafia guy got it out of the papers?”
“Not the Mafia guy,” Gavigan said, “but the guy who hired him. It’s a good possibility.”
“The Barletta thing was four years ago, Timmy.”
“Hey, I ain’t the only one who keeps scrapbooks.”
He yawned. “Think hard on this, Mick, it’s probably important.”
Stranahan stood up and said, “You get some rest, buddy.”
“I’m glad you took care of that prick who was using my name.”
“Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do.” Gavigan smiled. “Anyway, I’m glad you took care of him. He had no business lying like that, using my name.”
Stranahan pulled the blanket up to his friend’s neck.
“Good night, Timmy.”
“Be careful, Mick,” the old cop said. “Hey, and when I croak, you save the newspaper clipping, okay? Glue it on the last page of my scrapbook.”
“It’s a promise.”
“Unless it don’t make the papers.”
“It’ll make the damn papers,” Stranahan said. “Buried back in the truss ads, where you belong.”
Timmy Gavigan laughed so hard, he had to ring the nurse for oxygen.
3