VI

DENNIS REDMOND WAS a detective attached to the Nineteenth Precinct, on East Sixty-seventh Street. I reached him at his desk, and let him pick a time and a place to meet.

“I got a few calls to make,” he said, “and then I can get out of here. You know the Minstrel Boy?”

“I know the song.”

“On Lexington,” he said, “right around the corner from us. Say two o’clock?”

The minstrel boy to the war has gone

In the ranks of death you will find him…

It was, not surprisingly, an Irish tavern, and I got there a few minutes early and took a booth on the side, sitting where I could see him come in. I walked over to the jukebox while I waited for the waiter to bring me my club soda. There were a lot of Irish selections, and among them was “The Minstrel Boy,” the Thomas Moore song, with “The Rose of Tralee” on the flip side, both of them performed by John McCormack. I spent a quarter and listened to that great tenor voice from the past singing about a war that was before my time or his.

The record ended and I sipped my club soda and glanced now and then at my watch, and wondered how McCormack would do with “The Rose of Tralee” and thought about spending another quarter to find out, and then at 2:12 Redmond came through the door. I recognized him right away from Jack’s memorial service, and he may even have been wearing the same suit. He took a moment to scan the bar and tables—there wasn’t much of a crowd—and came right over.

“Dennis Redmond,” he said. “And you’re Matt Scudder, and you didn’t happen to mention you were at the service yesterday.”

“I saw you there,” I said, “with another fellow—”

“That’d be Rich Bikelski.”

“—but I didn’t know it was you, not until you walked in just now.”

“No, how would you?” He shook his head. “Been a long day. I can use something. What’s that you got there, vodka tonic?”

“Club soda.”

He straightened up. “I don’t think I’m gonna follow your lead on that one,” he said, and went over to the bar. He came back with a tall glass of pale amber liquid over ice. Whiskey and water, from the look of it, and I found myself wondering what kind of whiskey it was, and which brand.

He sat down, raised his glass to me, and took a sip. He was a bulky man with a beefy face and a whiskey drinker’s ruddy complexion, but a look at his eyes let you know there was a working brain in there. “Joe Durkin called to put in a word for you,” he said. “Says you’re all right. You were on the job, had a gold shield. That how you came to know Joe?”

I shook my head. “We didn’t meet until a little over a year ago. I was a few years off the force by then.”

“Working private.”

“That’s right.”

“But I guess the two of you got along. That what you’re doing now? Working private?”

“When something comes my way,” I said. “But my interest in Ellery is personal.”

“Oh?” He frowned in concentration. “You were at the Six, and it seems to me he took a bust down there once. Nothing came of it, but was that your case? Years ago, that would have been.”

I told him that was a good guess, that it hadn’t been my case but that I’d been present as a spectator when the witness blew the ID. “We went back a little further than that,” I said, and explained how I’d known Jack briefly in the Bronx.

“Boys together,” he said. “One turns bad, the other goes on the cops. Years pass and they’re facing each other down in a darkened alley. A shot rings out. I think I saw the movie.”

“You probably did. Barry Fitzgerald played the priest.”

He took a hit of his drink, and I got enough of a whiff of it to identify it as Scotch. He said, “Then you lose touch, and he goes off to the joint for something else, and he gets out and gets himself killed, and a couple dozen people from AA hold a service for him, and here you sit drinking club soda. Is it any wonder they made me a detective?”

“I’m surprised they didn’t name you commissioner.”

“Just a question of time,” he said. “So it’s the same movie, but now the cop and the crook meet up again in the same AA room, and instead of Barry Fitzgerald you’ve got Queen for the Day running the show. What’s his name, Spellman? No, Jesus, that was the cardinal. This was the gym. Stillman.”

“He said you talked to him.”

“Couple of times. Took the whole thing pretty hard, but you get the sense that he’s got some toughness to him, under all the glitter. He was Ellery’s sponsor, whatever that amounts to. Is that anything like having a rabbi in the department?”

“That’s close.”

“Somebody who pulls your coat, steers you right.”

“There you go.”

“You got a sponsor yourself?” I nodded. “It’s not Stillman, is it?”

“No.”

“And I don’t suppose you’re Stillman’s sponsor.”

“I haven’t been sober long enough to start telling other people how to do it.”

“How long? Or isn’t that something I’m supposed to ask?”

“I don’t know what anybody’s supposed to do or not do. I’m coming up on a year the middle of next month.”

“And Ellery—”

“Just celebrated two years.”

“Just in time to get shot. You know who shot him?”

“Somebody who wanted him to keep quiet.”

“Yeah, that’s our thinking on the subject. ‘Here’s a little something for that big mouth of yours. Bang!’ Far as who that somebody might be, I’d say your guess is as good as mine, but what I’m hoping is it’s better. You got anything?”

“No.”

“My position, where would you go with this, Matt? You made detective, and I understand you were good at it. Who would you look at?”

“People he ran with. Guys he jailed with.”

“Uh-huh. And when that didn’t go anywhere?”

“I’d probably wait for somebody who knew something to use it as a bargaining chip.”

“A Get Out of Jail Free card.”

“Right.”

“Other words, wait for the case to clear itself. Something to be said for that. You got a high-profile case, prominent and affluent victim, that’s another story. Then you have to look like you’re doing something, so you take action whether or not there’s much point to it. Ask you something, Matt? The vic here, you knew him way back when, and you knew him again this past year, with both of you sober.”

“So?”

“I was just wondering how close you were with him.”

“Close enough to show up at the funeral.”

“But no closer?”

“Not really. I’m here now because someone asked me to see what I could find out.”

“Somebody with an earring would be my guess. Why I ask, I don’t want to say anything’s gonna rub you the wrong way. But what it comes down to, nobody’s gonna stay up all night sweating this one out. What do they say about speaking ill of the dead?”

“They say not to.”

“Well, sometimes you can’t help it. This was a low-life criminal for all but two years of his life, when he suddenly decided to get off the booze and find God. Is that what happens? You find God?”

“Some people seem to.”

He thought about it, finished his drink, put down the empty glass. “More power to them,” he said. “Would I like to clear this one? Of course I would. I’d like to clear all my cases and watch all the bad guys get convicted and go away. But what are the odds? Words of one syllable, your friend was a bum, and after his dry spell what’s he gonna do but pick up a drink and point a gun at somebody? Happens all the time.”

Not all the time, I thought. Often, though. I had to give him that. But not all the time.

“So I’d like to clear it,” he said, “because it’s on my plate, and my mother raised me to finish everything.” He patted his stomach. “A lesson I learned all too well. But on the dinner plate of crime, my friend, Jack Ellery is the Brussels sprouts.”