The staked Goat

dead awhile. If Marco was dead, I still had to deal with Al’s killer. If Curl was dead, Marco was alive, and I couldn’t see any percentage in advising the elder D’Amico brother that he’d shot the wrong duck.
    To stay dead, however, would require some immediate action.
     

Twenty
     
     
     
    I TISN’T EASY TO GET THROUGH TO A RANKING POLICE officer when you refuse to give your name. I ascended the scale, slightly disguising my voice for Detective Cross when she picked up. If confidential informants help solve only a few crimes, it may be because they spend most of their lives on hold.
    ”Murphy here. Who is this?”
    ”Lieutenant, when I tell you my name, I don’t want it repeated by you on your end of the line, understand?”
    ”Shit. Mr. Lazarus, I presume.”
    I almost laughed. ”That’s pretty good, Lieutenant, but at the moment my sense of humor isn’t what it might be.”
    ”Christ, I can’t see why. If I was you, I’d be jumping for joy about now.”
    ”Listen, Lieutenant, let me connect a few dots for you and then ask you a favor, O.K.?”
    ”I’m listening.”
    ”Since I’m not dead, the unidentified man is probably Marco D’Amico or an army sergeant from D.C. named Curly Mayhew. M-A-Y-H-E-W, I think. I’m not sure that Curly is his real name, but it might be.”
    ”Go on.”
    ”I figure somebody rigged my place to blow like the Coopers. Either Marco or someone else.”
    I heard some background conversation at his end. Murphy lowered his voice a notch. ”I got a call from an ADA named Meagher who said you had Marco pegged for the Cooper killings. Where does the someone else come in?”
    ”I’m not sure. That’s the favor part.”
    ”Let’s hear it.”
    ”I need to stay dead a couple of days. That probably means that the lab report on the body has to be delayed awhile. Maybe lost in somebody’s in-box, but you’d know better on that.”
    ”Uh-unh, no way. I got Meagher on my ass on this one. She’s been calling me every two hours since the office got word on the blast.”
    ”I can let her in, too. No problem. She’ll stop pressing you.”
    Murphy was silent.
    ”Murphy?”
    ”Yeah.”
    ”Can you help me out?”
    A shorter pause. ”I don’t like it. A body should be identified. Family and all.”
    ”I don’t like it either. But I’m not aware that Mayhew has any family, and if it’s Marco, well, his parents at worst think they have a son for a few more days.”
    ”I still don’t like it.”
    ”I don’t like a lot of things, Lieutenant. I don’t like my apartment getting blown up, or my neighbors left homeless, or my best friend from the army getting killed, or—”
    ”Awright, awright. But I got a job to do. And a job to keep, get me?”
    ”I got you. But I still need a couple of days.” Murphy grunted. ”O.K. Two days. Then I’ve got to follow through.”
    ”I really appreciate it, Lieutenant.”
    ”Yeah. Listen, I want to hear from you. Use this number.”
    I wrote down the seven digits.
    He continued. ”I want to hear from you tomorrow morning and tomorrow night. Got it?”
    ”Yes. Thanks.”
    ”Bye-bye.”
    ”Oh, Lieutenant, one more thing.”
    ”Yeah?”
    ”Can you lend me a few hundred bucks?”
    Murphy laughed, a good deep roar. ”Shit, man, with your present credit prospects, I wouldn’t lend you a dime unless you were a cat!”
    ”As in nine lives?”
    ”You got it.”
    ”Nice talkin’ with you.”
    I dialed the DA’s office asking for Nancy Meagher. Telling her secretary I was Lieutenant Murphy, I was put right through.
    ”Lieutenant?”
    ”Sort of.”
    ”What?”
    ”You see I was a lieutenant before I made captain, but I’m retired now, or discharged if you want to be—”
    ”Oh my God,” she said, followed by a cough and a little choking sound. ”Is it...”
    ”It’s me, Nancy. Safe and more or less sound.”
    ”Oh, God, just a minute....”
    I could hear her snuffling and blowing her nose. ”John?”
    ”Listen, I’m sorry for joking like that. I didn’t—”
    ”Oh,” she said with one terminal sniffle. ”That’s all right. I’m... fine, now. What happened, who—”
    I repeated for her my suspicions about Marco and/or Curly.
    ”How does the army fit into all this?”
    ”I can’t tell you now.”
    ”What can you tell me?”
    ”That I was pleased to hear you were ragging Murphy about me.”
    A short laugh. ”Besides that?”
    ”Not much. Nancy, I’m sorry to have to ask this, but I need some