Yesterday's News

know?”
    “Strike you as just a little odd that your son and his partner Cronan both have corroborated alibis for the night Charlie Coyne was killed?”
    “No, it don’t. I spent twenty-eight years scraping the Charlie Coynes of this city outta car wrecks and gutters. Pieces of shit like Coyne die as regular as old folks in a nursing home. You know you’re gonna lose a couple this week, you just don’t know which one’s gonna go any particular night, that’s all.”
    “Without Coyne, your son couldn’t be indicted.”
    “With Coyne, I don’t see how they’re gonna prosecute him, either. Look, I understand you talked with the Rust girl about this before she took the pills, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Well, I didn’t know the woman myself, except to see her across the room once in a while, but I hear she wasn’t too tightly wrapped, you know?”
    “I know what you mean.”
    “Sure you do. Well, what she believed, what Coyne maybe told her she oughta believe so he could get his dick wet, that don’t necessarily add up to what happened, get me?”
    “You mean your son didn’t have his hand out.” Schonstein’s face clouded, and I got a sense of what a terror he must have been on the street. “That’s what I mean, boy. When I come on the force here, how many Jews you figure they have in uniform?”
    “No idea.”
    “None. I got back from the service, I was a veteran, they didn’t like it but they didn’t have a choice. The law was clear as a bell on that one. If it’s alright with you, we can skip over the things they wrote on my locker and car in those days, and the jack-offs they partnered me with. Took maybe five years for me to whale the shit out of every guy wanted to know how tough I was. I got through that, things were okay. Better than okay. There was a time when the cops ruled this city, boy, the way it’s supposed to be done. And I was part of it. But then with the Supreme Court and the lawyers and all, somehow it all just slid into the shit. The laws never did protect the citizens, but now not even the cops can.”
    “You got a point in here somewhere?”
    The face got darker, then he burst out laughing. “You don’t swallow the bull too quick, do you.”
    “Not if I can help it.”
    “Well, see if this goes down a little easier. Coyne said Mark was on the pad from Bunny Gotbaum, right?”
    “That’s how I heard it.”
    “Alright, you’re Schonsy’s son on the force here, you figure Mark’s gonna take money from another Jew? When his father had to whip half the force to get any respect as one himself?”
    I said, “You know Gotbaum?”
    “I know him. Uniforms don’t cover vice here, but I know him.”
    “I mean from growing up around here.”
    “Why?”
    “Seems to me you’re about the same age, same religion, reasonable you knew each other as kids.”
    “Yeah, we knew each other. No temple or nothing for either of us, but we were only a grade apart in school.”
    “You ever introduce Mark to Gotbaum, maybe?”
    “Working vice, Mark would have met him on his own. Believe me.”
    “Most of the time.”
    Schonstein seemed tired. “You got any more questions?”
    “They ever figure out what started it?”
    Just a glimmer of understanding before he set his face for confusion. “How’s that?”
    “The fire?”
    “My... the one where I got hurt, you mean?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Naw. Nobody died, and nobody fessed up. Why?”
    “You ever think about suing?”
    “For getting hurt helping a kid? You kidding?”
    “You must have thought about it.”
    “No.”
    “Who owned the building?”
    “You’re better than I thought, boy.”
    “You going to save me a trip to the paper and the tax assessors?”
    “Take you a few more steps than that, the way I hear he’s got his corporations and trusts stacked one on top of the other.”
    “And if I sort of kept unstacking them till I got to the bottom?”
    “You’d find another local who made good.”
    “Named?”
    “Richie Dykestra.”
    “And you didn’t think about suing him?”
    “Didn’t have to. He settled with me. Fair and square. No damned lawyers involved.”
    I stood up. “I can see myself out. Thanks for your time.”
    As I reached the door, Schonstein said behind me, “Gonna have to watch out for you, son. Yes, I will.”

It was muggy when I left Schonstein’s. Not being due at Liz Rendall’s until seven-thirty, I drove back to the motel, showered, and changed. I reminded Emil as obliquely as