Yesterday's News

and cussing. Had us a moon that night, we surely did, and I sees the blade coming out and down, then they’s rolling ‘round, spitting and tussling, but that Charlie, he too drunk and shit, he too skinny anyway for to take the big man. I hears a noise I hears before, and I knows he’s gone.”
    “What noise?”
    Vip worked his mouth. “Noise a blade make going through the lung. You hears it oncst, you never forgets it later.”
    “Then what happened?”
    “Big dude gets hisself up, don’t really look ‘round or nothing, just takes hisself off down the alley here, hopping on one leg and dragging the tuther. I sees this knife sticking out the side of it. Don’t seem right.”
    “What didn’t seem right?”
    “The knife. You ever sees a man stuck like that?”
    “Slashed or stuck in the guts, yeah. Not in the leg.”
    “Well then, you gots some to learn, you does. Man stuck like that big one, he gonna pull that sucker out afore he does no jogging, get me?”
    “I get you.”
    Vip shook his head. “No, don’t seem right.” Another bolt of lightning, a clap of thunder on its tail this time. “You said the moon was up that night. You get a look at the big guy’s face?”
    “Some. Like I says afore, never did see him ‘round.”
    “Can you describe him?”
    “White man, gots a watch cap pulled down over his ears.”
    I thought about my scrape with the Buick. “Watch cap?”
    “Yeah. Fuckin cold in these alleys of a night, you don’t gots something on your head. Shit, man, here she come.”
    I felt a few raindrops, too. Vip started what promised to be a two-minute program of getting to his feet. I said, “You tell the cops all this?”
    “Yeah, yeah. I tells the same things, they writes ‘em down, grins on their fuckin faces, like they don’t gots to believe a word I say.”
    “They take you to the station, show you mug shots?”
    “You gotta be shitting me, man. They’s the cops, they’s seen it all afore. Bum gots knife, bum wants bottle, bum kills bum. End of story.”
    The drizzle gave way to real rain as Vip finally made it to his feet and took a few hesitant steps.
    “Shit, man. Gives me my twenty, huh? I don’t wanna catch no ‘monia outta this here.”
    I gave him the twenty. He squirreled it inside his coat and past three or four layers, making faces until he reached deep enough to feel secure. He set off down the alley, lurching like a newborn colt.
    I said, “Vip, you call me again, alright? Let me know you’re okay?”
    He started what might have been a wave, but began to sing instead.

The storm woke me twice during the night, but Friday dawned cloudless, the rain living on only through isolated pools and wet grass. I had an Egg McMuffin and three containers of orange juice at the Golden Arches, then drove to police headquarters. I had to wait only five minutes before the desk sergeant sent me up to see Hagan.
    Reading a duty roster, Hagan wore a short-sleeved dress shirt and knit tie, the hair on his forearms sandy and thick. “What is it this time, Cuddy?”
    “I had a talk with your star witness last night.”
    “What witness?”
    “The derelict who saw Charlie Coyne get stabbed.”
    “Great. Appreciate the follow-up. Anything else?”
    “He says the killer stood up and hopped away on a bad leg.”
    “Your leg has a tendency to go bad, you get a knife jammed into it.”
    “Or if you have some preexisting injury.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning it seems just a little odd that a guy with a knife in his leg is going to run away on it without taking the knife out first.”
    “So?”
    “So I’m thinking, what if the knife in the leg is a mask for a limp the killer had before he went after Charlie.”
    Hagan leaned back into the chair, blowing out a breath. “Your bum see Coyne’s killer walking okay before the fight?”
    “No. Never saw him before and never saw him walk. Said the killer crawled over to Charlie.”
    “Doesn’t fly. Too complicated. Besides, Coyne was known to carry a knife, and the responding unit didn’t find one at the scene.”
    “Which makes the knife in the leg the one Coyne carried.”
    “Right.”
    I said, “That assumes the killer brought a knife to use on Coyne. The witness says the guy searched Coyne before fighting with him. Suppose the killer was looking for Coyne’s own knife, stabbed him with it, then just stuck the knife through a pad or something strapped to the leg, to make it look like Coyne had gotten him so as to cover