It was a small take-out place that smelled great. Quinn thought he might actually be able to reach out and feel the spicy garlic scent wafting from the ovens. There were only three small tables with chairs. They were more for people waiting for carryout orders than for sitting and enjoying a meal. One employee was working behind the counter, a young black guy in his twenties. He was bone thin and had a soul patch growing under his lower lip and a silver Maltese cross dangling from his left ear. He was wearing a stained white apron to protect a stained white shirt. He grinned hugely at Quinn with stained white teeth. The plastic name tag on his shirt said he was Mickey.
“Help you?” he asked.
“Second time today,” Quinn said.
“Help you?” Mickey said louder, thinking Quinn hadn’t heard him over the deafening rap music booming from the kitchen: “Kill the bitch, do the snitch, got the itch, don’ matter which…”
Quinn smiled back and flashed his shield. “Turn that crap off.”
Mickey looked injured, disappeared into the kitchen, then returned. The abrupt silence seemed to reverberate with a decibel life of its own. “You don’t like rap?”
“Good rap’s okay,” Quinn said.
“Such as what?”
“Second offense, twenty to life.”
“Never heard of ’em. They new artists?”
Quinn ignored the question, since he was here to ask, not answer. “Were you working here last night?”
“Sure was, but I don’t know nothin’ about that cop got hisself shot.”
“How do you know he didn’t shoot himself?”
Mickey shrugged so elaborately it might have been a dance step. “Now you speak of it, I don’t. Did he?”
“What?”
“Shoot hisself?”
“How late did you work?”
“Came in at eight, worked till twelve. Do that five evenin’s a week. Go to school durin’ the day.”
“College?”
“New York University. Gonna make it big in the music industry.”
“You perform?”
“Plan to, in court. Gonna be an entertainment attorney. Represent lots of celebrities. Wear loud ties. Maybe get on TV in one of them little squares on talk shows.”
It occurred to Quinn that Mickey might be putting him on. “So tell me how it went the night of the shooting.”
Mickey did his little dance shrug again. “Been sayin’ an’ sayin’, I was workin’ the phone-in orders as usual, passin’ ’em on to the delivery guys, when I noticed some commotion outside.”
“Commotion?”
“People standin’ around talkin’. Some of ’em pointin’ toward the side of the building. Boss man wasn’t here, so I figured I was in charge. Went out, seen this guy sittin’ in his car parked in the alley. Walked closer an’ seen how he was slumped over. Went to talk to him through his window and seen the window was up. Then I looked in closer, through the windshield, and saw he was dead.”
“Shot?”
“Didn’t seem so at the time. But I seen dead before, an’ I knew he wasn’t jus’ nappin’.”
“Where’ve you seen dead?”
“Iraq. Fourth Infantry.”
“Good enough. You touch the car?”
“Naw. I watch TV an’ know better’n to mess with no possible crime scene.”
“You ever seen the victim before?”
“Naw. He wasn’t no customer that I know of.”
Quinn watched Mickey’s face carefully. No change. He figured he was getting the truth here. “You didn’t call the police.”
“No reason,” Mickey said. “I could see that some citizen with a cell phone already done that. I came back in here an’ took some pizza orders, is what I did.”
“You did right,” Quinn said. “One thing, though: you said you were here when that cop got himself shot. He was an ex-cop. How’d you know that?”
“Tha’s two things.”
“I guess it is, technically. You got two answers?”
“Yeah. One: I read about it in the papers, seen TV news. Two: ain’t really no such thing as an ex-cop.”
Quinn chuckled down low in his throat. Mickey looked alarmed, not quite sure what he’d heard was laughter.
“True enough,” Quinn said.
He talked with Mickey a while longer, making sure his story correlated with his earlier statement, then went outside, where it wasn’t quite as warm as inside but didn’t smell as good.
A couple of Hispanic teenagers were hanging around a bike rack at the opposite side of the building from where Galin’s body was found. The bikes chained to the rack were beaten up, looked identical, and had oversized wire baskets attached behind their seats. Quinn realized the teenagers were waiting for instructions from Mickey, addresses where they should deliver pizzas.
“Either of you guys working last night?” Quinn asked.
“Depends if you’re a cop,” said the shorter of the two. He grinned and bounced around as he talked, in a way that suggested he had to do it. Lots of energy. Might have been on batteries.
Both boys wore baggy and low-slung gangbanger pants, but this one had what looked like a dirty athletic bandage around his right ankle, holding the voluminous pants leg in tight so it wouldn’t snag in the bike’s chain. The other boy said nothing. He was as tall as Quinn, wearing filthy jeans, a wifebeater shirt, and a sensitive, somber expression. He had coiled snakes tattooed on both skinny arms. Quinn didn’t think he’d want either of these characters delivering his pizza.
“I’m a cop,” Quinn said “but nobody’s in trouble here unless you guys shot someone.”
“You mean ever shot someone?” the grinner asked. Then he bobbed around some more. “Jus’ jokin’, officer.” He had a Spanish accent he laid on heavily to project a certain pride that came across as arrogance. Quinn understood it and didn’t care.
“You see what happened here last night?”
“Guy gettin’ shot? Never seen it happen. Or even heard it. I came back from makin’ a delivery an’ there was this buncha people.” He put his hands on his hips and struck a mock indignant pose. “I tol’ another officer all this.”
“That’s okay.” Quinn looked at the taller boy, thinking he resembled the old movie actor Sal Mineo. “How about you?”
“I left right before the guy was found. What I know’s what I seen in the papers next mornin’.” His accent was lighter, or maybe he just wasn’t hiding behind it so much.
“See the victim’s photo?”
“Sure. Front page.”
“Ever see him before?”
“No. I don’t think he was from around here.” Quinn saw something change in the liquid dark eyes. Only for an instant, but it had been there. He’s lying. He knows something.
“Dead guy used to be a cop, right?” the short boy with the attitude said, possibly trying to change the subject, protect his friend.
“Used to be,” Quinn said.
Both boys nodded, maybe sadly, probably too young to be pondering their own mortality. Again, something came