Read Online Every Dead Thing by John Connolly - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Connolly
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once a week?” I poured some hot coffee into my cup. “Anyway, you think there might be a connection between this disappearance and Sonny Ferrera?” I continued.
“It’s possible,” said Walter. “The feds were tracking Stephen Barton for a while, maybe a year ago, before he was supposed to have started seeing Catherine Demeter. They were chasing their tails with that kid, so they let it go. According to the Narcotics file she doesn’t seem to have been involved, at least not openly, but what do they know? Some of them still think a crack pipe is something a plumber fixes. Maybe she could have seen something she wasn’t supposed to see.”
His face betrayed how lame he thought the link was, but he left me to voice it. “C’mon, Walter, steroids and minor coke? There’s money in it but it’s strictly Little League compared to the rest of Ferrera’s business. If he knocked off someone over musclehead drugs, then he’s even more stupid than we know he is. Even his old man thinks he’s the result of a defective gene.”
Ferrera senior, sick and decrepit but still a respected figure, had been known to refer to his only son as “that little prick” on occasion. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“As you say, we’re the police. No one tells us anything useful,” he replied dryly.
“Did you know Sonny is impotent?” I offered.
Walter stood up, waving his empty glass in front of his face and smiling for the first time that evening. “No. No, I didn’t. I’m not sure I wanted to know, either. What the hell are you, his urologist?” He glanced over at me as he reached for the Redbreast. I waved my fingers in a gesture of disregard that went no farther than my wrist.
“Pili Pilar still with him?” I asked, testing the waters.
“Far as I know. I hear he pushed Nicky Glasses out of a window a few weeks back because he fell behind on the vig.”
The World Bank had loans out that attracted lower interest than Sonny Ferrera’s financial operations. Then again, the World Bank probably didn’t throw people out of the tenth floor because they couldn’t keep up with the interest, at least not yet.
“Tough on Nicky. Another hundred years and he’d have had the loan paid off. Pili’d better ease up on his temper or he’s gonna run out of people to push through windows.”
Walter didn’t smile.
“Will you talk to her?” he asked as he resumed his seat.
“MPs, Walter…” I sighed. Fourteen thousand people disappear in New York every year. It wasn’t even clear if this woman was missing—in which case she didn’t want to be found or someone else didn’t want her found—or simply misplaced, which meant that she had merely upped sticks and moved off to another town without breaking the news to her good friend Isobel Barton or to her lovely boyfriend, Stephen Barton.
Those are the kinds of issues PIs have to consider when faced with missing persons cases. Tracing missing persons is bread and butter for PIs, but I wasn’t a PI. I had taken on Fat Ollie’s skip because it was easy work, or seemed to be at the time. I didn’t want to file for a PI license with the state licensing services in Albany. I didn’t want to get involved in missing persons work. Maybe I was afraid it would distract me too much. Maybe I just didn’t care enough, not then.
“She won’t go to the cops,” said Walter. “The woman isn’t even officially missing yet, since no one has reported her.”
“So how come you know about it?”
“You know Tony Loo-Loo?” I nodded. Tony Loomax was a small-time PI with a stammer who had never graduated beyond skips and white trash divorces.
“Loomax is an unusual candidate for Isobel Barton’s patronage,” I said.
“It seems he did some work for one of the household staff a year or two back. Traced her husband, who’d run off with their savings. Mrs. Barton told him she wanted something similar done, but wanted it done quietly.”
“Still doesn’t explain your
“It’s possible,” said Walter. “The feds were tracking Stephen Barton for a while, maybe a year ago, before he was supposed to have started seeing Catherine Demeter. They were chasing their tails with that kid, so they let it go. According to the Narcotics file she doesn’t seem to have been involved, at least not openly, but what do they know? Some of them still think a crack pipe is something a plumber fixes. Maybe she could have seen something she wasn’t supposed to see.”
His face betrayed how lame he thought the link was, but he left me to voice it. “C’mon, Walter, steroids and minor coke? There’s money in it but it’s strictly Little League compared to the rest of Ferrera’s business. If he knocked off someone over musclehead drugs, then he’s even more stupid than we know he is. Even his old man thinks he’s the result of a defective gene.”
Ferrera senior, sick and decrepit but still a respected figure, had been known to refer to his only son as “that little prick” on occasion. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“As you say, we’re the police. No one tells us anything useful,” he replied dryly.
“Did you know Sonny is impotent?” I offered.
Walter stood up, waving his empty glass in front of his face and smiling for the first time that evening. “No. No, I didn’t. I’m not sure I wanted to know, either. What the hell are you, his urologist?” He glanced over at me as he reached for the Redbreast. I waved my fingers in a gesture of disregard that went no farther than my wrist.
“Pili Pilar still with him?” I asked, testing the waters.
“Far as I know. I hear he pushed Nicky Glasses out of a window a few weeks back because he fell behind on the vig.”
The World Bank had loans out that attracted lower interest than Sonny Ferrera’s financial operations. Then again, the World Bank probably didn’t throw people out of the tenth floor because they couldn’t keep up with the interest, at least not yet.
“Tough on Nicky. Another hundred years and he’d have had the loan paid off. Pili’d better ease up on his temper or he’s gonna run out of people to push through windows.”
Walter didn’t smile.
“Will you talk to her?” he asked as he resumed his seat.
“MPs, Walter…” I sighed. Fourteen thousand people disappear in New York every year. It wasn’t even clear if this woman was missing—in which case she didn’t want to be found or someone else didn’t want her found—or simply misplaced, which meant that she had merely upped sticks and moved off to another town without breaking the news to her good friend Isobel Barton or to her lovely boyfriend, Stephen Barton.
Those are the kinds of issues PIs have to consider when faced with missing persons cases. Tracing missing persons is bread and butter for PIs, but I wasn’t a PI. I had taken on Fat Ollie’s skip because it was easy work, or seemed to be at the time. I didn’t want to file for a PI license with the state licensing services in Albany. I didn’t want to get involved in missing persons work. Maybe I was afraid it would distract me too much. Maybe I just didn’t care enough, not then.
“She won’t go to the cops,” said Walter. “The woman isn’t even officially missing yet, since no one has reported her.”
“So how come you know about it?”
“You know Tony Loo-Loo?” I nodded. Tony Loomax was a small-time PI with a stammer who had never graduated beyond skips and white trash divorces.
“Loomax is an unusual candidate for Isobel Barton’s patronage,” I said.
“It seems he did some work for one of the household staff a year or two back. Traced her husband, who’d run off with their savings. Mrs. Barton told him she wanted something similar done, but wanted it done quietly.”
“Still doesn’t explain your
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