Fresh Kills by Reggie Nadelson Read Free Book Online Page A

have even read Proust, though not my thing, not all that fancy society stuff, not really, too many fucking countesses and tea cookies, man, but the writing! I could have really read it all, except for Driscoll. Give him the treatment boys. I got to go to the bathroom, Artie.”
    Lippert got up. He reached in his pocket and tossed a Polaroid onto the table, turned and headed for the men’s room. I knew he wanted to leave me hanging, make me wonder what the big-deal case was. I wasn’t going to budge. I looked at my watch and figured it was time to get back to Billy. Then I picked up the photograph. It was a picture of a baby doll. One of its feet was missing.
    â€œWhat the hell is this?” I said to Sonny, when he came back to the table. “What’s this fucking picture?”
    â€œIt’s a doll,” he said. “With its foot cut off.”
    â€œI can see that, Sonny.”
    â€œListen to me, you remember those cold cases, the kid on Long Island, the other one out in Rockaway where they found the bodies with limbs cut off? Years back.”
    â€œI remember. Yeah.”
    â€œIn the hospital, when I was sick, I did some reading, and afterwards, at home, I had some time. There were more. One possible upstate. Now I got a fresh one. Jersey. Near Bayonne. Same kind of deal, Artie. Little girl, man. They chopped off her feet.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    â€œWhat’s it mean, man? So she couldn’t run away? So why kill her?”
    â€œI don’t know.” I still had the photograph in my hand and Sonny snatched it away.
    â€œThis is her doll, man. No ID. Just Jane Doe, her and herdoll. She had her dolly with her, Artie, man.” He knocked back what was left of his wine. “Who does these things to kids, man?”
    I’d heard him say it before, over and over: Who does this to kids? Lippert had been obsessed a long time; even after he retired, he worked as a consultant with a unit he set up to look at child crime. I felt for him, but I couldn’t help him, not now, not with Billy in town.
    â€œI have to go, Sonny.”
    â€œYou want to see a picture of the girl?” Sonny said. “She was raped, too, the one in Jersey was raped.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œLook, I’m not asking you to come on this with me,” he said. “I’m just asking a favor for something where I don’t have time now. Just free me up to pay attention to Jersey. It’s for Rhonda, OK?”
    Rhonda Fisher, who had been Lippert’s assistant for about thirty years, and was always in love with him since way back, finally got her chance when he had the heart attack and she went to the hospital and was there every day. He didn’t marry her or let her move in permanent, but she cooked for him and once in a while he took her somewhere nice for dinner.
    If Sonny still talked like a 50s hipster, or tried to, and if he was still wound up tight, he was a lot lighter of spirit since he’d been with Rhonda. She listened to the music he liked with him. She took care of him. Since he let her through his door, he drank less and ate better.
    Instead of picking on a sandwich – tongue and Swiss, usually – or just drinking dinner when he was out, now he seemed to like food. I watched him cut another piece of steak. It was the first time I’d seen him eat like he actually cared what was on his plate.
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    A friend of a cousin, or maybe a cousin of a cousin, but someone related to Rhonda anyway, was in trouble, he said. Russians, probably low class. “They need help. Think of it as a good deed, man, help keep you from coming back a cockroach.”
    â€œRhonda’s Russian?”
    â€œHer grandparents. Both sides,” Sonny said. “Russian Jews.”
    â€œThey’re on Staten Island?”
    â€œDead. They’re dead. But there’s some cousins came over in the 80s, and listen, it won’t