Rhode Island Red by Charlotte Carter Read Free Book Online Page B

available surface.
    Detective Sweet towered over us like the wish-granting, coal-black genie in my childhood affirmative action story book. I worked up enough courage to meet his eyes.
    â€œWhy’d you want to meet here?” he boomed.
    â€œMy friend Aubrey lives here,” I responded, a clumsy introduction if ever there was one.
    But by then Leman had gotten a good look at Aubrey. He went into a kind of moony paralysis. Which was, as Stevie Wonder said, just like I pictured it.
    He sat directly across from Aubrey, his legs spread wide, massive thighs outlined in navy blue gabardine, pinky ring flashing—a real prince of the city. “Well, it’s a good thing you wanted to meet uptown,” he said to me—ostensibly to me—while he was eating Aubrey up, “’cause that’s where I was today.”
    I didn’t linger over his non sequitur. No use expecting a smitten man to make sense. Without further ado I merely placed a large, stuffed sweat sock on the little cigarette table in front of him.
    â€œWhat is that?” he said.
    â€œMoney.”
    â€œWhose money?”
    That’s where Aubrey came in, as planned. “Look like it was your friend’s,” she said. “Officer Conlin. He put it in Nan’s sax that night before they killed him.”
    Sweet, coming reluctantly back to earth, let out a long, low curse.
    I allowed Aubrey to go on from there with her narration, describing how, after I’d discovered the money, I was terrified the police—namely Leman—would suspect me of something. How I’d been too scared to report it right away and had come to Aubrey seeking her advice.
    At the end of the tale, Sweet took hold of the sock and shook it like a bull terrier with a backyard squirrel. The rolls came tumbling out.
    â€œHow much is here?”
    â€œThirty-five thousand,” I spoke up quickly. “About that.”
    Leman looked at me. My body tensed, preparing for a lunge from him.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Mr. Sweet?” Aubrey asked and leaned toward him solicitously. “You don’t look too happy to find your friend’s stash.”
    â€œWasn’t his stash. Supposed to be the Department’s. Goddamn, this ain’t good,” he said solemnly. “Not good at all.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œThere’s twenty-five thousand missing.”
    â€œOh my God! Oh, no!” Aubrey said. “What you figure happened to it, Mr. Sweet?”
    Aubrey, crossing and uncrossing her legs, lighting his Newports, playing first the bumpkin and then the slut, got the story out of Leman Sweet. He told us about the failed under cover operation he and Charlie Conlin had been working on: It seems “the Dominicans” were starting to use street musicians and flower vendors to retail stolen tokens, money orders, passports and even lottery tickets. He and Conlin/Sig had been part of a huge sting that had gone bust. The fortune that Conlin left in my sax case was so-called buy money. And Leman didn’t know why Charlie had been carrying it around.
    We all sat in silence for a few moments. Then Aubrey laughed obscenely. “Look like your partner was deep into something, Sweet.”
    He nodded.
    â€œBut you know,” she continued, “a fella like that coulda spent sixty thousand just as quick as he spent that missing twenty-five. Your department probably figure the whole sixty already gone, right, Sweet? Right? I mean, ain’t they already kissed it good-bye, Sweet?”
    He said nothing, just twisted the sock until the contents were secure, and then pocketed it. Sweet leaned back into the sofa and lit another Newport, holding on to the paper match long after its flame had died.
    I looked at him while he drooled. I looked at Aubrey looking at him. What a nasty little dance. It would lead nowhere, of course.
    I had an absurd vision of Leman Sweet in a tight-fitting French navy uniform, walking all