Mulengro, page 6
Briggs sighed. Come morning they’d have to round up someone in Fraud to see if they could come up with the names and addresses of some Gypsies who were still alive.
“What about the address on his license?” he asked. “Did anybody check it out?”
“It was an empty lot.”
“How come I’m not surprised?” Briggs muttered. He held the door open for Will and followed him into the General Assignment offices. “About these witnesses . . . ?” he continued, then paused as Will stopped in front of a bench where two women were sitting. Will grinned at his partner.
“Ladies,” he said. “This is Detective-Sergeant Briggs, who’s working on this case with me.”
The older of the pair looked to be in her late twenties. She was well-built and tastelessly dressed in a purple leather miniskirt, knee-high beige boots and a flimsy red blouse unbuttoned halfway down her chest. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her hair was a silver blonde, straight out of a bottle of dye, and her makeup appeared to have been laid on with a trowel. Her companion was younger and slimmer, brown hair cut in a shag style, the makeup not quite so heavy. She was wearing a summer print minidress and high-heeled sandals, and clutched a small purse on her lap. She looked scared. She also looked, Briggs realized uncomfortably, like Francine. Or the daughter he and Francine might have had. If she wore her hair differently . . . He shook his head irritably. It was getting bad when he started seeing Francine’s face in the features of a hooker. Especially one this young. She couldn’t be much more than sixteen.
“Names?” he asked Will.
“The lady on the left is Carol Wesley.” The platinum blonde looked up at the sound of her name. “The kid hasn’t got any ID, but she claims her name’s Tracy Hilborn and that she’s eighteen, though personally—”
“I want to see a lawyer,” the blonde demanded. “You got no right to arrest us.”
“I told you earlier,” Will said. “You’re not under arrest. We just want to ask you some questions.”
“I don’t have to answer nothing.” She stood up and glanced at her companion. “I’m walking. You coming, honey?”
“I . . .”
“Sit,” Briggs said firmly. Wesley sat, glowering at him. He turned to Will. “Who brought them in?”
“Constable Porter—you were talking to him last night. He picked them up when they were running down Dalhousie. Said he was kind of jumpy after last night and he hung onto them while his partner checked the alleys further on up. They found Shandor’s body in the second one near the corner of Murray and called it in.”
Briggs nodded, regarding the two women, trying to decide how to play it. If it was just the kid—Christ, he couldn’t get it out of his head how much she looked like Francine—it’d be easy. But the older woman was going to play it hard.
“We’ll take their statements separately,” he said.
“Sure. Okay, Wesley. On your feet.”
Briggs glanced at the younger girl as Wesley stood up and sauntered between the desks to Will’s. She watched them go, then lifted her gaze nervously to look at Briggs. The detective sighed.
“If you’ll come with me, Tracy,” he said.
She rose, clutching nervously at her purse, and followed him to his desk.
“How long you been in this line of work?” he asked as he rolled a fresh sheet into his typewriter.
“I . . . I don’t know what you mean.”
Briggs glanced at her, then over to Will’s desk where the other hooker was lounging in a chair. When he looked back, Tracy dropped her gaze to her lap. “Look,” he said softly. “I’m going to level with you. All we want is some information on what you saw tonight. I’m going to type it up and you’re going to sign it, and then you’re out on the street again. What you do to make a living is none of my business, okay?”
Tracy looked up. “I can’t tell you anything,” she said in a small voice. “They’ll kill me if they think I’ve told you . . . whatever. . . .”
“Who will? Your pimp? Wesley over there?”
She shrugged. Her fingers were tight around her purse, knuckles going white.
“If you don’t talk,” Briggs said, “I’m going to have to hold you overnight. I might have to turn you over to Morality or Juvenile in the morning if you don’t cooperate.”
“I am eighteen.”
“So you’re eighteen.” He waited for her to go on, but she remained silent, lips trembling. He shook his head. “You’re just making it harder on yourself.”
“What . . . what do you care?”
“I care. I don’t like seeing people hurt—especially not when they’re doing it to themselves. Maybe you think that’s weird, me being a cop, but we’re people too, you know. Right now I need a little information. Give it to me, and you’re walking out that door in an hour or so—no strings.”
“Really?”
Briggs nodded. He was willing to wait her out now. She was scared under that street-tough veneer. She’d talk. He just wished it’d be as easy to get her out of the Life.
“Okay,” Tracy said softly. She had to repeat herself before Briggs realized that she’d spoken. “There . . . there’s this guy named André Fedun. Carol and I were waiting for him to . . . to collect his money, you know? He doesn’t like us carrying too much in case . . . well, in case something happens to us. So he comes by every couple of hours or so.
“We were standing beside the church near the corner—the church on Murray, you know? Andy was late. Carol says it happens. He’s got a deal going down or something and he takes his time getting around to us. So anyway, we saw this guy coming down the street and Carol figures maybe he’d go for . . . you know.” She wouldn’t look at Briggs as she spoke, staring instead at the purse on her lap, hands clenched into small fists now. Either she was really green, Briggs thought, or one hell of an actress.
“What’d he look like?” he asked.
Her gaze lifted momentarily, then dropped. “Just ordinary. Nothing special. Anyway, Carol says this to me and she’s about to go across the street when we see this other guy coming from Rideau. He’s walking tall, all in black, and there was something—I don’t know. Not right about him. He spooked me. Spooked Carol too, because she just sort of froze up and we both stood there watching him get near the first guy.”
“Could you see his face?”
Tracy shook her head. “Not really. And I don’t even know if he was wearing black clothes. It just seemed like he was.”
Briggs nodded encouragingly. He was taking notes by hand instead of using the typewriter so as not to intimidate her further. “Was there any . . . fog around?” he asked. He glanced at her face to gauge what reaction the question would get. She only looked confused.
“Fog?”
“Yeah, you know. Like mist. Maybe hanging around his feet.”
She shook her head. “Not then. But after . . .” Her voice trailed off and the frightened look returned to her eyes. Briggs was beginning to realize now that she hadn’t just been scared about getting busted.
“Let’s get back to this guy coming down the street. He was approaching the first man. Did he look your way—did he see either you or Carol?”
“No. But the first guy didn’t look too happy to see him coming. I figured maybe he owes this guy some money or something and wasn’t paying up, you know? He backed into the alley and the second man went in there after him. . . .”
It was a replay of the story that Cleary had given them—minus the fog. That suited Briggs just fine. He didn’t need the fog. Just like he didn’t need Cooper and MacDonald’s smart-ass comments about panthers or leopards prowling the streets.
“What happened then?” he prompted.
“We . . . we didn’t see anything,” she said in a small voice. “But we heard . . . it was like someone screaming, but it wasn’t loud. Just this wheezing sort of gurgle, but it . . . it sounded desperate. . . .” Briggs could see the goose bumps lifting on her arms and she shivered.
“Is that when the two of you took off?”
She shook her head. “We were too scared to even move. We just stood there shaking and . . . and watching the mouth of the alley. I didn’t know what was going down in there, but I didn’t want to be any part of it, you know? So I just stood there, holding onto Carol’s arm, and she’s hanging onto mine, and then we saw this—I thought it was smoke—coming out of the alley and the second guy walked out through it. He didn’t look left or right then, but just headed on up Dalhousie towards the river. We waited until he was a couple of blocks away and we could hardly see him and then we just took off the other way. That’s when we got busted.”
“What about the fog? The smoke?”
“I wasn’t looking for it. Maybe he set the guy on fire or something, I don’t know. I was just watching his back until I thought he was far enough away from us to split without him seeing us.” She was still for a long moment, then asked: “What . . . what happened in the alley?”
“A man was murdered.”
Tracy glanced nervously to where Wesley was sitting, smoking a cigarette while Will typed up her statement. “Look,” she said. “We didn’t have anything to do with it. I swear we didn’t.”
“No one’s saying you did. Would you recognize the second man if you saw him again?”
“It was pretty dark.”
“But would you recognize him?”
“Maybe . . . if I saw him walking. He was real stiff-backed and had a funny sort of—I don’t know. A determined way of walking.”
Briggs nodded. “What about scarring? Did you see any scars on his face? Under his eyes maybe?”
She shook her head. Briggs tapped his pencil against his lip, studying his notes. It wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to go on. Not much better than what they’d got from Cleary last night. He sure hoped Will had had better luck with Wesley, but he wasn’t putting any bets on it.
“What happens now?” Tracy asked.
“I’m going to talk to my partner—compare your statement with the one he took from your friend.”
“But what about after?”
Briggs stood up. “After we get your statement typed up, you’ll be free to go.”
“Yeah. Sure.” She sounded tired, her voice empty.
Briggs sighed. He started to say something else, then decided to leave things lie. Next thing you knew he’d be trying to get her off the street—because she looked like Francine, because she was just so fucking young looking—but it wouldn’t work. Never did. He moved away, motioning to Will. His partner joined him by an empty desk.
“Looks like you put the fear of God into her,” Will remarked.
Briggs frowned. “I’d like to help her, but . . .”
Will shook his head. “Wouldn’t work, Paddy, and you know it. What did she do, give you the ‘poor, pitiful me’ song-and-dance? ‘Please, sir, if you’ll just give me the busfare to get back home, I’ll quit the Life—I swear I will.’ So you fork over the fare and she hands it over to her pimp and she’s back on the street and it starts up all over again.”
“Just full of sympathy and the milk of human kindness tonight, aren’t we?”
Will sighed. “I just spent a half hour with Ms. Spread-’em over there, Paddy, and I’m right out of sympathy. I could be home with my wife right now. Instead, I’m exchanging bullshit with some cheap hooker. You should take a look at her rap sheet. I mean this lady’s been around.”
“What about the kid? Anything on her?”
“If that’s her real name—nope. Her prints came up clean as well.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
“Paddy, don’t get involved. She’s lowlife. Once they’re out there peddling their buns, there’s no more hope for them. There’s just no such thing as the good-hearted whore. Or the innocent young hooker.”
Briggs frowned. Will was right. He’d told himself the same thing about five minutes ago. And if she didn’t look like Francine and if the ghosts of all those victims through the years weren’t playing a tap dance in his head right now . . .
“What did you get out of Wesley?” he asked.
“Pretty much the same story Cleary gave us. Not a whole lot we can use. What did yours tell you?”
“The same.”
“So are we going to turn them loose?”
“Might as well. We’ve already got Cleary in a holding cell, and we’re sure as hell not running a hotel here. Just give me a chance to type up Tracy’s statement and get her to sign it and we’ll drop the pair of them off.”
Will sighed. “Okay.” He shot a glance at Wesley. “Guess I’ll go find out a few more interesting things that you can do with a nightstick. This lady’s got an imagination like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Will! What’s Sharon going to say?”
“I don’t know, Paddy. One of these days I figure I’ll come home and there won’t be anybody there to say anything to me anymore. We’ve gotta do something about these hours.”
“Wearing you out?”
“Paddy, I’m too tired to get worn out.”
seven
The kris of the Ottawa area Romanies had a fluctuating membership composed of whichever of the more important Rom happened to be in town at the time. They gathered only when necessary and then wherever it was convenient. It might be in a vacant lot or the backfield of a sympathetic farmer’s property. Tonight they met in the yard behind the house of Marko Lazlo, the rom baro of the Kore-shti Kalderash in Vanier. Marko was a tall, heavy-set man, dressed tonight in a splendid dark-blue suit that was a size too small for him. Consequently, when he sat, he sat carefully, leaving the jacket open at his chest. A purple and yellow diklo was knotted at his throat, clashing with the suit. His wife Yula and his unmarried daughters bustled amongst the talking guests, serving chao—tea brewed with sugar and served over fruit. When all the guests had been looked after, the daughters withdrew and Yula took her place beside her husband.
Present this evening were the rom bari of all the kumpaniyi in and around Ottawa, as well as other respected adults of the Rom community. Stevo Gry, the head of the Hull kumpania, sat with his two brothers, his grandfather, and Old Lyuba, a wizened aunt in her seventies. The Deschenes kumpania was represented by white-haired Paul Vakako and his wife Boti. Big George had arrived with Tshaya, Yojo, Janfri, the Yoska sisters Tinka and Rosie, and old man Petulen-gro. Tibo Lee had come up from the trailer park outside of Perth with his widowed sister Ursula, the Wells brothers had come down from Gatineau, and there were perhaps a dozen others, including Melalo Wanko, the son-in-law of Prince Bakro Columbus, the rom baro of the Tomoeshti Kalderash in Montreal.
The kris, or collected will of the Rom, is only as effective as the acceptance of its decision by the majority of Rom. Gypsies have no police force, no jails, no executioners. There is no direct element of coercion to enforce the rule of their laws. A claim brought before them leads only to a judgment. For its actual enforcement, the Rom have to rely on their own strength and the strength of their kinsmen. In the case of the problem being discussed this evening, there was not so much a judgment being sought, as an attempt to understand what might prove to be yet another incident to add to a long history of harassment. The potential danger to the Gypsy community as a whole needed to be weighed. If the brutal murder of Romano Yera and the burning of Janfri’s tsera were agreed by all to be isolated incidents, the kris would offer its condolences to the victims and allow their kin to mourn in private. But if this was seen as another campaign against the Rom, an uprising of new anti-Gypsy sentiment, then measures would have to be taken to protect the community as a whole, either by confronting the menace, if this was possible, or by withdrawing all the kumpaniyi and declaring the area marhime.
When the guests had finished their chao—all save Big George and his wife, neither of whom had accepted the tea because they were still in mourning—Marko, as host, arose and surveyed them. They were seated in lawn chairs mended with burlap and twine, wooden crates, a tattered sofa, and the back-seat and rims of a dismantled station wagon that took up most of the driveway. The street in front of the house was lined with battered Caddys, Lincolns and Tibo Lee’s old Volkswagen bus. In the center of the yard, a small fire crackled, throwing light onto the faces of the gathered Rom. The scent of its smoke, mingled with spices, was in the air.
To an outsider, the kris holding their council in Marko’s backyard might be an object of amusement. Many wore ragged or ill-fitting clothes. All had an almost wild look about them with their bright eyes and shocks of blue-black hair. They ranged in size from the frail-limbed Old Lyuba, seated on a wheel rim and pillow as though they were a throne, to the elephantine stature of Big George, ensconced in a lawn chair that creaked ominously whenever he moved. But an astute observer could not fail to see their quiet dignity and the seriousness with which they awaited the matter at hand.
When he was certain that he had everyone’s attention, and the quiet gossiping that had accompanied the drinking of the chao had died away, Marko turned to where Janfri was sitting with Yojo and Big George.
“Boshengro,” he said, using the name by which Janfri was known amongst the Rom not a part of Big George’s kumpania. “Who named you marhime—and why?”
Janfri stood when his name was called. The dark faces turned toward him were sympathetic and curious. The yard fell utterly silent. Standing alone, with the weight of their patient gazes upon him, Janfri knew what he must say, but he hesitated. He’d thought on the reasons this afternoon and, with what he knew of Romano, it hadn’t been difficult to decide what connected the two of them with the marhime patrin. It was the world of the Gaje. And that afternoon, for the first time since he’d watched his house burn down, he’d grown angry. “There is not to love, nor to hate,” his uncle Nonoka had told him once. “Only to understand.” That might be true. But until he understood, he would let his anger run its course. He took a steadying breath.
“I don’t like to speak ill of the dead,” he said, “but Romano’s mulo will understand why I must—may he go quickly to the land of shadows.” Romano’s father Punka wasn’t present, but Big George nodded with understanding when Janfri glanced at him. “Romano spent many years in Gaje jails, isolated from other Rom, just as I have lived amongst the Gaje myself. Neither of us was named marhime because of this, but someone has still decided that we were no longer phral—no longer true Rom. I am not Romano; I can’t speak for him. But . . .” He looked slowly around the circle of faces. “ Te merav—may I die if I have forsaken the laws of the Rom.
