Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set) Blake Banner (best books to read ever txt) 📖

turned his head to look at me again. Then I said, “Apology accepted. Now, do you know who killed Angela Fernandez?”

He nodded. “Oh, yeah,” he said, and his face went hard. “I know who that son of a bitch is.”

THIRTEEN

“Here’s the way I see it, Stone.” He sat forward and put his elbows on the table. “The State of New York has stolen my freedom. Now I want my freedom back.” He nodded his head toward the folder. “If that is the offer you have for me, then we can talk turkey.”

I pushed the folder in front of him and opened it so he could read the document inside it. “You give me the name of Angela’s killer, and if the evidence you give is probative of his guilt, or leads to his conviction, your sentence will be reduced to time served. That is as good as you are going to get.”

“It’s good enough,” he said without looking at me, and continued to read the document in minute detail. When he had finished he sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. Then he smiled.

“I’m a drifter, Stone, what you might call a bum. I traveled all over this great country of ours. I like the South. I like the Southwest. A man can be free down there. And in Wyoming. Up here in the Northeast, man, this is like the Illuminati control everything, you feel me? But I kind of arrived here, three years ago, to do a bit of business which does not concern you…” he wheezed his rasping laugh, “and I don’t know man, I just kind of stayed. I don’t know why, I like the Bronx, or I did back then. It was kind of rebellious, know what I’m sayin’? People are free here, you know? They kick against the yoke. I like that. But I don’t like it over yonder, Hunts Point, over the river, man, Longwood, that’s not my scene. Like I keep tellin’ you. I ain’t a criminal, I am just anarchic. I don’t like no man tellin’ me what I cannot do. So I found myself a pad near Castle Hill Avenue, south of the expressway. I read there was a real low crime rate there. I could feel easy and at peace. I like that.” He leered. “I could feel like a nice, middle class gentleman, just like my Momma wanted me to be. You know what I’m sayin’?”

I looked at my watch and sighed.

“Don’t be rude, Detective Stone. If I get upset I may have to ask you to come back tomorrow.”

“Keep going. I’m listening.”

“‘I’m listening.’ Who used to say that, man? I like that. ‘I’m listening.’”

“Dr. Frasier Crane.”

He laughed. “That’s right. I used to like that. A nice American family, human, but fundamentally driven by good American values. Big Brother is watching, Dr. Frasier Crane is listening. I like that.”

“Deep. So what happened?”

“I found me a nice bar I could frequent. They was good times for me. I was makin’ a bit of money, I read the New York Times over breakfast and I frequented a nice neighborhood bar in the evening, as a middle class gentleman should. There ain’t a lot of nice bars around Castle Hill and Zerega, did you know that?”

“So you frequented Teddy’s Late Night Bar.”

“You are a veritable Sherlock Holmes, Detective Stone. That is exactly the bar I settled on. I was happy, and I started to recreate myself, far away from the pernicious influence of my father and his belt.” He paused. “You know what? I am fundamentally a very positive kind of man. Since I been locked up in this hell hole, I have been using my time constructively. I have been seeing a therapist, I have been reading the classics, and I have been studying the essays of Sigmund Freud, so that I can better understand my own, unconscious motivations.”

“I’m impressed. So you started hanging out at Teddy’s. Is that where you developed your obsession with Hispanic girls, or did you have that from before?”

He laughed a laugh that sounded like somebody rasping through volcanic rock. “You’re smart, Stone, but not as smart as you think you are. I have no interest in Hispanic babes. Your boy does. My only reason for hitting on your Carmen Dehan was to rile you.”

“So your interest was in me, not her.”

“You could say that. Call it an unresolved Oedipal complex. You remind me of my dad. My mom? She was pretty as a picture, pale skin, freckles, Scandinavian hair so blond it was almost white, and blue, blue eyes. Hard as fuckin’ nails. But a good, Christian woman. Your made in a mold, standard Latina beauty don’t do much for me. They all look the same, know what I’m sayin’?”

“So who’s my man?”

“So I used to go there two or three nights in the week, have myself a rum or two with my beer, read the paper and sometimes a book. And in time I got to know some of the patrons and made friends. Sometimes Teddy and I would discuss the issues of the day. He ain’t no genius, but he can hold a good conversation and, what is most important, he is a law-abidin’ citizen who does not allow anti-social elements into his bar. His bar is strictly for decent, middle-class folks who don’t want no trouble. That was, and is, what I aspire to be.”

I raised an eyebrow and he sighed and closed his eyes. “Dr. Mack tells me that one of the ways I sabotage myself, is that when I talk from the heart, I make myself out to be some kind of clown. Like I am mocking myself. Like I don’t even believe me.” He opened his eyes. “He says that is a defense mechanism.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“So you made friends