Swan Dive - Jeremiah Healy by Jeremiah Healy Page A

*
    Holt let me go, warning me to stay available and not
to call Nancy until they had checked my story with her. I went up the
hall and by the corner to Murphy’s office. Nobody I recognized was
around, so I walked up to his door and knocked.
    "Yeah."
    I entered, closing the door behind me.
    Murphy looked up from a file he was reading. "Get
out."
    "Lieutenant, I wanted to thank you."
    "I’m not supposed to be talking with you."
    "You must have told Holt I wouldn’t have done
Marsh that stupidly. Otherwise, with what he had on my gun, he would
have held me awhile."
    "Cuddy, I will not talk with you about another
squad’s case. Now get out."
    "This mean I can’t get a look at the jacket on
this?"
    Murphy snapped the folder closed and came up out of
his chair, shoulders hunched. "You fucking asshole! You did me a
favor, fine, I do you one. Ask around on this guy Marsh. But then the
guy turns up dead, and it smells so much like you I’m afraid to
shit. Things develop, it does look too stupid for you, but how am I
supposed to explain that to Holt, huh? Am I supposed to say, ‘Nah,
couldn’t have been Cuddy, man. I seen Cuddy set up a killing, even
covered him on it, and it was nothing like this’?"
    "Lieutenant, I promised you something that time.
I promised you I’d never do anything like that in your
jurisdiction. Believe me, I didn’t."
    Murphy sank back down in his chair and reopened the
file, trying to find his place."‘Get out. I’m not gonna say
it again."
 

    TEN
-♦-
    I hiked home to clear my head. Once there, I called
Nancy’s office, but the secretary said she was in court. I asked if
Detective Guinness was there, and the secretary said, yes, would I
like to speak with him? I told her no thanks and said I’d try again
later.
    Chris answered on the second ring.
    "Chris, this is John Cuddy. I have to see you."
    "Jeez, John, the cops already called me. l heard
about Marsh on the late news."
    "Can we talk if I get there in the next hour?"
    "Oh, John, I’m up to my ears . . ."
    "I’ll be there by noontime, Chris. Don’t go
anywhere I can’t find you." I hung up, cleaned up, and went
down to the car.
* * *
    I pushed open the door to Chris’s waiting room.
Sitting in one of the plastic chairs was a man with black wavy hair
and a dark complexion. He wore a crudely cut suit with a
narrow-collared white shirt and no tie. He watched me, collapsing a
tissue-thin, crinkly newspaper with headlines in what looked like the
Greek alphabet. As he was about to say something, Chris stuck his
head out from the office.
    "C’mon in, John. I hope this won’t take too
long. I’m really up to my—"
    "It won’t take
long." I followed Chris into his office as the man in the chair
followed me with his eyes.
    * * *
    “ His name’s Fotis. Eleni’s cousin."
    "He doesn’t look too good for business,
glaring in your reception area like that."
    "What can I do, John? She’s really rattled by
this i Marsh thing, not that I blame her. I’m in and out a lot, I
so she feels safer with Fotis and Nikos here for a while."
    "Nikos another cousin?"
    "Right. He’s with Eleni. In the kitchen."
    I didn’t respond, so Chris said, "So, what can
I do for you?"
    I settled back in my chair. "You can explain why
you didn’t let on that Marsh was into the drug trade when you hired
me."
    Chris moved his tongue around against the inside of
his cheek. "John, I didn’t have any proof of that. Just the
wife’s say-so, for chrissake. I might have tried to use it if
things went bad at the settlement conference, but the way we were
going . . ."
    "Chris, you asked me to bodyguard because you
were afraid of the guy. It might have been nice for you to warn me
about what you suspected instead of giving me that 'insurance
salesman’ line."
    "John, I’m telling you, I didn’t know for
sure. Christ, you’d think I’d been a customer of his or
something."
    "Were you?"
    "Oh, John, c’mon .
    "Look, Chris, somebody set me up, understand?
Somebody