“Everything?”
Labiche was right. I just didn’t want to admit it. “How well did you know Kevin Penny, Spade?”
“Me? Just from the interview. Why would I know him otherwise?”
“You worked vice in Miami. Penny was an active guy thereabouts.”
“Where do you come up with these scenarios?”
“I think you’re a dirty cop,” I said.
He stood up, his face constricting. “I gave you a way out of the Dartez beef. I covered for your drunk ass because I’ve had problems of my own.”
“Good show. No cigar.”
“Yeah?” He blew air out his nose and smiled. He caught the half dollar and put it away. “You couldn’t carry my jockstrap, Robo.”
* * *
LABICHE WAS WRONG about Levon making bail that afternoon. Unlike his counterpart Jimmy Nightingale, Levon didn’t make friends with authorities or politicians he didn’t like. The South has changed in many ways, but beyond the sophistry and hush-puppy platitudes is a core group that is as malignant and hot and sweaty as a torchlit mob flinging a rope over a tree limb. The judge before whom Levon appeared was the Honorable Bienville Tomey. His face had the choleric intensity of a dried squash and the same level of humanity. He wore his irritability like a flag.
“What the hell do you have to say for yourself?” he asked Levon.
“Nothing, Your Honor,” Levon answered.
“You’re entering a plea of not guilty?”
“Yes, that’s correct, Your Honor,” Levon’s attorney said.
“I didn’t ask you. The defendant will answer my question.”
“Yes, sir,” Levon said.
“Yes, sir, what?”
Levon looked out the window and didn’t reply.
“Are you deaf?”
“I don’t have anything to say, sir.”
“You mean ‘Your Honor.’?”
Levon continued to stare out the window. “I didn’t torture or kill anyone. Interpret that in any way you wish.”
“Remanded in custody,” the judge said. He snapped down his gavel as he would a fly swatter.
* * *
I WAS ALLOWED to see Levon in a holding cell. It was an old one with a concrete floor that sloped down to a drain hole with a yellow-streaked perforated iron lid. There was no bench or chair to sit on. He stood at the door in an orange jumpsuit, his hands on the bars.
“Why were you in Penny’s trailer?” I said.
“Rowena remembered something. Actually, it was in a dream. In her dream, the assault by the two black guys was mixed up with the assault on Nightingale’s boat. Then she heard a voice. It was a man with his mouth right by her ear. The pillowcase was over her head, so she couldn’t see his face. She thought it was one of the black guys. It wasn’t. The voice said, ‘Here’s a penny for your thoughts.’ The voice wasn’t Nightingale’s, either.”
“Go on,” I said.
When you question a suspect, you do not offer any information unless you want him to think you know more than you do. In this instance, I wanted Levon to give up details that only a perpetrator would know. Unbeknownst to him, he might also give up details that could set him free.