A Ticket to the Boneyard by Lawrence Block Page B

warrant for the fucker.”
    “I think Havlicek would like to do that,” I said. “If he could run it past his chief.”
    “He’d like to while the two of you are eating rigatoni and talking football. Now you’re five hundred miles away and he’s got a million other things that need doing. It gets easier for him to say the hell with it. Nobody likes to open a closed file.”
    “I know.”
    He got a cigarette from his pack, tapped it against his thumbnail, put it back in the pack. He said, “What about a photo? They got one at Dannemora?”
    “From his intake interview eight years ago.”
    “You mean twelve, don’t you?”
    “Eight. He was at Attica first.”
    “Right, you said so.”
    “So, the only photograph they have is eight years old. I asked if they could send me a copy. The guy I spoke to seemed doubtful. He wasn’t sure whether that was policy or not.”
    “I guess he didn’t somehow assume you were a police officer.”
    “No.”
    “I could call,” he said, “but I don’t know how much good it would do. Those people generally cooperate, but it’s hard to light a fire under them. They tend to take their time. Of course you don’t need the photo until your friend in Ohio gets clearance to reopen the case, and that doesn’t happen until they get the new forensic report.”
    “And maybe not then.”
    “And maybe not then. But by that time you’ll probably have the photo from Dannemora. Unless, of course, they decide not to send it to you.”
    “I don’t want to wait that long.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I want to be able to go out and look for him.”
    “So you want a photo to show.”
    “Or a sketch,” I said.
    He looked at me. “That’s a funny idea,” he said. “You mean one of our artists.”
    “I figured you might know somebody who wouldn’t mind a little extra work.”
    “Moonlighting, you mean. Draw a picture, pick up a couple of extra bucks.”
    “Right.”
    “I might at that. So you’ll sit down with him and get him to draw a picture of somebody you haven’t laid eyes on in a dozen years.”
    “It’s a face you don’t forget.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “And there was a picture that ran in the papers at the time of the arrest.”
    “You didn’t keep a copy, did you?”
    “No, but I could look at the microfilm over at the library. Refresh my memory.”
    “And then sit down with the artist.”
    “Right.”
    “Of course you don’t know if the guy looks the same, all these years, but at least you’d have a picture of what he used to look like.”
    “The artist could age him a little. They can do that.”
    “Amazing what they can do. Maybe you’d all three get together, you and the artist and Whatsername.”
    “Elaine.”
    “Right, Elaine.”
    “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said, “but it’s a good idea.”
    “Yeah, well, I’m a bottomless well of good ideas. It’s my trademark. Offhand I can think of three guys who could do this for you, but there’s one I’ll call first, see if I can track him down. You wouldn’t get upset if this ran you a hundred bucks?”
    “Not at all. More if necessary.”
    “A hundred ought to be plenty.” He picked up the phone. “The guy I’m thinking of is pretty good,” he said. “More important, I think he might like the challenge.”
     
Chapter 7
     
    Ray Galindez looked more like a cop than an artist. He was medium height and stocky, with bushy eyebrows mounted over brown cocker spaniel eyes. At first I put him in his late thirties, but that was an effect of the weight he carried and a certain solemnity to his manner, and after a few minutes I lowered that estimate by ten or twelve years.
    As arranged, he met us at Elaine’s that evening at seven-thirty. I’d arrived earlier, in time for her to make a pot of coffee and me to drink a cup of it. Galindez didn’t want any coffee. When Elaine offered him a beer he said, “Maybe later, ma’am. If I could just have a glass of water now that’d be great.”
    He