City of Ice by John Farrow

sentinels, their upper branches run through with electrical wire. In the front windows of a few homes, Christmas lights, off now, had been strung in the shapes of squares or circles or stars, a cheery defense against long winter nights. People waiting for a bus or tramping through the snow looked cold, scrunching their shoulders up and tucking their heads down into their collars as though they had no necks, their faces concealed by scarves, like bandits.
    “Give me his name again.” Cinq-Mars let BillMathers drive. He equated driving with thinking, except when the roads were this perilous.
    “You’re not good at names,” Mathers observed.
    “French ones I am.”
    “Hagop Artinian. It’s not that difficult.” Mathers turned up an unplowed side street. “That the garage?”
    “Should be,” Cinq-Mars guessed.
    Above a broad garage door flush to the sidewalk a faded sign declared the premises to be Garage Sampson, bodywork and foreign cars the specialty.
    “Watch first or go in?”
    “Park. Give it a minute.”
    What interested Émile Cinq-Mars was the innocuous style. By appearances the business was legitimate, although it had done little to advertise itself. No specials on fenders or tires, no night lights for the sign. He gave a moment’s thought to the little boy who had been killed the day before. At Headquarters, everyone was feeling both angry and saddened by the event. Not that rage or sorrow was going to win the war.
    Mathers glanced across at the senior detective a few times.
    “What’s on your mind, Bill?”
    “Nothing. Forget it.”
    “Come on. Spit it out.”
    “I was wondering what we’re doing here.”
    Cinq-Mars could see that he was nervous. He didn’t bite his fingernails, but he kept bringing them up to his lips as though he was tempted to do so. “You mean this isn’t our case?”
    “Something like that.”
    “You haven’t taken an interest?”
    “Like you said, it’s not our case.”
    Cinq-Mars didn’t seem inclined to explain himself. No sign of life was visible from the garage. A minute passed before he spoke again, and when he did his voice was grave and Mathers listened intently.
    “I received a call one night, directing me to a tavern in the east end. I was to go inside, sit down, order a draft, then look for a young guy sitting under the clock. I did what I was told. The guy would get up to take a leak, then leave. On his way out he’d stop to put on his hat and gloves. The moment he did that, the boys on his immediate right were the ones I wanted for a series of violent muggings. Bad boys, Bill. They didn’t just rob their victims. They pistol-whipped them, threatened them with knives, and always they were old people, men and women both. My contact inside would leave the tavern and I was to let him go. Which I did. I made my arrests. The young man who’d been sitting under the clock was Hagop Artinian, not that I knew his name back then. The night he died, Bill? The sign he wore around his neck? Merry Xmas, M-Five. That’s me. March the Fifth. To show contempt, the bad guys—especially the French—they say my name in English. So I’ve taken an interest in this case, Bill.”
    Mathers nodded. “You told the IO all this?” “I told LaPierre squat and I’ll thank you to do the same. We’re on this case, Bill. It’s not official, but we’re on this case.” Cinq-Mars stared at him to gauge his reaction.
    “I’m square, as long as you can skate us around the department.”
    “You let me worry about the department.” “What about Sergeant LaPierre? I don’t know much about the guy, but he catches us messing with his case—” He’d not had to deal with these issues working in the suburbs. They had internal political problems there, too, but nothing that skirted so far around the rules. Bill Mathers was a man who stayed within the lines, but he was not so much inclined that way as fearful of doing otherwise. He was coming up against his own trepidation,