She walked into the small entrance room, actually a dark bar with a greasy counter, which was empty tonight except for the bartender watching ice hockey on the TV. Vicki nodded hello to him and followed the noise level to the back, which was hopping. Three long, red-checkered tables had been set up and the seats filled by everyone who had been at the meeting the other day, but now they were wearing casual dress and mixed drinks. Strauss sat happily at the head of the center table, talking with the mayor on his right, their animated expressions illuminated by candles flickering in thick yellow bowls. Bale sat next to him, chatting up the deputy mayor, and lawyers from the city solicitors, joking around with the office's public relations lady. Filling out the rest of the long table were other AUSAs and some recent alums, including Jim Cavanaugh, who caught Vicki's eye and winked.
The table on the far left was ATF and FBI; Chief Saxon raised a glass beer mug, along with the top tier of FBI and ATF agents, and a group of federal marshals, all laughing and talking. The table on the right was headed by the police commissioner, in shirt and tie, and the seats occupied by his deputies, a few favored beat cops in uniform, and at the far end, Detective Melvin and his taciturn partner with the golf windbreaker, whose name Vicki kept forgetting. A civilian couple sat at a red-checkered table along the paneled wall, but the smallish, square room was otherwise dominated by law enforcement. Dan was nowhere in sight, and she tried not to care. Her mission was to get Bale's ear in this crowd, then Detective Melvin's.
"Allegretti!" Strauss called out, gesturing to her. "Siddown and dry off! Have a drink!"
"The Vickster!" Bale waved at her with a broad smile, then resumed his conversation with the deputy mayor.
Vicki wiped her hair back again and dripped her way to the table, where the only seat was at the near end, so she took it, sliding out of her coat and purse and hanging them on the back of her chair. She would have to wait to make her move because dinner had just been served. Sheets of eggplant parmigiana, oval plates of fried calamari, huge bowls of meatballs and penne pasta covered the table, and a young waitress materialized and plunked an empty dinner plate in front of Vicki.
"What'd ya want ta drink?" she asked.
" 'Course she wants a drink!" Bale shouted down the table, hoisting his glass. "Give her what I'm having, rum and Coke!"
"May I have a Diet Coke?" Vicki asked, turning to the waitress, but she was already gone. Instead, leaning over her, close enough to kiss, was Dan Malloy. He was whispering something when the room erupted with shouting.
"Malloy! Malloy! Where the hell you been?" Strauss yelled, and Bale joined in:
"You workin' late again? Tryin' make me look bad?"
"Malloy, you SUCK!" shouted a federal marshal whom Vicki recognized from the intramural football championship. "They can promote you, but you still SUCK!" The other marshals burst into laughter, then started chanting. "YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK!"
"Thank you, thank you!" Dan laughed, straightened up, and waved like a presidential candidate, as Vicki tried to figure out why he was standing there.
"Get your hairy ass over here, Malloy!" Saxon shouted, making a megaphone of his big hands. "I wanna hear that punch line!"
"Gimme a minute!" Dan shouted back, then leaned down again and slipped her his cell phone. "Reheema called. She's fine and she wants you to call her back. Press one." He straightened again quickly and wedged his way toward Saxon.
Surprised, Vicki got up with the cell phone and hurried toward the bar where she could hear, pressing one on the way. The call connected instantly; her new cell phone had been Dan's number one speed dial. "Reheema?" she asked.
"Yo, you there?"
"Yes." Vicki pressed her hand over her free ear. The noise from the dining room intensified as the chanting turned profane. The civilian couple left, laughing as they walked past Vicki on their way to the exit.
"I'm okay, I'm fine. Good work on Montgomery. Later, you have to tell me how you found out."
"Sure. Why did you call Dan?" Vicki asked, confused.
"I had to. I couldn't reach you at the office, and he was on your speed dial. Number one."
Modern love. We used to be on each other's speed dials.
"Listen, I have news, big news, but you need to be where I can talk to you."
"I can talk here." Vicki was watching Strauss and Bale, laughing. The marshals clustered around Dan and they were laughing, too, their entrees untouched in the revelry.
"Where are you? It sounds noisy."
"It is. I'm at this dinner for work. It's a little hard to hear."
"Who's there, at the dinner?"
"Everybody from work, the detectives, the mayor. What's the difference?"
"Damn, girl! Hurry up and get yourself where you can hear me."
"Okay." Vicki walked farther away from the dining room into the empty bar. The bartender watched the Flyers on TV, but it was quieter. "Now it's fine. What?"
"What I'm going to tell you, you have to stay calm. Don't let it show. Keep a poker face."
"What?" Vicki's gut tensed. Through the doorway she could see Strauss still laughing with Bale, their heads bent together, and the marshals joking around with Dan. She looked away, to concentrate on what Reheema was saying.
"I found this neighbor who knew something, an old lady. Black. Her name is Dolores Cooper, and she lives alone, way down at the end of the block, across the street from Jackson. She doesn't know Jackson, but here's what happened." Reheema was almost breathless with excitement. "Cooper loses her dog one night about a month ago, so she goes knockin' on the neighbors' doors, up and down the street, and she knocks on Jackson's."
"And?"
"It was late at night, around eleven o'clock. Cooper knocks and knocks on the door. Nobody answers it. But she sees the lights on and she hears people, so she keeps knockin'. Still no answer, but she sees the lights on and she's buggin' about her little Taco Bell dog."
"Taco Bell dog?" "The dog with the Spanish accent. The Taco Bell dog." "A Chihuahua?" "Whatever. So she goes to the front window and looks inside the house, through an opening in the curtain." "Whoa." "I know, right? She looks inside the living room, and who does she see sitting there on the couch, inside Jackson's house?" "Who?" "Chief Bale, from your office, and a white guy." What? Vicki couldn't have heard Reheema right. She pressed the cell close enough to her ear to give herself a brain tumor. "You there?" "Say again, please," Vicki said, her mouth dry. "Cooper sees your boss! The black one, Chief Bale, and a white guy with him." No. "That's not possible."
"She's sure of it."
"How does she know it was him?"
"I showed her the front page of today's paper, like you did yesterday. I was showing her Browning, and all of a sudden she points beside his picture to Bale. She knows Chief Bale. He was in Jackson's house last month!"
"Couldn't be. Who else's picture is on the front page?"
"Wait a minute." There was the sound of a newspaper rustling. "It's today's paper, Sunday. The page I showed her has Toner, the white van guy, and Browning and his driver, Cole. And Strauss and your boyfriend, Dan the Man. But she didn't identify them. Only Bale."
It couldn't be. Not Bale. "Who is the white guy she saw?"
"She couldn't see his face. She only could see the face of the black guy, Bale. He was closer to the window. They were both sitting on the couch."