Rodriguez looked and sounded like a white middle-class businessman who'd crawled up out of the working class, sweating the details of whatever kind of business he was in. He was a large guy, thick-necked, thick-waisted, round-shouldered. Maybe he drank too much, and if so, it'd be beer, or if not beer, something seriousvodka martinis with a pearl onion. Lucas had seen the same guy in car salesmen, machine-shop owners, bartenders, union officials. He saw it sometimes in lawyers who came from a working-class background.
And Rodriguez was mad: "What the fuck are you doing, what the fuck do you think you're doing, bustin' my reputation and my bidness dealings? I'll tell you what: I'm getting my lawyer down here right now"he snatched up a telephone"and we're gonna add this little patch of harassment to the lawsuit. I don't need no goddamn apartment buildings, because I'm gonna get rich suing the city of Minneapolis for about a billion bucks, and this ain't the first time you Minneapolis cops got nailed doing this kind of harassment bullshit and"
"You're dealing drugs, Richard," Lucas said. "We can prove that. We can prove you ran Sandy Lansing: We've got people who will stand up in court and say so. We can prove you got a bunch of bullshit loans that you supported with dope money, and the IRS is gonna come afteryour ass. We've got all that. The questionis, can we getyou for killing Alie'e? We know you did it, we just gotta fit the suit to you."
"Bullshit. I never touched that bitch." He'd been punching numbers into his phone set, and now he spoke into the phone. "Let me talk to Sam. The cops are here, hassling me. Davenport and some other guy." He listened for a moment, then thrust the phone at Lucas. "Talk to him."
"No. We're leaving," Lucas said. "I just wanted to get a look at your ass. We're coming for you, Richard."
"Fuck you," Rodriguez said, and into the phone, "He won't talk to you. They're leaving Yeah, yeah."
As Lucas and Sloan went through the office door into the hallway, they heard the phone clattering on the desk, and a minute later Rodriguez was in the hall behind them. "Let me tell you assholes something," he said. "Let me tell you something. You and me. My goddamn mother was no better'n a whore in Detroit. I don't even know who my daddy is. Even my name is some kind of joke. My old man was probably a Polack or a Litvak or some other fuckin' Eastern European." He was building steam as the words rattled out of his face. "I got outa Detroit by my fingernails, and I busted my ass every day of my life to get where I am. Now some two-bit fuckin' cops are saying I killed somebody I'll tell you what, I never killed anybody I never killedanybody. I never even slapped anybody in the face. I just wanted to get out of that fuckin' Detroit and be somebody, and now I am, and you assholes"
"Enough on the assholes," Lucas snapped.
"You're an asshole," Rodriguez said. "Both of you are. So why don't you slap me around a little, or something, huh?" He inched closer to Lucas. "C'mon, hit me, I won't hit you back. It'll just give me a little more to sue you with, you motherfuckers. You're ruining my bidness"
And suddenly his face crinkled up and he said, "My bidness. You're ruinin' my bidness." And he turned around and went back through the door into his office.
"Jesus," Sloan said, impressed. "The guy was I mean, those were tears."
"Yeah." Lucas scratched his head, then shrugged. "Let's go."
"We're sure he's dealing drugs?" Sloan asked.
"Unless he's got an evil twin."
The Rodriguez interview put a blight on the day, and they drove, mostly in silence, back toward Minneapolis. "Drop you at the hospital?" Sloan asked.
"Nah I'm gonna I don't know what I'm gonna do."
"What if we're wrong about Rodriguez?"
"I've been sitting here thinking about that," Lucas said. "But we're not You know what we're doing? We've gotten to the place where we think dope dealers are automatically subhumans but both of us could think of guys who push a little dope and aren't all that bad as guys. Love their wives."
"Not a lot of them," Sloan said. "Most of them are dirt."
"Not a lot, but some. Some of them are human beings. You know what it reminds me of? Remember when you were interviewing Sandy Lansing's father, and he started off on 'niggers' and all that?"
"Yeah."
"He's the flip side of Rodriguez. Here was a guy who coulda played the nice old candy-shop owner on a TV show, but then he opens his mouth, and this bullshit comes out. Rodriguez is a dope dealer, andhis story is this pathetic struggle to get out of the slums. Fuck, I don't know." He thought about it for a minute, then said, "What I do know is, Rodriguez is a drug dealer, he was running Sandy Lansing, he was at the party where Sandy Lansing was killed, he denies all of it, and that's the only tie we've got."
Del called. Sloan handed Lucas his cell phone and asked, irritably, "Why don't you turn on your fuckin' phone?"
"What's going on?" Lucas asked.
"I'm at Boo McDonald's, and I got some seriously bad fuckin' news," Del said. McDonald was the paraplegic radio and computer monitor.
"All right."
"You know that little rat who publishesSpittle? He's got a new story out, and it names Rodriguez."
"What?"
"Yeah, the little jerk. I'm going over to scream at him, scream at his parents. But Rodriguez's name is out."
Rose Marie was livid. "You gotta tell me the truth, Lucasthis isn't the little push you were talking about?"
"No. Nobody got the name from me or any of my people."
"Not from me, or anybody I know," Lester said. "There's gotta be fifty or sixty people in the department who know the names."
"I've had about nine calls in the last half hour, and what do I say?" Rose Marie asked. "I can't say no, it's not Rodriguez, because itis. So I say, I can't comment on an ongoing investigation. And you know what that means? That means, yes. And everybody knows it."
"TheSpittle kid's got a leak," Lucas said. "We know this goddamn place leaks."
"If I find the fuckin' leak, that guy will find himself out on his ass, and I'll spend the rest of my term trying to fuck his pension," Rose Marie snarled. "I want you to put that word outthat I'm looking for the guy, and his job and his pension are on the line."
"That's a little strong," Lester said. "I'm not sure they'll believe it."
"It'll give them something to think about," she said. "By God, I'm gonna have IA look into this. Brace a few people. I'm not gonna have this shit. I'm not going to have it!"
Lucas said, "I can tell you one thing. This morning I asked you guys to send a couple more people over to watch Rodriguez. We better put a serious net around the guy now. I mean, forget about Jael Corbeau and Catherine Kinsleyhe's gotta be number one on this other fruitcake's hit list."
Lucas went back to his office, found two notes. One said, "Call Jael." The other, "Call Catrin."
He called Jael, who said, "The dozen long-stemmed roses you sent to my house haven't arrived yet."
"I'm sorry, I thought uh well, I mean, I thoughtyou were supposed to send them tome. I've been waiting," Lucas said.
"God, he's such a wit," Jael said. "I need a man with wit maybe. So anything going on? Can I get out of here?"
"Not yet." He told her quickly about the leak in the department. "It'll be on the news."
"What're you doing tonight?" she asked. "I mean, this isn't another proposition. I'd like to rejoice in the blood of the lamb."
"What?" He was confused.
"This guy who's trying to kill mehe's preaching at some church tonight," Jael said. "I'd like to see him. One of your guys here did, and its supposed to be something else."
"Man, I don't know," Lucas said. "That might not be such a good idea."
"C'mon, don't be a stick-in-the-mud," she said. "Besides, you can bring a gun. And I'm going nuts. Lets get the sports car, lets go see him."