“The ends don’t justify the means? You’re beginning to sound like Charles.”
Charles sat between them, sincerely not knowing whether or not to take offense.
“I was hoping one day you would sound more like Charles. I don’t expect that anymore.” Riker’s mood was darkening. “Don’t go near Blakely. He’ll get you. Don’t think of him as just one old bastard, think of the whole machine. It’s an ancient thing. You’ve got the talent, but you’re just not old enough to be that mean and dirty. Markowitz would tell you the same. You can’t save Coffey. He’s dead meat. Don’t go down with him.”
“Riker, I thought you liked Coffey in your own twisted way.”
“I got a lot of respect for the guy. But you’re the one who needs looking after. You think you’re such a hotshot. You don’t ever go after a cop-you got that?-and never a top cop. You think you’ve got your own power base, but you-”
“I do-in spades. Between the data off Koozeman’s computer and Markowitz’s old case notes, I can hurt Blakely.”
“Don’t ever tip your hand, Mallory. Don’t ever let on you’ve got those notes. What the old man put down in writing is court evidence. Don’t make Blakely feel threatened.”
“Markowitz would have covered Coffey’s tail.”
“Yeah, he would’ve. But you’re no Markowitz, kid. He used finesse-you use a hammer.”
Mallory did not stand at attention before the chief’s desk. Nor did she wait for an invitation to be seated, a courtesy Blakely rarely granted to those with the rank of sergeant. Uninvited, she settled deep in the chair opposite his desk and crossed her legs. He did not look up. The only clue that she had annoyed him was in the crumple of the paper in his hands.
“I want you to reconsider taking us off the Dean Starr case.” Her tone of voice did not frame this as a request.
The sheet of paper he had been reading was now a crushed ball flying into the wastebasket. “No deal. Now get out of here, or I might forget how much I liked your old man.”
She sat well back in the chair and gave no signs of going anywhere.
“Move your ass, Detective, or you’ll be going down with your boss.”
She was smiling when she said, “I don’t think so, Blakely.”
“You know the drill, Mallory. You will address me as sir or Chief, and those are all the choices you get.”
“Makes you wonder what I’ve got on you, doesn’t it? But I’m not here to talk about how you got your job.”
“Careful, Mallory.”
“I bet you’re wishing the old police commissioner had been more careful about the way he spent his payoff money-he’s a senator now, isn’t he? That must put a lot of pressure on you.”
“Mallory, don’t push your luck with me.”
“Milking the payoff from a mob bodega was really ballsy, Blakely. I liked that a lot. It made me wonder how much hard evidence you had on that operation to make them come across with the money.”
He was rising from his chair.
“I did a little digging in Markowitz’s personal notes,” she said. “I came across an interview with a dealer who did business out of that same bodega.”
He sat down again, slowly. She continued. “Quite a busy place, between the drug deals and the racketeering. Their delivery boys covered three states, didn’t they?”
His chair squeaked as he swiveled around to face the window. “So what’re you planning to do with all this crap, Mallory?” His fingers drummed softly on the red upholstery.
“Nothing. I’m sure the feds would like to know you shielded an interstate operation-but I don’t owe the FBI any favors, do I?” She looked down at her red fingernails. “So that’s old business. Right now, I’d rather discuss Lieutenant Coffey. You see, when you climb up his back, he climbs up mine. And I really hate that. So you will back off, won’t you? Sir? I think you can trust Coffey to assign his own detectives.”
“Anything else?”
She knew his voice was too calm. But he was not fighting back, so it was all going well, wasn’t it? “You attached a lot of charges and a bad review to Coffey’s record-you might want to rethink that. Markowitz always said, ‘What goes around comes around.’ ”
She could hear the old man saying that now, but Markowitz was saying it to her-a prickling warning from the back of her mind.
Blakely was silent. She wished she could see his face. He continued to stare out the window, and the only sound in the room was the soft drumming of his fat fingertips on the red leather arm of his chair.
Well, what had she expected, a signed contract? Their deal was concluded. There was nothing left to say. But she stood up with the uneasy feeling of unfinished business.
Mallory was across the room and through the door before she heard the squeak of Blakely’s chair swiveling around again.
Riker sat at the desk in Mallory’s private office, holding a telephone to his ear, and making an occasional scribble with his pen.
Charles sat down in the metal chair opposite the desk. He hated the decor of this room and wished Mallory would let him furnish her office with a few Oriental rugs and perhaps a desk from the last century. But he knew she was more comfortable in this atmosphere of stark simplicity.
Riker was speaking into the telephone. “What’s Blakely doing with the inventory sheet on Markowitz’s house?‘’ And now he listened and his face was clouding over with anger. ”Robin Duffy was the family lawyer. He got a ruling on the old man’s personal papers. All the personal papers belong to the estate and the estate belongs to Mallory. There’s no way he’s gonna get any of it.“ Now he covered the mouthpiece with one hand and spoke to Charles. ”You got a number for Duffy?“
“He’s on a fishing trip in Canada. He’s due back in a few days, but I suppose I could track him down if it’s important.”
Riker shook his head and spoke into the mouthpiece again. “Duffy’s out of town. I’ll have him call Blakely’s office when he gets back… Right.”
Riker put the receiver back on the cradle of Mallory’s state-of-the-art phone center, which spread tentacles to a fax machine, a recording device, and other equipment Charles could not readily identify.
Riker was not a happy man. “That was Coffey. He says Blakely wants all of Markowitz’s personal notes, and he’s doing paperwork with the DA’s office right this minute. Claims they relate to an ongoing case. Now I’ve got a charge on my record because my name is on the inventory for the old house in Brooklyn. Blakely claims I improperly handled department property.”
“This sounds serious. Let me track down Robin. He can probably fix this with a phone call.”
“A phone call from God wouldn’t fix this-not unless He’s got some good dirt on Blakely.”
The old Koozeman Gallery in the East Village was on a narrow street in Alphabet City, and just off a lettered avenue which had boasted ten predators to every taxpayer in the days when Koozeman ran this gallery. On foot, artists and hookers had passed through this neighborhood they called home. Yuppies had only come by cab and limo, reveling in dangerous chic. That trend had passed, and the galleries abandoned this section of town, moving to the safer chic of SoHo and its better class of criminals.
The storefronts had For Rent signs on the doors. Mallory stared at the dark windows, up and down the street. This was a good place to do murder with no witnesses. But even twelve years ago, the artist and the dancer could have screamed all through the night and no one would have come to their aid. Such sounds were common then-like crickets to country people.
She never turned to look directly at him, but she was aware of the thin man walking toward her at a cautious pace. As he slowed his steps, she realized she was his mark. The body movement she detected in peripheral was twitched and jazzed. A crackhead. Closer now. He must be thinking this was his lucky day-a woman alone on the street, and the nearest branch of authority was the Hell’s Angels clubhouse on the next block. Lucky day for the junkie-no waiting in line to pick off the suckers at the cash machines. Would he rush her? No. He would wait for the fear response, and then use it to his advantage. Closer now, all excited, he could probably taste her money, feel it gliding into his veins or up his nose in a cloud of white dust.