“That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean, pal?”
He gestured vaguely toward me with his free hand. “You and that old service model .45 you carry. M1911, referencing the year that antique dates to. The so-called ‘Colt Government.’ It’s big, it’s heavy, and you haul it under your shoulder like something out of an old black-and-white movie. Hell, man, why don’t you go over to Frielich’s and get yourself something state-of-the-art? You can afford it.”
For a couple of seconds I just looked at him, then let out a grunt, uncrossed my legs, set the coffee cup on his desk, and sat up.
Then I slipped my hand inside my jacket, under my left arm, and slid the piece free of the holster. I regarded the weapon. The bluing was thinning out, the butts were well-worn, and the edges of the thumb rest were nicked. But it had that satisfying machine-clean oily smell and felt alive in my hand.
“It’s like me, man,” I said. “An oldie but goodie.”
Still leaning back, Pat was grinning as he flipped his jacket back to pat the S & W .38 in the speed rig on his hip.
“Modern technology,” he said. “You should give it a try.”
“Why?” I tossed him a nasty grin. “Think you could out-draw me, Pat?”
Smirking, he said, “What, you figure this is the Wild West or something?”
“You bet your ass I do. You’ve been out on these streets. You know how the stats read.”
His eyebrows flicked up and he shrugged. “No argument, buddy.”
“Anyway, you’re forgetting something.”
“I am?”
“Sure. The old western gunfighter rule.”
His grin reversed itself. “Which is?”
“Don’t ever try to out-draw a guy who already has a gun in his hand.”
I let him have a look down the big hole at the end of the barrel, watched him as he sucked in a breath, then I chuckled and snugged the gun back in its leather womb.
Pat waited a second before he breathed out and said, “Damn, Mike, the old gunfighters also said never draw a gun unless you intend to use it! Man, you’re a real pisser — you scare the hell out of me sometimes.”
“Just sometimes?”
The phone rang and Pat grabbed the receiver.
The call didn’t last long, but most of the talking was on the other end, while Pat leaned forward jotting on a notepad and saying “Uhhuh” now and then, till he thanked his guy and hung up.
He rocked back. “Guess how many red Ferraris there are in the greater New York City metro area.”
“I don’t know. Twenty?”
“You’re close — three-hundred-and-twenty. Four-hundred-and-seventeen, state-wide.”
I grunted something that was almost a laugh. “More people have dough than I thought. And decent taste.”
“Do I have to tell you what that means?”
“Red’s a popular color?”
But we both knew what it really meant was that although the case was still in the Active pile, the hit-and-run outside Pete’s Chophouse a little over two weeks ago was already a dead issue.
I asked, “Didn’t those dicks come up with anything?”
He smirked again. “I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt that by ‘dicks’ you mean detectives. They did, actually. Several eyeball witnesses saw that red sports car hauling ass from the scene. Mud-smeared plates, fore and aft. A bearded guy with a pony tail, which is what you saw, right?”
“Right.”
“Not enough to identify him.”
“Not enough to identify him. Anything else?”
Pat sipped more coffee, nodded; beyond the windowed walls the bullpen murmured with slow-moving but constant activity.
“Yeah, there is,” Pat said. “We know the guy turned left on Lex and sideswiped that newsstand on the corner. Paint samples were gathered, so if the right red Ferrari gets itself found, out of those 320 or 417, we’ll have our man.”
You had to know Pat as well as I did to pick up on the sarcasm in his tone. I felt sure the NYPD would dig into this hit-and-run with a victim out of the hospital the next day — just as soon as they got through tracking down the Star of India that was stolen in 1964.
I wasn’t saying anything, because I knew something Pat didn’t, or anyway had forgotten. But my silence and my expression were enough to jog his memory.
Eyes narrowing, he said, “That’s the newsstand on the corner of Lexington and 44th.”
“Is it?”
“That little midget they call Billy Batson, who runs the stand, he witnessed another hit-and-run, what? Twenty years ago?”
“Did he?”
“Kind of a pal of yours, isn’t he?”
My shrug maybe tried a little too hard. “I pick up my magazines there. By the way, all midgets are little.”
“Thanks a bunch for the intel.”
“No trouble.”
Pat sighed. “Y’know, Mike — most detectives hate coincidences. I hate coincidences. But you seem to thrive on them. Hell, you seem to attract them.”
“You mind if we change the subject to something besides what a disappointment I am to you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
I leaned forward, set my empty coffee cup on his desk. “Is there a number where Casey Shannon can be reached? You told Velda that he’s shacked up with some old honey of his somewhere in the Florida Keys.”
Nodding, Pat said, “That’s what his last partner, Chris Peters, told me... but Chris also said Casey left specific instructions he didn’t want to be bothered.”
“Meaning he didn’t leave a number. How about an address?”
“Not that I know of.” The gray-blue eyes narrowed. “Why?”
I sat back in my chair. “Shannon said he ran into Vincent Colby during the course of two separate suspicious-death inquiries.”
“I remember that conversation,” Pat said, nodding again. “But he didn’t indicate Colby was a person of interest, much less a suspect. I thought you said you were working for his old man — Vance Colby, the Wall Street big shot.”
“I am.”
“So whose side are you on in this thing?”
“What thing?”
Pat closed his eyes. Then he opened them and said, “Sorry. I should have remembered that you’re only interested in truth and justice.”
“Don’t forget the American way.”
“Do I need to remind you what your rich client hired you to do?”
“No.”
But he did anyway: “You’re looking to find out who was driving that red speed buggy, and bring him in.”
“That’s the job.”
Pat leaned forward. “In other words, Vance Colby has hired you to do what the entire New York Police Department and its considerable resources aren’t capable of?”
“Why, how do you think they’re doing?”
He lifted a forefinger and waggled it at me. “I’m guessing you think that accident was no accident. That it wasn’t a hit-and-run, but a hit period... one that didn’t take.”
“I’m looking at that, yeah.”
He raised two open hands, as if he were holding them out to catch somebody but didn’t care if it worked. “A hit for what reason? I know a lot of people who would like to kill their brokers, but I doubt very many go through with it.”
Now I leaned in. “I’m not looking into that side of it, Pat. The old man has specialists in high finance on that score. I’m strictly digging into young Colby’s personal life.”
Pat shrugged. “Well, I told you — Vincent Colby’s clean. I think there may have been some youthful indiscretions, but if so, they’ve been expunged. That happens under certain circumstances even if you aren’t wealthy.”