I squatted next him, patted him down. Found the little two-shot derringer in his belt, popped it open. Loaded. No point warning this dirtbag— he wouldn't be a good listener. I held my hand parallel to the ground, made a flicking motion like I was brushing crumbs off a table. I heard a pop, like cloth snapped open in a gust of wind. The pimp slammed into the wall, eyes glazed. Blood bubbled on his lips. I stuck the derringer back into his belt— it was all the ID he'd need at the hospital.
He wouldn't come home tonight. The rest was up to Debbie.
A putty-colored sedan lumbered into the alley at the far end, bouncing on a bad set of shocks. The cops. Max merged with the shadows. I put on my dark glasses, snapped Sheba's harness, and made my slow way out to the street.
6
The E train let me out at Chambers Street, the downtown end of the line. I found my Plymouth parked at the curb near the World Trade Center. Unlocked the back door, unsnapped Sheba's harness. She leaped lightly to the seat.
I took off the dark glasses and climbed behind the wheel. None of the watching citizens blinked at the miraculous transformation.
7
I turned the Plymouth toward the West Side Highway, slipped through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, tossed a token in the Exact Change lane, and cruised along the Belt Parkway just ahead of the rush-hour traffic.
Taking Sheba home the back way.
I pulled over to a quiet spot the other side of the Brooklyn Aquarium. Exchanged the running shoes for a pair of boots, the sweatshirt for a turtleneck jersey, the raincoat for a leather jacket. Threw the blind man's props into the trunk.
The Plymouth purred past JFK Airport, its overtorqued engine muted, well within itself. Sheba slept peacefully on the back seat, profoundly uninterested in where we were going. Just doing her job.
Like me.
I turned off the Van Wyck Expressway onto Queens Boulevard. A short hop to the City-Wide Special Victims Bureau, sitting in the shadow of the House of Detention. I found a parking place, snapped Sheba's harness back on.
The entrance to the Bureau is blocked by a steel gate, guard's desk to one side, two-passenger elevator to the left of a narrow corridor. An Oriental woman was at the desk. Pretty face, calmly suspicious eyes.
"Can I help you?"
"I'm here to see Ms. Wolfe."
She handed me a sign-in sheet on a clipboard with a cheap ballpoint pen attached by a string, but her eyes never left my face. "Your name?" she asked. The way cops ask.
Sheba jumped up so her front paws were resting on the desk, her ears up and alert.
"Hi, Sheba!" the Oriental woman said. "I know I've got a treat for you around here someplace. Let me see…" She rummaged in her desk drawer, came out with a dog biscuit in her left hand. Tossed it at Sheba while she showed me the pistol in her right.
"Where did you get our dog?" she asked, still calm, much colder.
I moved my hands away from my body. "Ask Wolfe," I told her.
She must have kicked some button under the desk. Wolfe came around the corner, a cigarette in one hand, a sheaf of papers in the other.
"What is it, Fan?" She spotted me. "Oh, here you are. Right on time."
Sheba bounded over to her. Wolfe reached down, scratched behind the dog's ears. "Sheba, playroom! Go to the playroom." The dog trotted off.
"He's okay, Fan." Wolfe smiled. The Oriental woman inclined her head about an inch, put the gun away.
I followed Wolfe back into her office. It looked like it always does: paper all over the place, walls covered with charts and graphs, a computer terminal blinking in one corner. And a white orchid floating in a brandy snifter.
"Where's the beast?" I asked, looking into the corners.
"Bruiser? He's somewhere with Bruno. Everything work out?"
I sat down across from her, lit a smoke of my own. "He brought a kid with him this time. Left him there. When I took off, McGowan's boys were hitting the back door."
She nodded, picked up a phone, pushed a button. A doll-faced young redhead with a pugnacious jaw walked in fast, her spike heels tapping on the hard floor.
"The Kent case, you got the warrants ready?" Wolfe asked her.
"All set," the redhead replied, confident.
"He delivered a kid this afternoon."
"We'll pull him in tonight."
I shook my head slightly. Wolfe caught it, looked up at the redhead. "The warrants…you have tap and search?"
"Mail cover too," the redhead said. "The Task Force is on it."
She meant the FBI Pedophile Task Force. They're right down the road from City-Wide. Must be the freak was networked way past the storefront in Times Square— the one thing baby-rapers have in common is enough to link them all over the damn earth.
"Take him tomorrow," Wolfe said, watching my face. I nodded agreement. "At work," she continued. "But start the tap tonight. If he gets a call from the Times Square people, we'll have them hooked in. Execute the search tomorrow night."
"What if he runs tonight?"
"Then grab him. But don't do it unless there's hard evidence that he's fleeing the jurisdiction, you understand?"
"Sure."
The redhead walked out fast, covering ground, her pleated skirt flying around her knees.
Wolfe dragged on her cigarette. "That's the best I can do," she said.
"It's okay. Good enough. I don't think they'll call him…degenerates don't work like that. No loyalty."
"A lower class of criminal." She smiled. A lovely, elegant face, framed by glossy dark hair shot through with two wings of white.
Wolfe knew what I was. What I did.
"Sheba was good?" she asked.
"Perfect."
"She's perfect here too. Calms the kids down like no psychiatrist ever could."
"Where'd you get her?"
"You know what happens to Seeing Eye dogs? After they work about ten years, they retire them." A soft sneer in her voice. "So their owner won't have to deal with an older dog. You know, they slow up, they get sick easily…like that."
"Where do they go?"
"Into cages. That's where I found Sheba. Can you imagine what it must be like…to work all your life, be so loyal and true…and end up in a cage?"
"Just the last part."
She nodded.
A tall, slender woman came in, sat on the edge of Wolfe's desk, crossed her long legs. An ankle bracelet gleamed. She had a Cleopatra face, long, dark nails. Kept her eyes on me as she talked to Wolfe over her shoulder. "We can't use the shield on Mary Beth. The judge ruled she wasn't a vulnerable witness."
"What does Lily say?" Lily runs SAFE, a treatment center for abused kids, works as a consultant to Wolfe's crew. I've known her forever.
"It'll be close," the tall woman said. "You'll take a look?"
"Yeah." She turned to me. "Want to see?"
"Okay," I told Wolfe. Her beautiful pal acted like I was furniture.