Bang! My head snapped back and my body tumbled forward, arms flailing. I tucked them in time and hit the pavement with a shoulder roll. Something fell on top of me. Melendez! I came up with my wits and reached around my back for my.38. Detective Melendez had already assumed firing position and had her off-duty piece aimed at the rear end of the fishtailing Camaro. I slapped her arms down as the car sped away.
“Conjo! What was that for?” she growled.
“Ricochet. It’s not worth the risk. Did you get the plate number?”
“No rear plate.”
“Fuck!” I slipped my.38 into its holster. “You saved my life, Carmella.”
“I couldn’t afford to let you get killed. Not yet.”
“That’s a real comfort.”
“You seem to be the only fucking person who gives a shit about what’s going on, but maybe now you’ll share with me a little.”
“If I was a cynical bastard, I’d say you staged this. I mean that untied lace was pretty convenient.”
“Fuck you, Moe! Just go fuck yourself!”
“Did I say I was a cynical bastard?”
“Are you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t believe for a second you had anything to do with that.”
“Then why say it?” she asked, dabbing blood off her scraped knees with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Because you make me a little nervous.”
“I make you nervous. Why?”
“I may be invisible to you, Carmella, but you’re not to me.”
“Am I supposed to understand that?”
“Yeah, you are.”
She just shook her head. “So we’re just gonna forget about this little incident, right?”
“Why bring any more attention to what we seem to be doing than we have to?” I said.
“Okay, I’ll be in touch.”
“You okay?”
“It’s a scraped knee,” she said. “I’ll live. Watch your back.”
By the time I was fully across the street and to my car, she had moved to the boardwalk side of the street. When I looked again, she was gone. I was none the worse for wear, not even a ripped jacket or pant leg. Maybe a little dusty, but basically intact.
Why then, I wondered, did my hands shake so when I clamped them around the steering wheel? This time the answer was as easy as the question. Someone had just tried to kill me. That’s why.
Only once before had anyone tried to kill me, and that was six years ago in Miami Beach. After the night of the shooting I’d barely given it a second thought. And now it seemed so unreal to me that I found myself questioning whether it had actually happened. It had, of
CHAPTER TEN
The funeral was a muted affair, a coward’s burial. No one said it or even implied it, but to claim otherwise was to lie. Lawrence McDonald was afforded all the honors, pomp, and circumstance-the flag-draped coffin, the Emerald Society pipes and drums, the white-gloved pallbearers, the dignitaries, the strained faces and tears-that came with the death of a man in his position. All, that is, but respect and a church burial.
Without a suicide note to explain his actions, the church had no way to make the case for special dispensation. And it’s not like Larry was a beloved figure within the department. No one at City Hall or One Police Plaza was putting in the call to Cardinal O’Connor. Oddly, when a regular cop does himself in because his wife’s divorced his cheating ass and moved the family to Ohio or because he mistakenly shot an innocent bystander, the department will do what it can to intercede on his behalf. But when a man like Larry, a man with looks and style and power-things all men want-kills himself, he earns only disrespect.
An Army vet, Larry Mac was buried in the military graveyard out on Long Island along Cemetery Row in Pine Lawn. Strangely, most of the dignitaries, it seemed, had lost their way on the trip out to exit 49 for this part of the day’s proceedings. Funny how that happened. If he had died a hero, the brass and every politician from the Tri-State area would have made sure to show up and shove their way into any photo opportunity. No one elbows the crowd to be associated with a coward.
It wasn’t a lonely burial. The bugler’s “Taps” fell on many ears, most of them civilian. Margaret was there, of course. She received the flag from his coffin, stained it with her tears. Wit had come. Detective
When things broke up, Katy went over to be with Margaret. Wit nodded to me and pointed to a row of low stone crosses about fifty feet east of Larry’s gravesite. I made my way over, shaking a hand here and there as I went.
“Hey, Wit.”
“Moses.”
We hugged, not something he was usually comfortable with. Stepping back, he held onto my arms. I was being inspected.
“What’s wrong, Moe?”
“What’s wrong? That’s Larry McDonald back there in that box. He allegedly killed himself, remember?”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it. You seemed awfully distracted during the burial.”
“There’s a detective here that is a little too interested in my business.”
“The dark-haired beauty?” he asked.
“How’d you-”
“Moe, please, give me my due. I have been reporting on crime for longer than you wore a badge. I can smell a cop from the adjoining county.”
“Yeah, her. Name’s Melendez.”
“I can see why she would be a distraction to any man. Do you think she would appreciate the charms of a former society hack?”
“And Pulitzer Prize winner.”
“Yes, there is that.”
“I wouldn’t know, why don’t you ask her yourself, Wit?”
“Perhaps I shall. But there’s something else, something you are keeping from me.”
“Someone tried to kill me. I was in Coney Island and a car came straight for me. And no, Wit, it wasn’t an accident.”
“Would you like to inform me or shall I be forced to play twenty questions?”
Thought about playing coy. For as much as I had grown to love and respect Yancy Whittle Fenn, it was not lost on me that he had press credentials in his chest cavity where most people have beating hearts. I didn’t think he’d screw me, but the pull of a good story was as strong as the pull of bourbon. It would only take one slip.
“First tell me what’s the buzz and then we’ll discuss it,” I said.
“That’s just it. There isn’t any buzz.”
“Get the fuck outta here! The chief of detectives gasses himself, leaves no note, and everyone is happy with that?”
“The silence is quite astounding, Moe. I have good sources, the best sources, and none of them has anything to say.”
“Okay, let’s forget the cops for now. You can’t tell me that the media isn’t all over this thing. I mean, it’s got ‘big story’ with a neon sign and fireworks on it.”
He removed his tortoiseshell glasses and rubbed his eyes. “That’s just it. The press is all over it, but no matter how they shake it, squeeze it, kick or bribe it, nothing is coming out. Usually, there is someone in the department, some disaffected fool who has been passed over for a promotion or assigned to the rubber gun squad, who is simply clamoring to gripe and talk off the record.”
“Not this time?”
“It would seem not. Not a soul is talking and that is most peculiar. Cops love to gab. It is how I used to gather half my stories. A seat at the bar and bottle of Jameson can go a long way with a pub full of cops.”
“Cops and booze! Who’d’a thunk it? So, you think it’s a dead issue?” I said, knowing he’d take it as a challenge.
“No need to insult me. Just because no one is talking today, doesn’t mean the same will be true tomorrow or the next day. Someone always talks.”
“So you’re intrigued?”
“For the moment, yes,” he said. “Now, would you like to tell me the entire story that I might do my part in this more effectively?”