Brown gave it a hard look, and then got out of the car. "See you tomorrow," Carella said. "Want to come up for a drink?”
"Got to go pick up the dope money from Riverhead.”
"Tell them to mail mine.”
"The protection we give, they should messenger it.”
“No respect anymore," Brown said, and grinned, and closed the door on his side.
Carella returned the grin and drove off.
Frank Girardi had lost both legs in George Bush's television war, which featured surgical strikes and hardly any deaths on either side, to hear the generals and the politicians tell it. Girardi had been wounded in the First Cavalry Division feint up the Wadi al Batin, and now he worked at a computer in his small Calm's Point apartment, addressing envelopes for any firm that was willing to pay him for this onerous task.
"Reason you get so many letters with handwritten addresses on tlaem is oecause a lot of I,- u,. know how to do the envelopes on their computers. I make address files for these various companies, and then I run off the envelopes on my printer and send them back by messenger. I get ten cents an envelope. It's not bad work.”
Girardi looked to be in his late twenties. Each of the detectives had a good ten years on him. They were each suddenly aware of their legs, the fact that they had legs and Girardi didn't. They were here to pry Leslie Blyden's.address from him, but it was a little difficult to put the muscle on a man who was sitting in a wheelchair.
"Reason I asked if there was a reward," Girardi said, "is I figure I got one coming, don't you? I get all shot up in what was basically an oil war, I think my country owes me something, don't you?”
Meyer did not think it appropriate to inform Girardi that the city's police department was not his country. They had come here prepared to offer what they would have given any police informer, a sum ranging from a hundred to a thousand, depending on the value of the information. They took this money from a squad room slush fund, the origins of which were obscure, but in police work petty detail often fell between the cracks and the point was to get the job done. Just before he and Kling left the squad room Meyer signed out a thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. If this money had originally belonged to a dope dealer and it was now being used to buy information that would lead to a killer, that was justification enough not to ask questions.
he trouble here, though, vcas that Girardi wasn't a sleazy two bit informer who'd sell his ax-murderer brother for a cup of coffee and a donut. Girardi was a war hero. A man with both the Purple Heart and the Medal of Honor. You couldn't offer a war hero a dope dealer's dirty money in exchange for information. You couldn't pressure him, either. You couldn't say, Okay, Frank, you want us to take another look at the open file on that grocery store holdup? You couldn't bargain. You couldn't say, So long, Frank, this shit isn't worth more than a hundred. The man was a war hero.
"Look," Meyer said, "we don't want to insult “
you ... "I've been insulted by experts," Girardi said.
"As I told you on the phone, there's no reward on this thing. But we're prepared to give you money out of our own pockets...”
"Bullshit," Girardi said.
"Whatever. It embarrasses me, believe me. A man who did so much for his country, I wish I could offer more. But all we can go is a thousand.”
I'll take it," Girardi said.
The problem was all the background.
Blyden's land-lady had told them that she'd seen him leaving the building at around six-thirty '.M. What he Usually did, she told them, was walk up to the McDonald's on the next block, catch himself a bite there. Did it every night, far as she could tell. A creature of habit was Mr. Leslie Blyden.
The sign out front was claiming billions and billions of hamburgers sold, but Meyer figured that was an underestimate. The place at a quarter to seven that Monday night was packed with diners inside and cars outside. They had no clear picture of what Blyden looked like because the Feebs hadn't yet sent along his army ID photo. All they had was the description of him from when he'd entered the service nine years ago. They also knew he'd lost the pinkie on his right hand since then.
This same information hadn't helped them much when they killed the Leslie Blyden who now turned out to be a man named Lester Blier, who was wanted in the state of Arizona for mail fraud, and who'd been living here in the city under a touch-close alias for nearly two years which perhaps explained his panicky reaction on Saturday. The new data somewhat lessened the public hue and cry over four armed and armored police detectives nailing an innocent man in his own kitchen. But only somewhat. Mail fraud was perceived in the public imagination as some sort of gentlemanly crime, far distant from armed robbery or rape. You didn't go gunning down a man who had a mail fraud warrant chasing him from Wee Mesa, Arizona. This was a sophisticated city, man, and it did not expect its police officers to behave like barbaric goons.
There was a good possibility that public misapprehension might escalate on this muggy Monday evening. The cars lined up at the drive-thru window, the crowd inside waiting on line to place orders or sitting at tables happily munching away, constituted what was known in the trade as "background". In this city, the presence of background was one of the conditions that defined when a police officer might draw or fire his weapon. If Leslie Blyden, aka The Cookie Boy, was indeed inside this fast-food joint enjoying his usual evening repast, and if indeed he had killed two people, then it could not unreasonably be assumed that he was certainly dangerous and possibly armed. Two guideline conditions already satisfied. He was also a fugitive. Chalk off a third condition. Going in was another matter.
The presence of background severely limited their choice of engagement.
This was not a matter of the English and French deciding like proper gentlemen to settle their ancient dispute on the level though muddy field of Agincourt. The guidelines clearly stated that if you anticipated shooting, then you made your arrest where there wasn't no background, kiddies. The Gang of Four, as the media had immediately dubbed Meyer, Kling, Parker, and Willis, congregated on the sidewalk outside, working out a game plan.
They decided that two of them would go in to scout the joint, see if they could spot a guy with the pinkie missing on his right hand. Even though Willis and Parker had caught the murder of the lady and her teenybopper lover boy, Meyer and Kling had caught the initial Cookie-Boy burglary. The cases were now irrevocably joined at the hip, but the doctrine of First Man Up prevailed, and Meyer and Kling caught the brass ring.
Parker was delighted. All that background in there made him very nervous. Suppose The Cookie Boy spotted fuzz on the premises and decided to shoot his way out? Guidelines applied only to law-enforcement officers. The rest of the population could fire at will. So Parker took up a position in the parking lot outside the side door, and Willis planted himself outside the front doors, and Meyer and Kling went in looking for a man some six feet tall, with black hair and blue eyes, weighing around two hundred pounds, and missing the pinkie finger on his right hand.
The air conditioning provided a welcome oasis of relief after the soggy atmosphere outside. Meyer and Kling fanned out, one heading for the service counter on the right, the other moving toward the seating area on the left. Each cop looked like any of the other customers in the place. Not many men here were wearing jackets, but Meyer and Kling were wearing them only to hide the hardware, and their clothing was wrinkled and limp from the weather outside. No one in the place gave them a second look.
Meyer got on the line closest to the door, scoping the crowd, alternately glancing at the menu on the wall above the counter and the customers waiting to place orders. Kling was doing the same thing on the other side of the room, peering around like a guy looking for his wife and three little kids. First came height, weight, color of hair and eyes. They were easier to check at a glance. Searching for a missing pinkie demanded a scrutiny of hands. Nobody ever looked at another person's hands unless he was some kind of pervert. The missing pinkie came only after all the other criteria were met.