“So he told us.”
“We expect the perps to call with a ransom demand sometime tomorrow. The office was closed today, and they have no way of knowing his home number. Plus, the girl’s parents are divorced and living, one in Mexico, the other in Europe someplace. So Loomis is the one the perps’ll most likely contact.”
“So he told us,” Endicott said again.
“That’s what we’ve done so far, and that’s what we’ve got.”
“Which is essentially nothing,” Endicott said.
“Well, as I mentioned earlier,” Carella said, “maybe you ought to talk to my lieutenant. He can give you any further…”
“No, no, you’ve done splendidly,” Endicott said. “Not your fault these guys are smart. How about the crime scene itself? Has the lab come back to you with anything yet?”
“They said I’d have their report by six tonight. I waited in the office till seven.”
“Think it might be there now?”
“Possibly. I can call the squadroom…”
“If it’s there, maybe you can bring it along with the rest of the stuff.”
“What stuff do you mean, Agent Endicott?”
“It’sSpecial Agent Endicott, by the way, but you can call me Stan. What do people call you, Detective? Stephen? Steve? It says here Stephen Louis Car…”
“Steve. People call me Steve.”
“Steve, I’d like to go over whatever evidence you gathered at the scene…”
“There wasn’t much.”
“Whatever there was. It’d be in your DD report, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, it would.”
“Your various conversations with eye witnesses…”
“Yes.”
“Your own evaluation of the crime scene…”
“Yes, that would all be in our report.”
“Photographs…”
“Those would be coming from the lab.”
“Plus whatever else you may have got from Mobile this evening.”
“If thereis anything else, yes, Stan. It was a big crime scene, they were very busy there, insideand outside the boat. The perps came up a ladder, you know, on the side of the boat…”
“So you’re saying there might be footprint casts…”
“I’m saying I don’t knowwhat they got or didn’t get. Footprints or whatever. That’s why I’m waiting for the report. The perps were wearing gloves, so the likelihood of latents is nil. But they came down these highly polished steps into the ballroom, and they moved across a dance floor with another sensitive surface…”
“That’s the kind of stuff I mean,” Endicott said. “Your first hand impressions of the scene. To supplement whatever you’ve got in writing. When do you think you can get down here?”
“Down where?” Carella asked.
“Why, Federal Square, Steve.”
“How about first thing tomorrow morning?” Carella said.
“How about right now?” Endicott said. “The Squad’s all here…”
The Squad? Carella thought.
“…and we’d love to get a jump on this before those sons of bitches call tomorrow. Think you can stop by your office first, see if that MCU report is in, and then head right on down here? It’s One Federal Square, nineteenth floor. We’ll be waiting,” he said, and hung up.
Carella looked at the phone receiver.
The Squad, he thought. Is that what the Joint Task Force calls itself, The Squad?
He put the receiver back on the cradle.
The Squad.
“I have to go in again,” he told Teddy.
It was not the first time she’d ever heard those words, but she pulled a face anyway.
6
THERE WAS ONLYone building in Federal Square, and it was appropriately addressed One Federal Square. A forty-story limestone structure lit from below with daggers of light, it would have looked imposing, and a bit intimidating, even if it were not the sole edifice on a plot of ground some fifty yards square.
The Joint Task Force, a team of six crack FBI agents and an equal number of elite police detectives, occupied floors nineteen and twenty of the building. You could not enter those floors without a key. Carella did not have a key, which was why someone was meeting him downstairs in the lobby.
The someone was Detective-Lieutenant Charles “Corky” Corcoran.
In this whole wide world, there is no one with the surname Corcoran who does not also possess the nickname Corky. That is an indisputable truth. Male or female, if you are a Corcoran, you are also a Corky. Charles Farley Corcoran had been “Corky” when Carella met him some twenty-odd years ago at the Police Academy, and Carella guessed he was still Corky tonight, though there was clipped to his suit jacket pocket an ID card and a gold, blue-enameled detective shield hammered with the wordLIEUTENANT . Beaming a toothy smile, blue eyes crinkling in a face stamped with the map of Ireland, he extended his hand and said, “Steve, long time no see.”
His grip was firm and dry and warm. He looked as fit and as young as he had, lo those many years ago, when they were both rookies climbing ropes and firing pistols in the Academy.
“Welcome to The Squad,” he said.
The Squad, Carella thought. Supreme egotism in that the designation completely dismissed every detective squad in this city and declared itselfThe Squad,The One and Only Squad. Welcome.
“Nice to be here,” Carella said.
He was thinking he had not got to bed till almost eight-thirty this morning after being up all night on the kidnapping. He had been awakened by Byrnes at twelve-thirty and had spent the rest of the day either in court chasing court orders, or up in Loomis’ office supervising the installation of the telephone-surveillance equipment. It was now ten-thirtyP.M. , and he was beginning to feel just a wee bit weary.
The usual modulation from night shift to day shift took place over a period of two days. You worked the midnight-to-eightA.M. shift for a full month, then you took two full days off and came back to work at eight in the morning, the theory being that you’d caught up on your sleep by that time, just like a business traveler adjusting to jet lag.
Sure.
“You’re looking good, Steve.”
“Thanks. Do I still call you Corky?”
“Most people call me Charles these days,” Corcoran said. “Or Lieutenant.” Still smiling, he said, “Come meet the team,” and led Carella across a vast lobby paved with massive blocks of unpolished marble to a bank of elevators simply marked 19–20. There were only two buttons and a keyway in the elevator that arrived. Corcoran took a key ring from his pocket, slid a small key into the keyway, twisted it, and hit the button for 19.
“I understand you’ve done some good work on this case,” Corcoran said.
“Thank you,” Carella said.
The elevator whirred silently up the shaft. The door slid open onto the nineteenth floor. The men stepped out into a corridor that ran past a warren of tiny work cubes, occupied with men and women at computers. Carella followed Corcoran to an unmarked door at the end of the hall. He opened the door and allowed Carella to precede him into a room.
There were six smiling men in the room.
Carella recognized only Barney Loomis, who was wearing a brown jacket over beige slacks, a brown turtleneck sweater, and brown loafers. Three of the other five men were both wearing dark blue suits, white shirts, blue ties, and highly polished, black, lace-up shoes. Carella figured them for FBI. They even looked somewhat alike, all three of them square-jawed and dark-haired, sporting the sort of conservative haircut made famous by Senator Trent Lott, although presumably their own barber was not in Washington, D.C.