“Nothing,” Vickers says. “Just initials.”
“Kind of got shortchanged,” Commander Clay observes.
Vickers is glaring at Dr. Trong, who’s looking around the room with curious interest. Vickers says, “It doesn’t fit. You claim the guy’s practically catatonic but he went through that building full of officers like a chainsaw.”
Dr. Trong says, “He was a natural athlete. Under pressure it must’ve come back. But that’s the operative term — pressure. An assassin cares about something, even if it’s only his own rage… That profile doesn’t fit C.W. He barely exists. Barely feels. He doesn’t want to hurt anybody. He just wants to be left alone.”
Clay says, “Somebody’s robot, maybe? Wind him up and put a gun in his hand.” She’s reading the label off a prescription sheet. “Pain meds. You prescribed this.”
“I did,” Dr. Trong agrees. “And he’s about due for a refill. Look, Commander, this just doesn’t fit his pattern. One thing he’d never tolerate is someone trying to use him again.”
Vickers snorts. “The man’s a traitor and a murderer. I’m going to nail him.”
Clay says, “Yeah. Well good luck, Colonel.” Then, to Dickinson, “Walk me out.”
Outside in the night Clay and Dickinson walk toward a car. Clay hands the prescription slip to Dickinson; she says, “He forgot this. If he’s run out, maybe he’ll look for a street retailer.”
Dickinson takes the slip of paper and turns back; Clay gets in her car and drives off. That’s when the reporter, Ainsworth, intercepts Dickinson. “What’s really goin’ down, you old hairbags?”
Dickinson waves the sheet of paper in front of the reporter’s nose, then pockets it too fast for Ainsworth to make out what it is. “A clue,” Dickinson says smugly.
Ainsworth muses: “The federal agent and the lady cop — I see a story in that. I mean aside from the story everybody’s covering. I could use a sidebar byline.”
“Get out of here, pest. No press.”
Ainsworth poises a stylus over the screen of his palm computer. “Chief of Detectives, Commander Denise Clay is a legend. In some quarters she is regarded as incorruptible and virtually superhuman. And now, into her previously unchallenged realm, we see a potentially explosive conflict in the arrival of a new outside authority…”
Dickinson turns and, walking away, says cheerfully, “Blow it out your bottom, huh?”
In the cafe kitchen, Don the waiter prepares a tray. Charlie fries burgers. From outdoors, Radford enters in his mussed police uniform. He’s exhausted — haunted — in great pain. He carries the tied-together nightsticks: the nutcracker.
Don sees him, is galvanized — reaches for a handgun hidden in an ankle holster. Radford reacts — at first sluggish, but he expertly tosses the nutcracker. It tangles in Don’s ankles and trips him. Radford is on top of him at once — disarms Don, recovers the nutcracker, clamps it tight around Don’s wrist and squeezes. He can see in Don’s face the agonizing pain this device causes.
“Move one inch, you’re dead meat.”
Radford’s voice is like a tumble of coal down a metal chute: the new authority in it is enough to convince any tough guy that he means what he says. Don sweats, and lies still…
Radford picks up Don’s revolver — a compact hammerless pocket .38. Radford says to Charlie, “What’s he doing with a piece?”
“Beats shit out of me. Ask him.”
Don says, faint with pain, “Police officer. Wallet…”
Radford yanks out Don’s wallet and flips it open. Sure enough there’s a police badge in it. “And you’re undercover in Charlie’s place here for—?”
“Uh — drug enforcement. Vice.”
“Try again.”
Don begins to regain his bravado. “That’s my badge. You don’t question me, Radford. I question you.”
Radford gives the nutcracker a twitch. It sends beads of pain-sweat to Don’s forehead. But he’s tough enough. “You ain’t on the need-to-know list, C.W. I can’t tell you shit. Even if I did, where would you take it? They got a federal fugitive warrant out on you — know what that means? Dead or alive. Like John fucking Dillinger.”
Radford doesn’t have time to spar with him. He looks up at Charlie. “D’you know he was undercover?”
“No.” Charlie is scowling at Radford as if he doesn’t like what he sees.
Radford says to him, “Hey. I didn’t shoot anybody. They put the rifle in my hands.”
Don scoffs. “Sure. They. Who’s ‘they’?”
“Wish I knew. Some people — gun club in a building on Broadway…”
“Yeah,” Don says. “I hear you sayin’ it.” He looks up at Charlie. “Son of a bitch told a bunch of lies before. On Eye-rakky TV.”
Charlie leans over Don. “You’d have done the same thing, Donny boy, and you’da done it a lot sooner than he did.”
Radford drops the snub-revolver in his pocket and gets Charlie’s eye. “You want to keep this character on ice a little bit? I’ve got to get some answers. Want to know why… Who did this?… Look, I got to hit you up for some moving-around money. A razor… Pair of scissors… And let me borrow your jacket.”
Radford comes out the side door from Charlie’s Cafe, wearing a leather jacket that hides the police uniform. He’s clean-shaven and he’s cut his hair shorter, but he stumbles a bit. He’s disoriented and in pain — that headache: again, still… always.
Charlie looks both ways from just inside the door. “You belong in a fucking emergency ward.”
“I could be putting you out of business here, Charlie. Undercover narc idiot could run you in, aiding and abetting.”
“Maybe he knows me better’n to try that.” Charlie’s deadpan gives way to a wicked unamused grin.
“Yeah… If I’m still alive sometime I’ll pay you back.”
“When’d we start keeping books on you and me?”
Charlie shuts the door and Radford trudges away.
He reacts when he sees—
The redheaded dealer. Still wearing those camouflage combat fatigues. Radford asks, “What outfit were you with?”
“Huh?”
“In the service. What unit?”
The dealer frowns. “Man, you got a problem or what?”
“Never mind. I… uh… I just want to make a buy.”
The dealer looks down at Radford’s cuffs and shoes. Police blue and black.
Radford continues, “I need a painkiller bad.”
The dealer’s gaze very dryly climbs back up from the police Oxfords and the blue slacks to Radford’s face. “My man, I got nothin’ for you.”
“Come on. I really need…”
“Don’t they tell you guys about entrapment?” He turns away laughing. “Next time try to remember — eighty-six the pig shoes.”
Radford says, “Hey, you’re wrong…” — and in his desperation he thinks about knocking the dealer over with the nutcracker — but now something stirs in the corner of his vision and he turns to see a cop coming in sight, a block away. The cop looks this way, and Radford shuffles away into alley shadows…
Later in the night the redheaded dealer crosses a silent downtown street and stops in a doorway to see if he’s being followed. When no one appears, he walks on. Then, out of sight one turn behind him, Radford emerges from the shadows and dodges forward, cautiously following the dealer…
Inside Union Depot it’s so late there’s very little activity. The dealer stands at a magazine rack near the bank of lockers and pretends an interest in the magazines while he has a look around. He doesn’t spot Radford, who watches him from a distance. The dealer turns, produces a roundheaded key, opens one of the lockers and takes a package out.