Twenty-seven.
She got into the Jeep and headed into the city.
Detective Nicolette Malone was petite, tanned, and toned. Her hair was an almost silver blond, and she wore it in a ponytail. She wore tight, faded Levi's, a white T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. On loan from Narcotics, around Jessica's age, she had followed a path to a gold badge that was strikingly similar to Jessica's: She came from a cop family, had spent four years in uniform, three years as a divisional detective.
Although they had never met, they were aware of each other by reputation. More so on Jessica's part. For a brief period, earlier in the year, Jessica had been convinced that Nicci Malone was having an affair with Vincent. She wasn't. It was Jessica's hope that Nicci had heard nothing about her schoolgirl suspicions.
They met in Ike Buchanan's office. ADA Paul DiCarlo was present.
"Jessica Balzano, Nicci Malone," Buchanan said.
"How ya doin'?" Nicci said, extending a hand. Jessica took it.
"Nice to meet you," Jessica said. "I've heard a lot about you."
"I never touched him. I swear to God." Nicci winked, smiled. "Just kidding."
Shit, Jessica thought. Nicci knew all about it.
Ike Buchanan looked appropriately confused. He went on. "Inferno Films is essentially a one-man outfit. The owner is a guy named Dante Diamond."
"What's the play?" Nicci asked.
"You are casting a new hard-core movie and you want this Bruno Steele to be in it."
"How are we going in?" Nicci asked.
"Lightweight body microphones, wireless, remote taping capability."
"Armed?"
"That will be your choice," DiCarlo said. "But there's a good chance you will be searched or go through metal detectors at some point."
When Nicci met Jessica's eyes, they silently agreed. They would go in unarmed.
After Jessica and Nicci were briefed by a pair of veterans from the vice squad-including names to float, terms to use, along with a variety of tells-Jessica waited in the duty room of the Homicide Unit. Before long Terry Cahill entered. When she was sure that he had noticed her, she struck a tough-guy pose, hands on hips.
"We've got officers at all the exits," Jessica said, mimicking the line from Kill Game 2.
Cahill looked at her for moment, questioningly; then it registered. "Uh-oh," he said. He was dressed casually. He was not going to be on this detail.
"How come you didn't tell me that you've been in the movies?" Jessica asked.
"Well, there've only been two, and I like to keep my two lives separate. For one thing, the FBI isn't crazy about it."
"How did you get started?"
"It started when the producers of Kill Game 2 called the bureau asking for some technical assistance. Somehow the ASAC knew I was a movie nut and recommended me for the job. As much as the bureau is secretive about its agents, it's also desperate to have itself portrayed in an accurate light."
The PPD wasn't much different, Jessica thought. A number of television shows had been produced that focused on the department. It was rare when they got things right. "What was it like working with Will Par- rish?"
"He's a great guy," Cahill said. "Very generous and down to earth."
"Are you in the movie he's making now?"
Cahill looked around, lowered his voice. "Just a walk-on. But don't tell anyone around here. Everybody wants to be in showbiz, right?"
Jessica zipped her lips.
"In fact, we're shooting my little part tonight," Cahill said.
"And for that you're giving up the glamour of a stakeout?"
Cahill smiled. "It's dirty work." He stood, glanced at his watch. "Have you ever done any acting?"
Jessica almost laughed. Her one brush with the legitimate stage had come when she was in second grade at St. Paul's. She had been a co-star in a lavish production of the nativity scene. She played a sheep. "Uh, not that you'd notice."
"It's a lot harder than it looks."
"What do you mean?"
"You know those lines I had in Kill Game 2?" Cahill asked.
"What about them?"
"I think we did thirty takes."
"How come?"
"You have any idea how hard it is to say 'these scumbags are ours' with a straight face?"
Jessica tried it. He was right.
At nine o'clock, Nicci walked into the Homicide Unit, turning the head of every male detective on duty. She had changed into a sweet little black cocktail dress.
One at a time she and Jessica went into one of the interview rooms, where they were fitted with wireless body microphones. Eugene Kilbane paced nervously around the parking lot of the Roundhouse. He wore a powder-blue suit and white patent-leather loafers, the kind with the silver chain across the upper. He lit each cigarette with the previous one. "I'm not sure I can do this," Kilbane said. "You can do this," Jessica said.
"You don't understand. These people can be dangerous." Jessica glared at Kilbane. "Um, that's pretty much the point, Eugene." Kilbane looked from Jessica to Nicci to Nick Palladino to Eric Chavez. Sweat gathered on his upper lip. He wasn't getting out of this. "Shit," he said. "Let's just go."
45
Kevin Byrne understood the rush of crime.He knew well the adrenaline surge of larcenous or violent or antisocial behavior. He had arrested many a suspect still in the flush of the moment and knew that, in the grip of that rarefied feeling, criminals seldom considered what they had done, its consequence to the victim, its consequence to themselves. There was, instead, a bitter glow of accomplishment, a feeling that society had prohibited this behavior and they had done it anyway.
As Byrne prepared to leave his apartment-the ember of this feeling igniting inside him, against his better instincts-he had no idea how this evening would conclude, whether he would end up with Victoria safe in his arms, or with Julian Matisse at the end of his pistol sight.
Or, he was afraid to admit, neither.
Byrne pulled a pair of workman's overalls from his closet, a grimy jumpsuit belonging to the Philadelphia Water Department. His uncle Frank had recently retired from the PWD, and Byrne had gotten the overalls from him once when he needed to go undercover a few years earlier. Nobody looks at the guy working on the street. City workers, like street vendors, panhandlers, and the elderly, are part of the urban curtain. Human scenery. Tonight Byrne needed to be invisible.
He looked at the figurine of Snow White on his dresser. He had handled it carefully when he removed it from the hood of his car, placing it in an evidence bag as soon as he slipped back behind the wheel. He didn't know if it ever would be needed as evidence, or if Julian Matisse's fingerprints would be on it.
Nor did he know which side of the legal process he would come down on by the time this long night was over. He put the jumpsuit on, grabbed his toolbox, and left.
His car was bathed in darkness.
A group of teenagers-all about seventeen or eighteen, four boys and two girls-stood half a block away, watching the world go by, waiting for their shot at it. They smoked, shared a blunt, sipped from a pair of brown-paper-clad forties, snapped the dozens on each other, or whatever they called it these days. The boys competed for the girls' favors; the girls primped and preened, above it all, missing nothing. It was every urban summertime corner. Always had been.
Why was Phil Kessler doing this to Jimmy? Byrne wondered. He had stopped at Darlene Purify's house that afternoon. Jimmy's widow was a woman not yet beyond the reach of the tendrils of grief. She and Jimmy had divorced more than a year before Jimmy's death, but she had not stopped caring. They had shared a life. They shared the lives of three children.
Byrne tried to remember what Jimmy's face looked like when he was telling one of his stupid jokes, or when he got really serious at four in the morning, back in his drinking days, or when he was interrogating some asshole, or that time when he dried the tears of a little Chinese kid on the playground who had run right out of his shoes getting chased by some bigger kid. Jimmy took that kid over to Payless that day and hooked him up with a new pair of sneaks, out of his own pocket.