Mitchell Smith (17 page)

Nardone looked over his shoulder down the aisle. “No bet,” he said, picked up his tea, and went back to reading the Johnson report.

The cop, who was likely Sergeant Charles Ambrosio, shrugged Serrano’s hand off his heavy shoulder and came down the aisle like a vehicle.

Ellie wished Tommy wouldn’t just sit there. She wished Lieutenant Leahy would come back to the office. -He’d gone down the corridor to Personnel to complain about the month’s roster, just distributed, which showed the two young black detectives working on the racing-odds scam as belonging to Division Bunko, rather than to C Squad, Headquarters-which they absolutely did.

“You’re the fuckin’ cunt came to my house, Friday!”

The sergeant was pointing a thick finger into Ellie’s face as he came up to her. He was a little shorter than she was, but that seemed to make no difference.

“You came to my goddarnned house!” He had a hairy hand wide as both of Ellie’s. “—Come out to my fuckin’ house and scare my wife? Mess with my mother? My wife is expectin’ a kid!” He was so angry, his voice was shaking. “Who the fuck you think you are … from this shit Squad-you fuckin’ ass-kissers comin’ out fuckin’ with a man’s family!”

“You go to hell,” Ellie said, but not as loud as she’d wanted to.

Ambrosio reached out and took her by the arm-just above where Tommy had held her. With that grip, holding her firmly, but not hurting her, he began to shake her slightly back and forth. “You dirty cunt,” he said,

“-if you or any of your faggot buddies come out to my house again …

An’ you made goddamn sure I wasn’t there……

Ellie saw Nardone put down his tea, the report on Johnson and the bookie.

“Tommy, don’t,” she said, ashamed. “-I’ll handle it.”

Ambrosio turned to look down at Nardone, and said, “You were out there, too-right? You, I don’t have to go easy on. You get up outa that chair, you motherfucker, I’ll break your fuckin’ jaw!”

“Hey, now!” Serrano said, he and Medina standing just up the aisle.

“Hey, now-take it easy, you guys.”

Nardone, looking satisfied, stood up. “-That new kid’s probably not yours, anyway, Sergeant,” he said.

Ambrosio let go of Ellie’s arm, turned, feinted a punch with a grunt-and kicked hard at Nardone’s balls. He didn’t quite have room enough to make it good.

Then, the sergeant-slugging, kicking-was seized and lifted into the air, shaken very severely, and thrown down hard across Ellie’s desk (sending the computer sliding off and slamming to the floor, and crushing a coffee cup and prune Danish beneath the back of his fine sports jacket).

From the desktop, recumbent, Ambrosio swung up several punches which hurt and frightened Ellie when they hit Nardone’s face and head, smack, smack, smack!

so that she jumped forward and tried to wrestle in between them, but Nardone casually elbowed her back so erfully that she slipped and fell on her rump in the pow aisle-startled, as she always was, by men’s strength.

Serrano and Medina were also trying to grapple at the fight, but Nardone paid no attention to them. -Reaching down, he gripped Ambrosio’s head in both hands (as an adult holds a child’s head to lean down and kiss it). He raised the sergeant’s head high-then slammed it back down on the desktop.

Nardone did that once, and still Ambrosio struck at him-and tried to draw up a heavy-muscled leg to kick, as well. Ellie was up, then, shouting at Nardone, trying with the other two detectives to wrestle him off. It was like handling moving machinery.

Nardone did it again-Ambrosio’s head whacking solidly against the scarred wood (sounding like a softball, well hit). Ambrosio reached up, fumbling, to Nardone’s wrists, trying to break his grip.

“What the hell’s going’ on here?” Fat Leahy, just arrived, manhandling Medina to get past.

Nardone had lifted Ambrosio’s head once more, and with a grunt of effort cracked it down onto the desktop even harder than he’d done before. -At that, the sergeant settled, and lay beneath him slack as a sated lover when Leahy came bustling to haul Nardone off and away.

Lieutenant Leahy, fresh from a minor victory over Captain Cahill of Personnel, and not intending to have that triumph wiped away by a trumpeting of this embarrassment (though news of it would certainly leak in time) took hold in a very creditable way. -Leading a stumbling Charles Ambrosio back into his small office (where the sergeant, slightly confused, vomited into Leahy’s sink), the Lieutenant had first asked if he wanted someone to come down from the P.S.“s office to take a look at him (Ambrosio said no)-and had then sat listening patiently to the details of the Sergeant’s complaint, before informing Ambrosio that he was an asshole who was asking for official trouble that (believe Leahy) he wouldn’t like and suggesting that unless he wanted it widely known that he’d had his ass kicked in front of a whole squad room, including a woman officer, he’d be well advised to keep his big mouth shut. -And would be further well advised to sell that new bass boat, that new Z car, and that new Buick-and, in short, to stop being such a fucking thief.

This advisory, Ambrosio (seated, his mouth rinsed, his ears still ringing) listened to without replying. When Leahy finished talking, the sergeant rose, smoothed his mussed hair with both hands, and walked from the Lieutenant’s tiny office, down the long squadroom aisle, and out looking neither left nor right as he went.

“The salad was OX.,” Rebecca said. “-Good house dressing.” She put her fork on her salad plate; she’d left nothing on the plate but half a radish. “Lots of garlic.

You can always tell class salad-no skimping on the garlic.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Did you finish yours? You didn’t finish yours. -Honey, the salad a girl can always eat; keeps you from making a pig of yourself with the rich stuff.”

“Nothing keeps me from making a pig of myself with the rich stuff.”

“It will; finish the damn thing,” Rebecca said, and Ellie picked up her fork for another try. The morning had ruined her’ lunch-probably ruined her day, though Nardone had appeared to find it all funny. `-That head sounded hollow to me,” he said more than once, to applause from the detectives as they drifted in to make phone calls, do their reports, lie to Leahy about progress here and there. It pleased the Squad that they had, in Tommy’s person, achieved an impression on at least one regular Division guy, and a sergeant, at that.

As to any difficulties that might result from cracking another cop’s head-albeit a thief of a cop-and right in a Headquarters squad room, too, Nardone didn’t seem to consider it. “Oh, thay . . - ” he’d said, doing his gay impression (something he did only when exhilarated), “-I thurely hope there won’t be any trouble!” He had a cut on his upper lip, near the left corner of his mouth, and there was a dark smudge of bruise beneath his right eye. Ellie found it uncomfortable to imagine what it had felt like to be hit in the face by Charley Ambrosio. Hit in the face several times.

Nardone hadn’t seemed to mind it, either, when Leahy, forms ready to hand, came out for his signature-reference the charges for the computer’s repair or replacement.

He’d signed with a flourish.

“Here we go,” Rebecca said, and Raoul steered to them with entr6es–curried chicken for Rebecca, salmon mousse for Ellie. “Small portions-but if it’s as good as Bloomies does it,” Rebecca prodded the chicken, “I won’t complain.”

Raoul raised an eyebrow to Ellie, refilled their water glasses, and slid away.

“Good news,” Rebecca said, ‘-I talked to Susan Margolies, and she’s very interested in meeting you.” She ate a forkful of curried chicken.

Ellie put her knife and fork down hard, and a piece of salmon mousse fell off her plate onto the tablecloth.

“What in hell is the matter with you?” she said. “You’re not stupid, Rebecca, -Are you trying to get cute with me, or what?”

“I knew you’d be pissed-will you just listen to me. .

“I won’t listen to shit, Rebecca-“

“This is not a woman you’re going to scare! -Susan Margolies isn’t scared of any cops. -What did you think?

Did you think you were going up to her office and catch her off guard or something? Come on! We’re talking a lady who’s been around, here.

-You’re not going to scare her with a badge - “

“I want you to keep your hands off my business,” Ellie said. “You understand that? Just-“

“Oh, I understand. Rebecca’s just a dummy—right? A friend buys her lunch, so Rebecca just lets her friend make an asshole of herself because she doesn’t know the person involved?” Bite, chew, and swallow.

Another swift bite.

“Just keep your hands off Department business.”

“You came to me.”

“That’s right. -And not for you to start calling people.”

“Look-I know something’s bothering you. I know something’s been bothering you. What happened—something bad?” She buttered a roll. “I tried to do you a favor; I didn’t mean to offend you.” Rebecca ate some of the roll, chewing with her mouth open. “But I don’t mind-I really don’t, because you’ll see that I’m right the minute you meet Susan.

-You’ll say a couple of words to her, and you’ll see right away that this lady may be a little wacko-but she’s not scared of any cops. You weren’t going to impress Susan, anyway, just showing up and sticking your badge in her face.” She put down the roll and shifted her grip on her fork to pin a piece of chicken to her plate. “-Never happen.”

“Listen to me,” Ellie said. She didn’t want any of the salmon mousse.

The stuff looked like cat shit. “Next time I ask you for a source-I do the contact. Do you understand? You understand me?”

“Ordinarily,” Rebecca said, and sipped her wine, ,,—ordinarily, you’d be right. Ordinarily, I’d be out of line. But not on this one. -Let me tell you something-I’d have made a pretty good cop, myself. I have a nose for that. So, when I tell you that Susan Margolies is not the kind of lady to get cute with-you can believe me. Susan’s interested in you-she wants to meet you. Can you get closer than that?”

“Don’t do it again,” Ellie said, and ate a bite of her salmon. She wasn’t going to sit there, upset, and watch Rebecca making a pig of herself…. The salmon tasted better than it looked.

“You should have had the chicken,” Rebecca said. “If salmon isn’t perfect, it’s crap.” She ate more of her chicken. ‘-Because you’re being such a pain in the ass, I’m going to have the rum cake, too.”

:‘Have what you want.”

“Are you going to pout all the rest of this lunch?”

Rebecca picked up her roll again. “-Let a nice lunch go to waste?” Her right hand was trembling on her wineglass stem. The monster was distressed.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Rebecca.”

“Then don’t give me that tough look. -You think I don’t know who’s the boss, here? You think I don’t know I’m just a jerk, some kind of nasty stoolie, and you’re the pretty blond cop. I know who’s in charge in this friendship! Don’t kid yourself I don’t know that.” She finished the roll. “-You ever think I’m lonely? You ever think maybe I don’t enjoy blowing some creep in his office bathroom so I can decorate windows? -Just for fuckin’ money! You don’t know what a hard life is, sweetie. -I hope you never know.” She ate the last of her curried chicken, ran the tines of her fork neatly around the plate’s circumference for the few moist crumbs, raised the fork to her mouth, and licked it clean. “-That was OX she said. “A little heavy on the curry. Bloomies has a lighter touch on the curry. -You still mad?”

“Rebecca-have the rum cake,” Ellie said.

The faintest odor … hardly a smell at all … was woven lightly through the apartment when Ellie and Nardone walked in. Their passage roiled the air, and sent the slight frankfurter smell stirring.

At first, Ellie thought nothing had been disturbed that Gaither’s apartment was now entirely theirs. Then, starting into the bedroom, she saw seven shoe boxes lined neatly up alongside the living-room wall. The shoe boxes were from Gaither’s closet floor; Ellie remembered the box labels-all sales stores, remainder outlets.

“Goddamn it!” She brushed past Nardone, heading out to the hall.

“What’s the problem?” he said to her back as she went.

The watch cop this afternoon was a tall, black patrolman named McCann.

He was standing, leaning against the corridor wall-asleep standing up, or almost.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing-don’t you know you’re supposed to guard this goddamn scene?”

“I am guardin’ it.” Wide awake, now.

“Like hell! -Evidence has been fucked with in there!”

“Only people I let in was Homicide.”

“Who’d you let in-did you let a detective in there? A big fat man with a red face?”

McCann paused, considering a lie.

“Did you?”

Nardone—swollen lip, ripe black eye-had come to the apartment door, and stood listening.

“He had a shield. -Him and his partner both.”

Ellie felt herself vibrating with anger-as if there was electricity coming up into her out of the corridor carpet.

She saw Keneally … Maxfield, all of them sitting in some bar, screwing the owner for free drinks, talking about her.

“This is our case-Commissioner’s Squad! Do you understand that, Officer? On this case, we are Homicide. -Didn’t you get those instructions? -Didn’t you?”

” ‘Unauthorized people’ is what I got.” McCann was looking sullen.

“Well-do you know better, now?”

“O.K.” Very sullen.

“Hey.” Nardone, from the doorway. “Get off the poor guy’s case; I got a note here from your boyfriend.”

… Don’t get your ass in an uproar. Unsigned, but certainly by Keneally, in pencil. There was a P. S.

You need to move this shit out of here.

McCann was glad to see the apartment door close behind them. Content to stand at ease for another forty minutes, until his shift was done.

“What did they take?”

Nardone was kneeling, going through the shoe boxes.

“They could have taken the store, but I bet he took nothin’. Looks like he arranged the stuff in here. -We got her letters in this one …