Judging Time awm-3

by Leslie Glass

  "Well, thanks," April told her. This was a high priority. She was sure the commissioner would be pleased.

  As Mike and April came down the stairs from the squad room, five uniforms were being pulled together for another operation. In the makeshift holding pen, a prisoner threatened to defecate in his pants if he wasn't immediately taken to the bathroom.

  Snow was falling even more heavily as they came out of the building. "Great," April muttered. Now they wouldn't be able to see Liberty if he danced naked in front of the car. "I just hope I don't have to chase anybody. I've got my best boots on, and I'm really stuffed." She wanted him to kiss her again, but he didn't.

  He switched on the wipers and pulled out into 151st Street. "I'd bet your chances for that are about nil."

  For what? She'd forgotten what she said.

  He drove west, plowing through the snow. At Broadway he turned downtown, heading to the location where the unidentified caller to the 30th claimed to have seen a man who looked like Liberty. Accompanied by a firefighter. Now that was a description. He drove slowly down the treacherous street. April scanned the sidewalks. People were heading home. It looked as if the Friday-night dealing game had been called for weather.

  Mike switched on the police scanner, where several excited voices were cutting in over each other, calling in a shooting—man with a gun. Man with a knife. Shooting wasn't confirmed. It was confirmed. The victim was dead. He was alive, but seriously injured. Shooting was in the lobby of a three hundred building, in the basement. Request for backup at B-way and 138th Street.

  "That's our location," Mike said excitedly.

  He didn't have a gumball for the roof, but the Camaro was rigged with a siren. When he heard the address of the shooting, Mike hit the hammer. The Camaro's siren shot out a warning as he accelerated into traffic. The traffic around them had been moving cautiously through the snow. The two cars ahead parted for them at the first red light. The Camaro's tires spun for a moment at an incline in the middle of the cross street. April turned away from the headlights of the cars coming at her from the side street. The first car would slam into them at the passenger seat where she was sitting. And her mother always said she'd die before giving birth.

  "Hang on," Mike ordered.

  As if she had a choice. April braced her hands against the dashboard. The tires caught, the car shot forward, skidding sideways on the other side. Mike slammed the Camaro into low and regained control, then accelerated exactly the same way into the next changing light.

  Take it easy, pal. 1 want to make it through the weekend, April didn't say. She knew enough not to tell Mike how to drive, particularly in bad weather. She also knew enough not to tell him this wasn't their party. He'd only say they were on duty. On duty, everything was their party. And most cops felt the same way, loved getting in on any operation—as long as they didn't have to make the actual arrest, fill out the damn arrest forms, follow the prisoner downtown. Lose days in the process.

  Excited voices on the radio continued. Sirens sounded to the south of them, to the east. Even behind them in the north. Everybody was hot to join. The voice on the radio gave only one item of identification on the shooter. His head was covered with some kind of scarf. April snorted. It was snowing. Everybody's head was covered.

  At 145th Street, Mike slowed the car to a crawl. He let the hammer have two final spurts of whine, then shut it off.

  "What do you say, east, west?"

  "Is it my call?" April asked, scanning the street.

  "Yes. Yours."

  "You want me to flip a coin?"

  "No, I want you to make a call."

  April shrugged. "Okay, he'd go west. Hang out under a stoop for a while. Too much activity east of B-way."

  "Fine. Remember, you called it."

  "Oh, give me a break."

  "You called it." Mike turned west, headed down a quiet street of brownstones. A few people were hurrying along. Not many. The snow was thicker now, was beginning to stick. They needed a spotlight to see through the storm.

  Mike kept going, through the next light. Two blocks from Broadway at 141st Street everything was nice and quiet. No one out on the street here—except one guy halfway down the block, fiddling with the top of a garbage can. He had a scarf on his head.

  "Let's check him out," Mike said. He accelerated the car to where the man was standing, then stopped a few feet in front of the garbage

  Startled, the man whipped around to look at them. Just as quickly, he gave them his back, let go of the garbage can top, and walked quickly down the street in the opposite direction. April was out of the car before Mike cut the engine.

  "Oh, come on, April, no."

  In her haste, April planted the heel of one of her new boots in an ice slick in the gutter. She slid into a freezing puddle between two managed to grab the back of one of them before falling to her knees in the wet. She righted herself, splashed out onto the sidewalk, and charged down the street. The guy limped away through the snow, didn't look back at the car with one door gaping open and two people running after him.

  "Hey, you. Stop. You dropped something." April ran, slipping with every other step. Mike caught up and passed her.

  "Pare alli," he shouted. "Policia."

  The guy stopped suddenly at the word "Policia" and turned around. He put his hands up."No tire. No tire."

  April caught up, unholstered her gun. She didn't like the look of this guy. He was whining at Mike not to shoot him, but one hand dropped almost immediately. Bad sign. A big mocking grin on his face revealed an impressive ridge of gold where he should have had top teeth. He was not really frightened.

  "?Ouien es la chica?" he said, dipping his head at April.

  Good, she got that. Who's the girl? April raised her gun, covering Mike.

  "Policia," she snapped back. It worked for Mike. But the guy didn't seem worried enough about her gun.

  "Hey, hey, hey." Mike growled at the hand slipping into the right-hand jacket pocket. "Arriba los manos." Mike jerked his head at April.

  April got that, too. Raise your hands. He wanted her to cover him as he patted the guy down.

  "Ayiie, por que?"

  "Porque digo lo." Mike wasn't playing around. He jockeyed the guy against a car, arranged his hands over his head, kicked his legs apart. Very efficient.

  April saw a smear on the man's hand. Blood was leaking from a cut on his hand, or maybe his wrist. "Blood," she barked. "He's injured."

  The man wiped his hands in a puddle on the windshield.

  "Hey, hey, hey. Don't you move. I tell you not to move, you don't move."

  "lOue hice?" the man whined. He whirled around.

  "Get back there." Mike pushed him back against the car.

  "No hice nada."

  "Then why's your hand bleeding?"

  "No hablo ingles."

  "The fuck you don't, buddy."

  "No hablo ingles," he insisted.

  Mike patted down skinny legs. The man's hand held above his head caused the blood to drip down his right

  sleeve. "Ayiie," he cried. "Estoy enfermo. No hice nada. No hablo ingles."

  "Did you hear that, Sergeant? This man is sick, he didn't do anything, and he doesn't speak English."

  "No hablo ingles."

  "We heard you the first time, around we go. Real slow here, keep those hands up. No fast moves." Mike turned the guy around and unzipped his jacket. After a quick forage, he pulled out a mean-looking switchblade. "Well, look at what we have here. A guy doesn't speak English. My partner here loves to shoot people who don't speak English, don't you, Sergeant?"

  "Yes sir, my favorite. You want me to put him out of his misery?"

  "Aw, come on, I'm hurt here. Don make a big thing. I have cut, gotta go to doctor."

  "Oh, I see we do speka de ingles. Didn't anybody tell you you could get hurt playing with knives." Snow whipped Mike's face as he patted the guy some more. "Oh, look at this, another one." Mike sounded peeved as he pulled out another kn
ife, this one sheathed in well-used leather. He gave both knives to April, yanked the man's arms behind his back. "I'm getting cold. How about you, Sergeant?"

  Tears stung in April's eyes. "My feet are killing me," she said. "Let's take him in and warm up."

  "Oh, no, man, hey. I ain't done nothin'."

  "Looks like you were into something. We got a report someone looks just like you shot somebody. We'll take a little visit to the station, warm up a little. See what's up with you." Mike cuffed him with a set of handcuffs he'd stuffed in his pocket before leaving the car. April holstered her gun. One on each side, they marched him back to the car. "What a night," she muttered, shaking out her boots.

  "What's your name, hombre?"

  The hombre whimpered. "Oh man, no gun. I got no gun. You see a gun, huh? Come on. Some guy with a gun hit me. Looka this. Guy hit me. It was that football guy mato su mujer. He shoot a guy."

  "We'll come back for him." April pushed the guy's snow-covered head down, guiding him into the backseat. "Move over." Damn, there was no guard between the front and backseat. She had to sit next to him. "Gun's probably in the garbage can," she told Mike.

  "We'll take him in, send someone out to take a look." Mike slammed the car door. The car was warm. He'd left it running.

  The hombre whined. "I didn't have to tell you nothing. I was nice, tole you who made the hit."

  "Okay, if the football guy made the hit, then you have nothing to worry about, right?"

  "I don't need no trouble."

  "Tell it to the detectives."

  "Oh, man, I'm bleeding," he complained.

  "You bleed on my car, you're a dead man," Mike snapped. He called into the 30th to say they were coming in, then hit the hammer and the accelerator at the same time. The car's tires spun, then lurched forward. Six minutes later they unloaded their cargo at the 30th.

  "Oh, yeah, Sanchez. You're the one that called." The name plate on the desk officer's chest read LIEUTENANT TIMOTHY BRAMWELL.

  "We need someone who speaks Spanish for this honey," Mike told him.

  Bramwell took a look at him. "Oh, it's Julio Don't-Speak-Ingles. Julio, don't you know it's not healthy for you to come back here?"

  "Good, you know him, we're out of here." Mike turned to April, who was swabbing blood off her sleeve with some tissues from her bag.

  "He bled all over the car, too," she muttered. "Hope he's not HIV."

  "I was just visiting a friend," Julio whined. "I got out of my car. This football guy shot someone. I just happened to see it, that's all. Then he run over and smash me with the gun. Jeeeeze."

  "What the hell you talkin' about?" The desk sergeant rolled blue eyes, beckoned to a uniform to come and take the guy.

  "Better send someone out to look for the gun." April gave the location of the garbage cans.

  "Got anything on the shooting?" Mike asked.

  "Yeah, the victim's still alive. We don't have an ID on him yet. Any chance this guy is on the level and Liberty was involved?"

  "We'll go check it out."

  "Hey," Bramwell barked. "Sanchez, you can't just come in here, dump your garbage, and walk out without making a report. You picked him up. You make a report. Forms are right here."

  "Oh, yeah, and here's the arsenal he was carrying." April deposited the knives on the desk.

  Bramwell looked them over, asking. Then the phone rang, and they lost his attention. It was forty-five minutes before April and Mike were on the road again. By then April's boots had dried and stiffened with the salt the city used all over the streets, the snow had stopped, and any chance they might have had of catching Liberty anywhere near the scene of the shooting was long gone.

  41

  On Saturday morning the phone rang in April's bedroom before seven. April rolled over, groaned, squinted at the clock, couldn't make out the numbers, closed her eyes again. Hadn't she just gotten into bed? She kept her eyes closed as she listened for rain, pelting the roof above her. When she didn't hear any telltale rat-tat-tatting, she rolled over to the wall, away from the phone. It rang again. This time she let her eyes slide along the wall to the window where the gray around the edges of her white curtains told her the dawn hadn't come. It wasn't day yet. She decided not to answer the phone.

  Then she realized she was awake and started thinking. Skinny Dragon expected a ride into Manhattan and the Chinatown funeral parlor where Uncle Dai was lying in state prior to his funeral tomorrow. Her mother wanted to bring offerings of paper money and fruit for Dai's journey through the afterlife. Sai wanted to light joss sticks, one after another, until there was enough incense to tease Dai's soul into repose. And Sai wanted to sit there with Dai's body for as many hours as it took for a good show of respect. After the "for show" appearance at Dai's coffin side, she wanted to kick up her heels in Chinatown and go shopping—accompanied by worm daughter to pay for her purchases with credit card and to carry her packages. Skinny Dragon had it all planned. The phone rang a third time.

  April ignored it. No matter what, she was not going to deny her mother the day's pleasures Skinny had planned. She and Mike had not located Liberty last night. It was out of her hands now. They'd failed in their task. There was no way she was going to clear this case before Sunday, so why not sleep while she could. She'd decided absolutely. She was taking the day off, wasn't answering any phones. Through the fourth and fifth rings she held her ground. But the answering machine didn't pick up. On the sixth ring, April answered the phone.

  "Wei. "

  "There was a shooting in Harlem last night."

  "Good morning, Dean. And how are you?"

  "You know who was shot?" Kiang demanded.

  "No, 1 don't. Are you in the office?"

  "I hear you and your buddy picked someone up for questioning."

  "Dean, you know, you have big ears for a Chinese. Don't you ever go home?"

  "For a Chinese, April, you don't have much loyalty."

  "What's that supposed to mean?' '

  "I thought you were my pipeline on this case. 1 thought we had a deal to stick together on this."

  "Hey, I'm a veritable pot sticker in the loyalty department. What's your problem?"

  "Jefferson was shot last night. He was the one who was shot. Didn't you know that?"

  April's mind raced. What did that mean? "Is he dead?"

  "Yes, he's dead. You were up there. You were on the scene. You picked up a suspect. Did you call me? No, you did not call me. I'm going up there to question him now. I'll see you in my office tonight at seven. We'll review the case then."

  He hung up before she had a chance to tell him she probably couldn't make it.

  So another day off was lost. At eight-thirty April checked the squad room before pausing to hang her coat up on the wooden coatrack in the corner of her office that wasn't her office today because it was supposed to be her day off. Everyone, including her opposite number, was in the field. In the squad room, the holding cell and all the desks were empty. She did not peek into Iriarte's office to see if the lieutenant was there. It was now more imperative than ever to find Liberty. Now she understood Iriarte's disgusting respect for the chubby, colorless Charlie Hagedorn.

  Iriarte believed technology was the future, and Hagedorn happened to be a computer whiz. Hagedorn could hack into anything. He'd be able to find Liberty's location by Liberty's E-mail activity. They had no choice about locating him now. April returned to the squad room and showed herself outside Iriarte's window. He beckoned her into his office, where the mood was not a happy one. Mike, Hagedorn, and Iriarte sat gloomily in the only chairs in the room. Mike got up and offered her his chair.

  "What's the story on Wally Jefferson?" She took the chair Mike offered. "Thanks."

  Warte scowled and jerked his chin at Mike to tell her.

  "Story on Jefferson is they found a Glock on the sidewalk a block and a half west of the shooting," Mike said. "They think it might be the murder weapon. Ballistics is going over it." He sighed. "Looks like some kin
d of fuckup."

  "What kind?"

  Mike glanced at the scowling lieutenant, then back at April. "Seems when they raided a club last night someone had time to run in and warn the customers. The door was barricaded. Jefferson was inside. Apparently he had a date to meet someone there. There's a door to the basement of the building next door. When the raid started, Jefferson went out that way. Our guess is that the shooter was waiting for him. When he came out on the street, the shooter wiped him out."

  "Was the hit man our little golden-toothed Julio?"

  Iriarte made a disgusted noise. He and Hagedorn exchanged glances too. A lot was going on in the room. April had no idea what subjects the three of them had covered before she got there. She dug around in her purse for Liberty's E-mail of the day before, hoping that when Hagedorn successfully hacked into it, he'd get a boost and be transferred into somebody else's computer room. She smiled at her- boss. He looked surprised.

  "It's not clear yet." Mike answered her question about Julio. "Jefferson was his mule. He could have been involved with the hit out on Staten Island."

  "Witnesses?" April asked.

  "In Harlem? Oh, you know the scum up there. Ten thousand people on the street. Every single one of them blind. No one saw a thing," Iriarte complained.

  "Except one old lady who lives in the building next to the club. She said Jefferson was a regular there. Day, night, weekend, whenever," Mike said.

  "So?' ' Iriarte studied April. He knew she had something. He cupped his hand at himself and waved. Give it up.

  Sure thing. She pulled Liberty's E-mail out of her bag. Then she laid it out for them. Hagedorn could be the one to locate the phone Liberty was using to send his messages. But she and Mike were the primaries on the case. They had to be the ones to pick hm up for questioning.

  Hagedorn took the paper and studied it, his face all gooey with happiness. "We got him," he said. "Thank you, God, we got him."

  "Now, wait a minute," April said quickly. "I told you. I want to handle this with Liberty."

  "Sure, sure, April."

  April checked her watch. She had a lot to do. She wanted to get hold of the mink coat at Liberty's apartment and send it to the lab to see if there were traces of Merril's blood on it. And she had to be home in Astoria in time to drive Skinny to Chinatown no later than three-thirty, four. Had to see Kiang at seven. She and Mike headed out into the field.