“Jesus Christ,” Ben said aloud. Had she lost her mind? There’d been a clear understanding between them that she wasn’t to use anything he gave her without clearing it with him. And now this?
Wait a minute. Last night when they were sitting together in her kitchen, she’d said she was going to do a piece on the case. Her producer was pressuring her, she said. But what she’d use would only be old stuff, nothing new.
Nothing new? She’d stitched together a lot of wild rumors, making them sound like startling revelations.
For several minutes, he stood at the bar, boiling. Then he stepped into the hallway where the public phone was. He dropped a coin into the slot and punched the numbers for her direct line in the newsroom at the studio.
When she answered, he had to grit his teeth to keep from shouting. “I just saw your spot.”
“Hi. What did you think? Did I—”
His voice rose, in spite of his resolve to stay calm. “What did I think? That you’re ready for the loony bin. Do you realize you put everything I’ve been working on in jeopardy? Don’t you know—”
“Hey! Just a minute, Lieutenant. Stop yelling at me, will you? I didn’t say anything that wasn’t already known. All I did was to put a little spin on it.”
“A little spin? Saying I wasn’t satisfied with the way the Silk suicide had been closed? You call that a little spin?”
“But that’s the truth, isn’t it? You told me yourself you weren’t. And nobody else is, either. I mean, the whole world thinks that’s suspicious, the way she killed herself right after the senator died. You think you’re the only one?”
“Shelley, don’t you see you made it look like I was your confidential source? That I was leaking to the media because I wanted to piss on the way the Seventeenth Precinct detectives handled the investigation into Silk’s death? Showing that clip made it look like I went up there and decided the cops were doing a lousy job.”
“But you were there. I didn’t manufacture that tape. And I didn’t put it that way, either, that you were being critical.”
“That part about the manuscript never being found. Where did you get that?”
There was a pause and then she said, “Well, maybe that’s something I shouldn’t have used. But couldn’t I have come up with that on my own? After all, nobody else thought of it, right?” Her tone grew angry. “You think I had to have a cop point that out?”
“It isn’t a matter of whether you could have thought of it or not. The problem is that you made it sound like all that shit was coming from me.”
“What I said was not shit, as you put it. I told you I was going to do a piece, and that it’d just be a rehash that I’d make sound like new developments.”
“You still don’t get it, do you? What about dragging the DA’s investigation into it? How do you think the prosecutors are going to take that? What you said made it seem like I’m criticizing them, too. Oppenheimer himself’ll have a fit when he hears about this. Christ, maybe he already did. If he had the bad luck to be watching that stupid show, that is.”
“Now I’m stupid—after all the help I’ve given you? That’s the thanks I get?”
“No, but—”
“But, hell. You know what I’m beginning to see here? That just because I didn’t review my material with you before I went on the air, your nose is bent. Maybe my editor is right, after all. Who are you to set yourself up as some kind of a tinhorn censor?”
“Listen to me, Shelley. From now on—”
But she wasn’t listening. There was a bang as she slammed the phone down, and then all he heard was the hum of the dial tone. Ben exhaled and hung up. He went back to the bar and drained his beer.
The bartender was smiling at him. “Another?”
He was about to say no and stomp out of here, and then he thought, What the hell. “Yeah,” he said. “And I’ll have a hamburger. Rare. With onions.”
52
Orcus was cramped and stiff, and also chilled to the bone. He’d been out here for hours, had seen dozens of cars come by, including two that had gone down the ramp and into the garage. But there’d been no sign of the detective.
He stood up and pulled the coat closer around him, stamping his feet to get the circulation going. Apparently he’d get nothing tonight; it was time to give it up, have himself a couple of drinks and some hot food. He’d return here tomorrow—and the night after, if necessary.
Headlights flashed again, and instinctively he ducked down. The lights slowed, then swung away from his hiding place. Poking his head up a little, he saw that the car was descending the concrete ramp.
It was a blue Taurus, and the cop was at the wheel.
Orcus was instantly on full alert. He jacked a shell into the breech of the Remington and watched as the car came to a stop. The driver touched a transmitter and the garage door rattled noisily upward. When it reached the top of its travel, the car moved through the yawning opening and went on into the garage.
Orcus jumped up and sprinted the few steps to the ramp. He ran down it just as the door was beginning its return trip, automatically closing. Pulling the screwdriver from his pocket, he jammed the blade into the vertical track mounted in the door frame. The door hit the screwdriver and, meeting resistance, opened again. Crouching low, holding the gun out front, Orcus ducked into the garage.
Just ahead of him, the blue car was pulling into a space. It came to a stop and the cop turned off the headlights and the ignition. The stupid shit had never noticed the door reopening behind him. Now he was getting out of the car.
Orcus dropped to one knee, leveling the shotgun.
53
Tolliver had his hamburger and one more beer and then left Sparks.
He was still furious over Shelley’s newscast and the outrageous things she’d come out with. In fact, all his reasons for loathing the media were still bubbling just under the surface, feeding his anger. He understood how reporters were driven by ferocious competition, understood how they sometimes felt they had a holy mission to bring forth the right point of view on any subject—so long as it was their point of view.
He also understood the greed of the owners and managers of the media, how they would put out any story they thought would sell a few more copies or boost the ratings by one extra point, while they swathed themselves in sanctimony.
But the hell with them. Because they also had a knack for fouling up an investigation worse than defense lawyers. Whatever he might feel for Shelley, it was tempered by that.
He got into his car and headed downtown. For a minute he thought about stopping off at the Shamrock, see some of his friends, get blasted. Forget this whole fucking mess, for a few hours, anyway.
And then he decided the hell with that, too; he’d do better to go home.
The run to his apartment took only a few minutes. The streets down here were all but deserted at this time of night, except in the immediate neighborhood of the Seaport. That area was brightly lighted, and he could see throngs of people moving about. Where he lived, it was dark, except for the glow of the streetlamps.
He made the left turn into his street and drove slowly down the ramp leading to the garage, pausing while he reached under the dashboard to touch the button of the garage door opener. The mechanism groaned, and the steel panels clattered and banged as the door made its way upward. Ben drove on through the opening and nosed the Taurus into the slot reserved for him, against the wall to the left of the door.
There were rows of cars parked in here and illumination was dim, provided by a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling some distance away. He shut off the lights and ignition and took his keys with him, opening the door and hitting the lock button.
As tired as he was, he’d been a cop for too many years to lose awareness of what was happening in his surroundings. Getting out of the car, he saw two things that snapped him to attention.
One was that the garage door had gone only halfway down before striking some obstruction that caused the
mechanism to reverse itself. The door was now traveling upward.
The other thing was a dark shape just inside the garage. Light from the street glinted on metal in the center of the shape.
Tolliver was partly out of the Taurus, his left foot on the concrete floor of the garage. Instinctively, he jumped back into the car, rolling himself into a ball behind the door and ducking his head.
The move saved his life.
An explosion occurred a few feet away from where he crouched and a powerful blast hit the door panel, slamming the door against the top of his skull. Stunned, he shook his head, trying to clear the effects of the blow.
There was a second explosion, and this time the charge tore through the window of the car. Shotgun, he realized. The sounds were like cannon fire in the concrete expanse of the garage. His hair was covered with bits of shattered glass and the stink of gunpowder bit his nostrils.
He had a shotgun of his own under the dashboard. He snatched it from its scabbard, thinking his best chance would be to move across the seat, get out the passenger door, and return fire from behind the car.
He slithered over and grabbed the door handle, noticing that the second charge had taken out the window on this side, as well. So much for the NYPD’s bulletproof glass.
His ears were ringing, which was why he didn’t pick up the sound of the footsteps right away. When he did, he opened the door and jumped out of the car, shucking a shell into the chamber of the shotgun. His assailant had run up the ramp, and the steps he was hearing now were coming from somewhere out on the street.
Ben sprinted up the ramp himself, but when he got to the sidewalk, he saw nothing but shadows cast by the streetlamps, reflecting from the silent cars parked along the streets.
He looked in both directions, noting that lights were being turned on in a few of the nearby buildings. No one came out the doors, however, to see what the shooting was about. People knew they might wind up dead themselves.
In the distance, he heard the sound of an engine starting. Not sure where it was coming from, his hearing still screwed up by the blasts, he stepped off the sidewalk between a pair of parked cars.
A block away, toward Pearl Street, he saw a black sedan pull away from the curb. The car wasn’t showing lights, and it was too far away for him to see its license plate. All he got was a brief impression as the sedan roared around the corner and disappeared.
Tolliver stood in the street, looking in the direction the car had gone. He clicked on the safety of the shotgun, then brushed splinters of glass from his hair and walked back to the ramp, going down the incline to the garage door.
The thing that had jammed the mechanism was a screwdriver with a plastic handle. He pulled it out of the track and, stepping into the garage, touched the button that activated the door. It descended with a clatter.
He looked at the screwdriver. The tool was a cheap one, made in the Orient. He examined it curiously, then stuffed it into his pocket and walked over to the Taurus.
The charge that hit the door had torn a hole the width of a pie plate in the center of the panel. No ordinary shotgun shell had that kind of punch; the gunman must have fired a Magnum loaded with steel shot. If it hadn’t been for the sheet of armor in the door, Tolliver’s head would look something like the hamburger he’d had for dinner. Maybe not even that good.
Still carrying the shotgun, he went over to the elevator and pressed the button. From somewhere above him, he heard the muffled hum of the elevator as it came down the shaft. The ringing in his ears was disorienting. And he’d developed a pounding headache.
Both of which were preferable to the alternative.
On the positive side, he no longer had any doubts about what he was dealing with. Even though the guy had failed this time, he’d try again. He was a professional; there was no doubt about that, either.
Good, Ben thought. He was looking forward to meeting the son of a bitch. This thing had become personal.
54
Congratulations,” Sloane said. “That was a terrific piece.” Shelley looked up from the word processor. “Glad you liked it.” He half-sat on a corner of her desk. “I already got a lot of calls on it this morning. And you saw how the papers picked it up, crediting us for the story. The other stations are out of their minds trying to figure out your connection to the source.”
“The source is miffed, too, Jerry.”
The producer seemed surprised. “About what?”
“The lieutenant thinks I made it sound like I was getting information from him on an exclusive basis.”
He waved a hand deprecatingly. “Ah, that’s just city hall puffing itself up, as usual. Don’t pay any attention to that shit. If we listened to jerks like him, we’d never run anything. And by the way, I wasn’t the only one around here who was pleased. Art loved it.”
Art was Arthur Mayer, WPIC TV’s vice president and general manager. Shelley couldn’t resist asking. “What did he say?”
“That we’re onto a good thing. He wants you to do another one. Keep it going as long as possible.”
“Based on what? I cooked the last one up out of nothing, and now I have even less than that.”
Sloane folded his arms. “Shel, I’m gonna be completely frank with you, okay? This could be a lot more important to you than you think.”
“Why is that?”
“There’s a problem with Bert Craft. Everybody knows our famous anchor has seen better days. As you may have noticed, he’s into the sauce. Some mornings he smells like he fell in a vat.”
She tensed, anticipating what he might be leading up to.
“Anyhow, I’ve pointed out to Art that we have to make a move on it sooner or later. What I’m thinking is that we could start with you sharing the anchor job with Bert.”
“He’d have a cow.”
“Yeah, I know. But so what? It’d be sort of a transition period while we eased him out. You can see the kind of opportunity that’d represent for you.”
She could see it, all right. First sharing the anchor responsibility with Craft, then having a chance to take over the desk herself? It would be a big step toward reaching her goals.
Sloane was watching her. “I’m sure Art’ll buy it. He usually does what I tell him to in a situation like this.”
The hell he does, Shelley thought. Now you’re the one who’s inflating your importance.
“Art’s gonna want to congratulate you himself,” the producer continued. “Just don’t let on we’ve talked about this other thing, okay? Instead, tell him how you’re working on a new angle that’ll be even more sensational.”
“But—”
“Shel, let me worry about handling it, all right?”
“… Yes, I guess so.”
“Good. In the meantime, don’t worry about the routine stuff. I want you to concentrate on stories about the senator. And speaking of angles, didn’t you mention you knew his daughter-in-law? What’s her name—Laura Bentley, right? The actress?”
“I’ve spoken with her, yes.”
“That’s one to go after. An exclusive interview with her could be fabulous. See what you can do about it, okay?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You know, sometime soon we ought to discuss all this where we can be more relaxed. At dinner, say.”
He gave her another quick grin, actually more of a lascivious twitch of his mouth, and getting up from his seat walked across the newsroom to his office.
55
In the morning, Ben drove the Taurus over to Queens and dropped it off at the NYPD vehicle-repair center. The cop who looked it over was a friend of his, the guy who’d done most of the alterations when Tolliver first got the car. His name was Charley McManus and he was an expert mechanic who’d learned his trade in the U.S. Army.
McManus whistled. “What happened—you make a side trip to Beirut? Or maybe Brownsville?”
Ben smiled. “Same thing, right?”
“More or less. The brothers probably fig
ured you were moving in on their turf.” He studied the door. “That looks like a hit from a rocket launcher.”
“You’re close. How soon can you fix the car?”
McManus waved a hand at the garage behind him, at the blue-and-whites parked in rows inside the chain-link fence. “Be a couple days, at least. I’m all backed up here, and we’re shorthanded. Do the best I can, though.”
Out on the street, a flatbed truck nosed up to the entrance and the driver blew his horn. Two of McManus’s men opened the gates in the chain-link fence and the truck pulled into the yard. Chained to the bed was a pile of mashed metal with flashes of blue and white paint visible on some of the surfaces.
Tolliver and McManus watched as the two men and the driver went about removing the junk from the truck. The mechanics drove a crane mounted on a caterpillar into position and dug the hook into the tangled mass, then slowly lifted it off the flatbed, the crane’s engine growling.
“That a patrol car?” Ben asked.
“It was,” McManus said. “Driver was killed; his partner’s in Mount Sinai. Only they say he won’t make it either.”
The crane operator slacked off and the tangled metal fell to the ground with a crash. It lay among other junked NYPD vehicles, all of them obviously beyond hope of repair.
Tolliver looked at the wreck, not sure which end was which. “What happened?”
“They were chasing a stolen car in Harlem. Ran a red light and got hit by a garbage truck.”
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