When she reached the bedroom door she turned. “I’ll go fix us some breakfast.” She pointed her chin at the telephone. “Why don’t you make your phone call?”
She returned a short time later carrying a tray with a pot of coffee and a plate of cheeses. There were also two glasses of orange juice. She slid the tray onto the end table and looked at him.
“Everything all right at home?”
“Fine. The kids are going to Jones Beach with their mother.”
As she was handing him his coffee, he reached out and caressed her breast. “I like you a lot, Janet.”
She fixed him with a distant stare and smiled. Inwardly she was screaming. Why do they all think they have to come on with the tenderness routine? He has a wife and kiddies stashed out in Little Leagueville and I’m here in the big city in bed with him. I understand. Why the hell can’t he?
She got back into the bed and propped some pillows behind her. Sipping coffee, she said, “Bo, the last married man I went with told me that he was separated. I didn’t know at the time that just meant his wife slept in a separate bed. I’ve had the moonlight-and-roses bit with married men. It hurts too much and I’m tired of waiting for the phone to ring. You’ve been honest with me. I know that you’re married. So let’s keep us light and lively. Okay?”
“I was only trying to tell you …”
She placed a quieting finger to his lips. “I know. You’d like to convince me that I mean more to you than just a good screw. Don’t.”
He raised the cup to his lips and shook his head incredulously. “You’re something else.”
“I’ve managed to save a few dollars and have decided to go back and get my degree. I always wanted to go to law school and I’m going to try before it’s too late.” She leaned over and put the cup on the night table. She then popped onto her side and ran her hand over his chest, dallying with the hair. A cooing lilt came into her voice. “What was it that you told me last night in the restaurant about an eighty-five?”
He brushed an elusive forelock from her forehead and smiled. “Code signal ten-eighty-five—meet a police officer at a certain location. When one cop tells another that he has an eighty-five, he means that he has a date. In the slang of the Job, an eighty-five is a girlfriend.”
A silly grin came over her face. She plucked a hair from his chest.
“Ouch!” He feigned a chest wound.
“Well Detective Davis, that is exactly what I am interested in. An eighty-five. A happily married man who does all those wonderful things a man is supposed to do to a woman and who is available one or two nights a week.” She began to toy with his penis. “Do you happen to know where I might find such a fellow?” She felt him growing hard.
“I might.” He reached over the side of the bed and placed his cup on the floor. Turning back he took her into his arms. They kissed, their embrace growing in intensity. She continued to stroke him, guiding the foreskin up and over the head and then down. He pushed down to her breasts, licking and sucking the erect nipples. She reached down with both her hands and pushed at his head. He obeyed, sliding down between her legs. She cried out sharply as he sucked her wet body up into his mouth, thrashing the man in the boat with his tongue. She vised his head to her, lashing him with her body. Her head mauled the bed, unendurable moans choking in her throat, becoming louder and more painful. And then, as a series of violent convulsions racked her body, she screamed.
He continued to suck her. She could stand it no longer. Clawing, pulling, tugging, she moved him up and pushed him onto his back and mounted him. Legs straddling his hips, she leaned forward and took hold of him, guiding him into her body.
Hearts pounding, they lay holding hands, staring blankly up at the artery of cracks that traversed the ceiling.
“I’d love to be your eighty-five,” he said.
She smiled. “I’m so glad.”
“Would you mind if I asked you a question concerning Sara Eisinger?”
She turned her head and fixed him with a curious stare. “When you telephoned last night and asked me to have dinner I assumed that your intentions were lustful. Was I wrong?”
“You were right. But there is one question that needs answering.”
She was toying with his hair. “What is it?”
“Eisinger came to your apartment on the Friday evening you were going away with your boss.”
“Ex-boss,” she corrected.
“Sara gave you the Bible and left. It now seems certain that she was murdered sometime later that night.” He was watching her. “Think back. When you opened that door and saw her standing there holding that book, what was your first impression of her composure?”
“Scared.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Fright was written across her face. She kept glancing up and down the hall. She thrust the Bible at me with both hands and practically shouted at me to take it. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that she had just gotten her period and was edgy.”
“Thanks, Janet. You’ve been a big help.”
“Anytime, Detective Davis. Is there any other service that your eighty-five can perform before you leave for work?”
He pulled her close. “Yes.”
There were no appointments on the monsignor’s calendar. The afternoon was to have been spent reviewing diocesan financial reports. He was deep in thought when the intercom buzzed. He glanced with irritation at the offending machine. His immediate inclination when he heard Malone wanted to see him was to tell his secretary to make an appointment for some time next week. Then he associated the name with Father Gavin. A problem might have developed.
McInerney was a big man with a disarming Irish smile and thick black hair. He was wearing a pair of black trousers, a polo shirt, and down-at-heel moccasins. He had the handshake of a miner. “What can we do for you, Lieutenant?” he asked.
“I need a favor.”
McInerney relaxed. It was business as usual. A knowing smile creased his lips. “One good turn deserves another. What is it; a change of assignment?”
MaIone took out a sheet of paper and handed it to him. “I want to know exactly what is at each of these locations.”
McInerney’s eyes narrowed appraisingly. “They’re all over the bloomin’ country.”
“I’m aware of that.”
McInerney’s face was indecipherable. He studied his visitor. “Why the Church, Malone? You have your own sources.”
He lifted his palms helplessly. “Because I need this information fast and because I can’t use regular police channels and because you owe me.”
The priest scowled. “And what the hell makes you think that I have the resources at my disposal to get you this information?”
“Every archdiocese in the country has specially trained priests who handle delicate matters for the Church. They’re able to obtain information fast and discreetly; if the right person presses the right button.”
“And you assume that I am the right person.”
“You got it, Monsignor.”
McInerney looked at the sheet of paper. “You of course realize that under no circumstances can the Church become involved in secular intrigues. We have enough of our own to deal with.”
“You have my word. Except for my detectives, no one will ever know.”
The monsignor escorted him to the door. “Do you have any idea what we’ll find at those locations?”
“Warehouses,” he said, walking from the office.
On December 2, 1978, at about 12:40 A.M., an old plumber had left the Bobover Synagogue at 1533 Forty-eighth Street in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn. He bent low and pressed the collar of his coat against his ears to protect them from the howling wind. Even the barren tree branches were straining. As he hurried past the house on Forty-seventh Street, three men had stepped from the shadows and demanded his money. “Don’t hurt me,” he had pleaded. They had taken the plumber’s money and left him sprawled over the sidewalk bleeding from multi
ple stab wounds in the chest and abdomen. The plumber had died.
At noon that same day there had been four police officers on duty inside the Sixty-sixth Precinct. Three RMPs were on patrol. A sergeant was on the desk and another sergeant was in the stationhouse on meal. A cop was manning the switchboard and one detective was on duty in the Squad.
Suddenly there had been a commotion and within seconds the desk sergeant had been confronted with a mass of bearded, pushing humanity dressed in black coats, fedoras, fur caps, knickers, and white socks. Another two thousand Hasidim had surrounded the stationhouse.
They had come to demand greater police protection. They screamed and pushed and threw chairs and typewriters and pulled apart filing cabinets. Hand-to-hand fighting spilled through the stationhouse. The policeman on the switchboard had managed to get one message off before he was fought to the ground: 10:13, the Six-six was under siege. The three RMPs on patrol raced to the aid of their besieged comrades. RMPs from adjoining precincts responded. The Rapid Mobilization Plan had been activated.
They came with their hats and bats—helmets and nightsticks. Within ten minutes of the initial 10:13 one hundred police reinforcements and a dozen ambulances had been on the scene. The battle to retake the stationhouse had lasted thirty minutes. When it was over the ground floor of the building had been heavily damaged and sixty-two policemen and eight civilians were injured.
On orders from the fourteenth floor, the PC’s office, no arrests had been made.
At 6:25 A.M. the same day—almost six hours before the assault on the stationhouse—detectives had arrested three men for the murder of the plumber.
As policemen sifted through the debris of the ground floor a black policeman was heard to remark, “Man, if my people ever pulled this shit there’d be black bodies littering the motherfuckin’ streets.”
Everyone who had heard him knew that he was right.
From that day the Six-six precinct had been known in the folklore of the NYPD as Fort Surrender.
Malone wasn’t sure what he was going to find at the Six-six. He didn’t even know what he was looking for or how to garner whatever it was that he was looking for. Three men, one of whom was wearing a Fort Surrender T-shirt, Andrea St. James had told Malone in the Barton Hotel.
It was not a promising lead, but it was worth a shot. Malone was aware of the xenophobic personality of policemen. He knew that there was only one way to obtain unrestricted examination of police records.
He was relieved when he entered the stationhouse and saw a sergeant behind the desk. A lieutenant might know him. He walked up to the desk, flashing his shield. “I’m Lieutenant McDermont from IAD,” he lied. “I have to check your rosters for the past two years.”
The sergeant looked down at him with an icy disdain that policemen reserve for the humps from IAD and without a word pushed away from the desk and got up.
Malone followed him into the clerical office.
“This lieutenant is from IAD,” the sergeant announced in a loud voice, warning all that a Judas was among them.
Malone faced down the cold stare of the lead clerical man. He was an old hairbag with horn-rimmed glasses and smooth face that didn’t show its age. He must have had it lifted, Malone thought. He was an essential type in the department; he had mastered the administrative secrets of the Job; he knew how to order toilet paper and towels; how to get plumbers and electricians to come and fix things; what forms had to be prepared; he knew that he was an indispensable necessity to the effective and efficient operations of the precinct. Captains come and go, but clerical men stay, year after year after year, building their empires. Malone had met many of them and knew how to deal with them. For he knew their common nightmare—being forced to do patrol.
The NYPD uses a three-platoon system to divide the day. The first platoon works midnight to eight; the second platoon eight to four and the third platoon, four to midnight. A certain number of squads are assigned to work each platoon on a rotating basis.
The Patrol Guide mandates that each precinct prepare a new roster listing each officer in his assigned squad on the first of each month. This is done because men are constantly being transferred in and out.
As Malone sat at a desk in the corner of the clerical office poring over the old rosters, he could almost feel the furtive glances of the clerical man, who was standing nearby trying to make out in which names IAD was interested. I wonder what he’d say if he knew I don’t know what the hell I’m looking for, Malone thought.
When he had completed his examination of the rosters he paused to think out his next move. He had discovered nothing. Perhaps coming to the Six-six had been a mistake. He had exposed himself. Malone hadn’t forgotten those telephone calls from Captain Madvick or Mannelli’s threats.
Malone turned and looked at the clerical man who was tying last month’s roll calls into bundles for storage in the precinct’s old record room. “Let me see your In/Out Book,” Malone said, his tone harsh and authoritative.
The In/Out Book was a number-seven ledger that contained the names of each policeman transferred in and out of the command, the date and authority of the transfer and the command to which the man was transferred or from which he came.
The clerical man went over to a file cabinet, got the book, and almost pushed it into Malone’s face. I’ll fix his ass, Malone thought, snatching the book from him.
Malone turned the pages slowly, running his eye down each column, still not knowing what to look for. He smiled inwardly as he spotted the contracts: Patrolman Richard Coyne transferred to the Six-six from the recruit school on March 12, 1979, and transferred out to the Bureau of Management Analysis on June 10, 1979. Another Irishman buried in the bowels of headquarters.
He flipped the pages, his impatience growing. It was a mistake coming here, he thought in a moment of self-criticism. He began to flex his calves and tighten the muscles in his thighs. And then he saw them. Three names, Kelly, Bramson, Stanislaus, all patrolmen, all transferred on the same day, in the same orders, to the same place—the Police Academy. Such multiple transfers were not only very unusual but would have required a very heavy contract. He studied those three names and knew that he had found what he came for.
There were thirty-four patrolmen listed on that particular page and the clerical man knew every damn one of them. He turned to the clerical man. “Come over here a minute. I need your help with something.”
He shambled over. “Yes, Lieu-ten-ant?”
“I have to answer out a communication that concerns an unknown member of this command who was assigned here at some time during the past two years. All that we know about this cop is that he’s white and short and very thin. I’m going to go over the transfers that took place within the past few years and I want you to tell me what each of the cops looked like and anything else you can think of about them.”
A silly smile came over the clerical man’s face. “I got a real bad memory, Lieu-ten-ant. Why, I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning.”
“Is that so? Listen to me real good, pal. You might be the head honcho around here, but that don’t cut no shit with me. If you impede this investigation by refusing to cooperate I’ll get on the horn to the chief of Inspectional Services and before this day is out you’ll be doing a straight eight on a foot post in Harlem. Comes next Christmas you won’t be here to collect all them nickels and dimes and bottles of booze that the cops slip into your desk for doing those little favors throughout the year. You’ll be freezing your balls off on a school crossing. Understand, pal?”
The clerical man was ashen. A thick belt of moisture had formed across his upper lip. “Whatever you say, Lou,” he said, pulling over a chair and sitting down.
Fear was a wonderful interrogator, Malone thought, turning and pointing to the first name.
Malone walked away from the Umberto’s trailer nibbling brown onions from his sausage sandwich. Umberto’s was one of many of the city’s best and most famous e
thnic restaurants that had set up trailers along the sides of the cobbled arcade behind One Police Plaza. They brought with them shiny yellow tables and white umbrellas—an urban picnic area in the shadow of the severe government buildings. Malone was trying to let go of the Eisinger case for just a few minutes. He walked around to the front of Police Plaza by the Rosenthal sculpture, a massive piece of metal made of five disks, one for each of the five boroughs that make up the city. He headed toward a walkway lined by files of trees. The question DONDE ESTA ALFREDO MENDEZ? was stenciled on the walkway wall and signed FALN. Still restless, he crossed to St. Andrew’s Church. He bit into his sandwich and moved from the front of the church to the small garden on the side. He stuck his foot between the fence and studied the statue leaning on the St. Andrew’s Cross.
“He’s the patron saint of Scotland,” Zambrano said, walking over to Malone.
“The patron saint of bullshit,” Malone said, looking at Zambrano.
“I take it you’re a nonbeliever,” Zambrano said, with a scowl.
“I stopped believing in that mumbo-jumbo about the same time I started to masturbate.”
“Humph.” Zambrano walked away. Malone fell in beside him, taking another bite.
“How did you know where to reach me?” Zambrano asked, staring ahead.
“I telephoned your office and was told that you were at a commanders’ conference at headquarters.”
“What’s on your mind?” Zambrano said.
And now for the moment of truth, Malone thought, taking a deep breath before telling Zambrano of the telephone calls from Captain Madvick, his conversations with Mannelli, his interview of Andrea St. James, and everything that had happened since he opened a file on Sara Eisinger. Now he told Zambrano that after he left the Six-six he went back to the Squad and telephoned the Academy, asking to speak to Kelly, Bramson, or Stanislaus. He was told that no one by any of those names was assigned there. He then went through the Personnel Orders for the last two years and discovered thirty-seven similar transfers. Two and three cops transferred in the same orders from the same command and to the same administrative or support unit. He made a list of the transfers and started telephoning. It was the same at each unit. There was no cop by that name assigned there. He then left the Squad and drove to headquarters. His first stop was the Personnel Bureau. Using the same IAD ploy he had used at the Six-six, he asked to see the personnel folders of each of the forty cops. They were out of file, he was told. Next he went to the Identification Section where he asked an old friend for a favor. The fingerprint cards for each of the forty cops had been pulled and replaced with a charge-out card bearing a confidential file number. Only the chief of Operations knew the significance of the file number, his friend told him.
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