Malone was cold. He fought a shiver. “Zangline is running this operation?”
“Yes.”
“And what do we do about Eisinger, Andrea St. James, and the two kids who died with her on the Van Wyck. Just forget about them?”
McQuade steepled his hands under his chin. “I give you my personal guarantee that no member of this department had anything to do with those deaths.”
Malone covered his face with his hands and rubbed tired pupils. “Exactly what do you want me to do?” he said, dropping knuckles to the table.
“Forget any connection this department has to the Eisinger caper. Don’t be a party to the destruction of this great department.”
A tired man nodded his assent.
McQuade sighed relief. “Good. You don’t have the money, do you?”
Malone knew that this particular piece of police argot referred to the designation of a detective supervisor as a commander of detectives and carried with it a five-thousand-dollar yearly increment.
“No, I don’t.”
“I’m going to put you in for the money.”
A bribe by any other name is still a bribe, Malone thought. Aloud, “Thank you, Chief.”
Two things had caught his attention when he examined the fingerprint card. The first was the biting smell of death impregnated in the fibers of the paper itself. The second was the empty pedigree boxes on the top. Blocked across the head of the form was: HOMICIDE, SARA EISINGER.
The digital impressions looked like a worn parchment of loops and whorls with big uneven spaces where the skin was gone. They had cleaned her fingers with xyline but the flesh was rotten and flabby. So they cut off the tips of her fingers and soaked them in a 15 percent solution of formaldehyde to harden the ridges. Then they took them out and inked and rolled them. Poor Sara. Her only legacy was a filing formula deduced by counting her ridges and tracing her whorls:
4 0 5U101 12
I 17W100
She no longer had a name. Only a formula. Poor dead Sara.
The Identification Section was on the fifth floor. Before he kept his appointment with McQuade, Malone had delivered the latent prints lifted from Stanislaus’s apartment to a friend in the I.D. section. “Need a favor, ol’ buddy.”
That had been at 4:20 P.M.
Now he left the Chief of Op, pushed through the heavy fire-exit door, and entered the stairwell, a spiral of metal steps that wound down through a vast open shaft. He needed to vent his rage. “The mother is going to get me the money,” he said angrily, rushing down the steps.
The DOA fingerprint form, the lifts from the crime scene, and the blowups of the fingerprints from Stanislaus’s apartment were clamped together on a comparison board back at his office. Black lines indicated the similar points of comparison: a dot, a bifurcation, an abrupt ending ridge, a short ridge, a meeting of two ridges, a core, a delta.
The prints off the plastic case and diaphragm matched Eisinger’s left thumb and forefinger. There were eighteen points of comparison. The prints taken off the highboy matched up with those lifted at the crime scene. Fourteen points of comparison.
Malone had just hammered some more nails into a coffin.
18
FRIDAY, July 3 … Evening
A hooker pushed away from the building on Crescent Street and walked over to the car. She stopped a few feet away and began to scan the interior. She saw no radio under the dashboard; no official forms scattered over the rear seat; no coffee containers with the lids on. Her street-wise eyes went to the driver. Just another john who dashed out for a pack of cigarettes and a quart of milk, she decided. She ambled over and smiled.
“Hi, sugar. You goin’ out?”
“How much for a blow job?”
“Twenty, honey.”
“Make it ten.”
“Fifteen and I’ll give you a real good one.”
“Okay.”
She pranced around the front of the car to the passenger side. She hesitated and shot a look over the top of the car at another strolling prostitute. Her “sister” saw her signal and nodded. The license plate number and a description of the john had been noted. Street insurance against freaks.
She jerked the door open and slid inside.
Det. Patrick O’Shaughnessy handed her fifteen dollars.
“Go down Crescent and turn into Forty-fourth Street,” she directed. “Park in front of a truck and then back your car up against it.” She put the fifteen dollars in a large pocket-book and removed a handful of tissues. She placed the bag on the floor and locked it between her ankles. Sliding next to him, she draped her left arm around his shoulder and with her right hand started to circle his groin.
“Hmmm. It’s nice and big,” she said, working the zipper down.
O’Shaughnessy made a quick check. All the buttons were down. The motor was running and the window on the driver’s side was cracked inches from the top.
She cupped the tissues in the palm of her right hand and moved her mouth down to meet his body.
Fifteen minutes later her head was still bobbing, the tissues unused. She stopped and looked up.
“You been drinking, honey?”
“No.” He felt disgusted.
“Well, sugar. I can’t make you come. If you want me to continue, it’s going to cost you another ten. Can’t spend all night on one trick.”
“I’m not in the mood anyway.” He pushed her head away, arched upward, and hoisted his zipper.
“Sure, sugar. I understand,” she said, returning the tissues to her pocketbook.
He let her out of the car at Hunter and Twenty-seventh. He felt awful. He felt angry, inadequate, lonely, and disgusted. He pounded the steering wheel.
“I can’t even get it off with a nigger hooker,” he cried.
The traffic light on Twenty-seventh and Bridge Plaza South turned red. Garishly dressed hookers lolled at the corners, beckoning to motorists. Transvestites swaggered up and down Twenty-seventh Street. Standing in the shadows were the pimps, their hard eyes fixed on the hookers they had on the charge.
“I’m right down on their level,” he cried, violently shaking the wheel.
The light changed to green.
Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. His hands were clammy and he felt nauseated. He tugged at his shirt. He had driven halfway across Bridge Plaza when a bolt of pain struck. He felt a wave of agony in his left arm. He clutched at his chest and gasped for air.
Startled motorists wrenched their wheels to avoid his car as it veered across Bridge Plaza. O’Shaughnessy’s automobile jumped the curb, careened along the sidewalk, and plowed through the glass façade of a luncheonette.
The pain was gone. Everything was black and still.
He and Zambrano had just about finished their lasagna when Gino came up to their table and told Malone he had a phone call. It was Bo Davis. “Pat is in the emergency room of Elmhurst General.”
“O’Shaughnessy, Patrick,” Malone shouted to the woman inside the reception cubicle.
“Down the hall and to your right,” she said, leaning out and pointing.
They rushed along the crowded corridor, threading their way past the miseries of the day. Malone banged through a pair of double doors with a thick rubber apron and plunged into the cardiac emergency ward. A black male nurse with muscles pushing against his white nylon uniform blocked his path. “You are not allowed in here, gentlemen.”
Malone dug out his shield. “One of my men was brought in here,” he said and gave O’Shaughnessy’s name.
“They are in with him now,” the nurse said. He pointed to a door with a small window in the center.
The two policemen walked over and looked through the glass. The room was divided into private cubicles by curtains. O’Shaughnessy lay on a gurney, his feet over the edge. Tubes ran from his body up to plastic bags. Wires fed from his arm and chest into a series of pulsating monitors. A group of doctors and nurses hovered over him and fought to save his life. Malone composed himself.
For some reason he watched O’Shaughnessy’s big toe, expecting it to move. It never did.
“For all his macho bullshit he was a lonely man,” Malone said, backing away.
“He shouldn’t have lived like he did after hours,” Zambrano said.
A voice called to them. “You guys from the Squad?” A hatless police officer had pushed his way inside and was standing behind them. He was in his twenties, with black, curly hair, big bulging brown eyes, and a mouth full of horsy teeth. The three top buttons of his shirt were open. A gold rope chain coiled around his neck and a ball of gold pierced his left ear.
Zambrano showed him his shield. The policeman took hold of the inspector’s wrist and pulled him close, examining the shield. “Hey, man. That’s cool. I’ve never seen an inspector’s up close before. I really dig the big bird on top.”
Malone turned and swallowed a smile. Zambrano snapped back his hand and shook his head with disbelief.
The cop said, “We invoiced his gun and shield in the One-fourteen. We did everything we could for him.”
“Thanks,” Malone said.
“We were able to get his home telephone number off his ten card. His wife told the desk officer that she didn’t give a damn what happened to him.”
“They were getting a divorce,” Malone said.
“Another one down the tubes,” the cop said. “I’ve been in the batter’s box twice.”
Zambrano looked at his watch and nudged Malone. “Gotta go. We got an appointment on the LIE.”
Malone went back for a final look. A nurse was bending over the gurney adjusting a tube. Her uniform rode up in the back. She had long legs and nice thighs. She was top heavy. Pat would have given her a solid eight.
They sped east on the Long Island Expressway in an unmarked police car. Saplings lined the slopes and grass glistened with dew. A full moon lingered in a star-filled sky.
The next green illuminated sign they saw read DOUGLASTON PARKWAY. Five minutes later they passed another sign: NASSAU COUNTY. The panorama changed. The massive housing complexes of Queens were gone, as well as the constant glow of the city. The night was darker and more ominous.
At Shelter Rock Road there was a stone overpass. A black car hid behind its south base, parked uphill on the sweep of land. Joseph Stanislaus and Edwin Bramson had unwittingly shaken off Harrigan’s men by making a precautionary U-turn in the middle of the Queensborough Bridge. They sat in the front seat of the black car and checked each passing automobile with a night-vision handscope. They would recognize a department vehicle, and they both knew Malone. They had seen him at the SOD compound.
Malone glanced sideways. “There was really no need for you to tag along.”
“I enjoy playing cop. My time in the Job is almost over and I’d like to get in a few more licks before I leave.”
“When do you have to put your papers in?”
“I have three more years,” he said.
“You have a lot of friends on the Job. They’ll take care of you.”
Zambrano roared with laughter. He leaned close to Malone. “When you’re in, you’re a guest; when you’re out, you’re a pest. Remember that.”
Malone scoffed. “I’ve heard that one from a lot of old-timers who were getting out.”
Zambrano sliced the air with a karate chop. “When your time comes, walk through the door and don’t look back. One fast, clean break.”
“Any plans?”
“I’ll more than likely end up in Florida with the rest of the retirees. Probably spend my days bullshitting about the Job and taking poolside cha-cha lessons in Bermuda shorts, argyle socks, and black-laced shoes.”
“With your background and experience? Private industry will scoop you up.”
They didn’t notice when the black car rolled down from behind the base of the overpass and fell in several lengths behind them.
Stanislaus picked up the walkie-talkie and transmitted a description of the unmarked car and its occupants.
Edwin Bramson was driving. “There is someone in the car with him.”
Stanislaus said, “That’s his tough luck. Get off at the next exit and head back to the City.”
At Willis Avenue an eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer idled on the service road, its chattering diesel emitting a black cloud. Two short, muscled men sat inside the cab. Stanislaus’s message had been received. The two men were watchful. Ready.
Zambrano pulled up the headrest and leaned back. “In a way I’m glad to be getting out. The Job is really going downhill fast.”
“How so?”
“You saw that cop back in the hospital. Shirt open, no tie, a necklace around his neck, and to top it off a fucking earring stuck through his goddamn ear. Can you imagine that, a New York City cop with an earring. Next thing you know they’ll be putting on rouge and eye shadow.”
Malone smiled. “Times change. Cops aren’t so uptight about being on the Job.”
“Come on, Dan. Earrings? Where the hell is the discipline?”
“It’s still there. Only it’s less formal.”
“That is a crock of shit and you know it. Did you hear what happened last week in the One-twelve?”
“No.”
Zambrano sat up and shifted his weight onto one side of his rump and leaned toward him. “A late tour. Sunday going into Monday. The sergeant on patrol can’t locate sector Ida-Mary. They weren’t answering his eighty-fives. The sergeant starts to mosey around the heaves. His RMP cruises into Macy’s parking lot on Queens Boulevard. The building is built in the shape of a beehive with circular ramps running top to bottom. Near the roof he spots a turret light sticking up over a ramp. He tells his driver to stop and he gets out and walks over.” Zambrano punched the dashboard. “And what do you think the good sergeant found? He found Police Officer Debra Bowden wearing only her open uniform shirt with one leg up on the dashboard and the other hooked over the front seat. And would you like to know where her partner was? Police Officer Frank Watson.”
Malone was grinning broadly. “Where, Inspector?”
“With his face in her muff, eating her. On duty. In a police car. And do you know what she had the balls to tell the sergeant?”
“That they were on their meal period,” Malone cackled with laughter.
“That’s right. Howd’ya know that?”
“Because that’s what I would have said.”
As the two policemen talked, the tractor-trailer behind them resolutely closed the distance. When it drew parallel with the police car the driver wrenched the wheel and turned the massive cab toward the passenger door. It rammed into the police car and plowed it across the parkway, smashing it into the road divider.
“Watch out!” Zambrano screamed, too late.
As Malone fought the wheel, the unmarked car bounced off the divider, its doors and side panels crumpled inward, and then Malone regained control. The semi continued the pursuit, its bumper homing in on the rear of the automobile.
Zambrano opened his window, thrust his revolver at the approaching beast and fired six rounds double action into the cab. The tractor-trailer backed off. Zambrano opened the cylinder and plunged out the spent rounds. He reloaded from the ammo pouch on his belt.
Every time their pursuers got close enough to ram, Malone had been able to turn the car in the opposite direction and dart to safety. Now it was on them again, a lizard snapping its forked tongue. Malone swerved the car to the right. It was still with them, its mass casting a deadly shadow over the hood of the police car. It plowed into them. The two rear tires of the police car came off and went spinning across the highway. The car spun helplessly, its undercarriage screeching over the concrete, throwing out a fusillade of sparks. Finally it slammed into the road abutment.
“Get out!” Zambrano cried.
The door on the driver’s side was crushed, the windows shattered but still in place. Malone kicked out the front window and started to climb out onto the hood. Zambrano lay back across the seat and kicked the door ope
n. He threw himself out and got to his feet in time to face the charging monster. He turned and saw Malone crawling over the hood on all fours. Assuming a combat stance, Zambrano cocked his revolver, aimed, and fired single action at the driver.
At that precise moment in his life Nicholas Zambrano did not think of issues like life or death. His thoughts were of honor. He could hear his father calling to him. “Nicholas, conduct your life with honor. We are Italians. Ours is an honorable and proud heritage.”
Malone was almost off the hood when the tractor smashed into Zambrano, propelling his body off into the night. The semi continued its run, smashing into the car and hurling Malone into the air.
The tractor-trailer backed away from the smoldering wreck and stopped. Although the traffic on the expressway had been very light at the start of the battle, it was now backed up in both directions. Motorists gaped in horror, but none got out to help.
The cab’s door swung open on the passenger side and Achmed Hamed, the man who had telephoned Malone at Stanislaus’s behest, climbed down. He looked across the highway at the smashed body that was once Zambrano and smiled. They had done their work well. He took out a Heckler & Koch P9S pistol from his waistband and ran for the road divider. Looking over, he saw Malone’s body splayed out and motionless. His right arm was bent under his chest and his left was alongside the body with palm up. The head lay in a pool of blood.
Achmed Hamed tucked the pistol back in his waistband and started to climb over the steel divider.
He knew that Stanislaus would ask him if he made sure that Malone was dead. He wanted no problems from him.
Achmed Hamed’s right foot had just touched the other side of the divider when Malone whipped up, a .38 Detective Special in his right hand. He shoved the revolver at the frozen man and quick-fired three rounds. In that split second Achmed Hamed knew that he was about to die. He stared down with disbelief at the growing crimson stain. He started to claw at his shirt. He saw the three puffy holes in his stomach and slowly, against his will, corkscrewed to his knees.
One Police Plaza Page 26