Backlash

by Paula Gosling

  Satisfied that he’d brought his partner up to date on the situation, Stryker sank down on to the base of his spine and dozed off. It was not the sleep of ordinary folk, but the light, listening sleep of new mothers and old cops. His mind had catalogued the noises of the room – any addition, any click, whisper, groan, or step that was out of place, and his brain would jerk him upright with all bells clanging.

  He trusted his brain.

  But not much else.

  ‘Can you drive?’

  Dana stood beside the bed, wrapped in a towel, having left damp footprints all the way from the bathroom.

  ‘Of course I can drive. Who is this?’ she demanded.

  ‘Jack Stryker. I’m downstairs.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’ When he didn’t immediately respond, Dana gritted her teeth. ‘That wasn’t an invitation, dammit, it was a simple enquiry about your health.’

  ‘I feel fine. Could we talk?’

  ‘I don’t know if we have anything to talk about. They told me you were off the case.’

  ‘Well – I am and I’m not. Mostly, I’m on an involuntary hunger strike. I ordered breakfast but I can’t handle it. Could you come down and cut up my bacon for me, please?’

  ‘I see. This is a humanitarian request.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Give me a few minutes.’

  ‘I’m in the grill-room, table in the corner on the left.’

  When she arrived she sat down opposite him, pulled his plate over, and began cutting up his bacon. She gave him a glance and scowled. ‘You sure you don’t want me to get someone to chew this for you? You don’t look like you’ll have the strength.’

  ‘My present appearance belies my lightning reflexes and the body of a true athlete, toned to perfection . . .’

  She shoved the plate back. ‘Shut up and eat.’

  He did the best he could, while she ordered coffee, orange juice, and an English muffin. When all was consumed, she sat back and lit a cigarette.

  ‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ Stryker said.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said.

  ‘But . . .’ He looked at her grim expression and gave it up. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘Smoking is bad for you.’

  ‘So they say.’ Dana smoked her cigarette and regarded him with caution. He looked a little wild this morning. Not having known him for very long, she wasn’t certain whether this was a variation of normal, or full-blown dingbat. She knew he’d lost a lot of blood and should have been pale, but his eyes were bright – fever bright? – and his cheeks were flushed. She stifled an impulse to feel his brow and take his pulse – considering the look on his face he might knock her flat on her ass if she tried it. Despite his injury, which was obviously bothering him, he had regained that air of suppressed energy and danger she’d noticed when they’d first met. She had a feeling he was trouble, big trouble for everyone, especially himself. Part of her wanted to blow a whistle, part of her wanted to ring a bell. She drew in smoke and tried not to cough.

  ‘Why do you want to know if I can drive?’

  ‘Because I want you to drive for me.’

  ‘You’re leaving the Department and starting a taxi firm?’

  ‘I want to tail a suspect and I can’t drive like this.’ He indicated his arm, still in the sling. She had seen how gingerly he moved it, how still he tried to remain, and how difficult it was for him.

  ‘I thought you were off the case,’ she said.

  ‘Actually . . .’ he began, then stopped. He fixed her with a manic eye and gave her a large, charming smile. ‘Actually, I am starting my own taxi firm. It should be a lot of fun. And there’s a profit-sharing scheme. Care to partake?’

  ‘What are the hours?’

  The charming smile fell off his face. ‘The hours are until we get him.’

  ‘Him whom?’

  ‘Him one Timothy Leary.’ He gave her the background, his theory, his goal. ‘At the moment I can’t come up with any other answer that makes sense – not one that includes Tos and me on the list of victims, anyway. Being in the state I’m in – which is Pennsylvania, as it happens, I’m in a nursing home near Philadelphia . . .’

  ‘Are you, really? Food any good?’

  ‘As long as someone cuts up my bacon I’m doing all right. To follow Leary I need two things – someone to drive for me on the outside, and on the inside I need someone good on the computer to make some kind of connection with the victims and Leary . . .’

  ‘Even if there isn’t one?’

  He scowled. ‘Of course there’s a connection. There must be.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I say so.’ The manic gleam in his eye was brighter.

  ‘Because you want to get Leary?’

  He saw suspicion in her eyes, and tried to gear down. ‘Because I want to get the sniper. If Leary isn’t it, then we might as well eliminate him.’ He sighed heavily and leaned back. ‘Either way we’d be doing a job of work for the Department, for crying out loud. I have a hunch, let’s try it out. What the hell else am I good for at the moment, anyway?’ he demanded.

  ‘I don’t know, but I do know I’m good for a lot of things,’ Dana pointed out. ‘Number one thing I’m good for is doing the job I was sent to do.’

  ‘Do it, then. But do it with me.’

  She took a long pull on her cigarette, stubbed it out, and contemplated their empty plates. ‘Who’s your man on the computer?’

  ‘Neilson.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Isn’t that a little . . . tricky?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Couldn’t he lose his job?’

  ‘Yeah, he could lose his job. So could Pinsky.’

  ‘My God, what’s Pinsky doing for you?’ She looked at him in horror.

  He grinned at her. ‘Pinsky? He’s following Suspect Number Two.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Dana agreed to drive him only so she could keep an eye on him. Before they started out, however, she excused herself and went to her room ‘to change’.

  And telephoned Neilson.

  ‘What should I do?’

  Neilson, caught on the hop half-way between pretending to be at his desk and pretending not to be hanging around a computer terminal downstairs in Records, had mixed feelings about advising her. He would have preferred her to come in and help him on the computer search. It would have left him free to come and go and strengthen the impression that he was working upstairs. As it was, he was pulling in an old and tenuous favour owed to him by a Records clerk, and he wasn’t certain how much further he could take it.

  Dana would have been given computer access without question.

  On the other hand, to have driven Stryker himself or for Pinsky to have done so would have been even more risky, as it would have been outright defiance of Klotzman’s orders to cut Stryker out of the investigation.

  Dana was reporting to no-one but herself.

  On the third hand (things were getting surreal) somebody needed to keep an eye on Stryker, to make sure he didn’t get himself shot again or into some other kind of trouble.

  Dana was a beautiful girl.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Neilson asked, drawing circles on his blotter.

  ‘Are you getting anywhere in Records?’

  ‘Sort of. Leary was a Detective Lieutenant assigned to two of the precincts where we’ve had uniformed victims. Dates put him in with them for at least some time. No connection yet with Yentall. Or with Hawthorne, for that matter. I’m working on it.’

  ‘Could I help you there?’

  ‘Sure. It would be a big help if you were here with me. You might even help some with the computer.’

  ‘Ha. How about Pinsky – could I do any good with Pinsky?’

  ‘No – he’s married.’


  ‘Forget it – I’m sorry I called.’

  ‘No – wait. I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know where Pinsky is at the moment. According to the schedule he’s taking a sick day. When I phoned him, Nell said he was still asleep.’

  ‘Jack says he’s supposed to be following “Suspect Number Two”.’

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ Neilson was nonplussed.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Dana sounded fretful. ‘Do you think Jack ought to be out running around like this? He seems a little . . . a little . . .’

  ‘Nutsy?’

  ‘Wobbly.’

  ‘In mind or body?’

  ‘Well . . . both.’

  That made advising her easier. ‘Stick with him for a while. Call me if it looks like getting to be a problem.’ He gave her the extension of the Records office he was temporarily invading. ‘If I’m not here, I’m there, okay? But don’t tell anyone.’

  There was a pause. ‘I know this extension number,’ Dana said, slowly. ‘I used this office the other day, when I first arrived. The Records officer on this is named Carole, isn’t she? Blonde? Sort of – large?’

  ‘Yeah, Carole Schecter. She only comes up to my tie pin.’

  ‘I didn’t mean large in that way.’

  ‘Yeah, well – I didn’t say she could get close to my tie pin. Jealous?’

  ‘Relieved. You can bother someone else for a change.’

  He grinned at the phone. ‘You don’t sound relieved.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  He put the phone down slowly, and smiled at it. ‘I’ll be damned,’ he murmured, softly. ‘She’s worried about me.’

  ‘You can smile at the phone all day, Neilson, it won’t fall in love with you,’ Chase said, going by.

  ‘I know – I never did do any good with phones,’ Neilson agreed, absently.

  Charlie Heff had been a guard in Courtroom Number Three for over twenty years. ‘I seen ’em come up, and I seen ’em go down,’ he was fond of saying to anyone who would listen. In his grey uniform and visored cap, Charlie stood by the door, protecting the judicial process.

  Fortunately, he had coffee breaks.

  The basement cafeteria of the Justice Building was marble-walled, marble-floored, and as noisy as a boiler-makers’ convention. Over the clatter of cutlery and the crash of plates were overlaid a good fifty separate conversations, rising up and curling around with the cigarette smoke. To those who were accustomed to it, however, the noise was as good as soundproofing. As long as you leaned close, cupped an ear, and had taken a course in lip-reading, you were safe to hand over virtually anything, including the number of your Swiss bank account. Stryker and Charlie were old hands. Dana was struggling to understand what they were saying to one another, but she didn’t complain.

  ‘Sure, I know who you mean,’ Charlie said, across the marshmallows that floated gummily on top of his hot chocolate. ‘Big ugly guy in a cashmere coat. I know Leary from a long time back, from patrolman on up, coming and going in the courts like the rest of you guys to say his pieces. Bad-tempered bastard – beg your pardon, lady. He’s not in there now, though.’

  ‘Has he been in there at all today?’ Stryker asked.

  ‘Sure, he was there first thing this morning, but he left before lunch. He ain’t come back yet, far’s I know. What’s he done?’

  ‘I don’t know if he’s done anything yet,’ Stryker said. ‘I just want to get in touch with him. Has he been in court every day of the Bronkowsky trial? He was there when I testified.’

  ‘Most days, yeah. Some days he left early, or didn’t show up ’til lunch, but most days he showed up. Sucker for punishment. They gonna call him? I hear he knows a lot.’

  ‘Oh, he knows a lot, all right. Can you remember which days he was missing?’

  ‘Hell, no. Take more ‘n hot chocolate and a doughnut to make me remember that. No, put your damn wallet away. What it would take is a brain transplant or something – you got a spare brain in your pocket by any chance?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Heff tapped his temple. ‘Memory’s going. Each damn day seems just like the rest, sort of all blends together. Way I remember is, I remember what I had for lunch, see, but that’s not always the same, either. I know I had liverwurst yesterday, and meatloaf sometime this week, maybe, but that’s as far as she goes. You don’t need to remember more ‘n a day or two in this job, open a door, close a door, tell ’em where the johns are, tell ’em what’s going on inside the court, stuff like that is all I do. They got a name for it, but I can’t remember that, neither. Can remember last year, mind you – want to know anything about last year? Year before? I’m your man. Tell you all you want to know about the Dewey Campaign, I was a Dewey man, or when I was on the railroad, but—’

  ‘So Leary was absent from court on an irregular basis? That’s the best you can say?’

  Heff nodded. ‘Yeah – on an irregular basis. Sort of like my memory, you might say. Sorry I can’t help you more, folks. One of the other guards do you? Harry or Pat?’

  ‘No – we’ve tried them already, thanks. They’ve only been on Number Three on an—’

  ‘Irregular basis?’ Heff crowed with delight. ‘Ain’t that just the way, now? I’m there all the time and can only remember half of it, they’re around half the time and can’t remember any of it.’

  ‘Well, thanks for your help . . .’ Stryker began.

  ‘You could try that cartoon fella,’ Heff said, suddenly.

  ‘Cartoon fellow?’ Dana asked.

  ‘Sure. Him that draws for the papers – sits over in the corner of the court and draws everybody. He might be able to tell you which days your man was here and when. Keeps real careful notes, he does, on account of not being able to take pictures, you know? Now fee’s what you might call there on a regular basis. Can’t think of his name, though.’

  They thanked him and left. As they went out of the cafeteria they could hear him chuckling to himself about ‘an irregular basis’. It seemed to afford him vast amusement.

  They took the artist to lunch at a much quieter place than the cafeteria, and Stryker got the dates and timings he was after. When the artist left to return to court, he started to compare them with the dates and timings of the crimes, jotted down carefully in his notebook.

  ‘He could have done the first one,’ he said, after a moment. ‘And he could have done Hawthorne, because that was at night, right?’

  ‘Presumably,’ Dana agreed. She watched as Stryker, still looking slightly feverish, went on flicking over pages, stopping at the relevant entries. It was awkward for him, using only one hand, but she made no move to help. She was in both a good position and a bad one. Her boss in Washington had given her more or less a free hand in order to ascertain what had happened to Gabe Hawthorne, but she was under no illusions that her brief covered helping an injured rogue detective to buck the system.

  On the other hand, she was probably already in trouble, so what did it matter? She had opened her soul to a startled Harvey Neilson after years of repression. Why stop at kicking over one set of traces? Why not kick them all over?

  ‘It’s him,’ Stryker breathed. His face was bright with satisfaction. ‘It’s Leary – he could have done them all. Every one of them. He was out of court every single time an officer went down.’

  ‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ Dana said, quietly. ‘You only know where Leary wasn’t at those times. You don’t know where he was, do you?’

  ‘That’s the next thing we find out,’ Stryker said, standing up. ‘Pay the bill, will you?’

  ‘What?’

  He gazed down at her and beamed, cherubically. ‘Well, I haven’t got much cash, and I can’t use my credit card, can I? I’m in a nursing home near Philadelphia, having my forehead stroked by beautiful nurses.’

  ‘May they all have dishpan hands,’
Dana muttered, reaching for her handbag.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ Pinsky said, shivering inside his old lumberjacket and chinos. ‘How can you stand it?’

  ‘You get used to it,’ Mike Rivera said. ‘After the first day, you don’t feel hungry. After the second day, you don’t feel the dirt. After the third or fourth day, you don’t feel your feet. And so it goes on. I think that’s how it happens to them, too, plus they got the booze to deaden them out.’ He looked around. ‘You spotted him yet?’

  Pinsky scanned the street, both sides. ‘Not yet. So, how did you get on to this?’ he asked. They were walking along French Street, heads down, the necks of bottles in brown paper sticking out of their pockets, seeming to ignore the life around them. It was not easy to ignore, what with the smells and the moans and the sadness that hung in the air and hit you in the throat. Pinsky certainly felt something in his throat – something it was hard to swallow.

  Rivera shrugged. ‘After the boy was killed, I read a lot of books on psychology. Trying to understand, and like that. Carla, she didn’t want to understand, she just wound herself up tight in her misery. She was a hell of a good cop, you know. But always too tough on herself, always pushing for that extra inch, that idea she had of perfection. Me, I go with the flow, right? That’s why this kind of assignment is good for me. I bend and weave, become part of the scenery. Anyway, I wanted to know why it had happened that my kid got it and somebody else’s didn’t. What had made the killer that way, because he came from a good background, that bastard. Money in the family, all that, whereas me, I come from nothing. Right up from nothing.’

  ‘And look where you are now!’ Pinsky said, wryly.

  Rivera looked around and grinned. ‘Right. Anyway, I wanted to know what made the difference, him and me, you know? That really bugged Carla, me trying to work it out, but I figured a good cop should know that stuff. Anyway, when we finally split up, well, I had a lot of time on my hands. To keep from going crazy myself, I started to do volunteer work here and there. I got to know this street. One day I thought about how a semi-permanent undercover situation could be real useful, and I told my captain and he said “try it”, so I’m trying it. So far, so good.’