Frank said, “Can I help you, friend?”
Hastings said, “Yeah, are you Frank Cahalin?”
“Yes.”
Hastings extended his hand. “George Hastings. I’m a lieutenant with St. Louis PD.”
“Oh, hey,” Frank said, shaking the hand. “How you doing?”
Hastings shook his head, smiling. “Tired,” he said.
One of the agents said, “Hastings?”
“Yeah.”
The agent said, “Are you the cop that—?”
Hastings nodded.
“Holy shit,” the agent said. “This is the guy that brought down the cop killer last night. Sit down, will you? Let us buy you a drink.”
“Well …”
“Come on.”
“Okay,” Hastings said. “Just for a minute.”
Frank said, “Good work, George.”
Hastings shrugged.
An agent said, “Got him with a shotgun, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Man, that’s great,” another agent said. “That guy needed to die.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Hastings glanced just briefly at Cahalin when he said it.
Another agent said, “You need to take some time off, man. Get laid.” He laughed but no one else joined him.
Hastings smiled briefly. He said, “So about when was it that you went native?” He was looking at Frank when he finished saying it, his expression patient, his voice calm.
Frank said, “Pardon me?”
Hastings said, “When would you say it was?”
“When I went … I’m sorry,” Frank said, “I don’t understand your question.”
“Was it five years ago? Ten years ago? When?”
“Uh, George,” Frank said, smiling now, “you got to clue me in to what you’re talking about.”
Hastings said, “Did you take money from him? Or was it something else? A girl? An affair with a homosexual? Come on, you can tell us.”
Frank said, “Man, what planet are you on? Take money from who, Lieutenant?” Frank was using his impatient supervisor’s tone now, asserting himself.
But it wasn’t working. Not with this man.
“From Mike Dillon,” Hastings said. “The man who murdered three police officers. In case anyone here has forgotten.”
One of the agents started to say something, but stopped.
Frank was aware of the agents watching him. Challenged now by the plainclothes metro detective, the detective trying to ambush him in a public place. Frank said, “George? You lost one of your men, so I understand your being upset. Tired too. But if you think you can walk in here—”
Hastings said, “You make one more reference to Robert Cain, I’ll tear your head off.”
The agents at the table saw the fierce, almost crazy look in the detective’s eyes and, for just a second, saw Frank’s chin tremble and his hands shake. And that brief moment told them that Frank Cahalin was not quite ruthless enough to be a hardened criminal, not quite smart enough to be a practiced con artist.
Frank said, “I think you better leave, before you commit career suicide.”
Hastings leaned back in his chair, put aside his desire to smash the fed in his fat face. “You see,” Hastings said, “we’re not quite as dumb as you think we are. Us metro people, that is. There are some pretty smart people in the Department, actually. Some not as smart as others. But I’ll tell you something, Frank, I never met anybody in the department dumb enough to be played by Mike Dillon. I mean, they’d see him for what he was. A turd. A killer. You, you befriended him. I think on some level, you even came to admire him.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He helped you, right? I understand that. We all use informants we wouldn’t want near our homes. It’s part of the work. He helped you rise in the ranks, got you out of handling insurance fraud cases, helped you put some Sicilians in prison. But didn’t you see, Frank? Didn’t you see what he was doing? Did you pretend not to see it? You had to know. He was using you, using you to put his competitors in jail and get himself the protection of the biggest law enforcement agency in the country.”
Frank said, “You’re talking about things you don’t know anything about. Things you can’t possibly understand. It’s beyond your world of dopers and pimps and domestic assault. You’re just talking to talk. You don’t have anything.”
Hastings said, “Sean Rizza.”
“Yeah?” Frank said. “What about him?”
“Five years ago, a bookie was beaten to death in the back of a tavern. There was a fair amount of evidence Sean had done it with a baseball bat. Cook County DA convened a grand jury to investigate it. A week later, it was yanked.”
“So what?”
“This afternoon, I called the district attorney’s office to find out what happened. They told me the DA was busy, but I could leave a message.” Hastings paused. “So I called the assistant DA who was working the case to see what she knew. It took her awhile, but she found this.”
Hastings removed a faxed copy of a letter from his jacket pocket. He read it aloud. “Dear Mr. Ahrens, please be advised that this office is deeply disappointed that time and resources are being expended to target Sean Rizza in the above investigation. Mr. Rizza has assisted this office in efforts to combat organized criminal activity. Furthermore, it is well known that the deceased was recently paroled from prison and had a history of violent criminal behavior. Mr. Rizza, in contrast, is a respected businessman and a man I personally believe to be of good moral character. Sincerely, Frank Cahalin, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
The three agents looked from Hastings to Frank.
Frank said, “Yeah, I wrote that. So what?”
“Sean Rizza’s dead now, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know. You going to piss on his grave too?”
“Well, I think most law enforcement officers in Chicago would dispute the part about Sean Rizza’s good moral character. I think you wrote that letter because Mike Dillon asked you to. Or told you. But maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s nothing,” Hastings said. “But then there are those phone records.”
Frank was looking at him.
“Yeah,” Hastings said, “we decided to subpoena your phone records to see if you’d been in touch with Dillon. You were. But that’s not all. Much to our surprise, we found out that you called Sergeant Cain on his cell phone from your office about thirty-five minutes before he was killed. Then another call was placed, from your office, to the home of Jerry Rosinski, aka Mike Dillon. From your office, ten minutes later. Now, maybe you didn’t think to use a pay phone for that second call because you were dumb. But my guess is, you panicked. Cain told you where he was going because he could be careless with people in positions of authority. He was a good detective and, in his way, a pretty good man, but he put a little too much stock in people like you. You panicked and you called Dillon and you told him Cain was going to see Sharon Dunphy. Whether you intended it or not, you got Cain killed.”
Frank opened his mouth. “I—”
Hastings held up a hand. “Don’t say anything, Frank. Just—don’t.”
The agents were aware now of the quiet in the restaurant and several uniformed city cops standing nearby, a black plainclothes officer with them. Approaching now as Hastings got up and walked away.
Rhodes said, “Frank Cahalin. Stand up. You’re under arrest.”
Hastings walked out into the night, crossed the street, and got into his car. He started the car, hesitated as he reached for the gearshift. He stopped and put his hands on the steering wheel and gripped it. He felt his blood thrumming, his adrenaline still racing.
Back there in that restaurant, he had wanted to kill that man. Had wanted to put him against a wall and shoot him. He knew he was capable of it and it frightened him. If asked, he would not be able to explain his anger. If he had felt this sort of anger before, he could not remember when. He had not felt it when his wife bet
rayed him and left him and split up the family. He had not even felt it when he was chasing the gangster through the train yard. But he felt it when he had told Agent Cahalin not to say anything more, and he was glad he lived in a time when the law prevented him from taking a life so easily.
He sat with his hands on the wheel for a few more minutes until he decided it had passed and he felt tired more than anything. Then he reached for his cell phone, dialed a number, and waited.
“Hello?”
“Hi. It’s George. George Hastings.”
“Oh, hi,” Carol said. “Hi. What’s going on?”
“It’s wrapped up. My part of it, anyway.”
“I was going to call you,” she said. “I saw it on the news. What you did, I mean.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You weren’t hurt?”
“No.”
“The other police officer,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” Hastings said. “I think the funeral is Monday.” He wasn’t sure what else to say right now. “Listen, I’m sorry, I know we’re not—I just wanted to talk to someone, that’s all. Maybe we could meet for a cup of coffee or something.”
“You sound tired.”
“Yeah, I am, I guess.”
There was a silence. He did not want to tell her what he had been thinking. He was not sure he would ever tell anyone.
Carol said, “George?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
She said, “Why don’t you come over? I can make you some coffee here.”
Hastings said, “I’d like that.”
Also by JAMES PATRICK HUNT
Maitland
Maitland Under Siege
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE BETRAYERS. Copyright © 2007 by James Patrick Hunt. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Book design by Jonathan Bennett
eISBN 9781466824317
First eBook Edition : June 2012
“I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Copyright © 1939 (renewed) by Chappell & Co. Rights for extended renewal term in U.S. controlled by W. B. Music Corp. o/b/o/ The Estate of Lorenz Hart and The Family Trust U/W Richard Rodgers and The Family Trust U/W. Dorothy F. Rodgers administered by Williamson Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hunt, James Patrick, 1964–
The betrayers / James Patrick Hunt.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36276-8
ISBN-10: 0-312-36276-5
1. Police—Missouri—Saint Louis—Fiction. 2. Saint Louis (Mo.)—Fiction. 3. Crime—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3608.U577B48 2007
813’.6—dc22
2006050618
First Edition: March 2007
The Betrayers Page 21