The John Milton Series Boxset 4

by Mark Dawson

  Milton didn’t want to draw the line between the dots for fear of scaring him, but Manny had no difficulty following where Milton’s reasoning was going.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “So talk it out,” Milton suggested.

  “All right,” Manny conceded. “Let’s say we decide Freddy can tell the detectives what he saw. Which detective? How do we know who to trust?”

  “The officers who came to see you this morning—you remember their names?”

  “Mackintosh and Polanski.”

  Milton nodded. “Polanski came to see me on his own this morning. That said a lot. He tell you what department he works in?”

  Manny shook his head. “Just said he was a detective.”

  “Internal Affairs. He wouldn’t tell me why he was involved, but I can guess.”

  “He’s investigating the cop Freddy saw.”

  “Maybe,” Milton said. “Whether it’s that or something else, there’s an investigation going on that has something to do with the murder. If we’re going to trust anyone, it’d be him.”

  “But we don’t know anything about him,” Manny protested.

  “No,” Milton agreed. “Not yet. I’m going to get to know him a little better and then we can decide.”

  Manny groaned. “You don’t have to do this. You’ve already done enough.”

  “I’m a witness, too,” Milton replied. “I was there. Whoever it was Freddy saw outside the bathroom, they’re going to have questions about me as well. Did I see them, too? That’ll make them nervous. The way I see it, I’m in this almost as much as Freddy is. So it’s in my interest, too.”

  There was truth in that, but Milton was playing it up. Manny didn’t make it obvious if he realised.

  The waitress returned, laden down with their food. She distributed the plates around the table. Manny glanced up at the staircase just as Freddy started down it.

  “All right,” Manny said. “If there’s anything I can do…”

  “Don’t say anything yet,” Milton said. “Not to anyone. Let’s see what I can find out; then we can decide.”

  55

  Carter was hungry. It was eleven thirty, and the shift still had another thirty minutes left to run. They were on Pitkin, approaching the bodega on the corner of Sheffield Avenue. He told Rhodes to pull over and wait.

  He went inside. The proprietor, a wizened old Dominican named Juan, nodded a greeting. Carter returned the gesture, went to the shrink-wrapped sandwiches in the chiller and grabbed two. He added a six-pack of beer and, going to the counter and pointing at the shelves behind him, added a packet of Marlboro Red. Carter made a show of taking out his wallet, but, just as he knew that he would, Juan wagged his finger in mock disapproval.

  “Thank you,” Carter said, going back outside into the cold.

  He opened the car and tossed one of the sandwiches across the cabin to Rhodes. He got in, closed the door, opened his own sandwich and took a big bite.

  “Let me put you straight on a couple of things,” Carter said through a mouthful of salami. “There are some facts you need to understand about working a precinct like this.”

  “Yeah?” Rhodes said, his own mouth full of sandwich.

  “You been on the street long enough, you’re going to figure out that there are two kinds of cop: grass eaters and meat eaters. Meat eaters take advantage of being police. Maybe they hear about a house that’s being used for selling drugs, and they go in and bust the place up. They arrest the bad guys, but, before anyone else shows up, maybe they take half of the money they find lying around in the place and voucher the other half. They share that money out among each other for a job well done.”

  Rhodes wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The other kind?”

  “Grass eaters,” he said. “They know what goes on and they accept the pay-offs that get tossed their way for being cops.”

  “What are you?”

  “I ain’t finished yet. Eventually, the grass eaters get eaten by the meat eaters. That’s just the way it always goes. You work in the Seven Five long enough, you’re gonna get so much shit thrown at you all the ideals they drilled into you in the academy are going to start looking pretty fucking silly. Maybe you’re on the midnight tour, you pick up a whore and she spits in your face. Then maybe you chase down a dealer and he turns and takes a shot at you. You scrape up a drunk you found in the gutter and he pukes all over the back of the patrol car when you take him to the drunk tank and you gotta clean his shit up. Those things happen again and again and, soon enough, you see a pile of money on the table after you’ve busted a place and you think to yourself, maybe I do deserve that. What’s the point in vouchering it? It all goes back into the city funds; none of it comes back to us. So who cares if I help myself to half of it? It’s what you might call a victimless crime.”

  “I don’t know, Bobby. What happens when you get caught?”

  He ignored the question. “You don’t have to dip your hand in,” he said. “But let me give you a word of advice. Everyone is on the take. This precinct, the Sixty-Ninth, the Seventy-Seventh, the Seventy-Ninth—shit, you go down to some quiet precinct on Staten Island and I guarantee you dollars to doughnuts that old cop who looks like he’s done everything right for all of his thirty-year career, he’s been feathering his nest when no one’s looking, too. You can pretend like none of that happens if you like, but you’d be wrong, and, worse than that, guys are gonna start looking at you in a different way. They ain’t gonna trust you if you don’t take your share. Maybe they think you’re the kind of cop who’d rat on other cops. I ain’t saying you would, I’m just saying that’s the way it is.”

  “I just got this job,” Rhodes said. “Last thing I want is to get myself in trouble. I ain’t got nothing else to go to.”

  Carter didn’t know if he was getting through to him or not. He pointed to the half-eaten sandwich that the rookie had in his hand. “Take that sandwich,” he said. “I didn’t pay for that. Same as I didn’t pay for mine or the beers or the smokes he gave us.”

  Rhodes had just taken another bite. “For fuck’s sake, Bobby,” he said, lowering the sandwich from his mouth as if he had just found something unpleasant inside.

  “You know why he gave us all that for nothing?”

  “I don’t wanna get into this.”

  “Why?” Carter pressed.

  Rhodes sighed and relented. “Because he wants us on his side.”

  “‘Because he wants us on his side,’” Carter repeated. “Exactly. And let’s say we go by there every night. How much you reckon all that would have cost if we’d bought it? Twenty bucks? Five nights a week, that’s a hundred bucks he’s sending our way. Four hundred bucks a month. Nearly five grand a year.”

  Rhodes had been about to take another bite of the sandwich, but now it just hovered there, an inch away from his mouth.

  “Eat it,” Carter said. “It’s a shitty sandwich, kid. All I’m saying, this is just the way it is. Internal Affairs could take the view that we get paid an extra five grand a year to keep an eye on that particular store. Maybe they’d say that was corruption. Maybe they’d say we were taking advantage of the fact that we were cops. But everyone does it.”

  He reached forward, opened the glovebox and took out the cash that he had lifted from Otto.

  “Put that away!” Rhodes protested.

  “No one’s looking,” he said. “And what they gonna do if they are? We’re cops. Relax.”

  Carter licked his thumb and peeled off four twenties, then held them up.

  He reached across and pushed them into Rhodes’s button-down pocket. He didn’t resist.

  “A sandwich or a hundred-dollar bill—it don’t matter. The principle’s the same. You eat grass or you eat meat. Your choice. But I know what I’d recommend.”

  Rhodes’s hand hovered above his pocket, but, after a long moment when Carter didn’t know which way he was going to go, he shook his head a
nd lowered his hand to the wheel.

  “There you go,” Carter said. “There you go.”

  Rhodes put the remains of the sandwich on the dash and put the car into drive. They still had another twenty minutes left before their shift was over. He glanced into the mirror, touched the gas and drove out into the quiet street.

  56

  The rest of the tour passed without incident. Rhodes was quiet; Carter assumed that he was thinking about their conversation and the money that was still inside his breast pocket. Carter was pleased with how the kid had reacted. He had been reluctant, perhaps even hostile to the idea that they might profit from Otto, but that hostility had quickly subsided. Rhodes had pretensions to probity and still had the idealism that they bred into the rookies during their time at the academy, but that would pass. It always did. Ideals were fine, but they never lasted once they were stood against the realities of life. Brooklyn would do that to you. Tonight had been the rookie’s first lesson. There would be other lessons, but this would be the one that he remembered. Carter remembered when his own cherry had been popped. He’d had similar conversations with other idealistic young cops over the years, and the outcome had been the same every time: they took, just like he took.

  They drove up to Dumont Avenue. It was five to midnight, so Carter told him to turn around and head back to the precinct. Rhodes did as he was told, turning right on Sutter and cruising to the east.

  They were rolling through the intersection with Linwood Avenue when Carter saw Shepard’s car parked next to the precinct. He indicated that Rhodes should park the patrol car next to it.

  He opened the door and stepped out into the freezing cold night.

  Shepard got out of his vehicle, and Rhodes stepped out of the cruiser.

  “This is Shepard,” Carter said, turning to the kid. “Shep, this is Rhodes.”

  “The rookie?” Shepard said, his voice slurred and dripping with unsubtle sarcasm.

  “That’s right.”

  Carter could see that Shepard had already been out drinking. He was unsteady on his feet. Carter knew that he would make Rhodes feel uncomfortable, just because he had taken his old place as Carter’s partner and because it was an easy thing to do. Carter didn’t know Rhodes well enough to feel protective of him, but he knew that Shepard could be a dick after he had been drinking and he found, a little to his surprise, that he didn’t want the rookie to form a bad impression of him by association.

  “How was the tour?” Shepard asked Rhodes.

  Carter wondered whether he would mention Otto and the money that they had taken, but he didn’t. “Nothing to write home about,” he said instead.

  “Yeah? You think it’s easy, do you? Working the precinct more straightforward than you thought it was gonna be?”

  Carter could see that Shepard was rushing along the road to antagonism, and he didn’t want that. He stepped between Shepard and Rhodes and clapped the rookie on the shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Think about what I said, okay? It’ll make everything easier.”

  Rhodes paused, a response caught on his lips, but he let it pass. “You okay?” he said, nodding to Shepard.

  “He’s just drunk. I’ll help him get home.”

  Rhodes gave a nod and made his way inside the building.

  Carter turned to Shepard. “What the fuck?” he said. “You’ve been drinking?”

  “Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Shepard said. “I needed a drink. Settle my nerves.”

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Carter said. “I don’t know what I was thinking saying this was a good idea. Get in the car. Come on—get in, you fucking reprobate. Move.”

  Carter opened the passenger-side door and pressed down on Shepard’s shoulder until he gave in and dropped down onto the seat. Carter shut the door and took a moment to compose himself. He had to hold it together.

  “What do we do?” Shepard said as soon as Carter was inside the car.

  “We do nothing,” Carter said. “We behave just like we always do.”

  “But—”

  “No, Shep, no buts. Think. They got nothing on us. That’s a fact. If the kid had seen something, if he had been able to identify either of us, you think we’d be here like this? No. We would’ve been arrested by now. We’d be sitting in an office and they’d be yelling in our faces about how they had us dead to rights, how we ought to protect ourselves by ratting the other one out. You know it, I know it—and it ain’t happening. Think, Shep. What does that mean?”

  “That they don’t have nothing.”

  “That’s right. They don’t got squat. So you and me need to play it cool, don’t do anything to draw attention to ourselves, and make a few quiet enquiries to make doubly sure that we’re in the clear.”

  The suggestion registered with Shepard. “You speak to Mackintosh?”

  “What am I gonna say, Shep? ‘I was just wondering if you could fill me in on that murder you’re investigating down in Euclid?’”

  “Nah,” Shepard said, “that’s not—”

  “Give me a little credit, Shep. I’m gonna go back tonight when it’s quiet. I’ll have a look through her murder book and see if there’s anything we need to look out for.”

  Shepard nodded. “You wanna get that drink?”

  Carter shook his head. “You’ve had enough for one night, partner. I’m gonna drive you home, you’re going to bed and you’re gonna sleep this off. And then, in the morning, when you’ve got your head on straight, we can talk again. All right?”

  “Sure, Bobby.”

  He slumped back in the seat and closed his eyes. Carter pulled out into the road, swung the wheel and headed east, setting off toward Port Washington. It was a ninety-minute round trip. He would take him home and then come back when the station was quiet.

  He found that he was in a better mood than he had been earlier. He had worked with Shepard for years and they had made a good team. He had been unsettled when Shepard had told him that he was going to hand over his shield and his gun, but now, he realised, he was happy with the way things had played out. Rhodes showed promise, and truth be told, Carter didn’t miss Shepard’s drinking. He and Shepard would still work together, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing to bring along a little new blood. The kid hadn’t returned the money that Carter had given him. He would be pliable, just like they all were. He’d bring him along one step at a time.

  Carter reached forward, switched on the radio, and worked through the presets until he had Q104.3. The station pumped out classic rock, and, as he headed through Elmont, Dire Straits’ ‘Sultans of Swing’ faded out to be replaced by the beginning of ‘Dazed and Confused’ by Led Zeppelin.

  Carter drummed his fingers on the wheel. He exhaled and tried to relax. It was fine, he told himself. Everything was okay. They were going to be fine.

  57

  The top floor of the derelict building was cold. Milton had been in the room for two hours, ever since he had returned from Manhattan, and he wished that he had brought a warmer jacket. He had his hands thrust into his pockets and the coat was zipped all the way up to his throat, but he was still cold. It was an inconvenience that he was able to overlook. His work was important. He would dress more appropriately if he had to return here tomorrow. For now, though, he would just have to suck it up. He had conducted surveillance in locales far less hospitable than this.

  He had been busy. He had noted down the makes and registrations of the cars that were parked in the narrow space below his window, most of them slotted in so that their hoods pointed out into the street. The cars were plain and unprepossessing, the kinds of rides that a municipal cop on a decent salary might be able to afford. Milton noted down two Fords, an old Lexus, a Nissan, a Chevrolet, a Toyota and a BMW. He hoped that he would be able to identify the man he was looking for without having to rely upon the plate of his car, but, if that was the only way, he had a few ideas. An old trick he had used when he had been working for the Group was to visit government
emissions check sites and run a search on the plate. That often listed the shop that had serviced the car; Milton would then have visited the shop and either bribed the owner to give him the owner’s information or broken in and found it for himself.

  He looked down into the street. A car had been waiting outside the entrance to the precinct for ten minutes. It had backed into an empty space so that the hood was facing him. It was a maroon Honda CR-V. Milton had photographed it as it arrived, making sure that he had the plate. It was directly below a streetlight and the glow reflected off the glass, rendering it almost impossible for Milton to see inside. He thought that there was a single occupant, but he couldn’t be sure. There was nothing unusual about it, but Milton noted that it was there and photographed it anyway.

  Patrol cars from the four-to-twelve shift started to return to the precinct at five to midnight. Some of them parked at the front of the building. Others drove on to Essex Street and then went around so that they could get to the yard at the back. Milton photographed them all, making sure that he recorded the identification numbers that were painted above the trunk, on the rear wings and repeated on the front and back plates.

  Milton checked his watch. It was a little before midnight. His breath was steaming in front of his face.

  A patrol car pulled up and backed into the space next to the Honda. The doors opened and two uniformed cops got out. The driver’s door of the Honda opened and a third man emerged.

  Milton caught his breath. He held the camera steady, stared into the viewfinder and cranked the zoom as far as he could.

  Milton was confident: the man who had stepped out of the car was the same man that Freddy had picked out in the video. He was black with a salt-and-pepper beard, around six feet tall, probably in his fifties, well built and dressed in jeans, a leather jacket and a pair of Timberland boots. Milton didn’t recognise the two officers. One of them looked to be in his early forties and evidently knew the black man from the hug that they exchanged. The final man was the youngest. Milton guessed that he was five ten, two hundred pounds, late twenties. He took off his hat and Milton saw a full head of boyish blond curls.