On First Avenue, Ruiz got stopped by a traffic light. Or rather, he got stopped by the goddamn crowd standing on the corner waiting for the light to change. The crowd and a Santa Claus.
“Something for the needy, sir?” Santa said.
“Fuck off, Santa!” Ruiz said, and started shoving his way through the crowd. “Police officer!” he shouted. “Move it, move it!”
A truck came around the corner.
Ruiz swore he would never buy Budweiser beer again.
The truck moved.
Across the street, the two Arabs were halfway up the block.
“Shit!” Ruiz said, and sprinted after them.
It’s now or never, Reardon thought. Close on him now, tackle him or shoot him, but take him out either way. ’Cause, man, he is running your ass off, and he’s gonna get away if you don’t make your move.
He made his move.
He came within an ace of throwing up, running as hard as he was, came that close to it, but didn’t. He couldn’t fire because there were pedestrians on the sidewalk, parting like the Red Sea as he came galloping up with the pistol in his hand, the little cleanshaven, dark-skinned man turning the corner, make your move, he’s gonna disappear, make your fuckin’ move, and he turned the corner and hurled himself into the air like a tackle for the Jets and whammo, he hit the little fucker in the middle of the back, knocking him flat to the sidewalk, throwing the gun on him as the man rolled over, starting to rise, arms stiff behind him to shove himself off the sidewalk, legs already braced to run again.
“No, don’t,” Reardon said breathlessly.
The man looked at the gun.
“Really,” Reardon said.
The man did not run.
On First Avenue, the Arabs were tangled in a knot of Hare Krishna kids banging their tambourines and singing “Oh My Lord.” The Arabs tried to push through, flailing out at bald pates and top knots, saffron robes and sandals, but Ruiz was on them now, and he grabbed the closest one by the lapels of his suit and threw him against the brick wall of a building behind him, and then whirled as the other one rushed him. Ruiz was just turning, his gun hand was blind-sided. He drew back his left hand, fingers straight, palm flat, and unleashed a backhanded karate-chop at the Arab’s head.
The Arab had a head made of granite.
“Ow!” Ruiz yelled, pulling back his hand, but the Arab fell like a fucking stone, anyway, and Ruiz turned toward the one he’d thrown against the wall, who was now off the wall and ready to run again.
Ruiz leveled his gun.
“Don’t make me shoot you just before Christmas,” he said.
The three Arabs — if they were Arabs — spoke in what the detectives guessed was Arabic or something. Ruiz was the one who said Arabs spoke Arabic. If they were Arabs. The detectives didn’t know what they were because none of them would answer any questions, either in English or Arabic, if that was the language they were speaking. It was Lieutenant Farmer who broke the deadlock.
“What are we fuckin’ around here for?” he said. “Book ’em for murder.”
The three Arabs looked at one another.
“Who’d you send to watch the Phelps building?” Farmer asked Reardon.
“The Pope.”
“Alone? He’ll be saying his fuckin’ beads, ‘steada payin’ attention.”
“Samuels is with him.”
“Okay, get these scumbags outa here, take ’em over to Headquarters, make it Murder One.” He looked at the three Arabs as if just discovering them in his squadroom. “Unless you feel like tellin’ us what you were doin’ on Sutton Place,” he said.
“We have friends in that building there,” the cleanshaven one said. He addressed his answer to Reardon, as though Reardon — who had knocked him ass over teacups — was the one he belonged to.
“What friends?” Reardon said.
“A friend.”
“Named Joseph Phelps?”
“We do not know a Joseph Phelps.”
“Do you know a Ralph D’Annunzio?”
No answer.
“Do you know- a Peter Dodge?”
No answer.
“We’ve got a positive make on the car you were driving,” Farmer said. “It was spotted outside the Luna Mare last Monday night. What were you doing there?”
“We do not know this restaurant,” the Arab said.
“Who said it was a restaurant?” Hoffman said.
“Get on the phone,” Farmer said to Ruiz. “I want Sadie picked up and brought here.”
“We’ve got a witness who saw you go in that restaurant with guns,” Hoffman said. Ruiz was already dialing. “You want to tell us all about it, or you want to make it tough for us?”
“Sarge,” Ruiz said into the phone, “can you get one of the blues to pick up Sadie the bag lady?”
“You make it tough for us,” Gianelli said, shrugging philosophically, “we’ll make it tough for you.”
“We want her up here right away,” Ruiz said into the phone. And then, for the benefit of the Arabs, “We’ve got the three goons who killed D’Annunzio.”
He put the phone back on the cradle.
“They’ll bring her up here as soon as they find her,” he told Farmer.
“So what do you say?” Farmer asked the cleanshaven Arab, and to his great surprise, one of the mustached ones answered.
“It was not our idea to...” he started to say, but then the second mustached guy yelled something at him in Arabic, if it was Arabic, probably a warning to keep his fucking Arab mouth shut, and the two guys with the mustaches shouted at each other in whatever language it was — it certainly wasn’t English — until Reardon yelled for them both to shut up. The squadroom went silent again.
“What’s your name?” he asked the Arab who’d been about to say something when the other one shut him up.
“Anwar Biswas,” the Arab said.
“What were you about to say before your pal interrupted you, Anwar?”
The other one with the mustache shouted something in the foreign language again, and Anwar shouted “No, Zahir, I will not be silent!” and then turned to Reardon. “It was not our idea to do this,” he said.
“It was for our country,” the cleanshaven one said suddenly.
“What’s your name?” Reardon asked.
“Fazal Omara.”
“And you say you did this for your country?” Farmer said.
“For our leader,” Fazal said.
“What leader?” Hoffman said.
“Prince Ahmad Mo...”
The third Arab erupted again, verbally and physically. He popped out of his chair spewing a torrent of Arabic or whatever, and simultaneously grabbing for Fazal’s throat, his intention undoubtedly being to throttle him, which Hoffman discouraged by kneeing him in the balls.
“Sit down,” Hoffman said. “You got anything to say, say it in English. Otherwise shut the fuck up and let your pals here explain the situation. You think you got that? Or would you like another nut-shot?”
“Your heads will be cut off,” the Arab said, glaring at his compatriots, his hands clutched between his legs.
“If that’s all you got to say. don’t say anything at all,” Hoffman warned.