“End of conversation,” Douglas said again.
“You left here at twelve, huh?”
“A little after twelve, yes.”
“Left your visitor here alone, huh?”
“I don’t want to talk about any visitors,” Douglas said.
“Where’d you go? When you left here.”
“To work.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m a model,” Douglas said.
“Photographer’s model?”
“Yes.”
“Fashion or what?”
“Mostly fashion, occasional beefcake.”
“Uh-huh,” Kling said.
“Will that help you find your runaway?” Douglas asked.
“No, but—”
“I didn’t think it would. If you’ll excuse me now, I’ve got company.”
“Company?”
“In the other room.”
“Could she possibly have seen...?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“What?”
“The she. Are you trying to find out if my company’s a woman?”
“Well, no, I’m—”
“She is, okay?”
“Fine,” Kling said.
“That it?”
“Could she possibly have seen the girl I’m looking for?”
“No.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she wasn’t here yesterday afternoon when you say your runaway was spotted.”
“Ah, okay then,” Kling said. He’s playing the field, he thought. If this is the guy, you picked yourself a fine one, Gussie.
Douglas led him to the door.
“Hope you find her,” he said.
“Yes, thanks a lot,” Kling said.
The door closed behind him. He waited until Douglas had locked it and chained it, and then put his ear to the wood.
“It’s okay,” he heard Douglas call. “He’s gone now.”
8
The drug bust was scheduled to go down at ten forty-five that Wednesday night. At a meeting in the lieutenant’s office at a little before noon, Byrnes offered the opinion that perhaps Meyer Meyer wasn’t yet physically fit enough to lead the team in. Meyer had been shot in the leg on Christmas Day, and although this was already August, he was still limping a little. “It’s the humidity,” he kept telling everyone in the squadroom. He told that to Byrnes now.
“I was thinking a position behind the others,” Byrnes said.
The lieutenant was a man with the compact head of a bullet, his iron-gray hair clipped short and parted on the left, his blue eyes moving first to Meyer’s left thigh and then to the area just below Meyer’s kneecap, drilling the leg in question as surely as the .38-caliber slugs had done last Christmas.
The “others” to whom he’d referred were draped around the lieutenant’s office in various postures of inattentiveness, Hal Willis half-sitting on the window ledge, Cotton Hawes sitting in a chair near the lieutenant’s bookcase with the bound law books he rarely consulted anymore, Arthur Brown leaning against the closed door, his arms folded across his chest. The four-man team, because they’d been conducting the six-month long stakeout, was supposed to enter the suspect apartment first, six patrolmen from the Eight-Seven behind their flying wedge, and two brave Narc cops bringing up the rear.
“How you gonna kick in the door?” Byrnes asked.
“With my right leg,” Meyer said. “I always use my right leg.”
“How’s your left leg gonna support you?”
“It’ll support me,” Meyer said. “It’s just the humidity, Loot.”
The lieutenant looked dubious.
“You miss that lock on the first kick, there’s gonna be a hail of bullets coming through the wood,” he said.
“How can I possibly miss the lock?” Meyer asked. “I’m not blind, Pete, it’s only my leg got shot.”
“I mean kick it open,” Byrnes said. “You don’t bring enough force against it, those guys inside’ll start shooting.”
“Have we got our warrant?” Willis asked.
He was the shortest man on the squad, measuring five-feet eight inches in his stockinged feet, and having barely cleared the Department’s height requirement at a time when inches used to count. That was before a five-foot-six former bartender brought suit against the city — for refusing even to look at his application for a job with the Police Department — on grounds that he was being discriminated against because of his size. After the man won his case, the joke running through all the precincts was that pretty soon there’d be jobs on the force for three-foot tall midgets, who could close any illegally opened fire hydrant without having to stoop over. Willis hadn’t found the joke comical.
“We’ve got the warrant?” Meyer said.
“With a No-Knock?”
“With a No-Knock.”
“Are we wearing vests?” Hawes asked.
He was six feet two inches tall, and his long legs were sprawled out halfway across the lieutenant’s small office. Sunlight streaming through the window touched his red hair, setting it aglow; the white streak of hair over his left temple resembled a puff of sifted ashes against a bed of embers. He was very hungry. As he waited for the lieutenant’s answer, his stomach grumbled, and he glanced at Brown as though accusing him of the indiscretion.
“Damn vests are more trouble then they’re worth,” Meyer said. “What do you think?”
“If there’s gonna be shooting...”
“There might be.”
“Then let’s use the vests,” Hawes said simply, and shrugged. His stomach growled again.
“I’m asking for a volunteer,” Byrnes said flatly.
“Pete, it’s my team,” Meyer said. “If anybody’s gonna kick in that door...”
“I’ll walk point,” Brown said.
He was the only black man on the squad, a detective 2nd/grade who was taller and broader than Hawes, measuring six feet four inches and weighing in at two hundred and twenty pounds. When Arthur Brown kicked in a door, it really got kicked in. When Arthur Brown kicked in a door over in Calm’s Point, it sailed over the bridge and landed in the river, near Bethtown.
“We put you on point, Caroline may become a widow,” Hawes said. “Let me take it, Pete.”
“Listen, what the hell is this?” Meyer said. “I’m all of a sudden a cripple? Maybe I should put in for a disability pension.”
“I don’t want to risk that door,” Byrnes said.
“You want me to demonstrate for you?” Meyer said heatedly. “Lock your fuckin’ door, Loot, I’ll kick it open for you.”
“This has nothing to do with—”
“What has it got to do with, okay?” Meyer said. “Tell me what—”
“It has to do with risking the team, okay?” Byrnes said.
“Then why don’t I stay home in bed? I mean, what the hell is this?” Meyer said.
“He wants to be a hero,” Willis said.
“Let the man be a hero,” Brown said.
“I’m a hero already,” Meyer said. “I’ve been shot already, I deserve a medal.”
“Give the man a medal,” Hawes said.
“Let the man kick in the door,” Willis said.
“In a minute, I’ll kick in the man’s ass,” Byrnes said.
“Maybe I ought to transfer to the Sanitation Department,” Meyer said angrily. “You think I can lift a garbage can, Loot?”
“Meyer...”
“Don’t ‘Meyer’ me. It’s my team, I lead it in.”
“Let’s get one of the Narcs to lead it in,” Willis said.