"What's his name?"
"JerryBroadfield ."
"Is that right?"
"He's very hot right now,"Fuhrmann said. "Ever since the English girl filed charges against him he's been hiding out. But he can't hide forever."
"Where's he hiding?"
"An apartment he has. He wants you to see him there."
"Where is it?"
"The Village."
I picked up my cup of coffee and looked into it as if it was going to tell me something."Why me?" I said. "What does he think I can do for him? I don't get it."
"He wants me to take you there,"Fuhrmann said. "There's some money in it for you, Matt.How about it?"
WE took a cab downNinth Avenue and wound up onBarrow Street nearBedford . I letFuhrmann pay for the cab. We went into the vestibule of a five-story walkup. More than half the doorbells lacked identifying labels. Either the building was being vacated prefatory to demolition orBroadfield's fellow tenants shared his desire for anonymity.Fuhrmann rang one of the unlabeled bells, pushed the button three times, waited, pushed it once,then pushed it three times again.
"It's a code," he said.
"One if by land and two if by sea."
"Huh?"
"Forget it."
There was a buzz and he shoved the door open. "You go on up," he said."The D apartment on the third floor."
"You're not coming?"
"He wants to see you alone."
I was halfway up one flight before it occurred to me that this was a cute way to set me up for something.Fuhrmann had taken himself out of the picture, and there was no way of knowing what I'd find in apartment 3D. But there was also no one I could think of with a particularly good reason for wanting to do me substantial harm. I stopped halfway up the stairs to think it over, my curiosity fighting a successful battle against my more sensible desire to turn around and go home and stay out of it. I walked on up to the third floor and knocked three-one-three on the appropriate door. It opened almost before I'd finished knocking.
He looked just like his photographs. He'd been all over the papers for the past few weeks, ever since he'd begun cooperating withAbnerPrejanian's investigation of corruption in the New York Police Department. But the news photos didn't give you the sense of height. He stood six-four easy and was built to scale, broad in the shoulders, massive in the chest. He was starting to thicken in the gut as well; he was in his early thirtiesnow, and in another ten years he'd add on another forty or fifty pounds and he'd need every inch of his height to carry it well.
If he lived another ten years.
He said, "Where's Doug?"
"He left me at the door.Said you wanted to see me alone."
"Yeah, but the knock, I thought it was him."
"I cracked the code."
"Huh? Oh." He grinned suddenly, and it really did light up the room. He had a lot of teeth and he let me look at them, but the grin did more than that. It brightened his whole face. "So you're Matt Scudder,"
he said. "Come on in, Matt. It's not much but it's better than a jail cell."
"Can they put you in jail?"
"They can try. They're damn well trying."
"What have they got on you?"
"They've got a crazy Englishcunt that somebody's got a hold on.
How much do you know about what's going on?"
"Just what I read in the papers."
And I hadn't paid all that much attention to the papers. So I knew his name was JeromeBroadfield and he was a cop. He'd been on the force a dozen years. Six or seven years ago he made plainclothes, and a couple of years after that he made detective third, which was where he had stayed. Then a matter of weeks ago he threw his shield in a drawer and started helpingPrejanian stand the NYPD on its ear.
I stood around while he bolted the door. I was taking the measure of the place. It looked as though the landlord had leased it furnished, and nothing about the apartment held any clues to the nature of its tenant.
"The papers," he said. "Well, they're close. They say Portia Carr was a whore. Well, they're right about that. They say I knew her. That's true, too."
"And they say you were shaking her down."
"Wrong. They say she says I was shaking her down."
"Were you?"
"No. Here, sit down, Matt. Make yourself comfortable.How about a drink, huh?"
"All right."
"I got scotch, I got vodka, I got bourbon, and I think there's a little brandy."
"Bourbon's good."
"Rocks?Soda?"
"Just straight."
He made drinks.Neat bourbon for me, a long scotch and soda for himself. I sat on a tufted green print couch and he sat on a matching club chair. I sipped bourbon. He got a pack ofWinstons out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket and offered me one. I shook my head and he lit it for himself. The lighter he used was a Dunhill, either gold-plated or solid gold. The suit looked custom made, and the shirt was definitely made to measure, with his monogram gracing the breast pocket.
We looked at each other over our drinks. He had a large, square-jawed face, prominent brows over blue eyes, one of the eyebrows bisected by an old scar. His hair was sand-colored and just a shade too short to be aggressively fashionable. The face looked open and honest, but after I'd been looking at it for a while I decided it was just a pose. He knew how to use his face to his advantage.
He watched the smoke rise from his cigarette as if it had something to tell him. He said, "The newspapers make me look pretty bad, don't they? Smart-ass cop finks on the whole department, and then it turns out he's scoring off some poor little hooker. Hell, you were on the force.
How many years was it?"
"Around fifteen."
"So you know about newspapers. The press doesn't necessarily get everything right. They're in business to sell papers."
"So?"
"So reading the papers you got to get one of two impressions of me. Either I'm a crook who let the Special Prosecutor's office get some kind of hammerlock on me or else I'm some kind of a nut."
"Which is right?"
He flashed a grin. "Neither. Christ,I been on the force going on thirteen years. I didn't just figure out yesterday that a couple of guys are maybe taking a dollar now and then. And nobody had anything on me at all.They been issuing denials out ofPrejanian's office left and right. They said all along I was cooperating voluntarily, that I had come to them unasked, the whole number. Look, Matt, they're human. If they managed to set me up and turn me around on their own they'd be bragging about it, not denying it. But they're as much as saying I walked in and handed it all to them on a platter."
"So?"
"So it's the truth. That's all."
Did he think I was a priest? I didn't care whether he was a nut or a crook or both or neither. I didn't want to hear his confession. He had had me brought here, presumably for a purpose, and now he was justifying himself to me.
No man has to justify himself to me. I have trouble enough justifying myself to myself.
"Matt, I got a problem."
"You said they don't have anything on you."
"This Portia Carr.She's saying I was shaking her down. I demanded a hundred a week or I was going to bust her."
"But it's not true."
"No, it's not."
"So she can't prove it."
"No. She can't prove shit."
"Then what's the problem?"
"She also says I was fucking her."
"Oh."
"Yeah.I don't know if she can prove that part of it, but hell, it's the truth. It was no big deal, you know.
I was never a saint. Now it's all over the papers and there's this extortion bullshit, and all of a sudden I don't know whether I'm coming or going. My marriage is a little shaky to begin with, and all my wife needs is stories for her friends and family to read about how I'm shacking up with this Englishcunt .
You married, Matt?"
"I used to be."
"Divorced?Any kids?"
"Two boys."
"I got two girls and a boy." He sipped his drink, ducked ash from his cigarette. "I don't know, maybe you like being divorced. I don't want any part of it. And the extortion charge, that's breaking my balls.