“Are you trying to piss me off?”
“No.”
“Then you’re just stupid. Is that it?”
Caldrovics backed up another step, but Parker closed the space between them by another foot. “You’re so stupid you’d stand here and disrespect me to my face?”
“I don’t have to take shit from you, Parker,” Caldrovics said. “I did my job—”
“You’re not impressing me here, Danny. You’ve really gotten off on the wrong foot.”
“You can’t harass me like this,” Caldrovics said.
“What are you going to do? Tell on me?” Parker laughed. “You think I give a shit what anybody thinks of me? You think anyone gives a shit about what you have to say with no corroborating witness?”
They were close enough to kiss. Caldrovics was nervous, but doing a good job of trying not to show it.
“What have you got in your pockets, Danny?” he asked quietly. “You got a tape running?”
“No.”
Parker stuck a hand in the left pocket of the kid’s army surplus jacket, then in the right. He came out with a microcassette recorder.
“It’s not smart to lie to me, Danny,” Parker said, clicking the thing off. “The fuse on my temper right now is the size of an eyelash. I’ve got a murder that smells like week-old oysters, and you’ve got information I need. And now you’re lying to me.”
“I don’t know who killed the guy!”
“No? You seem to know things the rest of us don’t. How is that? Maybe you killed him.”
“You’re fucking crazy! Why would I kill him? I never met the guy in my life!”
“For money, for a story, for him having pictures of you doing bad things with little boys—”
“This is shit,” Caldrovics declared. He tried to sidestep Parker. Parker shoved him back against the Dumpster.
“Hey!” Caldrovics snapped. “That’s assault!”
“That’s resisting arrest.” Parker put both hands on him, turned him around, and slammed him face-first against the steel container. “Danny Caldrovics, you’re under arrest.”
“For what?” Caldrovics demanded as Parker pulled one arm and then the other behind him and slapped on cuffs.
“I’ll think of something in the car.”
“I’m not getting in a car with you, Parker.”
Parker jerked him away from the Dumpster. “What’s the matter, Danny? I’m a police officer. Didn’t your mother tell you that the policeman is your friend?”
“What the hell is going on back here?” Andi Kelly rushed around the side of the Dumpster and skidded to a halt at the sight of Caldrovics in cuffs and Parker pushing him toward the alley.
“Kelly?” Caldrovics looked at her, astonished.
“I saw you go out the back way with him,” she said. “It didn’t look right.”
“Butt out, Kelly,” Parker snapped. “What the hell are you doing out here? Looking for a headline?”
“What are you doing, Parker? What’s this about?”
“Your little pal here is under arrest. He’s withholding information on a felony murder. That makes him an accessory after the fact, if not before.”
Caldrovics twisted around toward him. “I told you: I didn’t have anything to do with any murder!”
“And I’m supposed to believe you? You’re a proven liar, Caldrovics, and I know for a fact you’re withholding information.”
“You never heard of the Constitution, Parker?” Kelly said sarcastically. “The First Amendment?”
“You people make me sick,” Parker said. “You put the First Amendment on like a fashion accessory. You don’t give a shit what happens to anyone as long as you get what you want. In fact, the worse the better. An unsolved murder makes more headlines than a closed case.”
“You’ll never make those charges stick,” Kelly said.
“Maybe not, but maybe Danny here will think twice about cooperating after he’s spent a night in a cell with a bunch of crackheads and dope dealers.”
Caldrovics sneered at him. “You can’t do that—”
“I can and I will, you little weasel.” Parker started pushing him toward the alley again.
Caldrovics looked at Kelly. “Jesus Christ, go call someone!”
Kelly’s wide eyes darted back and forth from Caldrovics to Parker and back. “Wait. Wait. Wait,” she said, holding up her hands to forestall them leaving.
“I don’t have time for this, Kelly,” Parker barked. “We’re talking about a murderer who isn’t finished killing people. He attacked the victim’s daughter today, thanks to your asshole buddy here, who obligingly put her name in the newspaper this morning!”
Caldrovics started to defend himself again. “He could have known her any—”
Parker yanked on the handcuffs. “Shut up, Danny! I don’t want to hear one more excuse come out of your mouth. You did what you did. Be a man and own it.”
“What do you need to know from him, Parker?” Kelly asked.
“Where did he get his information? Who told him the daughter found the body?”
Kelly turned to Caldrovics. “You didn’t get it from him? If he’s the lead on the case, why didn’t you get it from him?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Kelly.”
Kelly stomped up to him and kicked him in the shin. “Are you stupid? I’m standing here trying to save your sorry, raggedy ass, and you’re giving me lip?”
“He’s a fucking moron,” Parker declared.
“I guess.” She shook her head and turned to walk away. “Do whatever you want with him, Parker. He’s too stupid to live. And I was never here.”
“Kelly! Jesus! For God’s sake!” Caldrovics called after her.
She turned around and spread her hands. “You have information on a murder, Caldrovics. All he wants to know is who gave it to you. If you’re so fucking stupid you didn’t go through channels on a routine murder . . . You’re going to last about three minutes working the crime beat. Why didn’t you talk to Parker at the scene? He would have given you details. Why didn’t you just ask him?”
Caldrovics didn’t answer right away. Weighing his options, Parker thought. Searching for the lesser of evils.
Finally, he sighed heavily and said, “I didn’t go to the scene, all right? I caught it on the scanner. Fuck, it was raining, man. Why should I go out in the rain and stand around just to have somebody tell me the guy on the floor with his head smashed open is dead?”
“And how did you know his head was smashed open?” Parker asked. “That wasn’t on the scanner. And why did you say the daughter found the body?”
Caldrovics looked away.
“Did you just make that up, Danny? Is that what you like to do? Write fiction? You’re just pulling this newspaper gig until you can sell the big screenplay? It was a slow night, so you decided to embellish just for fun?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you can.”
“You didn’t go to the scene?” Kelly said, astounded. “What’s that about? That’s your job—you go to the scene, report on what happened. What’s next? You wait to write a story until you see it on television?”
Caldrovics sulked. “I talked to a cop. What’s the big deal?”
“It’s a big deal,” Parker said, “because you didn’t talk to me. It’s a big deal because, as far as I know, you didn’t talk to anybody I know who was at the scene. It’s a big deal because you put a piece of information in there that’s news to me, and I want to know where it came from. What cop?”
Again with the big internal debate. Parker hadn’t wanted to smack anybody in the head this badly in a long, long time. “He’s with Robbery-Homicide. Why wouldn’t I believe what he told me?”
Parker felt like he’d been struck hard over the top of his head. An enormous pressure ballooned behind his eyes and in his neck. “Kyle. That son of a bitch.”