Instead we talked about crap like the goddamn roof."
They ordered a selection of mezes and two plates of broiled shrimp. Then they discussed the Dietz case.
"Try this, Frank," Aaron said. "Dietz goes down to the bar, picks up the redhead, charms her into coming up to his room. But it's all a setup.
She's after the chip. She works for the people he's contacted about buying it. She's sitting down there, available, ready to be picked up.
Once upstairs she drugs Dietz, robs him, then shoots him so he can't identify her later." Janek smiled. It was a game they often played-Aaron tossing out theories which he then tore apart. They both enjoyed the exercise and it often helped them clarify their views. Also, on this particular evening, it made a good escape from bitter thoughts about Sarah and the prospect of having to face Dakin in the morning.
"Nice theory," Janek said, "except for two little points. The first one bothered me soon as we walked in last night. I felt something was wrong.
I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Now I think I know."
"What?"
"The way the room was tossed tells us the person who searched it didn't find what he or she was looking for. Once you find the object of your search, you've got no motivation to keep ripping stuff up. But that room was torn from top to bottom. It would be an incredible coincidence if our redhead happened to find the chip at the very end."
Aaron nodded. "Okay, that's pretty good. Now, what's the second thing?"
"The writing on Dietz's chest. Think about it. If the redhead wanted us to know Dietz couldn't get it up, why write on him in mirror-reverse?
Only reason to do that would be if the insult were addressed to Dietz himself which it was. She wrote it so Dietz would read it when he woke up and looked at himself in the mirror. But if she shot him, then she'd know he wouldn't be waking up. So why bother to write him a message?"
"Maybe she decided to kill him after she wrote it. Maybe she wanted to make it look like she was a psycho hooker instead of a paid assassin. Or maybe she just used the mirror writing to sidetrack us, the way it's doing now."
Janek laughed. "You're talking like a mystery-story detective."
" You gotta admit that message is bizarre."
I ' just bizarre. Very difficult to write. Here." Janek brought out his notebook, tore out a page and handed it to Aaron with a pen.
"Try it. Try writing ' couldn't get it up' in mirror-reverse."
Aaron stared at the pen and paper, laid down his silverware, took up the challenge. Janek watched, amused, as Aaron struggled to perform the feat.
"You're right," Aaron said after several attempts. "It would take a lot of practice."
"Some people write that way naturally. People with dyslexia, for instance."
"Well, there you are!" Aaron said. "Now we know something about her."
"If she wrote it."
"I think we can assume that. Bare skin. Getting it up. It adds up to some kind of sexual confrontation."
"I agree. But I still don't see why she'd kill him."
"She's crazy. A man-hater. Seduces, then kills. Or maybe they had one of those-what do they call '? Sexual misunderstandings."
"Like he tried to force himself on her, she said no, he wouldn't take no for an answer, so she shot him dead?"
"Could be." Aaron drained his glass. "What do you think?"
"No sign of a struggle."
"So, maybe she likes a steady target. Put him to sleep, then put a ' bullet in his brain. No movement, no back talk, no chance he'll cry out or try and take away her gun."
This, to Janek, was the best part of the game-the part where Aaron pressed him, forcing him to come up with a countertheory to fit his own objections.
"What if we're looking at… two separate layers of crime," he said.
"Two?"
Janek nodded. "Layer one: Redhead gets picked up in bar of businessman's hotel, goes up to guy's room, spikes his drink, waits till he falls asleep, then robs him of various valuables. Reducing it to schematic form: Two strangers meet, they don't know anything about each other, each has his/her agenda. The meeting ends badly for the man.
The girl leaves. End of first crime."
"So then-"
"Second person enters room, someone who does know something about the victim. He knows Dietz has a valuable computer chip. Maybe he's the prospective purchaser, maybe someone else. All that matters is he's after that chip. Okay, he finds Dietz asleep, uses the opportunity to make a thorough search but doesn't come up with it… because the redhead, who was there first, already found it and took it away."
Aaron's eyes were glowing. "Go on. This is pretty interesting."
Janek sat back. "Unfortunately this brings me to the part that doesn't figure. The second intruder places a pillow on top of Dietz and shoots him in the head."
"I like the idea of two separate crimes. But you're right-killing Dietz doesn't add."
"It might, if we knew more. We've got a way to go on this. I keep asking myself what the intruder or intruders were trying to do-really trying to do. On this deal, everything makes sense up to the shooting.
Then it falls apart. I can't think of any reason why either person, assuming there were two, would bother to kill a man already asleep."
Aaron thought about that awhile. "Gotta find the girl if only to eliminate her. Maybe in the end it'll turn out she's just a psycho."
"Maybe," Janek said without much conviction.
"Imagine," said Aaron, "a pure psycho killer. After all these brilliant ideas, wouldn't that be a gas?"
There was an aura of darkness around Dakin, always had been, as far back as Janek could remember. Even from his first days as a police cadet, he had heard rumors about the chief of Internal Affairs, the man other cops called "The Dark One."
Shortly before graduation from the academy, Janek attended Dakin's famous lecture, affectionately called T amp;C by the students. Its long title was "Temptation amp; Corruption: The Dilemma of Police Work."
Attendance was compulsory.
Every seat, Janek remembered, was filled that hot summer afternoon. The lecture hall, cooled only by fans, was stifling. Two hundred cadets, dressed in crisply ironed blue shirts, black ties, sharply creased dark blue trousers and gleaming black shoes, sat attentively as The Dark One alternately scolded and exhorted, admonished and implored, like a preacher conjuring up the eternal fires of hell.
Janek would never forget his first impressions-Dakin's tine red hair, fiery yellow eyes, angular body, reed-thin voice, tortured gestures and pale waxen skin. There was nothing dark about The Dark One's complexion, but there was something very dark about his soul. He never smiled. He discoursed about concepts (right and wrong, good and evil) as though they had no connection to living human beings. Dakin's passion burned like a pure blue flame exuding chilly, forbidding fumes.
He was humorless, pitiless, steely, intimidating, respected and friendless. He was a cop's cop" and a legend. Janek feared and disliked him.
Years later, he and Timmy Sheehan would confront Dakin at a special departmental hearing, and although Dakin held the rank of chief and Janek was only a lieutenant, Janek would manage to defeat and discredit him, driving him into a bitter, involuntary retirement.
Now, at 5:45 A. M., Janek sat in his car, parked in Cort City Plaza, across from the stark gray apartment tower where Dakin lived, waiting for the dawn to break.
Dakin's morning routine never varied. A lifetime bachelor, he would emerge from his building at six, stride briskly to the newsstand by the Baychester Avenue station a mile away, buy the Daily News, then walk briskly home. It was common knowledge that the best time to approach him was during this daybreak outing. But even then, depending upon the substance of one's mission and the quality of one's entreaties, one always risked dismissal.