"Hell of a mess."
Janek turned. The chief bomb squad investigator, a short, stout, serious, mustachioed detective named Stone, had appeared noiselessly at his side. Janek recalled meeting him a couple of times. He remembered that everyone called him Stoney. :'Saabs are pretty solid. What year was yours?" '81," Janek said.
"Good shape?"
"It ran."
"Blue Book value-maybe eight, eight-fifty."
"My deductible's a grand."
"Too bad." Stoney shook his head. "Any idea what happened?"
"You mean technically?" Stoney scratched his cheek. "Yeah, we got a few."
Janek waited for Stoney to continue, but the investigator went silent.
Maybe they call him Stoney because he stonewalls, Janek thought.
"I want you to forget you're a cop," Stoney said. "Tonight you're a victim. That'll require adjustment."
"I'll manage."
"Good." Stoney smiled. "So, tell me, Frank-who do you know wants to blow you up?"
Janek shrugged. "Only person I can think of is my ex-wife."
Stoney wasn't amused. "Some kid could've been walking by. The blast could've taken a chunk out of his neck. This time you were lucky. Next time you probably won't be. So I want you to think carefully about who might've done this. Bombs are tools of terrorists and assassins. I'll want the names of anyone who'd want to terrorize and/or assassinate you."
By the time Janek turned to him again, Stoney had slipped away, leaving his questions hanging in the smoky air. Janek wondered what names he could give. The answer depended on the bomber's intentions. Had the explosion been a message or a serious attempt on his life? If someone really wanted to kill me, he thought, there're so many easier ways.
While he stared at the wreckage, thinking about what it would feel like to be blown up, a patrolman approached. "Chief Kopta's here, Lieutenant."
Janek turned, saw Kit, dressed in a set of NYPD sweats, exchanging banter with several of the men. From their reactions he could tell how highly they esteemed her. Their regard went way beyond respect. It was eleven-thirty, one of her people was in jeopardy, so the tiny woman with the sharp Greek features and the gray frosted hair had pulled on her sweats and come out. Even Janek had to love her for that.
"Frank," she said, spotting him. "Let's take a walk."
She waited until they passed the barricades set up at Amsterdam Avenue, then asked him what he'd said to Stoney.
"Nothing yet," Janek said. "I didn't know how much to tell him." They were walking between a row of storefronts and a stack of black garbage bags piled by the curb.
"You saw Dakin and Timmy?" Janek nodded. "How did they react?" "Like loony tunes," Janek said. "Dakin can't understand why Timmy hasn't been arrested. He went on about pulling the ' snake' out of the well."
Kit shook her head. "Timmy?" "He said if I happened to get close to ' real heart of the thing," something bad might '' me, and how '' that would make him feel."
"He threatened you?" Janek shrugged. She glanced at him and frowned.
"Is Timmy capable of a move like this?" Janek peered at her. "Is anyone?"
"That's not my question."
Across the avenue two slim young men walked slowly, Arms tossed languidly across each other's shoulders. Janek figured they were returning from one of the fancy gay bars uptown.
He turned to Kit. "If you're asking do I see Timmy sneaking over and wiring my car, the answer's a cold-stone no. I partnered the guy six years. He was drunk this afternoon. If he's the same man I knew, he got even drunker after we split. Another thing, bombing's not his style.
Timmy's a fist-in-your-face type. Finally, he knows me. He knows I don't get intimidated, that a stunt like this would only make me mad."
"Unless it made you dead."
They walked a hundred feet in silence, turned the corner and started east on Eighty-eighth. An elderly man, holding a pooper-scooper, waited patiently for his dachshund to defecate beside the tire of a Toyota.
"From what Stoney tells me, it looks more like a message," Kit said.
"How's he figure that?"
"He's speculating, but the charge was light and your ignition wasn't wired. They slipped a package underneath, then set it off by remote.
Probably from up the block so they could be sure no one'd get hurt."
"Who's this '' you're talking about?"
"Just a turn of phrase."
"Funny, that was my first reaction-that there was some mysterious '' who did this to me."
Kit grinned. "Well, now we'll have to find ',' won't we?"
"Yeah, that's real funny, Kit. Meantime, what do I tell Stoney?"
"Tell him about the hotel homicide you're working on. Then take him through a list of your old enemies-who you sent away, who might have gotten out lately, the usual." :'But not about Mendoza?"
"Up to you. I'm not going to tell you to withhold information."
"I'm sure he knows I went to Cuba. Everyone else does. "
Kit turned to him. "If this is connected to Mendoza, what can Stoney do about it?"
Suddenly she froze. A large brown rat, breaking for cover, scampered across the street, then disappeared into a drain. Janek took Kit's arm to steady her. After a few seconds, he felt her relax.
"Maybe it was someone from the old days," Janek said.
"If Clury hadn't been killed by a car bomb, I'd say, yeah, maybe so."
Kit spoke as if nothing awkward had happened: There hadn't been any rat; she hadn't felt revulsion. "But the connection's too close. Anyway, think about it. Who stands to gain from a failed attempt to blow you away? Is the message ' away' or is it more complex?"
"Like what?"
Kit shrugged., one of the players muddying the waters a little bit."
Having circled the block, they arrived at the barricade on Columbus- Avenue and Eighty-seventh. The officer posted there gave Kit a formal salute. As they approached the wreckage and the aroma of soot and gasoline and burned rubber, Janek saw Stoney, squat and short, staring at them from the center of the street.
"Better go talk to him," Kit urged.
Stoney was methodical. He wouldn't be hurried. His questioning took three full days. He was terse and, despite Janek's best efforts, rarely cracked a smile. He insisted on going over every case Janek had ever handled. Names that hadn't passed through Janek's mind in years conjured up images of old crime scenes and cornered suspects confessing in claustrophobic interrogation rooms.
There was the boy who had killed the two nuns; the '" case in which a man had killed two women on opposite sides of town, decapitated them, then boldly switched their heads; a set of voodoo murders; a roommate homicide; the famous actor who pushed the famous actress out the window; the case called "Wallflower" in which a female shrink had sent out one of her patients to exact homicidal revenge for past offenses.
But even as Janek related these stories, he got the impression that Stoney didn't think they were relevant. He knows about Cuba, Janek kept thinking. He's waiting for me to bring it up. He wouldn't lie if Stoney confronted him, but he'd be damned if he himself would introduce the subject of Mendoza.
In the end, Stoney didn't ask about it. He just stared at Janek as if waiting for him to talk. Janek found himself admiring the short bomb squad investigator, and also feeling uncomfortable in his presence.
As it happened, Stoney turned out to be right about the Saab. The high amount of the deductible, which Janek had chosen casually to save himself a few bucks, far exceeded the Saab's value, which meant he'd have to buy himself a new car. What especially rankled was his knowledge that it would be new only to him, since once again, he knew, he would be buying a used car.