Friscoe was flabbergasted. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening to everybody. I’ve known Papa for ten years. Worked with him for six. That’s more in one breath than he’s said the whole rest of the time I’ve known him. What the hell’s the fuss? What we got is a hooker suspected of complicity in a felony who got totalled. Big fuckin’ deal. It ain’t the first time somebody put the zap on a goddamn prostitute.’
‘She was a nice lady,’ The Nosh said.
‘A nice lady?’ Friscoe said.
Sharky had been sitting on the couch without a word. Now he had to say something. But what? How could he possibly explain that he had met Domino and the strange circumstances of the meeting. Or that he had sensed a vulnerability that had drawn him to her. Or that because he had felt an attraction to her this senseless violence that had snuffed out Domino’s life seemed somehow directed at him, too.
‘Don’t you understand?’ he said finally. ‘I feel responsible. Whether I am or not, I feel responsible.’
Friscoe stared at Sharky and his anger began to subside. ‘Okay, I do understand that. Thing is, nobody here’s responsible. You were doin’ exactly what you were supposed to be doin’. Look here, did you — did anybody — have any idea she was gonna get shoved over?’
No answer.
‘Anybody at all?’
Still no answer.
‘Of course not. Nobody’s responsible for nothin’. Nobody knew it was comin’ down, right? Now I can understand Doe Twigs here goin’ a little off the wall. You gotta be a little weird, goin’ around sniffin’ that goddamn formaldehyde all the time. But not the rest of you. See, no matter what we did, if we wrapped this one up before breakfast, we’d all end up one through five on The Bat’s shit list. When he finds out, that’s it. And he’s gonna find out, make no mistake about that. Anybody wanna argue that point? No, there ain’t no argument there. And even, see, even if Jaspers falls deaf, dumb, and blind in the next thirty seconds, we still got one J. Philip Riley to contend with. I’m sure you will all recall that Lieutenant Riley heads up Homicide, but what maybe you don’t know is that when God handed out brains this same J. Philip Riley was on the front of the line. And also what maybe you don’t know is that J. Philip Riley has got a temper that when he blows, The Bat and D’Agastino’re both gonna sound like a pair of sopranos in the Sunday school choir. I mean, Riley ain’t gonna take too lightly to the fact that a bunch of stand-up comics from Vice just hi-de-ho stepped in and took over one of his homicide cases. That’s for openers. For closers I would like to point out that this same J. Philip Riley happens to be a friend of mine and a damn good cop and I ain’t inclined at this minute to stick my dick in the meat grinder just because Sharky here feels responsible.’
‘That was quite a little speech, Barney,’ Barret said in his quiet, funereal voice. ‘All they want is the weekend. I happen to know that Jaspers is in Chicago addressing the NAPO convention. He won’t even be back until Monday night.’
‘That’s fuckin’ immaterial,’ Friscoe snapped.
‘I don’t think so,’ Twigs said.
Friscoe whirled away from him as if he had the plague. ‘Just keep your dime out of it, Twigs,’ he snapped.
‘Why? What you’re saying merely points up the fact that Sharky and Livingston, Papa out there on the porch, are right. It doesn’t make any difference what you do now, the Bat and Riley are both going to be on the warpath. What’ve you got to lose?’
‘I don’t go for breakin’ procedure — that’s one thing I don’t go for. That’s suicide!’
‘Yeah, Barney,’ Livingston said, ‘the reason you’ve been in Vice for almost seven years is because you’re so big on procedure. Shit, we haven’t followed procedure since I been in the squad.’
‘This is interdepartmental,’ Friscoe said.
Sharky stood up and began pacing around the room. The shock was wearing off and in its place was anger, a welling fury deep inside him. ‘Maybe you like it down there in Friscoe’s Inferno,’ he said, and his voice was brittle. ‘Maybe you been lying with the dogs so long you like the fleas.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are, to say a shit thing like that to me?’ Friscoe said, his face turning blood red.
‘I’m just thinking about that spiel I got ‘when I checked in yesterday,’ said Sharky. ‘Was that all bullshit? About how you and Arch and Papa were down tbere because you didn’t suck ass. Didn’t play by the book. A bunch of hard-. beads. I’ll tell you what, Lieutenant, you gave me this machine and Arch and Papa and The Nosh there are along for the ride. Now you want to hand it over to Riley? Shit, maybe you were right. Maybe I should walk. Maybe I should walk right now, right out that door, and go after the son of a bitch myself.’
‘You do and I’ll bring you down myself. I don’t go for headhunting. That’s cheap shit and you know it.’
‘Look, every minute we Sit around here arguin’, the son of a bitch is moving farther away,’ said Livingston. ‘Why not give Twigs and George a chance to tell us what they’ve picked up? Five, ten minutes more. Like you say, we’re up to our asses in alligators anyway.’
Friscoe’s shoulders sagged. Defeated, he waved his hand at Twigs. ‘Go ahead, for Chrissake.’
Twigs smiled. ‘Don’t worry about Riley. He’s got seven stiffs down there in the icebox and two of them are John Does. He’ll probably be grateful for any help he can get at this point.’
‘That’s a laugh,’ Friscoe said. ‘Riley ain’t happy unless his caseload looks like the casualty report from World War Two.’
‘May we go ahead?’ Barret asked.
‘Sure, why not?’ said Friscoe. ‘Before this is over we’re all gonna be directing traffic on the outskirts of Boise, Idaho, anyhow.’
‘What do you remember from ballistics training?’ Barret asked.
‘You must be kidding,’ Friscoe said. ‘I been in Vice so long, I can remember when they busted Socrates for pinchin’ little boys on the ass. Keep it basic.’
‘All right. First, the obvious. The weapon was a shotgun, twelve-gauge, judging from the number of pellets in the shot, and I think we both agree that it was sawed-off. Why? Because the shot leaves the barrel at a muzzle velocity of about eleven hundred feet per second. Up to about three feet the shot is contained; the effect is like a single rifle bullet. After that, the pellets begin to spread. If you want the shot to spread faster, the best way to accomplish your purpose is to saw the barrel off. The effect of a sawed-off scattergun is the same at about three feet as the pattern of a normal shotgun at about eight or ten yards. Now, let’s take a look at the scene a minute. Mr. Grimm?’
‘Yes, Mr. Barret.’