“I didn’t, Gina.”
It was all he could do to keep his face neutral. Every step he took, something new clicked into place. It was like he had St. Michael running interference strictly on his behalf.
“I swear.”
“Save it,” she said. She looked at her pager. “I can’t tell you anything more now. I shouldn’t be telling you anything at all.”
“I appreciate it.”
“You’d better not be wrapped up in this, Matt. Swear to God. You know?”
She turned and opened the door to walk out. Worth’s union rep stood there on the other side, raising his hand to knock.
Gina didn’t miss a beat. “We’re in here.”
She stood a full inch taller than the rep. The rep tiptoed, craning for a look past her shoulder, finding Worth sitting in the chair.
He said, “What is this?”
“You were in the bathroom,” she said. “I needed to shuffle up.”
“This is an interview room,” the rep said.
“Well observed.”
“Has Officer Worth been placed in custody?”
Captain Torres looked at the ceiling and walked out without answering.
The rep had to step aside to let her by. After she was gone, he just stood there in the doorway, smelling like cigarette smoke, apparently vexed.
“We’re not supposed to ask that question,” Worth said.
“Theoretically,” Tony said. “Say you needed to disappear somebody. And their little Goat, too. How would you do it?”
Ray triggered the utility compartment in the console above the rearview mirror and took out his sunglasses. He put them on, waited for a gap in traffic, and pulled into the westbound lane. “It’s never come up.”
“Dude, you’re not even trying.”
“I’m driving.”
“Okay, forget it,” Tony said. “Ask me how I’d do it.”
Ray checked his mirrors. “How would you do it.”
“Who, me? Easy.” Tony pointed over his shoulder, behind them. East toward the river. “I’d take ’em both sixty, seventy miles across the state line, where my brother owns this junkyard out in the middle of nowhere. He’s got all this demolition-type shit, right? A bunch of land. Nice and secluded.”
The department Web site had a whole corner dedicated to the twenty-odd cops who’d died in the line of duty in the past hundred-odd years. The front page contained the same names as the ones carved into the marble monument that stood out front of Central Station. Except here you could click on the photos of all the dead officers and get a couple paragraphs of extra info. Career history, the nutshell story on how they’d gone down. Quotes from cops who had known them. Survived-by information.
They’d looked up Kelly Worth on Ray’s computer even before the storm hit Saturday. But they hadn’t been looking for anything in particular then. Just brushing up on basics.
“Sounds perfect,” Ray said. His voice seemed flat.
“Tell me about it,” Tony said. “I mean, here’s this kid riding around on a shitload of dirty cash. Right? I mean, he’s into something with somebody. But if he disappears? It’s not like they’re calling the cops.”
“He’s got a mom somewhere.”
“Maybe. How do I know?”
“He’s got somebody somewhere.”
“So?”
“So somebody wants to know where he is. And the cops are already looking out.”
“Yeah, but how much time has passed by now? I got time to arrange things. Order a new mattress for my girlfriend’s apartment, for starters. Clean up all the little odds and ends.”
“You’d miss a couple,” Ray said. “They’d come up sooner or later.”
“And then?”
“And then some smart cop would ask his partner, hey, if you needed to get rid of a car, how would you do it?” Ray hit his blinker, slowed for the car beside him, and merged left. “And the partner would say, hey, you know what? This guy has a brother who junks cars for a living.”
Tony smiled. “Shit. Nobody’s looking at me, man. I’m a cop, too.”
Ray shook his head.
“Besides, by then, these smart cops have talked to enough people to get the picture. This guy who went missing? He was into something with somebody. Maybe he’s hiding out somewhere. Hell, maybe…”
Tony made a gun with his finger. He put it to his head, pulled the trigger, and collapsed in the seat.
He sat up again. “Either way, I’m not sweating.”
“You sound overconfident.”
“Nah. There’s no body, no car. I got all kinds of reports to cover why I was in the guy’s apartment in the first place. Nobody’s going to the D.A. on me, man. Shit moves on, time goes by. It’s one for the cold case unit.”
“Uh-huh.” Ray turned left and headed south on 72nd. “Only one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t have a brother.”
“Oh, yeah.” Tony nodded. He let a beat go by, then said, “Shithead has one, though.”
“Did have one,” Ray said.
“You’re forgetting somebody. Never make detective that way.”
Tony made a tsk sound. Yesterday, he’d done some extra digging on his own.
“The older brother? Vince? Lives sixty, seventy miles over the state line.”
“Let me guess. Owns a junkyard.”
“He does now,” Tony said. “Know what he did before that?”
“Not a clue.”
“State time.” Tony chuckled. “I pulled him up. Whole family of cops, right? And this guy’s got a sheet going back thirty years. Regular black sheep and shit.”
Ray said nothing.
“In and out of county, this and that. Two in the pen for robbery.” Tony chuckled. “Then five of ten for armed robbery, reduced to felony larceny.”
Blinkers again. Ray merged right.
“Day’s drive away, my ass,” Tony said. “Big brother handled this. And he’s been holding the loot this whole time. Bet you my share on it. Just goes to show you…”
Without a word, Ray slowed down and pulled off the street, into the empty parking lot of an abandoned video store. He pushed toward the center of the white-bound lot, tires kicking up unplowed snow. He braked to a stop and sat there.
“The hell you doing?” Tony said.
“Shut up,” Ray said. “Okay?”
Tony leaned back.
Finally. Here was the big heart-to-heart Ray had been sitting on for the past couple hours. It had taken him long enough.
Tony looked out the passenger-side window. This video store had been Cinemarz until a few months ago. A little private operation, no match for the big chains. Now the front windows had all been soaped over; clumps of weeds poked through the shallow snow around the base of the store. The place made him think of Uncle Eddie, for some reason.
“Tell me something,” Ray said.
Tony said, “Sure.”
“You and me. When did we get into the murder business?”
“The hell you talking about?”
“That kid wasn’t even twenty, man. You know?”
Honestly, it hadn’t been until that moment that Tony realized what had crawled up Salcedo’s ass. It came as a genuine shock.
“You mean FUBU?” He’d figured Ray had been getting worked up about their exposure. But this? “You’re serious?”
“That shit wasn’t necessary,” Ray said.
“Hey,” Tony said. “The kid wanted to be a player, he got to be a player. What, you’d rather have ’em hunting up suspects?”
“Straight-up not necessary.”
“Oh, I get it,” Tony said. “It’s okay if the bangers light each other up over this shit, as long as me and you don’t pull any triggers. Is that it?”
“This isn’t even about that.”
“No?”
“No. And you know it.”
“Then what? Seriously.”