W.E.B Griffin: Men In Blue

When she went back to the studio, she went to the head telephone operator and told her that for reasons she couldn't go into, if a police captain named Moffitt called, she didn't want to talk to him; tell him she was out.

The arrogant bastard would sooner or later get the message.

And there was no way he could call her at home. The studio wouldn't tell him where she lived, and the number was unlisted.

Today, three hours before, the telephone had rung in her apartment, just as she had stepped into the shower.

She knew it wasn't her father; he had called at ten, waking her up, asking her how it was going. Anybody else could wait. If they'd dropped the atomic bomb, she would have heard it go off.

The phone had not stopped ringing, and finally, torn between gross annoyance and a growing concern that some big story had developed, she walked, dripping water, to the telephone beside her bed.

"Hello?"

"Are you all right?"

There was genuine concern in Captain Dutch Moffitt's voice, but she realized this only after she had snapped at him.

"Why shouldn't I be all right?"

"People have been robbed, and worse, in there before," he said.

"How did you get this number?" Louise demanded, and then thought of another question. "How did you know I was home?"

"I sent a car by," he said. "They told me the yellow convertible was in the garage."

She raised her eyes and saw the reflection of her starkers body in the mirror doors of her closet. She wondered what Captain Dutch Moffitt would think if he could see her.

She shook her head, and felt her face flush.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I want to see you," he said.

"That's absurd," she said.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "I can take off early at four. There's a diner on Roosevelt Boulevard, at Harbison, called the Waikiki. Meet me there, say four-fifteen."

"Impossible," she said.

"Why impossible?"

"I have to work," she said.

"No, you don't. Don't lie to me, Louise."

"Oh, hell, Dutch!"

"Four-fifteen," he said, and hung up.

And she had looked at her naked body in the mirror again and known that at four o'clock, she would be in the Waikiki Diner.

And here she was, looking into this married man's eyes and suddenly aware that the last thing she wanted in the world was to get involved with him, in bed, or in any other way.

What the hell was I thinking of? I was absolutely out of my mind to come here!

"I'm a cop," he said. "Finding out where you lived and getting your phone number wasn't hard,"

"I think I will have a scotch and soda," Louise said. "Johnnie Walker Black."

He pushed his glass to her.

"I'll get another," he said.

It was rude and certainly unsanitary but she picked it up and sipped from it as he gestured toward the bar for another.

Why the hell did I do that? she wondered, and then the answer came to her: Because I don't know what to do to keep myself from making more of a fool of myself than I already have. How am I going to get out of this?

The mustached Greek proprietor delivered the drink immediately himself.

"We seem to have at least one thing in common," Dutch Moffitt said.

"Wow!" she said.

"Relax, Louise," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

She looked at him again, met his eyes for a moment, and then looked away.

"I don't know why I came here," she said. "But just to clear the air, I now realize it was a mistake."

Dutch Moffitt opened his mouth to reply, but before the words came out, he was interrupted by a male voice.

"Good afternoon, Captain Moffitt, nice to see you."

The sleeve of a glen-plaid suit passed in front of Louise's face.

"Hello, Angelo," Moffitt said.

Louise, once the arm was withdrawn, looked up. A pleasant-looking, olive-skinned man-Italian to judge by the "Angelo"-well barbered, smelling of some expensive cologne, was standing by the table.

"My father was asking about you just this morning," the man said.

"How's your mother, Angelo?" Moffitt asked.

"Very well, thank you," Angelo said.

"Give her my regards," Moffitt said.

Angelo smiled at Louise, and then looked at Moffitt.

"Are you going to introduce me to this charming lady?"

"Nice to see you, Angelo," Moffitt said.

Angelo colored, and then walked away.

"What was that," Louise demanded. "Simply bad manners? Or-"

"That was Angelo Turpino," Moffitt said. "You don't want to know him."

"Why?"

"He's a thug," Moffitt said. "No. Correction. He's a made man. Their standards are slipping. A couple of years ago, that slimy little turd wouldn't have made a pimple on a made man's ass."

"What's a 'made man'?"

He looked at her, into her eyes again.

"When one commences on a career in organized crime, one's highest aspiration is to become a made man," Moffitt said, mockingly. "A made man, so to speak, is one who is accepted, one who enjoys all the rights and privileges of acknowledged master craftsmanship in his chosen trade. Analogous, one might say, to the designation of an individual as a doctor of medicine."

"You're saying that he's in the Mafia?"

"The 'family,' we call it," Moffitt said.

"What did he do to become 'made'?"

"About six weeks ago, Vito Poltaro, sometimes known-from his initials, you see-as 'the vice president,' was found in the trunk of his car in a parking garage downtown, behind the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. Poor Vito had two.22 holes in the back of his head. Fivedollar bills were found in his mouth, his ears, his nostrils, and other body orifices. This signifies greed. I think that Angelo did it. A week after Organized Crime found Vito, they heard that Angelo had been to New York and had come back a made man."

There was no question in Louise's mind that what he was telling her was true.

"What about Organized Crime finding the body?" she asked. "I didn't understand that."

"There's a unit, called Organized Crime, because what it does is try to keep tabs on people like Angelo," he said.

They were looking into each other's eyes again. Louise averted hers.

"You don't really want to talk about the mob, do you?" he asked.

"No," she said. "I don't."

"Then what shall we talk about?"

"What about your wife?" Louise blurted.

He lowered his head, and shrugged and then looked at her.

And then he said, "Oh,shit!"

He was, she saw, looking over her shoulder.

She started to turn around.

"Don't turn around!" he said, quietly but very firmly.

He slipped off the banquette and started toward the door, moving on the balls of his feet, like a cat.

She wanted desperately to look, and started to turn, and then couldn' t, because he had said not to. And then she could see him, faintly, in the mirrored side surface of a service table. She saw him brush the flap of his blazer aside with his hand, and then she saw that he had a gun.

Then she turned, chilled.

He was holding the gun with the muzzle pointed down, beside his leg. And he was walking to the cash register.

There was a young man at the cash register, skinny, with long blond hair. He was wearing a zipper jacket, and he had a brown paper bag in his hand, extended toward the cashier as if he was handing it to her.

And then Dutch Moffitt was five feet away from him, and the pistol came up.

She could hear him, even over the sounds of the Waikiki Diner.

"Lay the gun on the counter, son," Dutch said. "I'm a police officer. I don't want to have to kill you."

The kid looked at him, his face turned even more pale. He licked his lips, and he seemed to be lowering the paper bag.

And then there were pops, one after the other, five or six of them, sounding like Chinese firecrackers.

"Oh, shit!" Dutch Moffitt said, more sadly than angrily.