David Jackson - Pariah

Spinner asks, ‘This fish, it’s already been fried and it’s carrying a gold shield, am I right?’

‘Actually, I got four dead fish. My partner, Joe Parlatti, was killed along with a hooker, night before last.’

‘That one I heard about.’

‘Last night, another cop got it. Detective Tony Alvarez. Blown to pieces while talking to a pimp named Tremaine Cavell.’

‘That I didn’t know. So that makes two.’

‘Two what?’

‘Come on, don’t pretend you’re here because of a pimp and a hooker. They’re nothing to you. You’re here because of your cop buddies. Far as you’re concerned, the others, they’re just collateral damage.’

It’s a cynical view that Doyle finds all the more irritating because he knows it to be true. ‘Whatever. The point is, I need to find who did this.’

‘Parlatti — you said he was your partner, right? That must be tough for you, coming on top of the Laura Marino thing.’

Doyle shrugs. ‘The timing could have been better, sure.’

‘And this other cop, this Alvarez guy. .?’

Doyle hesitates. ‘Yeah, he kinda started working with me when we lost Parlatti.’

Spinner stops eating. He slides himself along to the end of the bench.

‘Hoo, Cal, buddy. Is this safe, me sitting so close to you like this? It’s starting to sound like you got some kind of curse on you, man. You upset any voodoo witch doctor or something lately? I mean, the odds against three strikes in a row. .’

Doyle holds up his fingers. ‘Two. That’s two strikes. Parlatti and Alvarez. Laura Marino has nothing to do with this. Now get your skinny ass back here before I add another dead acquaintance to my list.’

Warily, Spinner shuffles back to Doyle’s side.

‘Whaddya want from me, Cal?’

‘Anything you can get me. These were calculated hits. Very clever, very professional. Whoever did these is no mutt; he knew exactly what he was doing. I need you to ask around for me. Anyone talking about offing cops. Anyone looking to put out a contract on cops. Find out if we got any big hitters come in from out of town, like that.’

Spinner nods, his eyes back on the fight. ‘Tell me what you got so far.’

Doyle gives him a summary of what the investigation has revealed since the night of the first murders, which to his mind is a big fat zero.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Spinner says. ‘But I have to tell ya, if this is just some lone sicko out there. .’

‘I know.’ Doyle stands up. ‘Take it easy, Spinner.’

‘Yeah. And you watch out for that left hook. Sometimes it just comes from nowhere.’

As soon as Doyle steps out of the gym, he knows his day has just gotten a whole lot worse.

Parked directly in front of him is a gray Chevrolet Impala. A man sits on the car’s hood, smoking a cigarette. He wears a midnight-blue suit, skinny black tie and charcoal overcoat. Lank black hair fans out across his forehead, and he stares at Doyle from eyes set deeply beneath thick eyebrows. His cheeks are hollow, and become even more concave when he draws on his cigarette. He looks like he’s on his way to a funeral. As the one in the coffin.

Doyle throws his hands up in despair. ‘Jesus H Christ, Paulson. What the fuck are you doing here?’

Sergeant Paulson takes the cigarette from his thin lips, blows a cloud of smoke in Doyle’s direction.

‘Nice to see you too, Doyle. Been a long time. I was just passing through, you know, and I thought to myself, Hey, wouldn’t it be nice to hook up with good old Callum Doyle again? We could talk about old times, swap some stories. .’

‘Passing through, huh? If you knew I was here, then you know what I’m doing here, right? I’m having a meeting with a confidential informant. Emphasis on the confidential . That means being discreet, Paulson. Look at you. You might as well put up a neon sign saying “The Cops Are Here”. Jesus, do you even remember what it was like to be on our side of the fence?’

Paulson pushes himself off his car and pretends to look hurt.

‘Aw, gee. Don’t be like that. We got history, you and me.’

‘Yeah, history. Meaning, in the past. Now get the fuck out of here, before I do something I regret.’

Doyle turns and starts to walk back to his own car, but he can hear the clicking of Paulson’s shoes as he trails after him.

‘Can’t do that, Doyle. I feel this burning need to talk to you. If not here, then it’ll have to be somewhere else.’

Doyle stops on the street, his fists bunched. Watching the fighters train back there has put him square in the mood for landing a haymaker on someone. If not Paulson, then he has a good second choice in mind.

There was a time when informants were more or less regarded as a cop’s personal and private property. Undisclosed sums of money and favors were traded in dark and dingy locations, the fact of these meetings and the identity of the CI often never being revealed to anyone else.

That time has long gone. Nowadays, CIs have to be formally registered with the Police Department, which entails a tree’s worth of paperwork and a list of signatures that seems to involve everyone up to the US President. Partly for reasons of ‘investigative transparency’, but partly also to ensure the safety of the detective involved, meetings with CIs have to be logged.

Doyle regards himself as a man not predisposed to breaking rules. Save in circumstances when those rules are stupid. And on the odd occasion when they prove inconvenient. So, naturally enough, he called in his whereabouts when he came over to the gym here on East Eleventh. He trusted his colleagues not to go blabbing his location to all and sundry, and especially to members of the Internal Affairs Bureau.

Most of his colleagues, that is.

Doyle turns around, folds his arms, and waits for Paulson to reach him.

‘So talk,’ he says.

Paulson looks from side to side. ‘Here?’

‘I ain’t going for coffee and donuts with you, Paulson. Talk.’

Paulson takes another puff on his cigarette. ‘You’re an interesting man to know, Doyle. Things seem to happen around you, like you’re a source of cosmic disturbance in the universe.’

‘It’s my animal magnetism. All the chicks love it.’

‘I think you’re underestimating your power. What I’m talking about is a destructive force. Enough to start people dropping like flies all around you.’

‘Ah, you’re referring to my deodorant.’ Doyle raises his arm. ‘You wanna take a sniff?’

Paulson taps his finger on his cigarette, watches the slug of ash drift to the sidewalk and roll away.

‘The wisecracks are all very funny, Doyle. But they don’t make this any less serious. This situation, cops dying, it’s making a lot of pen-pushers sit up and take notice. 1PP is buzzing with this right now. They’re getting nervous. They’re looking at the connections. And you know what? There’s one obvious connection staring them right in the face.’

Doyle can picture the brass in NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza, running around like soon-to-be-headless chickens and wondering who’s wielding the hatchet.

‘And you see it as your job to try to prove them right, is that it?’

Paulson looks shocked.

‘Not at all. Me, I think there’s nothing there to find. Just like there was nothing to find a year ago.’ He pauses. ‘Jeez, was it really a whole year ago? Seems like yesterday.’

It’s a vivid memory to Doyle too. He recalls only too well being cooped up in that interview room, just him and Paulson. He remembers the quick-fire salvos of questions, the devious attempts to trip him up, the insults and veiled threats. He remembers how much he hated Paulson’s guts, how close he came to leaping out of his chair and closing his meaty hands around Paulson’s throat. It was a point in Doyle’s life at which his career, perhaps even his freedom, were nearly brought to an end, and he resented with ferocity the fact that this shadow of a cop could have so much power over him.