David Jackson - Pariah

He doesn’t want to hear this. It’s too painful.

‘Honey, I need you to do something for me.’

‘What?’

‘You know that little address book of mine in the bureau? Could you go fetch it for me?’

‘An address book. Cal, have you been listening to a word of what I’ve just said to you?’

What to tell her? That maybe his life is hanging on this? That if this doesn’t pan out as he hopes, she may never see him again?

‘Rachel, please. It’s important.’

He hears her put the phone down and walk away. Seconds later she’s back.

‘All right, I’ve got it.’

‘Go to the P section.’

He hears her tuck the phone under her chin, then her trying to steady her breathing as she flicks through the pages.

‘Okay. Now what?’

‘I need a cellphone number.’

‘Cut to the chase, Cal. Whose number do you want? And it better not be an old girlfriend.’

He tells her, then waits out the expected shocked silence.

‘Cal, what is this?’

‘I just need to call him, that’s all.’

‘You want to talk to that bastard?’

‘Yes.’

‘The man who nearly destroyed you? The man who nearly broke up our marriage?’

‘Yes.’

There comes an exhalation of redirected anger. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Cal. And when you see Paulson, you can tell him from me he can go fuck himself.’

Says Paulson, ‘Coffee and donuts.’

Says Doyle, ‘Look, Paulson, all I want to do is ask you a lousy question or two. We can do this on the phone.’

Paulson sighs. ‘Last time we spoke, you said you wouldn’t go for coffee and donuts with me. I was insulted. Hurt, in fact. Now you need something from me, I think it’s only fair you make amends. Coffee and donuts.’

Doyle thinks on it. A date with Paulson has never ranked high on his list of ambitions.

‘You know my circumstances. Being around me is even worse for your health than those high-tar cigarettes you keep puffing on. I should carry a warning from the Surgeon General.’

‘You know my circumstances too. My line of work, other cops tend to be a little shy in making the first advance. It’s nice when guys like you realize what a valuable service we perform. Come on, Doyle, pop the question. I promise I won’t be a prick-teaser.’

Fuck him, Doyle thinks. He wants to be the next rat in the trap, so be it. This time the perp may actually be doing me a service.

‘Where and when?’

The when is four-thirty in the afternoon. It’s the earliest Paulson can make, which means that Doyle has no choice but to bide his time in Spinner’s palace, switching his gaze between daytime TV and the cockroaches and trying to decide which has more entertainment value.

The where is Kath’s Koffees on Eighth Street, a place which Doyle feels is uncomfortably close to the precinct station house and people who might recognize him. But then, anywhere in the state of New York seems too close to the station house right now.

When he arrives, Paulson is already seated in a booth. It’s a window booth, so Doyle couldn’t be any more visible to passers-by. Sighing, Doyle takes a seat opposite Paulson.

The IAB man is pouring a packet of white sugar into tar-black coffee. The remnants of several other packets are scattered around the table, meaning that either Paulson has had several cups already, or else he likes his coffee tooth-achingly sweet.

‘Nice place,’ says Doyle. ‘You come here often?’

Paulson dips a spoon into the murk and begins to stir. It looks like he’s struggling to push it through the molten sugar.

‘It has a certain ambience.’

‘I think the word is ambulance, for after you’ve eaten here.’

A waitress scrapes her shoes across to the table and asks for his order. Doyle requests a coffee.

‘And donuts,’ Paulson says. ‘We agreed donuts.’

Doyle nods his assent to the waitress and she shuffles off again.

‘We could have done this on the phone,’ Doyle says.

‘No, we couldn’t,’ Paulson responds. ‘Sure, we could have traded questions, information, facts, whatever. But true social interaction — you can’t get that in a phone call. That’s the tragedy of today’s cellphone culture. Too many people think they’re socializing when in fact they’re avoiding it. It’s a sad situation. I mean, look at us here. The two of us, drinking coffee, eating donuts, passing the time. There’s no substitute for that, is there?’

‘What do you want me to say, Paulson? That this is the highlight of my week? It ain’t gonna happen. There’s too much shit gone under the bridge for that. I came to you because I got a question that maybe you can answer. I thought maybe, just this once, you might be willing to try and help a cop out instead of doing what you can to get him jammed up.’

Paulson takes a sip of his coffee, licks his lips, then nods as if in satisfaction with the drink’s consistency and flavor.

‘What is it with cops like you, Doyle? How is it you manage to see everything in black and white? Where does this notion of simplicity come from? The boys in blue, the precinct DTs — they’re all good guys, right? Doing everything they can to put the world to rights. Doing it on piss-poor pay, too, and under conditions of service that get lousier every time the commissioner puts pen to paper. And then you got people like me. The ones who crossed to the dark side. The ones who will use any means at their disposal to hurt honest, hard-working officers. That about sum it up for you, Doyle?’

Doyle nods, more to humor Paulson than anything else. He’s not in the mood for joining a debating society right now.

‘Something like that,’ he mutters.

Paulson takes another sip. ‘You know what I was doing two weeks ago today?’

Doyle wants to groan in despair. He just wants to lay down his questions and get out of here.

‘I dunno. Helping old ladies cross the street and then asking them what their cop grandsons do when they’re off duty?’

‘No. I was arresting a cop. I made the collar personally. Even put the cuffs on myself.’

‘Well, that sounds like a good day’s work. Shame on me for thinking badly of you.’

‘You want to know what the guy did?’

Not really, Doyle thinks. ‘He take home an official NYPD pencil? That would be pretty serious, I think. Hard prison time for that one. Maybe even the death penalty if you play your cards right.’

‘I’ll tell you what he did. .’

Paulson pauses while the waitress brings over Doyle’s coffee and the two donuts. Paulson takes a bite of his donut and gives another nod of satisfaction. Doyle wonders how long it’ll be before Paulson goes hyper when the sugar and caffeine rush kicks in.

‘I’ll tell you what he did,’ Paulson repeats. ‘Porn. On his computer. Masses of it.’

‘Well, thank God you uncovered that one, Paulson. You never know, could be the guy was even planning to jerk off sometime. Where would we be then?’

Paulson stuffs another chunk of food into his mouth, but doesn’t let it stop him from speaking. ‘I’m talking thousands of images here. Movies, even. Some of them pretty hardcore stuff. Stuff that would make your hair curl.’

Doyle flicks particles of jettisoned food from his jacket sleeve. ‘Yeah, well, don’t let it worry you too much. One of these days you’ll get a real live girlfriend of your own and you’ll realize it’s not so disgusting. Some of it is actually pretty good fun.’

‘I’m talking kiddie porn,’ Paulson says.

Doyle stares at him, but Paulson isn’t even looking back. He’s raising his coffee cup, blowing across the surface of the steaming liquid. Doyle realizes he’s just been led into a well-prepared trap.