James Hayman - The Cutting

He thought about that for a minute. ‘Okay. Let’s go shopping.’

That got her attention. ‘Where?’

‘How about the mall? They’re open for another couple of hours.’ He pushed her onto the floor and stood up. ‘Get your shoes on.’

She ran off to get them. Meanwhile, he speed-dialed Kyra’s cell.

‘Hiya, handsome.’

‘We’ve got an emergency here. I need your help.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Can you meet Casey and me at the mall in fifteen minutes? In front of Macy’s?’

‘I guess so. What’s going on?’

‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’ He punched end as he and Casey left the apartment.

McCabe felt like he’d been cast in the Richard Gere role in Pretty Woman as Kyra and Casey worked their way through five stores in less than two hours. Thank God this was the Maine Mall and not Rodeo Drive. In each store, he tried to find a place to sit while the two of them picked out armloads of clothes and disappeared into the fitting room. Finally they left the mall carrying four shopping bags filled with shirts and pants and shoes and one dressy dress. McCabe thought the dress was a little tarty for a thirteen-year-old. Kyra told him he was totally ignorant about fashion and not to worry his pretty little head about it. He decided not to. His role was to pay the bills. Somehow. They headed across the parking lot to Pizzeria Uno for dinner.

Even at quarter to nine on a Thursday night the place was busy, he assumed with people who’d just left the mall or the nearby Cineplex. The hostess looked about the same age as Katie Dubois. McCabe wondered if the two knew each other. The girl wore too much makeup, and her bare plump tummy flopped out over the waistband of her black pants. McCabe watched it jiggle as she showed them to an empty table in the middle of the room. He figured she wasn’t a soccer player.

He looked around. There were a lot of faces he didn’t know, and the idea of sitting in the middle of a crowded room suddenly seemed stupid. Too exposed. Too vulnerable. Maybe he was being more paranoid than he ought to be. Hell, they were in Pizzeria Uno. On the other hand, hadn’t the day before yesterday started with the murders of an innocent kid and a veteran cop? Hadn’t the maniac who killed both nearly succeeded in slashing McCabe to death as well? Maybe it wasn’t paranoia.

He spotted a corner booth where he could have his back to the room. He asked Flabby Tummy if she would seat them there, told her he was superstitious and he thought that was his lucky table. ‘No problem,’ she said, adding in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘I hate Friday the thirteenth myself.’

Casey slid in first, her back to the wall. McCabe sat next to her. Kyra took the bench across from them. The girl handed them menus, and a busboy filled their glasses with water. Meanwhile, McCabe scanned the room, looking for anyone looking at them. He checked possible exits. He calculated lines of fire. He brushed his right hand over his. 45, making sure it was still there.

As it touched the weapon, his hand started shaking. Kyra noticed. Casey didn’t. Delayed stress reaction. He willed it to stop. It wouldn’t. He hid the hand under the table. He told himself to relax. That didn’t work either. He imagined the headlines. homicide HOMICIDE COP SUFFERS NERVOUS BREAKDOWN ORDERING THIN-CRUST PIZZA. He didn’t laugh.

‘Your server will be with you in a moment,’ Flabby Tummy said and left.

Kyra’s hand took his, under the table. ‘What’s the matter?’ she whispered, her blue eyes registering concern, the familiar little line appearing just above her nose.

‘Just a little edgy. Long day.’

‘Hi, I’m your server, Brian. How are you folks tonight?’

‘We’re great, Brian. How are you?’ Casey was smiling up at him. Damn, she’s flirting, thought McCabe. Thirteen years old and she’s flirting with a waiter who needs a shave. Twenty’s gonna be a rough seven years away. Kyra squeezed his hand tightly, smiled, and winked at him.

‘Can I start you folks off with something to drink?’

McCabe ordered a Coke for Casey, a white wine for Kyra, and Dewar’s on the rocks for himself. Somehow single malt, even if they had it, didn’t go with the ambience.

When the drinks came, he took a long slug of his own. It helped. Alcohol depressing the central nervous system was just what he needed. Maybe he’d just say the hell with it and become a drunk. Not uncommon among cops. Of course, neither was suicide. Okay, he told himself, either balance the traumas of the job with the traumas of your life or you get yourself another job. Another life.

That night in bed, the shaking came back worse than before, and with it the cold sweats. Kyra tried to calm it by laying her body on top of his and rocking him gently. She asked if this ever happened before. Just once, he said, the night after he shot TwoTimes, but that night he had no one to hold him. Sandy was gone and he had slept alone.

They didn’t make love. They just rocked until about two in the morning, when McCabe fell asleep. When he woke at five, she was still holding him. The shakes were gone.

Friday. 8:15 A.M.

It was exactly one week since Lucinda Cassidy was kidnapped on the Western Prom, and all McCabe could do was hope she was still alive. His flight to LaGuardia took a little over an hour and, for a change, they landed right on time. Melody Bollinger was waiting for him by the baggage carousel. As it turned out, she was zaftig and then some. She resembled an updated version of Joan Blondell, maybe twenty pounds rounder. She was wearing a pair of tight khaki pants McCabe figured she bought at least fifteen pounds ago. A blue blazer covered most but not all of the bulge. They had no trouble recognizing each other.

‘McCabe?’

‘Melody?’ The terminal was jammed with people. ‘Let’s go get some coffee,’ he said, looking around. ‘There’s a Starbucks upstairs.’

‘You know your airports.’

‘I’ve been here a few times before,’ he said. ‘I’m a New Yorker.’

‘I know. I did a backgrounder on you. Your career with the NYPD, your little run-in with the drug dealer — and, of course, the Dubois case.’

They found a table in the corner, and he bought them both some coffee. She declined his offer of a pastry. ‘I’m on Atkins, but thanks anyway.’

He handed her the coffee. ‘Alright,’ she asked, ‘what’s this all about? What’s Kane’s connection to your case?’ She flipped on her recorder.

He reached over and flipped it off. ‘Take notes,’ he said. ‘I’d just as soon not be on tape or quoted for attribution. Consider me an unnamed source. Plus I’d like you to hold off printing any of this.’

‘McCabe, you know better than that. I’m a reporter. You tell me something that’s news, expect it to be printed.’

‘Just hold off a couple of days. Say until Monday. You’ll have a better story if you do. If we clear it by then, I’ll make sure you get details nobody else will have.’

‘What if something happens in the meantime?’

‘In the meantime, print whatever you want as long as it doesn’t come from me.’

She thought about this. ‘Alright. Deal.’ She put the recorder back in her briefcase. ‘Now, why are you interested in Kane?’

McCabe showed Bollinger a postmortem photograph of the man Maggie had killed in Sophie Gauthier’s hospital room. ‘Do you know this man?’

She picked up the picture and examined it. ‘Sure. It’s Duane Pollard. Lucas Kane’s bullyboy. Who killed him?’

‘You’re sure it’s Pollard?’

‘I’m sure. Either him or his twin brother. Is this the guy the female cop shot in the hospital yesterday morning? The one identified as Darryl Pollock?’