As we headed for Flatbush, Cox told me that the instant Commissioner Carroll had shared the name Angel with him, he knew who we were dealing with.
“I had that moving company on my list for Diaz. U-Move. Carroll told me you’d flushed out the name Angel… bang . I know Angel Ramos used to work at that place, too.”
“So you’re already familiar with Angel Ramos?”
“Anybody working the Nine-five who didn’t know Angel Ramos might as well flush his badge down the can.”
“The good old Ninety-fifth Precinct.”
“One goddamn crack about that Bad Apples crap, and you’re walking.”
Not much of a threat, but I took the meaning. “Was your partner involved in any of that?”
Cox whipped his head to face me. “What’d I just say?”
“You said no cracks. That wasn’t a crack, it was a question.”
“The whole thing is hype,” Cox said. “They’re just trying to sell papers. McNally was clean.”
“What about those two cops? The murder-suicide. That doesn’t sound like hype.”
“You want to stick to the topic?”
“Fine. Tell me about Angel Ramos.”
“He’s a punk. Big strong punk, but a punk. There’s a lot of gang action back there in the hood. I’m sure that’s no surprise. That church you were standing in front of like a fucking target is one of the hangouts for Ramos and his crowd. The guy’s got a whole racket going. He’s got a string of girls he likes to dole out. Running any drugs you can think of.”
“So you’ve been keeping an eye on him?”
“We’ve got an operation here to try and clean the shit off the street. That means creeps like Ramos. Except all we’ve ever gotten him on is robbery and banging heads. He’s slippery. Now, with this whole stupid Bad Apple stink, our operation’s pretty much shut down. The criminals are having a nice laugh while the cops investigate the cops. Great way to clean up crime, isn’t it?”
“Have you ever dealt with Ramos personally?”
“Hell, yeah, I’ve been in the bastard’s face plenty of times. He’s cold. A punk like that’s not going to live to see thirty.”
“Did you ever see him with Roberto Diaz?”
The radio began to crackle. Cox reached over and turned it off. “I never saw Diaz until last Thursday. Son of a bitch, too. I’m standing there at the parade with my thumbs up my ass and suddenly this old blind guy with a dog falls down right in front of me. He was having a heart attack. What the hell’s a blind guy doing at a parade in the first place? I was down there doing CPR when the shooting started. Me and the blind guy were just about trampled to death by people running from the shooter. I didn’t even see my partner lying on the street. I finally got clear and everyone was screaming that two guys with guns went running into the park. First time I ever laid eyes on Diaz was when he was down by the fountain.”
I was tempted to ask him about the last time he laid eyes on Diaz-alive, anyway-in the Municipal Building, but I figured he’d just threaten to make me walk the last block and a half. We reached Flatbush and he pulled over. As I shouldered open the door, Cox picked up my Amigo Willy card from the seat. “What are you hoping for with this stunt?”
“Old gumshoe trick,” I said. “Trolling for information.”
“You’re wasting your time. No one’s going to respond to that.”
Au contraire , I thought as Cox pulled off down the street. You just did.
TOMMY CARROLL WASN’T IN HIS OFFICE. STACY INFORMED ME THAT Carroll hadn’t been feeling well and that he had gone home. Stacy looked pale and unhappy. I wondered if she knew the scuttlebutt concerning Philip Byron, but I didn’t ask. I did go ahead and ask her if she had a boyfriend.
She gave me a suspicious look. “Why?”
“If you do, I think you ought to go see him, that’s all. You look as if you could stand some TLC.”
She hesitated a moment before responding. “I can’t.” The words came out almost in a whisper.
“So then you do have one. Why can’t you go see him?”
Whatever minor veil had seemingly lifted quickly descended. She looked at me with robotic eyes. Even her blazer seemed to harden. “I will note for the commissioner that you came to see him.”
“No need. I’ll catch him at his place.”
“I told you, he’s not feeling well.”
I dared to touch her on the shoulder. “Honey, your boss is likely to be feeling a whole lot worse before this thing is over.”
IT WAS RUSH HOUR. I TOOK THE SUBWAY TO TWENTY-EIGHTH STREET and walked the few blocks to Murray Hill. A pair of policemen were standing over what we used to call a drunken bum on the sidewalk at Lexington and Thirtieth. The bum was asleep. His head was leaning on the brick wall below a travel-agency window, which showed a large poster of a carefree guy and a dishy woman running along a tropical beach. It looked as if the scene were sprouting directly from the poor drunk’s head, as if he were dreaming it. Not such a bad dream. Kind of made me want to tell the cops to just leave him be.
As I approached Tommy Carroll’s building, the unformed thought that had been nagging me since my conversation with Leonard Cox finally formed. McNally at the parade. A cop from the embattled Ninety-fifth Precinct, far from home base. Gunned down by a shooter who-more and more, it seemed-had been acting on instructions from a known troublemaker from the selfsame precinct. I rolled the thought around and played with it while I waited to be buzzed into Carroll’s building, then put it away for later.
Betsy Carroll answered the door. “Oh my God, it could be Harlan himself standing there. Come in, Fritz. It’s been too long.”
She insisted on taking my coat. My.38 was in one of the pockets. I had a twinge, then I remembered that this demure woman was licensed and well trained. I recalled one of my first visits to a shooting range-in the basement of a building on West Twenty-second Street-and my father pointing out to me the small woman in the big goggles.
“They told me downtown that Tommy’s not feeling good,” I said. “I hope it’s okay, my coming over.”
Betsy Carroll gave me a measured look. She was pastier than I recalled from the last time I’d seen her, which had probably been around a year or so ago. The skin around her sharp cheekbones and usually pointy chin was beginning to fall. I realized that the pasty look was partly because of the contrast with her shoe-black hair.
“Tommy hasn’t told you, has he?” she said in a low voice.
“Told me what?”
“He hasn’t told anyone at work. I just thought you… Maybe because you and he… Oh, Jesus, Fritz. Tommy has cancer. The big stupid bear smoked himself to lung cancer and now it’s got him. It’s not good. He hasn’t told you, has he?”
“He hasn’t said a word.”
“Then don’t you say a word. He’d kill me. We were supposed to go to Tortola this week and get a little sun. Just, you know, relax . I had to look that word up in the dictionary and show it to Tommy.”
“Jesus, Betsy, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“He’s scheduled to start radiation in a few weeks, but he’s not sure he wants to. Now with all this damn… whatever it is going on, he’s not going anywhere. I swear, Fritz, the man is going to allow no time between working and dying to-”
She clamped her eyes closed. Her fists, too. A few seconds later, tears emerged from under the eyelids. She drew a sharp intake of breath and opened her eyes. “He wants to die with his boots on. The rest of his life comes second. It always has. All of it.” She wiped her tears with the backs of her hands and gave the approximation of a smile. “Men.”
“I need to see him, Betsy.”
Читать дальше