Richard Hawke - Speak of the Devil

“Any other thoughts rattling around in there?”

“Sure. Try this one. Cox and McNally first on the scene at this junkyard? I buy that. But how about Cox and McNally first on the scene before there is a scene? And then they proceed to make one.”

“Make one what?”

“A scene. They shoot both the other cops, Pearson and Cash, then set it up to look like a murder-suicide. They leave the scene, phone in a fake 911, turn around and go right back.”

“That’s quite a set of thoughts,” I said. “Do they come with any motives?”

Charlie rubbed at the back of his neck. “Motives for taking out the cops at the junkyard? Could be anything. You saw what we just read. You’ve got a damn orgy of corruption going on out there. Rotten cops tripping over each other. Hell, it could have been a crooked cop turf war for all we know. Or maybe Pearson and Cash were both Boy Scouts and the other two decided to take them out.”

“And Cox setting up McNally at the parade?”

“Bad guys always turn on each other. Don’t you know your Shakespeare? Look, I’m just gassing here, Fritz. Maybe Cox did the cop shooting at the junkyard and he was getting nervous about his partner knowing it. There are a thousand things it could be. We’re not gonna answer it all sitting here on our asses.”

Charlie wheeled himself to the refrigerator and got another beer. He cracked it open and took a long pull. He slipped the can into the cup holder on his chair and wheeled back over to the computer and shut it down. He took a second sip of beer, then gazed thoughtfully at the zip-top ring as he plucked at it lightly with his finger, making a small twang . His chest expanded and he let out a largely silent sigh, still twanging on the zip-top ring.

“Some days I just want to burn this goddamn chair.”

I WAS SIXTY FEET UNDERWATER WHEN I REMEMBERED THAT I WAS ABLE to get in touch with Angel Ramos. Or at least I had a shot. A tractor-trailer was stopped in front of me. A yellow sign posted low on the rear door read: HOW AM I DRIVING?

“You’re not,” I muttered. “You’re stopped.”

The line of cars in the lane next to me was stopped as well. But at least they could see up ahead, even if all they could see was nothing more than lines of gleaming brake lights. All I had was the truck. J. B. HUNT was printed in mustard and black letters across the rear door. The letters blurred. It was sweat, rolling down from my forehead into my eyes. I took a breath, let it out. And again. Took in, let it out. I wanted to focus on Angel Ramos but didn’t dare; I had to make sure I continued breathing. The traffic didn’t move, but the tunnel seemed to. I cracked open a window. The exhaust fumes didn’t help much. Not at all, in fact. Someone was honking his horn. It was me.

The tunnel moved again. The traffic began moving with it. Slowly. I switched lanes abruptly, taking the heat of angry horns. Three minutes later-or was it three hours?-the light appeared at the end of the tunnel and grew steadily larger. That’s my mouth, I thought. When I get there, I can breathe.

I CAME OUT OF THE TUNNEL ONTO THIRTY-FOURTH STREET. TRAFFIC was a tangled mess. Horns were honking from all directions. I rolled down the windows and the volume tripled.

I called Margo.

“Where are you?” she asked. “It sounds horrible.”

“I’m stuck in traffic. Listen, I want you to do me a favor. What are your plans for the afternoon?”

“Well, I was planning to sit here and eat bonbons all day, but I’ve got to get down to New York magazine and pitch a story idea. Why?”

“I want you to get Donna Bia’s phone out of there. I’d come get it, but right now I’m heading the opposite direction. I want you to take it out to your father’s.”

“Okay. But why?”

“Go fetch it,” I said.

She replied, “Woof,” then set down her phone. A scooter came buzzing along in between me and the car next to me. Its engine sounded like a loud bee. Margo came back on the line. “Got it.”

“Take a look at her phone numbers. Check out A and R.”

“You’re looking for Angel Ramos?”

“I should have done this last night,” I said. “I blame you. You and your damn sexy poems.”

“I didn’t hear no complaining.”

“I’m thinking this is what Cox was after last night,” I said. “The phone.”

“Yep. It’s here. Just says ‘Angel.’ Do you want me to call him up?”

“No. Just give me the number.”

She did. As I was writing it down, Margo said, “Whoa. Hang on.”

“What?”

“Here’s another one, Paco. You might find this one even more interesting.”

“What have you got?”

“It’s what Donna Bia’s got. Or what she had. L. Cox.”

“L. Cox?”

“On her phone.”

“ Leonard Cox ? She’s got Leonard goddamn Cox programmed into her phone?”

“That’s what I’m looking at,” Margo said. “ ‘L. Cox.’ You be the judge.”

The traffic mess unglued for about ten seconds, then jammed right back up again. I was too slow moving into the space. A car that looked like a running shoe squeezed in front of me.

“I’ll be damned.”

Margo asked, “What does it mean?”

“At the very least, it confirms what I’ve already suspected. Leonard Cox is one bad apple.”

“We both knew that already.”

“Yes. But now we’re beginning to see just how bad.”

I considered the thoughts Charlie had been throwing out. In particular the one about Cox having set up his partner to be shot by Diaz at the Thanksgiving parade. Cox’s number being listed in Donna Bia’s phone wasn’t definitive proof that this was what had happened, not by a long shot. But Donna Bia was Angel Ramos’s woman. Or his property. I recalled Cox practically drooling on Margo’s rug when he was talking about Donna, and how he had seemed to know awfully well how things stood with Angel and Donna. I had the feeling Leonard Cox figured in there somewhere. He had practically lamented the pointless loss of a perfectly good sex object when Donna Bia had turned up with her throat slashed. If Donna Bia had Cox programmed into her phone, chances were strong that Angel Ramos knew how to get ahold of the neighborhood cop. Cox was on the wrong side. This wasn’t just one of the bullying abuses the papers had talked about. This was the other one, the partnering abuse. Leonard Cox was in cahoots with Angel Ramos. Maybe it was uneasy cahoots, but as I saw it, that didn’t really make any difference. The more I thought about it, sitting there stuck in traffic, the more convinced I was becoming that Leonard Cox had set up his partner to be killed by Roberto Diaz. This left almost everything else a complete muddle, but as far as puzzle pieces go, it was a nice shiny one.

“Are you still there?” It was Margo.

“I’m still here. And I might be here until Doomsday, from the look of things.”

“Sad.”

“Look. I definitely want you to get that phone out to Charlie. You never know, Cox might be planning to come back around for another look. There might be other good stuff on the late Miss Bia’s phone. Get it out to Queens.”

“Do you really think it was the phone he was after?” Margo asked. “How would he have known you had it?”

“I think you got it right, what you said last night. I think what happened after Donna had her fun with me was that she got ahold of Cox somehow, obviously not on her phone, and told him what had happened. Or she told Angel and he told Cox. However it happened, Cox knew she’d lost her phone in my car. The last thing he wants is for me to start scrolling through her numbers. It’s definitely why he came over.”

“Okay. I’ll take off right now. After I swing by the magazine, I’ll head over to Dad’s. What are you going to do?”