Jeffery Deaver - Hell's Kitchen

“Fine, thank you.”

John Pellam – wearing his one and only suit, ten-year-old Armani, relic from former life – held out a battered wallet, which contained a special inspector badge, gold colored, sold at arcades on Forty-second Street for novelty purposes only, and let the woman look at it for as long as she liked. Which turned out not to be very long. She gazed at him eagerly and he could see she was a woman who enjoyed playing the part of witness. Celebrity, Pellam knew, is the most addictive of intoxicants.

“That Detective Lomax was here last time. I like him. He’s kind of sober. Wait, I think I mean somber.”

“Fire marshal,” Pellam corrected. “They’re not detectives.”

Though they have full arrest powers and carry bigger guns and beat the crap out of you with rolls of U.S. coins.

“Right, right, right.” Ms. Epstein’s forehead crinkled at the mistake.

“When we interrogate people together,” Pellam said. “I play good cop. He plays bad cop. Well, marshal. Now this is just a follow-up. You identified the suspect, didn’t you?”

“You gotta be more buttoned up than that.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ve learned enough so I could be a D.A. myself.” Ms. Epstein recited, “What I told Marshal Lomax was, a black woman of approximately seventy years of age came to the premises here and asked for a tenant policy application. I confirmed that the mug shot they showed me was of her. That’s all. I didn’t quote identify any suspects. I’ve been through this a couple times.”

“I can tell.” Pellam nodded. “We sure appreciate intelligent witnesses like you. Now how long was the woman in here?”

“Three minutes.”

“That’s all?”

She shrugged. “It was three minutes. You having sex it’s nothing, you having a baby, it’s an eternity.”

“Depending on the partner and the baby, I’d guess.” Pellam jotted down meaningless scrawls. “She gave you a cash deposit.”

“Right. We sent it all on to the company and they issued the policy.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“No.”

Pellam flipped closed his steno pad. “That’s very helpful. I appreciate your time.” The Polaroid square appeared quickly. “I just want to confirm that this is the woman who came in here.”

“That’s not the mug shot.”

“No. This one was taken in the Women’s Detention Center.”

Ms. Epstein glanced at it and began to speak.

Pellam help up a hand. “Take your time. Be sure.”

She studied the smooth black face, the prison department shift, the folded hands. The stiff salt and pepper hair. “That’s her.”

“You’re positive.”

“Absolutely.” She hesitated. Then laughed. “I was going to say that I’d swear to it in court. But then I guess that’s exactly what I’m going to do, isn’t it?”

“Guess it is,” Pellam confirmed. And kept his face an emotionless mask. The way all good law enforcers learn to do.

That evening – a hot, foggy dusk – found Pellam standing in an alley across from brownstone, New York Post in hand.

He wasn’t paying much attention to the paper. He was thinking: Geraniums?

The nondescript, buff-colored tenement was like a thousand others in the city. The flowers planted in front of it, fiery orange-red, would have fit fine with any other building.

But there?

He’d been standing in the alley for an hour when a door opened and the figure stepped outside, looked up and down the street then started down the stairs. He carried a large shoe box. Pellam tossed the paper aside and began walking as silently as he could along the hot asphalt. He finally caught up with the young man.

Without turning around, Ramirez said, “You been out there for fifty minutes and you got two guns aimed at your back right now. So don’t do nothing, you know, stupid.”

“Thanks for the advice, Hector.”

“What the fuck you doing here, man? You crazy?”

“What’s in the box?”

“It’s a shoe box? What you think’s in it? Shoes.”

Pellam was walking abreast of Ramirez now. He had to move fast to keep up the pace.

“So, what you want?” the young man asked.

“I want to know why you lied to me.”

“I no lie, man. I’m not like no white man. Not like you reporters. Telling white man’s lies.”

Pellam laughed. “What is that crap, the Cubano Lord’s creed? You’ve gotta recite it to get jumped in your crew?”

“Don’t give me no shit. Been a long day.”

They came to the north-south avenue. Ramirez looked up and down and they turned north. After a minute he said, “I don’t believe you. You too fucking much.”

“What?”

“Hanging out in fronta our kickback, man. Nobody does that. Not even the cops.”

“You plant the geraniums yourself?”

“Fuck you. You carrying?”

“A gun?” Pellam asked. “No.”

“Man, you are a crazy fuck. Coming to my kickback without a gun. That how people get blown away. What you mean, I lie to you?”

“Tell me about your aunt, Hector. The one got burned out of the Four-fifty-eight building. She got a new place, I heard.”

Ramirez grinned. “I tell you I look after my family.”

“When did she move?”

“I dunno.”

“ Before the fire?”

“Around then. I don’t know exactly.”

“You forgot?”

“Yeah, I fucking forgot. Man, I’m busy, why you don’t go have a fucking talk with Corcoran?

“I already did.”

Ramirez lifted an eyebrow, trying not to look too impressed.

Pellam continued, “You also forgot to tell me that she was one of – how many was it? – eight hundred eyewitnesses who saw Joe the Thug kill that guy from Corcoran’s crew.”

“Spear Driscoe and Bobby Frink.”

“So are we all agreed that Corcoran didn’t burn down the building because of your aunt? That’s not a white man’s lie now, is it?”

“Just go away, man. I’m busy.”

“How well you get along with somebody named O’Neil?”

“I don’t know nobody named O’Neil.”

“No? He knows you.”

Ramirez spat out, “What the fuck you talking to him for?” The young man had been playfully irritated a moment ago. Now he was mad.

“Who said I was talking to him?” Pellam touched his ear. “I hear things too. I heard maybe he had some guns. Maybe he was selling some guns.”

Ramirez stopped walking, gripped Pellam’s arm. “What you hear?”

Pellam pulled his arm way. “That you rousted him last week. ’Cause he’s selling hardware to Corcoran.”

Ramirez blinked. Then broke into a huge laugh. “Oh, man.”

“True, or not true?

“Both, man.”

“What do you mean?”

“True and not true.” He started walking again. “Look, I gonna explain this but you keep it to yourself. Otherwise I have to kill you.”

“Tell me.”

Ramirez said, “O’Neil, him and me, we do business. He supplies me. Get’s me good stuff. Glocks, MAC-10s, Steyrs.”

“You beat up your own supplier in public?”

“Fuck yes. Was his idea. He’s mick and I’m spic. You know how long he’d last, Jimmy finds out he was selling to me? Some of Corcoran’s boys, they were getting suspicious so we do some sparring out in public. O’Neil, he took a fall.” Ramirez looked at Pellam closely. He roared with laughter.

“What’s the joke?”

“I can see it in your face, man. You almost believe me.” The young man added, “I can prove it. Yeah, there was guns in the building. I paid for ’ em and O ’Neil left ’em there for me to pick up only I didn’t send nobody over there before the place burned. There was Glocks, Brownings and some pretty little Tauruses I had my heart set on, man. Twelve, thirteen of ’em. You talk to one of your reporter friends. See what the crime scene boys found there. If that’s right then you know I no burn down nothing.”