Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

Billy, in spite of everything, couldn’t help but smile. Goldie to the rescue, rushing in with the equivalent of a lawyer, but pretending he was doing it for the superintendent’s benefit.

“This—Lieutenant, you’re out of line,” said the superintendent. “And for your information, this is not a police department inquiry.”

“Then what is it?” asked the union rep, a man on the short side wearing a crew cut and a defiant expression. “Sure looks like an inquiry to me.”

“This is an investigation being conducted by the state’s attorney’s office,” said Amy Lentini.

“But with the police superintendent present. Oh, so you tried to circumvent the detectives’ right to union representation by technically calling this a state’s attorney’s investigation?”

That’s exactly what they did, Billy realized.

“That—no, that wouldn’t look so good, either,” said Goldie. “That’s why I figured it was better to protect you, Mr. Superintendent.”

Billy marveled at how Goldie could keep a straight face during all this. When I grow up, Goldie, he thought to himself, I wanna be just like you.

“Probably better to reschedule,” Goldie suggested. “Make sure all our t ’s are crossed and our i ’s are dotted.”

Driscoll looked at the state’s attorney and Lentini.

Billy and Kate walked out with Goldie and the union rep.

“Harney,” Amy Lentini called out, following them into the foyer.

Billy stopped and turned. So did Kate.

“You’re the comedian, right?” she said. “We’ll see how funny you are when I’m done with you.”

Kate, who was white as a ghost, decided to answer nonverbally. She gave Amy Lentini the finger.

“That sounds about right,” said Billy. He flipped her the bird, too, before they walked out.

Fifteen

“THE PLAYOFFS are different,” said Sosh, dropping his pint on the table with a splash. “You gotta have a shooter and a goalie. We got Kane, but I’m not so sure about Crawford.”

The Blackhawks, the favorite topic in the Hole in the Wall. Detective Soscia was giving Billy a tutorial on the key to winning the Stanley Cup. It was the same lecture he gave Billy last week, but Sosh was too drunk to remember that.

The Hole was jumping, as always. It was colder than a landlord’s heart out there, but the coppers wouldn’t be deprived of their drink. Cops hung together even more these days because it was becoming an increasingly us-against-them mentality. Especially now with smartphone cameras and videos. For every video someone took of a cop being too aggressive, there were ten they didn’t take of cops who had to chase an offender down a dark alley or go through the door on a domestic disturbance with no idea whether someone had a hand cannon waiting for them. It was very easy to judge a cop but not so easy to understand one.

Billy stuck to beer. No shots, no clear liquids—not tonight. Kate was somewhere around here sulking, fearing the worst about what happened last night in the state’s attorney’s office. But then she always feared the worst, always jumped to the worst-case scenario.

“You should be the coach, Sosh,” said Billy, deadpan. “Seriously. You should turn in your badge and coach hockey.”

“I don’t know enough about the fundamentals,” he said, as if Billy were serious.

“That never stopped you from being a cop.”

Sosh wasn’t listening anymore. “Hey, Romeo,” he said, his chin down. “You got a bunny at three o’clock makin’ some serious eyes at you.”

Billy never really understood the badge bunnies—the women drawn to cops. Why would a woman want to hang with a cop? Cops deal with the dregs, the shit, with death and violence and sorrow all day long. Then they come home, and they’re expected to say, Hi, honey, how was your day? That meat loaf smells delicious!

That’s what Billy told himself, anyway. He’d never get married again.

Billy lifted his pint and looked to his right.

“Other side, Einstein,” said Sosh. “Three o’clock.”

Billy emptied his pint and set it down. “I think you meant your three o’clock. Which is my nine o’clock. See? Because we’re sitting across from each other. Maybe you should have another pint.”

“I gotta piss. If you don’t make a move on that bunny, I will. She looks like a fuckin’ movie star.”

Sosh almost fell off his stool. Billy looked to his left, his nine o’clock.

Yep, a beautiful woman, with her eyes directly on him.

Assistant state’s attorney Amy Lentini. Her dark hair pulled back, dressed for a night on the town. She gave him an ambiguous smile. Then she gave him the finger.

He made a point of looking surprised, even turning to look behind him, as though the gesture must have been directed at someone else. Then he looked back at her, placed a hand on his chest. Me?

But no, he wasn’t going to take the bait. If she was here for him—and she must have been; Amy Lentini wasn’t a typical Hole in the Wall gal—she could make the first move.

“The fuck is she doing here?”

It was Goldie, looking out for him, as always.

“She thinks I’m a dirty cop,” said Billy. “You could appreciate that.”

Lieutenant Mike Goldberger started running the Bureau of Internal Affairs a few years back. IA was the least popular branch of the CPD for obvious reasons, but Goldie built a reputation for being fair and straightforward. If you fucked up, you got caught, but nobody got railroaded. He’d never be voted cop of the year, but generally cops respected Goldie for his approach to the job.

“I catch bad cops,” he said. “I don’t smear good ones. That’s the difference between her and me.”

“It’s not the only difference,” said Billy. “She’s not losing her hair.”

“Don’t talk to her,” he said. “She’s trying to catch you with your guard down.”

Billy got up to refill his glass and get one for Sosh, too. “You ever know me to let my guard down?”

“I don’t think you know how.”

“Exactly,” said Billy, but his tongue tripped over the word. Okay, maybe he’d had a few too many. So one more wouldn’t make that much difference.

By the bar, he found Kate talking to a group of patrol officers, all men, as always. They were taking turns trying to impress her, sucking in their guts, trying for that one wise comment that would make her swoon into their arms. It wasn’t going to work, but Kate could use the distraction, being so worried about everything. At least these guys all were managing to keep their tongues in their mouths.

Kate made eye contact with him and motioned, with her eyes and a nod of the head, in the direction of Amy Lentini. Billy made a zipping motion across his mouth, giving her the same advice that Goldie gave him—don’t talk to her.

Goldie was right. She was trying to strike when his guard was down. He shouldn’t talk to her. Absolutely not. Goldie was spot-on with that call.

He heard his name, someone calling to him. Then another somebody, and then they were chanting his name. “Har-ney! Har-ney!”

He knew what they wanted. He wasn’t really in the mood, but he knew he’d give in sooner or later, and if it was much later, at the rate he was downing the pints, he might not even know his last name.

On his way up to the mike, he passed by her table. She was clapping, along with the rest of the bar.

After I do a few on the mike, he thought, I’ll talk to her.

Sixteen

“BY THE way, I’m sorry I was late tonight,” Billy said into the microphone. “There was a hostage situation downtown at the American Bar Association. The ABA was holding its annual convention, and a bunch of guys stormed the place and took all the attorneys hostage. They were pretty tough with their demands, too. They said if they didn’t get a million dollars and a plane to Mexico, they’d release one lawyer every hour.”