Стюарт Вудс - Shakeup

Rocco’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

“Mr. and Mrs. Moskowitz” — she consulted a sheet of paper in her hand — “Leo and Mandy — were involved in a very unfortunate incident yesterday — an apparent murder-suicide. Leo shot Mandy, then exited his apartment through an open window, falling to the alley below. No one we’ve questioned can understand it. They seemed such a happy couple.”

“I didn’t know them,” Rocco finally managed to say.

“Obviously not,” Maren said. “You will recall that yesterday was a very rainy day.”

“I recall that.”

“Did you notice that some water had collected on the floor of the service elevator?”

Rocco began to shake his head, then stopped. “What service elevator? At the hotel, you mean?”

Maren smiled. “No, Rocco.” She leaned forward just a little, to give him a better view of her cleavage. After that, Rocco didn’t look anywhere else.

Maren picked up the phone on the table and said, “Bring them to me, please.”

An agent walked into the room and placed a handsome pair of shoes, complete with shoe trees, on the table. “These are very nice,” Maren said.

“Not mine,” he said.

“Oddly, we took them from your luggage and” — she pulled out the tree from one shoe — “they were made by a gentleman called Sylvano Lattanzi, in Milano, Italy.”

“If you say so.”

She held up a shoe. “And here’s a nice little label in the shoe that says, ‘Made expressly for Rocco Turko.’”

“Oh, well...”

“Oh, well, indeed, Rocco.” She opened the folder next to her on the table and took out a photograph and held it up beside the shoe.

Rocco tore his eyes from her cleavage long enough to look at the photograph and the shoe.

“You will note that the heel on your shoe is identical to the heel mark in the photograph, which was taken in the kitchen of apartment 14D.”

Rocco’s jaw was working, and he was licking his lips.

“You know what that means, Rocco. You’re a cop, after all, and I’ll bet you’ve investigated hundreds of murders and the evidence that they turn up, like this photograph. It means that you were in apartment 14D, yesterday.”

“I think I’m going to need to speak to an attorney,” Rocco said. “Right now.”

“Give me a couple minutes more, Rocco, and I don’t think you’ll need one, because I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse, as the Don said in The Godfather. ” She leaned even further forward.

“We’ve got you dead to rights on the murders of the couple in 14D,” Maren said. “So what you’re looking at, Rocco, is the rest of your life in a maximum-security federal prison, where you’re in your cell, alone, for twenty-three hours a day.”

Maren deftly undid one more button, just to be sure she had his undivided attention. She did. “It also means that, for the remainder of your days, you will never again have sex with a woman.”

Rocco made an involuntary whimpering noise.

“But Rocco,” Maren said, regaining his attention, “it doesn’t have to be that way. Would you like to hear how it could be?”

“Yes,” Rocco said, hoarsely.

“If you tell me everything you know about the murders of Donald Clark, Deana Carlyle, Eddie Craft, Shelley Moss, Patricia Clark, and Frank Capriani — Eddie Craft and his girlfriend lived in apartment 14D... sorry, my mistake about that... then you can plead to the murders in 14D, and I have already taken it upon myself to speak to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has agreed to recommend a sentence of seven to ten years, out in five, and not in a maximum-security facility, but in a Club Fed in Florida, where the winters are kind.”

Rocco sat back in his chair and took a couple of deep breaths.

“It’s a limited, onetime offer, Rocco, and it expires in thirty seconds. What’s it going to be?”

“I agree,” Rocco replied. “I’ll take the plea.”

“A wise decision,” Maren said, taking a document from her file and handing it to Rocco with a pen. “You will note that I have included in this agreement the fact that you committed these six murders on the instructions of Deborah Myers.”

“Fuck her,” Rocco said, then signed the agreement.

The secretary entered the room and handed Maren a longer document.

“And this,” Maren said, handing it to Rocco, “which is a transcript of our conversation today. Ms. Banks, here, will witness both documents.”

Rocco signed, then he looked back at Maren’s cleavage. “I want to see them,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Rocco,” Maren replied, “but that sort of thing will have to wait for five years.”

Two agents came into the room, handcuffed Rocco, and took him away.

Stone walked out into the hallway, and when Maren emerged, he followed her back to her office, where she stripped off her jacket and blouse and got back into her bra.

“Well,” Stone said, “I’ve had a better day than Rocco. And that was an interrogation technique entirely new to me.”

She laughed and gave him a kiss.

Then they heard a ruckus outside in the hallway, and Stone recognized the voice of Little Debby, who was screaming oaths about Rocco Turko. He opened the door and watched her being dragged past by two female agents.

“There was a speaker in the room where she was waiting,” Maren said. “She heard every word that Rocco spoke.”