Red Angel

one block away from City Hall.

Rossi was seated in a wingback chair when they entered the room. His small, frail body was covered by a silk bathrobe over silk pajamas, his rattier, moth-eaten attire being reserved for public appearances. His feet were clad in slippers, revealing bony, painfully white ankles.

“So, the New York Police Department’s inspector of detectives. Such an honor.” Rossi’s chin was elevated and seemed to point at Devlin. The pose was a replica of the portrait that hung above the mantel behind him- Rossi’s hero, II Duce, at the height of his power, when all the trains in Italy ran on time.

“How old are you now, Devlin?” he continued. “Thirty-eight?” He shook his head. “Amazing. I never thought you’d live past thirty-six. God has been good to you.”

Devlin glared at him. It was two years ago that Rossi tried to have him killed. “You did your best, Bathrobe. It just wasn’t good enough.”

Rossi wagged a finger. “Hey, that’s an ugly rumor. I’m seventy-three, a sick old man. The doctors say I’m dying.” A small smile toyed at the corners of his mouth. “Besides, if I wanted you dead, the worms would already be eating your eyes.” He let out a theatrical sigh. “But, instead, you’ll probably go to my funeral.”

In spite of himself, Devlin smiled at the man’s chutzpah. He raised his eyes to the portrait of Mussolini. “They tell me that back in forty-five, when you saw the newspaper pictures of II Duce hanging by his feet, you wept.”

Rossi nodded. “I even sent flowers to Italy.”

Devlin stared at him, unmoved. “I’ll send flowers for you, too, Rossi. But I think I’ll skip the wake.”

Rossi let out a low cackle. “See, that’s the difference between us. Me? I’d come to your wake. And I’d piss in your coffin.”

Rossi’s laughter grew, then he turned to Ippolito. “This is a hard man, Mattie. Don’t let him fool you. You see that scar on his cheek?” He waited while Ippolito looked. “A crazy cop gave him that, five, maybe six years ago. And, after he did, Devlin blew that cop away.” He widened his eyes, feigning surprise. “That’s right, the man’s a cop killer, just ask him.”

“Shut up, Rossi.” It was Pitts, and the words came with a growl.

Rossi ignored him. “This crazy cop, he cut the inspector’s arm, too-cut it so bad Devlin retired on disability. Took a job as chief of police in some shithole town in Vermont.” He glanced back at Devlin. “You didn’t think I knew so much about you, eh?” He turned back to Ippolito and regretfully shook his head. “But then he came back. Seems one of those crazy serial killers was out to get an old girlfriend of his. So Devlin here, he comes back, and this killer ends up dead, too, and now his old girlfriend is his new girlfriend again. Just like fucking Hollywood. They live together with Devlin’s daughter in some hotsy-totsy loft down in SoHo. It’s a beautiful story.”

Rossi’s eyes went back to Devlin and the two men glared at each other. The scar on Devlin’s cheek had turned white, a telltale sign that anger had reached the edge of control. Devlin’s lover, Adrianna, and his daughter, Phillipa, had been with him two years ago when Rossi’s killers had come. The threat that it could happen again was clear.

Hatred fled Rossi’s eyes as quickly as it had come, and he turned back to Ippolito. “But the story’s not over, Mattie. There’s more. Devlin gets the killer, and he gets the girl. It’s all beautiful, like I said. But then the mayor comes to him”-he raised a finger-“the mayor, no less. You got that?”

“I got it,” Ippolito said.

“And the mayor asks him to come back to work for the city. But not just as some shitheel detective, like he was before-but to come back as inspector of detectives. And working exclusively for the mayor, himself.” He paused for effect. “You know what that means, Mattie?”

“No. I don’t know what that means.”

Rossi wagged another educating finger. “That, my friend, means that Devlin, here, can supersede anybody in the police department-even the chiefs.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine what it would mean if the crooks did something like that? Chaos, my friend. Chaos.” He waved his hand in a circle. “Soldiers superseding capos. Capos superseding bosses. It would be crazy. Everybody would be at everybody’s throats.”

“Crazy,” Ippolito said.

Rossi’s finger shot up again. “Maybe that’s why the other cop bosses don’t like Inspector Devlin.” He turned back to Devlin, his eyes brimming hatred again. “You think maybe those other bosses wouldn’t go to your funeral, Devlin?”

Devlin returned the stare. “I’ll be happy as long as you’re there, Bathrobe. Pissing in my coffin.”

Rossi threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t like you, Devlin. But I like you.” The hatred returned. “So why the fuck are you here? Tell me quick. I feel an attack coming on. And then I won’t be able to talk to you no more.”

“I’m here to tell you it’s time to retire, Bathrobe. To go someplace nice and sunny, and let all the killing stop.”

“Retire from what, Devlin? I’m already retired. I even get Social Security from the government.” He cackled again.

“Keep laughing, Bathrobe. They got another one of your boys, today.” It was Pitts. He was grinning. “Vinnie Big Head. All that’s left is a big grease spot on Broome Street.”

Rossi’s jaw tightened. “Makes you happy, huh? So you come out here, and you handcuff my people to your car. Oh, yeah, I saw that shit. You’re hoping, maybe, some shooters come by and kill them, too. Well, fuck you.” Rossi jabbed a finger into his cadaverous chest. His hawklike nose and jutting chin pushed forward. “I’ll be here when all of you are fucking dead. You tell that to the fucking mayor. Tell him to fucking retire.”

“So your doctors are wrong, huh?”

Rossi’s head snapped back to Devlin. He was smiling again, and his eyes glittered with a touch of madness. “I got a new doctor. A kind of doctor you never heard of.” His smile widened, revealing ancient, crooked, yellow teeth. “But you will, Devlin. I promise you. And you’ll be amazed at the miracles this doctor can do.”

“I don’t think he fucking likes you.”

Pitts was driving toward Nathan’s, his hotdog request having been approved. Devlin stared out the passenger window, watching the neighborhood become rougher and more battered as they headed south.

“The man’s crazy as a bedbug. I never recognized that before. Now I’m sure of it.”

Pitts had pulled up at a stoplight. He turned in his seat. “Don’t fucking believe it for a minute. Old Bathrobe is the best fucking dago actor since Robert De Niro.”

Devlin thought about the not-so-veiled threat Rossi had made against his family. It was stupid, and Rossi wasn’t a stupid man. Maybe it was because he was dying, and felt he had nothing to lose. If so, it would make him even more dangerous.

“Too bad those two bodyguards had carry permits for their weapons,” Devlin said. “It would have been nice to lock their asses up, then drop a dime to the Columbo family that the Bathrobe was sitting there with only the Knife protecting him.”

Pitts let out a little cackle. He enjoyed that idea. Then he turned serious. “Hey, that’s another thing. I wanna know the name of the judge who approved those permits, and the name of the scumbag boss on The Job who let them slip through unchallenged. We find that out, we got two probables for Rossi’s pad.”

“It’s already on my list,” Devlin said. “I’ll have Stan Samuels digging into it before the day’s out.” He pointed a finger at Pitts. “And no cracks about Stan,” he warned.

Pitts called Samuels “the Mole,” because of his love of burrowing into long-forgotten records, a denigration of the very talent that made him an essential part of Devlin’s five-man team. Everyone on the squad had a nickname- the more derogatory of which had been coined by Pitts. Ramon Rivera, a self-proclaimed Latin love machine and Devlin’s computer expert, was called “Boom Boom.” Red Cunningham, a three-hundred-pound, baby-faced hulk who could plant a bug anywhere Devlin wanted one, was “Elephant Ass.” And Sharon Levy, a beautiful, redheaded lesbian sergeant, who was Devlin’s second in command and who ran the squad like a marine drill instructor, had become “Sergeant Muffdiver”-although even Pitts lacked the guts to say it to her face.

Pitts pulled up in front of the original Nathan’s Hot Dog Stand-still a Coney Island landmark-and glanced