With an expression of distaste, she did as he said.
Jack got into the car after her. They sat in the two seats that flanked the built-in bar and television set, facing the rear of the limousine, where Carramazza sat facing forward.
Up front, Rudy touched a switch, and a thick Plexiglas partition rose between that part of the car and the passenger compartment.
Carramazza picked up an attache case and put it on his lap but didn't open it. He regarded Jack and Rebecca with sly contemplation.
The old man looked like a lizard. His eyes were hooded by heavy, pebbled lids. He was almost entirely bald. His face was wizened and leathery, with sharp features and a wide, thin-lipped mouth. He moved like a lizard, too: very still for long moments, then brief flurries of activity, quick darlings and swivelings of the head.
Jack wouldn't have been surprised if a long, forked tongue had flickered out from between Carramazza's dry lips.
Carramazza swiveled his head to Rebecca. “There's no reason to be afraid of me, you know.”
She looked surprised. “Afraid? But I'm not.”
“When you were reluctant to get into the car, I thought—”
“Oh, that wasn't fear,” she said icily. “I was worried the dry cleaner might not be able to get the stink out of my clothes.”
Carramazza's hard little eyes narrowed.
Jack groaned inwardly.
The old man said, “I see no reason why we can't be civil with one another, especially when it's in our mutual interest to cooperate.”
He didn't sound like a hoodlum. He sounded like a banker.
“Really?” Rebecca said. “You really see no reason? Please allow me to explain.”
Jack said, “Uh, Rebecca—”
She let Carramazza have it: “You're a thug, a thief, a murderer, a dope peddler, a pimp. Is that explanation enough?”
“Rebecca—”
“Don't worry, Jack. I haven't insulted him. You can't insult a pig merely by calling it a pig.”
“Remember,” Jack said, “he's lost a nephew and a brother today.”
“Both of whom were dope peddlers, thugs, and murderers,” she said.
Carramazza was startled speechless by her ferocity.
Rebecca glared at him and said, “You don't seem particularly grief-stricken by the loss of your brother. Does he look grief-stricken to you, Jack?”
Without a trace of anger or even any excitement in his voice, Carramazza said, “In the
Coming from a withered old man, that macho declaration was outrageously foolish.
Still without apparent animosity, continuing to employ the soothing voice of a banker, Carramazza said, “We do
Rebecca studied him with obvious disgust.
The old man's reptilian hands remained perfectly still on top of the attache case. He turned his cobra eyes on Jack.
“Lieutenant Dawson, perhaps I should deal with you in this matter. You don't seem to share Lieutenant Chandler's… prejudices.”
Jack shook his head. “That's where you're wrong. I agree with everything she said. I just wouldn't have said it.”
He looked at Rebecca.
She smiled at him, pleased by his support.
Looking at her but speaking to Carramazza, Jack said, “Sometimes, my partner's zeal and aggressiveness are excessive and counterproductive, a lesson she seems unable or unwilling to learn.”
Her smile faded fast.
With evident sarcasm, Carramazza said, “What do I have here — a couple of self-righteous, holier-than-thou types? I suppose you've never accepted a bribe, not even back when you were a uniformed cop walking a beat and earning barely enough to pay the rent.”
Jack met the old man's hard, watchful eyes and said “Yeah. That's right. I never have.”
“Not even one gratuity—”
“No.”
“-like a free tumble in the hay with a hooker who was trying to stay out of jail or—”
“No.”
“-a little cocaine, maybe some grass, from a pusher who wanted you to look the other way.”
“No.”
“A bottle of liquor or a twenty-dollar bill at Christmas.”
“No.”
Carramazza regarded them in silence for a moment, while a cloud of snow swirled around the car and obscured the city. At last he said, “So I've got to deal with a couple of freaks.” He spat out the word “freaks” with such contempt that it was clear he was disgusted by the mere thought of an honest public official.
“No, you're wrong,” Jack said. “There's nothing special about us. We're not freaks. Not all cops are corrupt. In fact, not even most of them are.”
“Most of them,” Carramazza disagreed.
“No,” Jack insisted. “There're bad apples, sure, and weak sisters. But for the most part, I can be proud of the people I work with.”
“Most are on the take, one way or another,” Carramazza said.
“That's just not true.”
Rebecca said, “No use arguing, Jack. He
The old man sighed. He opened the attache case on his lap, withdrew a manila envelope, handed it to Jack. “This might help you.”
Jack took it with more than a little apprehension.
“What is it?”
“Relax,” Carramazza said. “It isn't a bribe. It's information. Everything we've been able to learn about this man who calls himself Baba Lavelle. His last-known address. Restaurants he frequented before he started this war and went into hiding. The names and addresses of all the pushers who've distributed his merchandise over the past couple of months — though you won't be able to question some of them, any more.”
“Because you've had them killed?” Rebecca asked.
“Maybe they just left town.”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, it's all there,” Carramazza said. “Maybe you already have all that information; maybe you don't; I think you don't.”
“Why're you giving it to us?” Jack asked.
“Isn't that obvious?” the old man asked, opening his hooded eyes a bit wider. “I want Lavelle found. I want him stopped.”
Holding the nine-by-twelve envelope in one hand, tapping it against his knee, Jack said, “I'd have thought you'd have a much better chance of finding him than we would. He's a drug dealer, after all. He's part of your world. You have all the sources, all the contacts—”
“The usual sources and contacts are of little or no use in this case,” the old man said. “This Lavelle… he's a loner. Worse than that. It's as if… as if he's made of… smoke.”
“Are you sure he actually exists?” Rebecca asked. “Maybe he's only a straw man. Maybe your
“He's real,” Carramazza said emphatically. “He entered this country illegally last spring. Came here from Jamaica by way of Puerto Rico. There's a photograph of him in the envelope there.”
