The Ambassador's wife

Kang paused, but Tay said nothing else.

“Sir?”

Tay glanced up. “Yes?”

“What is this all about, sir?”

“What is what all about?”

“You know. These pictures, sir. They’re just pictures of the outside of a cheap hotel. What do they prove?”

Tay stirred slightly in his chair, but he remained silent.

“And now you’re telling me to stop the surveillance on DeSouza. We’ve all put a lot into this, sir, and we haven’t gotten anything yet.”

“We have enough.”

“What, sir? What do we have? And what did you mean about not involving anyone else? Involve anyone else in what, sir? I think I’m entitled to know.”

Tay shifted in his chair again. His eyes wandered the room for a while until, finding nowhere else to go, eventually came back to Kang.

“Sit down, Robbie. You’re right. You are entitled to know.”

Kang sat down, folded his arms, and waited. Tay leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk.

“I don’t want you to take any of the responsibility here, Robbie. I’m doing this on my own. It has to be that way.”

“Doing what, sir?”

“Look, Robbie, DeSouza’s the key to all this. Either he killed Munson and Rooney himself as well as Cally, or he knows who did. If I can get to him, I can find out which it is.”

“You’ve got no way to do that, sir.”

“I do now.” Tay tapped the photographs of the Hoover Hotel with his forefinger. “If I show him these, he’ll deal for the others.”

“What others? Where did you get other pictures?”

“I didn’t. There aren’t any other pictures.”

“Then you don’t have anything to deal with.”

“DeSouza won’t know that. I’m going to tell him that hooker was a plant, that I set him up and she…” Tay hesitated. “Or he, depending on how you want to look at it, took DeSouza to a rigged room. And now I’ve got photos.”

“He’ll never believe you.”

“He won’t be sure. He can’t be. But he’s not going to take any chances either. Pictures of him in bed with a man wearing a dress would end his FBI career. Worse, it would make him a laughing stock.”

“And just because you tell him you have those pictures you think he’ll tell you who killed the American ambassador’s wife? He may not even know.”

“He knows. And if he thinks there’s even a chance I really did set him up, that I actually do have pictures, he’ll deal for them. He can’t afford not to.”

Kang’s eyes widened noticeably, and then he swallowed once. “That’s blackmail, sir.”

“No, it isn’t. I don’t actually have any pictures.”

“Oh, come on, sir. It’s the same as.”

“Why does it matter?”

“You can’t blackmail a witness, sir. You’re a police officer.”

“Then enlighten me here, Robbie. What, in your opinion, is the job of a police officer?”

“It’s to make sure people obey the law by obeying the law ourselves.”

“Do you think obeying the law is more important than ensuring justice is done?”

Kang looked uncomfortable. He shifted his weight in the chair and cleared his throat.

“I’m no philosopher, sir. I just know this isn’t right.”

“I’m no philosopher either, Robbie, but somebody murdered three women. I’m going to find out who it was. DeSouza knows and I’m going to make him tell me. It’s just that simple.”

“What if he killed them? You don’t really think he’s going to confess just because you wave a couple of pictures of the Hoover Hotel at him, do you? That’s crazy.”

Tay didn’t say anything. He’d already had the same thought and pushed it aside.

“Look, sir-”

“What would you suggest I do then, Robbie? If you don’t like the way I’m going to play this, tell me what you’d do.”

“Well, sir, we could stay on DeSouza for a while longer. Maybe we’ll turn something up yet.”

“Like what?”

“Well…” Kang took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “I don’t know exactly, but something. If he knows who it was, maybe he’ll take us to them.”

“And what if he doesn’t?”

“Sir?”

“I said what if he doesn’t take us to them? What if DeSouza just keeps going to work and back home again? What if he takes us to nobody? What would you do then? Just walk away and forget everything?”

“We wouldn’t have much choice that I see, sir.”

“Well, fuck that. I have a choice, Robbie, and I’ve made it.”

“You just can’t-”

“Elizabeth Munson was brutalized and murdered by somebody and we’ve done nothing since except try to avoid responsibility of finding out who it was. Ambassador Rooney was brutalized and murdered exactly the same way-”

“But that’s not our case, sir.”

“Dead is dead. After dead there is fucking nothing. Who stands with the dead if we don’t, Robbie?”

“That isn’t our case, sir,” Kang repeated doggedly.

“How about Cally Parks?”

“That isn’t our case either, sir.”

“Fine. You may be off the hook because she was murdered in Thailand, but I’m not. Cally Parks got a bullet in the head because I did nothing to help her.”

“What could you have-”

“And then, Robbie, while these women were being murdered, while I was doing fuck all about it, my mother up and dies on me. My own mother, Robbie. She dies while I’m still trying to make up my mind whether or not to go to see her again. She dies when I haven’t even found the resolve in myself to say good- bye. Bloody hell, I’m nearly fifty years old and I look at myself in the mirror and what do I see? A timid, fearful little man who can’t make up his mind about a fucking thing.”

“Don’t make this about you, sir. Everybody dies.”

“This is about me. I’m sick of doing nothing, Robbie. I’m sick of just showing up. I’m sick of myself.”

“You keep talking about justice and fine ideas like that, sir, but that’s not what all this is about anymore, is it? It’s personal with you now.”

“I hope so. I really do hope so.”

Kang raked a hand through his hair.

“It’s not going to work, sir.” He couldn’t look Tay in the eye. “And it’s not right.”

“Look, Robbie, you asked me to tell you what I’m going to do because you deserve to know. You do deserve to know, so I told you. But you have not been invited to lecture me on what is right and what is wrong. Do I make myself clear?”

Kang folded his arms tightly. “Completely, sir.”

“I expect the surveillance on DeSouza to be withdrawn immediately. Do you have a problem with that?”

“We’re only there because you asked us to be, sir.”

“Right. And now you’re done.”

“Yes, sir.”