Bob Seger came through the radio. 'Still the Same.' Motor City blues. Somebody once said it was about a guy catching up with his old girlfriend, but it never sounded like that to me.
It sounded like a kid catching up with his father.
39
I let Pansy out to her roof. Picked up the phone on my desk, checked for hippies. All quiet. I dialed a number.
'Runaway Squad, Officer Thompson speaking.' A young woman's voice.
'Is McGowan around?'
'Hold on.'
I lit a smoke, waiting. Any other detective bureau in the city, they ask you who's calling. The Runaway Squad knows most of the callers won't give their names.
'McGowan,' said the voice on the phone. The same hard-sweet voice pimps use, but McGowan did it different, giving you your choice.
'It's Burke. We're working the same case. Got a few minutes to meet with me?'
'I'm off at eight. Breakfast at Dino's? Eight-fifteen, eight-thirty?'
'I'll be there,' I told him, and put down the phone. Pansy ambled in, rested her head in my lap. I patted her. 'You're always glad to see me, aren't you, girl?'
She didn't answer me.
I pushed her head off my lap, helped myself to a drink of ice water from the refrigerator. I took out two hard-boiled eggs, cracked them against the wall, peeled off the shells.
'Wake me in an hour,' I told Pansy, handing her the eggs.
I closed my eyes so I wouldn't see the mess she made.
40
When I opened my eyes, it was seven-thirty. I took another shower, changed my clothes: I let Pansy out again, watching her run around while I took a deep slug of Pepto-Bismol. Eating at Dino's on an empty stomach was dangerous.
I drove north on the West Side Highway, moving against the snarled rush-hour traffic. Dino's was on Twelfth Avenue, about ten blocks south of Times Square. Yuppies in New York are heavy into diner food now, but Dino's wasn't going to make the list.
McGowan's unmarked cruiser was parked right out front, empty slots on either side. I pulled in, not wasting my time trying to spot him through the greasy windows.
He was sitting in a booth near the back corner, hat tipped back on his long Irish face, cigar in his mouth. Wearing a dark suit, a shirt that had once been white, a blue tie that had never been silk. I sat across from him, my back to the door. We'd known each other a long time.
He shook his head sharply before I could open my mouth, tilting his chin up. Somebody coming.
It was only three hours into her shift, but the waitress was already tired, her broad face lined with strain. Still, she had a smile for McGowan. They all did.
'Good morning, lovely Belinda,' he greeted her. 'How's the play coming?'
'It comes about like I do, McGowan. Not too often.'
'Nothing good comes easy, my little darling,' he said, turning aside gloom like a bullfighter. He took one of her hands, holding it in his, patting her.
'Belinda, it was your choice. A lovely young girl like you, the boys would be all over you and they had a chance. But it's not the life of a housewife for my girl, is it now? Your play will come. Your day will come.'
'Ah, McGowan . . .' she said, trying to sneer at his blarney. But the smile came out, like they both knew it would.
'Give me two of your finest eggs, sunny-side up. Bacon, toast, and some Sanka, will you, girl?'
She wrote it down, turned to me.
'Two eggs, fried over hard, break the yolks. Ham, rye toast, apple juice. Burn everything.'
'You got it,' the waitress said, moving away, the bounce back in her walk.
McGowan puffed on his cigar, knowing we wouldn't talk until the food came.
'How's Max?'
'The same.'
'I heard he was a proud papa.'
'That's on the street?'
'Sure,' he said, watching me closely. 'Any problem with it?'
I shrugged. No point asking McGowan where he got it - maybe from one of the little girls he brought to Lily's program, maybe . . .
The food came and we ate.
It didn't take either of us long. Swallowing it wasn't as bad as looking at it. The Senator's Motto.
Belinda cleared our plates. McGowan settled down over his second cup of Sanka, relighting his mangy cigar.
'So?'
'The Ghost Van - you know it?'
'Everybody knows it.'
'Any more than what's been in the papers?'
'A bit. What's your interest?'
'Some people want me to find it.'
'And take it off the street?'
'It's just an investigation. The people who want me to do this job don't have anything personal at stake. For all they care, I find it, I could call the cops.'
McGowan leaned across the table, his Irish blues going cop-hard. 'It's personal to me, Burke. The swine shot one of my girls.'
'When?'
'The second shooting. Little girl named Darla James. Fifteen years old, and on the stroll for the last two. I was close to taking her off the track. Real close, Burke. They put two into her chest at twenty feet - she never had a prayer.'
I lit a smoke, watching his face. McGowan had been working the cesspool for twenty years and he'd never fired his gun. He won some and he lost a hell of a lot more, but he always kept coming. He played the game square, and we all respected him.
'You want me out of it - I'm out of it,' I told him.
'I want you in it, pal. In fact, I was going to put it out on the wire last week for you to come around. These are bad, bad people, Burke.'
'How do you make it?'
He puffed on the cigar, his eyes still hard, but not looking my way. 'Has to be a vigilante trip. One of those sicko cults. They're shooting the poor little girls to fight the devil. Or maybe they're sacrificing bodies to Satan. It all comes out the same.'
'You sure?'
'I'm not sure of anything. I'll tell you what we have - it's precious little enough.'
I kept my hands on the table, where he could see them. McGowan would know I don't write things down, but he looked upset enough to forget.
'Tell me,' I said.
'There's been five girls shot, not the three the papers reported. And two snatched - not just the one everybody knows about. Ballistics says they were all shot with the same piece. Military hardware, probably an M-16, or one of those Russian jobs. High-speed ammo. Ballistics says the slugs were twenty-two-caliber.'
