C.O.’s office at the Seven-Seven and he told me to report to One Police Plaza.”
“And Larry Mac was waiting.”
“He said he’d been keeping his eye on me since I got outta the academy. Had my personnel jacket right in front of him. I thought he was going to put the moves on me, you know? I mean, it’s not like every dick with stripes or brass buttons hadn’t used a variation of that ‘keeping my eye on you’ line since the day I got on the job. What’s that look for?” she asked, noticing the smile spreading across my face.
“Believe me, Larry loved women, but you had to understand him. He was an ambitious bastard. If he saw a way you’d be of use to him, your looks would have become beside the point. That was just who he was. And if he saw you were hungry. . watch out! That was his talent, spotting people’s hungers. So what happened?”
“So he asked me if I thought I’d make a good detective.”
“What’d you say?”
“I said no, that I’d make a great detective.”
“Let me guess. He put a small box in front of you on the table and told you to go ahead and open it up. Inside, you found the thing you were desperate for, a shield, and Larry said something like, ‘Congratulations, Detective Melendez.’” I could see by her expression I’d gotten it about right.
“He said he might have special assignments for me from time to time.”
“But not right away. No, he would want to see if you could handle the job and the abuse you were bound to take for getting the bump so early in your career.”
“That’s some spooky shit, Moe, the way you knew him. You even say the words he said.”
“It was hard-learned, what I know about Larry. We came up together. So when did he come back to you with the special assignment?”
“About six months later, when I was in the One-Eleven, he asked me to do some minor crap. He had me check up on someone, another detective. I wasn’t supposed to say anything to anybody, no matter what. Then like a week later, two guys from-”
“-I.A. showed up and wanted to speak to you about this other detective. You didn’t say a word, did you?”
“No.”
“Larry was-”
“-testing me. Yeah, I knew that. It was bullshit. After that, he didn’t call for a long time.”
“How long?”
“I got transferred to the Six-O almost eight months ago. I guess it was four or five months after that.”
“And. .”
“And he met me at some Cuban-Chinese dive in Hell’s Kitchen. Gave me some equipment, told me how to install it.”
“Did he say why he wanted a wire in-”
“I didn’t ask. I didn’t wanna know. I’m not sure I woulda believed him anyway, no matter what he told me.”
“Clever. Believing Larry was about percentages. But what happened next?”
“Nothing. Chief McDonald and I never spoke again. Most of the time, I even forgot that the wire was there. I never even saw the chief again until. . you know.”
“Fountain Avenue.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, is that all of it?”
“That’s it! Tomorrow, I’ll pull the wire.”
“No you won’t. Leave it there,” I barked. “Right now it’s all we got. Maybe we can use it. Does anybody else know?”
“Not from me, but I can’t say if Chief McDonald told anyone.”
“I doubt it. Not Larry’s style to share. Besides, whatever his reasoning, this was way beyond kosher, even for a chief.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“The plan? The plan is you dig up what you can on the Dexter Mayweather murder while I try and figure out what Larry Mac was up to with this wire.”
“You think they’re related, the wire, the Mayweather thing, and the chief’s suicide?” she asked.
“If it was suicide.”
“Right, if it was suicide,” she agreed. “But do you think it’s all related?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Depends what Larry was fishing for.”
“Huh?”
“Sometimes trawlers catch sharks in their nets. Even if you go to throw the shark back in, it doesn’t mean it won’t bite you.”
Her name was Nancy Lustig, a forlorn little rich girl whose looks bordered on the ugly side of nondescript. I’d met her in 1978 when I was looking for my
I guess maybe there was something in Melendez tonight that brought Nancy to mind. Not her looks, certainly, but there was something in Carmella’s eyes, a sadness, a yearning, an old wound that struck the same chord Nancy had struck a dozen years ago.
I don’t know, maybe it was my guilt again, screaming at me like the cranky old steps. It wasn’t lost on me that in the midst of Melendez’s revelations about Larry Mac and her planting the wire, I had kissed a woman in a way married men are not supposed to kiss women who are not their wives. Sure, from the outside it probably didn’t look like much of a kiss, but it was on the inside, and on the inside there was fire.
In a way, I think I was grateful for the bomb Carmella had dropped on me about her dealings with Larry Mac. It put the fire on hold, at least for now. There was only so much I could handle all at
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fishbein met me at a coffee shop in Elmont, just over the Queens border with Nassau County. The D.A. didn’t like being summoned. He was careful not to say so, though his expression spoke all too clearly. Fishbein may have been good at keeping his yap shut when the situation called for it, but he wore his heart on his face. It was forever getting him in trouble, especially during his ill-fated run for governor. His media-savvy handlers spotted the problem right away, making certain Fishbein never appeared on camera in his own commercials. His ads were always full of testimonials, newspaper clippings, and still photos.
The bigger problem was that his handlers couldn’t control the TV news, and whenever they showed tape of Fishbein making a stump speech, the D.A.’s boredom and condescension showed through. It was especially evident when he’d be in some upstate county speaking to a bunch of dairy farmers. Bad enough that he looked so out of place to begin with-Groucho Marx in a Dickies shirt, stiff Levis, and Wolverine boots-but when he started talking about price supports. . Jesus, you could just see the man wanted to be any place else.
“So, what can I do for you, Mr. Prager?” Fishbein asked, pulling a face as bitter as the coffee. He put his cup down.
“That’s the right question, Mr. D.A., but first I wanna talk about my brother-in-law a little bit. You said-”
“I know what I said, but you might as well not ask. Results. Results. Results. They’re the only things that’ll get you answers, so I suggest you get to work.”
“Can you find out if there was any monkey business going on in the Six-O?”
“Monkey business?”
“Was anyone in the precinct a target of an I.A., local, or federal investigation? Do I really have to spell it out for you?”
