'Speaking of special, how about the Special Prosecutor? You got any objection to drinking to Mr.Abner L.Prejanian ?'
'Whatever you say.'
'Fine.'He raised his glass. 'ToPrejanian , may he drop dead and may he rot.'
I touched my cup to his glass and we drank.
'You got no objection to drinking to that toast, huh?'
I shrugged. 'Not if it makes you happy. I don't know the man we're drinking to.'
'You never met the son of a bitch?'
'No.'
'I did. Greasy little cocksucker.' He took another sip of his drink, then shook his head with annoyance and put his glass on the table. 'Aw, fuck this, Matt. How long we known each other?'
'It's been a few years, Eddie.'
'I guess it has. What the fuck are you doing with ashithead likeBroadfield , will you tell me that? What the fuck are you doing playing games with him?'
'He hired me.'
'To do what?'
'Find evidence that will clear him.'
'Find a way for him to beat a murder charge, that's what he wants you to do. Do you know what a son of a bitch he is? Do you have any fucking idea?'
'I have a pretty good idea.'
'He'sgonna try to give the entire department the shaft, that's all he's trying to do. He'sgonna help thatshitkicker of a rug peddler expose corruption in high places. Christ, I hate that candy-ass son of a bitch. He was as corrupt a cop as you'd ever want to see. I mean he went out hunting for it, Matt. Not just taking everything they handed him. He hunted it. He would go out and detect like crazy, looking for crap games and smack dealers and everything else.But not to arrest them. Only if they weren't holding money, then they might make the trip to the station house. But he was in business for himself.
His badge was a license to steal.'
'I know all that.'
'You know all that and yet you're working for him.'
'What if he didn't kill the girl, Eddie?'
'She was stone dead in his apartment.'
'And you think he's stupid enough to kill her and leave her there?'
'Oh, shit.' He puffed on his cigar and the end glowed red. 'He got out of there and dumped the murder weapons. Whatever he hit her with and whatever he stabbed her with. Say he went down to the river and dumped them. Then he stopped somewhere to have a couple of beers because he's a cocky son of a bitch and he's a little bit crazy. Then he came back for the body. He was going to dump her someplace but by then we got men on the scene and they're laying for him.'
'So he walked right into their arms.'
'So?'
I shook my head. 'It doesn't make sense. He may be a little crazy but he's certainly not stupid and you're arguing that he acted like an idiot. How did your boys know to go to that apartment in the first place?
The papers said you got a telephone tip. Is that right?'
'It's right.'
'Anonymous?'
'Yeah.So?'
'That's very handy. Who would know to tip you? Did she scream?
Anybody else hear her? Where did the tip come from?'
'What's the difference? Maybe somebody looked in a window.
Whoever called said there was a woman murdered in such-and-such an apartment, and a couple of the boys went there and found a woman with a bump on her head and a knife wound in her back and she was dead.
Who cares how the tipster knew she was there?'
'It might make a difference.If he put her there, for instance.'
'Aw, come on, Matt.'
'You don't have any hard evidence.None. It's all circumstantial.'
'It's enough to nail the lid on. We got motive, we got opportunity,we got the woman dead in hisgoddam apartment, for Christ's sake. What more do you want? He had every reason to kill her.
She was nailing his balls to the wall, and of course he wanted her dead.'
