also had red dots on them-Silverman's.
Cuneo nodded. 'We talked about it on the way in,' he said. 'If I were more cynical, I wouldn't believe this could have fallen together so perfectly all by itself.'
'You are more cynical, Dan,' his partner said. He turned to Gerson. 'It wasn't just lying out, sir. Holiday had it hidden. Just not well enough.'
'Don't get me wrong,' Cuneo said. 'I'm not complaining. I'll take it. Makes up for all the times nothing works. It's just so weird. I'm tempted to go buy a lottery ticket.'
Gerson nodded. 'And Thomasino signed off on the search?'
'Yes, sir,' Russell said.
'Okay, so what I suggest you do is go back to him right away…'
'He's at trial,' Cuneo said.
'Interrupt his honor,' Gerson replied. 'He won't mind, I promise. Print yourselves out an arrest warrant and show him what his wisdom allowed you to discover. You'll make his day. You have any idea where Mr. Holiday is at the present time?'
'Dan called the Ark, sir, from the phone at his place as soon as we found this stuff. When a male voice answered, we hung up. We figure he can't have a clue we've made this kind of progress. Enough to arrest him. And it's got to be him working there now. His other bartender's dead.'
'Good point. All right. So after the judge signs your warrant, you're going down to pick him up? You want some backup?'
Cuneo answered. 'We can handle it, sir. He won't give us any trouble.'
Gerson considered for a beat. 'Okay, but by the book.'
'Every time, sir,' Russell said, nodding in agreement. 'Every time.'
'Glitsky. Payroll.'
It rankled every time.
'Lieutenant? Barry Gerson again.'
'Yes, sir.' No emphasis. 'What can I do for you?'
'Well, first I wanted to apologize for going so territorial on you the other day. I can't blame you for being interested in Silverman. Your father knew him. Of course you're interested. I was out of line.'
'Thank you. What's second?'
The brusqueness of the reply slowed Gerson for a second, but then he recovered. 'Second is I thought you'd want to know that Cuneo and Russell have been doing some incredible work these last couple of days. I believe they've gotten to the bottom of this thing with Silverman. At least they've got plenty that you can pass on to your father.'
Suddenly the flat tone left Glitsky's voice. 'I'm listening.'
Gerson gave him the rundown on the evidence that so unambiguously pointed to Terry, Wills and Holiday-the gun in Terry's drawer, so clearly and demonstrably both the Silverman and Creed murder weapon. But also the red-dotted bills from both the Jones Street apartment and from Holiday's duplex in the marina. Although the lab hadn't finished its analysis of the gunk yet, Gerson threw in for good measure the shoes found in Terry's apartment and their probable relation to the Creed killing. The pawnshop jewelry articles in Holiday's closet. The case was solved, soup to nuts.
When Gerson finished, Glitsky exhaled heavily. 'So that's it?'
'That's it.'
'And Holiday killed the other two. Last night, was it?'
'Looks like. There's really no other option. Thomasino gave Cuneo and Russell a warrant in about five seconds. They've gone on down now to pick him up.'
Glitsky spent a second or two adjusting to this new reality. The fundamental rule of his thirty years of life as a cop was that evidence talked, and in this case it positively screamed. He had been completely wrong, and his meddling had possibly even inconvenienced the good inspectors working the case. Maybe, he thought bitterly, payroll was where he belonged after all. He'd obviously lost his edge. He drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. 'Then I'm the one who should be apologizing, Lieutenant. If Wade Panos put your guys on the trail that led here, I must have pegged him wrong.'
'That's not an issue for me, Abe.' Glitsky noted the first name, a far cry from the 'lieutenant' he'd started with. 'You thought you were doing me a favor.'
'I really did.'
'I believe you. Some of these rent-a-cops… well, you know. They're not all righteous, we can go that far. But Panos had something real this time. We're lucky he felt cooperative. Anyway, if you've got something I need to hear in the future, my door's open. You put in a lot of years at this desk. I'd be an idiot if I didn't take advantage of that.'
'Thanks, Barry. I appreciate it. But it's your gig now. I'm out of it.'
'Maybe. But I'm reserving the right to come to you if something stumps me. Deal?'
'Deal.'
When they hung up, Glitsky sat unmoving, turned away from his desk, staring out the window into the bright afternoon. He heard the wind whistling around his corner of the building. A deep sigh escaped. In spite of the kissy- face words, the hard truth settled over him like a shroud-in the real world, Glitsky would probably never set foot in homicide again. No one was even going to have to try to keep him out. The thing was done, a fait accompli.
It was the termination of all those years.
After a minute, he swiveled his chair, stood up and went over to the printing room to see how the paychecks were coming along. They were due out tomorrow morning. That was the priority now, the sum total of his professional importance-making sure those checks got out on time.
15
Holiday got Michelle's frantic call to the Ark during the afternoon lull. He had one customer, a fifty-something dot-com bankrupt named Wayne, and he shooed him out pleading illness. He was going to have to close up. After he'd locked the door behind Wayne, he took all the money from the cash register, walked to the back room, and unlocked the bottom left drawer of his desk. The drawer contained a Walther PPK. 380 automatic wrapped in a greasy old T-shirt and a quarter box of ammunition that was at least six years old, and possibly more than that. Holiday had bought the gun when he'd first opened his pharmacy fifteen years ago-he had no memory of when he'd last taken it to the range, or bought any ammunition. In all his years in business, he'd never had occasion to take it out, even to brandish.
But he believed with all his heart that he had a reason now. He cranked a round into the chamber and snapped the safety off. He tucked the gun into his belt and the bullets into the pocket of his three-quarter-length leather coat. Letting himself out the back door of the Ark, he double-locked it up and started walking. He arrived at Michelle's an hour later.
Now they had been holed up inside for about another hour. It turned out, when Michelle accidentally saw the gun, that she wasn't much a fan of firearms. There had never been a gun in her parents' house when she was growing up. She wasn't going to tolerate one now. She had wanted to warn John about the police, but had never considered what it might really mean, who this man she'd been seeing really was.
When he showed up with a loaded gun, it more than worried her. It made her feel as though he'd duped her somehow.
So she'd told him no gun, he didn't need it here, she wouldn't have it in her apartment. If he was intent on keeping the gun, he had to leave. In the end, she reluctantly agreed to a wimpy compromise-he would unload it and put the gun and the ammunition out of sight in one of the bedroom drawers. She agreed not because she wanted to, she realized, but because suddenly some part of her was afraid of him.
She'd been attracted to him at the beginning-and consistently since-because she'd chosen to ignore all the outward signs that he might finally, at heart, not be the man he pretended to be. Now she was forced to consider
