Rizzo's Fire

belonged to the Samuel Kellerman Literary Agency located on Irving Place in Manhattan. She pulled up the agency’s Web site and clicked on “Clients.”

“Ready for this?” she said, returning to Rizzo’s desk. “The number belongs to Mallard’s agent.”

“Well, whaddaya know?” Rizzo said happily. “Our first murder suspect.”

“Let’s go talk to the guy, Joe.”

He held up a calming hand. “Take it easy, relax. We gotta think this through. Mike said Manhattan South was pretty convinced Mallard’s killer was a burglar, but they would still have had to check out his life, so you gotta figure they already talked to the agent.”

“Sure, but they don’t know the play angle,” she said, her dark eyes glistening with excitement. “We know that’s the key here, the freakin’ play.”

“Yeah, we definitely need to talk to the guy, and we will. But first let’s take a look at that file Mike is givin’ us. See what the agent told Manhattan South. We need to move slow here, Cil. Be real careful. We only get one shot at this before Manhattan South catches our scent and leans on us. Remember your gut feeling on this-obstruction, official misconduct, accessory to murder-like that. We need to use our heads.”

Rizzo saw her frustration and said, “Trust me here, kid. One step at a time.”

He took the fax into his hand, looking again at the 212 number. Then he slowly raised his eyes to meet Priscilla’s. “Our first suspect,” he repeated. “Don’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?”

SEATED AT the metal desk in his basement home office, Rizzo frowned across to Priscilla, then Mike McQueen.

“Manhattan South confirmed the agent was in Paris the night Mallard was killed. He flew outta Kennedy on Monday, October twenty-seventh, returned Tuesday, November fourth. That alibis him for both homicides.”

He tossed the thick computer-generated file onto his desk. “Real convenient for him, don’t you think?”

Mike shrugged. “There’s a ton of stuff in that case file, Joe; I looked it over pretty carefully. The task force working the Mallard case is pretty convinced it was a break-in. From what’s in the file, you can’t blame them. That play of Lauria’s is a key piece of evidence they’re not aware of. We’re all sitting on dynamite here.”

“Hell, Mike, relax,” Rizzo said. “If Cil hadn’t seen Mallard’s play on Broadway, we’d never even have made a connection here. No one can pin anything shady on us, believe me. Later, after we poke around a little in the city, maybe then they’ll catch on. And we’ll just say we were fishin’, just on a hunch, what ever, then hand them the play angle. So relax.”

“Yeah, Mike, relax,” Priscilla said. “Worst this old man can do is get us all locked up for twenty fuckin’ years.”

“Yeah,” Mike said uneasily. “I basically stole this file from the Plaza’s database.”

“How exactly did you handle that anyway?” Rizzo asked.

“Very carefully,” McQueen said. “I pulled up the Lauria hom icide, then I hit the files for a pattern match. Any similar crime committed anywhere in the city, based on method, scene, age, race and sex of victim. The computer spit out a half dozen cases, Mallard’s one of them. Then I piggybacked Mallard onto Lauria and ran it through under the Lauria case number. It won’t stand up to a close look, but it won’t catch anybody’s eye, either. As long as no one goes looking for a problem, we’ll be okay.”

Rizzo nodded. “Good. Tomorrow, after I go through this file, me and Cil will start on the Manhattan end. With the agent, probably. Size up the guy.”

“We found a box full of rejection slips in Lauria’s closet,” Priscilla told Mike. “We confiscated it along with the manuscripts. When we got the hit on Kellerman’s telephone number, we checked through the box. Lauria’s play was rejected by three agencies, but none of ’em was Kellerman.”

McQueen nodded. “So no direct connection.”

“Other than the phone call itself, no,” Rizzo said. “But there’s a connection all right, we just need to find it.”

Priscilla glanced at her wristwatch and stood. “Speakin’ of agents,” she said, “I gotta get going. Sorry I missed Jennifer, Joe, I’ll meet her on Thanksgiving.”

Rizzo nodded, moving to show her out. “Yeah, sorry about that. I forgot it was open school night.”

Priscilla bent to kiss Mike’s cheek, waving at Rizzo. “Sit,” she said. “I can find my way out.”

LATER THAT night, Rizzo sat back in his desk chair, the Mallard file spread before him. He rubbed at his tired eyes. The only sound he could hear was the humming of the basement’s fluorescent light above him. Jennifer and Jessica had long since retired for the night.

Rizzo opened a package of Nicorette, a fleeting image of the Chesterfields, hidden in the gray Impala’s glove compartment, appearing before him. Sighing, he put a piece of gum into his mouth and began chewing.

One of the task force cops had printed out an online encyclopedia biography of Avery Mallard, and Rizzo now knew more about the man than he had ever known about any literary figure.

After graduating from New York’s Fordham University, Mallard had set out for Los Angeles, attempting a career in television and screenwriting. After six long years of failure, he returned to New York City, supporting himself as a copywriter at a well-known publishing house. It was through connections there that he met Samuel Kellerman, an up-and-coming agent specializing in literary novels and stage plays. Soon afterward, Kellerman represented Mallard on a novel he’d written while in California. The book eventually sold, receiving wide critical acclaim but little commercial success.

Then, when he was thirty, largely due to Kellerman’s efforts, Mallard’s life had flared into the bright, dizzying heights of success. A play he had scripted appeared off-Broadway, where it was seen by a powerful producer and ultimately restaged at Broadway’s Cort Theatre. The play was a huge success, earning Mallard great sums and garnering the first of his many prestigious awards, including the Tony and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.

Mallard’s first marriage dissolved as a result of his sensationalized affair with the play’s leading lady, a Hollywood starlet rarely seen on Broadway. After a quick Las Vegas wedding, their marriage lasted only two years, also ending in divorce. Mallard would suffer two more failed marriages before his untimely and violent death at age sixty-one.

Except for his six years in Hollywood, Mallard had been a lifelong resident of New York City. He often appeared in the news for his flamboyant and opinionated political pursuits and passionate social activism.

Rizzo picked up the printout of the man’s biography.

“Pain in the ass, this guy was,” he thought, then tossed the paper back down on his desk.

Rizzo ran the details of the slaying through his mind again, committing them to memory. He grudgingly acknowledged the professional and thorough job Manhattan South and Major Case had done so far.

But results had been scant.

Rizzo had reviewed all the reports, DD-5s, and photographs. Everything about the case was eerily similar to Lauria’s, right down to the relative security of Mallard’s rear yard, thus making his home an unlikely target for a random break-in. All prints at the scene were accounted for, no physical evidence had been found. Rizzo dismissed a passing thought: how nice it would have been if a stray fiber from a blue raincoat had been found on Mallard’s body.

The playwright had been largely inactive in recent years. Rizzo learned from the file that Mallard had been involved in small venue revivals of his former works in other cities, even adapting two of his old plays for television specials. But An Atlanta Landscape represented his only original work in nearly a de cade. The task force had investigated those idle years but came up dry. They had interviewed Mallard’s ex-wives, a number of former girlfriends and all his poker buddies, as well as fellow writers and various literary hangers- on.

It had only led them back to their original theory, a random burglary gone awry.

Rizzo contemplated his advantage. He and Jackson could now simply discount any and all relationships Mallard might have had except those connecting him to Lauria and both writers to the play itself, the seemingly plagiarized version of Lauria’s A Solitary Vessel.

A distinct advantage if played correctly, but an advantage wrought with great peril.

Rizzo understood that Priscilla’s fears were grounded in cold, hard fact: it was a very dangerous game they were playing.

If a third murder were to occur, their roles in it would be hard to ascertain. Rizzo knew the procedural requirements were clear. He, as the senior detective in charge of the Lauria case, was under an absolute mandate