boys had been playing around in the local politics. Dutch and his boys had walked right into its hunting ground, and the thing had butchered Dutch’s entire team-but Dutch had apparently killed it and gotten out alive.
And then he’d vanished, and Schaefer was pretty damn sure that Philips knew more about that disappearance than he’d admitted.
And after last summer’s debacle Philips had disappeared, too-into the Pentagon somewhere, probably. Schaefer had resented that; he had wanted to have a friendly little talk with Philips.
This Smithers might be able to lead him to Philips, and maybe they could make some kind of a deal. He might just help Philips out after all, if the two of them could agree on a few details. He didn’t like those big ugly bastards from outer space, and despite what he’d told Smithers, a rematch wasn’t completely out of the question.
Any deal they might make would have to be on Schaefer’s terms, though. He wasn’t going to come running whenever Philips called. And sending Smithers here to fetch him had just pissed him off.
Schaefer would deal with Smithers and his boss when and where he chose-which wasn’t here or now. For one thing, he wasn’t going to tackle any sort of serious negotiating here at Police Plaza, with a couple of hundred cops around who might have their own ideas about what was appropriate bargaining behavior. No, they’d meet somewhere private, at a time and place of Schaefer’s choosing, when he was good and ready, and when that happened the agenda was going to start with Dutch, not with those alien freaks.
And it wouldn’t be any time all that soon, because Schaefer had a bust to attend to, one that he and his men had been setting up for weeks. Once that was out of the way, then he’d have time to worry about Dutch, General Philips, and a bunch of bloodthirsty goons from space.
He dropped the note on the desk and left.
Chapter 9
Schaefer turned and looked out through the storefront, trying to appear casual or as casual as he ever did, at any rate.
He was standing in a small shop in the Village, a place called Collectors World that sold comic books, baseball cards, and other such things, all of it overpriced kid stuff, in Schaefer’s opinion. He was pretending to talk to the shop’s manager, a balding guy named Jon Cohen, but he was actually looking out the front window at the man in the driver’s seat of a brown van that had just parked illegally at the opposite sidewalk.
The van was late; Schaefer had been in here killing time for a good three minutes, waiting for it.
”Testing, one two three, testing, one two three,” he said in a conversational tone. “This wire better be working, Rawlings, because I’m going in, in about two minutes, before these clowns talk me into buying any funny books.”
The driver held up a hand, displaying thumb and forefinger in a circle-the “okay” sign. The mike was live.
”Okay, boys,” Schaefer said as he strode toward the door, pushing past a clerk who’d also given his name as John, “we’re on. Remember, nobody moves in until Baby coughs up the dope. I want her for dealing, not just for some candy-ass zoning violation.”
He marched out onto the sidewalk and across the street, headed for a kitchenware shop-a shop that, according to the dealers in the vicinity and NYPD’s own undercover operatives, happened to be the local headquarters for wholesale cocaine. A cold winter wind ripped down the street, flapping his leather coat, but Schaefer ignored it.
In the back of the brown van one of the three cops manning the monitoring equipment muttered, “Thank God Schaefer’s here to tell us our jobs, hey? For a second there I was almost feeling competent.”
His companions grinned nervously.
”Shut up,” Rawlings said from the driver’s seat. “You guys be ready.”
A bell jingled as Schaefer stepped into the kitchenware shop. He looked around at the cluttered shelves and empty aisles; the only other person in the place was the woman behind the counter, who seemed out of place amid saucepans and spatulas. She wore fishnet stockings, an elaborately teased blond wig, and makeup as thick as Tammy Faye Bakker’s, and looked as much at home among kitchenware as a coyote among kittens.
Schaefer knew her as Baby. Everyone in this neighborhood knew her as Baby.
”Glad you could make it, big man,” she said. “Could I interest you in some Fiesta ware?”
Schaefer grinned. “No way,” he replied, doing his best impression of a happy-go-lucky kid. “Coke sticks to the Teflon when you cook it down.”
The woman smiled back. “No problem. I’ll toss in a couple of cans of Pam.”
In the truck one of the cops muttered, “Asshole. Coke doesn’t stick to Teflon.”
”C’mon, Schaef,” Rawlings said, knowing Schaefer couldn’t hear him. “Don’t swap dumb jokes with the broad, just make the damn buy!”
In the back, one of the techs glanced up from the equipment, then nudged his neighbor and pointed out the back window. “Oh, great,” he said. “We’ve got company.”
A man in a ragged trench coat was approaching the van unsteadily, standing on tiptoe as if trying to peer in through the windows in the rear doors. The windows were covered with one-way foil, so he wouldn’t see anything, but still, no one involved with the operation wanted anything to draw any attention to the van.
”Some homeless geek looking for a smash and grab,” the cop nearest the door said. “Want me to get out there and shoo him away?”
Rawlings shook his head. “Not when we’re in Baby’s line of sight,” he said. “Just keep an eye on him.”
”Got it,” the man by the rear door said. He turned to look out the back window again just in time to see the derelict pull a. 357 from under his trench coat.
”Oh, my God…” the cop said, just before the bum pulled the trigger and the plastic window shattered. Half a second later, before anyone could react, a second shot took the top off the cop’s head.
The third shot punched through another cop’s throat; the fourth missed, and Rawlings actually got off a shot of his own before a slug went through his right eye.
Rawlings’s shot missed the “derelict” completely and ricocheted off the second story of an office building half a block away.
The last cop, a technician who’d never fired his gun outside the department shooting range before, was still fumbling with the flap on his holster when the “derelict’s” sixth bullet took him down.
”What the hell?” Schaefer said, whirling at the sound of gunfire.
Something had gone wrong; he knew that much instantly. He didn’t know yet what had gone wrong, but it had to be bad. He’d heard six shots, one after another, from a high-caliber handgun not anything his backup was carrying. For a moment he completely forgot about the woman he’d been trying to bust.
That was a mistake.
”You should have gone for the pans, sweetheart,” Baby said, pulling a. 45 from under the counter. As she did, a big man with a shaved head, tattoos, and a pump-action shotgun stepped out of the back room. The shotgun was aimed directly at Schaefer’s head.
”Don’t you think so, Detective Schaefer?” Baby said. “If you’d just come in for a nice set of aluminum ware we might’ve avoided a whole shit load of trouble.”
Schaefer stared at Baby for a moment, considering the automatic in her hand, then turned and looked over the punk with the shotgun.
The gun was held nice and steady, not wavering at all, and Schaefer could see that finger crooked on the trigger, ready to pull. Baby’s hand was steady, too.
Reluctantly Schaefer raised his hands. He might have tried jumping one opponent, but the combination of the two was too much.
He wanted to know what the hell had just happened outside, where his backup was, whether he still had any backup, but it didn’t look as if anyone was going to answer his questions just now. He had a sneaking suspicion that if he headed for the door, he’d catch a bullet in the back.
Baby strolled around the counter, showing off those fishnets and her blood-red spike heels. She stepped up to Schaefer and shoved the. 45 under his chin. “When are you cops going to learn?” she said. “Nothing goes down around here that Baby doesn’t know about.” She reached out and ran the fingers of her left hand under the leather
