'So, if the redhead wasn't staying there-?'
'Then, maybe it wasn't a pickup. Maybe the meeting was arranged. '
'Or maybe the redhead was working the lounge. Twenty-two's a lady's gun.'
'Or an assassin's.' Janek glanced at the river. The water, lapping at the embankment, was black like oil. 'I think we want to know a lot more about this guy.'
'What do you want to do first, Frank?'
'Find the redhead. That's number one.'
Aaron stopped in front of Janek's building. It was a bleak brick and graystone apartment house with an exterior fire escape on West Eighty-seventh. Someone had scrawled graffiti beside one of the pilasters. There was a pile of black polyurethane garbage bags stacked by the curb.
'Thanks for phoning the wife.' Aaron smiled ruefully. 'Best part of the job.'
Janek waited until Aaron drove off, then he entered. The lobby smelled of cabbage and cats. A crudely lettered sign was taped to the wall beside the elevator: NO HOT WATER TOMORROW DUE TO BOILER REPAIR. SUPR.
When he opened the door to his apartment, the only thing he could see was the tiny red light on his answering machine signaling there were messages. He set down his suitcase, made his way through the gloom, found a lamp and switched it on. The apartment was simply furnished, mostly with pieces inherited from his parents, including, most prominently, the old workbench from his father's accordion shop. A half-dozen instruments in various states of disrepair sat upon it. Janek knew it would be years before he got them all working.
His phone messages were routine, except the one from Sarah. She said she'd received three estimates from roofers and the lowest came in at ninety-eight hundred dollars. He found that information as irritating as the tone of her voice. He turned off the machine, stripped, looked at himself in the mirror. The marks were gone. He took a shower and lay down on his bed. Then he remembered-there would be no hot water in the morning. He went back to the bathroom and shaved. It was 4:15 A.M. At two the following afternoon he sat in Kit Kopta's office on the twenty-third floor of the Police Headquarters building at One Police Plaza. Kit, dwarfed by her huge desk, came around to embrace him. Then she gestured him to the conference area by the windows.
He presented her with his treasures-exposed roll of film, fingerprint card, audiotapes and Tania's affidavits. He stared out the window while she read the English version. People crossing Police Plaza looked like ants.
'Beautiful, Frank.' Kit's dark Greek eyes sparkled. 'How'd you do it?'
'It wasn't easy.'
She studied him. 'Something happened down there.' Janek nodded.
'Want to tell me about it?'
'Not particularly.'
'You had some trouble?'
'You could put it that way.' She stared at him. He shrugged. 'They put on a little show. I played the lead.'
'That's kind of abstract.'
'Yeah, I guess so.'
'Hey-I'm your friend. Remember?'
'It's embarrassing, Kit. Let it go now. Please.'
She nodded reluctantly. Eventually, he knew, she'd get the story out of him. It still pained him to think about his three days in detention; he felt no desire to describe them to her. And perhaps there was another reason, too. Since he had gone to Cuba to please her, whatever he had suffered there, he had suffered, he believed, on her behalf.
'Actually,' he said, 'the way it ended up, I got to work with a terrific Cuban cop. If it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't have brought back the goods.'
Kit nodded slightly, sat back. 'How do you like your new case?'
'Too soon to tell. You don't want me reporting to you?'
She shook her head. 'To Deforest, as usual.'
He looked at her. 'Thing is, Kit, this little diversion isn't going to fool anyone. There're rumors all over the place about where I went and why. Even Sarah heard about it.'
'Sarah… ' Kit shrugged. 'Doesn't matter, Frank. The case is legit.
And the rumors are deniable.' She cleared her throat.
'Remember Netti Rampersad?' Janek smiled. 'To meet her is never to forget her.'
'She does come on strong, doesn't she? Well, it seems now she's taken over Mendoza's appeal. Which means 'Kit stretched her arms over her head, then set her palms on the arms of her chair- 'she'll want to see these affidavits right away. In fact, she called me twice to find out how you were doing. This morning she served me with an order to produce.'
'Soon as she sees this stuff she'll move for a new trial. She'll claim that because Tania's statement contradicts Metaxas's note, the note should be thrown out.'
Kit gazed out the window. 'Yeah, that's probably what she'll do. It won't be easy for her to get a new trial. But she'll try. And maybe she'll succeed.'
'Is that what you want, Kit? Are you using her as your cat's-paw in this?'
Kit shrugged again. 'We're cops. Not lawyers or prosecutors. She's got her agenda. We've got ours.'
'What is ours-if you don't mind my asking?'
'We want to know if someone around here did something corrupt.' Kit pointed at the affidavits. 'Give Rampersad the ball and let her run with it.'
'Sure. And after?'
'You got a homicide case, Frank. Work it. It's what you do best.'
'That's it?'
'That's it.'
She stood to signal the meeting was over. He started toward the door, had just reached it when she called him back. 'There is something else.
I want you to see Dakin. You know, courtesy call. Fill him in on what you found.' He stared at her, outraged. 'That's a pretty dirty task.'
'it is,' she agreed. 'So-am I your cat's-paw, too?'
'We're working together on this, Frank. That's the way I see it. Any problems?' Janek nodded. 'If I brief Dakin, I brief Timmy, too.
Otherwise, get someone else.'
'Sure, brief Timmy. Play it down the middle. I should have thought of that myself.' She turned back to the papers on her desk.
Janek worked out of two interconnected rooms on the fourth floor of the Police Property building off University Place. The outer room of the suite, which bore the words SPECIAL SQUAD on its door, contained four beaten-up desks, as many chairs and a large blackboard at one end. The smaller inner room was his office. He kept it austere, without the usual departmental certificates, clippings about his exploits and personal photographs on the walls. He liked the notion that he worked in a plain city-owned space. He wasn't interested in personalizing it or in turning it into a nest.
When he arrived, Aaron and Sue were at their desks talking into phones.
They waved as he passed through. In his office, he found the police artist's computer-generated sketch of the redhead and messages to call Lois Rappaport and Meg Chang at Channel 6. He dialed Rappaport, then examined the portrait. It showed a very attractive young woman with high cheekbones and a superbly modeled chin. She looks good, he thought.
'That you, Frank?' Lois's voice grated against his ear. He wondered if she had a husband, and, if so, how he felt about her when she smiled.
'Yeah, it's me. What's up?'
'I finished the workup on Dietz,' she said. 'Turns out I was right.'
'About what?' 'Oh, thought I told you last night. Dietz was asleep when he was killed.'
Asleep! 'How do you know that?'
'From the drug screen. High level of triazolam in his blood. It's a classic, Frank. KO girls, dope-'em-and-
