Eye of the Beholder

punctures.

A Phillips screwdriver, the uniform had thought.

The wounds are shallow, enough to penetrate the skin but not by much.

“He was tortured,” McDermott mumbles.

“Mike.” A uniform calls to him from the hallway. “We found the weapon.”

THE STOMACHACHES ARE BACK. The acid penetrates the stomach walls, sets fire to the lining. Like sandpaper on a raw wound.

No more. No more. He bites his lip and counts it out, one, two, one-two, one-two. It’s temporary. A flash of lightning. The question is how long before it returns.

Leo looks at himself in the rearview mirror of his car. He runs his finger over the scar beneath his eye, the half-moon, the only menacing feature on an otherwise long, soft, pockmarked face.

Soft. That’s what they think of me. Soft like a feather. Soft like a kitten.

He jumps as a man in uniform brushes the driver‘s-side window. Leo tucks his chin into his chest, pretends to look in the glove compartment-an excuse to turn to his right to see if they have someone on the other side of the car, too. His left foot taps softly along the carpet in the footwell, touching the handgun, edging it closer so he can reach it more easily if necessary.

But, so far, the right flank is clean. He holds his breath and counts backward from twenty.

Nineteen… eighteen…

The man-in-uniform is putting a ticket on a windshield, two cars ahead. Did he look back at Leo? Did he look past Leo, at someone behind him?

Leo turns in his seat, cranes his neck to look behind him. A blur of pedestrians and traffic.

No one there.

Leo turns back just as Paul Riley emerges from the building in a tuxedo, only twenty-five minutes after he arrived. Riley is walking with another man. Is that-is that-? Could that-is that-?

The cop? Lightner?

Right. Joel Lightner.

Riley looks annoyed, arguing with Lightner, as he raises his hand for a cab.

Joel Lightner. Lightner, Joel.

Leo looks back at the rearview mirror. Watch for the diversion, that’s when they’d do it, they’d wait until he sees Riley, when he’s looking forward, and then come for him, look right, look left, nobody, no one, they haven’t found him yet, not yet.

Riley and Lightner.

Leo starts his car. He tries on a smile for size, but it doesn’t work, it doesn’t fit. He puts the car into gear as Riley and Lightner jump in a cab.

McDERMOTT EMERGES from the house an hour later. He sucks in the warm, clean air and avoids eye contact with a couple of reporters huddling near the police tape.

The medical examiner has given a preliminary on cause of death. As expected, it was the full-throttle wound to the neck, not the flesh wounds, that ended Fred Ciancio’s life. The offender just wanted a little fun before he popped him. As he walks toward his vehicle with Stoletti, one of the reporters, someone he’s seen before, shadows him until he gets to the car. She doesn’t have a microphone, let alone a camera.

“Detective McDermott? Evelyn Pendry from the Watch.”

The Watch. Right. She’s a crime-beat reporter. Print, not television, though she looks like she belongs in the latter. She is well sculpted in every way, with shiny blond hair pulled back, and a perfect, powder blue suit.

“No comment,” he says.

“Was Mr. Ciancio killed with a Phillips screwdriver?”

McDermott shoots a look at Stoletti, who pauses a beat while rounding the car to the passenger’s side. Damn that uniform, Brady. What did Evelyn Pendry promise him? A mention in the article as the responding officer? Dinner and dancing?

“He said no comment,” Stoletti says. “But if you want to be accurate, Evelyn, you won’t print that.”

“I need you to talk to me,” says the reporter, an uncharacteristically informal tone to her plea.

McDermott, half in the car, leans back out. “Do you have something to tell me?”

She blinks. She becomes aware of three other reporters who have caught up with her, training a camera on the cops.

Evelyn Pendry gives a curt shake of the head no. McDermott watches her for a moment, but she looks away in defeat. He closes the door and drives away.

14

THE PROBLEM with a perfect martini,” I explain to Lightner, ”is that it’s perfect” I hold up an empty glass. Three hours ago, Lightner and I moved past the dining room and into the bar at Sax’s. I’ve had a few now, maybe half a dozen or so, so I wave for the check with the universal sign, scribbling in the air, except that my scribbling would be ineligible at this point. Or illegible. One of those. ”I better stop drinking before I become an asshole.”

“Too late.” Lightner has a toothpick in his mouth. He leans back against the booth, one arm over the top, looking around the place, at the end of a long night. The air is heavy with perfume and smoke and alcohol. The chatter is still animated, but some people have left. Winding down now. I have a full stomach and far too much vodka in me. Lightner, as always, can hold more than me, but his eyes are bloodshot, his cheeks a rosier shade of his normal cherubic pink. He still thinks he’s got my number because he tagged along to the governor’s fund-raiser, and I’m getting tired of telling him that I didn’t drag him there to see my ex.

He nods toward the bar, removes the pick from his mouth, and is starting to say something when the waitress brings the check. Lightner stares at the bill like it’s radioactive. I’ve seen more movement from a mannequin.

“No, no,” I say, grabbing the bill. “I already picked up dinner. Let me get this, too.”

“This is, like, client development:”

“Yeah, but I’m the client. You’re supposed to treat me.”

“So I got next one.” Lightner points his toothpick toward the bar. “You’re not gonna believe this, Riley, but I think this lady is actually looking at you.”

The thing I like about Lightner is, he hasn’t changed since I met him, sixteen years ago. His wallet is thicker, his clothes much nicer, and his hair a little grayer, but he’s still got that