as no-nonsense as they came, but he’d proved his reliability and dedication. I owed him, big-time.
“He’s doing well. Mandatory leave for an officer involved in a shooting, but it’s a clean-cut case and he’ll be back on the street any day now.”
“Good. City needs more cops like you guys.”
“Not going to argue with you there. I keep telling my captain that they need to clone my ass. Sure as hell save the city some money, and they need to save every penny they can these days.”
Jack decided to chime in. “So according to Henry,” he said, “Ken Tsang’s body was beaten pretty bad?”
“Naw. The cops pushing three bills who have to play center field on our softball team get beaten pretty bad.
This guy looks like somebody took a baseball bat and decided to flatten him out to the point where you can slip him inside a mail slot.”
I felt a bad taste in the back of my throat.
Curt said, “Worst part is, Forensics thinks at least half of the bone breaks were inflicted postmortem. Which means whoever killed Tsang didn’t just want him to hurt.
They wanted people to see him look more like a bean bag than a person.”
“First Hector, now his roommate. Somebody is taking out drug runners in the city.”
“Taking them out,” Curt said, “with extreme prejudice.
This isn’t just about somebody cleaning up their mess, this is sending a message that if you don’t watch your back, you’ll find yourself dumped in the East River a whole lot more flexible than when you woke up that morning. What
I want to know is, who is this message going to?”
“Officer Sheffield, where exactly was the body found?” Jack asked. He’d taken out a small notepad, uncapping a pen with his teeth. I did the same, feeling somewhat foolish. Normally when I talked to Curt it was informal. Friend talking to friend, both aware of the other’s professional responsibilities. But Jack was right.
The story came first. Curt looked at the pad, saw Jack was waiting for his answer.
“Garbage scow saw a big canvas bag floating in the river, a few blocks south of the garbage transfer station on Ninety-first Street.”
“The body was in a bag?” I said.
Curt nodded. “Big, heavy burlap sack.”
“You said it was floating,” Jack said. “How would a canvas bag with a body inside float on a river without sinking?”
Curt blinked. He wasn’t holding back. He just didn’t know.
“Hold on a second,” he said. He walked off quickly, and I could tell Curt was as curious about the answer to that question as we were.
Jack was busy scribbling in his notepad. I held back a smile. His eyes were focused, his handwriting sloppy, but that didn’t matter. Mine was no great shakes either, but as long as we could decipher our own it would make do.
Of course recently my handwriting had taken a turn for the worse, which led to several notes from Evelyn Waterstone, the Gazette’ s managing editor, with helpful tips like “Learn basic penmanship.”
“How you feeling?” I said to Jack.
“Hm?” He didn’t look up from the page.
“Just wondering how you’re feeling. That’s all.”
“Fine,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I waited to see if he was going to laugh, but Jack was totally serious.
“I mean, come on, this is your first day back on the job in almost a year. You disappeared faster than Michael
Moore at a Weight Watchers convention, and nobody’s heard from you. Just, you know, want to see how you’re holding up.”
“Just fine,” Jack said with a wry smile. “If I start to slag, be sure to tell me.”
I just nodded, then saw Curt Sheffield walking toward us. There was a strange look on his face, his lip turned upward as if processing information. He came over to where we were standing and said, “Guy was inside a bag that was tied to a buoy.”
“A buoy?” Jack said, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, the body was in a big burlap sack, but get this.
Whoever dropped it into the drink attached it to a freaking buoy. Not only that, but they tied a freaking balloon to the buoy so it could be spotted. A garbage scow noticed the balloon and rope this morning and called it in.”
“They’re sending a message,” Jack said. “Using us as the messenger.”
“Us?” I said.
“This will make the first ten pages in every newspaper. The message isn’t for cops. It’s for other dealers.
They read about what’s happening to their friends, they keep their noses clean. So to speak.”
“You could be right,” Curt said.
Jack tapped the pen against his lip. “You said the bag was found by a garbage scow a few blocks from the
Ninety-first Street transfer station. Do you know if that was where the body was dumped from?”
“That isn’t public knowledge yet, and I think I’ll get a reprimand if I tell you guys anything else. Listen, I gotta run, but we’ll release more info as it comes. Meantime, you two are smart enough to put two and two together.”
“Actually, I’m waiting for Jack to teach me that.”
“Yeah, take it easy, Henry. Mr. O’Donnell.”
“Officer,” Jack said. When Curt was out of earshot, Jack said to me, “Hundred bucks says the body was dumped from the transfer station.”
“Why?”
“This whole thing…the body pulverized, the bag attached to a buoy, I mean, who does that? Once this story breaks, every lowlife in the city will know that Ken
Tsang was mutilated in an ungodly way.”
“Not to mention the garbage connotation. That he’s nothing but filth.”
“That, too.”
“But if this message is going to dealers, who’s sending it?”
“The same people who killed Hector Guardado. And most likely your brother, too,” Jack said. “My guess is
Hector might have some more info for us.”
“Hey, Jack, you might have missed the memo, but
Guardado’s dead. Kind of hard for him to be a source of new info.”
“The man’s got friends. Colleagues. Let’s wait until the news breaks, and then tomorrow morning we see which of Hector’s old friends are scared enough to talk.”
4
They could hear whispering from behind the door before they’d even knocked. The three of them walked down the hallway, the floor covered in cigarette butts and crack vials.
The two men walked in front, the woman trailing them behind. She wore a jacket over a tank top, her arms loose by her side. The man on the left was blond, trim, and grinned like he’d been looking forward to this. The other wore a long coat and a scowl, and was in no mood to smile.
The men behind the door had been waiting for their arrival. The whispering was excited, impatient. So when the two lead men finally did knock on the door, it opened barely a moment later.
