Sleeping Dogs

Lempert continued up the alley another block before turning onto Sixth and crossing the street to the other side. The cops standing out on the sidewalk would be cutting the amenities short about now and getting into their squad cars to rest their feet, which meant they would have nothing to do for about two hours but stare up the street and watch the lights change. He made it across while they were still gathered in a gaggle in front of the theater, then made a circuit of Atlantic Avenue behind the theater and back to Fourth. If tonight was the night the bastard was going after Cambria, then he hadn’t done anything much to get ready.

Lempert made his way back to the van on Chautauqua, still walking along with his head down and his collar turned up. As soon as he had passed the last parked car, he stepped into the gutter and followed it to the rear of the van. He had swung the door open and was all the way inside when he felt it. He stopped moving, but just to be sure, the son of a bitch slid it up his back and let the cold muzzle touch the nape of his neck. It was the kind of thing any of them would do because Puccio had taught them to be sadists. He was angry, but he supposed he would have to go through the whole idiotic cross-examination before he reminded this one that Puccio had called him and that he was doing no more than what Puccio wanted everyone to do.

“What do you want?” said Lempert.

“I want you.”

Holy shit, it wasn’t them; it was him. Lempert started to shiver. He was on his hands and knees, and his damned elbows wouldn’t stop shaking and giving out on him; what if the bastard thought all this twitching was some kind of a lame attempt to struggle? Suddenly he was overcome by a clear vision of his stupidity, and it brought a sort of repentance. What the hell could he have been thinking, coming out here to try and ambush a man like this? The money wasn’t even real anymore.

“I think you remember me.”

Lempert started thinking about a move a burglary suspect had tried on him once. He had told him to lie facedown and kiss the pavement, but when the guy got on his hands and knees he sprang forward like a damned gazelle, so all Lempert could do was trip the guy and then put the boots to him. The Butcher’s Boy could open fire and blast his spine. Then, as if he were a damned mind reader, the voice said, “Don’t do anything. I’m going to take the gun because I want to talk.”

As the invisible hand reached into his jacket pocket and took the service revolver, Lempert felt a secret joy. But then the hand went directly to his right ankle and took the other one too, the .32. “What do you want to talk about?”

“First I want you to crawl up to the driver’s seat and pull out of here.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I won’t need to kill you if you do.”

The answer mesmerized Lempert. Need to? But of course he would say anything to get Lempert to drive out of here. If he burned Lempert here, he wasn’t going to be able to walk away whistling. Eight cops—even those eight cops—were not going to let him do that. But need to? It gave him a tiny bit of hope that he might get out of this. If the Butcher’s Boy didn’t want to kill him, maybe he still had a chance. And even if Lempert somehow reversed things and managed to kill the bastard instead of having the bastard kill him, what was he going to say to the eight cops himself? What was the dead suspect doing in the van? He crawled to the seat, pulled himself up, started the engine and tried to look in the mirror to back up.

“Turn the lights on,” said the Butcher’s Boy.

“Oh, yeah,” said Lempert. He could barely get his hand to stop shaking so that he could turn the switch. Oh, God. He really had forgotten them, and now the bastard thought he was playing some trick.

As he started to turn out onto the street, the Butcher’s Boy said, “Go straight while we talk.”

Lempert obeyed, and he decided the bastard had made a mistake. There was something about driving—the thing he had spent eight hours a day doing for more than twenty years—that revived him. He was in control of all this power, so he couldn’t be powerless. “So why didn’t you kill Paul Cambria?”

“I don’t have anything against Paul Cambria. I came to see you.”

Lempert’s bravado disappeared. He had to talk to him, to say something that wasn’t in the groove of the bastard’s logic. “How do you even remember me?”

“Things come back to me. I figured you’d be hanging around Cambria, so I found him. You’re still a cop, right?”

“Yeah.” Oh, sweet Jesus. What could this be about? The bastard didn’t say another word for three blocks. Then he got it. Carlo Balacontano. Ten years ago. The bastard had some wacko idea that because Lempert was a cop he could get to Carl Bala in a federal prison. What happens when he finds out Lempert can’t?

Finally, “I want you to get something for me. I’ll pay you.”

It was coming. Maybe he could convince the bastard with some bullshit story: if you come to the prison with me, all I have to do is flash my badge and they’ll let us in armed. Bang. “What do you want?”

“Pull over up here.”

Lempert looked around as he slowed down. He made a guess; this man wouldn’t shoot him in front of a copying store that was still open, and next door to a bar that had barely begun its prime hours, and across the street from a pizza place. He stopped the van by the curb, but didn’t turn off the engine until the man said, “Come on. We’re going in there.”

The bar? He must mean the bar. Lempert turned off the engine. “Drop the keys on the floor and come out after me.” He dropped the keys on the floor, then waited until the bastard got out. He looked for an opportunity, but there was none. Then they were both on the street, and he could see the bastard in the light. He hadn’t changed much. It was almost eerie. He was six feet away, and had the service revolver in his hand, and his hand in his coat, and Lempert had no doubt that if he moved wrong or tripped on something and stumbled, he would have a hole in him before he hit the ground.

They walked into the copying store. There were typewriters and computers for rent, and lots of envelopes and colored paper for sale, and about a dozen Xerox machines in two rows. When Lempert saw the kid behind the counter, with his long, greasy ponytail and dark, bushy eyebrows that showed over the tops of his dark glasses, he decided there was a God. He remembered pulling this kid out of a 280Z after following him for ten blocks. It was the end of the month, and Lempert needed to write a few more tickets, so he had decided that this kid was going too fast. The kid had smirked at him, so he had whirled him around, slammed him against the car and frisked him, then put the cuffs on him and made him lie on the ground while he searched the car for drugs. If only he had found some, or planted some. Then this kid wouldn’t be the one to lean on the counter and smirk at him while he got his brains blown out.

“Here’s what I want,” said the Butcher’s Boy. “I want a copy of whatever the FBI is sending out to the police computers about me.”

“The NCIC file? How am I supposed to do that?”

“Maybe somebody will fax it here from the station, or Washington, or whatever. Maybe you can get one of these computers onto a phone line and call it up. Anyway, do it.”

“Give me a minute to think.”

“If you do it, I’ll pay you. If there’s some trick or something, I”—and then he paused for what seemed like a long time—“won’t.”

Lempert went to the kid at the counter. “I want to use a phone.”

The kid recognized him. He hesitated, and Lempert had the impression that he was scared, but it gave him no pleasure. “Here’s the phone.”

Lempert only briefly considered saying something on the phone that made no sense. Who could say what this man knew? He dialed the squad room and heard McNulty’s voice say, “Police Department Metro Division.” Of course it had to be McNulty working tonight, somebody who not only didn’t like Lempert but was also so stupid that his partners wouldn’t ride in a car with him unless they had personally checked the shotgun to be sure there wasn’t a shell in the chamber when he stuck it in the rack.

“It’s me, McNulty. Lempert,” he said. “I need a favor.”

“Don’t we all,” said McNulty.

Lempert thought for a moment. What was in his desk? Nothing that would get him into this much trouble. “I want you to look in the lower left-hand drawer of my desk, and fax the stuff in the file folder on top to me.”

“So where are you, Paris?”

“This is serious.”