“I don’t want to answer any further questions,” Pamela said.
“Good,” Wilkerson said, and nodded in dismissal.
“You can stop answering questions, that’s Miranda-Escobedo, and it still holds for some lucky citizens of these United States,” Nellie said. “But you’re still under arrest, and you can’t stop me from asking you to put on a baseball cap like the one you were wearing when the witness saw you—who by the way is down the hall waiting to have a better look at you in a lineup—and you can’t stop me from asking you to put your finger to your nose, or walk across a stage, or jump up and down for me three times, or sing ‘Eeensy Weensy Spider’ in the key of G! And please don’t give me any bullshit about fingerprints and The Poisoned Tree, Alex. I’ve been informed by Detective Carella that we already have her prints on file, but I don’t want to risk any technical nonsense later on about them not being hers, or whatever you might come up with, which from personal experience I know can be plenty. That’s why I want her prints taken again, now, in my presence, which is exactly what we’regoingto do. And then we’re going to compare them with the ones we lifted from two separate rest rooms at King Memorial. If we get a positive match, and I feel certain we will, your client can kiss…”
“Canthey do all that?” Pamela asked suddenly.
“I’m afraid they can,” Wilkerson said.
“Then it’s all over,” Pamela said.
17
THIS WAS THEmeat-packing section of the city.
During the daytime, trucks pulled in and out, and sides of beef were unloaded, and hung on platform hooks and then carried inside where they were weighed and refrigerated. Food stands and flower carts and stalls selling photographs suitable for framing lined the streets during the daytime, and African merchants in tribal robes hawked imitation Rolexes and Louis Vuitton luggage. During the daytime, there were restaurants and book shops and antiques emporiums and furniture stores, and couples wandered down to the river to watch the big steamers and the tug boats, and the ferries chugging over to Bethtown during the daytime.
At night, the streets were thronged with hookers.
“Vice don’t bother with this petty shit anymore,” Walsh told Ollie. “Ever since the terrorist business started, we got more important things on our mind. Hookers have it easy now. Terrorism made it easy for hookers.”
“How about you get some hooker commits a crime?” Ollie said.
“That’s a different story. Every now and then, one of the girls’ll stab a john gets out of line, that’s an ADW no matter how you slice it, no pun intended.”
“I’m not talking about deadly assault, I’m talking about a minor crime like stealing somebody’s dispatch case has something valuable in it. Does that attract your attention?”
“You know,” Walsh said, “you sometimes have a snotty way of saying things.”
“Gee, really. What did I just say that was snotty?”
“You said, ‘Does that attract your attention?’ With a little edge to it, you know? As if we’re not doing our jobs or something. As if Vice has nothing to do all day long but worry about some fuckin dispatch case.”
“Well, you just told me you look the other way, you got more important things on your mind, you don’t bother with this petty shit anymore…”
“That’s just what I mean,” Walsh said. “The way you just said that.”
“I was only repeating what you said.”
“It’s thewayyou repeated it.”
“All I’m asking is whether a hooker who stole a dispatch case is worth your valuable time, is all I’m…”
“There you go again,” Walsh said. “My valuable time. That little edge of sarcasm there. That snotty tone. I was trying to indicate to you that we’ve been on high alert for Arabs and other such types ever since 9/11. This is Vice here, we know every whore house in this city. These fucks pray to God five times a day, but then they go out drinking and lap-dancing before they crash an airplane into a building.”
Ollie suddenly liked the man.
“I tell you,” Walsh said, “I wouldn’t care to be some guy who looks even vaguely Middle Eastern when the only mischief on his mind is getting laid, though they ain’t supposed to do that in their religion, anyway, go to a whore house. Unless they’re Saudi Arabians in London,” Walsh said, and Ollie liked him even more. “We got girls all over town waiting to call us the minute one of these creeps shows up. But that ain’tallwe do, Weeks.”
“Oh, I know that,” Ollie said.
“No, youdon’tknow it, all your remarks about our looking the other way, or being sarcastic about my valuable time…”
“Don’t be so fuckin sensitive,” Ollie said.
“Well, Iamsensitive,” Walsh said. “Vice ain’t concerned only with prostitution. We’re after the policy racket, bookmaking, loan sharking, ticket scalping, we’re after the big boys, the ones running the show. We want to get ’em on RICO, send ’em up forever. That’s why you tell me some hooker stole a fuckindispatchcase, I’m supposed to get all excited about it? Give me a break, willya?”
“I’m sorry, but that case had something in it very valuable to me.”
“You telling me it’syourcase?”
“Yes, it was my case this Herrera hump stole from my parked car and hocked.”
“So what was so valuable in this case of yours?”
“Well, nowyou’redoing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Sounding sarcastic.”
“I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic.”
“I mean, you tell meyou’resensitive, well,I’msensitive, too,” Ollie said.
“I’m sorry, okay? Tell me what was in the fuckin case, okay?”
“A novel I wrote.”
“You wrote a novel?”
“Yes.”
“So did I!” Walsh said.
Everybody wants to get in the act, Ollie thought.
“It’s with my agent right this minute,” Walsh said.
He’s got an agent, no less, Ollie thought.
“What’s it about?” he asked.
“Police work, what do you think it’s about?” Walsh said.
That’s what we need, all right, Ollie thought. Another novel about police work. There used to be no novels about police work at all. Then, all of a sudden—God knows who or what the influence might have been—every shitty little town in America had a fictitious character working out of a detective squadroom. To look at all these police novels out there, you’d think every hamlet in America was overrun with crime. Dumb little village has a population of six hundred people, according to these novels there are murders being committed there every hour on the hour. Let’s say you live in Dung Heap, Oklahoma, and your day job is you’re a garage mechanic. You go to the local police chief and you tell him you’re a writer and you want to set a series in his police station. The Chief says, “Come in, sit down, I’ll bare my soul to you.” Never mind being arealcop. Nobody’s real anymore, Ollie thought, that’s the trouble. Well,Walshis real, but fuck him, the Irish hump!Hewrote a police novel. That makes him competition.
“So let’s find Herrera, okay?” Ollie said.
“One of these days, we have to have a beer together,” Walsh said. “Talk shop.”
Yeah, one of these days nextyear,Ollie thought.
“Hey, fellas, wanna take a picture of my pussy?” a voice behind them said.
They both turned to see two girls standing there and grinning. The one with the camera seemed a trifle
