ambulance here.'
A second patrolman entered the place now, his gun
also drawn, his eyes wide, his face pale. He had never
seen a dead body before except for that time in a funeral
home when his uncle Pete died of sclerosis of the liver.
The first patrolman, similarly inexperienced, was already
on his mobile phone, telling Sergeant Murchison at the
Eight-Seven that there'd been a shoot-out in the pizzeria
on Culver and Sixth, Guide's, the place was called. 'There's one person down, better send a meat wagon,' he actually called it, causing Murchison to wince.
The television cameras arrived some five minutes
before either the ambulance or a second car from adjoin
ing Charlie Sector angled into the curb. A woman wearing
a fake fur that looked fake told the roving reporter that all
at once these two big guys came in and started shooting
at the man lying on the floor over there, at which point
the camera operator panned over to where Danny was
lying in an ocean of slippery pizza toppings, blood and
tomato sauce mingling to create an op-art camera op.
The second patrolman told everybody to keep back; he
was wondering if he should put up some of those yellow
crime scene
tapes he had in the trunk of the patrol car.
Two teenagers wearing woolen watch caps, ski parkas, and baggy pants tried to position themselves behind the
victim so they could grin and wave at the camera, but they
were too late. The camera operator had already turned
to the entrance door, where a pair of detectives from the Eight-Seven were walking in looking very official and busy, shields pinned to their overcoats, faces raw from the biting cold outside. Behind them, an ambulance was pulling in, which made for another good shot, the detectives with long strides and flapping overcoats, the flashing red lights on the ambulance, this was the camera operator's lucky day.
Arthur Brown, one of the responding detectives, would later tell everyone in the squadroom that even before Carella informed him, he knew the guy laying on the floor there was dead. The detective with Brown was Bert Kling. The minute he spotted Carella, he went over to him and asked, 'What happened?'
'Two hitters nailed Danny Gimp,' Carella said, and
got to his feet, his coat sleeve stained with blood from Danny's wounds, the knees of his trousers soiled from
all the pizza shit on the floor.
They all stood around while the stretchers came in.
The paramedics realized at once that there wasn't any
urgency about getting Danny aboard.
Chapter Three
Since there were two homicides on the table this Tuesday
morning—an unusual circumstance, even for the Eight-
Seven —Lieutenant Byrnes told the detectives assembled
in his office that he'd be skipping over all the usual shit
and getting directly to the murders, if nobody had any
objections. Andy Parker didn't think the murder of a two-bit stool pigeon should take priority over a drug bust he'd been trying to set up for the past two weeks, but he knew better than to challenge the lieutenant when he was wearing what Parker referred to privately as his 'Irish Look.'
Hal Willis wasn't too tickled to be passed over, either.
He'd caught a burglary yesterday where the perp had left
chocolate-covered donuts on his victim's pillow. This looked a lot like what the Cookie Boy used to do, but
he'd jumped bail in August and was now only God knew where. So this guy was obviously a copycat, which similarity might have made for a little early morning amusement if the lieutenant hadn't pulled the chain. Like teenagers invited to a party and then requested not to dance, please, the two detectives slouched sourly against the wall, arms folded across their chests in unmistakable body language. They didn't even sniff at the bagels
and coffee on the lieutenant's desk, a treat—or more accurately a bribe to encourage punctuality—paid for by the squadroom slush fund every Tuesday.
This was eight o'clock in the morning. A harsh, bright sunlight streamed through Byrnes's corner windows. All told, and including the lieutenant, there were eight detectives in the office. Artie Brown and Bert Kling had responded to the pizzeria shoot-out and were looking for anything they could get on the two shooters. Carella and Meyer wanted to explore the Hale case. The two detectives sulking against the wall didn't care to offer their thoughts on anything. They' d been shut out, and they were miffed, although Byrnes seemed blithely unaware of their annoyance. Cotton Hawes was neutral. His plate was clean at the moment. In fact, he'd been in court testifying all last week. Sitting in a leather easy chair opposite the lieutenant's desk, feeling curiously uninvolved, like a cop visiting from another city, he listened as the lieutenant summarized the two homicide cases, and then asked, 'You think they're linked?'
'Maybe,' Carella said.
'Meyer?' Byrnes asked.
'Only if they were trying to shut Danny up.'
'You sure they weren't after Steve?'
'No, it was Danny,' Kling said.
'Neither of them even fired a shot at me.'
'Ten, twelve people saw them go straight for Danny,' Brown said.
'They'd seen a lot of movies.'
'Kept describing it as a gangland execution.'
'In broad daylight?' Hawes asked, and shook his head
skeptically. He was sitting in sunlight. It caught his red
hair, setting it on fire. The single white streak over his
left temple looked like a patch of melting snow.
'Nobody says your goons are brain surgeons.'
'Black and white, huh?'
'And red all over.'
'Could've been an old beef,' Hawes suggested. 'Finally caught up with him.'
