Unfortunately, she also realized something else. Paulie was going to make it through the doors at the far end of the car and she wasn’t. She was about to take a trip to the next station without him.
She made another quick decision. She wasn’t fast enough, but maybe her partner was. Erin unsnapped his leash. “Rolf! Fass!”
The Shepherd uncoiled. He threaded between the legs of startled passengers as if it was an agility course. There were any number of people he could’ve bitten, but he’d been well trained and knew to go for the guy who was running. Even as the train’s doors slid shut, he slipped through, his tail barely clearing the narrowing gap. As the train started moving, Erin saw a brief glimpse of the Mafia wannabe going down hard, Rolf on top of him.
Erin could have yanked the emergency stop. She wanted to. But she’d had it drummed into her by her dad that you did not do that unless the train itself was about to kill someone. It wasn’t like the cord on a city bus that politely paged the driver to stop. It would automatically trigger extremely powerful compressed-air brakes. That would set a whole row of municipal dominoes falling, as the MTA would be contacted, the train wouldn’t go anywhere for a quarter of an hour or more, and the brakes would need to be manually reset. At the very least, she’d have to fill out all kinds of forms and get her ass chewed by the MTA, the transit police, and Lieutenant Webb, in that order.
On the flip side, that meant she was stuck on the subway car, staring out the window at her K-9 who was locked in a clinch with a suspect. If Paulie had a gun, he might shoot Rolf.
“Damn, damn, damn,” she said under her breath, her fingernails digging into her palms. She couldn’t even call Dispatch on her phone. Rumor had it the city was working on installing wifi and cell service in the tunnels, but it hadn’t happened yet. All she could do was wait and fret.
At the next station, she was the first one off the train. She saw a transit cop near the wall and ran toward him, holding up her shield.
“I need backup at the Canal Street Station!” she shouted. “Got a 10-12 by an unaccompanied K-9!”
A 10-12 meant a police officer was holding a suspect, which was more or less true. The cop gave her a surprised look, but called it in on his radio. By the time he got through, Erin was back in the tunnel, running alongside the track, sprinting back toward the previous station.
Breathing hard from her run, Erin vaulted onto the platform and saw a circle of bystanders keeping a cautious perimeter. A pair of uniforms had arrived a little before her, but they were clearly at a loss as to what to do. Neither one wanted to interfere with the dog, so they were contenting themselves with holding back the growing crowd. Paulie was still on the ground, Rolf’s jaws clamped on his arm. But the kid was smarter than Erin had given him credit for. Unlike many perps, he wasn’t trying to pull free or fight back. He was holding perfectly still. As a result, while Rolf had him in a firm grip, the Shepherd wasn’t cracking his bones. He’d have bruises, but that was about it.
“Okay, kiddo,” Erin said. “You gonna hold still now?”
Paulie nodded cautiously.
“Rolf, pust,” she said, giving him his “release” command. Rolf obediently let go of the kid and looked at Erin, wagging his tail and waiting to be told what a good boy he was. She pulled his special chew-toy out of her jacket pocket and tossed it to him. He dropped to his belly and started gnawing like an oversized puppy, to the delight of the onlookers. Several of them had their phones out and recording, and Erin knew her partner was on his way to becoming a social media celebrity.
Her attention was still on Paulie. “Show me your hands,” she said. When he held out empty palms, she holstered her Glock. “Any weapons?”
“No.”
“What’s in the backpack?”
“Nothing. Just some stuff, is all.”
“Right,” she said. “I’m gonna need to take a look inside. Stay down and don’t move, you understand?”
He nodded, giving Rolf a nervous glance. Both of them knew he didn’t fancy another tangle with the K-9.
Erin had a legal right to search anybody in New York City, under the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy. It was controversial, particularly when minorities were disproportionately targeted, but in these circumstances Erin figured she wasn’t likely to get too much grief over it. It did mean more paperwork on her horizon. But that was a problem for later. For now, she wanted to see what was in the pack.
She was careful unzipping it. The last thing she needed was a needle-stick. She peeled back the outer flap.
“What the hell?” she murmured.
It was a box of convenience-store chocolates, identical to the one which had poisoned Norman Ridgeway.
“It’s just candy, dammit,” Paulie muttered. “Can I go now?”
Erin pulled out the box and turned it over in her hands. “How come it’s not shrink-wrapped?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” She opened the lid and found herself staring at about two dozen little plastic baggies, each of them containing white powder.
She looked down at Paulie. “It’s candy, all right,” she said. “You got the real sugar right here.”
“I want a lawyer,” he said. Under the circumstances, it was the smartest thing he could have said.
“Yeah, you do,” she said. “Paulie Bianchi, you’re under arrest for felony possession of narcotics. You need to hear your rights? I bet you know them, but I better give ‘em to you anyway. Smile, you’re on camera.”
Three New Yorkers recorded Paulie’s arrest on their phones, while seven more kept filming her dog. That was what passed for news these days.
Chapter 12
“My client has no
