process it. Get Adam to help out.' She grinned. 'Besides, if I stick around, I can have one of those cannoli.'
Monroe laughed. 'You'll be okay getting back?'
'I'll give you a ride,' Angell said.
O'Malley opened the door, holding a piece of paper. 'Hey, angel face, Sal said to give this to you.' He held out the sheet.
Taking it, Angell saw a copy of the inspection form, which matched the one hanging in the window, except without anything circled with a Sharpie. 'Here's another potential motive. Our vic apparently got into a shouting match with'-she peered at the sheet-'Gomer Wilson from the Health Department.'
'His name's really Gomer?' Bonasera asked.
O'Malley shrugged. 'Don't look at me, I busted a guy last week whose name is George Washington. People don't think when they name their kids, I'm telling you.' Then his face lit up. 'Oh, hey, almost forgot, that hippie guy the girls were talking about? I know him.'
'Who, Jack?' Bonasera asked.
'Yeah.' O'Malley started digging around in his pockets. Finally he found what he was looking for-a pile of business cards and receipts. He liberated one of the former. 'Here it is-Jack Morgenstern. He's a web designer. Gave me his card a while back. I'm thinking about making me a website.'
'For what?'
'Never mind,' O'Malley said quickly.
Angell smirked, making a mental note to find out what kind of plans O'Malley had for a website. She suspected that information would be enough to get him to stop calling her 'angel face.' 'Anyhow, here's his address,' O'Malley said. He handed Bonasera the card. 'He's freelance, so he's probably home now.'
'He's local,' Bonasera said. 'Lives on Cambridge Avenue and 235th.' She looked at Angell and handed her the card.
'Tell you what,' Angell said as she snatched the rectangular bit of bond paper from Bonasera's hand, 'I need to notify the family. Why don't you do your vampire thing with the people inside while I do that, then we'll meet back here and talk to our suspect, okay?'
Out came Bonasera's fifty-megawatt smile. 'Sounds like a plan.'
5
JAY BOLTON HATED HIS job. That didn't make him unusual. Most people he knew hated their jobs. Jobs weren't there to like, they were there to be tolerated for the sake of a regular paycheck and inadequate health insurance. That was just the way of the world.
But in his experience, there were two types of employees: the ones who were devoted to their job, who were defined by them, and the ones who did their jobs for the money and stability, but really wanted to be doing something else.
Bolton was one of the latter, and it really pissed him off that it hadn't come to anything yet.
For all of his life, Bolton had wanted to be a writer. He always got A's on his essays in school, and he even had some stuff in the high school literary magazine. Of course, the only people who read that magazine were the teachers, but they thought he had potential. So after he graduated, he started sending his short stories out to get published. He wasn't stupid; he knew writers didn't make a lot of money until they got to the Stephen King or Dan Brown level, so he needed to make a living.
His dad, of course, wanted him to be a cop, like him and Uncle Jake and Grandpa. Dad always went on about how Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, and Polish-Americans in the city had deep-rooted legacies in the NYPD, going back to the early part of the previous century, and he wanted African-Americans to start building their own heritage among the police force as well.
So it broke Dad's heart when Bolton went into corrections instead.
The problem with being a cop was you couldn't just leave it at the office. Dad, Grandpa, and Uncle Jake certainly couldn't. Bolton had figured being a CO would be a good compromise-still in law enforcement, but in a line of work that gave him plenty of time to think about his stories while on the job and wasn't so stressful that he couldn't focus on putting fingers to keyboard while off the job.
Yeah, Dad was unhappy, but once Bolton was a famous writer with book tours and stuff, it wouldn't matter.
Except for one problem. He hadn't sold anything yet.
Not for lack of trying. He'd written a dozen short stories and four novels in the last six years, and all of them came back with form letters with some variation on 'We're sorry, but your manuscript does not fit our needs at this time.' It was insane. Bolton read all the time-he lived in Chelsea, and his commute included a subway ride, the ferry, and a bus ride, which gave him
But still, all he got was 'your manuscript does not fit our needs at this time.'
Made him crazy.
At least yesterday he got to take out some of his frustration during that brawl between the skinheads and the Muslims on the ball field. It wasn't much-you touched a convict, you had to fill out paperwork for a week-but at least he got to yell at some of the skinheads when they tried to get up in Vance Barker's face. He even brandished his nightstick, though he didn't use it.
It wasn't much, but the yelling really let off some steam.
Today, though, the only steam was coming off the ground. It was hot and humid and disgusting. So of course today was the day Ursitti sent him out to watch the convicts in the yard. The ball field was off-limits after yesterday, but they could still wander around the rest of the yard, jog, sit on the benches and play cards or watch television, or use the weight yard.
The weight yard itself was a fenced-in square in the middle of the yard. Right now, forty-five of the Muslims were using it, and the only reason there weren't more was because that was the maximum capacity for the space. Bolton didn't understand why they thought lifting weights was a good idea today, as there was no shade in there. He was half expecting one of them to collapse from heat exhaustion.
But Hakim el-Jabbar wanted to work out, and where he went, as many Muslims as possible followed.
The fence was locked and would stay locked until their time was up, which would be in another twenty minutes or so. After that Bolton was assigned to one of the classes. He couldn't remember which-it was on the board, he'd check. It didn't matter, as long as he was inside. The classes weren't air-conditioned, but at least they had a big fan in the room. It was better than standing out here with no shade.
He shook his head, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and tried to focus. He hadn't been able to think about his latest novel all that much lately for some reason. Instead, he was spending all his time being pissed off about all the rejections, which wasn't helpful.
Since he couldn't seem to focus on the story, he decided to focus on the work. Ursitti had been bitching at him anyhow, saying he was daydreaming on the job.
So he looked around. He had only twenty minutes left, but Bolton had seen fights break out in mere seconds.
Over there, on the far end of the open grass field on the north side of the weight yard, a bunch of Latinos, all members of the Latin Kings, stood around smoking cigarettes and laughing. Another group of the same number stood near enough to keep an eye on them, but far enough away so that they weren't close-these were members of the Bloods. They'd been pretty quiet lately, being wary of each other, not actually getting into it. With this heat, Bolton figured that cease-fire would end damn quick.
Diagonally across the grass field from the gangbangers were Karl Fischer and his redneck squad. They were sharing a laugh over something. Bolton was concerned about that. People didn't laugh much around here, and they certainly didn't in this heat. Every con Bolton saw had darkened armpits and sweat glistening on his forehead. Surly at the best of times, most of them were downright hostile if they were outside right now.
Except Fischer and his boys.
On the south side of the weight yard were the picnic benches, which were under trees and therefore in
