Sonny Rocca knew the name too. The killer bought him off — paid him to whack Bartok. It was a very clever move. He couldn’t get close enough to Bartok to do it himself, so he paid someone else to do it. Nice.
Except, how did he know to do that?
Suppose I’m the perp, Doyle thinks. Psycho that I am, I follow the detective around, acing each and every one of his friends as I go. News reaches my super-sensitive ears that Doyle is now talking to one Kurt Bartok, so naturally Bartok is next on my list.
I don’t care if they’re good or evil. Make them your friends, and they’re dead.
Problem is, Bartok isn’t like the others. This is a man who expects attempts on his life as a hazard of his profession. This is a man who surrounds himself with an army to prevent any such efforts reaching fruition.
So what do I do? I know, I’ll approach one of Bartok’s closest bodyguards, offer him a shit-load of money, and he’ll do the job for me.
Yeah, like fuck.
How did the perp even know who Sonny Rocca was, let alone that he was disgruntled with his boss? What made him think he could trust Rocca? What made him so sure that Rocca wouldn’t cap him as soon as he even broached the idea, or that he wouldn’t immediately spill the beans to Bartok? How did he know there was the remotest chance his offer would be accepted?
His offer.
What was it Sonny said just before he died?
I made him an offer. He made me a better one.
Sonny Rocca made the killer an offer. What kind of offer?
Whatever it was, it means that the killer didn’t need to work out whom to approach to do his dirty work.
Sonny Rocca had already come to him!
Why? Was he acting on Bartok’s behalf? If so, what would Bartok possibly want from this lunatic?
Doyle crumples the letter up again and tosses it to the floor. He doesn’t see the logic in any of this. None of it makes any sense.
He starts to pace. His foot kicks the empty cardboard box. He looks down at it, and sees that bird looking right back at him. He bends down and picks up the box. It used to contain a CD player, manufactured by a Japanese company. The image of a bird is not part of the original packaging; it was stamped onto it at a later date. Doyle spins the box around, examining each of its sides. On one end is another stamp, giving details of the consignment. Amongst other things it gives the name of the company that has received this item and will be selling it in its stores.
Trogon Electronics.
And then it all comes back to him.
A conversation. Part of an investigation. Doyle talking to one of the managers at Trogon. Asking him, ‘What the fuck is a trogon, anyhow?’ And the manager replying that it’s a bird found in Central and South America. Hence the company logo.
You learn something every day.
And the reason Doyle was talking to this guy in the first place was. .
Doyle races across to his jacket, whips out his cellphone. He speed-dials a number.
‘Eighth Precinct. Detective LeBlanc.’
‘Tommy, it’s me. Cal Doyle.’
‘Cal! How you doin’, man? Making the most of the hotel hospitality?’
Doyle looks around at the peeling paint, the threadbare curtains. ‘Uh, yeah. It’s nice to be waited on like this, you know? Listen, Tommy, can you do something for me?’
‘Sure, buddy. What is it?’
‘You remember that hit on the Trogon Electronics warehouse a couple months back?’
There’s a moment’s pause, like LeBlanc doesn’t know where Doyle is coming from with this.
‘Yeah?’ he drawls.
‘Somewhere in the fives there’s a list of item numbers of the stolen goods. You think you can look those out for me and call me back?’
‘Uh, well. . Look, Cal, I want to help you and all, but aren’t you kinda off the job right now? I mean, why do you need this shit?’
How much to tell him? Can I trust him? Can I trust anyone?
‘Tell you the truth, Tommy, I’m bored stiff in this place. I’m going out of my mind waiting for you guys to rescue me. So I’m working through some old cases, just to keep me occupied. You don’t mind, do you?’
Another pause. ‘I guess not. Give me five minutes.’
Doyle ends the call, but keeps the phone in his hand. He returns to his chair and waits. It’s more like fifteen minutes before LeBlanc calls him.
‘Yeah.’
‘Cal? Where are you?’
‘What do you mean? I’m in the hotel, like I told you.’
‘Yeah? Well, I been calling you on your room phone for the last five minutes.’
Shit.
‘I, uh, I’m sorry, Tommy. I shoulda said. I’m not in my room. I’m down in the bar. I was calling you on my cell. You get the numbers?’
‘Uh, yeah, yeah. I got ’em. What do you want to know?’
‘CD players. You got a bunch beginning with the letters CDX?’
‘Yeah. About a dozen of ’em.’
‘Okay. Read them out to me.’
While LeBlanc reels them off, Doyle stares at the number on his carton. When nine or ten numbers have been called, he begins to think he’s got it wrong.
‘Wait. That last number. Read it to me again, slowly.’
LeBlanc sounds out the digits, Doyle moving his finger steadily along the box.
Bingo.
‘That’s great, Tommy. Thanks.’
‘That it? That’s all you wanted?’
‘Like I said, I’m just trying to tie up a few loose ends on old cases. No big deal.’
‘Oh. Okay. . Listen, man, I hope you can get back on the job soon. I mean it. We’re doing all we can to find this guy. It’s just, well. .’
‘Yeah, I know. Thanks. I’ll see you soon.’
He ends the call. He doesn’t want to hear any more about how the squad is putting all its efforts into his case. It’s starting to make him want to vomit.
He looks again at the box, as if doing so will help him to fit this new piece of information into the puzzle. The CD player was stolen in a raid on a warehouse owned by Trogon Electronics. Three months ago, Doyle collared a crew he believed responsible for that robbery, but their shyster lawyer got them off the hook faster than you can say habeas corpus.
The crew comprised the Bartok brothers and Sonny Rocca.
And now one of those purloined items turns up in the home of Mickey ‘Spinner’ Spinoza — a man who, like the Bartoks and Rocca, also became tangled in the web of Doyle’s persecutor and died because of it.
Coincidence? My ass!
Spinner was fencing goods for the Bartoks. That means he knew them, and they knew him — well enough to entrust him with selling on their ill-gotten gains.
Something Spinner said on the phone. .
I got a meeting fixed up. Some people I know. They want to talk about who whacked your two partners.
Could those people have been Bartok and Co.?
Until now Doyle has always assumed that the meeting was a sham, that the killer somehow pretended to be someone that Spinner knew and trusted, in order to bring him into his clutches.
But Spinner was no idiot. Good snitches like him don’t stay on this earth for very long unless they possess a substantial amount of street smarts. It would not have been easy to get him to walk blindly into a trap like that.
And there’s something else that bothers Doyle. Why bring Spinner back here? Why would the killer trick Spinner into coming to him, only to drag Spinner back to his apartment to torture and kill him?
So what if he really was on his way to a meeting? He talked about they — plural. Could they be Bartok and Rocca?
Think it through, Doyle.
Okay, so Spinner is asking around on his behalf, trying to find out who’s giving him all this grief. The mistake Spinner makes is talking to Bartok or one of Bartok’s men — those good old buddies of his. They say, Sure, come on in; we’ll give you the name.
Two things. First o
f all, why? Why would they offer to give Spinner the name? What was in it for them? Were Spinner’s services as a fence of such great value to them?
Thought number two: if Bartok wasn’t bluffing about the name, then that means he knew it well before he called Doyle in and told him he could get hold of it. So why didn’t he just say, I know the name you want, and here’s my price for it?
Answer: Because he didn’t want Doyle connecting him with things that had gone on before.
He didn’t want me linking him to Spinner’s death!
The perp didn’t need X-ray vision or a cloak of invisibility to know about Doyle’s meeting with Spinner. He was told by Bartok about Spinner’s interest. Spinner wasn’t killed because he got too close to Doyle, but because he knew, or was about to discover, the killer’s name. Same probably goes for Doyle’s meetings with Bartok. The perp didn’t have to be watching him around the clock. Bartok or one of Bartok’s men told the killer that Doyle was talking to them.
But why would Bartok go to all the trouble of bringing Spinner in to give him the name, then hand him over to be tortured and put to death? It doesn’t make sense.
Unless. .
Unless it was a way of putting pressure on the killer. Because the thing that Bartok was offering was his silence in return for the killer’s cooperation.
Bartok was saying, I know your name, and unless you do what I want, I’m giving it out.
Only the approach backfired. Twice. The second time fatally for Bartok.
Which brings us back to the earlier question: What form of cooperation did Bartok want? Why was this guy of such interest?
Doyle reaches for his phone again. Dials another number.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, hon. It’s me.’
‘Cal! Where are you? Are you coming home?’
He doesn’t want to tell her where he is. He doesn’t want her to know he’s hiding away in this shit-heap, doing his best to stay alive.
‘Soon, Rach. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Something came up. A snag.’
Ha, he thinks. A snag! If that’s a term you can use to cover three more people dead and me trying to get into a Lexus through its roof.
‘At breakfast, Amy wanted to know why you weren’t there yet. She drew a lot of new pictures for you last night. She’s desperate for you to see them. I didn’t know what to say to her.’
He doesn’t want to hear this. It’s too painful.
‘Honey, I need you to do something for me.’
‘What?’
‘You know that little address book of mine in the bureau? Could you go fetch it for me?’
‘An address book. Cal, have you been listening to a word of what I’ve just said to you?’
What to tell her? That maybe his life is hanging on this? That if this doesn’t pan out as he hopes, she may never see him again?
‘Rachel, please. It’s important.’
He hears her put the phone down and walk away. Seconds later she’s back.
‘All right, I’ve got it.’
‘Go to the P section.’
He hears her tuck the phone under her chin, then her trying to steady her breathing as she flicks through the pages.
‘Okay. Now what?’
‘I need a cellphone number.’
‘Cut to the chase, Cal. Whose number do you want? And it better not be an old girlfriend.’
He tells her, then waits out the expected shocked silence.
‘Cal, what is this?’
‘I just need to call him, that’s all.’
‘You want to talk to that bastard?’
‘Yes.’
‘The man who nearly destroyed you? The man who nearly broke up our marriage?’
‘Yes.’
There comes an exhalation of redirected anger. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Cal. And when you see Paulson, you can tell him from me he can go fuck himself.’
TWENTY-SIX
Says Paulson, ‘Coffee and donuts.’
Says Doyle, ‘Look, Paulson, all I want to do is ask you a lousy question or two. We can do this on the phone.’
Paulson sighs. ‘Last time we spoke, you said you wouldn’t go for coffee and donuts with me. I was insulted. Hurt, in fact. Now you need something from me, I think it’s only fair you make amends. Coffee and donuts.’
Doyle thinks on it. A date with Paulson has never ranked high on his list of ambitions.
‘You know my circumstances. Being around me is even worse for your health than those high-tar cigarettes you keep puffing on. I should carry a warning from the Surgeon General.’
‘You know my circumstances too. My line of work, other cops tend to be a little shy in making the first advance. It’s nice when guys like you realize what a valuable service we perform. Come on, Doyle, pop the question. I promise I won’t be a prick-teaser.’
Fuck him, Doyle thinks. He wants to be the next rat in the trap, so be it. This time the perp may actually be doing me a service.
‘Where and when?’
The when is four-thirty in the afternoon. It’s the earliest Paulson can make, which means that Doyle has no choice but to bide his time in Spinner’s palace, switching his gaze between daytime TV and the cockroaches and trying to decide which has more entertainment value.
The where is Kath’s Koffees on Eighth Street, a place which Doyle feels is uncomfortably close to the precinct station house and people who might recognize him. But then, anywhere in the state of New York seems too close to the station house right now.
When he arrives, Paulson is already seated in a booth. It’s a window booth, so Doyle couldn’t be any more visible to passers-by. Sighing, Doyle takes a seat opposite Paulson.
The IAB man is pouring a packet of white sugar into tar-black coffee. The remnants of several other packets are scattered around the table, meaning that either Paulson has had several cups already, or else he likes his coffee tooth-achingly sweet.
‘Nice place,’ says Doyle. ‘You come here often?’
Paulson dips a spoon into the murk and begins to stir. It looks like he’s struggling to push it through the molten sugar.
‘It has a certain ambience.’
‘I think the word is ambulance, for after you’ve eaten here.’
A waitress scrapes her shoes across to the table and asks for his order. Doyle requests a coffee.
‘And donuts,’ Paulson says. ‘We agreed donuts.’
Doyle nods his assent to the waitress and she shuffles off again.
‘We could have done this on the phone,’ Doyle says.
‘No, we couldn’t,’ Paulson responds. ‘Sure, we could have traded questions, information, facts, whatever. But true social interaction — you can’t get that in a phone call. That’s the tragedy of today’s cellphone culture. Too many people think they’re socializing when in fact they’re avoiding it. It’s a sad situation. I mean, look at us here. The two of us, drinking coffee, eating donuts, passing the time. There’s no substitute for that, is there?’
‘What do you want me to say, Paulson? That this is the highlight of my week? It ain’t gonna happen. There’s too much shit gone under the bridge for that. I came to you because I got a question that maybe you can answer. I thought maybe, just this once, you might be willing to try and help a cop out instead of doing what you can to get him jammed up.’
Paulson takes a sip of his coffee, licks his lips, then nods as if in satisfaction with the drink’s consistency and flavor.
‘What is it with cops like you, Doyle? How is it you manage to see everything in black and white? Where does this notion of simplicity come from? The boys in blue, the precinct DTs — they’re all good guys, right? Doing everything they can to put the world to rights. Doing it on piss-poor pay, too, and under conditions of service that get lousier every time the commissioner puts pen to paper. And then you got people like me. The ones who crossed to the dark side. The ones who will use any means at their disposal to hurt honest, hard-working officers. T
hat about sum it up for you, Doyle?’
Doyle nods, more to humor Paulson than anything else. He’s not in the mood for joining a debating society right now.
‘Something like that,’ he mutters.
Paulson takes another sip. ‘You know what I was doing two weeks ago today?’
Doyle wants to groan in despair. He just wants to lay down his questions and get out of here.
‘I dunno. Helping old ladies cross the street and then asking them what their cop grandsons do when they’re off duty?’
‘No. I was arresting a cop. I made the collar personally. Even put the cuffs on myself.’
‘Well, that sounds like a good day’s work. Shame on me for thinking badly of you.’
‘You want to know what the guy did?’
Not really, Doyle thinks. ‘He take home an official NYPD pencil? That would be pretty serious, I think. Hard prison time for that one. Maybe even the death penalty if you play your cards right.’
‘I’ll tell you what he did. .’
Paulson pauses while the waitress brings over Doyle’s coffee and the two donuts. Paulson takes a bite of his donut and gives another nod of satisfaction. Doyle wonders how long it’ll be before Paulson goes hyper when the sugar and caffeine rush kicks in.
‘I’ll tell you what he did,’ Paulson repeats. ‘Porn. On his computer. Masses of it.’
‘Well, thank God you uncovered that one, Paulson. You never know, could be the guy was even planning to jerk off sometime. Where would we be then?’
Paulson stuffs another chunk of food into his mouth, but doesn’t let it stop him from speaking. ‘I’m talking thousands of images here. Movies, even. Some of them pretty hardcore stuff. Stuff that would make your hair curl.’
Doyle flicks particles of jettisoned food from his jacket sleeve. ‘Yeah, well, don’t let it worry you too much. One of these days you’ll get a real live girlfriend of your own and you’ll realize it’s not so disgusting. Some of it is actually pretty good fun.’
‘I’m talking kiddie porn,’ Paulson says.
Doyle stares at him, but Paulson isn’t even looking back. He’s raising his coffee cup, blowing across the surface of the steaming liquid. Doyle realizes he’s just been led into a well-prepared trap.
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