When I turned back to Eleanor, I saw that she was looking toward the front of the hall. Following her gaze, I spotted Sinclair standing behind his chair on the dais.
Talking with Biegler, who seemed almost painfully out of place in his ordinary jacket and tie. The uninvited interruption. Moreover, from the strained looks on their faces, and the lieutenant’s desultory gestures, I could tell it wasn’t a pleasant conversation.
“Jesus, Harry,” Eleanor said aloud.
I touched her elbow. “C’mon, Eleanor. Tell me what’s going on with Polk.”
“That’s just it, Danny. I don’t know. He’s been missing roll calls. Disappears from the precinct for hours, and nobody knows where he is. I’ve had to cover for him a dozen times.” She shook her head. “If he doesn’t get his shit together, he’s gonna be out on his ass. Biegler’s ready to drop a rock on him already, I can tell. God knows, he’s been looking for an excuse for years.”
Suddenly I understood her behavior in the hospital parking lot the day before. When she’d first brought up her concerns about Harry, and then brusquely cut the conversation short. She’d felt disloyal for talking about him behind his back. For seeming to narc on her own partner.
Yet she was worried. Both for his career, and for him personally. I could see the bind she was in.
“Look, Eleanor. I tried to broach the subject with Harry myself and got told to back off. I don’t know what he’s doing, or gotten himself mixed up in, but we can’t beat it out of him.”
She clenched her fists. “Don’t tempt me.”
Then, with a rueful smile, she turned and—to my surprise—kissed me on the cheek.
“Thanks, Danny. For giving a damn. About Harry.”
She took her thumb and rubbed her lipstick off my face. “And about me.”
I watched as she threaded her way through the maze of tables to the front of the hall and the dais, where an impatient Sinclair and Biegler waited.
I reached up to touch the still-warm imprint of her lips on my cheek.
I glanced at my watch.
“Five minutes,” Brian Fletcher had said. That was ten minutes ago.
From where I stood, I could see Sinclair, Biegler, and Eleanor still huddled at the table, deep in conversation. Fletcher himself was pacing on the floor in front of the dais, talking with a couple desultory press photographers whose cameras hung heavily from their shoulders.
By now, practically all the guests had found seats at the tables. So I figured I had no choice but to join them.
When I finally spotted the little placard with my name on it, at a crowded table near the front, I discovered I’d been seated next to Sam Weiss. He was talking to a stocky man sitting uncomfortably in a tux on his other side. Grim-faced, middle-aged, with a receding hairline he tried to hide with a dubious comb-over.
Before I could pull out my chair and sit down, Sam was already making introductions.
“Danny! We were just talking about you.” He gestured to the other man. “Dr. Daniel Rinaldi, this is Dave Parnelli. Assistant District Attorney.”
Parnelli and I shook hands.
“Your name sounds familiar,” I said.
“It should.” His manner was brisk, his accent sharp. I was thinking Brooklyn or Queens. “I’m handling the Mary Lewicki car-jacking. At least, I
was
, till I realized she’d crap out on us on the stand. So I made the usual deal with the scumbag in question and moved on. That’s life in the big city. Or at least a medium-sized one.”
“Yes, I remember Angie Villanova mentioning you.”
“She mentioned
you
, too. When she said she was going to refer Mary to you for counseling. Which surprised the fuck outta me, since I didn’t know we were running a social work agency.”
Sam grinned. “Dave’s from New York, Danny.”
As if that explained the attitude. Which it very well might have.
Parnelli broke a bread stick in two. “All I’m sayin’ is, we did things a little differently back home. But I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of hard case, Dr. Rinaldi. Ask your friend Sam here. Hell, in New York, I wasn’t even a prosecutor. I worked for the public defender’s office.”
“So what are you doing in Pittsburgh? Working for the district attorney?”
“Long story. Here’s the short version: I got tired of defending gang-bangers, rapists, and child molesters. Meth addicts and crack-whore mothers. Trust me, you can only deal with so many dead babies in freezers before you start to wig out. I wigged. No apologies.”
He tossed one half of the bread stick on his plate, began gnawing on the other.
“So I came to Pittsburgh to see how the other half lives. The half that gets to put the bad guys in jail and sleep easy at night.”
“Makes sense.” I took a long drink from my water glass. “But, again, why Pittsburgh?”
“I got a sister who moved here a couple years back. She liked it, so I figured, what the fuck? It’s got rivers and bridges, too, just like the five boroughs. People are friendly. Blah-blah-blah. Just wanted a change. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
Sam smirked. “Danny’s a shrink, Dave. They do that.”
“Psychologist,” I corrected him.
“You know what I mean.” Sam leaned back in his chair. “But I figured you guys oughtta meet. I told Dave all about your being a consultant for the police. So don’t let his charm school manner fool you. He’s suitably impressed.”
“My ass.” Parnelli chewed loudly.
“Always happy to meet new fans.” I finished the whole goblet of water. Still a bit dry-mouthed from whatever was happening between Eleanor and me. If anything.
I was also getting anxious to get the photo op over with, so I could leave. I’d hoped to be out of here a half hour ago. I certainly didn’t want to hang around for the dinner and speeches.
Plus I wanted to check back in with Treva. I wasn’t satisfied with the way we had left things. I needed to know more. About what she was afraid of. What she feared might happen to her.
All the guests were seated now, and dozens of waiters were moving around the tables, bringing soup, the first course. I stared glumly at the wilting salad in front of me, nudging my fork around on the tablecloth.
Sam watched me with rising amusement. “Looks like you’re joining us for the duration, Danny. Hope you brought your appetite.”
I grunted. The only thing that might’ve kept me at that table with Sam was the opportunity to grill him about what he’d said about Sinclair being dirty. What he actually knew, or even suspected.
But there was no way we could discuss it now. Not sitting at a table full of other guests, one of whom was an ADA in Sinclair’s office.
Just then, a waiter appeared as if out of nowhere and placed a wide-mouthed bowl of mushroom soup in front of me. I mumbled my thanks and looked up at Sam’s smiling face.
“
Bon appétit
!” he said, enjoying himself.
As the waiter circled around to serve Parnelli, and then Sam, I heard a sudden tinkling of glass coming from the front of the room.
Leland Sinclair stood at his place at the table, tapping his water glass with a spoon. Its soft peal echoed.
“Before we start our dinner,” he said, “I wonder if I could ask one of our distinguished guests, Dr. Daniel Rinaldi, to join us down here at the dais?”
I glanced up at Sam. “Saved by the bell.”
With a couple hundred pairs of eyes on me, I made my way down to the front of the room. By the time I reached the dais, Sinclair, the chief of police, and the mayor had already climbed down the side steps and were waiting to greet me on the floor. Leaving Sinclair’s family, Biegler, Eleanor, and the councilwoman still seated at the table.
As the four of us “distinguished guests” exchanged pleasantries, Brian Fletcher came over, beckoning to his photographers to follow him.
“Okay, gentlemen,” Fletcher said to us. “Let’s have you form a tight line, so we can get you all in. Maybe a shot of Lee shaking hands with the chief, as the mayor and Dr. Rinaldi look on. Then we change partners. Lee shaking hands with the mayor. Then with Dr. Rinaldi. Then—”
Sinclair chuckled smoothly. “I think we all get your drift, Brian.”
Which brought a round of equally smooth chuckles from the posh crowd at the tables.
If you can’t be king
, I thought, peering out at their glowing faces,
it’s good to be friends of the king. Or at least believe that you are.
At the same time, I noted that the scurrying waiters, laden with trays and soup tureens, didn’t even look up. In the same room as everyone else, listening to the same self-serving jibes and remarks, yet as removed as though in a parallel universe.
Eyes down. Voices low.
Unseen. Unnoticed.
Except for one waiter. Dark-haired, wiry. Sweat-beaded brow over severe thick-framed glasses. Moving slowly around his appointed table. One very near the dais. Fumbling with the lid of a large tureen.
With eyes up. Watching us.
As Fletcher moved his candidate and the rest of us around, placing us in various collegial positions, the photographers roved back and forth in a crouch. Shooting up at us. As though we were a mobile Mt. Rushmore, posing for the ages.
The whole thing was ludicrous. Absurdly comic. And would have remained so—
Except for that waiter.
The one at the near table, who now stood ramrod straight. The closed soup tureen held perfectly still, balanced on the palm of one hand.
As he watched us. Not serving. Not even moving.
Watching.
Until I noticed him watching. And not moving.
And he noticed me doing so.
Then he was pulling the lid off the tureen. Letting it drop with a jarring crash as he reached into the bowl.
Bringing his hand up. With something in it.
Which was when I called out.
“Gun!”
Going into a crouch. Rushing him, hands outstretched—
Too late.
The gun went off.
I got lucky. Everybody did.
The shooter must’ve panicked, seeing me lunging straight for him. His arm involuntarily went up as I connected, tackling him.
The gunshot thundered loudly as I literally felt the bullet whiz past my ear. Then the shooter was stumbling backwards, my momentum carrying us both down to the floor.
I was on top, scrabbling for the gun still in his hand. Barely aware of a rising crescendo of voices, cries, urgent shouts. And a riotous scuffle of feet.
Gasping, grunting, the shooter wrestled with me for the gun. Squirming and bucking beneath me. Hate-filled eyes boring up at me through his thick glasses.
It felt like we grappled this way forever, yet it was merely seconds. And then the first of the security guys reached us. Pinning the gunman’s arm down to the floor.
And then there were three or four of them, pushing me aside to constrain both the shooter’s arms and his frantically kicking legs. I rolled to the floor, panting, gulping air. The security men shouting and cursing as they immobilized the guy. One pocketed his gun.
Then a swarm of people grew around me, all talking and shouting at once. Somehow Biegler and Eleanor had vaulted down from the dais and were on the floor beside me. Still on my haunches, I swiveled my head in time to see other security personnel hustling the rest of the honored guests—Sinclair and his family, the chief, the councilwoman, and the mayor—out the near service door.
“Are you all right?” Eleanor clutched my shoulder.
“I’m fine. Anybody get hit?”
“I don’t think so.”
As I got to my feet, still winded, I saw Brian Fletcher standing with his hands outstretched, facing the frenzied guests. All talking, yelling at once. Stumbling out of their chairs. I could barely hear him above their cries of confusion, panic. Shouted questions from the media types heading toward us.
“Please, people!” Fletcher was shouting now, too. “Please stay back! Stay in your seats! Everything’s under control!”
He turned toward where the shooter lay, strait-jacketed by a phalanx of security guys.
“You got that prick wrapped up?” Fletcher yelled.
When one of the security guys—the head man, it looked like—nodded firmly, Fletcher motioned for him to join him. He lumbered over.
“I need a couple of your men to keep everybody seated, okay? Especially the press. I want things contained.”
The head of security said nothing, merely went back to his men and began giving orders in a cool, detached tone.
Then Fletcher turned again to the crowd of guests, only a few of whom had retaken their seats. His voice calm, placating. “Please, we need your co-operation. Nobody’s been hurt. Please…we need you to stay in your seats. Let the police and security do their jobs.”
Finally catching my breath, I looked down at the shooter. On his back on the floor, arms and legs pinned, he glared up at all of us with naked contempt.