‘The news channels are saying the explosion on Seventeenth happened at about ten o’clock last night. How come we’re only just getting to hear about Alvarez getting caught in
that?’
‘The bomb went off in the Eleventh Precinct, so none of our guys were on-scene. When Tony Alvarez was carried out of the building he had no ID on him. It was hours before the Bomb Squad
declared the apartment clear, and another couple hours before the fire department said the building was structurally safe to enter. Eventually, they found Tony’s shield in his jacket, which
had been blown across the room.’ He pauses. ‘I got a call only hours ago myself. I had to . . . I had to ID the body.’
This seems to mollify Schneider for the moment. He nods almost imperceptibly and tosses his gum around his mouth.
Holden asks, ‘We have an ID on the other DOA?’
Franklin looks relieved to drag his thoughts away from the vision of Alvarez’s shattered form. ‘We think it’s a pimp named Tremaine Cavell, street handle TC. The apartment
belongs to a girlfriend of his.’
What?
Doyle’s mind is racing now. A follow-up with Tremaine? All the more reason for not cutting him out. So why the hell would Alvarez do that?
Holden says, ‘And Cavell fits into this how?’
Franklin’s eyes flicker toward Doyle. The lieutenant seems reluctant to supply an answer, so Doyle does it for him.
‘Cavell was pimping for the pross found with Joe. We tracked him down yesterday, but he didn’t give us much.’
Schneider’s mouth is provoked into action again. ‘Wait a minute. Have I missed something here? Yesterday you and Alvarez go talk to this pimp scumbag, who gives you zip. Later that
same day, Alvarez goes to see the same scumbag, only this time without backup. More specifically, without
you
, Doyle. You wanna explain to me how this situation came about, Alvarez going
into a potentially dangerous situation without his
partner
?’
The emphasis on the word ‘partner
’
is like a sharp jab in Doyle’s ribs. He doesn’t feel that Alvarez was truly his partner – they just happened to come
together and work jointly for less than a day. But he knows that the others won’t see it like that.
He studies their faces. All eyes are on him, and irrespective of their feelings toward Schneider and the way he phrases things, it is clear that they think an answer is warranted.
The problem for Doyle is that he doesn’t have one.
He opens his mouth, unsure as to what words are about to spill out, but Franklin gets there ahead of him.
‘I can answer that. Cavell phoned the station house last night, looking to speak to Tony. Tony called him back on his cellphone, but he was careful. He recorded the
conversation.’
‘And we have it?’
‘We do. Tony’s car was found near the apartment on Seventeenth. The digital recorder he used was in the glove compartment. I asked the Eleventh Precinct to send me a copy of the
discussion between Tony and Cavell.’
As he says this, Franklin reaches into his jacket and takes out his own voice recorder.
‘This will get back to you anyhow, so you may as well hear it now.’
He switches the machine on, and the detectives listen in rapt silence as the recording plays through to its end. When it reaches the part where he is mentioned by name, Doyle feels the pressure
of numerous gazes being directed his way.
Schneider says, ‘So, Doyle, what puts you on the blacklist of a slimy mope like Cavell? Any reason you can think of why he might not want you there last night?’
‘
You heard what I heard, Schneider. He wanted Tony there alone. He didn’t want
any
other cop there, not just me. He used my name explicitly because Tony brought it up
that he should call me. If you’d have been working with Tony yesterday, it would have been
your
name on that recording.’
‘Oh yeah. That’s right. You and Alvarez were
working
together. Just like you were
working
with Joe Parlatti, who also happens to be dead. And if we all care to cast our
minds back a little further
. . .’
‘Oh, fuck you, Schneider,’ Doyle says.
‘Fuck you too, Doyle. All’s I’m saying is that it don’t take no Sherlock fucking Holmes to see a pattern developing here . . .’
‘All right!’ Franklin yells. ‘Can it, you two, for Christ’s sake. I lost two of my finest detectives yesterday. Two people I was proud to call my friends. They were your
friends too. Bickering like schoolgirls is going to get us nowhere.’ He aims a finger at Schneider. ‘If you think that Detective Doyle had anything to do with the death of any police
officer, in this squad or anywhere else, then you put it in writing. If you don’t want to do that, then I don’t want to hear any more insinuations.’ He takes his eyes off
Schneider, addresses the whole group. ‘From any of you. Understand?’
He gets a few nods in return.
‘That said,’ Franklin adds, ‘there’s a bit more I need to tell you. This may be nothing, but it may be important, so you need to hear it.’
Doyle catches a brief, almost apologetic, glance in his direction. Shit, he thinks. What now?
‘When Tony was being put in the ambulance, he said a name, “Doyle.” Then he said three more words: “Got too close.” Like I said, Tony was on the edge of dying right
then. He may have just been rambling. Any thoughts?’
Schneider’s response is to expel air from the corner of his mouth in a kind of
pfff
sound – his way of letting the room know where his opinions lie.
Holden’s comments are a little more lucid. ‘Maybe Cal and Tony were on to something without even knowing it.
Too close
. So close, Tony had to die.’
Schneider decides he needs to be vocal again. ‘Yeah. You need to be careful, Doyle. You could be next.’
Holden ignores him and presses on. ‘That stuff from Cavell about some heavy shit going down. If he really was about to toss something juicy to Tony, that could have been a good reason for
someone to whack both of them.’
Franklin nods thoughtfully. ‘That’s assuming Cavell really did have something to deliver. If this went down the way the hit on Joe did, Cavell was probably just being used as bait.
Any other theories?’
‘A cop killer.’
This from LeBlanc, an ambitious young cop who only recently traded in his white shield for a gold one. Always sporting the most fashionable spectacles, although Doyle suspects that he wears them
only to appear brainier than he is. Older, wiser heads might not have dared to voice LeBlanc’s idea, but Doyle is sure that it has entered the minds of all of them.
‘For some reason,’ LeBlanc says, ‘the killer just doesn’t like cops, period. He’s working his way through them, one by one.’ He looks across at Schneider.
‘In which case, maybe it doesn’t have to be Cal who’s next. Maybe it’s any one of us.’
‘Nice thought, kid,’ Schneider answers. ‘Cheer us all up, why don’t you?’
‘Even so,’ Franklin says, ‘we have to take it into consideration. Could just be we have a psycho cop killer on our hands.’ He raises a warning finger and wags it at each
man in the room. ‘I don’t want to lose any other members of my squad. From now on, you have to be on your guard at all times, you hear me?’
He gets nods again, but more vigorous this time. Now and again, it’s nice to hear how much your boss loves you.
And then there is another period of silence, while every detective here weighs up the implications of having to be aware of everything around them, at all times of the day. The killer has shown
himself to be a person of astounding ingenuity and resource. From now on, even taking a crap could be fraught with danger.
Who says a cop’s life is dull?
‘There’s another possibility,’ Doyle says. He has been thinking about this ever since the wake-up call from Franklin. What the lieutenant said about the last words of Alvarez
lends it even more currency.
‘Maybe I really am the link in this. Maybe this is some warped way of trying to hurt me. Those words of Tony’s, using my name and then “got too close”. Maybe what he was
saying was that he got too close to me.’
Franklin is staring at him, his expression grave. ‘You know anyone might want to get at you like that?’
Doyle looks round at Schneider. ‘Outside this room, no.’
This raises a couple of snickers, which tells Doyle that there are at least one or two people on his side.
Franklin says, ‘That’d be one crazy way to hurt somebody, Cal. I hope to God you’re wrong about that.’
Not as much as I do, Doyle thinks.
Barely five minutes after the men in the squadroom finish trying to fathom what is happening to them, the lieutenant takes a phone call from the Chief of Detectives. The Chief
of Ds tells Franklin, amongst other things, that even though the death occurred within the confines of the Eleventh Precinct, the Alvarez case now officially belongs to the Eighth, being as it
seems to have a solid link to the Parlatti case, which was already theirs. In his turn, Franklin relays the word from above to the squad, and it’s all systems go.
Doyle makes it his first task to learn what he can about the events of last night. It’s a job that takes longer than he hoped, mainly because the required information seems to be
distributed across about a dozen people from the Eleventh Precinct, the Manhattan South Homicide Task Force and the Bomb Squad, not all of whom are immediately contactable.
Next, Doyle calls the Medical Examiner’s office for a prelim on the Alvarez and Cavell autopsies. He manages to speak to Norman Chin, who informs him that Alvarez’s fatal injuries
were sustained solely as a result of a massive explosion, the epicenter of which lay in the immediate proximity of one Tremaine Cavell. It is Chin’s conjecture that the bomb was either being
held by Cavell, or was somehow attached to his upper torso, this being difficult to confirm owing to the current absence of said upper torso.
The conclusion being, Doyle thinks as he ends the call, that Cavell had somehow been turned into a human bomb. So, strike the notion that Cavell had any hot information to reveal. He was being
used, just as Scarlett had been used to kill Joe.
Tired of having a phone clamped to his ear, Doyle abandons his desk and heads out to the apartment of Cavell’s girl on West Seventeenth. There he speaks with the building superintendent,
whose primary concern seems to be that his warning about making holes in his walls was ignored, his building now possessing one very large hole where a third-floor window used to be, thank you very
much.
There is only a handful of tenants in the building when Doyle is there. Others are out at work; some have evacuated and are refusing to return until they are 100 per cent certain they are not
likely to have their asses blown off. From those remaining, Doyle extracts nothing in the way of a lead.
His next visit is a return one to the Pit Stop. He finds a few of Cavell’s buddies there; others require further legwork. To each of them he puts the same questions: Do you know where
Tremaine went last night? Do you know who he met with?
These boys are incensed. They want revenge. They will do whatever they can to track down the motherfucker who smoked TC. But as far as how to carry out that mission goes, it’s clear to
Doyle that they don’t have a clue where to start.
With time ticking away, hour after fruitless hour, Doyle begins to fear that there are no clues to be found. The killer is that good. So good, in fact, that if the police are to have any hope of
catching him, the perp may have to lend them a hand.
He may have to continue his killing spree.
The clothes hang loosely on the man’s thin frame. The battered corduroy coat looks ready to slip off his narrow shoulders, and his wrinkled beige pants billow around his
bony legs. He walks with his head tilted to one side, like he’s trying to keep ear drops in place. His left arm does not beat time to his walking pace, but instead dangles and bounces off his
side as though it’s a length of rubber.
Doyle takes another bite from his beef sandwich and watches through his car windshield as the man pushes through a doorway farther up the block here on East Eleventh Street. He waits five
minutes, finishing his sandwich and coffee before stepping out of his car and heading toward the building the man has just entered.
He swings open the heavy front door, forcing it back against powerful springs that slam it shut when he lets it slip from his grasp. He is in a small, musty lobby containing a noticeboard, a
desk and a single unoccupied chair. He pushes through the next set of double doors and enters a dimly lit corridor. There’s a smell of sweat here. From Doyle’s right comes the hissing
of a shower at full blast; from his left, the unmistakable pounding of gloved fists, the shuffling of feet, and the yells of men who live for the controlled release of aggression.
Doyle heads left, breathes deeply of the testosterone-filled atmosphere. The ever-present bounce in his step becomes more pronounced now, until his gait is more of a swagger. He remembers how it
felt to be on the edge of threading a path through the supporters and the detractors, the cheers and the catcalls, his sole intent to knock the living daylights out of another man.
He enters a large hall. On the far side, a man in a sleeveless white T-shirt and sweat pants takes powerful swings at a punchbag, while another huge man studies his technique with a critical
eye. The center of the gym is taken up by a boxing ring. A white man and his black opponent, both of whom would be mean-looking enough even without their headgear and gumshields, dance around the
canvas looking for openings. Dotted around the ring, other men watch and throw out words of advice and encouragement.
Seated on a wooden bench near the wall, still wearing his coat, is the man Doyle has followed. A bag of potato chips is on his lap, and he brings handfuls of them to his mouth with his one good
arm. His eyes do not shift from the sparring fighters as Doyle makes his way over and sits next to him on the bench.
They sit there like this for several minutes: not saying anything to each other, just watching the boxers, assessing the skill, the art, of the men corralled together in that small roped-off
square.