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  “Bobby,” Sandy whispered. “I’m glad you’re home. But please . . . please don’t put me and my baby in deep shit. You simply have no idea. You can’t even help yourself. How can you help me? My baby? These bastards have connections, money, power. Plans. Big freakin’ plans. They are very, very dangerous, capisce?”

  “I think maybe me and you should go somewhere and talk,” Bobby said. “In a place you’ll feel safe.”

  “He has friends everywhere,” Sandy said. “You were probably safer inside than out here.”

  “You don’t even like Barnicle, do you?” Bobby said. “I could tell this morning.”

  “You didn’t like it when people rushed to judgment against you,” Sandy said, angry and defensive now. “So don’t you dare judge me, Bobby. I never did you wrong in my life.”

  “If you don’t tell me what you know about Dorothea,” Bobby said, “you are doing both me and her wrong.”

  “I’m doing what I gotta do for my kid,” Sandy said, her eyes icy. “Fuck you, if you interfere with that.”

  Bobby considered her for a long moment. The expensive perfume. The invisible price tags on the clothes. The real jewelry. He searched her big, confused eyes. He studied her full, painted lips, wishing they would tell him what she knew about Dorothea. The lips remained pressed together. He felt like biting them open.

  “You’re better than this Barnicle, Sandy,” Bobby said.

  “Grow up,” she said. “You have no idea . . .”

  “I’m gonna find her, Sandy.”

  “I hope you do,” Sandy said. “In fact, I’m sure you will. If you dig deep enough. But I’m not willing to do that, Bobby. If I start digging, it’ll be my own freakin’ grave. So please . . .”

  “You think she’s alive,” Bobby whispered, leaning closer, “don’t you, Sandy? You think Dorothea is alive, too.”

  She turned toward a small bustle at the front entrance, where Zeke held open the door for Lou Barnicle, who wore a light-colored summer suit, a straw hat, and white Italian mesh shoes with mahogany-colored leather heels. No socks. A parody of himself. To his right was Kuzak. With Bobby’s back to them, they didn’t notice Bobby.

  “I’m gonna do this with or without your help,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to hurt you doing it.”

  “All I know is threats,” Sandy said. “One more won’t matter.”

  18

  Someone was already on board.

  It was his first night of freedom and of fighting goddamn traffic on the West Side Highway again; Bobby was exhausted and looking forward to collapsing into bed. But he had uninvited company.

  He’d stopped on the rotunda above the boatyard before he drove down the incline to the parking lot. From up there he’d noticed that the boat was swaying differently from the other darkened vessels lolling in the night tide. Something moving, something alive was on board. He parked in the old indoor garage and carried The Club antitheft device with him as a weapon. The security shack was empty, which meant that Doug the dockmaster was probably on a break or doing his rounds. So Bobby walked cautiously along the wooden walkway toward The Fifth Amendment, moving quietly under a sky without stars.

  Control. They are here to mess with you, but you must take control.

  As he walked cautiously up the small gangplank, he heard muffled mumbling from inside the cabin. Then he saw a flashlight splaying across the floor, the light bleeding under the closed door. Whoever was inside was very close to the door. He jerked it open, cocking his Club like a cave dweller protecting his lair.

  “Go ahead, crack my skull open; what’s one more dead woman on your yellow sheet, Emmet,” said the short-haired woman in the black pinstripe pants suit. Bobby reached for the wall switch and turned on the overhead light in the galley. Cis Tuzio might once have been pretty if there had ever been a pretty thought in that head. But to Bobby, her face resembled a bench warrant, with cold eyes like official government seals, a pug nose that might have been hammered flat by a judge’s gavel, thin lips like a docket number. It was as if she had gotten the job and then fashioned a mask that smothered any ember of human warmth, even choosing funereal black pants suits to fit the caricature of a bloodless prosecutor.

  “Dingdong, Attica calling,” sang a man’s voice from the saloon as he stepped through the door into the galley. Hanratty, one of Tuzio’s Brooklyn DA cops, was now standing by her side. Bobby had worked with him on a few joint-county-jurisdictional cases during the five years Bobby was in the Manhattan DA’s office. Hanratty had gotten the transfer from the NYPD Community Relations post to the Brooklyn DA’s office for tireless work in the reelection campaign of Sol Diamond, Tuzio’s boss. It was hard to imagine anyone taking Hanratty’s advice on anything, but he had managed to deliver a good hunk of what was left of the Irish voting bloc from Bay Ridge. Bobby was convinced he was even a subordinate in Tuzio’s bed.

  “You’re trespassing,” Bobby said to Cis Tuzio, stepping out onto the deck, holding the door open for them to leave. “Unless you have a warrant, I suggest you leave the way you came. You’re out of your jurisdiction in Manhattan, and you’re on private property.”

  Tuzio had her hands in her pants pockets, trying to look like a tough guy as she stepped out of the galley into the cool night air of the deck. The boat swayed on what river people called a “snotty” tide. Every so often, all 3500 pounds slammed against the pier, the rubber bumpers bouncing her back on the roiled river. Tuzio took a few short awkward steps toward Bobby, pulling her hands from her pockets for balance. Bobby grabbed her by the arms to steady her and looked her deep in the empty eyes.

  “Your attorney said I could find you here,” Tuzio said. “That was tantamount to an invitation aboard. You’re on bail. You’re shit, and I’m in charge of shoveling you up.”

  “You got promoted to that, huh?” Bobby said with a grin.

  “Fitting,” she said as Hanratty helped ease her free of Bobby’s firm grip. “You living on a boat owned by one of the biggest sleazebag lawyers in the city.”

  “Jeez, Cis, you sound jealous of old Izzy,” Bobby said.

  “I came in person, as a professional law-enforcement courtesy, because you once worked for the Manhattan district attorney’s office,” Tuzio said. “I think you’re scum. But you did adequate work for the people once. So I’m here with a deal. Cop to manslaughter one, ten to fifteen, time served included. You would save the state the money of trying you all over again.”

  Bobby took a pack of peppermint Tic Tacs out of his jacket and shook the plastic box, popping one into his hand and offering the box to Tuzio. “Please, do me a favor, take one, will ya.”

  She was momentarily flustered, self-conscious of halitosis, and her right hand went involuntarily to her mouth. It was a gimmick Bobby had used when questioning seemingly unflappable white-collar suspects. A simple interruption in someone’s prepared alibi often made a hole small enough for the truth to leak out like gas.

  “I didn’t mean to be rude,” Bobby said. “But everything that comes out of your mouth smells bad.”

  “Careful,” said Hanratty.

  “Plus you got some nerve discussing a plea when my lawyer isn’t present,” Bobby said.

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” Hanratty said.

  “What’s his feeding time?” Bobby asked Tuzio. “He looks restless.”

  “I’m here to see that you haven’t left the jurisdiction,” Tuzio said. “And to tell you that I am going to send your murdering ass right back to jail as soon as I can schedule a trial.”

  “Fess up, Hanratty,” Bobby said, smiling, popping another Tic Tac. “You wrote that little speech for lovely Cissy here, didn’t ya? With your little pocket dictionary next to you, you pecked it out on your typewriter one letter at a time.”

  “How about I peck out your eyes, Emmet,” Hanratty said.

  “Cis, wasn’t that a threat? You’re an officer of the court; quick, impanel a grand jury.”

  “You find this amusing now,” Tuzio
said. “It won’t be after the trial. You’ll be right back where you belong.”

  Bobby leaned closer to the austere woman and said, “You’re right. This isn’t amusing. So, why don’t you and Columbo here really investigate this case. Find out if Dorothea is dead or alive and who actually was cremated and where all that blood came from . . .”

  He was tempted to tell her what he knew about Carlos Orosco and the pacemaker he found in the cremation furnace. But he wanted to tell Gleason first.

  “Same lame, tired alibi,” Tuzio said. “We did investigate and it was you.”

  “No,” Bobby said. “It wasn’t me. But it was me you wanted.”

  “Twelve people agreed it was you,” Tuzio said. “They will again.”

  “You don’t really care whether Dorothea is alive or not, do you?” Bobby said. “All you want is me as a trophy conviction so you can continue to climb your political ladder. Well, that isn’t gonna happen . . . bitch.”

  “You better watch your language,” Hanratty said.

  “Oh, sorry, Hanratty, you thought I was talking to you,” Bobby said with a wink. “Wrong bitch.”

  Hanratty stepped past Cis Tuzio and threw a punch at Bobby. Bobby bent under the punch, and the boat rocked. Hanratty’s forward motion sent him stumbling across the deck and lurching over the three-foot railing of the swaying boat. Dangling on the outside of the boat, the big cop grabbed desperately for the slippery railing. He tried to get his footing on the slimy hull, but his feet couldn’t find traction. The boat was shifting back and forth, occasionally careening against the pier with the rough tide. When the next swell came, Hanratty would be in danger of being crushed between the heavy boat and the pier.

  “Help me!” Hanratty shouted.

  “ ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,’ ” Bobby mocked.

  “Do something!” Tuzio demanded, looking alarmed.

  As Hanratty hung on to the slick railing, Bobby popped another Tic Tac and offered one to Tuzio.

  Bobby detected a scribble of human concern in her cold, antiseptic eyes. She ran to the edge of the boat, got on her hands and knees, and grabbed Hanratty’s arm, but he was too heavy for her.

  “Help me!” screamed Hanratty again.

  “Jeez, Cis, he sounds like he wants to cop a plea,” Bobby said.

  “Help him,” Tuzio said. “Please . . .

  The boat was ready to follow the rolling tide back against the pier again. Bobby casually reached down and grabbed Hanratty by his thick head of Irish red hair and lifted him straight up. Bobby’s strength, from doing jailhouse push-ups, courtesy of Cis Tuzio, paid off. Hanratty howled in pain as his hair pulled from its scalp, contorting his eyelids into cartoony shapes.

  Then as the tide lifted the boat to full crest, priming it to crash its rubber bumpers against the stone pier, Bobby grabbed Hanratty by the necktie, twisted it into a tight noose, and hauled him in one fluid motion up over the side and onto the deck. Hanratty landed in a wet, greasy, algae-covered splat, panting as he loosened his tie, coughing and heaving on the deck.

  Cis Tuzio helped him to a sitting position and then finally onto his feet. Hanratty’s hair stood up straight, making him look like a redheaded Don King.

  “I owe you one,” Hanratty panted, his expression belying his words. He was smoothing his hair, trying to brush off his suit but only spreading the grease and the algae.

  “Nah,” Bobby said. “I still owe you one.”

  “See you in court, Emmet,” Tuzio said as she and Hanratty left the boat.

  19

  FRIDAY

  Bobby sat up straight in bed, his face dripping with sweat. He was looking directly into the smiling, squawking face of a seagull that was perched upside down, its feet clamped onto the frame of the open porthole window, eating a Devil Dog out of Gleason’s hand. Gleason stood next to the bed, dropping crumbs onto Bobby’s disbelieving face.

  Gleason took a gulp of some awful-looking chocolate-colored concoction and offered the tall clear plastic cup to Bobby.

  “What the hell is it?” Bobby asked, waving it away, squinting.

  “I call it a Yoo-driver,” Gleason said. “Yoo-Hoo and vodka. Easy on the Yoo.”

  Bobby sat up, mopped sleep from his face. “I know I owe you,” he said. “But we gotta set some ground rules. If you’re going to defend me, you gotta do it sober. I don’t want you showing up Yooed.”

  “I’m not drunk,” Gleason said, a tinge of defensiveness in his voice.

  “And I can’t stand the smell of cigarettes,” Bobby said. “Smoke slows me down, and I have no time to waste.”

  “So far you’re trying to tell me, me, the guy who got you out of the joint, that I can’t drink or smoke when you’re around,” Gleason said, smoothing his sharkskin suit jacket and straightening his red-and-blue silk tie. “Anything else before I give you my reply?”

  “Yeah,” Bobby said. “The candy-bar, potato-chip, sugar-jones routine. That has to stop. I’d rather you ate your face. I can’t have a normal conversation with you when your teeth are glued together with a goddamned Milky Way.”

  “What you’re asking me is to—”

  “—to act fucking normal,” Bobby said, standing, taking a pair of clean underwear from his suitcase and walking into the small bathroom.

  “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Health Resort,” Gleason shouted into the bathroom, taking another sip of the Yoo-driver and giving the heel end of the Devil Dog to the seagull, who flew off with it. “Find someone who can prove Dorothea is alive, or that someone else had reason to kill her, and I’ll be in court, front and center, more sober than the fuckin’ judge.”

  “I think I might have,” Bobby said, and then told Gleason all about Carlos and the pacemaker he gave to Tuzio.

  “Jesus Christ, that could be suppression of evidence,” Gleason said. “I have to check the records to see if she logged it.”

  Bobby also told him about the teeth that Carlos gave to an assistant medical examiner named Franz.

  “You gotta talk to him,” Gleason said.

  “I called, but the receptionist said he was out of town until next week,” Bobby said. “I didn’t want to leave my name, so I said I’d call back.”

  Bobby turned on the weak shower, soaping himself down, lathering shampoo into his hair, doing it all as quickly as he could, jailhouse style.

  “Excellent,” Gleason said. “You should be a cop.”

  “You’re a real wit,” Bobby said, rinsing off.

  “I hope you didn’t mention any of this to anyone,” Gleason said.

  As he turned off the shower, Bobby assured him he hadn’t.

  “Now, I need a quick rundown on who else you saw and where you went,” Gleason said.

  As he dried off, Bobby told Gleason about meeting his ex-wife and her new husband, Trevor Sawyer. About how his daughter Maggie traced the white Taurus to the Stone for Governor Campaign. About his lunch in John Shine’s saloon, the incident with the two cops named Daniels and Lebeche, and then the encounter with Forrest Morgan. He told him about Larkin, who discovered the electronic bug on Gleason’s Jeep, and his obscure questions about the Ukraine, and more details about Carlos at the crematorium and about his conversation with Sandy and the visit from Tuzio and Hanratty.

  “Busy day,” Gleason said.

  “I had a lot of catching up to do on my social calendar,” Bobby said.

  “The bastards bugged my car?” Gleason said, indignantly. “I take that personally.”

  “Yeah, but they were following me,” Bobby said.

  “I’ll wait for you up on deck,” Gleason said. “I got company . . . .”

  Seven minutes later Bobby was on the deck, dressed in jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and his work boots. He shielded his eyes from the high morning sun and saw Gleason seated on a chaise lounge chair, with a young woman.

  Bobby nodded hello, and so did the girl, who smiled, revealing three badly chipped front teeth, which looked as if someone had hit them with a
tack hammer. Gleason flicked his cigarette butt into the river.

  “Fish can choke on those filters,” Bobby said.

  “But if I put a hook on it, used it as bait, and then ate the bastard, that’s okay, right?” he asked. “Personally, I like the spotted owl better . . . deep fried.”

  Bobby shook his head, waiting for an introduction that was not forthcoming, and finally said, “Hi, I’m Bobby.”

  “She’s Alison,” Gleason said. “She changed it from Zelda.”

  “Really,” Bobby said, trying to be polite. “How come?”

  “Alana, not Alison, and I’m not sure why,” the woman said, and smiled, showing the jagged teeth. “I got tired always being at the end of the alphabet.”

  “Nice to meet you, Alana,” Bobby said, and looked to Gleason, deadpan, hoping for a further explanation. Gleason shrugged and passed the Yoo-driver to Alana. She took several small, deliberate swigs. Gleason patted his thigh, and Alana moved from the stiff-backed chair, slinked over, and plopped onto Gleason’s lap. Alana was about thirty, with a hard, athletic body, and wore tight white pants, a dark halter top, and a white denim jacket. She wore heavy mascara and orange lipstick, which stained her chipped teeth. With some dental work and less makeup she’d be a very attractive woman, Bobby thought. Right up Gleason’s alley . . . .

  “I got your first assignment,” Gleason said, handing the woman a slip of paper. Alana got up and gave the paper to Bobby with nail-bitten fingers before grinding her way back to Gleason’s lap. “His name is Herbie Rabinowitz, and he’s a little nuts,” Gleason said over Alana’s shoulder.

  “If he’s nuts by your standards, then I should bring a stun gun and a straitjacket,” Bobby said.

  “You gotta pick Herbie up at three at that address and bring him here and keep him out of trouble over the weekend,” Gleason said.

  “Here? You mean he sleeps here?”

  “What, solitary made you unsociable?”

  Bobby sighed.

  “He’s a payday,” Gleason said. “You meet; we eat.”

  “I didn’t know the boat was an underground railroad station for all Gleason clients,” Bobby said. “I thought it was where I lived.”