Suddenly Timmy's features started to contort, as if he were trying to keep control of his expression. "If all that's true, why didn't she speak up? Pardon me for asking, partner, but why'd she fuckin' run down to Cuba and hide out?"
"She found the body. She's the one screamed so loud the neighbor called nine-one-one."
"Oh, gracious me!" Timmy's voice went mock falsetto. "Such a ghastly sight it must have been!" "She was scared," Janek said. "She saw her employer hanging from a hook. She was sure Mendoza had done it. So she did the normal thing.
She ran."
Timmy bit into his lower lip. "And now she wants to clear the air.
What a good girl she must be, so straight and honest-the little bitch!"
"I cornered her, Timmy. That's why she talked."
"Yeah." Timmy stared at him a moment, then got up from the table and walked over to the bar. Janek watched as he ordered an Irish whiskey, threw it back, ordered another, drank that one off, too, then lumbered back to the booth. Timmy stared at him again and this time Janek saw that his eyes were red and crazy.
"How can you be so fuckin' stupid, Frank?"
"Is that what I am?"
"About this. Forget Mendoza. It's a tar baby. The more you punch it, the more stuck you're gonna get. Let the others rant if they want.
Dakin, Kit, the whole dumb crew downtown. Mendoza's in a cell where he belongs. It's over.
End of story."
"If there's been a miscarriage, it's gotta be set right. You know that."
"Jesus! Listen to yourself! You sound like a scumbag attorney! The man's a piece of shit. He killed a cop. He deserves a living death."
"What're you saying?"
"What do you think?"
"I think you're saying there was something wrong with that note," Janek said, feeling a terrible ache beginning to rise out of his stomach.
"What the fuck difference does it make?"
"Oh, Timmy! Timmy!" The ache was curling around his chest. "I defended you, remember? I broke Dakin for you. Christ!"
Timmy sneered. "Oh, yeah, I forgot!" He coughed, then smacked the table with his fist. "Do I remember? What the hell do you think?" He glared at Janek, eyelashes flickering, his eyes watery and bloodshot.
"We both know Mendoza had his wife beaten to death. We know he ordered Clury killed. How he did it, who he hired, how much he paid, the fuckin' details-who cares?"
"Christ!"
"You keep saying that! Don't '!" me, partner! You think law enforcement's a kid's game where winning's less important than playing by the rules? No cop worth his salt thinks like that."
Janek wanted to hit him then. Instead he just stared.
Timmy didn't look away. "You're telling me you faked the evidence."
Timmy laughed. "Am I? Would you believe me now whatever I said?
Think it through. If you really believe I faked that note, you also have to think I had that old bat, what's-her-name, Komfeld, knocked off, too.
Like maybe I personally raped the cunt and stole her ratty silverware.
Sound like me, Frank? Hub?"
Timmy took a draft of beer. The foam clung to his lips.
"You'd also have to believe Dakin isn't a psycho, Mendoza's pure as snow, and I'd risk everything, my pension, my whole fuckin' life, to close out a case because… why.? I couldn't handle it? You have to believe the five grand I supposedly used to pay for the money order to Metaxas's mom came out of-what did Dakin say? Dough I took off of some coke dealer he couldn't name? I can't remember all the crap he tried to sling at me." Timmy paused to wipe his mouth.
"Wanna know something, Frank? At this point I don't care. Hear what I'm sayin'? I'm sick of it! The whole fuckin' mess. You wanna try and get to the bottom of it, go ahead. Spend the next ten years on it if you want to. You won't get anywhere. Kit won't either. But be careful. Because if by some fluke you happen to stumble into the real heart of the thing, something bad might befall you' Personally speaking, I'd feel real sorrowful if such an event should come to pass,"
"The real heart of the thing "-what the hell does he mean by that?
Janek stared into Timmy's eyes. "Is that a threat, Timmy?"
Timmy's hands were trembling. "Me threaten you? You gotta be kidding."
"Then, what're you saying?"
Timmy's eyes focused down to rivet points as he met Janek's stare.
Suddenly he laughed. "Oh, hell! Do what you want. Nothing I say's going to stop you, is it, partner?"
With that, he set his palms on the table and slowly pushed himself to his feet. He towered over Janek for a moment, then turned his back and stumbled toward the door. Just as he reached it, he turned again, squinted and peered back at Janek through the gloom. Then he laughed a final time, a loud, high-pitched cackle Janek had never heard from him before. Then he stumbled out into the street.
Janek was still shaking when he met up with Sue in front of the Seventeenth Precinct on East Fifty-first. It was eight o'clock, the sky was dark, and he was exhausted from a day that had begun at dawn with one maniac and finished in the afternoon with another. Dakin, Timmy-they're both crazy. Fuck '! Forget about '! Get on with your lovely, lonely life!
However, the sight of Sue's glistening eyes and ardent, youthful face revived his faith in his fellow cops. He thought: At least there're a few not tainted by that stinking case.
"Stiegel's in a bar on First Avenue," Sue told him. "He was getting annoyed sticking around, so I told him to go get a drink." She paused.
"I don't think you're going to like him much, Frank."
They walked three blocks to the bar. It wasn't what Janek expected. He knew some of the places in the neighborhood, overpriced Yuppie hangouts, but the one Stiegel had chosen was the crummiest of all-smoky, noisy, with a special aroma that told Janek it was a haunt for alcoholics.
Sue pointed out the detective from the door. Stiegel had the kind of sloping body that always reminded Janek of a big piece of fruit. His hair was crew cut and his eyes were tired. He sat alone at a small table nursing a bourbon, inhaling deeply from a cigarette and staring vacantly at the wall. As Janek approached he felt like an intruder, catching another man in an unguarded moment. While Sue introduced them, he studied Stiegel carefully. There's no bottom to this guy, he thought.
"I heard of you," Stiegel said. Janek nodded. He noted that Stiegel spoke in a hoarse whisper, a cigarettes-and whiskey voice. "I heard you were down in Jamaica working on that Medina thing."
"Mendoza," Sue corrected him.
Stiegel nodded. "Yeah… right." Then he brightened. "Either you guys wanna drink?" Janek and Sue shook their heads. Stiegel shrugged. "I'm off-duty, so what the hell." He swallowed a mouthful from his glass, set it down carefully, pushed his cigarette into an ashtray, then sat back ready to talk. "Sue tells me you want a rundown on the bad girls. I don't know much-just they pick up guys in hotel bars, drug ', roll I em and write on '." Stiegel grinned.