But Gelsey was no easy victim. She took off toward Janek and the van;
Kane, pursuing, was pursued in turn by the pack. Janek, gripping his pistol in both hands, leveled it at Kane. Gelsey feinted to the side and rolled. Kane slipped. In an instant the pack was on him, while Gelsey, panting, lay in Janek's arms.
"Block the limo," Janek yelled, for it was now moving from the curb.
Then he saw Diana, knees bloody from her fall, rushing after her own car, screaming at Kim to stop. A moment later the limo collided with an oncoming sanitation truck. The white car folded up. Diana, back down on the plaza floor, raged wildly at the night:
"God! What have you done!" It was always that way, Janek thought-they never blame the breakage on themselves, instead hurl the accusation at the heavens. And because they don't take responsibility for their crimes, they never believe they are guilty of committing them.
Kim was dead. Kane was silent. Diana was inconsolable. When Kane and Diana were properly booked and locked away, Janek drove Gelsey home.
When they arrived at her building a little after three A. M., she made no gesture to leave the car.
"So, is this it?" she asked, sitting still. "Case closed. We go separate ways?" "Is that what you want?" Janek asked.
"Of course not! You've been good to me. Better than almost anyone.
Even Dr. Z."
He looked at her. "So, do you think I'm the kind who gives up a friend just because a case is closed?"
She smiled. "Am I your friend?"
"Of course you are."
She nodded. "Thanks." She paused. "Can I call you when it rains, Janek?
Will you come?" "I'll come," he promised.
She smiled, kissed him quickly on the cheek, stepped out, then scampered up the wooden steps to her house. There she paused, waved, blew him another kiss. Then she disappeared.
As he drove back he glowed, holding the memory of her smile. But then, as he approached Manhattan, he began to -feel an ache. The dark forms of the towers reminded him of Mendoza. Entering the Holland Tunnel, he steeled himself. There was still that knot to be untied.
Through a Glass, Darkly At noon the following day he met his people at Special Squad. Though tired, they were still charged up by their success. He began by laying down new rules. They would be working on Mendoza. That meant new computer codes and passwords, filing cabinets with combination locks, a paper shredder, phone scramblers, regular electronic sweeps and new locks on the office door.
"Starting today we're the only ones in here. We clean our offices ourselves. All trash goes through the shredder. When we want to see someone, we meet him outside. When we order in food, we pay for it at the door. We don't answer questions about what we're doing, not from any one friend, lover or spouse. We're careful what we say, even in cars.
We're not accountable to anyone except the commissioner. That includes Internal Affairs."
When they had absorbed that, he helped them work up a security schedule, making sure he, too, was assigned office-cleaning duties. Then, when that was done, he sat them down and stunned them with the news that his Cuban trip had been a setup.
"Why would the Cubans propose a deal like that?" he asked after he explained the sequence. "What could possibly be in it for them?" Ray thought the answer was better relations. "They want us to drop the embargo."
"A good reason to work with the feds. But not with NYPD." :'To get Tania Figueras off the hook," Sue suggested.
"We'd stopped looking for her. Technically, Mendoza was closed."
Aaron looked at him. "I know you've got a theory, Frank. " The others smiled; they knew him well.
"Mendoza has a lot of money," he said. "Something like fifty million bucks. But it's no good to him because he's locked up for the rest of his life. Think about that. Put yourself in his shoes. If you were that rich and locked in a cage, wouldn't you be willing to spend whatever it took to pry yourself loose?"
Everyone nodded.
"Fonseca's a corrupt Cuban security official. He comes here, ostensibly to work with the DEA, except now it turns out he was running drugs. A guy like that, for the right amount of money, would do most anything you'd want, including pulling a con job on our Detective Division, convincing us a forgotten ' witness' is telling the truth when she throws doubt on the whole premise behind Mendoza's conviction."
"You think Mendoza paid Fonseca to run the scam on Kit'?" Sue asked.
"That's the only theory that makes sense. The Cuban Government wouldn't care about Mendoza rotting in prison. liut Fonseca might care-if he was paid."
Aaron nodded. "If that's true, there has to be a financial Connection.
If money was paid out, it had to travel."
"That's what we're going to look at-who paid how to whom. Aaron, I want you to examine all large payments from Mendoza or his lawyer, Andrews, to any person or entity that isn't easily explained. Use the computer.
Go back a few years. Look into anything that seems the slightest bit phony. Track it down, check it out, stick with it till you're satisfied.
Sometime, somehow, money was paid out, maybe through a foreign bank account or intermediary. I'm betting sooner or later you'll find something that leads you to Cuba."
He was pleased to see he'd fired them up. But there was more.
"There's another payment I want you to look for. This would have been made three or four years ago, about the time of the copycat killing in El Paso. Same MO as Edith Mendoza-society woman beaten to death, strung up by her heels. That's another thing Mendoza may have arranged, to make us think the real killer was still at large. He could have paid someone to do it. Which is where"he turned to Ray and Sue-"you guys come in.
Check out Mendoza's career at Green Haven Prison. Who'd he bunk with?
Who'd he spend time with? Did he spread his money around? If so, to whom? You may find your Cuban connection there. You may also find someone from Texas. Look at people he buddied with who later got released. What happened to them?
Where do they live" Any signs of unexplained wealth? While Aaron's looking at the money, you two look at who might have gotten it."
"And you-what'll you be doing while we're doing all that?" Aaron asked.
"I'll be looking at a whole other side of the thing. The Clury side," he said.
The bomb squad offices were situated in a former butter warehouse on Wooster Street. The old dairy vaults, with their curved brick ceilings, gave the space a cloistered, ecclesiastical look. In fact, in Janek's view, the bomb squad had much in common with a religious order. It was elite, there was an intense stillness among its members, an aura that spoke of being involved in sacred work. When Janek walked unannounced into Stoney's office, he felt as if he'd interrupted a rector at his desk.
"What can I do for you?" the squat, blunt detective asked.
"I want to talk about Mendoza."
"Aren't you a little late?" Stoney couldn't conceal his disgust.
He really didn't put in much time at charm school.
"I was on another case. Now that's cleared. Today I start full-time on Mendoza. Are you willing to work with me or not?" "What've you got in mind?" Stoney asked.
"Clury: Who bombed him and why?"