Sleepers

'What is your relationship with Mr. Carson?'

'I've already said.'

'Tell me again,' O'Co

'We're friends,' she said. 'Very old and dear friends.'

'Is Mr. Carson a friend of your husband's as well?' O'Co

Mrs. Salinas paused and pursed her lips before she answered.

'No,' she said. 'He isn't.'

'Mrs. Salinas, what were you talking about at di

'The usual,' she said. 'Catching up on things.'

'What things?'

'His family,' she said. 'Mine. Things like that.'

'And did you and Mr. Carson have any plans beyond di

'What do you mean?' Mrs. Salinas asked.

'I mean, was your evening going to end with just a di

'No,' she said, her eyes cast down. 'It wasn't.'

'Sounds romantic,' O'Co

'Objection,' Michael said. 'The twice-divorced counsel seems to have an overactive imagination.'

'Sustained,' Judge Weisman said. 'Let's get on with it, Mr. O'Co

'Had you ever heard a gun fired, Mrs. Salinas?' O'Co

'No, I hadn't,' she said.

'How would you describe the sound?'

'Loud,' she said. 'Like firecrackers.'

'Did the sound frighten you?'

'Yes, very much,' she said.

'Did you close your eyes?'

'At first,' she said. 'Until the shooting stopped.'

'Did you think the men who did the shooting were going to kill everyone in the pub?'

'I didn't know what to think,' she said. 'All I knew was that a man had been shot.'

'Did you think you might be shot?' O'Co

'Yes,' Mrs. Salinas said, nodding her head firmly. 'Yes I did.'

'Yet, despite that fear,' O'Co

'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, that's right.'

'Is it?' O'Co

'Yes.'

'Did you, Mrs. Salinas, really look at their faces?' O'Co

'I glanced at them as they walked by,' she said. 'But I did see them.'

'You glanced,' O'Co

'I saw them,' Mrs. Salinas said.

'You glanced at them, Mrs. Salinas,' O'Co

'Objection, your Honor,' Michael said, his hands spread out in front of him, still sitting in his chair.

'No need, your Honor,' O'Co

'Thank you, Mrs. Salinas,' Judge Weisman said to the now shaken woman. 'You may step down.'

'Looks like Columbo did his homework,' Carol said.

'Today anyway,' I said, my eyes on John and Tommy, watching them wink their approval at O'Co

'Have you got time for lunch?' Carol asked.

'I'll make the time,' I said.

'Where would you like to go?'

'How about the Shamrock Pub,' I said. 'I hear it's colorful.'

ELEVEN

The detective in the front seat kept the engine ru

It was six-fifteen on a Sunday morning and the downtown streets were empty.

'So, you go

His name was Nick Davenport. He was twenty-eight years old and a sergeant in the Internal Affairs Division of the New York City Police Department. It is the unit responsible for dealing with corrupt cops.

'You've got to agree to a couple of things first,' I said. 'Then we deal.'

'Frankie, what is this shit?'

'Hear the kid out, Nick,' the detective in the front seat said. 'It'll be worth your time. Believe me.'

The detective in the front seat, Frank Magcicco, worked out of a Homicide unit housed in a Brooklyn precinct. He grew up in Hell's Kitchen and remained friendly with many of the people who lived there. He was a first grade detective with an honest name and a solid reputation. He was thirty-three years old, owned a two-family house in Queens, had two preschool children and was married to a woman who worked part-time as a legal secretary.

He was also King Be

'Okay,' Nick Davenport said. 'What's it go

He had a blue-eyed, boyish face hidden by a three-day stubble and an older man's voice. He'd been on the force seven years, two as a patrolman in Harlem and two working plainclothes in Brooklyn, before making the move to I.A.D. He was cold to the fact that most cops hated anyone associated with Internal Affairs and ambitious enough to want to make captain before he hit forty. He knew the fastest way up that track was to reel in the maximum number of dirty cops in a minimum amount of time.

'I don't want any deals cut,' I said.

'How so?' Davenport asked, shifting his body.

'You don't offer him anything.' I said. 'You don't use him to finger other cops. You bring him in and you bring him down.'

'That ain't up to me,' Nick said. 'Once a case starts, a lot of other people get involved. I can't shut 'em all out.'

'I heard you can,' I said, toward Frank in the front seat. 'But, maybe I heard wrong. Maybe I should take this to somebody else.'

'Where'd you find this fuck?' Nick asked Frank, chuckling as he pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket.

'I were you, I'd do what the kid says,' Frank said, staring out through the windshield, sipping his coffee. 'You make this one, you're go

'Okay, Eliot Ness,' Nick said to me. 'You got it. He won't be offered any deals. No matter how much he talks, no matter who he fingers. No deals. Anything else?'

'Two more things,' I said.

'Let me hear 'em,' Nick said.

'He gets convicted, he gets state time,' I said. 'I don't want him sent to one of those cop country clubs. He's gotta do prison time.'

'You got a real hardon for this guy,' Nick said. 'What's your beef with him?'

'There's one more thing,' I said. 'You wa

'I can't wait,' Nick said.

'It's simple,' I said. 'Nobody knows who fed you the information. How you got it. How you found it. And I mean nobody.'

'How did you get it?'

'It fell into my lap,' I said. 'Just like it's falling into yours.'

'That it?' Davenport asked, tossing his cigarette out through the crack in the window. 'That's all you want?'

'That's all I want,' I said.

Davenport stared at me for a few long moments and then turned to look back outside. One hand rubbed the stubble on his face, one foot shook nervously back and forth.

'You okay with this, Frank?' he asked the detective in the front seat.

'I'm here ain't I?' Frank said, watching him in the rear view mirror.

'Okay, Mr. Ness,' Davenport said, putting out his hand. 'You and me got ourselves a deal.'

I handed him the thick envelope. Inside was the file that Michael had given me on former Wilkinson guard Adam Styler, plus additional information dug up in the past three months by King Be

'Christ Almighty!' Davenport said, sorting through the material. 'You got everything in here but a confession.'