Known to Evil

We strode into the block-long living room-Sandra in the lead, me in close pursuit, and Corman bringing up the rear.

She gestured toward one of the black sofas and I sat at the end nearest me. Sandra perched in the middle of her ebony divan and brought her hands together, as if in symbolic, passionless prayer.

"Do you have children, Mr. McGill?"

"I have friends with guns," I said in answer to a perceived threat.

"I have wealth beyond the everyday citizen's ability to comprehend," she said, "and still I could not save my son's life."

"I read about that. I'm sorry."

"I would do anything to make my son's memory a part of the fabric of this city that he loved."

"New York's like a boiling cauldron," I said, only dimly understanding why. "We are all consumed therein."

"That's down in the street you're talking about," Sanderson told me with a dismissive wave of her liver-spotted hand. "Up here it's different. Up here we can make a difference."

I stared out the window, wondering at the nature of the combination of folly and wealth.

"Do you know a man named… Alphonse Rinaldo?" she asked.

"No. Who is he?"

Despite my usual sangfroid, sweat sprouted on my head.

"I could make you a rich man," she offered.

"I'm sure."

"Where can I find Angelique Lear?"

There were no planes in the sky, no rain.

"I don't know."

"Are you a fool, Mr. McGill?"

"That I am."

"I will have my memorial or that child will die, as my son died."

"Not while I'm here."

"You are nothing," she said.

There was a finality to her sentence. I felt as if a high court had just pronounced judgment on my soul.

"Grant," she said then, speaking to Mr. Corman. "See our guest out."

"I can push the button myself," I said.

I stood up on boxer's pins. I might have been wobbled, but I was going to end that round on my feet.

53

I had made it past the green desk and more than half the way across Regents Bank's broad entrance hall.

"Excuse me, sir," one of the burly business-suited guards from earlier said.

I kept walking.

"Excuse me."

Moving at a pretty good clip, I was less than fifteen feet from the revolving door when one of the men got in front of me. His partner was there at my side a moment later.

One was black, the other white, but for the most part they were interchangeable minions of the Corporation. Their suits were both dark blue, their heights indistinguishably tall.

"Yes?"

"Come with us, please," the white one said. "We have some questions."

"No thanks."

"We have to insist."

"You will swallow all your front teeth before I go anywhere with either one of you."

"What?" the black corporate cop said. He put a hand on my shoulder.

For a man in his mid-fifties I'm pretty fast. I crouched down and hooked a good left into the black man's midsection. I felt the wound inflicted by Patrick tear a bit, but it was worth it. I could tell by the guard's deep exhalation that he would need a few moments to recover. I stood up behind a right uppercut that the white guard had no defense for. He sprawled out on his back and I started walking toward the doors again.

People shouted behind me, but my point had been made effectively. No one else tried to block my egress. I exited the building feeling right with the world for the first time in many days.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE," a voice commanded on Forty-ninth between Fifth and Sixth.

I stopped and turned. Four uniforms were approaching.

"Yes, officers?" I asked, smiling sincerely.

"Don't move."

"Is there a problem?"

I liked the makeup of the modern NYPD even if they had no use for me. The small group consisted of a black woman, a black man, one Asian gentleman, and a strawberry-blond white rookie who somehow brought to my mind the phrase one-hit wonder.

The black man was the one addressing me. He was solidly built, not a hair over five eight.

"Where you coming from?" he asked.

"Just out for a walk, officer."

"From where?"

"I don't know. Walkin' around is all."

"Let me see your knuckles."

"Why?"

"Show me your hands."

"Give me a reason," I said. I hadn't meant for it to sound like a threat but I could see a jolt go through the assembled constabulary.

THE ARREST TOOK A long time.

When taking a suspect into custody on the streets of Midtown Manhattan the police dot all i's and cross their t's and f 's. They ask you questions and, if you're me, you give them indecipherable answers.

I wasn't worried about assault charges. The fight was on tape, no doubt. Two men had assaulted me in the bank. They didn't have badges or uniforms. I hadn't said a word in provocation-not really.

After a while the police got around to binding my hands behind my back. Maybe forty minutes later I was hustled into the back of a police cruiser driven by the Asian and attended by Blondie.

Half the way to the midtown precinct the white kid's cell phone rang.

After twenty seconds of conversation he looked at his partner and said, "They want us to bring him over to the Port Authority, Park."

"Why?"

"Didn't say."

"Who was it?"

"The sergeant."

WITH MY HANDS STILL bound behind me I was taken through a series of doors and down i

"Hello, McGill," Betha

"Are you Lieutenant Bonilla, ma'am?" the white kid asked.

"Release him and leave us," she replied.

The young cops did as they were told. They asked no questions… this told me something.

The room was small and stale. The beat-up oak desk had stood there as long as the Port Authority itself and the floor had been battered by ten thousand feet. Many a purse snatcher and pick-pocket had been detained here before their deportation to the Tombs, or maybe straight to their arraignment. It was a sad stop-over for pimps, prostitutes, and the mentally deranged.

I felt right at home.

"To what do I owe my freedom?" I asked, taking a seat across from the cop.

"The bank sent down notice to drop charges," she said. "But I had already been notified. I decided to have them bring you here because NYPD won't be able to yank you out too quickly."

She smiled.

"Who are you worried about yanking me?"

"Kitteridge, Charbon," she said. "There's a DA named Tinely who seems to want his pound of flesh."

"And what do you want, Lieutenant?"

The wisp-thin, steel-hard lady cop placed her maroon elbows on the old-time desk. She laced her fingers, pressed the pads of her thumbs together, and considered me.

"That depends on what you have," she answered.

"You want to make a trade?"

"What do you need from me?"

"There's a pimp named Gustav on East Houston who's paying off a Lieutenant Saul Thi

"And what do I get out of that?"

"Have you got a name for the dead man in Wanda Soa's apartment?"

Her eyes couldn't conceal the excitement.

I gave her Pressman's name and his alias. I told her that he was a hit man on staff with a killer known only as Patrick.

"Why would somebody want this Soa dead?" she asked.

"Maybe her drug co

"Oh yeah."

"You aren't worried about Thi

"If he's crooked he better be worried about me."

THERE WAS YET ANOTHER bartender at the Naked Ear when I got there at 7:06; a thirty-something white guy with slim shoulders and a little belly. I perched down at the far end of the bar and ordered my three cognacs. The bartender was named Ely. He knew everything about sports and so we had a long talk, between orders, about Henry Arm-strong, the only boxer who ever held three title belts in three different weight classes at the same time. In the space of twelve months, he successfully campaigned in nineteen defenses of those belts.