Страница 263 из 367
“We’re not . . . compelled . . . to do it,” Lily said.
“Maybe you’re not, but I am,” Ke
“You just wa
“Fuckin’ doctors . . .” Fermut, the cardiologist, had reluctantly agreed that Ke
“Listen to him,” Lily said, gently but urgently. “He’s trying to save your life, you dope.”
“Yeah.” Ke
“You want a cigarette, right?”
“No, that’s not it. I was just thinking . . . it’s not the doctors. It’s me. When I get turned on and my heart starts thumping, I start listening to it . . . .”
“Then we oughta quit. Maybe only for a few weeks . . .” Lily said.
“No. That’d be worse. It’s just . . . Christ, I wish one thing—just one goddamn thing in this world—was simple. Just one thing. I gotta get laid, but if I get laid, I can’t help thinking about my heart, and that can mess up getting laid. Then with you on top all the time, and me just laying there like a dead man with a hard-on, I start thinking, what’s it like for her? It must be like necrophilia, screwing me.”
“Richard, you idiot . . .”
“Christ, I’m glad I met you,” he said after a while. “I couldn’t believe you were in there, working for O’Dell. I kept thinking, she can’t be just working for him, a woman like that, there’s gotta be something else going on here.”
“Oh, God . . .” Lily giggled, an odd, pleasant sound with her husky voice.
“Sorry ’bout that,” Ke
“C’mon . . .” Lily said, but she giggled again, a big woman giggling, and that set Ke
And then: “ ’Course, things must’ve been different with Davenport.”
Lily cut him off: “Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Probably hung like a Shetland pony . . .”
“You wa
“Is that a clear offer?”
“Dick . . .”
“Hey. I’m not jealous. Well, maybe a little. But I really like the guy. This whole business of bringing him to dance with the media, that’s pretty bizarre, and it’s working. You think he’ll get in the sack with Barbara Fell?”
“I don’t know,” she said, crisply.
“He seems like the kind of guy who’d be looking around,” he offered.
“Pot and kettle.”
“Hey—I didn’t say it was bad. I just wondered about him and Fell. That’s a match made in hell.”
“She’s very attractive.”
“I guess, if you like the type,” Ke
“No, no, no. We just needed somebody who knew Midtown fences . . . .”
“Yeah, but Davenport’s supposed to be a talking head.”
“He’s never a talking head. Even when he’s talking. The guy has more moves than you do, and you’re the sneakiest, shiftiest . . .”
“ . . . crookedest . . .”
“ . . . most underhanded asshole on the force. Besides, he had to do something to get the media to talk to him.”
“I suppose.” Ke
Lily groped for his groin and said, “Oh, Jesus. Are you sure? Dick . . .”
He rolled into her, his arm around her, pulling her tight. “That’s the word, all right. Dick.”
“Be serious.”
“All right. How’s this: I really do need you; it’s the thing that keeps my heart going . . . .”
Much later, when he was sleeping, she thought: They can all make you feel guilty; it’s what they do best. . . .
CHAPTER
14
The phone rang early and Lucas rolled out of the blankets, dropped his feet to the floor and sat a moment before he picked up the receiver. “Yeah?”
“How’s your head?” Ke
“Better,” Lucas said. He couldn’t seem to focus and noticed that the window shade was bright with low-angle sunshine. “What time is it?”
“Seven o’clock.”
“Ah, Jesus, man, I don’t get up at seven . . . .” His face hurt again, and when he turned toward the bed, he noticed a spot of blood on the pillowcase.
“Hey, it’s a great day, but it’s go
“Thanks. If you hadn’t called, I woulda had to look out the window . . . .” What’s going on?
“I understand that you and Fell talked to a guy named Whitechurch yesterday, at Bellevue?”
“Yeah?”
“Bekker took him off last night.”
“What?” Lucas stood up, trying to understand.
“Shot him in a hallway. Cut his eyes,” Ke
“The morgue guys said it’s gotta be Bekker, ’cause it was done too well to be a copycat. And with you talking to him about Bekker, there’s no way it’s a coincidence. When they called me, a couple of hours ago now, I shipped Carter over to the hospital. Somebody there finally figured out that cops were talking to Whitechurch yesterday . . . .”
“Ah, Jesus,” Lucas said. “Whitechurch was wrong, too. We knew it. We knew he was bullshitting us.”
“How’d you get onto him?”
“A fence,” Lucas said. “Down on the Lower East Side.”
“Smith?”
“No, a small-timer, a woman named Arnold. We’ll go back and talk to her, but I don’t think she has any co
“Whitechurch was dealing dope,” Ke
“Ah. For sure?”
“Yeah, we got it from a couple of places. And I’d bet that’s where the halothane is from.”
“Telephones?”
“We sent a subpoena over, and the phone company’s mopping up their computers right now. They’ll run back all the calls that came into Whitechurch’s apartment and his office phone, both, and where they came from, for the last two months.”
“That should do it,” Lucas said. “Fell’s got a beeper: if you find him, call us. I’d like to see the end of it.”
“Mmm. It doesn’t feel that easy,” Ke
“All right. Well: I’ll get Fell and get back to the fence. Goddammit, why’d Whitechurch cover for him? That’d be something to figure out.”
Lucas called Fell and told her.
“Did we mess it up?” she asked anxiously.
“No. We barely touched the guy—there was no way to know. But Ke
“Arnold. Rose.”
“Yeah . . . So what’s your status? Are you ready?” Lucas asked.
“Hey, I’m just sitting here on my bed, buck naked, half asleep.”
“Jesus, if you had a warm croissant and a cup of coffee, I’d come right over,” Lucas said. The nude photo of Fell and the other cop popped up in his head.
“Fuck you, Davenport,” Fell said, laughing. “If you’re ready, why don’t you get a cab? I’ll be out front by the time you get here.”
“You come get me,” Lucas said. “I’m barely awake, and I gotta shave.” He touched his raw cheek.
“Be ready,” she said.
Fell, when she arrived, was wearing a black tailored cotton dress with small flowers—the kind of dress women wore in Moline, Illinois—black low heels and nylons.
“Jesus, you look terrific,” Lucas said, climbing into the cab behind her.