where Carramazza sat facing forward.
Up front, Rudy touched a switch, and a thick Plexiglas partition rose
between that part of the car and the passenger compartment.
Carramazza picked up an attache case and put it on his lap but didn’t
open it. He regarded Jack and Rebecca with sly contemplation.
The old man looked like a lizard. His eyes were hooded by heavy,
pebbled lids. He was almost entirely bald. His face was wizened and
leathery, with sharp features and a wide, thin-lipped mouth. He moved
like a lizard, too: very still for long moments, then brief flurries of
activity, quick darlings and swivelings of the head.
Jack wouldn’t have been surprised if a long, forked tongue had flickered
out from between Carramazza’s dry lips.
Carramazza swiveled his head to Rebecca. “There’s no reason to be
afraid of me, you know.”
She looked surprised. “Afraid? But I’m not.”
“When you were reluctant to get into the car, I thought-”
“Oh, that wasn’t fear,” she said icily. “I was worried the dry cleaner
might not be able to get the stink out of my clothes.”
Carramazza’s hard little eyes narrowed.
Jack groaned inwardly.
The old man said, “I see no reason why we can’t be civil with one
another, especially when it’s in our mutual interest to cooperate.”
He didn’t sound like a hoodlum. He sounded like a banker.
“Really?” Rebecca said. “You really see no reason?
Please allow me to explain.”
Jack said, “Uh, Rebecca-”
She let Carramazza have it: “You’re a thug, a thief, a murderer, a dope
peddler, a pimp. Is that explanation enough?”
“Rebecca-”
“Don’t worry, Jack. I haven’t insulted him. You can’t insult a pig
merely by calling it a pig.”
“Remember,” Jack said, “he’s lost a nephew and a brother today.”
“Both of whom were dope peddlers, thugs, and murderers,” she said.
Carramazza was startled speechless by her ferocity.
Rebecca glared at him and said, “You don’t seem particularly
grief-stricken by the loss of your brother.
Does he look grief-stricken to you, Jack?”
Without a trace of anger or even any excitement in his voice, Carramazza
said, “In the fratellanza, Sicilian men don’t weep.”
Coming from a withered old man, that macho declaration was outrageously
foolish.
Still without apparent animosity, continuing to employ the soothing
voice of a banker, Carramazza said, “We dofeel, however. And we do take
our revenge.”
Rebecca studied him with obvious disgust.
The old man’s reptilian hands remained perfectly still on top of the
attache case. He turned his cobra eyes on Jack.
“Lieutenant Dawson, perhaps I should deal with you in this matter. You
don’t seem to share Lieutenant Chandler’s . . . prejudices.”
Jack shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. I agree with
everything she said. I just wouldn’t have said it.”
He looked at Rebecca.
She smiled at him, pleased by his support.
Looking at her but speaking to Carramazza, Jack said, “Sometimes, my
partner’s zeal and aggressiveness are excessive and counterproductive, a
lesson she seems unable or unwilling to learn.”
Her smile faded fast.
With evident sarcasm, Carramazza said, “What do I have here-a couple of
self-righteous, holier-than-thou types? I suppose you’ve never accepted
a bribe, not even back when you were a uniformed cop walking a beat and
earning barely enough to pay the rent.”
Jack met the old man’s hard, watchful eyes and said “Yeah. That’s
right. I never have.”
“Not even one gratuity-”
“No.”
“-like a free tumble in the hay with a hooker who was trying to stay out
of jail or-”
“No.”
“-a little cocaine, maybe some grass, from a pusher who wanted you to
look the other way.”
“No.”
“A bottle of liquor or a twenty-dollar bill at Christmas.”
“No.”
Carramazza regarded them in silence for a moment, while a cloud of snow
swirled around the car and obscured the city. At last he said, “So I’ve
got to deal with a couple of freaks.” He spat out the word “freaks” with
such contempt that it was clear he was disgusted by the mere thought of
an honest public official.
“No, you’re wrong,” Jack said. “There’s nothing special about us. We’re
not freaks. Not all cops are corrupt. In fact, not even most of them