`I’m a reasonable guy,’ I said. `First time Miss Roscoe tells me she wants you instead of me, I’m out of here. Until then, you back off. Understand that?’
The kid was boiling. But then he changed. It was
like he was operated by a remote control and somebody had just hit a button and switched the channel. He relaxed and shrugged and smiled a wide, boyish smile.
`OK,’ he said. `No hard feelings, right?’
He stuck out his hand to shake on it and he nearly fooled me. Right at the last split second I pulled my own hand back a fraction and closed around his knuckles, not his palm. It’s an old army trick. They go to shake your hand, but they’re aiming to crush it. Some big macho ritual. The way out is to be ready. You pull back a fraction and you squeeze back. You’re squeezing their knuckles, not the meat of their palm. Their grip is neutralized. If you catch it right, you can’t lose.
He started crushing, but he never stood a chance. He was going for the steady squeeze, so he could stare into my eyes while I sweated it out. But he never got near. I crunched his knuckles once, then twice, a little harder, and then I dropped his hand and turned away. I was a good sixty yards north before I heard the truck start up. It rumbled south and its noise was lost in the buzz of the heat.
FOURTEEN
Back at the station house there was a big white Cadillac parked right across the entrance. Brandnew, fully loaded. Full of puffy black leather and fake wood. It looked like a Vegas whorehouse after the stern walnut and old hide in Charlie Hubble’s Bentley. Took me five strides to get around its hood to the door.
Inside in the chill everybody was milling around a tall old guy with silver hair. He was in an oldfashioned suit. Bootlace tie with a silver clasp. Looked like a real asshole. Some kind of a politician. The Cadillac driver. He must have been about seventy-five years old and he was limping around, leaning on a thick cane with a huge silver knob at the top. I guessed this was Mayor Teale.
Roscoe was coming out of the big office in back. She had been pretty shaken up after being at the Morrison place. Wasn’t looking too good now, but she waved and tried a smile. Gestured me over. Wanted me to go into the office with her. I took
another quick glance at Mayor Teale and walked over to her.
`You OK?’ I said.
`I’ve had better days,’ she said.
`You up to speed?’ I asked her. `Finlay give you the spread?’
She nodded.
`Finlay told me everything,’ she said.
We ducked into the big rosewood office. Finlay was sitting at the desk under the old clock. It showed a quarter of four. Roscoe closed the door and I looked back and forth between the two of them.
`So who’s getting it?’ I said. `Who’s_ the new chief?’
Finlay looked up at me from where he was sitting. Shook his head.
`Nobody,’ he said. `Mayor Teale is going to run the department himself.’
I went back to the door and cracked it open an inch. Peered out and looked at Teale across the squad room. He had Baker pinned up against the wall. Looked like he was giving him a hard time about something. I watched him for a moment.
`So what do you make of that?’ I asked them.
`Everybody else in the department is clean,’ Roscoe said.
`Looks that way, I guess,’ I said. `But it proves Teale himself is on board. Teale’s their replacement, so Teale’s their boy.’
`How do we know he’s just their boy?’ she said. `Maybe he’s the big boss. Maybe he’s running the whole thing.’
`No,’ I said. `The big boss had Morrison carved up as a message. If Teale was the big boss, why would he send a message to himself? He belongs to
somebody. He’s been put in here to run interference.:
‘That’s for sure,’ Finlay said. `Started already. Told us Joe and Stoller are going on the back burner. We’re throwing everything at the Morrison thing. Doing it ourselves, no outside help, no FBI, no nothing. He says the pride of the department is at stake. And he’s already driving us up a blind alley. Says it’s obvious Morrison was killed by somebody just out of prison. Somebody Morrison himself put away a long time ago, out for revenge.’