Pariah

TWENTY-SIX

Says Paulson, ‘Coffee and donuts.’

Says Doyle, ‘Look, Paulson, all I want to do is ask you a lousy question or two. We can do this on the phone.’

Paulson sighs. ‘Last time we spoke, you said you wouldn’t go for coffee and donuts with me. I was insulted. Hurt, in fact. Now you need something from me, I think it’s only fair you make amends. Coffee and donuts.’

Doyle thinks on it. A date with Paulson has never ranked high on his list of ambitions.

‘You know my circumstances. Being around me is even worse for your health than those high-tar cigarettes you keep puffing on. I should carry a warning from the Surgeon General.’

‘You know my circumstances too. My line of work, other cops tend to be a little shy in making the first advance. It’s nice when guys like you realize what a valuable service we perform. Come on, Doyle, pop the question. I promise I won’t be a prick-teaser.’

Fuck him, Doyle thinks. He wants to be the next rat in the trap, so be it. This time the perp may actually be doing me a service.

‘Where and when?’

The when is four-thirty in the afternoon. It’s the earliest Paulson can make, which means that Doyle has no choice but to bide his time in Spinner’s palace, switching his gaze between daytime TV and the cockroaches and trying to decide which has more entertainment value.

The where is Kath’s Koffees on Eighth Street, a place which Doyle feels is uncomfortably close to the precinct station house and people who might recognize him. But then, anywhere in the state of New York seems too close to the station house right now.

When he arrives, Paulson is already seated in a booth. It’s a window booth, so Doyle couldn’t be any more visible to passers-by. Sighing, Doyle takes a seat opposite Paulson.

The IAB man is pouring a packet of white sugar into tar-black coffee. The remnants of several other packets are scattered around the table, meaning that either Paulson has had several cups already, or else he likes his coffee tooth-achingly sweet.

‘Nice place,’ says Doyle. ‘You come here often?’

Paulson dips a spoon into the murk and begins to stir. It looks like he’s struggling to push it through the molten sugar.

‘It has a certain ambience.’

‘I think the word is ambulance, for after you’ve eaten here.’

A waitress scrapes her shoes across to the table and asks for his order. Doyle requests a coffee.

‘And donuts,’ Paulson says. ‘We agreed donuts.’

Doyle nods his assent to the waitress and she shuffles off again.

‘We could have done this on the phone,’ Doyle says.

‘No, we couldn’t,’ Paulson responds. ‘Sure, we could have traded questions, information, facts, whatever. But true social interaction — you can’t get that in a phone call. That’s the tragedy of today’s cellphone culture. Too many people think they’re socializing when in fact they’re avoiding it. It’s a sad situation. I mean, look at us here. The two of us, drinking coffee, eating donuts, passing the time. There’s no substitute for that, is there?’

‘What do you want me to say, Paulson? That this is the highlight of my week? It ain’t gonna happen. There’s too much shit gone under the bridge for that. I came to you because I got a question that maybe you can answer. I thought maybe, just this once, you might be willing to try and help a cop out instead of doing what you can to get him jammed up.’

Paulson takes a sip of his coffee, licks his lips, then nods as if in satisfaction with the drink’s consistency and flavor.

‘What is it with cops like you, Doyle? How is it you manage to see everything in black and white? Where does this notion of simplicity come from? The boys in blue, the precinct DTs — they’re all good guys, right? Doing everything they can to put the world to rights. Doing it on piss-poor pay, too, and under conditions of service that get lousier every time the commissioner puts pen to paper. And then you got people like me. The ones who crossed to the dark side. The ones who will use any means at their disposal to hurt honest, hard-working officers. That about sum it up for you, Doyle?’

Doyle nods, more to humor Paulson than anything else. He’s not in the mood for joining a debating society right now.

‘Something like that,’ he mutters.

Paulson takes another sip. ‘You know what I was doing two weeks ago today?’

Doyle wants to groan in despair. He just wants to lay down his questions and get out of here.

‘I dunno. Helping old ladies cross the street and then asking them what their cop grandsons do when they’re off duty?’

‘No. I was arresting a cop. I made the collar personally. Even put the cuffs on myself.’

‘Well, that sounds like a good day’s work. Shame on me for thinking badly of you.’

‘You want to know what the guy did?’

Not really, Doyle thinks. ‘He take home an official NYPD pencil? That would be pretty serious, I think. Hard prison time for that one. Maybe even the death penalty if you play your cards right.’

‘I’ll tell you what he did. .’

Paulson pauses while the waitress brings over Doyle’s coffee and the two donuts. Paulson takes a bite of his donut and gives another nod of satisfaction. Doyle wonders how long it’ll be before Paulson goes hyper when the sugar and caffeine rush kicks in.

‘I’ll tell you what he did,’ Paulson repeats. ‘Porn. On his computer. Masses of it.’

‘Well, thank God you uncovered that one, Paulson. You never know, could be the guy was even planning to jerk off sometime. Where would we be then?’

Paulson stuffs another chunk of food into his mouth, but doesn’t let it stop him from speaking. ‘I’m talking thousands of images here. Movies, even. Some of them pretty hardcore stuff. Stuff that would make your hair curl.’

Doyle flicks particles of jettisoned food from his jacket sleeve. ‘Yeah, well, don’t let it worry you too much. One of these days you’ll get a real live girlfriend of your own and you’ll realize it’s not so disgusting. Some of it is actually pretty good fun.’

‘I’m talking kiddie porn,’ Paulson says.

Doyle stares at him, but Paulson isn’t even looking back. He’s raising his coffee cup, blowing across the surface of the steaming liquid. Doyle realizes he’s just been led into a well-prepared trap.

Paulson continues: ‘Kids of all ages, both sexes. Far as we can tell, the youngest is about six months old. You shoulda seen the look in her eyes. I’ll never forget that look.’

Doyle fills his own mouth with coffee, providing himself with an excuse for not speaking. He gulps audibly and feels the burning run down to his stomach.

‘And you know what the worst of it was?’ Paulson says. ‘The thing that made me want to be there for the collar? The thing that gave me so much pleasure to slap on the cuffs and tighten them so they practically cut off his circulation? It was him, Doyle. In the pictures, in the movie files. It was the cop. The worthless piece of shit who defiled the bodies and destroyed the souls of little children — he once wore a uniform and a badge. Now you tell me which one of us was wrong, Doyle. Tell me which one of us wears the black hat and which one wears the white. Maybe all hats are just shades of gray.’

Almost a full minute passes before Doyle answers. ‘Okay, Paulson, you got me with your little story there. You convinced me that you’re a force for good, that you provide a useful and valuable service. That what you wanted to hear? Feeling good about yourself now? Can we move on? Can I ask my question and get the fuck outta here?’

And then Paulson does something unexpected. He brings his fist crashing down on the table so hard that the coffee cups and plates do a little jig, and the head of every other customer turns to glance at them.

‘Fuck you, Doyle!’ he spits. ‘You want something from me, then you stop acting like a fucking asshole. You stop pretending that everyone can be put into neat little boxes, and you start accepting that some of us do what we do because it’s right, not because it’s easy.’

In that moment, Doyle sees something in Paulson he has never seen before. A spark of humanity. In that flash of emotion, Doyle sees vulnerability, outrage, morality and devotion to a cause, all combining to make Paulson something more than the obsessed automaton he has always appeared. Despite his antipathy, Doyle finds himself no longer able to be so dismissive of Paulson, no longer able to prevent himself from engaging with his old adversary.

‘Because it’s right? You gave me one chapter, Paulson. A few pages where things worked out for once, where you really did end up catching the bad guy. Well done to you. Good catch. But what about the rest of the story? What about all the other times you and your IAB pals made life miserable for cops who never did so much as accept a cookie without paying for it? What about all the cops who ate their guns because of pressure from IAB? What about me? You forget about that? You forget about how you told me I was no better than a cop killer? Saying to me that maybe I didn’t pull the trigger, but I damn well may as well have done? Telling me about how you were going to talk to my wife about all those nasty rumors going around? How you were going to interrogate her about my sex life? Any of this coming back to you, Paulson, or do you have some kind of selective memory in that head of yours, only able to remember the cases that fall right for you?’

Doyle pauses for breath, and notices that the waitress is at his elbow.

‘Guys,’ she says. ‘You mind calming it down a little, please? You’re making the other customers a little uncomfortable.’

The way he feels, Doyle is on the verge of yelling at the rest of the dump’s clientele to mind their own fucking business, but the waitress’s practiced smile defuses his anger. He nods at her, then distracts himself with his coffee, the cup in his hand trembling with the memories that have resurfaced.

When he speaks again, Paulson’s voice is quieter, more reasoned. ‘This is where I say something like I was only doing my job, and you say something about Nazis, right? So let me say this instead. Suppose you had been cheating on your wife. Suppose you had been responsible for the death of that girl.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll make it easier for you. Take yourself out of the equation. Suppose you’d heard that another cop had been making whoopee with your partner Laura Marino. Suppose that same cop had gone into a building with Laura, and he’d come out alive and she’d come out in a body bag. What would you have me do? Should I say to the cop, “Hey man, you’re wearing a badge, so you must be okay, have a good day, officer?” Or, given that your partner’s now six feet under, would you prefer I push him a little bit more than that? What about our Kindergarten Cop? Should I maybe have given him the heads-up? Give him a chance to wipe the porn from his computer because, hey, after all, he’s one of the good guys, right?’

‘Sometimes,’ Doyle says, ‘it’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it. There are ways and means, Paulson.’

‘Really? I know it hurts, but think back over those talks we had a year ago. Look at them really closely, replay the words in your mind, and then tell me I was any more brutal than you’ve been with perps in the interrogation room.’

‘Difference is, I’m not a skell. I’m a cop. I’m NYPD. And so are you.’

‘And so was a child rapist. All the more reason to have people like me on the job, wouldn’t you say? People who aren’t afraid to squeeze balls just because they belong to another cop. Like I said, I don’t do this to make me Mr Popular. I do it because it’s necessary.’

Doyle drains his cup. ‘Okay, Paulson.’

‘Okay what?’

‘Just. . okay.’

Paulson stares into Doyle’s eyes. It takes a while, but finally he gives one more of his nods. What do you know, Doyle thinks; he finds me as acceptable as his donut.

Paulson says, ‘Your turn.’

‘My turn for what?’

‘To tell me the point of this meeting. I gave you my reasons. What are yours?’

‘I been telling you all along: to ask you some questions.’

‘Must be pretty big questions, you agreeing to meet me here, listen to me preaching like this.’

‘Actually, yes. Finding the guy who’s whacking everyone around me, that’s a pretty big issue.’

‘You’re not even on the case, Doyle. What sort of questions come up when you’re watching adult cable and drinking the contents of your mini-bar?’

‘I got a lot of time to think, and I got more at stake than most.’

Paulson taps his fingernail against the handle of his cup for a few seconds.

‘I think we’re done here.’

‘What?’

‘I said we’re done. Don’t forget to pay before you leave. You’re the host, remember.’

‘What are you talking about? We’re not done. Not until you start answering-’

Paulson brings his fist down again, but with a lot more restraint this time.

‘Damn it, Doyle. I was straight with you, now you start being straight with me. Otherwise this ends now. I called your hotel after you phoned me. They said you checked out in the early hours of the morning. I made them give me the home phone number of the night clerk, and guess what? She said that not long before you checked out, you arrived at the hotel looking hurt and with blood on you. Then tonight you limp in here looking like you’ve been hit by a truck. So cut the crap, Doyle. You’re investigating, aren’t you? You’re working the case.’

Doyle hesitates, but he knows he can’t quit now. ‘Yeah, I’m working the case. I’m about the only fucking one, far as I can tell. And it wasn’t a truck, it was a Lexus.’

Paulson smiles slightly. ‘Pardon me for denigrating the offending vehicle. You mind telling me how you came to be knocked down by a Lexus?’

‘It didn’t hit me; I hit it. Don’t ask — it’s complicated.’

‘You up to something you shouldn’t have been?’

Doyle thinks about his meeting with Bartok, his handing over of confidential intelligence. He looks into Paulson’s eyes and somehow knows that he will detect a lie.

‘Probably.’

Paulson stares back, and for once Doyle sees something there that is more cop than cop hunter.

‘Ask me,’ says Paulson.

Doyle gathers himself. ‘The other day, outside the boxing gym, you said the reason you turned up was because you already had a vested interest in the precinct. I think those were your exact words.’

‘Vested interest. Yeah, that sounds like something I might say. That your question?’

‘An interest in the precinct. Not in me. In the precinct. When you said you thought there was nothing to find on me, I thought you were just yanking my chain, but you were serious, weren’t you? I also thought that Schneider called you in because of me, but he didn’t, did he? You were already looking at the Eighth Precinct for other reasons.’

Paulson raises his thick eyebrows. ‘Maybe.’

‘Come on, Paulson. Are you gonna talk to me, or what?’

‘You know better than that. You know I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.’

Doyle pushes himself back in his seat. ‘What the fuck? This is you being straight with me? I’m wasting my fucking time here.’

He starts to slide out of the booth.

‘’Course,’ Paulson says, ‘what I would do is deny anything I know to be totally inaccurate.’

Doyle halts, sits down again. So that’s how he wants to play it. Cloak-and-dagger stuff. Plausible deniability. The old Deep Throat routine.

‘All right,’ Doyle says. ‘So you’re looking at a cop. There’s a dirty cop in the Eighth.’

Paulson shrugs. ‘You wanna pay the bill now? I’m dying for a smoke.’

No denial. So it’s true.

Doyle digs out his wallet, finds some bills to throw on the table.

‘And I’m not in your sights this time?’

‘Not this time. Not unless you wanna confess something.’

‘So who? Who’s the cop?’

‘Come on, Doyle.’

‘Someone on patrol? Anti-Crime? The detective squad?’

‘I dunno.’ He sees the look on Doyle’s face. ‘Seriously. I don’t know. And I couldn’t tell you even if I did. Come on, let’s get out of here. You want that donut?’

Shit, thinks Doyle. It’s something, but he could do with more. A lot more.

They stand and head out of the coffee shop. Outside, the cold air hits Doyle hard, and he rubs his hands together. His mind is racing ahead.

‘You get what you wanted?’ Paulson asks, starting on Doyle’s donut.

‘Some of it.’

‘Maybe you haven’t asked all the right questions.’

Doyle looks at Paulson. There’s a twinkle in the man’s dark eyes. A hint of something hidden there that he is daring Doyle to pursue.

‘They’re all the questions I got.’

‘Maybe next time,’ Paulson says. He puts out his hand.

Doyle stares at the hand and wonders whether he has forgiven the man for what he did to him.

‘Maybe next time,’ he says.

He turns, starts to walk back to his car.

When he hears his name being thrown after him, it’s not just a casual call.

It’s a yell.

A scream, in fact.

When Doyle whirls, he sees Paulson running straight at him, his arms coming up, the donut dropping from his hand, his teeth bared as though he’s about to bite Doyle’s face off.