Pariah

TWENTY-SEVEN

It happens too fast for Doyle to reach for his gun. Too unexpected for him even to step out of the way. As Paulson slams into him at gut level, bringing him up and off the sidewalk like he’s stopping a winning touchdown, Doyle hears a long burst of noise and thinks his eardrums are exploding with the air being punched out of him. He turns his head as he crashes to the ground with Paulson on top of him. Sees the black sedan cruising by, flame leaping from the stubby muzzle of a sub-machine gun poking through the vehicle’s rear window. He hears glass shattering above him, then feels needles of it raining on his face and puncturing it.

He rolls Paulson off him and scrambles to his feet. He snatches out his Glock, but the car is already screeching around a corner. He can’t see who’s inside, but he knows who’s pulling their strings.

He turns back to Paulson, who is still on the ground, a twisted smile on his face.

‘You okay, Paulson?’

In reply, Paulson displays his open palm. It’s red and slick.

Doyle crouches down next to him and pulls the man’s coat aside. The shirt over Paulson’s abdomen is soaked in his blood.

‘Shit, Paulson. What the fuck do you think you were doing?’ He looks both ways along the block, sees that someone has dared to show his face through one of the doorways. ‘Call 911 now! Ask for an ambulance and police. Tell them there’s been shots fired and there’s a cop down. A cop down, understand? Do it!’

He examines the wound again. ‘Bullet’s gone right through. There’s an ambulance bus on its way. You’re gonna be okay, Paulson. You hear me? You’re gonna be okay.’

Paulson’s face is so white it reflects the neon signs from the storefronts. He says, ‘Life’s never dull when you’re around, is it, Doyle? Maybe I should have answered your questions on the phone like you wanted.’

‘Would have been a whole lot safer.’

‘Yeah, but then I would have missed out on our cozy little chat. Worth it, don’t you think?’

‘Sure, Paulson. Hang in there, okay? Hang in there.’

‘You get a look at your man in the car?’

‘Uh-uh.’

‘Pity.’

‘Put your hand here. Try to stop the bleeding.’

Doyle hears sirens in the distance. They’re growing closer, their urgency fueled by the 10–13 call. Doyle knows he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do. It’s time he doesn’t feel he can spare right now.

Paulson sees the expression on his face. He says, ‘Why do I get the feeling you don’t want to be here when the cops arrive?’

‘I got this aversion to authority figures. Now shut the fuck up and save your energy.’

‘You worked out the question yet, Doyle?’

‘What?’

‘The question you should have asked me.’

‘No, I. . no.’

‘For fuck’s sake, do I have to do all your thinking for you? Ask me how I know there’s a dirty cop in your precinct.’

‘Okay, how do you know about the dirty cop?’

Paulson’s body jerks, and he groans with the pain in his abdomen.

‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘Jesus Christ, Paulson. This is no fucking time for games.’

‘It’s an ongoing investigation, Doyle. Give me something I can deny or not. A yes-no question.’

The sirens are louder now, just blocks away, probably trying to fight through the traffic.

‘Okay, uhm. . let me think. . uhm, an operation. It went south. An intelligence leak.’

‘I couldn’t comment.’

No denial.

‘And the outfit involved, the crew that got away because of the leak. You know who they were.’

‘You do too, don’t you, Doyle?’

Doyle almost can’t bring himself to utter the name.

‘Kurt Bartok.’

Paulson coughs. ‘No comment. Now get the fuck out of here.’

Doyle looks down the street. He can see flashing lights bouncing off the buildings.

‘I’m staying with you.’

‘I can tell you got other things to do, and I don’t need you, so go!’

‘You saved my life.’

‘And now I’m saving your ass. Don’t worry, I’m not jamming you up. Last time I checked, I was a sergeant and you were a DT Second Grade, so take this as an order to leave. Go, will ya!’

Doyle stands and looks around, sees the approaching RMPs and an ambulance. Before he leaves, he performs one last act.

Reaching down to Paulson, he takes his free hand and shakes it firmly.

He’s out of time.

He’s pacing up and down in Spinner’s apartment, trying to think, and all he can hear is a tiny voice telling him he has no more time.

Bartok has found him once, he’ll find him again. And next time he won’t miss. In a period of less than one day, Doyle has twice washed the blood of others from his hands. It’s only a matter of time before they’re covered in his own.

The cops will be searching for him too. They’ll want to know why he was talking to IAB, and why he booked the scene when Paulson was shot. If they haven’t done so already, they’ll check the hotel and discover that he’s abandoned it and gone into hiding. At some point, either the cops or Bartok will have the presence of mind to look here, and then it’ll be too late for him to do anything.

So concentrate, goddamnit!

Okay, what do we have? Somehow Kurt Bartok found out the identity of the guy who’s been terrorizing me. He gets Sonny Rocca to approach the killer with an offer. Bartok will keep his identity under wraps in return for. .

For what?

What use is this guy to Bartok?

Doyle knows the answer. It’s something he should have realized a long time ago, but even now he finds it hard to accept.

Bartok was just doing what he always did. It was second nature to him. The value of the killer to Bartok was his information.

Because the killer is a cop.

Much as Doyle doesn’t want to believe it, it’s the only glue that can hold all the pieces together. Bartok’s commodity was information, most of which came from cops. He already had at least one Eighth Precinct cop in his pocket — Paulson confirmed that much.

Suppose the crooked cop finds something out about another member of service. Not necessarily that he’s a killer — this is probably way before Parlatti is murdered. Just a juicy tidbit of information that maybe could be used as leverage. Dutifully, the dirty cop passes it on to his unofficial employer, Kurt Bartok, and Bartok files it away in his vast mental storehouse. Only later, when the killings begin, is Bartok able to slot the data into the right place and see it for what it really is: a pointer to a man who is slaughtering and persecuting his own brothers.

What Bartok has now is the perfect opportunity for turning another cop. It’s not something he’s going to ignore. So he sends Rocca out to talk to the cop, to make him that offer.

Only the cop doesn’t fall for it. He bounces Rocca back with instructions to Bartok to go fuck himself.

Now Bartok doesn’t know what to do. Nobody’s ever called his bluff like this before, but he doesn’t want to give up this chance of gaining another source of his precious data.

Which is where Spinner comes in.

To Bartok, Spinner is just a pawn. Expendable. His only use is to put pressure on the cop. Bartok calls Spinner in to give him the name, but he lets the cop know about it, hoping that this time he’ll cave in.

Only he doesn’t. What he does instead is to track down Spinner and eliminate him. Whether Spinner actually learned the name or not is irrelevant. The point is that the killer believed he knew it.

And still Bartok doesn’t give up. He sends Rocca back yet again, this time with the message that he’s going to hand the killer’s name directly to the victimized cop, Doyle. It seems a win-win situation to Bartok, because he gets either the killer or Doyle as a new addition to his stable.

But the killer is always just that one step ahead. Being a cop, he may already know about the bad relations between Rocca and Bartok. He’s also had several opportunities to sound Rocca out about his employment prospects. So he makes Rocca a counteroffer, and it’s bye-bye Bartok.

Doyle stops pacing. He puts his hands over his eyes, the enormity of the truth shocking him to his core.

A fellow cop! Jesus Christ.

He wants to look for reasons to reject it as fact, to find alternatives, but he knows that nothing else will fit.

It explains so much: how the killer knew Doyle was at the boxing gym, and which was his car; how he knows Doyle’s wife and child, his address, the car that Rachel drives; how he knew Joe’s pool-night routine so well.

And there’s something else, too. When this guy phoned Rachel, pretending he was a doctor at Bellevue, he put on a fake Indian accent. The only reason for doing that is because there was a danger of Rachel recognizing his voice.

This isn’t just any cop.

This is a cop close to home.

So who?

And why is he doing this to me?

Which cops have I hurt so badly that he would go to such lengths to get back at me?

Marino? Sure, he hates my guts, but would even he stoop to this? Killing other cops just to isolate me? What kind of perverted justice is that?

Doyle collapses onto a chair, his head still in his hands. Around him are the noises of a building come to life: televisions, slamming doors, footsteps in the hallway, barking dogs, crying children. But he is oblivious to them all. He doesn’t move for a long time. He just sits and thinks, replaying recent conversations a thousand times each in his head. Looking for signs. Looking for hate. Looking for reasons.

And when his brain can take no more, he experiences utter despair. Sadness overwhelms him.

Not because the answers evade him.

But because they come to him. In a form more shocking than he would have believed possible.

He has work to do. He has people he must speak to.

If he is wrong, he may be putting their lives at risk.

That’s if he can stay alive long enough to get to them.