Pimp

Ten

Joe Miscali was at his desk, having his usual heart-attack breakfast — two eggs Benedict, with sausage and bacon on the side — when Leonard came into his office and went, “You don’t want to read Page Six of the Post today.”

Joe took a huge breath, rolled his eyes, thinking, Ah, fuck me, what now? Saying, “If it’s about me I don’t wanna hear it.”

“You?” Leonard said, sarcasm dripping, like why would they bother to write about Joe Miscali on Page Six. “No, it’s not about you, but it’s about somebody you know.”

Agitated, Joe snapped, “Stop fucking with me, I’m in the middle of breakfast here, all right?”

“Testy today aren’t we?” Leonard said. “Well, you’re really gonna be on the rag when you read about the new Max Fisher book.”

That name, Fisher, brought up acidy eggs Benedict. Another Max Fisher book? There was the instant book, right after Max’s arrest, written by a couple of reporters from the New York Post. Then one by an American guy and an Irish guy that got a few reviews and disappeared. Joe had thought the Fisher literary trend was finito.

“Bust is on the Times bestseller list,” Leonard said. “Ahead of the latest Jack Reacher. Can you believe it? Bust above Reacher? I bet Lee Child’s flipping out.”

Joe started to choke, had to take a big swig of coffee to get a hold of himself.

Joe read:

If Fisher was alive, maybe Miss Writer Broad knew where he was hiding out.

So Joe went to the store, found Paula at the information desk. It was easy to spot her, she looked just like the pic on her website, except, what was the word? Snooty. Yeah, she looked snooty.

They had coffee and Danish and she was one of those lesbos with a chip on her shoulder. He called her “honey” and she flipped out, acted like he was trying to fuck her. Christ, in 1997 you couldn’t stick a broomstick up a perp’s ass, and now you couldn’t call a witness honey? What was next?

She claimed she hadn’t had any contact with Fisher. He thought she was full of shit.

He caught some of the reading, Paula and the midget Swedish nutjob taking turns. Paula read the section where Kenneth Simmons, Joe’s partner, was killed by the Irish psycho. Paula looked right at Joe a couple of times as if saying, This one’s for you.

It made Joe sick that people were lining up, buying this book, and, worse, that it was going to be a fucking TV show.

Joe left the store, but lingered outside, double parked in his unmarked. When Paula and Stiegsson left with a few other people and hopped a cab, he tailed them to the Soho House. Snooty literary people hanging out, for fuck’s sake. He waited there till Paula and a dark-haired women left, arm in arm, kissing while waiting for a cab. Jesus Christ, Paula was a carpet muncher, no wonder she had a thing against Joe, a manly cop.

Joe tailed the cab to Brooklyn, Dumbo. It was a clear night, full moon, maybe the werewolves were out. Joe had been hoping Paula would lead him to Fisher, but after waiting a couple of hours, pissing into a Pepsi bottle three times — his damn prostate — it looked like she was in for the night with her girl toy.

On his way back to the city, Joe hit a diner near the Manhattan Bridge for his second dinner of the night, deciding he wasn’t going to give up on Fisher till there was a dead body. As he wolfed down two cheeseburgers, onion rings and a large chocolate milkshake, he just hoped the dead body wasn’t his own.