Playmates

31

I was in Lt. Martin Quirk's office at Homicide. Quirk was there, and Frank Belson, and a young cop from Walford named Stuart Delaney, a former state cop named LeMaster, who was the Chief of the Taft U. police, and a guy from the Middlesex D.A.'s office named Arlett. Quirk was sitting square in his chair behind his desk, his forearms resting on the desktop, his thick hands motionless on his blotter. Belson sat in a straight chair, tipped back against the wall to Quirk's left, smoking a cheap narrow cigar, with his hat on and tilted down over his forehead. The rest of us ranged in straight chairs in a semicircle facing Quirk. Quirk was looking at me.

"Why, you are perhaps asking yourself," Quirk said to me, "did Lt. Quirk invite me to his office at this time with these other gentlemen?"

"I assumed you were holding a crime stoppers seminar and wanted me to lecture," I said.

"Well, that's close," Quirk said. "Actually these gentlemen all wish to learn from you what the fuck is going on with Dwayne Woodcock?"

"So where do you come in?" I said.

"Because the Walford police asked me to pick you up and hold you for them, and I thought it might make more sense if we all got together and shared our thoughts on this matter."

"You're Homicide," I said.

Quirk looked at Belson. Belson looked up from under his hat brim.

"Man knows his cops, Marty," Belson said.

"Who's dead?" I said.

"We'll ask the questions," Arlett said to me, "if you don't mind."

I looked at Quirk. "We'll ask the questions?" I said.

Quirk shook his head.

"Kid named Danny Davis," Quirk said.

I felt a tickle of relief. It wasn't Dwayne.

"Lieutenant," Arlett said, "I'll conduct this interrogation."

Quirk looked at him for a moment. Nothing appeared to change in Quirk's face, but the room seemed very quiet. Then Quirk looked back at me.

"Somebody shot him behind the left ear outside the Taft field house," Quirk said, "and then shot him in the back of the head after he'd fallen and was lying face down. Big caliber gun, maybe .45 they tell me."

"And we know you know more than you're telling," Arlett said in a rush. I could see Belson smile slightly.

Quirk ignored Arlett. "And then," he said, "somebody apparently made a run at Woodcock, and your goomba, Hawk, ah, interceded."

"Shooter dead?" I said.

"Two of them," LeMaster said. "No I.D. on them. Delaney got prints and they're going to run it down for us at Ten-Ten."

"State Police Headquarters," Arlett said. Belson's grin got a little wider.

"Gave us a statement," Delaney said, "and released Woodcock and the broad . . ."

"Chantel," I said.

"Yeah, Woodcock's broad."

I said, "She has a name. It's Chantel."

"Sure," Delaney said. "They support Hawk's statement that he acted in their defense."

"So what do you know about all of this?" Arlett said.

"Nothing," I said.

"Lieutenant, arrest him," Arlett said, "read him his rights and book him."

"Suspicion of murder?" Quirk said.

"Material witness, obstructing justice, anything you want. I want him in a cell thinking about this. Maybe his memory will improve."

"Didn't Robert Stack say that, in 'The Untouchables'?" I said.

"You're not as funny as you think you are," Arlett said.

"Yeah, sure he did," I said. "He said it to Bruce Gordon, who was playing Frank Nitti, 'maybe your memory will improve,' he said. And. . ."

"Shut up," Arlett said.

"I bet you watched that all the time," I said. "I know it was Ness who said, 'we'll ask the questions.' "

"Spenser," Quirk said, "give it a rest."

"Farantino's got a bad caseload problem in Middlesex," Belson said, around his cigar. "Sends out the best he's got available."

Arlett turned toward Belson. "Sergeant, just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Belson's thin face with its permanent five o'clock shadow was sincere as he looked at Arlett.

"Trying to be supportive," he said. Quirk stood up.

"You gentlemen wait here," he said. "Frank, Spenser, come with me."

He went around his desk and out the door of his office without waiting to see if we'd come. We came. He went along through the squad room and out and down a corridor and in through a door marked OCU. It was another squad room, a little smaller than Homicide. We walked through toward a door that read SGT. MYLES HICKMAN, COMMANDER, and opened the door.

"Myles is on vacation," Quirk said.

He sat behind the desk and I sat in front and Belson closed the pebbly glass door and leaned on the wall beside it.

"Okay," Quirk said. "Arlett's an asshole, you know it, Frank knows it, I know it. He's new in the criminal division, he's insecure and he should be. So he tries to be tough and he don't know how. But the questions he's asking aren't questions that shouldn't be answered. And if he pushes me I'll have to arrest you for him. They'll hold you in Walford."

"For how long," I said.

"Until Haller gets there. If we bust you, I'll have Frank call him."

I got up and stood looking out at the nearly empty squad room. At the far end was a darkhaired cop with a thick mustache. His baseball jacket was hung on the back of his chair. He was wearing his gun in a shoulder holster and a set of handcuffs dangled as well from the strap under his arm. He had his feet up on the desk. He was wearing New Balance running shoes and jeans. He hunched his right shoulder up to hold the phone against his ear while he fumbled for something in the desk drawer.

"I should have had Davis covered too," I said.

The cop on the phone found a pad of yellow paper in the drawer and began to write on it with a ballpoint pen.

"And I simply didn't think of it," I said. I turned and looked at Quirk and Belson. "I didn't think of it."

"Too late now," Belson said. I nodded.

"I know who had him killed, and I know who sponsored the run at Dwayne, and I know why, but I can't prove it."

"Give it to us," Quirk said. "Maybe we can prove it."

"Arlett's going to prove it?"

"They got some good people working out of there," Quirk said. "Stegman, Russo."

I nodded again.

"The other problem is I will have to implicate someone I don't want to implicate."

"Life's hard," Quirk said.

"Kid already knows that," I said. "I'm trying to make it a little easier."

"Woodcock?"

"I'm not going to say."

"What are you trying to do?" Quirk said.

"I'm trying to figure out a way to nab the son of a bitch who had Davis killed, without nabbing the kid he corrupted."

"You want to do this legal?" Quirk said.

"Doesn't make too much difference," I said.

"I didn't figure it did," Quirk said.

"But the kid's got to learn some stuff out of this," I said.

"Father Flanagan," Belson murmured.

"So you don't just ace the bad guy and call it even," Quirk said.

"No," I said.

"Not like you wouldn't do it," Quirk said.

"Not this time, at least," I said.

"You want to tell me the bad guy's name?" Quirk said.

"Informally?" I said.

Quirk laughed a little short laugh with his mouth closed.

"You mean will I tell Arlett?" he said. I nodded.

"No," Quirk said.

"Okay. Guy named Bobby Deegan. New York wants him for knocking over an OTB parlor. He's been fixing Taft basketball games and was using Woodcock and, apparently, the Davis kid to beat the spread."

"I heard Taft hired you on that," Quirk said.

"And fired you," Belson said.

"And I got in there and stirred things up, and got so close to Deegan that he tried to hit me, and failed."

"Parking garage on Milk Street?" Quirk said. I shrugged.

"And then he realized that the only people could put him away were the people he'd bought," I said.

"So he had them hit," Quirk said. "Except you figured he'd try for Woodcock, so you had Hawk there."

"Days," I said. "Dumb bastards had waited an hour they'd have had the campus cops to deal with instead of Hawk."

"Be my choice," Belson said.

"So you sink Deegan, and he takes Dwayne down with him," Quirk said.

"If we can keep him alive," I said.

"He's too hot," Quirk said. "Be hard to get anyone to try for him now. I wouldn't take the guards away, but I think you got a little time." I nodded.

"So what are you going to do?" Quirk said.

"I'll think of something," I said.

"Too bad you didn't think of it before they killed Davis," Quirk said.

"Yeah," I said.