Playmates

32

WE went back to Quirk's office and teased Arlett for a while and then LeMaster and Delaney took me back to Walford in cuffs and stuck me in the Walford jail as a material witness. I was in for about two and a half hours before Haller came down with a writ and got me out.

The prisons in the state were sleeping four to a cell, but the town jails were as empty and quiet as a church on Wednesday. I alternated my time while I sat on the bare bunk between thinking about women I'd slept with and reanalyzing my all-time all-star baseball team. In recent years I'd replaced Brooks Robinson with Mike Schmidt and Marty Marion with Ozzie Smith. Now and then I wondered how the hell I ended up in jail in a case when I knew what happened and who did it and could probably prove it. But mostly I thought about women and baseball.

When I got back to my office it was late afternoon and raining. I was wearing my leather jacket to keep my gun dry and I had my collar up when I walked in from the alley where I parked. When I got out of the elevator on the second floor the corridor had that gray look that indoors gets on days like this one, and the lights from open doors along the corridor made yellow splashes on the corridor floor. One of the open doors was mine. I unzipped my jacket before I went in.

Hawk was at my desk reading a book with his feet up. He was wearing lizard skin cowboy boots. He glanced at me over the book.

"Cops talk to you?" he said.

"Yeah," I said. "What are you reading?"

"Book by Stephen Hawking," Hawk said. " 'Bout the universe."

"Only that?" I said.

"Campus cops and Walford cops and some state cops all hanging around Dwayne," Hawk said. "Figured I wasn't needed."

"Tell me about the hit on Dwayne," I said.

"Two guys pull up about five, quarter of, park in front of the condo, walk up to Dwayne's place and ring the bell. Door opens and they go in quick. I figure I better go in right after them and I do. They in the living room with Dwayne and the girl."

"Chantel," I said.

"Un huh, and there's an Uzi showing, so I say 'How dee doo' and shoot the guy with the Uzi and his associate turn around with a hand gun and. . ." Hawk shrugged and made a shooting motion with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, bringing the thumb down like a hammer falling.

"Chantel sort of moaning and got her face against Dwayne, and he hanging on to her like she gonna blow away, so I call the campus blue bellies and pretty soon there a lot of people there."

"Danny Davis got killed," I said. "They tell you that?"

"Yeah. Should a had him covered too," Hawk said.

"I know," I said.

"Can't think of everything," Hawk said.

"I'll say."

We looked at each other silently for a moment. Then Hawk nodded. I did too. "What we going to do about this?" Hawk said.

"Dwayne will turn," I said.

"Better than dying," Hawk said.

"So we're going to have some leverage on Deegan," I said.

" 'Less Dwayne runs," Hawk said. I looked at him.

"Think like Dwayne. You black, you look up to white people, but you scared of them. You don't trust them. All your life they been calling you nigger, acting like you don't matter. Now, he got his life on the line, his girlfriend's life on the line. He can trust the system, trust the white cops and the white judge to protect him, same system been telling him he don't matter for the last twenty-one years. Stand up to a white guy wants to kill him and count on the white system to protect him."

"Or," I said, "he can run. He can bury himself in the black ghetto of choice and hide for the rest of his life."

"What would you do?" Hawk said.

"Run for the ghetto," I said. Hawk nodded.

"Can you watch him," I said.

"Can't watch him forever," Hawk said. Then he smiled. "Well, I could, but I don't want to."

"Stay with him a couple of days, give me time to try and put something together."

"You want me to stop him if he runs?" Hawk said.

"No," I said. "Just want to know where he runs to."

Hawk went to hang around outside of Dwayne's, and I went to my desk and sat down and called Detective Maguire in Brooklyn. Things were looking up; I got him.

"I'm going off duty, in fact I was supposed to go off a half hour ago," Maguire said.

"I thought you New York guys never slept," I said.

"We don't," Maguire said, "but we need time off for fucking. What do you want?"

I said, "If I got Deegan to turn on that OTB thing would you deal?"

"Maybe."

"If I got him to give you the rest of the outfit, can you get him immunity?"

"He turns on the rest of the outfit and he'll need witness protection. That's Feds."

"Will the federal attorney deal on this?"

"Ain't a federal crime," Maguire said. "Why's he give a shit?"

"That's up to you," I said, "convince him."

"Yeah?"

"Can you do that?" I said.

"Maybe."

"Why don't you look into it and find out," I said.

"How you going to get Deegan to turn?" Maguire said.

"That's my problem," I said. "You work on what he'll get if I do."

"Hey," Maguire said, "I gotta know you'll turn him. I'm not going to be walking around down here saying he's turned, and find out he hasn't, and end up looking like an asshole."

"Would anyone see the change?" I said.

"I mean it," Maguire said. "I'm not sticking my neck out on the word of some guy I never even met. I mean I talked to you twice on the phone, and you got me making deals with the federal attorney."

"Magic," I said, "isn't it."

"It's bullshit," Maguire said. "You gonna turn him or not?"

"I'll turn him," I said.

"You do and we'll talk," Maguire said. "We can work something out."

"Might get your picture in the Daily News," I said.

Maguire hung up without comment.

I swiveled around and looked at the rain washing down my window. Now I could discuss these things with Deegan. If I could find him. If he didn't shoot me when I did. If Dwayne would testify.

"I need a drink," I said out loud.

No one said no. So I sat in my chair, got out a bottle of Glenfiddich and a glass and poured some neat and sipped it and watched the rain as night settled in behind it.