“You paid Jackson to frame Reheema?”
“Yeah,” Bale admitted, his voice low.
“Chief.” It was all Vicki could say.
“Oh come on, get real. You know they resold the guns. Why else they buying eight or nine semiautomatic weapons? Glock, Taurus, Ruger, Smith and Wesson? We knew they did it. We just couldn’t prove it without the witness.”
“Reheema didn’t do it. She didn’t—”
“She’s the only one, and you know it. With the rest, it was going through the motions.”
“The motions are due process.” Vicki felt sickened and angry. “And where’d you get the money for this?”
“Don’t ask too many questions, Vick. Take it from me, it’s the government, there’s money around.”
“How many people did you do this to?”
“Let it lie, Vick, they’re in prison now, and I’m about to get the big job. Play ball and it’ll go away. It was a one-shot deal, I won’t do it again.” Bale’s tone turned almost plaintive, as if the tables were turned, and Vicki were the chief and he the AUSA. “I learned my lesson, believe me, I did. This thing got way outta control.”
Vicki couldn’t believe her ears. “Chief, did you really send Montgomery to kill Reheema?”
“Look, I had to. I was exposed, with Bristow. She’s got an attitude problem, that one, I heard from the way she mouthed off at the detention hearing. When Jackson got killed and the case against Bristow fell apart, I knew she wouldn’t shut up.”
“Chief, that’s conspiracy to murder!”
“It wasn’t all my fault. You got into it and you wouldn’t let it go! This whole thing woulda gone away if you—”
“Murder doesn’t go away!” Vicki interrupted, incredulous. “Montgomery murdered Reheema’s mother! He tried to murder her! You can’t get away with that!”
“Don’t think of it that way, Vick. Just let it go. Montgomery’s dead and gone, so I have no exposure. Let it go, and I’ll take care of you.”
“Let it go?” Vicki repeated, horrified.
Suddenly, the wooden door opened, and Angelo’s bartender came out in a black knit cap and a Flyers jacket. He nodded to them both and walked up the street in the storm. Bale gestured her away from the entrance, and Vicki followed him to the next little overhang that covered the entrance of a low-rent jewelry store. The lights were off inside the store, and in the front window, a blue neon sign glowed, DIAMONDS BOUGHT AND SOLD. Velveteen display stands in the window stood empty, the diamonds gone.
Vicki tried to gather her thoughts, but they wouldn’t gather, she was so appalled. “Chief, how can I just let it go? How can you?”
“Look, Montgomery was just insurance, in case another one blackmailed me. Everybody in the neighborhood knew him, he kept everyone in line. I swear, I didn’t really think I’d have to use him.”
“Another one?”
Bale ignored the question. “Come on, when I made the deal with Montgomery, I didn’t know the case against Reheema would fall apart. I didn’t know those kids would kill Jackson and Morty that night. How would I know that Browning didn’t pay his bills? Like I say, it just got outta control.”
“It’s wrong, Chief, all wrong. You have to turn yourself in.”
“Oh, please!” Bale snorted, the neon blue outlining the contours of his cheekbone. “Are you kidding? Right now, when I’m this close? When I finally got over? Are you nuts?”
“You have no other choice!”
“You want me to do time with the clowns I convicted, Vick? Ruin my wife and family?”
“No, I don’t, but it’s the only way.”
Bale stepped back in anger, as if pushed. “You’re pretty high and mighty for a kid, you know. So full of yourself. So naïve, so gullible. You think I’m the only one who cuts a corner or two? You’re a rich kid, you don’t know jack about how things get done.”
“Chief—”
“You think I worked alone?” Bale’s eyes flashed in the blue darkness. “You know I didn’t. You know I was in it with a white man. Don’t you want to know who he is?”
The white guy.
“Guess. We’ll play a little game. Guess the white man who worked with me to set Bristow up. Guess the white man who found Jackson in the first place.”
“It’s not Dan, is it?” Vicki blurted out, before she realized she’d even suspected him.
And Bale smiled.
FORTY-EIGHT
“That altar boy?” Bale said. “Malloy? No way.”
“Not Strauss.”
“The boss?” Bale snorted. “Nah, he didn’t know a thing. He turns his head away. He only knows what he wants to know. He doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.”
“Then who?”
“Morty.”
Vicki felt stunned, as if from a blow.
“Yes, it was Morty.”
No. “Chief, you’re lying.”
“The hell I am! Your great Morty, your beloved Morty, everybody’s beloved Morty.” Bale looked almost gleeful. “It was Morty who knew Jackson, not me. He found her for me. He was the white man with me that night, when we went to her house, to get her ready for Bristow’s trial.”
Morty. “That can’t be. He would never—”
“Yes, he would. He did. He was dedicated, all right. He wanted the guns off the street and he did what it took. Ha!” Bale seemed to draw strength from revealing the secret, a seasoned prosecutor saving his best argument for last. “Your case, Bristow, was the last case, the last one, and we woulda made it happen if those kids hadn’t broken in that night! Morty didn’t see that one comin,’ poor guy.”
“But why would he—”
“Morty wanted the guns off the street, Vick! You know that! You heard at the wake, nobody worked harder. He was happy to do whatever he could do, and you should be, too. You know, you and him were a lot alike.”
Vicki felt too heartsick to ask what he meant.
“You and Malloy, you think I don’t know about you two? The way you look at each other? Mixing business with pleasure. Morty was, too. Had to go and fall in love with the CI, with Jackson. She was twenty years younger than him.” Bale leaned over. “And it was his baby she was carrying.”
The baby in the postmortem report. She was mixed race.
“He was gonna marry the bitch! That’s Morty for you! That’s the real Morty! Married to the job, for real! Surprised?”
Vicki couldn’t speak. She flashed to the night Morty was killed. Him lying there, blood bubbling on his lips. The first thing he’d asked: “How’s the CI?”
“See, that’s my point, Vick. Morty was in on it because it was the right thing to do. It got us what we wanted, what we’re all working for.”
Vicki remembered Mrs. Tillie Bott, telling her that Shayla had said she was going to change her life. She’d been planning a future with Morty.
“If it was good enough for Morty, isn’t it good enough for you?”
Vicki couldn’t answer. Agent Thompson, just today, had said, “He seemed so happy since you two have been working together, this past year.” But it was Shayla Jackson whom Morty had been with this past year. He’d fallen in love and was going to be a father.
“You should’ve let it go, Vick. I told you to get off it, I warned you to get off it! I even assigned you to another case, but you wouldn’t let it go.”
“How can I, Chief?” Vicki asked, aching.
“You have to.”
“I can’t. I won’t.”
“Come on, kid. What’re you doin’ here? What’re you doin’ to me?” Bale’s gaze shifted, suddenly jittery. “You’re backin’ me into a corner here, you know that?”
“You backed yourself into it, Chief. I know about you and so does Reheema. Dan will know, too, when he finds out Montgomery shot Reheema. Nobody’s gonna let it go, Chief. It’s over.”
“I thought we were friends! We got along pretty good, didn’t we? I didn’t fire you when I could have, I knew you would never let go then. Keep yo
ur friends close and your enemies closer, right?” Bale’s eyes looked suddenly wet, and Vicki felt a twinge of sympathy.
“I’m not your enemy, Chief.”
“Sure you are, you’re gonna turn me in!”
“I have to turn you in, if you don’t turn yourself in.”
“You and Malloy! You’re gonna ruin my career, my life!” Bale’s voice went higher and he grew panicky, desperate. “You want to ruin my life? My kids’ lives? That what you want?”
“No, but—”
“I’m not goin’ in, Vick. I can’t. I know I did wrong, but I can’t go in. Sorry.” Suddenly Bale slipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out a dark Beretta. His pained eyes locked with Vicki’s over the gun, and she knew from his tears what he was going to do. She had faced a loaded gun before, and this bullet wasn’t meant for her.
“Chief, no!” Vicki shouted. She lunged for Bale’s wrist just as he started to turn the gun on himself.
Crak! the Beretta fired, and Bale fell backward, knocked off balance. They both tumbled back and fell hard on the snowy sidewalk, the gun flying from Bale’s open palm.
“CHIEF!” Vicki screamed, terrified that Bale had been hit, but behind her, the glass window of the jewelry store shattered. A security alarm went off in the next minute, earsplitting in the quiet night.
“No!” Bale moaned, lying still and beginning to sob, and Vicki held him close as a shout came from the entrance of Angelo’s.
“VICK! VICK!” It was Dan. Then there was another shout from someone else, then another, closer. The cops and AUSAs were coming, running to them. They would arrest Bale, who was wracked with sobs, and take him away.
Vicki felt like crying, too, but she couldn’t give in to emotion just yet.
Reheema.
FORTY-NINE
Vicki and Dan sat together in the waiting room of the hospital’s emergency department, which was empty except for a couple waiting to see an ER doctor about a flu. Fluorescent lights shone harshly in the allegedly comforting room, with its pastel-blue walls, hotel watercolors, and pink pamphlets about wellness and the importance of dietary fiber. Newspapers and magazines, their covers curled, made a periodical pile on the wooden coffee table, and the place smelled vaguely of McDonald’s French fries from a bag left in the waste can. An old TV mounted in the corner was on low volume, but Vicki couldn’t bear to watch again the footage of her Cabrio with Reheema’s blood on the door. She had left her parents a phone message, so they didn’t freak when they saw the TV.
She rested her head on Dan’s shoulder, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Reheema, who was still in surgery after three hours. Vicki was going crazy without an update on her condition; the doctors were working on her, and the nurses and other emergency staff were busy. She had cried all the tears she could cry and sat in the chair, still in her down coat, feeling exhausted, tense, and guilty.
“I should’ve been with her, Dan.”
“No, you couldn’t. You did everything you could.”
Vicki didn’t reply, but she would never believe that. She could never have predicted where this long road would lead her. Now that she’d reached the end, she didn’t want to be here. Not if it cost Reheema her life.
She couldn’t stop the mental images of what else was to come. The indictment against Bale. His wife and kids heartbroken. Her office and ATF disgraced. Strauss and Saxon before microphones, reminding the public of the overwhelming majority of hardworking, dedicated AUSAs and agents. Lawsuits by those wrongly imprisoned, costing the federal government millions of dollars. Every penny won would be deserved, and even so, couldn’t make anyone whole. And some of those released would surely have been found guilty, if the government had been given the chance to prove its case; now they’d be freed, even well-compensated. So they could buy more guns for resale.
“If justice is good, why does it feel so bad?” Vicki asked.
“Lot of things that are good feel genuinely lousy.”
“Like what?”
“Apologies, for example. I owed you a major apology and I gave it to you. I was wrong, down the line, and you were right.” Dan smiled, tired and still wearing his North Face coat, too. “You know, I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Vicki liked the new tone in his voice, but neither of them felt like kissing. “So when you gonna dump me?”
“After I sleep with you a few more times.”
“Hey!” Vicki shoved him, and Dan laughed softly, defending himself with his hands.
“Stop. I’m not dumping you.”
“What about work?”
“We can handle it.”
“What about what people will say?”
“They don’t like it, they can kiss my Irish ass.” Dan smiled.
“I’m sorry I said you had to choose. I was being stupid.”
“I’m sorry I said you were political.”
“I am. At least, I was.”
“I can’t believe Morty,” Vicki said, disgusted. “He turned out to be such a fraud. A liar. His whole life was phony.”
“You’re just angry.”
“Damn right I am. Look what he did.”
“You and me, we don’t see Morty the same way.”
Vicki frowned. “Since when did you start talking like Dr. Phil?”
“Since about an hour ago, when my girlfriend almost got killed, again, and my professional life turned upside down. It makes you think.”
“How do you see him?”
“I’ll tell you, if you can listen with an open mind.” Dan’s smile vanished, and his eyes looked dead-level at Vicki. “It’s something I learned from my father, and from Zoe.”
“The cat?” Vicki smiled. “Okay.”
“As you know, Miss Zoe is loving, smart, and loyal. She has many wonderful qualities. Plus, she loves you.”
“I’m her landlord.”
“That’s beside the point. She hated my evil ex-wife.”
“So did I.”
Dan smiled. “But to my point. She’s wonderful but she’s not perfect. She has a heart murmur.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I love her anyway.”
“So?”
“Think about Morty. He was smart and dedicated and able, but he had something wrong with his heart. And so did Bale. You’re angry because you think you can’t love them anymore, especially Morty. But you can.” Dan nodded. “My father is in the same category, but I love him anyway, too.”
“You forgive him?”
“No, I mean I love him. It’s a direct line.”
“Is that possible?” Vicki didn’t get it.
“Yes. Listen to me. I’m older, I’m taller, and I know.” Dan reached over and moved a stray tendril from Vicki’s face. “You’re looking for the perfect man, babe, and all there is is me, and your father.”
Vicki blinked, and suddenly there was a rustling at the threshold to the waiting room. They both turned. Reheema’s surgeon, an older man in wrinkled blue scrubs and a puffy patterned hat, came bustling in, his face drawn with concern.
“Doc?” Vicki said, alarmed, sitting up.
FIFTY
By early morning, the snow had finally stopped falling outside the hospital room window, leaving the sky a pure sapphire-blue that appeared only in the coldest winters, as heaven’s own reward. Vicki sat in the high-backed chair while Reheema slept, a transparent green oxygen tube looped under her nose, and her hair black and fuzzy on the thin white pillow. A thermal blanket was pulled up to her neck, covering the bandages from her surgery. The doctor had said that she was going to live, but her recovery was going to be slow, so Vicki had sent Dan home.
In time Reheema stirred and her large eyes fluttered open, and Vicki got up and crossed to the bed, feeling a rush of relief. It was one thing to have a doctor say she was going to live, and another to see her finally wake up. Vicki eased onto the edge of the bed, near Reheema. A splint had been taped to the top of her hand where the IV went into the vein, and her long, dark
fingers bent slightly, with the residuum of dried blood under her fingernails.
Reheema opened her eyes and managed a weak smile. “Back off,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Last time you got this close… you tried to strangle me.”
Vicki smiled. “That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before I knew you’d sue me for it.”
Reheema smiled again, then it faded quickly. The spirit was willing, but the body was definitely weak. She looked as if she could barely keep her eyes open, but when she did, they flashed with attitude. “I’ll drop that suit… you treat me right.”
“Now don’t get fresh. I’ve been here all night and we haven’t fought once.”
“I was asleep.”
“I’ll take it. How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
“Congratulations, you’re out of intensive care.”
“Dumb… to stay in here too long. I feel… fine.”
“Oh yeah, you look fine. You know, I bet Dan you wouldn’t make it. The minute you woke up, I lost fifty bucks.”
Reheema smiled again. “Montgomery dead?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Vicki couldn’t deny it. “And Bale’s going to prison. I’ll give you the details when you feel better.”
Reheema smiled contentedly.
“Oh yeah, where’d you get the gun?”
“Where’d you… think?”
“My top drawer?”
“You hid it under your panties… bein’ all badass. Oooh.” Reheema smiled again, then ran a dry tongue over her lips. “Yo, got some water?”
“Sure.” Vicki picked up the beige plastic pitcher on the rolling bed table, poured water into a Styrofoam cup, and held it to Reheema’s lips. “The doc said you’d be thirsty after the surgery, because they had to put a tube down your throat. I asked them, hey, can I put the tube down her throat? But they said no.”