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with a set of pins, labeled with Pat McKinney's name. They had wrapped a
complete collection of Smokey Robinson CDs and had somehow managed to get
Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte to sign a note inviting me to the dugout after
the opening game at Yankee Stadium in the spring, for which we all had
tickets.
The last box was a tiny one, wrapped in shiny gold foil with white ribbon,
with a card that read, For our favorite partner.
Inside was a pair of cuff links. Each was a miniature blue and gold NYPD
detective shield, one bearing Mike's number and the other Mercer's. I took the
navy silk knots out of the French-cuffed shirt I was wearing with my blazer
and jeans and replaced them with their gift.
Mercer drove us across town to West Forty-ninth Street, where I had reserved
an eight-thirty table at Baldoria's. The bouncer held open the door and we
were greeted inside by Frank. Since the chic downtown offshoot of Rao's had
opened last year, it was one of the hottest tables in town. The great buzz,
the classy brown and white decor, the same superb jukebox selections, and the
outstanding food combined to make the place an instant success.
Bo Dietl was at the bar. He had retired from the police department after
solving the Palm Sunday Massacre in Brooklyn several years back, but he was a
dogged private investigator who seemed to keep tabs on every crime that went
down in Manhattan.
"Buy them a round," he told the bartender. He had Mike corralled in a bear hug
as he got off his stool to offer it to me. "What are you drinking?"
"Make it doubles all around. We had a rocky ride this afternoon." The story of
the tram shooting became more embellished with each telling. Bo was chewing on
his cigar as Mike described how he knocked me to the ground and had to cover
my mouth because I was screaming so frantically.
"I didn't scream. I was so terrified, I think the words froze in my throat."
Bo asked what we were working on and Mike explained where we were in the
Dakota case. "Did you remember to call Professor Lockhart this afternoon?" he
was reminded to ask, turning to me.
"Yes, from the hospital, when the hearing was over. He lives just north of the
city, in White Plains. If we drive up there tomorrow morning, he'll be happy
to talk with us."
Bo kept looking over my shoulder, at the table closest to the end of the bar.
"Guess the case they had in Jersey is falling apart."
"Not that I'm aware of "
"Hey, Alex. The Bo reads the newspapers, y'know." He had a Bob Doleish way of
talking about himself in the third person. "That guy, sitting with the broad
with all the hair poofed up on top of her head? That's Ivan Kralovic, isn't
it?"
My head snapped in the direction Bo's cigar was pointing. The face of the man
in the booth was obscured by an upswept bouffant hairdo, but the retired
detective kept talking. "Heard it in the car on the radio when I was on my way
over here. Sinnelesi's number two man was putting the wood to the dead
professor. Sleeping with her in the middle of the investigation. I'm telling
you, it would take a prosecutor to be that friggin' stupid. Sorry, Alex.
Kralovic's lawyer made a bail application this afternoon. Seems the defense
team had known about the affair for weeks. The judge was ripped about it, and
granted the application today. Looks like old Ivan knew where to get his first
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good meal."
I could see Kralovic clearly now as he leaned in to cut the thick veal chop on
the plate in front of him. Ivan's mourning period for Lola had ended.
21
"We'll be back another time," I said, kissing Frank good-bye and trailing out
of the restaurant behind Mercer and Mike. "It's not the food, it's the
company." The last thing I needed was Kralovic telling his lawyer I tried to
talk to him when I ran into him at dinner.
"I had a real craving for Peking duck, anyway," Mike said, opening the rear
door of Mercer's car to let me in. We drove across town to Shun Lee Palace,
and I stopped in the phone booth to try to reach Paul Battaglia to tell him
what had happened.
After eight rings, I remembered that he was out of town until New Year's Day.
Reluctantly, I dialed Pat McKinney's home number. "Thanks, Alex. I actually
knew a few hours ago. Sinnelesi called me when he couldn't find the boss."
It would have been courteous, not to mention useful, for McKinney to have
beeped me to tell me about Kralovic's release on bail. I hated having to learn
it from an outside source, late on a Friday evening when it was impossible to
get accurate details. "Did he tell you anything else?"
"Yeah, he fired Bart Frankel today. It'll be all over the papers tomorrow
morning. Ivan's lawyer made a pretty compelling argument to the judge this
afternoon that his client only went along with the sting because he knew in
advance exactly what was happening, and wanted to be able to argue entrapment
to the court."
"You mean entrapment as a defense to hiring someone to kill his wife?"
"Yeah. He's saying the tapes will prove the whole operation was Sinnelesi's
idea. They're going to argue that Kralovic had himself wired up for months,
every time he met with or spoke to the undercovers. And that if the two sets
of tapes aren't the same, he'll prove the New Jersey prosecutor was corrupt
and simply out to get him."
It had never occurred to me that Lola's husband might have any kind of viable
defense to the charge of trying to kill her. But Sinnelesi's reputation was
not beyond question, as Battaglia's was. Perhaps Paul's nose had been even
more accurate than usual in detecting a good reason not to participate in the
Jersey plan. If our counterparts across the Hudson had been unable to nail
Kralovic squarely for his penny-stock fraud, then maybe they had stretched
procedure and undermined the attempted murder case.
All that was certain is that Ivan the Terrible had exactly what he had wanted.
Lola was dead, and the evidence pointing to him as the prime mover in her
killing was looking muddier and muddier.
We settled in for the meal. The little bit of appetite that remained after the
tram ride had evaporated with our sighting of Kralovic dining at an elegant
restaurant. I watched Mike and Mercer go through steamed dumplings and chicken
soong and a deliciously crispy duck, but I even refused my fortune cookie for
fear that its prophecy would depress me.
They had dropped me at Jake's apartment by eleven. I called him at the
Watergate Hotel to let him know that I had been delivered home safely. Unable
to sleep, I drew a steaming-hot bath and tried to escape with the latest
issues of In Style and Architectural Digest. When they failed to make me
sleepy, I immersed myself in an interminable New Yorker piece on a lost
Tibetan temple that had been rediscovered by a group of British trekkers.
Midway through the story I was ready to turn out the light.
Mike was waiting for me outside the building at eight-fifteen. We stopped for
coffee on our way north to Westchester County, to the suburban home where [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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