Tommy Ahearn. I’d watch out for him. He’s an ex-fighter, an Atlantic City guy. Not your playful type.”
“Thanks for the information, Mitch, but why the sudden concern for my welfare. You sound like you have a guilty conscience.”
“If there’s a connection between the murder of Richie Mazzino and whatever it is you’re working on, I’ll want your cooperation.”
“You’ll get it.”
Lou pulled a picture of Carol Ann Blackwell from the breast pocket of his suit coat and tossed it on the desk. The graduation picture showed a girl of eighteen, who could have been twenty-four, with red painted lips curled into a pout, and a face with a seductive tilt, framed by waves of flowing black hair. She was beautiful and a magnet for trouble. That was obvious from the photograph. What was also obvious was that she knew it.
“Your current assignment, I take it.”
“Want to tag along while I talk to her mom? She’s at Lankenau Hospital. Tried to kill herself last night while I was sipping my coffee.”
They rose in unison and made for the door. Mitch passed the picture back and spoke with the earnestness of a career cop.
“Worth killing for, Lou.”
Lou looked him in the eye and said dryly, “Or dying for.”
They stepped outside into a cold light rain. The sky was a pale gray, low and heavy with moisture. There wasn’t much wind. It was the kind of rain that became a nuisance because itjust wouldn’t stop. A few exits south on Interstate 95, the streets of Baltimore and Washington were flooded with rainwater. A few miles to the north and it would be snow, the highway impassable. In Philadelphia, it was going to rain all day and turn to ice at night.
Lou ignored the speed limit. He blew a few lights on Vine Street and hit the Schuylkill Expressway. He’d always hated that stretch of road, the same two narrow lanes with the amount of traffic it had to hold doubling every year. He opened the driver’s side window just enough for the cigarette smoke to filter out. He pushed the pedal to the floor, never touched the brakes. Mitch followed in his own car. They were both accustomed to speed. It was the way cops learned to drive out of necessity.
Lou didn’t mind having Mitch along, as long as it served both their purposes, but he wasn’t going to let Mitch slow him down. Mitch had learned routine and restraint on the job while Lou had been forced to fly by the seat of his pants. Mitch’s tools had become pencil and paper. They both knew how to use a gun if they were forced into it. It wasn’t easy to forget. Mitchell had only killed in war, though. Lou had pulled his pistol plenty of times on the job. He’d had to use it only once.
He’d killed a man, a kid really, nineteen years old. He’d chased him into a dark alley after a burglary. He remembered the running most, seeing himself in his mind’s eye, moving in slow motion, asking himself why he was doing it, why risk his life, what good would come of it. He could have let him go, let him get away, and told his superiors that he just lost him in the darkness between the buildings. It wouldn’t have mattered, one more that got away in a city where getting away with it was nothing unusual. He’d yelled for the guy to stop, wished he would just stop. But then the shots exploded in his ears and flashed in his eyes. He’d fired blindly. Lou had walked out of that dark alley alone. A part of him was still there.
5
Lou and Mitch pulled up in front of Lankenau Hospital. They wound their way through three rows of parked cars, past an enclosed smoking shelter and a grassy island planted with orange and yellow flowers. The front doors slid open automatically, fans humming overhead as if they were in a wind tunnel. Lou hated hospitals. They were the end of the line.
The lobby looked more like a hotel’s lobby than a hospital’s. There were people sitting around on brand-new furniture, reading newspapers and talking on cell phones. There was a
“Thanks for the information, Mitch, but why the sudden concern for my welfare. You sound like you have a guilty conscience.”
“If there’s a connection between the murder of Richie Mazzino and whatever it is you’re working on, I’ll want your cooperation.”
“You’ll get it.”
Lou pulled a picture of Carol Ann Blackwell from the breast pocket of his suit coat and tossed it on the desk. The graduation picture showed a girl of eighteen, who could have been twenty-four, with red painted lips curled into a pout, and a face with a seductive tilt, framed by waves of flowing black hair. She was beautiful and a magnet for trouble. That was obvious from the photograph. What was also obvious was that she knew it.
“Your current assignment, I take it.”
“Want to tag along while I talk to her mom? She’s at Lankenau Hospital. Tried to kill herself last night while I was sipping my coffee.”
They rose in unison and made for the door. Mitch passed the picture back and spoke with the earnestness of a career cop.
“Worth killing for, Lou.”
Lou looked him in the eye and said dryly, “Or dying for.”
They stepped outside into a cold light rain. The sky was a pale gray, low and heavy with moisture. There wasn’t much wind. It was the kind of rain that became a nuisance because itjust wouldn’t stop. A few exits south on Interstate 95, the streets of Baltimore and Washington were flooded with rainwater. A few miles to the north and it would be snow, the highway impassable. In Philadelphia, it was going to rain all day and turn to ice at night.
Lou ignored the speed limit. He blew a few lights on Vine Street and hit the Schuylkill Expressway. He’d always hated that stretch of road, the same two narrow lanes with the amount of traffic it had to hold doubling every year. He opened the driver’s side window just enough for the cigarette smoke to filter out. He pushed the pedal to the floor, never touched the brakes. Mitch followed in his own car. They were both accustomed to speed. It was the way cops learned to drive out of necessity.
Lou didn’t mind having Mitch along, as long as it served both their purposes, but he wasn’t going to let Mitch slow him down. Mitch had learned routine and restraint on the job while Lou had been forced to fly by the seat of his pants. Mitch’s tools had become pencil and paper. They both knew how to use a gun if they were forced into it. It wasn’t easy to forget. Mitchell had only killed in war, though. Lou had pulled his pistol plenty of times on the job. He’d had to use it only once.
He’d killed a man, a kid really, nineteen years old. He’d chased him into a dark alley after a burglary. He remembered the running most, seeing himself in his mind’s eye, moving in slow motion, asking himself why he was doing it, why risk his life, what good would come of it. He could have let him go, let him get away, and told his superiors that he just lost him in the darkness between the buildings. It wouldn’t have mattered, one more that got away in a city where getting away with it was nothing unusual. He’d yelled for the guy to stop, wished he would just stop. But then the shots exploded in his ears and flashed in his eyes. He’d fired blindly. Lou had walked out of that dark alley alone. A part of him was still there.
5
Lou and Mitch pulled up in front of Lankenau Hospital. They wound their way through three rows of parked cars, past an enclosed smoking shelter and a grassy island planted with orange and yellow flowers. The front doors slid open automatically, fans humming overhead as if they were in a wind tunnel. Lou hated hospitals. They were the end of the line.
The lobby looked more like a hotel’s lobby than a hospital’s. There were people sitting around on brand-new furniture, reading newspapers and talking on cell phones. There was a
Similar Books
