The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

Easing the folder closed, Marlow looked at her in a fatherly way, which unnerved her; it was as if the punishment to which she'd been sentenced was so severe that she needed the buffer zone of paternal kindness. "People like Ramos, Officer, you're not going to beat 'em. Not on their turf. You won the battle, cuffing him at the scene. But he won the war. People like that always win the war."

"You mean stupid people? Petty people? Greedy people?"

Once again the genetic makeup of a career police officer stopped him from even acknowledging the question.

"Look at this desk," he said as he did just that. It was awash in paper. Stacks and piles of folders and memos. "And I remember when I used to complain about all the paperwork when I was a portable." He rummaged through one of the stacks, apparently looking for something. Gave up. Tried another pile. He came up with several documents that weren't what he wanted either and took his own sweet time reorganizing them then resuming the search again.

Oh, Pop, I never thought a suspension'd really go through.

Then, within her, the sorrow and disappointment formed into a rock. And she thought: Okay, that's the way they're going to play? Maybe I'm going down but they'll hurt. Ramos and all the little prick Ramoses like him're are going to lick blood.

Knuckle time . . .

"Right," the captain said, finally finding what he wanted, a large envelope with a piece of paper stapled to it. He read it quickly. Glanced at a clock in the shape of a ship's wheel on his desk. "Darn, look at the time. Let's get on with it, Officer. Let me have your shield."

Heartsick, she dug dutifully into her pocket. "How long?"

"A year, Officer," Marlow said. "Sorry."

Suspended for a year, she thought in despair. She'd imagined three months at the worst.

"That's the best I could do. A year. Shield, I was asking." Marlow shook his head. "Sorry for the rush. I've got another meeting any minute now. Meetings--they drive me crazy. This one's about insurance. The public thinks all we do is catch perps. Or thinks we don't catch perps, more likely. Uhn-uhn--half the job is business bushwah. You know what my father called business? 'Busy-ness.' He worked for American Standard for thirty-nine years. Sales rep. B-U-S-Y-ness. True about our job too." He held out his hand.

Dismay pooling around her, drowning her, she handed him the battered leather case containing the silver shield and ID card.

Badge Number Five Eight Eight Five . . .

What could she do? Be a fucking security guard?

Behind him the captain's phone rang and he spun around to answer it.

"Marlow here. . . . Yessir. . . . We've got security arranged for that." And as he continued to talk to the caller, something about the Andrew Constable trial, it seemed, the captain placed the interoffice envelope in his lap. He pinched the phone in the crook of his neck, turned b

ack to face Sachs and continued his conversation as he unwound the red thread that was twisted around the clasps to keep the envelope sealed.

Droning on about the trial, the new charges against Constable and others in the Patriot Assembly, raids up in Canton Falls. Sachs noted the man's perfectly nuanced, respectful tone, how he played the deference game so perfectly. Maybe he was talking to the mayor or governor.

Maybe Congressman Ramos.

Playing the game, playing politics. . . . Is this what policework is really about? It was so far from her nature that she wondered if she had any business being a cop.

No busy-ness.

That thought tore her apart. Oh, Rhyme. What're we going to do?

We'll get through it, he'd said. But life isn't about getting through. Getting through is losing.

Marlow, still pinching the phone between ear and shoulder, was rambling on and on in the language of government. He finally got the envelope opened and dropped her shield into it.

He then reached in and extracted something wrapped in tissue paper.

" . . . don't have time for a ceremony. We'll do something later." This latter message was whispered and it seemed to Sachs he was speaking to her.

Ceremony?

A glance at her. Now another whisper, his hand over the receiver. "This insurance stuff. Who understands it? I've got to learn all about mortality tables, annuities, double indemnity. . . ."

Marlow unwrapped the tissue, revealing a gold NYPD badge.