“What Peter and Weisbach find interesting is why the deal was proposed. Giacomo can, if he can’t get him off completely, delay his trial for forever and a day, and then keep him from actually going to jail, with one appeal or another, for another couple of years. So, what, in other words, is going on?”
“What is?”
“Weisbach and Wohl, taking a shot in the dark, told Giacomo that the only thing we’re interested in, vis-à-vis Cassandro, that might accrue to his advantage would be help with the murder of Officer Kellog and what happened at the Inferno Lounge. According to Weisbach, Giacomo acted as if something might be worked out.”
“The mob would give us one, or both, doers in exchange for Cassandro?”
Washington nodded. “Which, since that would constitute a gross violation of the Sicilian Code of Honor, again raises the question, Why is Cassandro not going to trial so important? And that is what Weisbach and I have been trying to
find out.”
“And?”
“Nothing so far.”
“Anything turn up on the Inferno Lounge job?”
“No. But I suspect there may be a connection there. Rather obviously, it was a hit, not a robbery. If it was a contract hit, it was expensive. If they give us that doer, that means Cassandro not going to jail is really important, and we’re back to why.”
Matt grunted.
“Anyway, you’ll be close to that one. You’re still going to Homicide. Whenever you feel up to coming back on the job.”
“If I had my druthers, I’d come back tomorrow morning. I really dread tomorrow.”
“At something of a tangent,” Washington said, “I have something to say which may sound cruel. But I think I should say it. My first reaction when I heard what happened was relief.”
Matt didn’t reply at first.
“I’ve also felt that,” he said finally. “It makes me feel like a real sonofabitch.”
“I’ve seen a good many murders, Matt. And more than my fair share of narcotics addicts. I hold the private opinion that a pusher commits a far more heinous crime than—for example—whoever shot Officer Kellog. Or Mrs. Alicia Atchison and Mr. Anthony J. Marcuzzi at the Inferno. For them, it was over instantaneously. It was brutal, but not as brutal as taking the life of a young woman, in painful stages, over a long period of time.”
Matt did not reply.
“The point of this little philosophical observation, Matt, is that Penny was murdered the first time she put a needle in her arm. When you…became romantically involved…with one another, she was already dead. The man who killed her was the man who gave her her first hard drugs.”
“I loved her.”
“Yes, I know.”
“We had a fight the last time I saw her. About me being a cop.”
“If you had agreed to become the Nesfoods International Vice President in Charge of Keeping the Boss’s Daughter Happy as of tomorrow morning, Matt,” Washington said seriously, “she would have found some other excuse to seek narcotic euphoria. The addiction was out of her control. It had nothing to do with you. You’ve got to believe that, for the simple reason that it’s true.”
“I’ll never know now, will I?”
Washington met his eyes, then set his drink down.
“Let’s go bar-crawling.”
“What?” Matt asked, surprised at the suggestion.
“How long have you been up here in the garret?”
Matt thought about that before replying.
“I got here about one-thirty.”