If I see any of these scumbags, Detective Payne thought, his mind full of the faces of the eleven innocent people who had been killed, and I think I can put the arm on one of them—or all of them—without getting myself hurt, I will, and no one will ever remember that I got that order.
ELEVEN
When Matt rang the bell at Number 9 Stockton Place, it was opened by a muscular man in his late thirties. Matt was startled, not so much by the man opening the door instead of Daffy herself, or one of the ever-changing parade of maids, but because the man smelled of cop. That instant reaction was immediately confirmed when Matt saw the unmistakable bulge of a pistol in a shoulder holster.
“Who are you?” Matt blurted.
“Who are you, sir?” the man said with exaggerated courtesy that rubbed Matt the wrong way.
“Are you on the job?” Matt demanded.
“Who was that at the door?” Chad Nesbitt called down from the second floor.
“The gentleman was just about to give me his name, sir,” the man said, offering Matt a patently insincere smile. That was enough to tell Matt that he was facing a rent-a-cop.
“Household Finance, Mr. Nesbitt,” Matt called, raising his voice. “We want our money or the television.”
“Shit.” Chad chuckled. “Let him in.”
“Yes, sir,” the rent-a-cop said, and stood back to let Matt pass.
“Let him in anytime,” Chad added. “He’s safe. As a matter of fact, he’s a cop. Forgive me, a detective. Which probably means, come to think of it, that we’ll have to count the silver after he leaves.”
“You can go up, sir.”
“Wachenhut?” Matt asked the man.
The Wachenhut Security Corporation provided the rent-a-cops for the Stockton Place complex.
“Nesfoods Security, sir,” the man said.
“You’ve got a permit to carry, concealed?”
“Of course, sir.”
Matt started up the stairs.
“Your name, sir?” the security man asked, and before Matt could reply, explained, “For your next visit, sir.”
“Payne,” Matt said. “Matt Payne.”
“Did I understand Mr. Nesbitt to say you are a police officer, sir?”
“Yes, he did, and yes, I am,” Matt said.
“Thank you, sir.”
Matt went up the stairs.
Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV, in a sweat suit, was holding Penelope Alice Nesbitt in his arms.
“I have trouble believing you are responsible for that,” Matt said.
“For what?”
“That beautiful child,” Matt said. He leaned close to the baby and touched her cheek with his finger. “Fear not, sweet child, your godfather will protect you from these terrible people.”
“Fuck you,” Chad said. “To what do we owe the honor?”