The Assassin (Badge of Honor 5)

"What I want you to do right now is go get the markers from Ricco. Take the photographs and give them to Paulo. You know where this cop lives?"

"Yes."

"I don't know what this business with the plumbers is," Mr. Savarese said. "If possible, without attracting attention, you and Paulo try to have a talk with the cop. But I don't want a fuss in the neighborhood, you understand?"

"I understand, Mr. S."

"You tell Paulo I said that. You tell him I said it would have been better if you could have talked to the cop in the girl's apartment. But sometimes things happen. Anthony's driver had a wreck; the cop's toilet is stopped up. It's not the end of the world. If you can't talk to him at his house, it might even bebetter if Paulo and you talked to him at this woman's apartment. Use your best judgment, Gian-Carlo. Just make sure that we get what we're after."

"I'll do my best, Mr. S."

Mr. Savarese nodded and raisedThe Wall Street Journal from his lap and resumed reading it.

****

"Ricco," Mr. Rosselli said to Mr. Baltazari when he answered the telephone. "What I want you to be doing is standing on the sidewalk in ten minutes with those things in your hand, so I don't have to waste my time coming in there and getting them, you understand?"

"Right," Mr. Baltazari said. "I'll be waiting for you."

****

"There's a new Cadillac parking," Sergeant Bill Sanders said to Officer Howard Hansen. "Is that our guy?"

Hansen consulted a notebook, stuck into which was a photograph of Corporal Vito Lanza.

"Yeah, that's him."

"If I was dirty, and lived in this neighborhood," Sergeant Sanders said, "I think I would take what that Cadillac cost and move out of this neighborhood."

"But then you wouldn't be able to impress the neighbors with your new Caddy," Hansen said. "Why be dirty if you can't impress your neighbors?"

"Did you hear what this guy is supposed to have done? I mean, anything besides he may be taking stuff out of the airport?"

"Olsen said that Peter Wohl was in the chief's office first thing this morning. He had the kid-he just made detective, by the way-that got himself shot by the Islamic Liberation-Army, Payne, and some little Puerto Rican with him. I worked with Wohl on the job where he put Judge Findermann away. He does not go off half-cocked."

"The little Puerto Rican was a cop?"

"I think he was the guy, one of the guys, who got the junkie who shot Captain Dutch Moffitt."

Sanders nodded.

"You think to bring the camera from the car?"

Hansen nodded, and patted his breast pocket.

"Just in case we lose this guy when he leaves, I think you'd better take his picture."

Hansen nodded again.

****

"There's nota plumber," Mr. Paulo Cassandro said, looking out the back window of his Jaguar as it moved slowly down the 400 block of Ritner Street, "there's a whole fucking army of them."

"These houses is old; the pipes wear out," Mr. Rosselli replied absently.

On the way here, Mr. Cassandro had given some thought to how he was going to handle the situation if the place was full of plumbers, or Lanza's mother, or whatever. He had what, after some reflection, seemed to be a pretty good idea.

Starting with the bill of sale for the Cadillac, all the paperwork involved in dealing with the cop had been Xeroxed. It was the businesslike thing to do, in case something should get lost, or fucked up, or whatever. Including the bill for the comped room at the Oaks and Pines, and the markers, both the ones he'd paid, and the ones he'd just signed.