Cross (Alex Cross 12)

“Just shut the hell up!” Giametti yelled at the girl, who looked both confused and scared. “Don’t say a word to them! Not a word, Paulie! I’m warning you!”

Sampson moved faster than it looked like he could. He threw Giametti on the floor, then cuffed him like a steer at a rodeo.

“Don’t say a word!” Giametti continued to yell, even though his face was pressed into the shag rug. “Don’t talk to them, Paulie! I’m warning you! You hear me?”

The girl looked pathetic and lost as she sat among the rumpled bedsheets, attempting to cover herself with a man’s shirt she’d been given by the detectives.

She finally spoke in the softest whisper. “He make me do anything he say. He do everything bad to me. You know what I am saying—everything you could imagine. I can hardly walk . . . I am fourteen years old.”

Sampson turned to Handler. “You can take it from here, Marion. Get him the hell out of here. I don’t want to touch the slime.”

Chapter 38

AN HOUR LATER, Gino Giametti was basted, then grilled until he was well-done under bright lights in Investigation Room #1 at the First District station house. Sampson wouldn’t take his eyes off the vicious gangster, who had a disturbing habit of scratching his scalp compulsively, hard enough to make it bleed. Giametti didn’t seem to notice it himself.

Marion Handler had carried the show so far, done most of the preliminary questioning, but Giametti didn’t have much to say to him. Sampson sat back and observed, sizing up both men.

So far, Giametti was getting the best of it. He was a lot smarter than he looked. “I woke up and Paulie was sleeping in my bed. Sleeping—just like when you busted in. What can I tell you? She has her own bedroom upstairs. She’s a scared little girl. Crazy sometimes, too. Paulie does housekeeping and shit like that for my wife. We wanted to put her in the local schools. The best schools. We were letting her work on her English first. Hey, we were trying to do the right thing by that kid, so why are you busting my balls?”

Sampson finally pushed himself forward in his seat. He’d heard enough bullshit for tonight. “Anybody ever tell you you could do stand-up?” he asked. And, Marion, you could be his straight man.

“Matter of fact, yeah,” Giametti said, and smirked. “Couple of people told me that exact same thing. You know what? I think they were cops too.”

“Paulina has already told us she saw you kill her friend Alexa. Alexa was sixteen years old when she died. The girl was garroted!”

Giametti slammed his fist down on the table in front of him. “The crazy little bitch. Paulie is lying through her teeth. What’d you do, threaten to send her back? Deport her to Poland? That’s her biggest fear.”

Sampson shook his head. “No, I said we’d help her stay in America if we could. Get her into school. The best. Do the right thing by her.”

“She’s lying, and she’s nuts. I’m telling you, that pretty little girl is two kinds of crazy.”

Sampson nodded slowly. “She’s lying? All right, then how about Roberto Gallo? Is he lying too? He saw you kill Alexa and stuff the body in the trunk of your Lincoln. He made that up?”

“Of course he made it up. That’s total bullshit; it’s complete crap. You know it. I know it. Bobby Gallo knows it. Alexa? Who the hell is Alexa? Paulie’s imaginary friend?”

Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders. “How would I know Gallo’s story is bullshit?”

“Because it never happened, that’s how! Because Bobby Gallo probably made a deal with you.”

“You mean—it didn’t happen that way? Gallo wasn’t actually an eyewitness? But Paulina was. Is that what you’re saying?”

Giametti frowned and shook his head. “You think I’m stupid, Detective Sampson? I’m not stupid.”

Sampson spread his hands to indicate the small, very bright interview room. “But here you are.”

Giametti thought about it for a few seconds. Then he gestured toward Handler. “Tell Junior here to go take a nice long walk off a short pier. I want to talk to you. Just you and me, big man.”

Sampson looked over at Marion Handler. He shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you take a break, Marion?”

Handler didn’t like it, but he got up and left the interrogation room. He made a lot of noise on the way out, like a petulant high school kid who’d just been given detention.

Sampson didn’t say anything once he and Giametti were alone. He was still observing the mobster, trying to get under the punk’s skin. The guy was a murderer—that much he knew. And Giametti also had to know that he was up shit creek right now. Paulina Sroka was fourteen years old.

“The strong, silent type?” Giametti smirked again. “That your act, big boy?”

Still not a word from Sampson. It went on that way for several minutes.

Giametti finally leaned forward, and he spoke in a quiet, serious voice. “Look, you know this is bullshit, right? No murder weapon. No body. I didn’t clip any little Polack girl named Alexa. And Paulie is crazy. Trust me on that one. She’s young in years, but she’s no little girl. She was hooking in the old country. You know about that?”