“…the biggest benefit of the year,” a woman reporter was saying as a crowd swirled around her. “The Shubert Theatre is completely sold out at prices of up to a thousand dollars a seat, and some of the biggest stars on Broadway will be performing tonight.”
“There,” Arrington said, pointing. “The man just behind the reporter. You can see the back of his head.”
“So?” Dino asked.
“That’s Jonathan Dryer,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”
The crowd was moving slowly toward the doors of the theater. Just as the head was about to move off the top of the screen, it turned.
“There, it’s him!”
There was a brief glimpse of a face before the camera zoomed in on the reporter. “The crowd is just returning from intermission, and there’s been a rumor circulating that Barbra Streisand is going to make a surprise appearance. We’ll let you know.” There was a cut to the studio, and the anchorman began to talk about a fire in Queens.
“Are you sure?” Stone asked.
“That’s him.”
“Could you tell who he was with?”
“No, but that was Jonathan.”
“Who’s Jonathan?” Mary Ann asked.
“A guy Stone is interested in,” Dino said.
“You’re not interested?” Stone asked him.
“Yeah, sure, but I’m not going to worry too much about him until we have some more evidence.”
“And you’d like me to come up with it?”
Dino shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“Dino, he may be involved in a cop killing; doesn’t that mean anything anymore?”
“It does, if there’s any evidence tying him to it. All you’ve got right now is a lot of supposition. Okay, he went to parties at some people’s apartments that later got burgled. So did a lot of other people, including Arrington here. Should we take her to the precinct and beat a confession out of her?”
“Come on, Dino; for the first time we actually know where the guy is.”
“What do you want me to do? Send a SWAT team into a theater crowded with a black-tie audience of celebrities and people who can afford to pay a thousand bucks a seat? The mayor’s probably there; my chief is probably there.”
“Then have him picked up on the way out.”
“Stone, maybe you don’t read the papers anymore, but there are four cops in the city under indictment right now for arresting and, in some cases, leaning on people with no evidence, and two of them are uniforms at the Nineteenth. You think I’m going to wade into that crowd and create yet another incident at a time when we’ve got a full-blown commission investigating the department?”
“You can’t ever find a cop when you need one,” Mary Ann said. “Especially when he’s stuffing his face with linguine.”
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Dino said. “That’s all I need, is you weighing in.”
“Any time,” she said sweetly.
“I got an idea,” Dino said. “Why don’t you call your daddy and have him send a couple guys over to the Shubert and blow the guy away? Then we won’t even have to think about this anymore.”
“I’ve heard worse ideas,” Arrington said.
“Eat your dinner, Arrington,” Dino said. “Please, everybody just eat the white-bread pasta and forget about it just for tonight. We’re celebrating getting this apartment, which, believe me, may not be worth celebrating.”
“It’s worth it,” Mary Ann said.