Absent Friends

“Normally, doesn't have to be. Relies on his personality. Real people repellent.”

“What do you mean ‘normally'?”

“Not normal down there, now.”

“Will I have trouble getting to him?”

“Maybe.”

“Can you help?” She was doing it, too, Laura realized: talking as though each word came with a price tag.

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe. How come?”

“Your man Zannoni gave me his name. Rosoff was in the Staten Island precinct in 'seventy-nine when the Molloy shooting happened.”

“I'll call. Your number?”

She gave Jesselson her cell phone number. The phone rang again before she'd reached Main Street.

“He's pissed, but he'll see you.”

“Why's he pissed?”

“About to go home. And no love between cops and firefighters, but nobody likes what we're saying about McCaffery.”

“Why's he seeing me?”

“Told him you're wacko. Said you'd print lies if he didn't.”

One Police Plaza was a glass-and-red-brick slab near City Hall, a building that tried to impress by height inside and out, by complicated interior brickwork that she supposed was art, by echoing hard surfaces and a totally unintelligible circulation system that she supposed was security. She showed her ID and had her bag inspected at three different desks, went through two metal detectors, and was led from the ninth-floor elevator to a door with “Assistant Commissioner Charles Rosoff” gold-leafed on it, by a stony-faced policewoman who looked as if she'd just as soon shoot Laura as take her a step farther.

Rosoff was a scowling, balding man with huge hands. He didn't stand when she came in, just looked at his watch and growled, “Fifteen minutes.” The policewoman shut the door behind them.

“I appreciate—”

“Don't bother. The only reason I stayed, Jesselson says you're a fly-off-the-handle broad with a bug up your—a bee in your bonnet about the Jack Molloy shooting, from back in the goddamn Dark Ages.” Gee, thanks, Hugh, Laura thought. “He said you didn't get the straight shit, you'd make it up. You do that, the department might sue your rag, and your own personal ass, except we're a little busy right now. In case you haven't noticed, Miss”—he glanced at a pad in front of him—“Stone—Miss Stone, there's a war on at the moment, and we're in the front lines. No one gives a fart about what happened on Staten Island a thousand years ago. Now you have fourteen minutes.”

He sat back with another glance at his watch.

Laura sat without invitation. Around here a man with a wooden leg might not be invited to sit. She didn't take out a recorder; there'd be no point in even asking. She switched both of them on in her bag while she reached for her pad and pen, began speaking before she'd pulled those out, so Rosoff couldn't start again and chew up the rest of her time. “Just a few questions.” She caught the sharp icy edge in her voice. Laura Stone, a fly-off-the-handle broad. So crazy she'll print lies. Don't mess with me. “I understand when you were at the 124, you were the detective with the most knowledge about the Molloys and the Spanos.”

“Understand from where?”

“A retired sergeant named Angelo Zannoni.”

“Zannoni.” Rosoff snorted. “I remember that asshole. He and his partner—Miller—they thought they were Starsky and Hutch. Okay, so the locals were my hobby. So?”

“Two things. One: the manslaughter charges filed against Mark Keegan were dropped, and the plea deal was only on the gun charge. Why?”

“Not our choice. The DAs do that. We just haul 'em in. DAs charge 'em.”

“Based on evidence you supply.”

Rosoff shrugged, his combative eyes fixed on Laura's.

“All right,” said Laura, in a voice that really said: uh-huh, well, we'll come back to that. “Two: the thing that seems to have sparked the fight that night between Molloy and Keegan was a phony rumor that the cops were cracking down on Molloy's gang. Where did it come from?”

Rosoff stared at her. “Where did you get that?”

“Why?”

“It's crap.”

“It was about something else?”

“No idea.”

“I'm sorry, that's not true. The lawyer told me. Phillip Constantine.”

“That fuck?” Rosoff laughed, an unpleasant bark. “That may be the one good thing comes out of all this, if that piece-of-shit lawyer goes down.”

“Constantine told me,” said Laura, careful not to react to Rosoff's language, certain he expected her to, “because he said it would all come out anyway. So: it's true, right?”

Rosoff picked up a thin gold pen from his desk and tossed it down immediately. “Shit. Yeah, okay, it's true.”

“Where did the rumor come from?”

“No idea.”

“Come on. The cop who knew the most about these people? Didn't you wonder?”

“Sure I wondered. But I don't know.”

“Did Eddie Spano plant it?”

“Not likely. Keegan wouldn't've trusted anything he got from any butthole buddy of Spano's.”

“So where did he get it?”

“Why don't you ask that lawyer fuck?”

“He says he doesn't know.”

“You asked him?”

“How the hell else would I know what he said?” Laura snapped.

“You believe him?”

Laura thought she heard a note of uncertainty in Rosoff's growl. This was probably not a man who got snapped at very much.