Blind Justice (34 page)

Then he heard a blessed sound outside the door.
“What the hell?”

It was Mike. Ben had a vague impression of Mike running down the hallway and throwing himself against Stanford. They began to struggle.

Ben clenched his teeth and tried to push himself up. He pressed against Mike’s desk, pulling himself up the side by inches.

Stanford and Mike rolled on the floor, exchanging blows. Ben saw several sharp punches fall into Mike’s stomach, then several more into Mike’s jaw. Mike pushed Stanford back, and they both went careening into the wooden coat rack. The rack tumbled over, spilling Mike’s suit jacket, his overcoat…and his gun holster, gun intact.

Stanford and Mike both saw it at the same time. Mike reached out, but Stanford jabbed him in the solar plexus. Mike winced, retracted involuntarily. Stanford got the gun.

Stanford pulled himself onto his knees, pointing the gun at Mike’s heart. “Thought you could take me, huh?” Stanford said, breathing heavily. “Thought you were going to nail me to your self-righteous cross. Well, think again.” He stretched out his arm and aimed. Mike closed his eyes.

Ben grabbed the book on Mike’s desk and slammed it against the side of Stanford’s head. Before Stanford could regain his balance, Ben hit him again, this time in his face. Mike sprang forward and grabbed Stanford’s wrist, pounding it against the desk, loosening his grip on the gun. Mike kicked the gun away, then brought his fist directly into Stanford’s face. Stanford fell backward onto the carpet, unconscious.

Mike slowly pulled himself to his feet. A steady flow of blood trickled from the side of his mouth. “What the hell did you hit him with?”

Ben looked. “
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
,” he said, gasping.

“Another triumph for the Bard,” Mike announced jubilantly.

It was the last sound Ben heard before he passed out.

“O
WW!” BEN CRIED. “BE
careful!”

The nurse frowned and plunged ahead, winding the stiff tape around Ben’s rib cage. Clearly, she had no patience for wimps.

“Where did this woman take her training?” Ben asked Mike. “Belsen-Belsen?”

“Yeah, that’s where we get all our nurses. Helps prepare them for life with the force.”

“No doubt.
Ouch
!”

The nurse wound the tape around Ben’s chest a final time, then cut it off with a small pair of scissors. “There,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”

“Really?” Ben rubbed his sore arm, the one on the side Stanford had kicked repeatedly. “I guess that explains why I feel like I’ve been hit by a tank.”

“Just take the medicine the doctor prescribed,” she said brusquely. “The cracks are small. You’ll heal.” She turned and left the infirmary.

“A doting mother,” Ben murmured.

“She works the police department and both jailhouses,” Mike said. “She has to be tough.”

“I suppose. How are you feeling?”

“All. right. I can’t believe I let that goddamn old white shirt get the drop on me.”

“Don’t keep riding yourself. He was desperate.”

Mike shook his head in self-disgust. “I just lay there like a pansy while Stanford tried out his recipe for face pudding.”

“I thought you handled yourself okay. At least you didn’t get totally walloped, like yours truly.”

“Yeah, well. Things could be worse.”

“Now you’re doing it! Everyone keeps telling me that, but somehow, I’ve yet to be convinced.”

“What the hell did you say to Stanford, anyway? To get him so rattled?”

“I told him we had the goods on him. Described his entire scheme. And I mentioned that Lombardi had identified him by name in his suicide note.”

“But Lombardi didn’t identify Stanford in his suicide note. He didn’t identify anyone.”

Ben looked away. “Gosh, I guess I misspoke myself.”

“You sly dog, you. You set him up.”

“The least I could do. Considering what he did to Christina.”

“Understood. By the by, Ben Kincaid, consulting detective, I have one final question, Something that occurred to me while I was running around like an idiot.”

“Okay. What’s your question?”

“Are you going to tell her?”

Ben laid back on the examining table, taking some of the pressure off his bruised and aching ribs. “Care to explain that?”

“Surely you’re not going to make me outline the entire line of reasoning.”

“Well, I’ve always wondered if you’re really any good at this detective stuff. Now’s my chance to find out.”

“All right. It goes like this. It occurred to me, that between what you’d told me, what we found out, and what we’d deduced, there was still one detail unexplained.”

“Which was?”

“Who drugged Christina? I’m assuming she was drugged. There’s just no other explanation for the fact that she dozed through four rounds of a gun with no silencer.” He took his pipe out of his pocket, blissfully ignoring the sign on the wall that thanked him for not smoking. “The rosé she drank must have been doctored. But by whom? And why?

“Given what we know, there’s only one person who had a realistic opportunity to violate the vino. Lombardi. He could get the drug easily enough from DeCarlo, or perhaps Lennie, and of course he had access to his own booze. But why would he do such a thing? Obviously, because he knew Christina would drink it when she came over that night. In fact, he invited her to do just that when he left the message asking her to come to his apartment. And that deduction leads to the big question. Why did he want to drug Christina?”

“And the answer is?”

“He was planning to let Christina take the fall for him. As we’ve established, even before Stanford called to blackmail him, Lombardi knew the FBI was closing in. Whether the FBI ever proves it or not, I’ve no doubt Lombardi was using his parrot operation to run drugs, especially after he started doing business with DeCarlo. And now he knew they were on to him. He panicked. He had to think of some scheme to prevent himself from going to prison. He was still expecting a big drug shipment. DeCarlo probably got wind of the FBI investigation and called it off, but Lombardi didn’t know that. So he planned to leave Christina in his apartment that night, sound asleep with a large stash of cocaine, while he was somewhere miles away with an unbreakable alibi. He thought the FBI would come charging in, as in fact they did, and they’d find her with all the illegal narcotics.

“Lombardi’s theory was, let Christina fill the FBI quota; at the very least, it would temporarily take some of the heat off him. The fact that she was in his apartment might be somewhat incriminating, but there would be no hard evidence against him—since Christina didn’t know anything about his drug-running activities. She’d just plead innocence, and no one would believe her, and she’d be put away for a long haul. And if he got lucky, the FBI would call their investigation a success and close it down before they got to him.”

Ben nodded. “But something went wrong.”

“Yeah. Stanford. After Lombardi’s telephone conversations with him, he knew it was hopeless; he couldn’t divert suspicion from himself just by planting the drugs on someone else. Christina had already drunk the rosé; it was too late to stop that part of the plan. But it was not too late to save himself from his worst nightmare—a long stretch in prison and the wrath of Albert DeCarlo. So he killed himself.”

Ben tried to roll over onto his side, but the pressure on his sore arm was too great. “I remember what Margot said when she was testifying. Something like, ‘I don’t know why Lombardi wanted Christina around, but it wasn’t for the reason everyone assumes.’ I thought that was chilling at the time. Now I realize it was chillingly true.”

“Which brings us back to my original question. Are you going to tell Christina?”

“She may have already figured it out,” Ben said. “And if not, well…I think she’s been through enough pain and disappointment these past few weeks.”

“I concur.” Mike started out the door, then stopped, as if something were holding him back.

“Ben,” he said, after a long moment.

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted…well…to discuss the way I’ve been behaving—”

“You were on the other side, Mike. I understand.”

“Let me finish, will you?” He walked closer to Ben and leaned against the examining table. “When I took this job, I swore an oath.”

“I know. To defend the United States and the Constitution, etc.”

“More than that. To obey the rules and procedures of the state and federal law enforcement agencies. To be a good cop. To play it by the book. And that meant something to me, Ben. It really did.” He exhaled slowly. “Well, I’ve learned something from all this.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve learned that
by the book
isn’t good enough anymore.” His eyes became hooded. “That following the rules isn’t always sufficient. Oh, I’m not talking about becoming a vigilante or anything: I’m just saying…I think sometimes we hide behind our professionalism, our badges, our licenses, our procedures—”

“Our Rules of Professional Conduct,” Ben added.

“Yeah. May be. We hide behind those things because they protect us from moral debate, from the really tough questions. It’s easier to read a rule than to consider individual cases—specific people in specific situations.

“But that’s wrong,” Mike said firmly. “People are more important than rules. I won’t make that mistake again.” He half smiled. “You think you can forgive me?”

“Mike, pals are for thick and thin—no matter what happens. That’s why they’re called pals.”

Mike clasped Ben’s arm firmly. “Thanks, pal.”

“Don’t mention it. Incidentally, pal, you’re hurting my arm.”

B
EN SLIPPED INTO THE
Oneok Building at about 7:45 and rode the elevator to the tenth floor. He might be slow, but he wasn’t stupid; if the security guard didn’t take names until eight, the intelligent burglar slipped in just before. He ducked into the bathroom, hid in a stall and read back issues of
Stereo Review
for two hours. He had a story planned out in the event someone came in to clean the bathroom, but the contingency never arose.

At eleven o’clock, when he was reasonably certain everyone was gone, Ben slipped out of the men’s room and crossed the hallway to Swayze & Reynolds. Keeping an eye out for security, he used his copied key to open the front door. He passed through the ornate lobby and into Reynolds’s office.

He found Polly in her usual place, trapped in a cage much too small, barely alive. Her coat had lost its sheen; the colors of her wings and the brightness of her eyes had faded. Worst of all, the pile of feathers at the bottom of the cage had doubled in size. Ben could see exposed patches of flesh where the feathers had been yanked out.

As quietly as possible, Ben removed the cage from the stand and carried it out of the office. He rode the elevator to the ground floor.

He stopped at the security guard’s station. “I’ve got a medical emergency,” he said. “This parrot’s dying.”

The security guard scrutinized him with evident suspicion.

“I was working in Reynolds’s office,” Ben added, “when she started croaking.”

“Working this late?” the guard asked.

“Of course. Why else would I be up there? Look, if Mr. Reynolds’s prize parrot dies, he is not going to be happy.”

The guard shrugged. “So what do you want me to do, call an ambulance or something?”

“Never mind,” Ben said. “I’ve got a car.” He brushed past the guard and walked out onto the street.

Whew!
Managed to bluff his way through that one. Reynolds, of course, would be furious the next morning when he found his parrot missing. Even if he thought to ask the night security guard, though, Ben didn’t think the guy could describe him well enough for Reynolds to make an ID. And if he did, that was fine, too. Ben would sic Clayton Langdell and his entire organization on Reynolds. Maybe the ASPCA and a few others, too, just for good measure.

Ben crossed the street and walked about halfway down Fifth Street. After a few seconds, he heard the low plaintive wail of a hoot owl. He walked toward the sound.

“Pssst.” Ben followed the voice into a side alley.

In the soft moonlight,, he could just make out Wolf’s face. He looked good; his appearance had improved a hundred percent since he had been released from St. John’s. His right arm, the one that caught the first bullet, was still in a sling, but otherwise he almost seemed like his former self.

“Here,” Ben said, passing him the cage. “Take care of her.”

“Sure.” With his free arm, Wolf opened the cage and gently drew Polly out. Polly cooed quietly, then nestled against his shoulder. “Ma says I have to spend less time in the forest and more time in school.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay. She says I can still search for traps, and I can start keeping my birds at home. I’m building a shed in the backyard. The landlord doesn’t like it, but he hasn’t said anything. Everyone seems to be bending over backward to be nice to me. Since I got shot and all.”

“Milk it for all it’s worth,” Ben advised. “It won’t last forever.”

“Yeah, I ’spect you’re right.”

“And pay attention in school. You need to make good grades so you can grow up to be the world’s greatest veterinarian.”

“Aw, I hate school. The other kids never like me.”

“Nonsense. You should be very popular. How many kids can brag about being shot by the FBI?”

“Hmmm.” This was apparently a prospect Wolf hadn’t contemplated. “Well, I’d better go.”

“Okay. See you around.”

Wolf started out of the alley.

“Oh-Wolf.”

Wolf turned. “Yeah?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you. Do you know anything about chickens?”

T
HERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG
with Ben’s office, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. For starters, Jones’s card table had been replaced by a desk, a real
desk
, with drawers and everything. What’s more, there were two other real desks, one on either side of Jones’s.

That was different, sure, but Ben sensed there was more. He stood in the middle of the lobby trying to figure out what had changed.