Saints Of New York (48 page)

'Sit
down, Jimmy.'

'I'm
gonna get a lecture?'

'Just
sit the fuck down, Jimmy, okay? Just sit down and listen to me for a moment.'

Radick
sat down. His expression was one of patient resignation.

'Now
listen to me,' Parrish started, 'and listen to me carefully. I have a name.
Where I got this name from doesn't matter. I don't want you to ask about how I
came by this information, but it relates to a girl. She's sixteen, she was
adopted about nine months ago, and she went to a family in South Brooklyn. This
is someone I want to follow up on. Whether she's someone or not . . . whether
she's got a place in this thing I don't know, but I want to follow up on her—'

'Whether or not
she's got a place in this thing? Are you serious? You have the name of some
girl and you think she might be a potential victim. Is that what you're
saying?' Parrish hesitated. 'Frank? Tell me what the—' Parrish nodded.

'And where the fuck - may I ask - did
that lead come from?' 'No you may not ask.'

'You
gotta be kidding, Frank. You can't just come to me with a piece of information
like that and say, "This is what we're going to do, but I'm not going to
tell you why we're doing it". You can't run a homicide investigation like
that.'

'So what do you
suggest, Jimmy? I have a feeling about this, I really do. I have this idea that
she might be in the line-up for this guy, and I cannot shake it. You think we
should just sit on our hands and wait for this motherfucker to kill someone
else? '
'This
motherfucker? Presumably that means McKee, right?' 'Sure.'

'Frank,
we have nothing, and I mean
nothing
probative that suggests McKee is the guy. This is one hundred percent circumstantial.'
Radick stood up and walked to the window. 'Christ, Frank,' he said
exasperatedly, 'you have any idea how much of a nowhere this case is right
now?'

'I'm
not waiting any longer, Jimmy. This is bullshit. You know as well as me that
this is the guy—' 'Frank, we don't
know
anything, not for sure—' 'Christ, Jimmy, get some balls on this thing man! We
know it
's
someone at South
Two. That's a connection you just cannot ignore. We know the guy likes teenage
porn and all that shit.
He
has
an SUV. He has the freedom to move. He's not in a house with a wife and kids.
There's no-one there to keep an eye on what
he's
doing day and night. He's a free agent.
He's a fucking commuter, that's what he is, just like the Feds say in the
profiling material. He's out there collecting up teenage girls and selling them
on, or making fucking snuff movies himself. That's what he's doing, and I
fucking
know
it.'

'Okay,
so he's the guy. Say he
is
our guy. What do we do now? We follow him every which way? You think we're
gonna get a judge to sign a surveillance authorization, a wiretap . . . you
really think we've got enough to sway a judge on this?'

'No
we haven't, and that's why we're not going to do this on official lines.'

'You what?'

'We
are gonna do it. You and me. We're gonna do it by ourselves. This is what it
takes sometimes, Jimmy. This is the sort of thing you have to do sometimes to
make one of these cases open
up—'

'You're not
serious.'

'I
am serious, Jimmy, as serious as I've ever been. I can't live with
this
...
I just cannot live with the idea that
this guy is going to get another one when there's something we can do to stop
him.'

'So
what? You want to follow him out-of-hours? You want us to tail him, see where
he goes, what he does?'

'No,
I want to find out if this girl is still alive, and if she is I want to keep an
eye on her.'

'This mysterious
girl that you think might be his next victim?'

'Yes.'

'The
girl that you just
happen
to know about? The one that you somehow magically know about but you won't tell
me
how
you know about her?
That
girl?'

'I could use a
little less sarcasm here, Jimmy.'

'And
you, Frank . . . you could use a little more sense, don't you think? So say
this is the next victim. Say that this is the girl he's gonna do next. We
intervene. We stop him. Then where is our case, eh? We start to write reports,
we start to answer questions, we go to the Grand Jury and they start to look
under the lid of this thing, right? What are they going to see, Frank? What are
they going to find out about that you haven't told me? We're partners.

We're
supposed to work together, to know everything that the other one is doing.
Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?'

'Jimmy—'

'No,
you hear me out on this one, okay? I'm sat before the Grand Jury. They ask me how
come we knew about this girl as a potential victim. How did we know? Where did
the intel come from? What am I going to say? "Oh shit, I don't know. I
just figured Frank was the boss and he knew what he was doing. I'm just his kid
brother. I just did what I was told to do, Your Honor". You think that's
going to work out okay for me, Frank?'

Parrish
raised his hand. 'You're right. It's okay. Just drop it.'

Radick
smiled knowingly. 'Oh no, Frank. We're not going that route.'

'What
route? What are you talking about?'

'You
think I don't see right through that tone? That dismissive tone? "It's
okay, Jimmy, just drop the thing". You think I'm stupid? I know exactly
what that means. That means you're going to do this by yourself. You're going
to leave me out in the cold and just go ahead and do whatever the hell it is
you want, right?'

'Jimmy,
you really think I'd—'

'Yes,
Frank, I do. Just like you did with your last partner, and look where the fuck
that got him—'

Parrish
shot to his feet. His fists were clenched. He looked at Jimmy Radick with an
expression of such anger.

Radick
raised his hands. 'I'm sorry. I apologize. I didn't mean to say that. I meant
to say—'

'Whatever
the fuck you meant, Jimmy, you don't have one single fucking idea about what
happened . . .'

'I
know, and I said I'm sorry, it was out of line. I'm upset, Frank. I'm as pissed
about this situation as you are, but I just don't see how you can even consider
doing this thing. You can't just decide to follow some girl in the hope that
she might turn out to be bait for you. It doesn't work that way, Frank, and you
know that better than anyone. You need to tell me where the hell you got this
girl's name from, and if it turns out that you did something illegal to get it
. . . well, then—'

'Well
what, Jimmy? You going to run tell Valderas? Or maybe Internal Affairs? Is that
what you're gonna do?'

Radick
didn't reply. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them he asked Frank Parrish to sit down.

Parrish
did so.

'Look.
This isn't complicated. Until we have something substantive, something beyond
circumstantial against McKee, we are out on our own. We cannot do a search and
seizure, we cannot put surveillance on him, we cannot get a wiretap. We were
flying close to the wind taking that stuff out of the ex-wife's house, but she
owns the property now, and as far as the law is concerned anything that is a
remnant of the relationship that is in that house is legally her property so
she was within her rights to turn it over to us. We're covered on that. The
hole in the fucking ceiling is circumstantial. The thing back in 2002 is
circumstantial and bears no relation to this case. The fact that he works at
South Two and used to work at family South is circumstantial. The fact that he
has an SUV is . . . well, it's worth nothing at all. This thing you have now,
this name - however the hell you came by it - this is something else entirely.
As your partner, as a fellow cop, I cannot allow you to do anything that will
either jeopardize the case or jeopardize your position in the department. I am
here to work with you, Frank, but I'm also here to look out for you, to keep
you coloring inside the lines. You know that, right? You understand that I am
the last partner you are ever likely to get, because if something goes wrong
then it's more than likely going to be your fault and you are going to get
canned.'

'Thanks
for the vote of confidence.'

'You're
welcome, Frank.'

'So
tell me, Sherlock, what the fuck do you plan to do?'

'We
have to find the film company. We have to do that. We have to get a handle on
who is producing these things, and that might require collaboration with the
LAPD. It's their territory. It's California someplace, this East LA connection.
That's where ninety-nine percent of this shit comes from. That is the belly of
the beast when it comes to the sex industry. We need to speak to them, and we
need to get their help in finding whoever it was that made the film with
Jennifer in it. Then we might have something. One lead connects to another
which connects to another, and we might wind up with McKee himself, or whoever
McKee is the
finder for. That gives us a line
into his finances, his house, the rest of his life, and if we get that and he
is
our
man, then it'll all end happily ever after.'

'You've
spoken to Valderas about this?'

Radick
shook his head. 'No, but I will.'

'Okay.
Make up a submission report for whoever we send it to, and speak to Valderas.'

'And
if we end up going to LA, we're going together. Okay?'

'Okay,'
Parrish replied. 'Together.'

Parrish
left after one. He told Radick he had a dental appointment, that he wouldn't
be too long. 'I keep missing them,' he said. 'Figured I should make the effort
at least once a year.'

Parrish
did not go to a dentist appointment. He took the subway out through Bergen, got
off at Carroll, walked three blocks down 1st Place and took a right on Henry.
He walked right past the Coopers' house. Inconspicuous, ordinary, nothing
striking about it, but what had he expected? He slowed down thirty yards away,
walked back as if he was trying to find a number, and then he crossed over and
stood at the corner of Carroll and Henry. There was a convenience store there,
a mailbox and some newspaper vending machines. He went into the store and
bought a sandwich and a bottle of Coke. He stood on the corner. He ate his
sandwich. He watched the house for more than an hour. He saw no-one leave and
no-one arrive. Just before three he was ready to give it up when his attention
was caught by two girls coming down from the corner of President. He stepped
back, closer to the wall, and he watched. Twenty yards away and he knew the
girl on the right was Amanda Leycross. She had not changed from her case file
picture. Schoolbags, cell phones, multi-colored laces in her sneakers, a blue
streak dyed through her blonde hair. She was a regular kid. Sixteen years old.
She was doing most of the talking. The other girl seemed content to listen.
They passed right by Parrish and went into the convenience store. They were no
more than a couple of minutes, and then they headed across the street to the
Cooper's house and Amanda said goodbye to her friend, who carried on up Henry
and then took a left.

Amanda
looked like the others. That's what struck Parrish with the greatest force and
certainty. She looked like the others, and it was a moment before he put his
finger on what it was. They were normal girls. That was all. They weren't
outstandingly pretty or tall or short or thin or fat or anything else. They were
blonde, and they were normal.

Parrish
could feel his heart racing, his pulse beating in his temples. He dropped the
empty Coke bottle in the trashcan outside the store, and he headed back to the
subway station. He knew. If he had ever been uncertain then it was in that
moment that his uncertainty dissolved completely. He
knew
it was McKee, and he knew that Amanda
Leycross was next.