Chapter 28
He woke up to the sound of someone banging on his door. The noise woke Maggie too, and she started to bark.
He looked through the peephole and saw a distorted angle on the Chief’s face. He was leering idiotically and appeared to be staggering. Bruno opened the door.
“You just open the door like that, this time of night, out here in the Pines?”
“I figured if it was bad guys, they wouldn’t bother knocking.”
“What if it was something sinister? The Hookman or the Jersey Devil?”
“I’d have been out of luck.”
The Chief pulled his arm out from behind his back and shoved the neck of a champagne bottle in Bruno’s face. “The real stuff,” he mumbled. “Not California. Definitely not New Jersey. This is French Champagne.”
“What for?”
“We got to celebrate.”
“Finding Gussie?”
“Yeah. You did a good job. Pretty amazing, you ask me.” He popped the cork and poured the overflowing champagne into coffee mugs. He plopped himself into Bruno’s recliner and they clinked glasses. “Success,” sighed the Chief.
Bruno frowned. “We still haven’t found the killers. We don’t know the motive. One of the victims is still unidentified. The whole town’s still at risk.”
“Your glass is half empty,” said the Chief. “I’m going to fill it up again.” He poured a healthy slug into Bruno’s mug. “Mine’s half full, but I’m going to fill it up, too, just to be fair.” He poured until the wine overflowed and then he stated, “My cup runneth over.”
He looked at Bruno expectantly.
Bruno just sat there and patted Maggie nervously, until the Chief shot him another look, jutting his chin in Bruno’s direction, until he capitulated and recited, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life …”
“Attaboy. You really believe it, don’t you? You’re not just saying it?”
“Right.” Bruno fidgeted, wondering where all this was leading.
“Good, ’cause I have total confidence that we’re going to find a way through this. Or around it. Whatever it takes.”
“Around what?”
The Chief went sober and deadly serious. “Mayor Dove just told me to terminate you, effective immediately.”
The news blindsided Bruno. “He did what? Why?”
“The publicity …”
“You mean Peaches? That’s nothing but innuendo. A cliché. I’m the one who found the crime scene, so I must have done it. What’s my motive?”
“I dunno. Make yourself look good? The point is, the Mayor doesn’t want to look bad. Ever. Even for a teeny-tiny moment. So he tries not to take risks.”
“But he was the one who wanted you to hire me in the first place. At Peaches’ urging. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I agree.” The Chief raised his hand and let it fall in helpless frustration.
“And the killers are still on the loose.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Bruno paced the floor. “I have to see my niece. If I can find out what she saw that day, it could be the key to the whole thing.”
“Yeah, it could.” The Chief yawned.
“What are you saying: You don’t care? You’re not interested?”
“No. I care and I am interested.” The Chief straightened up and said in a low, sober voice, “I just can’t help you anymore. Your niece’s father, Bill McRae, works in my building. He’s already told me that he doesn’t want anyone to go anywhere near his daughter. And he said that applied to you in particular. He wanted to get a restraining order, but he can’t since you haven’t done anything or gone near her …”
“Yet.”
“Right. You haven’t gone near her yet. But since he does work in my building, and he has a … relationship … with the person I work for … he has a certain amount of influence. You see what I mean?” He spoke the word “influence” in such a peculiar way that Bruno had to ask him, “What exactly are you trying to say?”
“I’m glad you asked that. Otherwise I wasn’t supposed to tell you. It’s like this. They want me to put a tail on you.”
“Marvelous.”
“Yeah. It is kind of cool. It’ll be like having police protection. I just wanted you to know. I thought it over carefully and chose Biff to keep you company. You’ll like him more and more, once you get to know him. Really, he’s pretty simple to figure out.”
“I can’t wait.”