Ed Wayne smoked a Camel and drank coffee from a paper cup, waiting for Westermann in a framed-out room on the unfinished seventh floor of the new police headquarters. Unfinished because the money had run out before the building was completed; too many palms to grease, too many people with too much leverage. Light shone through the windows, casting long shadows across the wall-less floor.
Art Deyna was waiting for Westermann on the steps of the police building, his fedora rakishly tilted, his eyes predatory. Westermann saw him, went tense despite himself. He walked directly toward Deyna, hoping with his aggressiveness to catch Deyna off guard.
It didn’t work.
“Lieutenant Westermann.” Deyna held his arms out as if delighted to see an old and dear friend.
“What do you want? I have things to do.”
Deyna laughed. “Down to business, right? Okay, why don’t you tell me why you’re harassing citizens down in Godtown?”
Westermann flashed on Mary Little’s panic; on Maddox’s obstruction; on being called back by the brass. “You know I’ve got nothing to say on that.”
“Suit yourself. How about this? Why are you meeting with Negro communists?”
“I’m not going to comment on an open case.”
“Are Mel Washington or Warren Eddings suspects?”
Westermann glared. “What did I just say?”
“What were you meeting with them about?”
“Do you have any questions that I might conceivably answer?”
Deyna licked his lips, barely containing a smile. “I don’t think you’re going to answer any questions, no matter what they are.”
“That’s right. Nice talking with you.” Westermann walked away to the sound of Deyna’s laughter.
Westermann sat at his desk, noting the time, already late for his meeting with Wayne. Let the bastard wait.
Westermann made some calls, leaving a message with Pulyatkin’s secretary at the coroner’s office, checking to see if Pulyatkin had ID’d either of the bodies and leaving a description of Vesterhue for him to check against John Does.
Westermann saw that someone had left the day’s Gazette on his desk, opened to a page in the middle of the front section. He saw a photo of himself in Godtown, jabbing a finger at a calm-looking Prosper Maddox. Jesus. He called Frings.
“What the fuck is this?”
“I know, Piet.”
“ ‘Mystery Sweep in Godtown’?” The headline.
“Piet—”
“Golden Boy Lieutenant Piet Westermann led a deployment of detectives into Godtown despite no crime report having been filed in this quiet, churchgoing neighborhood in weeks.”
“I know what it says, Piet.”
“It has a fucking quote from Prosper Maddox saying I’ve got some kind of vendetta against Christians.”
“Piet, shut the hell up for a second. I don’t run the paper. We’ve got a reporter—”
“Art Deyna.”
“Right. I don’t know how he got them, but he’s got photos of you—”
Jesus. “Not on the phone.”
“Right. Let’s meet tonight. Come by my building. We can talk on the roof.”
Westermann left his jacket at his desk, loosened his tie, damp with sweat, and grabbed a cup of coffee on the way to the seventh floor. It was private there. No chance of someone walking in on them.
Wayne was good and pissed by the time Westermann arrived, their respective ranks the only thing keeping Wayne under control.
“How are you this morning, Detective?” Westermann asked, his pleasant greeting incongruent.
Wayne stared back at him, arms crossed, fingers white from pushing down hard on his biceps; probably some means of anger control. Westermann noticed the scarred knuckles, confirming what he had heard and seen—Wayne plied his policing on the edge.
“I want to talk to you about a couple of calls you took, down by the Uhuru Community. Assaults, a week or so ago. This sound familiar?”
“If you say so.” Wayne focused his eyes over Westermann’s shoulder.
“I say so.”
Wayne shrugged sullenly.
“What’s the disposition of the case at this point?”
“You Internal Affairs now?”
“Why would you think that?”
Wayne shrugged.
“What’s the disposition of the case?” Westermann asked again.
Westermann watched Wayne’s face as the sergeant went through the mental process, figuring out if Westermann had jurisdiction, what kind of trouble he would be bringing on himself if he stonewalled. Westermann wondered what he would do if Wayne did stonewall. But Wayne was forthcoming.
“Nothing to do. Couple of interviews, best they could say was assault by a group of Caucasians, didn’t see faces, no thoughts on suspects. Didn’t see much prospect, no reason to waste manpower.”
“This was a series of assaults, correct?”
“If you say so.”
Westerman saw rats behind Wayne, picking at something hidden behind a stack of unused beams. A siren came from the street. Westermann kept his voice even, a benign blankness to his face. “You’re not doing yourself any favors, making this difficult.”
“Two, three assaults; you want to call that a series, you go ahead.”
“You didn’t stake the place out a couple of nights?”
“For a couple of assaults?” Wayne was genuinely incredulous at the suggestion.
“Look, we both know that the vics were passing out propaganda for the Community. These assaults were political intimidation; a little more important than a couple of random beatings.”
Wayne focused his eyes on Westermann’s. “What’re you, Red on top of everything else?” White spittle beaded in both corners of his mouth. “You want the society of the future to go with your policing of the future?”
Westermann stared back at Wayne, willing himself to be placid; unsettle Wayne by not rising to the bait.
“So the extent of your work was …”
Wayne raised his voice and his words came echoing back. “Interviewing the vics. I determined it was a lost cause, moved on, saved manpower. That’s by the book.”
Like many disingenuous arguments, this was, on its face, defensible. Wayne returned to gazing over Westermann’s shoulder, looking pleased with himself.
“So if there’s a complaint that you didn’t follow up on these two cases, it would be accurate.”
Wayne answered aggressively, punctuating his points with finger jabs in the air. “Lieutenant, I don’t know how much clearer I can be. I determined they were loser cases. Could I have staked it out? Maybe. Maybe we’d get lucky and the perps would come back to the same place and jump some more Negroes. But, to be honest, there are other fish to fry out there and this ranks pretty fucking low in my book. You have a problem with that, take it up with the Kraatjes or the Chief. But, even if they don’t agree with what I did, they’ll see it’s not unreasonable. You see it, too. I can tell.”
Westermann had nothing to say to that.
Wayne said, “Is there anything else?” Sounding as if the battle were won.
Westermann shook his head.
“Then I’ll get back to work.” Wayne walked past Westermann toward the fire stairs, his steps scraping and echoing on the silent floor. Westermann watched him strut, his body soft in the middle, but hard in the shoulders and neck. Wayne paused at the doorway, giving Westermann the half-lid tough-guy look. “You are Red, aren’t you? A commie symp. Jesus.”
Westermann stared hard. “You’ll lose, you mess with me.”
“That don’t sound like a denial to me,” Wayne said, smirking, and left.
Deyna’s cameraman shooting him with Mel Washington.
Westermann stood alone on the empty floor, trembling with anger and anxiety.
* * *
Later, Kraatjes made his way through the squad room like a prince among the paupers, making quick, concentrated comments in response to some remark or other, but nothing holding his attention or getting a longer response.
Westermann stepped out of his office when it became apparent that Kraatjes was there to talk with him. Kraatjes put his arm around Westermann and steered him back into the office, shutting the door behind them. Westermann braced himself for the fallout from the newspaper article.
Kraatjes seemed to sense this anxiety, probably the stiffness in Westermann’s posture. “Take it easy, Piet.”
Westermann exhaled, pulling away from Kraatjes so that he could face him. “What’s the story?”
“No one’s happy about the Gazette piece, but you could have guessed that, right?”
Westermann nodded, his stomach knotting.
“People aren’t happy, but, fortunately for you—for us—the incident took place before you met with the Chief.”
“Fortunately,” Westermann echoed softly.
“But, Piet, this means we are on very thin ice. Very thin.”
“Right.”
Kraatjes studied Westermann for a moment. “Okay, the other reason I’m here is that the Uhuru Community storefront, down on Penrose?”
“Yeah, I know it.”
“Somebody tossed it last night.”
Westermann shook his head. “Really?” Suddenly paranoid about Kraatjes coming to him with this, thinking about Wayne’s parting shots and the connection between the Gazette’s implication of anti-Christian leanings and his association with communists.
“Thing was, someone picked the lock. Not your usual vandals.”
“Okay.” Westermann searched Kraatjes eyes.
“Thought you might want to know, what with you working those girls they found on the riverbank. The Community connection, you see.”
“Thanks.”
“Rolle and Vidic picked it up. In case you want to stay up on it.”
“Okay,” Westermann said, trying to read Kraatjes’s ulterior motives, but seeing only the man doing his job, keeping the right people in the loop. He and Kraatjes were close, too, as much as men with their difference in rank could be. No way he’d be feeling Westermann out. No way.
Kraatjes strolled out, pausing briefly to exchange a few words with a detective new to the force about something, then leaving altogether.
Westermann paced his office, thinking he should get in touch with Washington, find out what the hell was happening. He walked to his window, looking out on the busy block, cruisers parked on the curb, cops in and out of uniform, frail indigents hoping that proximity with police headquarters would deliver safety.
On second thought, though, Westermann decided maybe he better not contact Washington. His attention was caught by a conversation on the street—two men talking intently.
Deyna and Wayne.