By 10:30 on Friday night I have moved in with the Chief. She was strongly opposed, but Moses personally talked her into this arrangement. He promised that it would last only until they grab Ritz, which could be any minute.
I spent so much time in this house when I was going through the video capture from the Chief’s security system that this feels a little bit like a reunion. I admire and really like the Chief, and I know a lot about her habits, like how she always clears her throat before picking up the telephone, or how she and her older daughter talk every night for a couple minutes before the first of them goes to sleep, or how when she thinks she’s alone, she picks at her fingers. But she’s got her boundaries, and we’re never going to be BFFs or anything like that. Still, I’m glad to have some time with her, to hear what she thinks about everything that went down this week.
When I get there, she’s watching an old movie, Unforgiven, which is one of Pops’s favorites. I’ve seen it at least three times but I sit through the ending with her again. After that, she offers me a nightcap. She pours herself a glass of white wine, and I ask for a beer, then don’t let her uncap it, reminding myself why I’m here. I take a soft drink and we sit down together on the flowered sofa in her crowded living room.
“Ritz isn’t going to kill me, Pinky. He wants me alive. He gets too much pleasure out of hating me and plotting revenge.”
“Ritz just caught two federal felonies, thanks to you, one with a man-min ten. He’s got to be pretty grumpy.”
“I guarantee you he thinks he’s getting out of this.” Rik has already said that Melvin Junior, who’d want the fat fee for a trial, has probably encouraged Ritz to believe that he won’t be convicted. The evidence that the Ritz owns VVM is thin and circumstantial, Melvin will tell him. And if they beat that charge, no one will put Vojczek in prison for simple drug possession. It’s another reason Rik thinks Ritz will surrender. Not worth running from this rap.
“I doubt it’s the charges that are the first thing on his mind right now, Chief. You saw the complaint. Ritz is a user.”
“The diabetic pens? That’s Ritz to a T. Smartest fucker he ever met. He can walk down the street with his shit in his pocket, or shoot up in the men’s room without worrying about who sees.”
“Right, but that’s over. Now his big worry is going into withdrawal at the MCC. That’s straight cold turkey. And you’re to blame for that. Plus, nothing could burn Ritz more than the way you outfoxed him. If he kills you, he proves who’s the smartest after all.”
She shrugs. “You can never get completely inside a brain that twisted. But I still don’t see him making his situation worse by trying to kill me. He still doesn’t know that he’s getting charged with Blanco’s murder.”
“Speaking of twisted and unanticipated, when you were in his car with him on Tuesday, I thought for a second that he was serious about telling the real story about that picture.”
“I knew that was bullcrap. He could never admit what I was threatening him with, especially since getting down on his knees basically proved it was true.”
“I understand, but for an instant, he made it sound like it would be worth almost anything to him to force you to tell the truth, because of how much it would hurt you.”
“Well, it will. I won’t lie under oath. And twelve years ago or not, I know I’ll be real lucky if all I catch is some time off without pay after I tell that story.”
Rik feels that by leveling with the FBI about the photograph and using it as the basis of her efforts to ensnare Vojczek, the Chief’s done everything possible to turn a negative into a positive. But no one can predict what will happen with her job. The arguments will all be about what would happen to a guy who’d done the same thing, even if it was a dozen years ago and the so-called victim was actually an epic shit. One favorable development, though, is that Lucy won’t have to testify for quite a while now, since Moses is emphatic that it would imperil Vojczek’s prosecution if the Chief is forced to speak about these events under oath before she testifies at the Ritz’s trial. Given how court dockets move, that won’t take place until long after the election, perhaps as much as a year or even a year and a half from today. The length of time before the Chief’s case could be formally resolved, as well as her celebrated status at the moment as a true hero, both weigh in favor of dismissing the P&F proceedings now. Rik keeps urging Marc to recommend that to the commissioners, and he says he has and expects them to agree, maybe as early as next week. That way, if the Ritz pleads in the end, the story behind the photo may never be told. But until then, Lucy’s going to be baking in purgatory, a punishment that even I—and Lucy—know she deserves.
“I could never say I didn’t know it was wrong,” she says. “I did. I thought it was justice, too. But it was wrong. That’s part of why I stopped.” She gives me a long look over the rim of her glass. “I’m sure you were pretty disappointed in me, when I told you guys the story.”
“Disappointed?” It’s sort of heartening to me that the Chief would even notice or care about my reaction. Was I disappointed? My life every day is kind of a monument to the limited value of following the rules. “I guess. I mean, I know it was way against the law, an abuse of office and all that, and that’s always a bad place for a cop to go. Would I have felt better if you thought about it but didn’t do it? Probably. But you know, I was also amazed and kind of proud of you at the same time. Guys like Ritz have been getting away with that shit—what he did to those women on the street—since forever. And it’s pretty satisfying to see the tables turned. So sometimes when I look at that picture, knowing the whole story, I’m kind of horrified. And now and then I’ve laughed my ass off.”
She smiles wistfully.
“I stopped laughing a while ago. Like I say: Bottom line, it was wrong.”
“I’ve always had a question, though. It’s kind of personal.”
The Chief nods. If Ritz could see her now, he might feel like he got his revenge, as she told him in his car. She carries a new weight and weariness. Worse, there’s just less light in her face.
“What’s your question?” she says.
“Well, here’s what has never completely added up to me. You were trying to do Ritz like he had done those women. Right?”
“Definitely.”
“Well, did you really stop as soon as you’d taken the pictures? Cause if it was me, and I was letting him know how it felt to be in that position, and I’d gone that far, against the law or not, I’d want to make damn sure the motherfucker took a little taste.”
Lucy laughs in spite of herself, but then casts her eye down to the rug.
“Well, maybe it didn’t end as soon as I hit the shutter button. But it didn’t last very long. Because I started to get scared.”
“Of what?”
“Myself. By how much I enjoyed it. Not the sex part. That truly left me cold. But I loved having so much power over him. It was an amazing rush. I felt limitless. Just huge. But then I heard the creep open his zipper, and that kind of woke up my conscience. Overall, it was a really strange moment. Because I hadn’t known I had that power thing inside me. It never came out on the street. But it was a great lesson to get right before I became Chief.”
Tonya arrives late, about three a.m., but lets me sleep almost to nine. It’s Saturday, but the Chief is going to spend the day in the station. Like a lot of bosses, she uses the weekend to catch up on everything on her desk that wasn’t an emergency. We’ve agreed she’s completely safe inside Central Station. Like most law-enforcement offices, it has been fully armored with bulletproof glass and steel doors with electronic bolts to keep out the crazies and terrorists. Besides, there are a dozen armed cops inside who’d draw on Ritz on sight.
Instead, I stop in to see Pops, who’s been glued to his TV and wants all the inside poop about the VVM case. I tell him what I can, then go to my office to do my own catchup. About four p.m., the Chief calls and I drive her home, parking the CTS around the corner so that anybody Ritz might have watching doesn’t see an extra car in the driveway. The Chief wants to prepare what she calls ‘a good dinner.’
“You like Mexican?” I tell her about Ruben’s, which she’s never heard of. Not that she has any need—she’s a real cook. She’s making tamales, since her daughters are coming for lunch on Sunday, and she steams up several and also fries up some carne asada. I make a salad.
The tamales are amazing.
“Truly, they kill,” I tell her.
“A lot of work,” she says, “but always worth it.”
Tonya arrives just at the end of movie time. Toy is going to take the early shift, which means that tonight I can enjoy a beer while the Chief is having her nightcap.
Seated in the wooden nook in the kitchen, the three of us have a great laugh over an old story about Sid DeGrassi. Apparently, the first time he applied in HI, P&F ordered a second test to support his application, without any explanation. Sid was devastated when it turned out he had failed.
‘I musta been close,’ Sid supposedly said to Stanley, the old Chief. ‘That’s why they gave me another chance.’
‘Nope,’ Stanley told him. ‘They couldn’t believe any human being could do that bad if it wasn’t on purpose.’
I’m not a crazy laugher, but this gets me, and I’m still going when I suddenly see Tonya stiffen across the table. She grabs both our hands and moves her index finger to her lips. We listen, and my heart jumps because I definitely hear a stick break outside. Then Tonya, who’s facing the kitchen window, yells, “I just saw someone,” and flashes to the front door as she’s shouting directions to me.
On Tonya’s orders, I move the Chief to an interior hallway, close to the basement door in case she really needs to run for it, then I bolt out the back. This all takes only seconds. As I come flying out, I see a big guy on the gallop, looking over his shoulder at Tonya, who is shouting after him. He’s got a hat on and dark clothes and he’s holding something in his right hand that instinct tells me is a gun. As he reaches the back edge of the house, roughly parallel to the rear staircase, I am able to totally blindside him, driving my shoulder into him at full velocity. He goes down like fruit falling off a tree, and I land on him and deliver a couple rabbit punches. But I immediately register that something is wrong. Big or not, the guy felt completely soft when I plowed into him. And he’s immediately bawling, literally whimpering and begging me to stop. There’s no sign of what I thought was a weapon.
Tonya cuffs him while he’s still facedown. She uses the flashlight on her phone, and when she rolls him over, I’m sure this is not any hit man Ritz would send. He’s like eighteen, still with pimples and big glasses and a wild head of hair. In the light, I can see a big pizza stain on the front of his T-shirt. Everything about him reads ‘total goof.’
Tonya has pulled his wallet from his back pocket.
“Robert Gamal?”
The guy can’t stop crying, so it takes a second to get his story. He’s a freshman at the U and enrolled in a photojournalism class.
“I thought, you know, there’s all this coverage of Chief Gomez. A candid of her at home with her daughters? That would be worth something.”
I search behind us and find his digital camera in the bushes. No gun.
Then suddenly I yelp in panic as it strikes me: Robert Gamal is not a hit man. He’s a distraction. Total misdirection would be just like Ritz.
I sprint back into the house with my Glock drawn.
“Chief?” I yell.
“Right here.” She’s still in the hallway, holding her own pistol.
I want to search around the house, but she’s dead certain nobody came in.
“What’s up out there?” She moves her chin to the yard.
“Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter,” I answer. When I explain about Robert Gamal, she can’t stop laughing.
“You’re kidding. I have paparazzi? I have papa-fucking-razzi. I can’t wait to tell the girls.”
Tonya comes in a couple minutes later. Jimmy Olson is outside, handcuffed to the wrought-iron railing in front. She’s already radioed the station. Robert has no sheet and no warrants.
“Charge him or let him go?” Tonya asks the Chief, who turns to me.
“I say book him,” I answer. “He’s got to learn better.” Look at you, I think. But I know I’m right.
Tonya calls for a cruiser and it’s there in five minutes. They’ll book Robert for trespass, a misdemeanor, which means he will get to bond out at the station and avoid spending a night in the jail. That would definitely have given him something to write about for journalism class.
Afterwards, all three of us have a whiskey to settle down. When she’s drained her glass, the Chief thinks she can sleep and goes up to her bedroom, but Tonya and I are still way too amped and hang together in the kitchen.
“We did good,” Toy says.
“We did,” I say.
“Maybe I should withdraw my application to the Bureau and we should open our own shop as PIs or doing security.” She’s sort of kidding, sort of not. Before now she hasn’t said explicitly that she applied to the FBI, although I sensed it. She needs to stay on the DL, since everybody in HI would freak, maybe starting with the Chief, at the thought of her leaving.
“Neh,” I say. “Cross my heart a hundred times, Toy, I’d love working with you. But I also love Rik, and the PI thing. Being independent is not an easy business. I’m not sure either one of us has the chops for hustling clients. Same with security. How much high-profile work you think there is out there? We don’t want to be the rent-a-cops at weddings or bat mitzvahs. And besides, I think we’re doing great as friends,” I say. “Business partners, when they break up it’s worse than divorce.”
“Okay,” she says happily. I think she heard exactly what she wanted. “Totally agree on working out as friends.” Given her prior experience with me back in the day, she clearly appreciates the reassurance.
“Besides, how could you pass on the FBI without trying it?” I ask.
“I’m still going back and forth. HI will be a great department as long as the Chief’s around. You’d have a friend in high places if you tried to get on the force now, you know.”
Weirdly, the thought has never crossed my mind. But I know Tonya nailed it when she told me I’d be a shit cop. I’d always be in trouble for breaking rules I see as stupid or pointless. As she said, nobody changes that much.
On Sunday, while the Chief’s daughters are there, I sit in my car, which I’ve moved across the street but down the block, still trying not to be too obvious.
Tonya shows up at four with big news.
“Moses just reached an agreement with Melvin. Ritz is going to surrender at the federal courthouse tomorrow at noon.”
“Bail?”
“The government will object wildly. The only thing Moses gave Junior is that they’ll take Ritz straight up for an immediate bond hearing. And Feld won’t deny at the hearing that the Ritz is an addict.”
We exchange a round of high fives.
“And bye-bye babysitters,” adds the Chief. “Not that I don’t love you guys.”
“Love you too,” I say. More laughs. We’re a cheerful trio.
When the Chief goes off to watch the end of the Trappers game, Tonya tells me that Feld has a new plan.
“The Ritz will never get bail. Because to start the hearing, the government is going to file a new complaint adding charges for the murder of a federal witness. They can corroborate Walter now because there’s an exact chemical match of the carfentanil in the automatic syringes from Ritz’s house with what killed Blanco. But the new complaint will only mention the scientific evidence. Walter stays on the DL. After Ritz has been inside twenty-four hours, they’ll send Walter over to the MCC. And you know what the pretext will be? This is so evil. Walter will say he wants to be sure that the Ritz isn’t going to turn over on him. And Ritz will have to answer. If he doesn’t, he’ll know that Walter’s only option would be to make a mad dash for the US Attorney’s Office.”
On Monday morning, the Chief leaves early for the station. She likes to get there for shift change at 7 a.m. The mayor’s office has also texted her and asked her for a briefing on the latest with Ritz and several other issues, which Lucy will deliver to the mayor at 8:00.
“I’ll ride along,” I say.
“The hell you will.”
“That garage under the Municipal Building is spooky.”
“There’s plenty of security, and I only agreed to let you guys shadow me until Ritz was accounted for. Now he has been. Not to mention that it would embarrass the crap out of me with the mayor if it looks like I can’t depend on my own officers to protect me. And it’s too hard to explain why they aren’t there.”
I still insist on following her to the station. In the parking lot, she leans in the window of the car to hug me again.
“Getting to know you, Pinky, has been the best part of a generally shitty experience.”
“That’s me all over,” I say. “A little better than shitty.”
We have another laugh, and she turns back to wave from the station’s back door.