“You want to pick up breakfast?” Sears asked when she met Rossiter leaving Elvira’s.
“Breakfast,” Rossiter said, gesturing at the moon, low in the sky and huge. “Quarter to eight P.M.”
“Chinese?” Sears asked.
“What’ll we have for dinner?” Rossiter asked. “Scrambled eggs?”
They were passing through the Meatpacking District on the route back to the precinct to clock out. Rossiter stopped across the street from Jackie’s, where a girl was struggling with the doorman as her embarrassed boyfriend looked on.
“But Tate said he’d put us on the list,” the girl was complaining. “Lisa Alpert.…”
The doorman moved her away from the wine-colored velvet rope.
“End of the line, sunshine,” he said.
“Don’t touch me, creep,” Alpert said.
The crowd was getting restless.
“It’s a bitch waiting your turn, huh, princess,” someone behind her in the crowd said.
Arc lights gave the scene a sulfurous, sepia, old-fashioned look.
“She look underage to you?” Sears asked.
“To me,” Rossiter said, “they all look underage.”
“Too much money,” Sears said about the kids. “Too much time.”
“Tate promised I’d be on the list,” Alpert said to the doorman.
The doorman pointed to three leggy model types and their older male escort.
“You,” the doorman said, “ladies—bring your friend.”
He unhooked the velvet rope. Alpert dodged past the rope. The doorman grabbed her and said into his Nextel, “Anthony, we got a problem.”
Rossiter hit the siren and nosed the car through the crowd.
“She left her pretty boy outside the rope,” Sears said.
The embarrassed boyfriend, hands deep in his pockets, headed down the block away from the club.
“He’s hitting the bricks,” Rossiter said. “I don’t get the feeling this was a long-term relationship.”
When the bouncer—Anthony, the doorman had called him—came out of the club, Rossiter, who glanced at him in the rearview mirror, said, “Isn’t that what’s-his-name? Scocci. Your pal.”
Sears twisted around to look through the back window.
“What the hell is Scocci doing here?” she asked.
“This why he wanted a transfer to the day shift?” Rossiter said.
“Lots of cops moonlight,” Sears said.
“Lots of cops lose their jobs for moonlighting,” Rossiter said.
He’d stopped the car and through the rearview was watching Scocci trying to handle the crowd.
“Let’s get out of here,” Sears said.
“We cut your boyfriend some slack?” Rossiter said.
“I don’t do guys,” Sears said. “You know that.”
“And when someone finds out we knew?”
“You’re a real prick, Rossiter,” Sears said.
Rossiter shrugged.
“Just a practical guy,” Rossiter said, “who doesn’t want to get his tit in a wringer.”
But he put the car in gear and slowly moved up the block away from Scocci.
“Give him a head’s-up,” Rossiter told Sears. “I see him here moonlighting tomorrow night, I feed him to the wolves.”