Birdie sits backward on the floor, up against the bars, biting what’s left of his nails. His cellmate is asleep.
I reach around and grab Birdie’s shirt collar through the bars, pull him back toward me, and flash O’Connor’s badge.
“You let Mason chase you down last night? Is that why you’re in here?” I ask.
“No,” Birdie says, trying to scoot away from me.
“Bullshit! Start talking.”
“You can’t do this. You’re locked up too.”
“I’m a cop. You don’t know what I can do.”
He practically chokes himself trying to get away from me. “I turned myself in,” he wheezes.
“For what? You better have a good story, or I’m gonna introduce you to every last one of the guys locked up in this place and tell them you’re a two-face. You want to make some new friends?”
“It’s not safe out there,” he says. “Trovic’s guys are pissed. You fuckin’ cops killed him, and they think I knew about it.”
I let go of him.
“You did know about it. You said he told you to call Fred. You said you talked to Trovic after he was already dead.”
“So I didn’t talk to him exactly. But the order came from him—from the people he works with. I didn’t know he was dead, I swear. I did what I was told and sent Fred to meet him. Look, I’m not saying any more, and I don’t have to. I’m already in jail.” He straightens out his collar.
“Fine. Get him out,” I tell O’Connor, who follows my lead and takes out his keys to open the cell. “I know some guys who’ll love to meet you, Birdie.”
His cellmate stirs, and Birdie gets anxious.
“Come on, man,” he says to O’Connor. “I don’t know any more than you.”
“You know who Mason brought in last night,” I say. “It was a bullshit arrest.”
Birdie doesn’t say anything; O’Connor sticks his key in the lock.
“All right, all right,” he says. “Hold on a minute.” He checks to make sure his cellmate is still asleep. Then he sticks his face between the bars and whispers to O’Connor, “I heard it was some guy from the south side, some grunt who works for the guys who are about to score a deal with Mason. I heard the guy was released ten minutes after they brought him in.”
“Mason’s alibi,” O’Connor says.
“Don’t ask me,” Birdie whispers.
“What deal?” I ask.
With his face against the bars, Birdie can turn only his eyes to me. “Don’t act like you’re not in on it,” he says. “I seem to remember you coming after me, trying to scare me with your twenty-two.”
I can feel O’Connor’s eyes on me. Birdie senses he’s starting trouble. He continues, his focus back on O’Connor, “Word on the street is, she tried to pin Maloney’s death on Trovic ’cuz she’s in with Mason. They wanted to make it look like Trovic was alive so no one would suspect he wasn’t. She’s probably in here hiding from Trovic’s guys, just like me.”
“So what if she is?” O’Connor asks.
Birdie puts his forefinger to his lips because O’Connor is not whispering.
“They’ve been on the take for at least a year,” O’Connor says without lowering his voice. “What’s the big deal about this one?”
Birdie takes his finger from his lips and points it at me. “She wasn’t supposed to be part of the picture. Mason doesn’t pull this off, the bosses will lose their product, and they won’t stand in the way if half of Serbia comes after his ass. And hers, too.”
I feel like they’re talking about the stats of a game where I don’t know the rules. And I am the stakes.
“I thought I had a big mouth,” Birdie says. “You guys are all playing each other out.”
“I’ll put you on the street in front of Trovic’s guys right now and let them play you out,” O’Connor tells him. “Or, you can tell me when and where this deal is supposed to happen.”
“Don’t do this to me,” Birdie says, and walks away from the bars. “I’m not a rat. I just wanted to pay my debts.” He looks back at his cellmate again. He’s still sleeping soundly. Birdie weighs his options.
I decide to help him make up his mind. The key’s still in the lock, and O’Connor doesn’t stop me when I go for it. I throw the cell door open and grab Birdie by the back of his shirt. I bend my knees and use all one hundred and thirty pounds of me to push him against the bars. He holds his head back, so I grab his hair with my left hand. From this position I could do some damage, starting with a decent hook to his ribs.
“Spill it.”
O’Connor shrugs at Birdie, letting him know I’m right.
“Some heroin out of Florida,” he says. He quits resisting and his face smashes into the bars. “Ow!”
O’Connor steps in close to him. “Is that why Trovic was in Miami?”
“Yeah,” Birdie says. “Trovic set it up, real sneaky, through a friend he met on vacation. Some cruise line out of Miami that stops in Cozumel. I heard he scored like ten kilos. But Trovic wound up dead before he could bring back the black tar. Mason Imes intercepted the stash. He’s been in charge ever since Trovic disappeared. All I know is that it’s the big one, and after this, all bets are off.”
O’Connor signals me to let go of Birdie, but I don’t.
“We’ll keep you in here. You’re safe in here,” O’Connor tells him. “All you have to do is tell us where and when.”
“I told you everything I know!” he shouts. His cellmate sits up suddenly and stares at us, unsure what to make of the situation. I let go of Birdie. He leans against the bars, holding his jaw. “You bitch, you nearly busted my front teeth.”
“Now we’re even,” I say, pointing to my eye.
I grab on to the bars outside my cell to stop O’Connor from locking me up again.
“Let me out of here. You need me, you said so yourself,” I say.
“I can’t,” he says.
“Come on, O’Connor, who else do you have? Every other cop on this force will look the other way. If they’re not in with Mason, they’re scared shitless of him. I’m telling you, I can get him.”
O’Connor mulls this over. He looks at my pack of Camels like he wants one. I don’t think he smokes.
“If I get you out, we do this my way. You wear a wire.”
“No way. Mason knows me too well. He’ll figure it out in a heartbeat. And if I turn on him now, and the deal Birdie was talking about is botched, we’re all in trouble.”
“If Mason knows you so well, what would he expect you to do, once you’re released?”
“He’d expect me to prove I didn’t go after Susan. I’d find out who took those pictures. But this has nothing to do with what Birdie told us. There’s no time to chase some bottom feeder PI—”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
“Why?”
“To buy me some time.”
“You want me to be a diversion?”
“You’re working on clearing your name. Mason will believe that.”
“After I find the PI, you know what Mason will expect me to do?”
“No. What?”
“He’ll expect me to find him.”
“Oh no. You stay away from him. You give me enough time to get a handle on this junk deal and then we’ll bring you back in.” I can’t tell if he’s afraid something will happen to me, or if he wants to get Mason himself.
“Okay,” I say. I don’t sound very convincing.
“Sam, promise me . . .” O’Connor starts. For some reason he’s hesitant. “If I let you out, promise me you won’t say a word about this conversation.”
“What conversation?” I smile, the first time I’ve smiled at him. He has never smiled at me.
“We could both get into some serious shit if we don’t do this right. I’m not supposed to be working with you. I’m not even supposed to be talking to you anymore because I couldn’t get you to talk before. Division will have my badge if we don’t bust Mason.”
“Look at it this way,” I say. “If I turn up dead, you can nail him for that.”
O’Connor isn’t comforted.
“You can’t walk away from this one, Alex,” I say. “It’s your job.”
When O’Connor finally closes and locks my cell door, I’m on the outside of it.