The room was quiet.

Donatti banged his fist on the table, wincing in pain. The gun jumped up and down, landing with the barrel pointed at Decker’s stomach.

“Get that thing out of here,” Decker groaned.

“Shit!” Donatti picked up the Walther and stowed it underneath his shirt. Rage invaded his face. “They got one of my girls, Decker. It’s personal!”

“But if she bolted, and they didn’t take her from under your nose, it isn’t personal. Think about it for a moment, Chris. Say I did scare her into bolting. Then whoever popped Shaynda didn’t even know she had an association with you. If that’s the case, you sure don’t want it advertised that she was one of yours, right?”

Donatti was silent.

“Talk to your people, Chris. Maybe they’ll tell you she simply rabbited.”

“Is it possible you were followed last night?” Donatti said.

“I don’t see how!” Decker said. “I took so many twists and turns, it would have been impossible to tail me. Not because I was so clever, but because I was lost.”

“Did you check for a tail?”

“Christopher, that’s offensive.”

He threw his head back and looked at the ceiling.

Decker said, “Talk to your girls.”

“Of course I’ll talk to my girls.” He ran his fingers atop his stubble of hair. “Man, there goes that trust. I was invincible to them. They’ll never feel the same way again.”

“I would think just the opposite, Donatti. If Shayndie ran away on her own accord, it’ll make you look stronger in their eyes. They’ll have to be thinking, ‘See what happens when someone tries to make it on her own. See what happens when I don’t have Mr. Donatti’s protection.’ That’s what I’d be thinking.”

Decker raised a brow.

“Am I right about this?”

Donatti didn’t answer. He picked up the bottle, then put it down, his face restored to its former expressionless self.

“You’ll have to trust me on this one.” Decker took the wet towel off his face. Now his nose was frozen as well as sore. “As tempted as you are, you’ve got to stay out of it. You’re an excellent hunter, Donatti, when you know who your prey is. But in this case, we don’t know the prey. That’s my specialty. Finding the bastards. Let me handle it.”

Again Donatti looked at him.

“Yeah? I’m right? You know that.” Decker nodded. “You back off and you won’t be sorry. Because I’m going to find this son of a bitch and put him in deep freeze. Don’t worry. He’ll be taken care of.”

“Not the way I had in mind.”

“It’s true we have different styles,” Decker said. “This entire mess has to do with my business-my family. You owe it to me so I can redeem myself. Give me this one or we’ll both end up in deep shit.” He touched his nose and lip. “How the hell am I going to explain this to my wife?”

“Just tell her some random nutcase came up and slugged you. It’s New York. She’ll believe you.” Donatti rubbed his head and pushed the bottle over to him. “I don’t see what I missed… There must be something else going on.”

“Maybe there is.” Decker inhaled. It hurt to breathe. “If you give me a chance to figure this out, then maybe we’ll both know what happened.”

Silence.

Decker needed Donatti’s cooperation; he didn’t want to get in Chris’s way. Mistakes could be lethal. “So you’ll back off, right?”

“No, I won’t back off,” Donatti snapped back. “But since it’s your family, I’ll give you a twenty-four-hour head start. Then it’s everyone for himself.”

“Even I can’t work that fast. Seventy-two hours, Chris. At the end of three days-solve or no solve-I’m out of here.”

“Right.”

“Donatti, I’m not jerking my chain over this. No one has a one-hundred-percent solve rate.”

“What’s yours?”

“High enough. But it’s not one hundred percent.”

“Forty-eight hours.”

“Sixty hours, starting now. You broke my nose, you bastard. You owe it to me.”

Chris leaned over the desk and examined Decker’s features. “No, I didn’t break your nose. I just clipped it. I got you on the cheek-bone’s swollen, but not too bad. It wasn’t full force, Decker. If I had meant business, your face would have been a Cubist study.”

“If you’re asking me to thank you, forget it. Sixty hours.”

“This is stupid! You want me to back off until you leave town, I’ll do it. But I’m not paying for your funeral.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’m serious, Lieutenant. You may be a good cop in L.A., but out here you don’t know horseshit.”

“So fill me in.”

“That’s impossible. Could you fill me in on what makes a good Homicide cop in Los Angeles? These kinds of things are intuitive. I’ve lived on these streets and with these people all my life. It’s just this… feel-this sixth sense. Here I can do in a day what you couldn’t do in a year. I’d actually be an asset to you.”

“I don’t think a partnership would enhance either one of us in the reputation department.”

“I’ve worked with cops before.”

“Not honest ones.”

“No such animal.”

Decker didn’t argue. What was the point?

“I could turn you into a homicidal maniac in a minute because I know your weakness. But why bother? Cleaning your family isn’t gonna solve my problems.”

“That is very true. Give me sixty hours solo, Donatti. I need to know I won’t be stepping on your toes.”

“All right.” Donatti threw up his hands. “I’ll give you till Friday, if you last that long. If you land on your ass, I finish up my business my way. Deal?”

Decker said, “You stay out of my hair-”

“I said, ‘Deal.’ ” Abruptly, Donatti jumped over the desk and planted his mouth on Decker’s bloody lip. “There. Signed, sealed, and delivered with a kiss.”

Decker grimaced as he wiped his mouth. “What the hell was that for?”

“I dunno.” Donatti was amused by Decker’s repugnance. “I’m used to kissing authority figures. I used to kiss my uncle on the lips all the time.”

“I’m not your friggin’ uncle, Chris.”

“You said you were my father figure. In therapy, they call that transference.”

“Then I take it all back.”

“You’re squirming, Decker.” Donatti licked his lips and wiggled a pierced tongue. “Could that be… panic raising its ugly head?”

“Christopher, for heaven’s sake, grow up! I don’t give a damn where you park it, as long as you keep your hands off my family and me. Why the hell should I care who you fornicate with?”

“You cared about Shayndie. You asked me not to bust her, and I didn’t.” Donatti was wistful. “Now I’m sorry I didn’t. She wanted me to do it, and I said no. I was wrong. I should have fucked her. No one should die a virgin.”

22

Not a whit.

That was how much Decker believed Donatti.

Walking back to the car via Riverside Drive, Decker kept his hands in his pockets as he stared over the parkway. The sun had burned several holes in the cloud cover, casting an intermittent glare over the sluggish Hudson. The streets were a traction nightmare, a mixture of motor oil and ice-chunked water. Cars were splashing sludge and mud curbside, causing Decker to do a two-step to avoid the mess. He touched his swollen face, biting back the pain with stoicism and Advil. He concentrated on his choices, the two very different paths he could take.

The first was to follow the bastard: to find out what was on Chris’s dance card. Five seconds later, Decker nixed the idea. The man was savvy and would pick up a shadow as easy as a firearm. Plus, Donatti knew the city streets, and Decker did not. A tail would not only be useless, but would also alert Donatti to the already known-but as yet unstated-fact that Decker didn’t trust him.

Give the man a round of applause. Donatti had put on a good exhibition. But the shock and outrage meant nothing. Chris was a pathological liar, having stalemated several lie-detector tests given by veterans in the field. He hadn’t been perfect, but good enough to make the experts wonder. The most convincing piece of evidence that Chris had going for him was the “Why bother?” What would he have gained by having Shayndie murdered? No real money in it, and now he had Decker bird-dogging his ass.