“I said, ‘Police!’ That means youstop!”

“I no hear-”

“Well, now you hear! I am a police officer, Germando. Hold thefuckstill or I’ll break yourfuckingarms!”

“That’s brutality!” He craned his neck to look at Koby. With my knee in position, he was pretty well pinned. “You hear her-”

“You’re talking toair,my friend,” I yelled at him. “There’s no one here!” I retrieved the gun from my purse and held it at the base of his head. “Hold still, Germando. I’ve got bullets about an inch from your brain stem and I don’t want any accidents. I am going to cuff you.”

Out came the cuffs from my purse. As soon as he was in manacles, I felt my heart rate drop. I looked up… Koby staring at me, shocked and wide-eyed. I took out my cell and called for police backup and a transport.

His mouth was still agape. I said, “You can go now. In fact, it would be real good if you went now.”

He closed his mouth and turned to walk away.

“Hey,” I shouted.

He pivoted around.

“Thanks,” I told him. “But don’teverdo my job for me again, okay?”

He didn’t answer. He stared, blinked, then jogged off. I saw his Toyota hook a U, just as I caught the flash of a cruiser’s crossbar.

Good thing the occupants of the black-and-white were on a case. Otherwise a cop could have given him a ticket for crossing a double, double yellow line.

28

Let’s go overit again, Decker.”

I threw my head back, squirming in the hard seat, and studied the ceiling’s fluorescent lighting in the interview room. This wasn’t so bad, I rationalized. It gave me empathy with the scumbags that I’d be grilling one day. “What specifically, Detective?”

“You went to Boss’s because…”

“I went to Boss’s because I was looking for Germando El Paso, who often eats the banana pancakes there. I was looking for him because he had outstanding warrants.”

“Traffic warrants.”

“Warrants just the same.”

Brill rubbed his forehead. “And this is what you do on your off-hours? Hunt for dudes with unpaid tickets?”

“I consider it a civic duty.”

His smile was wry. “You need a life.”

“I agree,” I answered. “But that doesn’t change this situation. It was a righteous bust and I did not plant that bag of X on him, no matter what he says.”

“You’ve got no witnesses to back you up.”

“Neither does he.”

“He claims you were with someone.”

“He claims a lot of things.” I looked at the one-way mirror. “Who’s back there?”

Brill followed the direction of my eyes. He wore a black suit and a white shirt. A badly knotted red tie ringed his neck. He had dressed hurriedly. “Someone from the DA… the Loo.”

“Detective or uniform?”

“My Loo.”

“He can come in and ask his own questions, if he wants.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

“Believe me, Detective, I’m not trying to be snide.” I looked at my watch. It was two in the morning. At least, Koby was home sleeping. Thinking about him depressed me. “I’ll start from the beginning-again. I’ll repeat it as many times as you want me to repeat it.”

Brill gave me a hands-up.

I started to talk, then stopped. “Let me start from theverybeginning. This whole thing has its roots in the abandoned baby I pulled out of the garbage a couple of weeks ago. All right?”

“Go on.”

I glanced at the tape recorder in the middle of the Formica table, which was scarred and scratched and held a dirty ashtray. “I found the mother on my own, I’d like to add-”

“Not the time to brag.”

“I’m only mentioning this to show the DA on the other side of the mirror that I am obsessive.”

“Seems to be a family trait,” Brill answered.

“You said it, sir, not I.”

He smiled. “You found the baby; you found the mother.”

“I pulled out the baby; I found the mother.” I readjusted my weight for the millionth time. “So now we’re up to date on that. After I found the mother, I wanted to know about the father-”

“Why?”

“I thought this poor little baby from a retarded mother deserved to know her entire genetic history.”

“Why?”

“Because I became attached to her. I visited her a couple of times in the hospital-on my own. This whole thing didn’t come out of nowhere.”

Brill waited.

I said, “So I went to the mother’s home to interview her about the baby’s father. I did this with Detective Van Horn’s permissionandwith Detective MacGregor’s permission. I visited her on Sunday. I took my father, Lieutenant Decker, along with me because I knew I needed somebody experienced, and Detective Van Horn had gone on vacation. Detective Russ MacGregor, who had been assigned to the case, was away for the weekend.”

“And it was during this discussion that the girl”-Brill flipped through his notes-“Sarah Sanders… she mentioned being gang-raped and her boyfriend was beaten up and thrown into a trash can.”

“Exactly. But because the case was six months old, Lieutenant Decker suggested that I don’t act on my information until I informed Detective MacGregor of this latest development. Which I did.”

“And?”

I smiled. “He thought it could be a fantasy. Still, the girl came in and made a statement. On the off chance that her story might be true, I asked MacGregor if I could look into it. He said that if I wanted to find the father on my own time, he wouldn’t have a problem with that.”

“To find the father, not to solve a six-month-old fantasy crime.”

“Look… sir. I went after Germando because I had heard that he hangs with punks who harass the homeless and jump people in public bathrooms. I looked Germando up. I knew he had an outstanding warrant. I knew I could pull him in on that. Why would I bother planting a bag of ecstasy on him?”

“To make the bust look more righteous.”

“The bag has been nothing but a pain in the neck.”

“But you didn’t know that at the time.”

“I know the Department’s attitude toward rogue cops. Give me a lie detector test if you have doubts.”

“What about this guy Germando claims you were with?”

I looked at my hands.

Brill pointed to the mirror. “They don’t like it when you’re not forthcoming. If you lie about this, no one’s going to believe you about the bag.”

I pursed my lips. “I sent him home.”

“That doesn’t look nice.”

“Why should he get involved?”

“He’s already involved.”

“Ask anyone in the restaurant. We weren’t together more than ten minutes.”

“We did ask people, Decker. And what you said is true. And that in and of itself is suspicious. Ten minutes is more than enough time to buy a baggie.”

I stared in disbelief. “You think he was a dealer?”

“You tell me.”

“Why?” I snapped. “Because he’s black?”

Brill’s face remained flat. “You tell me.”

“He’s a critical-care nurse at Mid-City Peds. We were arranging a date.”

“That can be done on the phone.”

“He just got off shift. He wanted to see me in person. The poor man had been working for almost four days straight. I took one look at him and sent him home to get some sleep.”

“Name?”

I sighed heavily. “Yaakov Kutiel. He was the same guy I was with when I witnessed the hit-and-run.”

Brill was silent.

“He was just walking me to my car.”

“So he’s your boyfriend?”

Not anymore,I thought to myself. “We’ve dated.” I was losing patience. I took a couple of deep breaths. “I didn’t plant the pills. End of story.”

Again he was silent.

“If I were you,” I said, “I’d start thinking about how I could use this boon.”

Brill looked at me.

“Like using the pills to get him to talk about Sarah Sanders’s rape.”

“If it wasn’t fiction.”

“Can’t we at least find out?”

“We?”

It was time to show them I had an ego. “I made the bust. My presence in the room will make him nervous. But you can do all the talking.”