Then again, I wasn’t so sure Sammy did kill Perlini. I was beginning to like Archie Novotny.

“Involuntary and three,” I said. If Sammy could play nice and get a day for a day, and with credit for time served, he’d have about six more months inside. He could do that, I thought. Another variable was Smith. This would certainly satisfy his need for an expedited resolution, and I wouldn’t be turning over any rocks he wanted to stay covered.

Mapp made a whole show of rolling his neck, moaning, warming himself up to a grandiose display of generosity on this, Sammy’s early Christmas. The only thing missing from his car-salesman act was telling me that “they’ve never done this before,” but that he “liked me.”

What’s it gonna take to put you in a plea bargain today?

“I’d have to go upstairs on this one,” he began. “Voluntary and twelve. If I could even sell that for a premeditated murder—”

“With the equivalent of a confession, right?” I poised my hands on the arms of my chair, elbows out, ready to get up and go.

“Now, you’re not going to tell me you won’t take that one back,” he said. “Twelve years?”

“You don’t have twelve years, Lester. You said you’d have to take it upstairs.”

He watched me again. He thought he was intimidating me with that direct stare. A lot of prosecutors think that. I probably did, too.

I pushed myself out of the chair. “Next time bring roses,” I said.

My adversary switched tacks, bursting into a premeditated laugh and wagging his finger at me. “Kolarich, Kolarich, Kolarich. ‘Next time bring roses.’ That’s good, that’s good. Listen, Counsel. See about that twelve years, and I will, too. Maybe—maybe even think about ten.”

Interesting. If I had ten years on the table now, I could probably knock it down to eight, maybe even six or seven if the judge would help me out, and that wasn’t such a bad deal. I still wanted to know more about my case, but I had the prosecutor moving in the right direction. It wasn’t much, but compared to the rest of the last week or so, things were looking up.

35

I NEVER LIKED POLICE STATIONS, even when I was a prosecutor. It reminded me of a fraternity house, only the members of this particular fraternity had sidearms and batons and the authority to search, seize, detain, and arrest. I never really had much time for the individual cops, either, only that was probably due more to the disdain I had for them growing up than anything else. Aside from the few cops that were outright wrong—on the take, corrupt—there were plenty of corner-cutters in the bunch, guys and gals who were sure the ends justified the means, who remembered a knock-and-announce that never was, who kicked the drugs into plain view after finding them under the mattress, who had an extremely generous interpretation of a voluntary confession. But then again, I didn’t have to go through a door not knowing what was awaiting me. I didn’t have to pat down a suspect, wondering whether there was a needle in his pocket infected with the AIDS virus. I didn’t have to wonder, every shift, whether this was going to be the day. And I didn’t have a healthy sector of the populace that resented me without understanding all the shit I had to put up with.

In the end, I played the whole thing to a draw. Cops were like any other group of people—some were okay, others weren’t. On which side did Detective Denny DePrizio fall?

I leaned against my car, playing over my conversation with Lester Mapp earlier today, watching plainclothes and uniforms march in and out of the stationhouse as dusk settled over the city. A few of the cops had arrestees, the lot of whom submitted quietly save for a homeless guy, who was calling them “traitors” and mentioning, I’m pretty sure, Herbert Hoover, though my money said he meant J. Edgar.

I saw DePrizio pop out of his sedan as the sun was falling behind him. A partner, another white guy, got out of the passenger seat and said something to DePrizio that made him laugh. All in all, he seemed like a pretty affable guy for a cop, but in my mind that just made it less likely he was trustworthy. I prefer assholes. At least they tell you what they think.

I somehow caught DePrizio’s eye, probably an eye well-trained to spot, in his peripheral vision, someone standing and staring at him. He did a double-take, then stopped, pointed at himself, and raised his eyebrows. I nodded. So did he. So now we had both nodded. I guess that meant that I had to come to him, which was probably the proper hierarchical order of things, but that didn’t mean I liked it.

DePrizio cast off his partner and took a few steps toward me. “Counsel,” he said, more of a question. I wasn’t sure if he was having trouble placing me or just wanted me to think so.

“Jason Kolarich,” I said, slowly extending my hand, because you always avoid quick movements with cops. “Representing Pete Kolarich.”

“Kolarich.” Again, take your pick—tapping the memory bank or pretending.

“Clean-cut white boy,” I said. “Steady employment, no priors except petty possession who suddenly transformed himself into a major drug kingpin and gunrunner.”

“Oh, the one who’s innocent.” He snapped his fingers.

I didn’t smile. Neither did he. Denny DePrizio, in his white dress shirt open at the collar, brown sport coat and jeans, a youthful face and a full head of sandy hair, could have played the lead on a television show about cops. His eyes, dark and deep-set, were the only feature that suggested his age.

“You got something for me? I’m freezing out here.”

I followed him into the station, which was in the midst of rush hour on the ground floor. Upstairs, the detective’s squad room was more sedate, witnesses speaking softly to detectives, others typing on old computers, the smell of burned coffee and cheap cologne hanging heavily.

I pulled up a chair to his desk, and he planted himself behind it. “You want coffee or anything?”

I shook my head. “You had a web that night,” I said. “Your CI snared someone and my brother was in the wrong place, wrong time.”

He seemed amused. “That a fact?”

“Yeah. The guy you wanted got away, by the way. If you had audio, you already know that. If anyone was running guns and buying in bulk, it was that guy. My brother, he was just looking for a score—some powder. It was his bad luck that his supplier was into something ambitious just at that moment.”

“The whole thing was a coincidence. A misunderstanding.” DePrizio made a show of looking around his desk. “I think I’ve got a hankie here somewhere.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve got a half-dozen witnesses who’ll say they were out with Pete, he left to go pick up some blow, and he never came back. I mean, come on, Detective. You know who your CI was bringing in, right? It wasn’t my brother.”

DePrizio leaned into me. “This CI—this guy must be the single most confidential ‘confidential informant’ I’ve ever had. Because even I didn’t know about him.”

He was denying that Marcus Mason—“Mace”—was his CI. “Then help me out,” I said, playing along.

He fell back in his chair and studied me. “You think if this was a spi derweb, someone would’ve gotten away? What am I, a rookie?”

I didn’t have an answer. I waited him out.

“I used to work the warehouse district, back when it was only warehouses,” he said. “Drugs and whores, right? Maybe I got to know a tavern owner or two. So I’m over at Poppy’s enjoying a couple refreshments with some pals. I walk out a little past, maybe half-past midnight, give or take. I see some asshole meandering around that building, used to be the old Lanier’s Amusement Supply place. Abandoned now, like a lotta stuff around there. Getting ready for the wrecking ball, word is. So this loser, anyway, he doesn’t look like the Avon lady, right? I mean, I worked patrol there and I did a stint in narcotics. I know these fleabags. I fucking know ’em.”