Badge of Evil (20 page)

•  •  •

At first Bishop wasn't sure what he'd seen. He barely realized that shots had been fired—they sounded like muffled firecrackers in the din of the blaring music and the screams over the money. But as soon as he saw the blood splatter, he knew. To his credit, Bishop thought, Supreme reacted quickly, grabbing Lucy by the wrist and pulling her along with him as he ran.

•  •  •

After the fourth round Oz knew he had to go. All four shots had missed their mark. He dropped the gun and pulled off his wig and glasses while walking calmly in the opposite direction of the crowd. He was sure no one would remember his profile. He was headed to a rear door.

•  •  •

Bishop spotted Lucy and was fighting through the crowd, which was rushing en masse toward the exits, to try to reach her. Supreme held on to the back of his bodyguard's jacket and followed him through the turbulent sea of people, all the while maintaining his hold on Lucy's wrist. The bodyguard had little trouble using his bulk to clear a path. It almost looked like some weird football play, with Lucy following her blockers.

•  •  •

Once they were out on the street, the bodyguard opened the door of the Rolls, and Supreme and Lucy spilled into the back. Lucy was panting and trying to catch her breath. “Get the fuck out of here!
Now.
Go, go, go,” Supreme screamed at his driver as Lucy struggled to catch her breath. Without hesitation, the driver floored the gas pedal and clipped a cop as the car peeled away from the front of the club. The officer was sent reeling to the ground. The driver didn't stop.

At the corner, Supreme yelled, “Run the light, run the light!” In the middle of the intersection, the Rolls smashed into the side of a patrol car. Still determined to get away, Supreme was shouting “Back out, motherfucker, back out and go! Get us the hell out of here!” But before the driver could get the car in reverse, four cops with their guns drawn had surrounded the vehicle.

“Get the fuck out of the car!” the cop in charge bellowed several times.

Finally, but very slowly, the doors opened and the driver, the bodyguard, Supreme, and Lucy sheepishly got out of the Rolls. Moving deliberately, the cops got all four up against the car, patted them down, and then put the cuffs on.

•  •  •

Bishop made it to the street just in time to see Lucy being put into a squad car, which pulled away with its lights and siren blaring.

“Shit,” he said, looking around at the mess. “A. J.'s gonna be pissed.”

SIX HOURS AFTER
all hell had broken loose at Roxx, Bishop was sitting at a table in an otherwise empty Bell's chugging coffee. He had a splitting headache centered right between his temples and he was so physically tired that the mug actually felt heavy when he picked it up. But more than anything else, he was pissed—punch-a-hole-in-the-wall, scream-at-the-help, kick-the-dog pissed. Bishop knew he'd been useless. When the shooting started, he was little more than a spectator. He didn't even get a decent look at the gunman. And his impotence, metaphorically speaking, was not likely to improve his standing with Lucy. The only way the night could've been worse was if Lucy had gotten shot or if he'd gotten arrested.

“So I go to the fuckin' precinct, figuring, you know, maybe I can at least get some information. Maybe they'd even let me talk to Lucy,” a frustrated Bishop was telling Bell, who sat across the table from him. “I thought they'd extend me some professional courtesy. So what happens? I walk into the Seven-Seven and introduce myself to the desk sergeant. I ask him if he could help me out, you know, do me a favor since I used to be on the job. He looks at my ID and the first thing he does is lean back in his chair and start stroking his chin like he's the CEO of some big corporation and he's trying to figure out how to deal with the fuckin' shareholders. It was unbelievable. I wanted to tell him, ‘Hey, shithead, it's been a long night and you better start smiling, 'cause I'm one wrong look away from losing it. Just gimme what I need so I can get outta here. It's not that big a thing.' But I figured I better keep my mouth shut. So he's pondering the situation like he's got some critical decision to make. I mean he's totally caught up in this little power game. That's what I love about cops. That petty bullshit. Their world can be so small sometimes.”

Bishop paused for a moment to refill his coffee cup and pour himself a glass of water. He loved being at Bell's when it was closed and no one was there. It made him feel like the ultimate insider. “By the way,” he continued, “I ever tell you about the fuckin' cops who work the midnight tour? Shit, what a bunch of freaks. The cops of the night, my first partner used to call them. They're like a totally separate breed from the rest of the force. Really weird. Believe me, it's no accident that every time some black guy gets beaten, sodomized, or shot forty times, or some other crazy shit takes place, it happens on the midnight tour. You know most cops look pretty sharp now. But these guys on the midnight tour got food stains on their shirts, their shoes are scuffed, even their holsters look worn. I mean, who they dressing up for, right?”

“Get to the point, Frankie,” Bell interrupted, in a tobacco-soaked voice as scratchy and abrasive as a nail file. “I'm tired, I worked all night, and I gotta go home and get some sleep.”

“Sorry, Bell,” Bishop said, reaching out and affectionately touching her arm. “So the desk sergeant is leaning back and saying to himself, ‘Bishop, Bishop, why does that name ring a bell?' Then, all of a sudden it clicks. ‘Bishop,' he says, ‘you're that scumbag working for the terrorist, right?' Then he yells to a couple of the other cops, ‘Hey, look who we got here askin' for favors. It's Frank fuckin' Bishop, the Page Six PI.' I was lucky at that point to even find out what Lucy was charged with: section 265.001 of the penal code, criminal possession of a firearm, 'cause she was in the car with all the guns.”

Bishop had left the precinct before things got really ugly, called his guys, and told them to meet him at the “Fat Lady's.” Whenever the shit hit the fan and his team needed to go to the mattresses, they always went to Bell's.

•  •  •

Victoria had called A. J. around three thirty a.m., practically psychotic. Ayad Jafaari had gone into cardiac arrest around midnight and died shortly thereafter. Then she couldn't get ahold of Bishop for several hours. When she finally heard from him, he told her Lucy and Supreme had been arrested. A. J. did the best he could, particularly considering it was the middle of the night, to settle her down so he could get some information.

Driving into the city in his BMW Z4, A. J. was feverishly working the cell phone, trying to reach his contacts at police headquarters and talking to his editor about getting Lucy out of jail. Since the magazine's lawyers only handled contracts and libel issues, A. J. suggested they hire either Victoria or one of the city's other top criminal defense attorneys.

His next call was to Jerry Polone at the
Post
, to try to get a little more information about what happened to Ayad Jafaari, and that's when he found out about the mother and sister. “The cops are calling it a double murder–suicide,” Jerry told him. “The official line is the mother killed the daughter, then they think she went to the hospital and probably injected something into the son's IV that killed him, then blew her brains out in the parking garage. Off the record, I hear there was a suicide note left on her laptop in the apartment. Said the pressure, the humiliation, and the certainty that her son was either going to die or get the death penalty as a terrorist were just too much too bear.”

“You hearing anything different on the inside?” A. J. asked.

“Yeah, there's a decent amount of skepticism about that scenario. I don't know why, but a couple of detectives I talked to this morning aren't buying it. At least not yet. They don't have anything definitive, it's just their instincts. They're waiting on the autopsy and the toxicology report to find out exactly what killed Jafaari and they're waiting for ballistics on the gun. Just doesn't feel right as a murder-suicide, they said. But it would be awfully neat and convenient for the department, and especially your buddy Brock, to write it off that way. Hey, what was Lucy doing hanging out with a drug-dealing shithead like Supreme?”

“She was working a story.”

“That's what I figured. Speaking of which, how's that piece going on Brock and the ‘Great Raid'?”

“Well, it gets more complicated all the time. And now that the Jafaari kid's dead, there are no more eyewitnesses to the raid other than the cops. I haven't really turned the screws on the reporting yet, but I will over the next several days. Something doesn't feel right about the raid either, but that's just my gut.”

“Any idea how Lucy's doing?”

“I'm sure she's fine,” A. J. said, doing his best to mask his concern. “She's a lot tougher than she looks. Listen, I gotta run. Let's try and catch up later. Thanks for the update. You're the best.”

•  •  •

Bishop, his two investigators, Bell, and one of Victoria's drivers were all sitting at the big table up front when A. J. walked in. Victoria was on the phone, pacing, lionlike, back and forth in a short, tight line. In the back, the Mexican porters were doing what they always do in the early morning—putting the chairs on top of the tables, sweeping and mopping the floors, and getting ready for the next night's dinner crowd. John, the headwaiter, had his tie off and his sleeves rolled up, and he was trying to tally the night's receipts. He was also doing triple duty as waiter, bartender, and cook to Bishop and his crew.

“Everyone just ordered breakfast,” he said to A. J. in greeting. “What can I make you?”

“Are you cooking? 'Cause I don't want you to go to any trouble just for me,” A. J. said. “I can just have some coffee.”

“It's no trouble, I'm cooking anyway.”

“All right, I'll have some eggs, well-done bacon, whole wheat toast, and coffee.”

“Got it. How d'you like your eggs?”

“Whatever you do best.”

John disappeared into the kitchen and A. J. looked directly at Bishop. “Long night, huh?” A. J. said. “Whaddaya got for me?”

“How do you wanna be updated?” Bishop asked, looking at A. J. through half-closed eyes. “Listen, before we get started, I want you to know there was nothing I could've done. Lucy didn't want me breathing down her neck, and when the shit came down, it happened too fast and the crowd was too thick for me to get to her.”

“I have no problem with you on this,” A. J. said. “She's a big girl and I'm sure you did whatever you could. Just give me everything from the beginning.”

Before Bishop had a chance to respond, the room was filled with the sound of Victoria screaming into the phone. “I don't give a fuck what has to be done,” she practically shrieked. “I want it done now. Got it? Don't fuck with me on this unless you'd like to see a story in the paper about some late-night trips the judge makes to a certain West Village apartment, with you named as the source. I'll be downtown before the judge gets there. Don't worry about that. You just get Lucy Chapin out of there.” She ended the call, fully aware that everyone in the room was watching her. She now turned her attention, and her wrath, toward them.

“Maybe someone can explain to me why every time I have to call in a favor it's to bail one of your dumb asses out of the fire?” As she railed at them, they sat stone-faced. No one made a sound. There was, they all knew, little if any real anger behind the rant. It was all about the performance, which was, as these kinds of things went, first-rate.

“How is it, A. J., that I'm here at eight thirty in the morning,
eight thirty in the morning
,” she continued, “to pull some strings and browbeat a few people so I can bail your assistant out of jail? Someone,
anyone
, please explain that to me. I just lost my client and his entire fuckin' family. I've got every newspaper and TV station on my back. Do you have any idea how many phone calls and e-mails I've gotten in the last five or six hours? Believe me, you don't. And on top of that, I've gotta go practically all night without being able to get ahold of my crack private investigator because he's babysitting your assistant,” she said, glaring at A. J. “And why is he doing that? Is it to benefit my case somehow? No. It's on the pathetic hope that he can get in her pants. It's unbelievable. I'm surrounded by incompetence. I have to do everything myself.”

With a nice dramatic flourish, she spun around, scooped up her coat, and started toward the exit. Without missing a beat, her driver was in position, standing like a sentry, ready to hold the door open so she could depart. On her way out, she paused one final time and turned to face the table. “While I'm downtown making sure A. J.'s pretty little assistant doesn't have to spend the weekend in jail, perhaps the rest of you can do something useful for a change. Like figuring out what the fuck is going on, for starters. And, A. J., you smug son of a bitch, you owe me. Big time. I'll be back in two hours.” With that, she was gone.

“You gotta love the set of balls on that woman,” Bell said, laughing.

“She gets the job done,” A. J. said. “If Lucy had just about any other lawyer handling this she'd be cooling her jets in a cell until Monday morning. And my money says she comes back from downtown with Supreme as her new client.”

“She's calculating and aggressive,” Bishop said, “but you think she's
that
calculating and aggressive? It's only been a few hours since the whole goddamned Jafaari family went belly-up. Somewhere under all those expensive clothes, even Victoria has some feelings, right?”