City of Ice (49 page)

LaPierre tried to stand but stumbled over his chair and finally kicked it out of his way, sending it careening across the room. “Wiseass. Tests can be shifted. You’re not getting any damn sample out of me.” He pointed at the one-way mirror. “Whoever’s behind that glass, I’m not saying I can’t pass the test, I’m saying I don’t trust the department not to frame me up.”

“You can lead us through what precautions should be taken. You’re a pro.”

LaPierre leaned over the table. He sneered. “Shove
your test ass-backwards up your dick. I will not submit to the humiliation.”

“Gee. We’ve heard that a few times in our day, haven’t we, André?”

“Up yours, you damn priest.”

Cinq-Mars smiled, looking away. His beeper went off just then, and he fumbled to find the button to punch. “Fortunately, André, we won’t be needing a sample from you. We already received a donation on your behalf.”

LaPierre gazed at him. “What’re you talking about? You can’t take a sample off me without my authorization, and I’m not giving it.”

“Not everything is up to you. You have a little friend. Lise. Seventeen years old. This morning you had anal sex with her, do you recall? You gave her your spermatozoa for safekeeping, a gift. What was yours became hers. Of her own free will she has donated your sperm to our study. You know these things take time, André. You also know the match will be made.”

Sergeant-Detective LaPierre rocked as though absorbing a couple of direct shots to the gullet. When he spoke, his words broke forth as an incantation, as though his grievances had evolved into a chant, as though he had rehearsed this litany frequently. “You worm, Cinq-Mars. I’m a real cop. I work in the real world.”

“Were you coerced, André, or did you volunteer?”

“I get down with the slime and the dipshits, I hang out with the fuckups and the slugs, I don’t sit around on my farm brushing horses.”

They stared each other down now. “I bet you volunteered. You knew it was coming anyway. The Russian hot-wired his testicles—”

“He did, and that boy screamed.”

“When he hollered out my name, you couldn’t
stand it anymore. Once again I was in there ahead of you.”

“Sending little boys to do a man’s job.”

“You went to his throat, you wanted to rip his head off, you tried.”

“You think I’m a dirty cop? I got inside. I got inside the Hell’s Angels. I got inside the Russian gangs. I was moving closer. More time and I could have busted the assholes from here to Moscow, from New York to Minsk—”

“Except you found out that I already had a plant in there ahead of you.”

“You’re damn right I choked the little fucker.” LaPierre turned to face the mirror. “I choked the little fucker’s neck.”

“Just because you were jealous of me. We were supposed to be on the same side.”

LaPierre raised his palm high and slapped it down hard on the tabletop. “I choked the little fucker’s neck to put him out of his misery! That’s why I killed him, you shit! High and mighty Cinq-Mars! Never gets his hands dirty! Well some of us have to do things.”

“Kill?”

“Some of us have to get down in the sewer and muck shit. They had that boy wired up. They were torturing him. He was screaming his head off. He was pleading for death.”

“So you did him a favor?”

“He was crying for his mummy. He gave you up, Cinq-Mars. That was enough. He didn’t deserve no more. They were going to keep it up, these are not humans, Cinq-Mars. They were enjoying themselves. I stepped up and put my hands on his throat and I took the life right out of him. I saved him more pain. I helped that boy the only way I could.”

“Yeah?”

“Not that you know about these things. You don’t
know how bad it gets. You don’t get dirty like real cops do.”

“Think not? I get dirty enough to scrap a young girl’s behind to preserve your DNA sample. I get dirty enough, André. But if a boy is screaming under some kind of inhuman torture, I don’t wring his neck.”

“Yeah, tough guy, what would you do?”

“I’d take out my badge and my gun and I’d start making arrests!” Cinq-Mars roared. “And if some sonofabitch didn’t like it, I’d shoot the bastard!”

The blood pulsing in his neck, his breath rapid, LaPierre hesitated before responding.

“But no,” Cinq-Mars pressed him from the other side of the table, “you couldn’t do that, could you, André? Why not? Why not? Because you were getting inside the Hell’s Angels. You were getting close to the Russian gangs. You were going to bust them wide open one day. You just had to get through your initiation. You had to prove to them that you were a bad guy, a mean killer, there was nothing you wouldn’t do for them—”

“You got to go the distance. They don’t mess around. You got to show you will do what you have to do and—
listen to me, Cinq-Mars!
They’re strong and getting stronger. There’s no room anymore for candyassed cops! You got to be just as tough, just as vicious, as bad as them or they’ll win, damn it! They’ll win!”

Cinq-Mars shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked softly.

The man was breathing heavily now, the pressure of his life pumping his chest. “Get what?”

“You killed that boy to go inside the gangs, to pass your initiation. You killed him prematurely, André. They’d already told you you were going to do it. You just jumped the gun, that’s all. You agreed, ahead of time, to kill that boy because you wanted to make bigger arrests than the usual, you wanted to be on the
front page. But the reason you killed that boy on the spot with your hands was because you thought he was my informant. You thought I was in there ahead of you. That enraged you. That’s when your killer blood took over. That’s when you became manic enough to do it. That’s when you ceased to be a cop in any way, shape, or form, that’s when you became a jealous murdering asshole. You killed Hagop Artinian because you were envious of me! You could’ve saved him, you could’ve pulled your gun and started shooting, except you were too damn jealous to do it. Know how I know? You hung that sign around his neck to make the point. This was your big case and you were scared shitless I was going to beat you on it. Well, you know something? You were right. I am going to beat you on this case.”

The beeper went off once more, and Cinq-Mars again punched it quiet.

He pulled up a chair and sat across from LaPierre. “You became them, André. You became the enemy.”

“I was going inside them. I was doing my fucking job!”

“The thing is, André—” The beeper sounded again, and Cinq-Mars cursed,
“Taberhuit!”
—a sacrilege for him—aiming a furious glance at the mirror, punching off the device. “The thing is, I didn’t direct that boy. He gave me some stuff, but I didn’t run him inside the Angels. Until he died, I didn’t know his name. He gave me up because he was trained to give me up, in order to spare himself further pain.”

“What do you mean?” LaPierre asked, and his voice was vacant, parched, as though the last lick of his fury had been discharged. “Who?”

“I told you, didn’t I, that I’d reveal who else has been involved? I bet you were hoping to deliver the news back to the Angels. Raise your standing in the community. I’m afraid we can’t allow that. Hagop
Artinian worked for the CIA. So you see, André, from the beginning, you were way, way, way over your head.”

The detective looked at Cinq-Mars and appeared to wobble in his chair.

“André LaPierre,” Cinq-Mars said, raising his voice, and the other man straightened as though to receive the news while erect, “you are under arrest for the murder of Hagop Artinian.”

The door to the room burst open then. Mathers was hanging on to the knob, seemingly out of breath.

“Yes?” Cinq-Mars asked calmly.

“Message for you, sir. Urgent.”

“Go ahead,” Cinq-Mars decreed. “Report. We’re all officers here.”

“Steeplechase Arch, sir. He says time is of the essence.”

“Déguire!” Cinq-Mars shouted, still staring at LaPierre.

In a moment the other detective showed. “Yes, sir?”

“He’s your former partner.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you execute the arrest?”

“Yes, sir. I will.”

“Cinq-Mars,” LaPierre interrupted, speaking quietly, firmly, with a forced dignity. “I’m inside the Angels. Right inside. Use me, man. Let me walk this off. I’ll work inside the Angels for you, inside the Russian gang. This is too good an opportunity for you, Émile.”

Cinq-Mars looked across at his former colleague, who was playing his last chit, the final move in his game. LaPierre was at his most vulnerable, and consequently at his most malleable. He could be manipulated, moved, run. Questioned now, he would respond.

“Why was Artinian in a hutch with that hook in him?”

LaPierre shrugged. “The boy died early, because of
what I did. I interfered with their torture. The Czar wanted more information. He wanted the boy’s apartment swept clean because we’d all been there and he didn’t want old socks lying around. He wanted the place checked for bugs, notes, whatever. At the same time, we had a problem, we had to get the dead boy up the stairs. So the Czar had all his stuff moved out, even the hutch, then we put the boy in the hutch in the moving van and tried to move him back upstairs. But he kept falling out of it before we could get him off the truck. His weight would shift and the musclemen, the guys from the ship, they’d lose their balance. The Russian did it. The hook was in the truck. He rammed the hook through his back and hung him from the bar in the cabinet. That kept him from falling out and they moved him back upstairs again. In all the commotion nobody who might’ve been watching noticed that one piece of furniture was going the wrong way. In, not out.”

Cinq-Mars nodded. “The table was too big to take down the narrow stairs?”

“They didn’t have the tools to take it apart. Everything else fit okay. So we just wiped the table clean of prints.”

“Tell me something, André,” Cinq-Mars pressed. He had him now. He had him believing that there might be a way out for him. As long as that thread dangled LaPierre was going to talk, he was going to sing the blues. “Why did you spend so much time in the crapper on the night of the investigation? It wasn’t just flu.”

LaPierre rolled his head around, trying to think that one through. “It’d been a day, Émile. My nerves were shot. I had to get myself together. I knew you were out there. I didn’t want to face you, all right? I was scared you’d buzz through me. I needed time to myself, Émile.”

“That’s touching,” Cinq-Mars told him. “The
murderous heart goes gummy. You should’ve been in the room, André. Hanging that sign on him was a big mistake. You could’ve cleared me right off this case. Maybe you were looking to get picked.”

LaPierre needed a moment to digest the news. “How about it, Émile? Let me walk this off. Run me inside the Angels. You can’t say no to that.”

“There’s a problem with that scenario,” Cinq-Mars informed him. At his back, Mathers and Déguire waited quietly, respectful, in awe.

“What’s that?”

“Hagop Artinian is dead. Does his killer go unpunished? Not in my book.”

“Goddamn, Saint Émile,” LaPierre seethed.

“Want a lawyer, André? You’re going to need a good one.”

“You bastard.”

“You got any suggestions?”

The man knit his fingers together and stretched his lengthy neck. “I’m not impressed with the lawyers for the Policeman’s Brotherhood,” he determined.

“Who then?”

This was crucial. Choices were being made. LaPierre looked up. “Get me Gitteridge,” he said.

Cinq-Mars nodded. “That’s the side you’re on.”

“Once you’re in, you can’t be out,” LaPierre explained.

“Mathers!” Cinq-Mars shouted, as though the man was not five feet away.

“Yes, sir?”

“Did he leave a number?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then come with me. Déguire, what do you think of your partner now?”

“Not much,” the young man stated.

“Do the arrest. That’ll keep your head above it around the department.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Cinq-Mars strode away at a rapid clip and stopped first at Room 9, and went in alone. “This is the deal,” he told Gitteridge.

“I’m listening.”

“I’m the only one who knows you did Kaplonski. I just arrested LaPierre for the Artinian murder. I’m running a DNA test. He doesn’t have a prayer.”

Gitteridge patted the tabletop, taking the information in, computing what it meant to him, and wondering what was coming next.

“I’m going to forget about Kaplonski for now. LaPierre has asked for you to be his lawyer.” The man looked up. “I guess he wants everybody to know what side he’s on. He’s also going to tell you that the CIA’s been involved in bombing bikers. He’ll want to use that information to bargain for support inside the Angels. I don’t care what you tell him, but you’re not passing that information along to anybody. What he says stays strictly confidential between lawyer and client. Got that?”

Gitteridge was staring at him intently now. “Is that it?” he asked quietly.

“Are you kidding? That is definitely not it. That’s just it for now.”

Gitteridge nodded, knowing that he could have expected no less, and no better.

“Déguire’s booking him. You can see him in a few minutes.”

In the corridor, Émile Cinq-Mars grabbed his partner’s elbow and steered him toward the elevators. “Let’s roll.”

Thursday, January 20, afternoon

Émile Cinq-Mars and Bill Mathers merged into traffic on the Villa Maria Expressway and headed for the west side of downtown. “I overheard a touch of gossip, Bill,” the senior detective intimated.

The young man’s head was still busily churning the repercussions of LaPierre’s arrest. He hadn’t felt much of a kick collaring Hagop Artinian’s killer when he wasn’t anyone he wanted him to be. He knew that the consequences would be dire. Once again cops would have their noses rubbed in doo. “So give it up.”

“You had a talk with my former partner.”

Mathers immediately felt uncomfortable. “You suggested it.”

“At the time I didn’t know he was a hit man for the Mafia.”

Mathers shot him a look to confirm that he wasn’t kidding. “Lajeunesse is dirty?” he asked. Immediately, he was fearful. If that was true, he may have compromised their situation by having had Lajeunesse run down the Infiniti.