In the Midst of Death

He looked just like his photographs. He'd been all over the papers for the past few weeks, ever since he'd begun cooperating with Abner Prejanian's investigation of corruption in the New York Police Department. But the news photos didn't give you the sense of height. He stood six-four easy and was built to scale, broad in the shoulders, massive in the chest. He was starting to thicken in the gut as well; he was in his early thirties now, and in another ten years he'd add on another forty or fifty pounds and he'd need every inch of his height to carry it well.

If he lived another ten years.

He said, "Where's Doug?"

"He left me at the door. Said you wanted to see me alone."

"Yeah, but the knock, I thought it was him."

"I cracked the code."

"Huh? Oh." He grinned suddenly, and it really did light up the room. He had a lot of teeth and he let me look at them, but the grin did more than that. It brightened his whole face. "So you're Matt Scudder," he said. "Come on in, Matt. It's not much but it's better than a jail cell."

"Can they put you in jail?"

"They can try. They're damn well trying."

"What have they got on you?"

"They've got a crazy English cunt that somebody's got a hold on. How much do you know about what's going on?"

"Just what I read in the papers."

And I hadn't paid all that much attention to the papers. So I knew his name was Jerome Broadfield and he was a cop. He'd been on the force a dozen years. Six or seven years ago he made plainclothes, and a couple of years after that he made detective third, which was where he had stayed. Then a matter of weeks ago he threw his shield in a drawer and started helping Prejanian stand the NYPD on its ear.

I stood around while he bolted the door. I was taking the measure of the place. It looked as though the landlord had leased it furnished, and nothing about the apartment held any clues to the nature of its tenant.

"The papers," he said. "Well, they're close. They say Portia Carr was a whore. Well, they're right about that. They say I knew her. That's true, too."

"And they say you were shaking her down."

"Wrong. They say she says I was shaking her down."

"Were you?"

"No. Here, sit down, Matt. Make yourself comfortable. How about a drink, huh?"

"All right."

"I got scotch, I got vodka, I got bourbon, and I think there's a little brandy."

"Bourbon's good."

"Rocks? Soda?"

"Just straight."

He made drinks. Neat bourbon for me, a long scotch and soda for himself. I sat on a tufted green print couch and he sat on a matching club chair. I sipped bourbon. He got a pack of Winstons out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket and offered me one. I shook my head and he lit it for himself. The lighter he used was a Dunhill, either gold-plated or solid gold. The suit looked custom made, and the shirt was definitely made to measure, with his monogram gracing the breast pocket.

We looked at each other over our drinks. He had a large, square-jawed face, prominent brows over blue eyes, one of the eyebrows bisected by an old scar. His hair was sand-colored and just a shade too short to be aggressively fashionable. The face looked open and honest, but after I'd been looking at it for a while I decided it was just a pose. He knew how to use his face to his advantage.

He watched the smoke rise from his cigarette as if it had something to tell him. He said, "The newspapers make me look pretty bad, don't they? Smart-ass cop finks on the whole department, and then it turns out he's scoring off some poor little hooker. Hell, you were on the force. How many years was it?"

"Around fifteen."

"So you know about newspapers. The press doesn't necessarily get everything right. They're in business to sell papers."

"So?"

"So reading the papers you got to get one of two impressions of me. Either I'm a crook who let the Special Prosecutor's office get some kind of hammerlock on me or else I'm some kind of a nut."

"Which is right?"

He flashed a grin. "Neither. Christ, I been on the force going on thirteen years. I didn't just figure out yesterday that a couple of guys are maybe taking a dollar now and then. And nobody had anything on me at all. They been issuing denials out of Prejanian's office left and right. They said all along I was cooperating voluntarily, that I had come to them unasked, the whole number. Look, Matt, they're human. If they managed to set me up and turn me around on their own they'd be bragging about it, not denying it. But they're as much as saying I walked in and handed it all to them on a platter."

"So?"

"So it's the truth. That's all."

Did he think I was a priest? I didn't care whether he was a nut or a crook or both or neither. I didn't want to hear his confession. He had had me brought here, presumably for a purpose, and now he was justifying himself to me.

No man has to justify himself to me. I have trouble enough justifying myself to myself.

"Matt, I got a problem."

"You said they don't have anything on you."

"This Portia Carr. She's saying I was shaking her down. I demanded a hundred a week or I was going to bust her."

"But it's not true."

"No, it's not."

"So she can't prove it."

"No. She can't prove shit."

"Then what's the problem?"

"She also says I was fucking her."

"Oh."

"Yeah. I don't know if she can prove that part of it, but hell, it's the truth. It was no big deal, you know. I was never a saint. Now it's all over the papers and there's this extortion bullshit, and all of a sudden I don't know whether I'm coming or going. My marriage is a little shaky to begin with, and all my wife needs is stories for her friends and family to read about how I'm shacking up with this English cunt. You married, Matt?"

"I used to be."

"Divorced? Any kids?"

"Two boys."

"I got two girls and a boy." He sipped his drink, ducked ash from his cigarette. "I don't know, maybe you like being divorced. I don't want any part of it. And the extortion charge, that's breaking my balls. I'm scared to leave this fucking apartment."

"Whose place is it? I always thought Fuhrmann lived in my neighborhood."

"He's in the West Fifties. That your neighborhood?" I nodded. "Well, this place is mine, Matt. I've had it a little over a year. I got the house out in Forest Hills and I figured it'd be nice to have a place in town in case I needed one."

"Who knows about this place?"

"Nobody." He leaned over, stubbed out his cigarette. "There's a story they tell about these politicians," he said. "This one guy, the polls show he's in trouble, his opponent is wiping the floor with him. So his campaign manager says, 'Okay, what we'll do, we'll spread a story about him. We'll tell everybody he fucks pigs.' So the candidate asks if it's true, and the campaign manager says it's not. 'So we'll let him deny it,' he says. 'We'll let him deny it.' "

"I follow you."

"Throw enough mud and some of it sticks. Some fucking cop is leaning on Portia, that's what's happening. He wants me to stop working with Prejanian and in return she'll drop the charges. That's what it's all about."

"Do you know who's doing it?"

"No. But I can't break it off with Abner. And I want those charges dropped. They can't do anything to me in court, but that's not the point. Even without going to court they'll have a departmental investigation. Except they won't be investigating a damn thing because they already know what conclusion they want to come up with. They'll suspend me immediately and they'll wind up kicking me out of the department."

"I thought you resigned."

He shook his head. "Why would I resign, for Christ's sake? I got better than twelve years, close to thirteen. Why would I quit now? I took a leave of absence when I first decided to get in touch with Prejanian. You can't be on active duty and play ball with the Special Prosecutor at the same time. The department would have too many openings to shaft you. But I never even thought about resigning. When this is over I expect to be back on the force."

I looked at him. If he really meant that last sentence, then he was a whole lot stupider than he looked or acted. I didn't know his angle in helping Prejanian, but I knew he was finished for life as far as the police department was concerned. He had turned himself into an untouchable and he would wear the caste mark as long as he lived. It didn't matter whether the investigation shook up the department or not. It didn't matter who was forced to put in for early retirement or who went to slam. None of that mattered. Every cop on the force, clean or dirty, straight or bent, would mark Jerome Broadfield lousy for the rest of his life.

And he had to know it. He'd been carrying a badge for over twelve years.

I said, "I don't see where I come in."

"Freshen that drink for you, Matt?"

"No, I'm fine. Where do I come in, Broadfield?"

He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. "Simple," he said. "You used to be a cop so you know the moves. And you're a private detective now so you can operate freely. And- "

"I'm not a private detective."

"That's what I heard."

"Detectives take complicated examinations to get their licenses. They charge fees and keep records and file income tax returns. I don't do any of those things. Sometimes I'll do certain things for certain friends. As a favor. They sometimes give me money. As a favor."

He cocked his head again, then nodded thoughtfully, as if to say that he had known there was a gimmick and that he was happy to know what the gimmick was. Because everybody had an angle and this was mine and he was sharp enough to appreciate it. The boy liked angles.

If he liked angles, what the hell was he doing with Abner Prejanian?

"Well," he said. "Detective or not, you could do me a favor. You could see Portia and find out just how tied up in this she wants to be. You could see what kind of a hold they got on her and how we could maybe break the hold. One big thing would be finding out who it is that's got her filing charges. If we knew the bastard's name, we could figure out how to deal with him."

He went on this way, but I wasn't paying too much attention. When he slowed to take a breath I said, "They want you to cool it with Prejanian. Get out of town, stop cooperating, something like that."

"That has to be what they want."

"So why don't you?"

He stared at me. "You got to be kidding."

"Why did you tie up with Prejanian in the first place?"

"That's my business, Matt, don't you think? I'm hiring you to do something for me." Maybe the words sounded a little sharp to him. He tried softening them with a smile. "The hell, Matt, it's not like you have to know my date of birth and the amount of change in my pocket in order to help me out. Right?"

"Prejanian didn't have a thing on you. You just walked in on your own and told him you had information that could shake up the whole department."

"That's right."

"And it's not as though you spent the last twelve years wearing blinders. You're not a choirboy."