Jokers Wild Page 0,123

what I'd planned, but it wouldn't have happened without you." Her smile looked political.

"Wasn't it?" Bagabond stared straight at Rosemary. "Suzanne, I had no idea..."

"Yeah. I'll be in touch." Bagabond started to turn away. Jack was already moving toward the door.

"Suzanne, I'll call you later. Let me know what happens with Jack's niece."

Bagabond glanced at Morelli in the corner with the Vietnamese manager. In this light, the blood looked black. She shook her head slightly.

Rosemary colored and drew herself up. "I can do some good here, you know. Exert some controls."

Bagabond kept moving.

"Suzanne, I want to talk to you later about some ideas I had about the animals."

All the muscles of Bagabond's shoulders and upper back tensed as she followed Jack out through the door. She tried not to listen, but thought she heard whimpered cries from behind them.

Business was still hopping at the Donut Hole across the street from the Jokertown station. The sidewalks were filled right out to the gutters and every few minutes another blackand-white would drop off the latest load of drunk-and-disorderlies on the precinct steps.

The Rolls had let Fortunato -off a block away and crawled away through the traffic in search of a place to double-park. Fortunato elbowed his way to a back table and found Altobelli wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers cap and a jogging suit. "I practically had to kill to save you that chair. Wanna doughnut?" Fortunato shook his head. "Talk to me, Altobelli. I don't have much time."

"You do look a bit peaked. Okay, okay. It's Black, John F X. Black, captain of the Jokertown precinct."

"I know the name."

"We leave Kafka here this afternoon. About an hour later I get a call from one of my guys. Black has ordered them off the Kafka watch. I drive over here to find out why and catch Black trying to take Kafka out in a squad car. He gives me a song and dance about a prisoner transfer. I say show me the paperwork. More songs, more dances. So I take Kafka away from him and bring him back uptown myself."

"You're telling me Black's dirty."

"You haven't heard dirty yet. Right after that guy in the robe and glasses tries for Kafka I get a call from my snitch at the Jokertown precinct. He wants to tell me he saw this weird guy in a robe and glasses in Captain Black's office not five minutes before."

Fortunato stood up. "Where is he?"

Altobiellii hooked a thumb at the station. "Every cop in Manhattan is working double shifts tonight. I'm supposed to be back up on Riverside myself."

"Get on up there. And let yourself he seen."

Altobelli had to stop for a second and think about it. Finally he nodded. "Okay."

"Anybody else know about Black?"

"Just you and me. Fortunato?"

"Yeah? "

"Nothing, I guess. This ain't... it ain't the way I'm used to doin' things. I'm used to standing up for my own."

"He's not one of your own anymore. He's the Astronomer's. And now he's mine."

The address was on Central Park West. They took a cab; Hiram had no wish to involve Anthony or the Bentley in whatever unpleasantness might ensue.

Inside the heavy glass-and-iron doors of the apartment building, a doorman sat at an antique desk. Behind him was a bank of security monitors. He was built like a linebacker, and there was an obvious silent alarm built into the top of his desk, an inch or so from his hand. He could hardly have expected any trouble from a fat man in a tuxedo and a nondescript fellow in a cheap brown suit. "Yes?" he asked them through the intercom when they approached the door.

Jay Ackroyd made a gun out of his right hand, pointed at the doorman through the glass, and said, "Here's looking at you, kid." The man disappeared with a pop of in-rushing air.

Hiram rocked lightly on the balls of his feet, glanced around nervously. "Where did you--" he began.

"The main stacks of the New York Public Library" Jay said. "He looked like he needed to get caught up on his reading." He took out his wallet, removed a credit card, and opened the door in the blink of an eye. "Never leave home without it," he told Hiram as he slipped the card back into his wallet. They went into the lobby.

Latham lived in the penthouse, just as Hiram had expected. Jay pressed the button fbr the roof.

The embossed bronze plate above the doorbell said ST. JOHN LATHAM. Jay pressed it, and they waited in nervous