"Who's asking?"
"Cardozo."
She came to the door tucking her plaid work shirt into faded jeans. "What's this I hear about Mickey Williams making bail?"
"You heard right."
Her eyes brimmed with open disgust. "It makes me sick."
The Muzak was playing "Goody-Goody." Cardozo hated Muzak. He didn't see why a police force that was still 20 percent undermanned was wasting any part of its budget on canned music. "Let's go somewhere we can talk. I'll buy you a cup of coffee."
"Make that a beer and you've got a date."
The waitress leaned into the booth and set down a Heineken and a ginger ale.
"Could I ask you something?" Britta lifted her mug.
Cardozo lifted his and clinked.
"Are you on a diet or in AA or something?"
He smiled. It wasn't the first time a cop had asked him that question. Nowadays, diets and alcohol were two subjects that made a lot of cops insecure. "No, I'm not on a diet and so far I'm not in AA, knock wood."
"So why the ginger ale?"
"With ginger ale there's no collateral damage. Gotta keep the old brain clear."
Britta sighed. "I wish you'd talk to my husband sometime. He's a cop in the twelfth precinct, and lately he could use a little less booze and a little more clarity."
This could have been Britta's roundabout way of saying she trusted Cardozo. His ego enjoyed the stroke, but he knew better than to play marriage therapist or alcohol counselor. "Tell me about Yolanda Lopez," he said.
Britta shrugged. "Came into the precinct Sunday. Dark-haired, petite Latina-barely five feet tall. She was hysterical. She said John Briar and his wife were very sick and needed help."
"What kind of help?"
"I couldn't tell you. Her mouth was going ten miles a minute and half of it was in Spanish. Frankly, she was acting like a crazy."
"Did you check on it?"
"I phoned the Briar apartment and a guy answered and said the Briars were just fine. He also said he didn't know any Yolanda Lopez."
Cardozo ran it through his mind. "Did you get her phone number and address?"
"I always go by the book, Lieutenant."
Cardozo dropped a quarter into the pay phone, dialed the number, and put a finger to his ear to shut out the fifties retro-rock thudding from the jukebox. There were four rings, a click, and then a female voice weirdly stitched together from sound bites: "I'm sorry, but the number you dialed is no longer in service."
The coin clanked into the change-return slot. Cardozo dialed zero and identified himself to the operator. "I need some information." He gave her the number. "When was that line disconnected?"
There was a long, silent wait with ghosts of other phone calls crowding the circuit. And then another click. A district manager asked if she could help.
Cardozo explained who he was and what he needed to know.
"That number was disconnected two hours ago."
"Why?"
"The subscriber requested it."
As Cardozo hung up, reality seemed to shift. The light in the bar seemed yellower than a moment ago, as though it had to fight its way through darker impurities. Shadows of customers hunched over their drinks seemed to run at a steeper angle and stretch further.
He returned to the booth and counted out five singles from his wallet. Britta looked up at him curiously.
"I have to run," he said. "Catch you later."
Buy Jury Double Now!.
About the Author.
Edward Stewart (19381996) grew up in New York City and Cuba. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and at Harvard, where he edited the famed Lampoon humor magazine. He studied music in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and worked as a composer and arranger before launching his career as a writer. His first novel, Orpheus on Top, was published in 1966. He wrote thirteen more novels, including the bestselling Vince Cardozo thrillers Privileged Lives, Jury Double, Mortal Grace, and Deadly Rich.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 1993 by Edward Stewart.
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