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year, and people trying to make it look accidental. Chen went on: "The muzzle was in contact with the flesh when the round went off. Somebody wrapped their hand around his, bent his arm back until the gun touched skin, then clamped down hard enough to shatter the bones and pull the trigger." Henry Carmaggio stuck another stick of gum in his mouth and walked over to the second body. "And this one beat out his own brains with the butt of his gun," he said heavily. "Si, patron. After shooting the other victim," Jesus said, pointing down the street with the hand that held a pencil and a 9mm shell casing atop it. "Nice shooting, two hundred yards—in the dark." The three of them moved unobtrusively aside, amid the crime-scene bustle, the traffic barriers and blinking lights. Carmaggio inhaled the stale cold smell of dawn, fresher than the body odors of violence. "Not much doubt as to who this was," he said. He looked at the body with the dished-in head. "And she's fucking laughing at us. This was a message." Jesus frowned. "Perhaps. Perhaps a chance thing. I do not think there will be fingerprints or blood types, this time." Carmaggio shrugged. That would be asking too much. They all knew it took a good deal more evidence to haul in a multimillionaire than your ordinary punk: fact of life. "I wonder what would happen if we just checked the hotels for her name and did an arrest?" The tall blond man had walked up noiselessly, not making any particular effort to sneak but hard to notice all the same. The counterfeit ID hanging from the lapel of his overcoat were the best Carmaggio had ever seen . . . which was to be expected, of course. "Bail would be made," Lafarge said quietly. "And then it would disappear, and we'd have to start all over again." He frowned. "Unless," he said thoughtfully, "I could kill it while you had it in custody." Carmaggio forced down an instinctive bristling. Suspects had been known to fall down stairs and be shot while attempting to escape, but not on his watch. On the other hand, this isn't your ordinary suspect. Lafarge held out a scrap of stained T-shirt. "I checked this with my moloscanner." He nodded toward the brick side of a shuttered electronics store. There was a heap of shredded clothing there. Carmaggio hid a smile behind his hand, rubbing his jaw, taking the scrap. It had an odd musky odor, very faint. "She actually fucked this gangbanger up against the wall?" Lafarge flushed. I think they breed them pretty straightlaced where he comes from, the detective thought. "The moloscanner reveals traces of human semen and drakensis . . . secretions." "You can do that on site?" Chen asked enviously. Lafarge shrugged. "Molecular analysis is fairly simple. My machinery is just much more compact." "It doesn't help us much," Carmaggio said. "Not admissible evidence." Then he snapped his fingers. "Wait a minute! She left a witness." "Si, but that's going to be one difficult hijo de puta to find. No witnesses to the incident; sure, we'll get some names of who the deaders ran with, but . . ." Carmaggio held up a hand and looked at Lafarge. The . . . man from Dimension X, the detective thought . . . reached inside his coat. What he pulled out looked like a sheet of stiff paper. On it appeared an adolescent face; Puerto Rican, Carmaggio thought. The bandanna and earring fit the evidence left over by the wall. "This is the face that goes with his genes. There may be acquired characteristics; scars, perhaps." "Damn, but I'd like to have that gadget," Carmaggio said mildly. "How does it . . . never mind. Jesus, get this down to the office and see if it matches anyone known to run with the Lords. Then do up copies and have it APB'd." "Grounds?" "Material witness . . . no, make it assault, attempted murder, whatever. We'll find him and then do a talk-and-walk." "It will take some heavy pressure to get one of the Lords to admit a woman tore off his clothes and screwed him," Jesus chuckled. "Then we'll lean on him. Get on to it." He looked down and noticed he was still smelling the rag of T-shirt. That wasn't the only thing that was happening, either. Good thing I'm not wearing tight pants. He grimaced and tossed the cloth aside. Christ, he thought uneasily. Suddenly what had happened to the gangbanger didn't seem so funny. Anything that could get a rise out of him tonight, at his age, was definitely bad mojo. He forced down an illogical silly smile. "If we can find this little shit, we can pull her in," he said. "Manslaughter, at least." "A good lawyer and she'd walk on that," Jesus pointed out, in police reflex. The NYPD was too overloaded to bother arresting people who had a good chance of getting off. "Self-defense, even if she admitted anything. And patron, our credibility would be shit, with a gangbanger's word against a respected businesswoman with government connections." "There's a forcible rape charge, too," Carmaggio pointed out. "Besides, what we want to do is slow her down and throw off her plans. She's gone to a lot of trouble to build up an image as a respectable businesswoman. This would queer it." Lafarge shook his head. "Your legal system is not going to make any impression on it," he said. "Direct action . . ." Carmaggio hunched his shoulders. "Our legal system is what we've got," he snapped. "We're going to use it. The alternative is six people with handguns trying an amateur hit. You think that's viable?" "I don't think you're adjusting to the situation as it is," the Samothracian said carefully. "I don't think you should assume that this is wog-land," Carmaggio replied. "You know, the place where a white man with a gun can do whatever he wants?" Lafarge blinked and looked away, ignoring the heavy irony. "I'm doing what I can to trace her operations," he said. "It looks bad. She's ordering components for a reactor." The three New Yorkers swiveled to face him. "A nuclear reactor?" Chen asked incredulously. "A fusion reactor. Early model, primitive . . . it will weigh about a hundred and fifty tons, in the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |