Fat Tuesday(48)

Think hard about the consequences the next time you get the urge to whip it out and wag it at somebody, especially a kid."

Smiling wryly, he made the sign of the cross."Go and sin no more, my son." Then he reached for the gear shift and put it into reverse.

"Wait." Gregory's handsome features were rearranged by indecision.

He gnawed the inside of his cheek."Could I get into trouble? Or hurt?"

"I swear I'd try to prevent that, but there's a risk, yes."

After several long moments of private deliberation, the younger man sighed."Screw it. I'm in. What else have I got going?"

( hat do you mean he's disappeared?" v Bardo shrugged."Just what I said, Pinkie. Nobody's seen him around. When I went back to that shit hole he was living in, he'd moved out. I came down pretty hard on the landlord, but he swore to me that Basile left in the middle of the night. Dropped his rent and key in the mail slot. This isn't the kind of place where you leave a forwarding address. It's like he's vanished. One of our guys in the N.O.P.D has been sniffing around. He says nobody has heard from Basile since he surrendered his badge."

"You should have had someone tailing him."

"Yeah, well, who knew?"

Basile's seeming disappearance made Pinkie uneasy. Basile hadn't declined his job offer with a polite "No, but I'm flattered that you asked." He had refused in a way that left no room for negotiation.

This bothered Pinkie for two major reasons.

First, it pissed him off that a nobody ex-cop had insultingly refused a well-meaning offer. This was the first time Pinkie had tried to lure Basile to the other side of the narcotics business, but it wasn't the first time he had considered throwing out some bait to see if Basile would bite. What better way to eliminate an enemy than to enlist him in your camp?

And Basile was an enemy. Within the Narcotics Division, he'd been a constant nuisance, insisting that a postmortem be conducted on every operation, successful or not. He was a crusader, demanding accountability for mistakes, seeking out the whys and wherefores of every screw up. He was a nagging conscience that kept the department reasonably honest, although not entirely so.

Worse, he appeared to be incorruptible. Pinkie had commissioned purveyors of every conceivable vice to try to find a weak spot in Basile's moral armor. None had been successful not the bookies not the drug dealers, not the women. All had tried to compromise him, all had failed.

So for years Basile had plagued Pinkie Duvall's operation. He was a self-appointed general in the war against drugs and he had the ability to rally the troops. When Kev Stuart was killed, the conflict had turned personal. Basile was still bitter over that and, despite the Bardo verdict, was not going to let the matter drop. He wasn't going to rest until he had avenged Stuart's death. Quitting the N.O.P.D had been a smoke screen.

Which brought Pinkie to the second reason he had hoped Basile would sign on with him. He could keep a closer watch on him if he were an employee. As long as Basile was with the police department, his activities were easily monitored. Now he had vanished, and no one seemed to know his whereabouts or his intentions. Pinkie didn't like it.

A man didn't ascend to the powerful position Pinkie held without cultivating a legion of enemies along the way. He couldn't begin to count the threats, real and implied, that he'd received over the years.

He paid dearly for protection against people with grudges. He felt secure. Even so, he was smart enough to know that for all the precautions he took, he couldn't be one hundred percent protected, twenty-four hours a day. No one, not even a head of state, was invulnerable.

Burke Basile was out there, a loose cannon with a short fuse, harboring a lot of hatred for Pinkie Duvall. He'd be a fool not to be a little edgy about that.

The system in which Basile had placed his trust had failed him, so he'd thumbed his nose at it and walked away. His actions were no longer governed by the rules and regulations of law enforcement, which made him doubly dangerous.

Of course, Basile couldn't harm him without tarnishing himself but that was small comfort. Just how crazy was the man? How far was he willing to go to get his revenge? What did he have to lose? Not a career.

Not a wife and family. Nothing in the way of materia possessions. Not even his integrity or good reputation, which the media had trampled.

That's what disturbed Pinkie most. Experience had taught him that the less a person had to lose, the more of a threat he posed.

"I want him found," he told Bardo emphatically.

"What do I do when I find him?"

Pinkie gave him a pointed look.

Grinning, Bardo nodded."It'll be a pleasure."

Pinkie's secretary knocked. He beckoned her into his private office.

"Pardon the interruption, Mr. Duvall, but you asked for this information as soon as I obtained it."

Having given Bardo his assignment, Pinkie dismissed him and took from his secretary the typed memo regarding Jenny's House. When he had arrived home last evening, Remy was behaving more like her old self.

She was excited about the charity, spearheaded by this Father Gregory, who had invited her to visit the facility. Pinkie had promised to think about it. It seemed harmless, especially if it lifted her out of the doldrums she'd been in.

He had questioned Errol at length about the priest's visit and had been surprised to learn that there had actually been two who attended the meeting. One, he was told, was older and more businesslike. The younger one was handsome, but probably gay, according to Errol. It was he, Father Gregory, who'd done most of the talking. Errol said that he had remained in the room for the duration of their visit, and that the two churchmen had discussed nothing except a refuge for kids.