Roses Are Red - James Patterson [71]
Macdougall the Philosopher sat down between his lawyers, and the session began.
Betsey leaned into me. She whispered, “This ought to be good. Now we get to see what Justice bought.”
Chapter 94
THE MEETING started out very badly. Detective Weiss from NYPD Internal Affairs took it upon himself to speak for the rest of us. Weiss found it necessary to start at the beginning and methodically go over Macdougall’s previous statement sentence by sentence.
It was excruciating. I badly wanted to interrupt him, but I didn’t. Every time Weiss asked another question or launched into a senseless diatribe criticizing Macdougall, I nudged Betsey’s foot under the table. To punctuate a couple of embarrassing exchanges she kicked me in the shins.
Macdougall finally had enough of it, too. “You fucking suck!” he blew up at Weiss. “You people are a joke. It’s about your gut, Weiss, not covering your fat ass. You’re wasting my time. Let somebody else ask the questions.”
He glared at Weiss, who still seemed not to get it.
“You’re asking all the wrong fucking questions, asshole,” Macdougall finally stood up and shouted at the top of his voice. “You’re godawful at your job, you suck, you’re wasting everybody’s time!”
Macdougall then stomped over to a grimy window that was covered by a heavy metal screen and bars. His lawyers trailed after him. He said something, and they all laughed. Ho, ho, ho. What a crack-up Brian Macdougall was.
The rest of us sat at the conference table and watched them. Betsey consoled Weiss, tried to keep up a united front.
“Fuck him,” Weiss said with unusual clarity and brevity. “I can ask him anything I want to. We bought that son of a bitch.”
Betsey nodded at Weiss. “You’re right, Harry. He’s arrogant and he’s wrong. Typical detective,” she said. “Maybe he would respond to Detective Cross. He doesn’t seem to like IAD.”
Weiss shook his head at first, but then he relented. “Fine, whatever it takes. Whatever works with this asshole. I’m a team player.”
“We’re all team players,” she said, and lightly patted Weiss’s arm. She was good. “Thanks for being open to the suggestion.”
Macdougall came back to the table and he seemed calmer. He even apologized to Weiss. “I’m sorry. Nerves are a little frayed, you know.”
I waited a couple of seconds for his apology to be accepted by Weiss, but the IAD man never said a word. I finally began. “Detective Macdougall, why don’t you tell us what you have that’s important. You know what you have to tell. You also know what we want to hear.”
Macdougall looked at both of his lawyers. He finally smiled.
Chapter 95
“ALL RIGHT, LET’S TRY THAT APPROACH,” said Macdougall. “Simple questions and simple answers. I met with the so-called Mastermind three times. Always down in Washington. Each time I saw him, he gave us what he called ‘traveling expenses.’ That was fifty grand a trip, which made it well worth our while, and also caught our attention, piqued our interest.
“He was very, very buttoned-up. Thought everything through. Knew all the angles. Knew what he was talking about. And — he told us right off that our cut of the action would be fifteen million dollars. He was very credible when he talked about MetroHartford. He had a concept and a plan that was extremely detailed. We felt it was workable, and it was.”
“How did he know about you?” I asked. “How did he contact you?”
Macdougall liked the questions, or made it seem as if he did. “There’s a lawyer we use sometimes.” He looked at the lawyers on either side of him. “Not these two gentlemen. He contacted our other lawyer. We don’t know exactly how he knew about us, but he knew what we did, how we worked. That’s useful information, Detective Weiss. Make yourself a note. Who would know about us? Somebody in law enforcement? A cop? One of ours, Detective Weiss? An agent