The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [38]
The man Isiah Parker needed to see finally stepped from one of the cars. He gazed up and down the dark wood platform, looking confused. He was neatly dressed in a dark blue suit that was formal for 125th Street.
Isiah Parker let the Man see him. He stepped out from behind a utility pole with a theater ad aimed at the train riders. “‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ Is a Musical,” it said.
Parker waved.
Isiah Parker walked down a flight of rickety stairs. He stayed thirty yards ahead of the Man. The soot-blackened stairs led to the main railroad station, a Victorian waiting room that had changed little over several decades.
The same old iron railing still went along the grimy walls, the same ornate moldings loomed sixteen to eighteen feet overhead. Probably the same dust was collecting on the walls and a line of faded red telephone booths. Every phone was out of order.
A blue door to the left of the newsstand said “MEN’S.” Parker approached the door, pushing the heavy silver bar forward.
The bathroom looming beyond the door was empty, even at the height of rush hour.
Parker checked the foul-smelling stalls anyway. He found no early morning junkies shooting up, no street bums sleeping one off on a toilet.
The Man entered the bathroom a few seconds behind Parker. He stepped up to one of the cracked urinals and began to use it. He was a good manager of his own time. White men were excellent at that, Parker had learned over the years.
“How are you, Isiah?” He was matter-of-fact. For a moment, it almost made Parker angry enough to show his feelings. The Man was humoring him by coming here. He’d found a new way to be condescending. Go and talk to Parker. Calm that nigger down.
“This has been a hard time.” Parker tried to control his anger, any sign of what he was really thinking.
“I know it has been.” The Man was the deputy police commissioner of New York. His name was Charles Mackey. He had originally met Parker when the detective was being honored for having the most narcotics arrests in Manhattan. That was three years ago.
“If it’s any consolation,” he said now, “we’re almost home. This next one is important, though, very important to us, Isiah. Then our little private war will be over. After that, they’ll be doing the job for us. We’re seeing it happen around the world already.”
“When you approached me,” Parker interrupted, “you said it wouldn’t be much different from regular undercover police work. Well, it’s different. It disorients you. You’re not sure which side you’re on.”
The deputy police commissioner listened and he nodded. Parker remembered that Mackey had always been a good listener, a rabbi inside the department.
“You’re on the right side of the law. You’re still on the side of the angels. Don’t worry about that, Isiah. What the hell choice did we have? What choice did they give us?…They were practicing their goddamn street law. The Colombians had their own brand of the same thing. So did the Italians, the Cosa Nostra. What were we allowed to do in retaliation? What were we supposed to do?
“We could bring them to court, and not even get a grand jury to hear a murder case. Nine New York cops were killed last year. The street law was working perfectly. We had to do something. There were no alternatives left. You know that.”
Parker stared into Charles Mackey’s large and moist blue eyes. He was a white man, a fish-belly, but for some reason, Parker had always trusted him. Something was bothering him now, though.
He couldn’t figure out what it was. Something about the Man was wrong. Something about this undercover work was wrong. The side of the angels? He didn’t know anymore.
“Do you know who murdered your brother, Marcus? Do you know who mutilated your brother’s body?” Charles Mackey continued in an angry and almost self-righteous tone. “Do you know the answer to that?”
“Yes, I know who murdered my brother.”