Free Don't Look Now by Richard Montanari

sauntered up the avenue, renewed and renewing. They all looked so happy, so together, so cohesive.
    He pulled into the lot at the Justice Center just as Tommy was getting out of his car, a year old Camaro. Word had it that somehow Tommy had managed to buy a new Chevy every two years since high school and each one of them had been some combination of white, black and gray. It was only one of Tommy Raposo’s quirks, pulled from his bottomless bag of superstitions. ‘Hey Jack,’ Tommy said. He was dressed casually, much the same as Paris – jeans, polo shirt and deck shoes – but somehow it looked a lot better on him. ‘See the
Plain Dealer
yet?’
    Paris shut off the engine of his car and listened to the post-ignition do its drum solo for about twenty seconds. ‘You believe it?’ he finally said, stepping out of the car.
    ‘You earned it.’
    ‘I need you big-time on this one,
paesan
.’
    ‘You own me, Jack,’ Tommy said. ‘I don’t eat, I don’t sleep. I’m yours twenty-four, seven, three-sixty-five till this fucker’s in jail or dead or both.’
    ‘Let’s hope it ain’t three-sixty-five.’
    The two men stepped inside the Justice Center and were met with total chaos.
    Sunday morning is the time of the week, especially in law enforcement and emergency-room care, when the brilliant ideas of the previous Saturday night cash in their vouchers. Drunk tanks are always full, assault and drug charges always lead the way among complaints. Everybody is bitchy and sleepy and strung out and hung over and not about to recover anytime soon.
    ‘Hey
Serpico
…’ someone yelled in Paris’s direction. ‘When’s the movie coming out?’ Paris heard some greasy laughter from the other side of the room. The noise had come from a junkie named Scotty Delfs, whom Paris had used as an informant while working Narcotics.
    Paris just nodded his head at Delfs as he and Tommy quickly wound their way through the crowded booking area, holding their coffee cups high.
    On the way up, Paris caught a glimpse of something even more ominous than the milling dregs of Cleveland’s underworld. Even though the press conference wasn’t scheduled for another six hours, Paris could see the media already setting up.
    The sixth floor was a lot quieter, with only two secretaries on duty and a handful of detectives. Paris looked into the common room and saw Greg Ebersole and Bobby Dietricht talking animatedly about something. It was probably Dietricht bitching about the politics of interdepartmental cocksucking that resulted in him – King Collar – not getting this cherry of an assignment. Paris was going to enjoy running Dietricht ragged.
    Paris checked the messages on his desk. Nothing pressing. He started to gather the files when Miriam Bostwick, the secretary whose services he shared with Tommy and Greg Ebersole, poked her head into his office.
    ‘Congratulations,’ she said in a loud whisper. She made a fist and shook it in the direction of Bobby Dietricht’s office. ‘Go
get
him.’
    ‘Thanks, Miriam.’
    Miriam Bostwick, an old navy pilot’s wife, gave him a quick thumbs-up. ‘I’ve made five sets of copies of the important files,’ she said, pointing toward the copier table. ‘They’re ready whenever you are.’ She winked, walked down the hall.
    ‘I think she digs you, Jack,’ Tommy said.
    ‘I’m too old for older women, Tommy. You add up the numbers, it’s frightening.’ He put the files under his arm, grabbed his coffee and exchanged a woeful glance with his partner.
    ‘This is it, boss,’ Tommy said. ‘Start of something big, eh?’
    ‘Start of something.’
    The commanding officer of the Homicide Unit was Captain Randall Elliott, but everyone in the department referred to him as Oscar Meyer. Behind his back, that is. It seems that one night Elliott, in the throes of passion with his wife,
in flagrante delicto
, heard a noise in the kitchen, threw on a pair of pants, surprised the perpetrator and chased him out