Free Act of Revenge by Robert K. Tanenbaum

asked me to come by. Anything cooking yet on the perp?”
    â€œYou see how these cheap P.I.s operate, Vargas? Trying to get confidential information off the Job? They use bribes, threats, even fading sexual allure, like now . . . what’s that on your shirt, Marlene, stick out your chest a little. Oh, yeah, Confucius say, man with erection who enter airplane door sideways going to Bangkok.”
    â€œThat and, ‘Kiss my ass, I’m Irish,’ but, really . . . ?”
    â€œReally? Well, it’s a highly skilled master criminal terrorist we got here, if you want my opinion. They didn’t want to use their own vehicle for the job, oh, no, so they rented a van from Penske over in Jersey somewhere. That’s ’cause Penske don’t ask for any personal information or anything, you just give them your watch or your dog and drive away.”
    â€œA grounder.”
    â€œUh-huh. They’re probably closing in on the desperadoes as we speak. Too bad you won’t get to use your sleuthing powers in this one, Marlene. Officer Vargas, when Marlene uses her sleuthing powers, it usually ends up with hair on the walls. You want to keep your hand on your weapon around Marlene here. So to speak.”
    Marlene grinned, waved, and stepped over the crime tape.
    Shanahan called after her, “And may I say, Marlene, that your ass is holding up pretty good, considering your age.”
    She wiggled that unit parodically in the interest of good police relations and entered the building.
    The pattern of shot had come in high, judging from the pits marking the wall above the receptionist’s desk. Either the guy had rushed his shot or he intended to miss; in any case the woman sitting behind the desk had retained her brains in her skull. She was still at her post, carefully sorting through charred files. A couple of other women and a man in rough work clothes were sweeping burnt trash into a barrel. Marlene asked the receptionist where the director’s office was; a weary motion pointed her down the hall, toward where a television crew—camera, sound, and glistening reporter—was recording an interview with Alice Reiss-Kessler, the director herself. The reporter, the same Gloria Eng who had reported on the Asia Mall killings, was wearing a peach-colored suit miraculously free of the fine soot that covered every other surface in the place, and at the moment she was asking the inane and inevitable “How do you feel” question. Ms. Reiss-Kessler, a good-sized brunette with a strong, plain face that tended to go jowly under ten-thousand-candlepower light, was not looking her best, but she was gamely doing her duty as a patriotic American by allowing television to share her pain. Marlene wished fervently for her to say something like, “I feel really great, Gloria. We’ve wanted to redecorate this crummy barn for ages, and since we’re insured up to the nipples, we’ll be able to do it right and also pay for about six hundred late-term abortions.” Instead, she did the usual victim moan, and Marlene could see Eng calculating behind her faux-sympathetic matte face how to get an eight-second sound bite out of this farrago. Marlene backed away, intending to lurk in a corner until the newsies left, but her heel came down on a pile of trash and she stumbled noisily.
    At the sound Eng looked up and, without missing a beat, broke in with, “Is it true that you’ve retained a private investigator in this matter?”
    Reiss-Kessler hesitated. “Ah, well, we’re looking into increased security, but—”
    â€œDoes that mean you approve of counter-violence against the kind of people who might want to bomb abortion clinics?”
    â€œNo, I believe that the police should do their job and protect the legally recognized right to choose.”
    â€œThen why have you hired Marlene Ciampi? Isn’t Ms. Ciampi associated with the kind of ‘security’