Free Holy Terror by Graham Masterton Page B

Spurr’s. Give him a couple of years he’s going to inherit most of it.’
    â€˜Well, this wasn’t exactly stealing from the store, was it? It was stealing from its customers. And from what your people have told me, the contents of those safety deposit boxes could have run into billions. Hard to resist, especially for a young man with a taste for Ferraris and women and betting on the track. And even harder to resist for an ex-cop on a third of his previous salary and a whole lot of legal bills to pay.’
    â€˜You’re talking out of your ass.’
    â€˜Am I?’ Lieutenant Slyman tucked his notebook back in his pocket and bared his teeth. ‘You’d be surprised how often I’ve seen sons-and-heirs get too greedy and good cops turn rotten.’
    â€˜So what’s supposed to be missing?’ asked Conor, trying hard to suppress his temper.
    â€˜Hey, you’re talking like you don’t even
know
.’
    â€˜Of course I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, what people want to keep in their safety deposit boxes is their own business.’
    â€˜Well,
we
don’t know either, not for sure. None of the four lessees would give me any specifics on what their boxes had contained, and only one of them said that he was covered by insurance. But you should have seen how worried they were. I mean they were practically filling their pants. It’s my guess that those boxes contained some pretty compromisingmaterial, and it’s my guess that they’d all pay a whole lot of money to get it back.’
    â€˜You’re trying to suggest that I was going to blackmail them? Come on, Slyman, you’re way off beam.’
    â€˜I don’t think so, somehow. You know – you were my role model once. I really admired you. The way you broke the Baroccis, incredible. But you never knew what side you were on, did you, and you never knew when to stop. You had to go on to break the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club, too, and the Golf Club were the only team of law-enforcement officers that ever put the fear of God into the goodfellas, ever.’
    â€˜They were extortionists and murderers, Slyman, and you know it.’
    â€˜Maybe they were. But they were
our
extortionists and murderers. All you had to do was to turn a blind eye.’
    â€˜Couldn’t do that, Slyman.’
    â€˜I know. You were always such a saint. But even saints can fall off their pedestals, can’t they? You’re under arrest for the theft of personal property from four sample safety deposit boxes lodged in the strongroom at Spurr’s Fifth Avenue. Do you want me to read you your rights?’
    Conor said, ‘You bet. And I want my attorney present. And I’m not moving out of this apartment until he’s here.’
    Lieutenant Slyman shook his head. ‘I’m afraid you don’t have the right to insist on that. You’re charged with abducting a police officer, four counts of larceny, one count of grand theft auto, seven counts of dangerous driving and criminal damage. Andmore, do you want the whole list? You’re under arrest, O’Neil. You’re coming downtown and you don’t have any choice in the matter.’
    â€˜He’s a hero!’ said Lacey, quaking with indignation. ‘How can you arrest him when he’s a hero?’
    â€˜Miss, in my book he was always a hero,’ said Lieutenant Slyman. ‘The trouble is, he wasn’t always a hero for the right reasons.’
    Conor said, ‘I have to get dressed. Lacey – will you put a call in to Michael Baer – he’s probably gone home now but you’ll get him on his mobile. Tell him we’ve got some kind of ridiculous misunderstanding here.’
    Lacey picked up the phone. Conor walked toward the bedroom and one of the officers swaggered after him. ‘Back off,’ Conor told him. The officer stopped, perplexed. Conor turned to Slyman and said, ‘Next