Free Mean Streak by Carolyn Wheat Page B

have called it something like ‘Even Sharks Can Be Endangered,’ or—”
    â€œHow about ‘Sympathy for the Devil’?” Winthrop cut in.
    â€œI like it.”
    â€œWell, you’re not going to see it in print anytime soon. I can’t say I approve of everything Nick Lazarus has done on this case, but one thing I do know is that Eddie Fitz is a straight-arrow cop who did the right thing.” The salt-and-pepper beard was now all salt, and the magnificent head of hair was a halo of white. Winthrop looked like an Old Testament prophet, but his prophecies had grown increasingly irrelevant as the sixties receded from the popular mind.
    â€œYou’re very sure about that,” I remarked. I opened my mouth to ask whether he had ever heard his Hero Cop mention a guy named TJ, but Jesse beat me to the conversational punch.
    â€œI’d better be sure,” he said. “I’ve got a book deal pending.”
    Why did this surprise me? Why did I rock back in the little wire chair and look at the man with new eyes?
    Because on some level I’d still believed in Jesse Winthrop, the incorruptible journalist, the one lone guy who would never sell out, no matter what.
    He caught the look; how could he not?
    â€œDon’t give me any self-righteous bullshit, Cass. I get enough of that from the little shits at the Voice , the ones who still think they can change the world with one more exposé on rotten landlords. I’ve been writing articles and columns for forty years now, and what have I got to show for it? I still live in a rent-controlled apartment, I drive a ten-year-old car, I take my vacations in what is euphemistically called a recreational vehicle and is really a sardine can on wheels. I keep going around and around on the carousel, but I never get close to the brass ring. Until now. Until I latched on to Eddie Fitz. I’m going to ride him to the big time, Counselor. My book will be another Prince of the City; my agent is already talking movie and I haven’t written word one of the book. If Eddie Fitz is anything but a hero, I sure as hell don’t want to know about it.”
    â€œUntil after you’ve signed the contract,” I amended.
    His nod was firm. “Until after I’ve signed the contract,” he repeated. His lips formed a smile, but to me it looked more like a rictus, which was appropriate. The Jesse Winthrop whose column I’d read for twenty years was dead.
    I paid for the coffee and stepped out into the humid day with a heavy heart.
    Deke’s client, Shavon Pettigrew, was in shackles, which pleased the court officers no end. They loved it when state prisoners were brought in with leg irons and handcuffs chained to their belts. They marched him through the corridor to the lawyers’ conference room and deposited him on a hard chair. They unlocked the shackles only when I asked; they’d have been happy to leave him trussed up like a dressed pig.
    â€œDo I know you?” he asked with studied insolence. He sprawled in the seat, legs wide apart, the way some macho types sit on the subway, thrusting themselves physically into the space of the people sitting next to them. As if their status depended on the amount of cubic feet they could command.
    â€œNo, but I know you,” I replied evenly. “Your lawyer said you might want to talk to me.” It had taken me almost two weeks to pull the legal strings to bring him to Brooklyn. He had to talk—but I wasn’t about to let him know how much I wanted his information.
    â€œMy lawyer,” Pettigrew snorted. He corrected me with a contemptuous sneer. “You mean my Legal Aid. What that faggot got to say about me, anyway?”
    Deke Fischer was practically born married, but I let the epithet go. In this guy’s streetwise mind, any man who didn’t wipe out his enemies with an AK 47 was a faggot, and it wasn’t going to do me any good to argue the