Page 9 of Paranoia

The man made a beeline for the rear of the coffee shop, where the restrooms were located. Before he was halfway across the nearly empty shop, one of the baristas shouted, “No, no, no! I told you the bathrooms are just for paying customers.” The guy, whose name tag saidTONY, came from behind the counter and motioned to someone in the back to also come out.

“Dwight, help me toss this bum out,” Tony said to the guy who stepped out of the kitchen. Tony was taller, but Dwight was twice as muscular.

Dwight smiled at the idea.

Before they could reach the man, Doyle said in a loud and clear voice, “He’s with me. I’m buying his breakfast. That makes him a paying customer.”

The man did a double take and then squinted at Doyle like he was trying to figure out if they knew each other.

Doyle motioned him over. He pushed a chair out for his guest. “Where’d you get the jacket?”

“Kept it when I was discharged.”

Doyle smiled and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Clint. Clint Fortune, technical sergeant, 10th Mountain Di-vision.”

“Order anything you want, Sergeant.”

Clint shot a look over at the barista and his friend. Doylefollowed it up with a scowl to make sure there was no more foolishness from Tony and Dwight. This man was a veteran. He deserved respect. He had earned it. Not like these two assholes, who’d probably never spent a minute of their lives trying to help someone else.

Doyle and Clint talked for a few minutes. Clint had been living rough, sleeping outdoors. He’d fallen on hard times after he left the service. Doyle sometimes wondered if he had fallen on hard times too but it just wasn’t as obvious.

“What unit were you with?” asked Clint.

“Special forces out of Fort Bragg.”

“Green Beret. No shit. I can never talk bad about you guys again.”

Doyle grinned. This was turning out to be a pretty good breakfast.

CHAPTER 15

EVERYONE IN THE NYPD seemed to know Walter Jackson. Some might have said it was because of his excellent skill in finding information through the internet and public records. Some people thought it was his pleasant personality and penchant for puns that made him so well-known. I always thought the simple answer was that he stood six foot six and weighed somewhere in the vicinity of three hundred pounds. Someone that size couldn’t walk down the hallway without a person asking who he was.

No matter the reason, I was always thankful that Walter worked in my squad. On every case he seemed to save me hours and hours of wasted effort by getting me accurate addresses on witnesses or pointing out flaws in theories because he had records that contradicted the theories. I was almost tired of being amazed by what he could locate on the computer, but he kept surprising me.

I stepped into his office and closed the door behind me. “You got a few minutes?”

Walter closed the reference book he was reading—something about the original neighborhoods of Manhattan—and placed it on the stack of books closest to his desk. The bookshelves behind him were stuffed with pamphlets and other volumes he found interesting. A long table was piled high with more reference materials and old notes. Somehow, within all this organized chaos, Walter always knew exactly where to find the information he needed.

“What can I do for you?” he said. The big man’s voice felt like a rumble in the closed-in space.

“I’ve been given a sensitive assignment that I’m not supposed to speak with anyone about. I’m not sure how strictly I want to adhere to that rule. I intend to talk to you and Trilling about it. But I’d appreciate you not spreading it around to anyone else or using any research avenues that might send up a flag within the department.”

I laid out everything I had about the four retired cops’ deaths. I also forwarded him the reports I’d gotten from Celeste Cantor and explained he’d have a hard time pulling anything more up on the computer since Inspector Cantor didn’t want others to be in the know. As usual, Walter didn’t ask a lot of questions. I knew he’d wait until he could read the reports and come up with some ideas in the next few hours.

He brought up on his screen the items I’d just sent him, glanced through them, and nodded solemnly. “This is some serious shit.” Without looking, he pulled a dollar out of his pocket and slipped it into a jar on his desk. The jar already had about ten dollars in it.

“I thought that was the jar you had to put a dollar in for your daughters when you made a pun.”

“Nope. Now it’s a swear jar.”

“How did that happen?”

“First of all, I’ve converted my oldest daughter to puns. Second of all, my wife insisted on the swear jar after my six-year-old called a taxi driver a shithead for speeding down our street.”

All parents had been there. It still made me laugh.

---