Read Online VC01 - Privileged Lives by Edward Stewart - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Edward Stewart
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boy. He seemed to be contentedly dreaming.
“Beautiful, hey?” Daniels said.
Cardozo looked at his photographic expert’s thick black hair, his chartreuse shirt that lit up three walls of the cubicle, his face shining with an eagerness to please that would have been cute in a cocker spaniel.
“You go for guys, Daniels?”
“The shots, Lieutenant. I’m talking about the shots.”
“Yeah, they’re Academy Award.”
Daniels folded his arms proudly across his chest. “The usual procedure with morgue lights is to use a fast shutter time, but that gives you the morgue look. I experimented, used a slow shutter, three tenths of a second, then gave the film seven minutes in a hydroxide solution. That gives the skin a glow.”
“You call this skin glowing?”
“It’s not your standard morgue shot is what I mean.”
“Daniels, are you on speed or are you doing a four-to-one today or what?”
“O.T. Time and a half and a half on a holiday.”
Leave it to a go-getter like Daniels to figure the overtime angles. “Today’s not a holiday,” Cardozo said. “Tomorrow is.”
“The weekend’s a holiday.”
Cardozo shook his head, looking at a full body shot.
“The perp has got to be one weird piece of work,” Tommy Daniels said. “Real EDP.” EDP was the police psychiatrists’ abbreviation for Emotionally Disturbed Person. “He’ll walk, right?”
“Daniels, are you a coroner, are you a shrink? I got enough resentment today without your expert opinion.”
“Today? You got resentment today? Tell me a day you don’t have resentment.”
“Very comic. Today was supposed to be my day off. I can forgive a lot, but not dragging me into this shit on my day off, and I promise you, the animal that did this is not going to walk.”
“Okay, okay, I just meant the courts—you know.”
“Screw the courts. We’re all emotionally damaged persons—you, me—that doesn’t give us special privileges to saw people up.” Cardozo tapped a photograph. “Let’s crop this one a little higher so he looks like he could be wearing an open-necked shirt. Put the face on a flyer: anyone having any information please contact et cetera et cetera. Run off a few thousand. We’ll paste them up around town.”
Daniels took back the photo. “Ten four.”
Cardozo glanced at him. Cops on TV used police radio abbreviations, why shouldn’t real cops. Life imitating art. Daniels in his liqueur-green shirt imitating Hill Street Blues reruns.
An association clicked in Cardozo’s head. “Say … what happened to that photography van we used on the Mendoza stakeout?”
Special Services had gutted an old Consolidated Edison repair truck. From the outside it looked like the standard Con Ed nuisance, a small white-and-blue van that took a week and a half futzing around a manhole. Inside it had cameras and radios and phone-monitoring equipment.
“The one seven borrowed it.”
“Borrow it back. I want a team at Beaux Arts Tower—your boys—round-the-clock photographic surveillance. Pictures of anybody entering or leaving the premises, any vehicles pulling up to the door or taking that alley down to the garage. A logbook with dates and hours, licenses, taxi medallion numbers.”
“Sounds like we got a budget on this one.”
“Yeah, we got a budget.”
Cardozo sat down, alone in his cubicle. He sipped a little of his coffee. He cleared a space on his desktop. He moved Tommy Daniels’s glossies around like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He couldn’t make sense of the missing leg.
Cardozo had seen corpses where the head was gone, where the tits were gone, where the dick or balls were gone. Those were the classic chop-offs.
But the leg. Why the leg?
He took a sip of coffee. He was thinking that he was getting up in his forties. Most of the cops he worked with were younger, still good at running and good at climbing fences, good at looking at stuff like these pictures and not barfing. The pressure was getting to him, One
“Beautiful, hey?” Daniels said.
Cardozo looked at his photographic expert’s thick black hair, his chartreuse shirt that lit up three walls of the cubicle, his face shining with an eagerness to please that would have been cute in a cocker spaniel.
“You go for guys, Daniels?”
“The shots, Lieutenant. I’m talking about the shots.”
“Yeah, they’re Academy Award.”
Daniels folded his arms proudly across his chest. “The usual procedure with morgue lights is to use a fast shutter time, but that gives you the morgue look. I experimented, used a slow shutter, three tenths of a second, then gave the film seven minutes in a hydroxide solution. That gives the skin a glow.”
“You call this skin glowing?”
“It’s not your standard morgue shot is what I mean.”
“Daniels, are you on speed or are you doing a four-to-one today or what?”
“O.T. Time and a half and a half on a holiday.”
Leave it to a go-getter like Daniels to figure the overtime angles. “Today’s not a holiday,” Cardozo said. “Tomorrow is.”
“The weekend’s a holiday.”
Cardozo shook his head, looking at a full body shot.
“The perp has got to be one weird piece of work,” Tommy Daniels said. “Real EDP.” EDP was the police psychiatrists’ abbreviation for Emotionally Disturbed Person. “He’ll walk, right?”
“Daniels, are you a coroner, are you a shrink? I got enough resentment today without your expert opinion.”
“Today? You got resentment today? Tell me a day you don’t have resentment.”
“Very comic. Today was supposed to be my day off. I can forgive a lot, but not dragging me into this shit on my day off, and I promise you, the animal that did this is not going to walk.”
“Okay, okay, I just meant the courts—you know.”
“Screw the courts. We’re all emotionally damaged persons—you, me—that doesn’t give us special privileges to saw people up.” Cardozo tapped a photograph. “Let’s crop this one a little higher so he looks like he could be wearing an open-necked shirt. Put the face on a flyer: anyone having any information please contact et cetera et cetera. Run off a few thousand. We’ll paste them up around town.”
Daniels took back the photo. “Ten four.”
Cardozo glanced at him. Cops on TV used police radio abbreviations, why shouldn’t real cops. Life imitating art. Daniels in his liqueur-green shirt imitating Hill Street Blues reruns.
An association clicked in Cardozo’s head. “Say … what happened to that photography van we used on the Mendoza stakeout?”
Special Services had gutted an old Consolidated Edison repair truck. From the outside it looked like the standard Con Ed nuisance, a small white-and-blue van that took a week and a half futzing around a manhole. Inside it had cameras and radios and phone-monitoring equipment.
“The one seven borrowed it.”
“Borrow it back. I want a team at Beaux Arts Tower—your boys—round-the-clock photographic surveillance. Pictures of anybody entering or leaving the premises, any vehicles pulling up to the door or taking that alley down to the garage. A logbook with dates and hours, licenses, taxi medallion numbers.”
“Sounds like we got a budget on this one.”
“Yeah, we got a budget.”
Cardozo sat down, alone in his cubicle. He sipped a little of his coffee. He cleared a space on his desktop. He moved Tommy Daniels’s glossies around like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He couldn’t make sense of the missing leg.
Cardozo had seen corpses where the head was gone, where the tits were gone, where the dick or balls were gone. Those were the classic chop-offs.
But the leg. Why the leg?
He took a sip of coffee. He was thinking that he was getting up in his forties. Most of the cops he worked with were younger, still good at running and good at climbing fences, good at looking at stuff like these pictures and not barfing. The pressure was getting to him, One
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