‘It’s lowering to admit I’m not but a little tempted to give a pretty young thing like that a quick ride in a dark room.’
‘You’re a better man for it, Feeney.’
‘That’s the truth.’ He sighed, low and long, then veered back to the former topic. ‘Dallas goes off for a few weeks, she’ll put this aside, get on with the next.’
‘She doesn’t like losing, and she thinks she has.’ He tried to dismiss it. Damn if he wanted to spend the night before his wedding picking apart a homicide. With a muttered curse, he steered Feeney to a quiet corner. ‘What do you know about that dealer who got hit in the East End?’
‘Cockroach. Not much to know. Dealer, fairly slick, fairly stupid. It’s amazing how many of them are both. Stuck to his own turf. Liked a quick, easy profit.’
‘Was he a weasel, too? Like Boomer?’
‘Usta weasel. His trainer retired last year.’
‘What happens when a trainer retires?’
‘Another one takes on the weasel, or he’s let go. Didn’t find any new trainer for Cockroach.’
Roarke started to shrug it off, but it kept niggling. ‘The cop who retired? Did he work with anybody?’
‘What d’you think? I got
memory chips in my head?’
‘Yes.’
Flattered, Feeney preened. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I recall he was partnered with an old pal of mine. Danny Riley. That was back in, oh, forty-one. Seems like he cruised with Mari Dirscolli for a few years to about forty-eight. Might be forty-nine. ’
‘Never mind,’ Roarke muttered.
‘Then he teamed with Casto a couple years.’
Roarke’s attention snapped back. ‘Casto? Was he partnered with Casto while he was Cockroach’s trainer?’
‘Sure, but only one leg of a team works as trainer.’Course,’ Feeney murmured as his brow furrowed. ‘Usual procedure is to take over your partner’s contacts. No record Casto did. He had his own weasels.’
Roarke told himself it was his own prejudice, his own ridiculous knee-jerk jealousy. He didn’t give a damn. ‘Not everything’s locked into record. You don’t find it coincidental that two weasels who worked close to Casto got hit, both of them with connections to Immortality?’
‘We aren’t saying Casto had Cockroach. And it’s not that coincidental. You’re dealing with illegals here, you got overlaps. ’
‘What other connection have you found that links Cockroach to the other murders, other than Casto?’
‘Jesus, Roarke.’ He ran a hand over his face. ‘You’re as bad as Dallas. Look, a lot of Illegals cops end up with abuse problems. Casto’s clean to the bone. Never had a trace in any of his testing. He’s got a good rep, he’s coming up for captaincy, and it’s no secret he wants it. He’s not going to go messing around with this kind of shit.’
‘Sometimes a man is just a little bit tempted, Feeney, and sometimes he gives in. You want to tell me it would be the first time an Illegals cop made a few credits on the side?’
‘No.’ Feeney sighed again. He was sobering up with this kind of talk. And he didn’t like it. ‘There’s nothing to pin on him, Roarke. Dallas was working with him. If he was a wrong cop, she’d have smelled it. She’s like that.’
‘She’s been distracted. Off stride,’ Roarke murmured, remembering her own words. ‘Think it through, Feeney, no matter how fast she moved on this, she always seemed to be one step off. If someone had known her moves, they might have anticipated her. Especially someone who thinks like a cop.’
‘You don’t like him because he’s almost as pretty as you,’ Feeney said sourly.
Roarke let that pass. ‘How much can you dig up on him tonight?’
‘Tonight? Jesus, you want me to dig shit up on another cop, go into personal records, because he had a couple of weasels knocked? And you want me to do it tonight?’
Roarke put a hand on Feeney’s shoulder. ‘We can use my unit.’
‘You’ll make a good pair,’ Feeney muttered as Roarke steered him through the crowd. ‘Both a couple of sharks.’