"Cray, David - Little Girl Blue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cray David)

"He's with Clark."

"Great."

Linus Flannery's protege, Harry Clark, was the Manhattan North
Detective Commander. In theory, he reported only to the Chief of
Detectives; in fact, he was a notorious sycophant who sucked up to any
superior officer. Thus, if Flannery said, "Bring me a suspect in ten
minutes," Clark would check his watch.

Assistant Medical Examiner Solomon Bucevski, a cigarette dangling from
his lips, trundled up to stand alongside Frank Turro. Bucevski had
only recently immigrated to the United States from Moscow, where crime
had skyrocketed after the breakup of the old Soviet Union. Unimpressed
with the virtues of democracy at the best of times, he stared at the
corpse through narrowed eyes, then muttered, "Whoever does this, you
must to kill him."

I EN MINUTES later, Chief Flannery echoed Bucevski's sentiments. "This
scumbag oughta fry," he declared. "They oughta bring back crucifixion
for this scumbag."

Julia's gaze lingered on Flannery's tiny mouth. Somewhere along the
line, he'd learned to speak without exposing his teeth, as if
protecting a toothache. She wanted to ask him if he'd been to the
scene, maybe approached the victim, contaminated the search area, but
ever mindful of the relationship between discretion and valor, kept her
insubordinate tongue in check.

Harry Clark spoke up from the front seat of the Chief's midnight-blue
Towncar. "We been to the scene," he announced, "We snuck a peek before
you showed up."

"We were in the neighborhood," Flannery explained. "Coming from Mass
at St. Pat's. We do it every month." He cleared his throat. "The
Holy Name Society."

A rebuke. The Holy Name Society was the largest of the job's fraternal
organizations, and though dominated by Irish cops, included Germans,
Italians, and Hispanics in its membership. Julia was Irish, at least
nominally Catholic, and a member of the Holy Name Society, but she
neither attended prayer meetings nor made the monthly mass. Even for a
climber like herself, the NYPD's fraternal societies were a bit too
fraternal. There were the little digs at the monthly dinners, the
offhand references to "femiNazis," the dirty jokes once the drinks
began to flow. After a while, no matter how strong your stomach, how
thick your skin, it got depressing.

"We can't be sure it's a homicide," Julia finally said, hoping to
change the subject, maybe get to the point.