Patriot by M.A. Rothman (summer reading list TXT) 📗

it by? I highly doubt it. There’s a big First Rule, Second Rule thing going on here. And I haven’t even been asked to join the club.”

There was a pause. “I don’t get it.”

“Fight Club?” Connor said. “The First Rule is you don’t talk about Fight Club. The Second Rule is you don’t—”

“Got it. So what can we do about it?”

Connor shook his head. “I need to get into his office. There’s been a lot of people in and out over the last few days, people who don’t regularly attend prayer. They meet in his office for several hours, then they leave.”

“Can you get into the office?”

“I’m not sure. They’ve shown me the other offices, and I’ve volunteered to take out the trash and whatnot, so I’m sure I can play it off as a simple mistake if anyone asks any questions. Whether they take me out back and put a bullet in the back of my head afterward, that’s anyone’s guess.”

Richards chuckled. “Eh, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Maybe your new girlfriend can help you out.”

“I told you, she’s not my girlfriend.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sergeant Anthony DeMarco felt his heartburn kicking in as he stepped out the door of the pizzeria. He grimaced, put a fist to his chest, and let out a long burp. He caught several disgusted glances from the pedestrians walking by.

“What?” he said, holding out his arms to either side. “A cop can’t love spicy food? Come on!”

“Still can’t handle your pizza, eh?” said Detective Brent Smith, following DeMarco out onto the sidewalk.

DeMarco shook his head, holding his breath against another belch. He adjusted the volume on his radio and straightened his shirt, while checking that he hadn’t gotten any pizza sauce on his uniform. NYPD might be lax about many things, but a dirty uniform wasn’t one of them. Besides, he’d gotten after several rookies for the exact same thing two shifts before, so they’d give him hell if he walked into the precinct with a bright red smudge on his shirt.

After he’d suppressed yet another burp, he said, “Damn Tums aren’t cuttin’ it no more.”

“You need to take your ass to the doctor,” Smith said, sliding on a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. “That’s what you need to do.”

DeMarco chuckled. “You’re starting to sound like Alice.”

“Well, she’s right. That shit ain’t no joke. You remember Marty Sibowitz, from the Twenty-Second, the guy that went into the gang unit last summer?”

DeMarco stopped at the corner and scanned up and down the cross street, trying to get a feeling for how the rest of the shift was going to go. “Vaguely.”

Smith slapped his hands together. “Fell over dead. Right there in the middle of morning roll call. Fell over dead, wasn’t anything anyone could do. I’m telling you, man, you need to hit the gym.”

Smith was right—DeMarco wasn’t going to be able to ignore the extra weight much longer. He was already having trouble with his knees. And he’d had back issues for years. If he didn’t make a change, he was heading for a crippled retirement, and neither he nor his wife wanted that. But DeMarco wasn’t about to give up so easily.

“Easy for you to say.” He motioned to his friend’s navy-blue suit. Smith had lost twenty pounds over the last year, after Smith’s wife had forced him to go on a diet. “A paper jockey like you can hit the weights right down the hall from the office, but I gotta battle these jack-wagons all day. Maybe you don’t remember that real police work’s tough.”

Smith laughed. “My job’s a lot more work than you think.”

DeMarco rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on now, don’t give me that crap. You forget I did my time downtown. I remember what it was like. What you need to do is test for sergeant and come back out on the street where the real action is. Not to mention the fresh air.”

“Yeah, fresh air and car accidents and bullshit larcenies that no one cares about, and domestics that never solve themselves, and assholes who just want to make your day by showing their buddies how much of a badass they are by stepping up to a cop. You’re forgetting, that’s what I hated about the streets in the first place. No thanks.”

“Watching stupid people is half the fun of this job,” DeMarco said.

“Yeah, but—”

Brakes squealed and a car horn blared, and a cab skidded to a stop halfway into the intersection. “What the hell, I could have killed you, you moron!” the driver shouted through the open passenger window.

DeMarco followed the cabbie’s line of sight to a messenger on a bike, cutting through traffic, heading the wrong direction up Prince Street. Several more cars honked at the biker, throwing up hands and shouting.

“That’s the job I want,” Smith said, pointing at the bike messenger.

The cabbie caught sight of DeMarco and threw his hands up. “So you finally get a cop around when you need one and he just stands there? Go fucking do something!”

DeMarco bent over to look through the open window. “What do you want me to do, go chase some guy down on a bike? Give ’em a ticket? Come on, while I’m killing myself trying to get some idiot bicyclist, there’ll be ten other real crimes being ignored. Give me a break.”

The driver shook his head. “Damn lazy-ass cops. I know you’d give me a ticket if it was me, I know that.”

DeMarco looked up at the light and pointed to the green. “You’re holding up traffic, my friend. Keep on moving before I do give you a ticket.”

“Yeah, go ahead, I ain’t done nothing wrong!”

But the driver shook his head and turned away, accelerating down Lafayette.

Smith laughed. “I see you haven’t lost your touch.”

DeMarco watched the biker continue up Prince, a cascade of angry shouts and car horns following him. “What do you mean, that’s the job you want?” DeMarco said. “You crazy?”

“Get to ride across the city all day,