In This Rain Read Online Free PDF Page B

Irishman next to him: Ted O’Hare, the Chief of— what? Detectives? Department? Operations? Oh, hell, what did it matter? Everybody here had brought backup, and O’Hare was the guy Finn had chosen to hold his coat.
    Les Farrell, Buildings Department Borough Superintendent for the Bronx, sat between O’Hare and Virginia McFee’s empty chair. Heavy and shaggily balding, Farrell was career Buildings Department. He’d come up through inspector, plan examiner, and all the ranks of Deputy Superintendent, and clearly wasn’t used to meetings where you had to wear a tie. The mayor impaled Farrell on his stare. Farrell swallowed and watched his own meaty hands play with a pen. “Said she’d be here.”
    Down at the end of the table, Greg Lowry from DOI ripped a sugar packet open and said reasonably, “She’s got five minutes, Charlie.”
    The clock ticked off another minute. “Four,” Charlie said. That was a damn technicality, though. All his people knew he wanted them in the room well before meeting time, so the jawing and coffee stirring would be done with when he got there. For him to beat one of them here was a problem, Sunday be damned.
    The mayor swung his glare down to Greg Lowry but it bounced right off. Lowry’s reasonableness, like Lena’s perfection, could be irritating as hell. Clearly it grated on Lowry’s boss, DOI Commissioner Mark Shapiro. Shapiro sat to Lowry’s right, one chair closer to the mayor, wearing his usual frown.
    Three years ago, when Charlie cleaned house after the Dolan Construction disaster, a half-dozen hats had been tossed in the ring for the Commissioner’s job at the Department of Investigation. Lowry, then DOI’s Inspector General for Sanitation, had thrown his first. Charlie had tapped Shapiro because putting a Jew in that job at that moment, like putting a black woman in Virginia’s spot, had been politically critical. But under other circumstances he’d have chosen Greg Lowry. Lowry was Charlie’s type, a quick thinker not afraid to take chances. Charlie told Shapiro to move Lowry from Sanitation to Buildings, make him Inspector General there. He knew Shapiro didn’t like it and Lowry wasn’t thrilled: to him it was a consolation prize. But Charlie also knew there’d be a spotlight on that job and Lowry could handle heat. After all, he’d spent pretty much his whole DOI career at Sanitation and come up smelling like a rose.
    That was funny, and another time, Charlie would have snickered. Right now he was too pissed off.
    The door opened and Virginia McFee strode into the room. “Sorry,” she said. “Bad traffic.” On Sunday? Charlie thought. Virginia had the smarts not to smile, but he caught her swapping a look with Lena. They made allies of each other, black women, or tried to. But everyone did the same, especially in New York. Jews, Latinos, Italians, Irish. No matter which side of an issue people were on, that connection could override logic and loyalty. If Charlie and Virginia were on a sinking ship and Lena had just one life preserver, she might very well toss it to Virginia.
    And he didn’t suppose he’d blame her. It was natural, sticking to your own kind. Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Who the hell said that? Mark Twain? Robert Frost? Didn’t matter: It was just a good thing to remember, about your own people and everyone else’s.
    Sitting, Virginia McFee took a Mont Blanc from her purse and held it poised. She looked expectantly at Charlie. The room was silent. Charlie, one eye on her and one on the clock, sat motionless until precisely ten.
    Then he pounced: “Virginia, what the hell is going on?”
    “I don’t know that anything’s going on, Charlie.”
    “Don’t tell me you don’t know. If nothing’s going on, prove it. If there is something, you’d better stop it. We can’t afford to go through this again.”
    “Nothing is a hard thing to prove.”
    “You expect me to say that to the press? Or do you want to?”
    No answer.
    Charlie spoke to them all.