Walking the Perfect Square Read Online Free PDF Page A

drive Miss Valentine back to campus. Miss Valentine accepted Maloney’s offer and they made their way through the thinning crowd to the door. Before they reached the door, however, Miss Valentine felt herself getting ill and ran for the bathroom. Patrick, she recalled, had shouted after her that he would meet her outside when she was finished.
    When Christine Valentine emerged from the restroom and exited the bar, Patrick M. Maloney was nowhere to be found. She made a few inquiries as to his whereabouts, but no one seemed to have noticed him. She simply assumed Patrick, a little drunk himself, she remembered thinking, had grown impatient and left. Though leaving without a word was very un-Patrick-like, she was quoted as saying, Miss Valentine didn’t give it a second thought until several days later. She was too drunk and nauseous at the time and there were plenty of other available rides back to campus. Of the other students who had attended the fund-raiser, none could recall seeing where Patrick had gone. The trail was already pretty cold when, two days later, the NYPD was alerted to Maloney’s disappearance by his worried parents.
    I would like to say I spotted something unusual in the newspaper accounts of Patrick Maloney’s disappearance, but I couldn’t. I had read similar stories before. As a uniform, I’d worked cases that, but for a change of name, sex or hair color, were nearly identical. The cold fact was that, short of a magician’s hat, New York City was about the best place in the United States in which to vanish. Sometimes people vanished by choice. Sometimes not. There was one thing in the articles, though, that caught my attention: the Maloneys were from Janus, N.Y., up in Dutchess County. That sort of gave me a clue as to Rico Tripoli’s involvement.
    In 1975, Rico, like a lot of New York’s Finest, had fled the city. Most moved over the Queens’ border to Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island. Some moved beyond the Bronx to Westchester and Rockland. A few pioneering types had gone even further north to discover the rustic charms, relative crimelessness and better real estate values in Orange and Dutchess counties. Want to guess where Rico had fled? But clarifying Rico Tripoli’s role as facilitator in this did not help me understand what he had in mind for me.

January 29th, 1978
    THEY WERE ALREADY sitting there when I hobbled into Molly’s. Like all cops, Rico sat facing the door. He acknowledged my arrival by making a gun of his thumb and forefinger and shooting me hello. He began to get up to help me, but the anger in my eyes made him reconsider. The anger ran quickly out of my face. It was hard to stay mad at Rico.
    Rico, a dead ringer for the young Tony Bennett, seemed tired. His boyish good looks had started to fray a bit around the edges. There were purple bags under his eyes and deep creases where gentle folds had once marked the outlines of his face. His gut was just beginning to creep over his belt. This was exaggerated, of course, by the tight fit of the shiny print shirt he wore beneath a hideous double-knit suit. I don’t know which I hated more: disco music or the fashion it inspired.
    As I approached the booth, though, my attention turned to the man seated opposite Rico. He didn’t share my curiosity. His bald head never turned to look my way, not even after Rico had stood to greet me. He simply continued cradling a white coffee cup just below his chin. Rico and I embraced for a long few seconds, kissing cheeks before letting go. Out of the corner of my eye, I snuck a peek at the bald-headed man’s reaction. From the sour look on his puss, I figured he disapproved. Either that or he’d swallowed a live goldfish with his last gulp of coffee.
    “Hey, paisan ,” I slapped Rico’s cheek, “you’re looking good.”
    “I look like shit, you lyin’ Jew bastard. This Auto Crime case is gonna get me a shield, but the hours . . . mah—ron ! They’re gonna kill me. At