Bad to the Bone Read Free Page B

was intact, which is a sign of favor in the job…”
    “What chain?” Rose asked.
    “The chain of evidence. That’s what I’m leading up to. See, the only evidence that matters here is the gun.”
    “What about the cocaine?”
    “No gun, then no probable cause to enter the mutt’s apartment, capisch ?” Tilley noted Betty Haluka’s confirming nod. Betty was a Legal Aid lawyer and knew everything there was to know about ‘probable cause.’ “Mostly it’s just a routine job. You trace the route of the evidence, from first contact into the courtroom. First contact was the witness giving us the perp’s name. This we have on a sworn statement, which I locate in the file. It’s also in the grand jury transcripts. Then me and Joe Baker took the gun off the perp and brought it into the house, so I go back in the file and find the original complaint form and the follow-ups. Both me and my partner, on the day we made the bust, recorded the circumstances in writing, like we’re supposed to. The 9mm is in the report, along with a serial number and a note that Joe is gonna take the piece down to the property clerk’s room and make a request for a laboratory examination. I go back in the file and find copies of the property clerk’s invoice and the lab request form. The ballistic report is also in the file, along with a letter of transmittal from ballistics to the property clerk at the courthouse which means it’s up to the district attorney to get the physical gun into the courtroom. Sounds perfect, right?”
    “A hundred percent,” Betty assured him. “If Fariello was my client, I’d advise him to plead.”
    Tilley grinned as he lifted his drink to his lips and carefully sipped. “Now there’s only one more thing I need to complete the file before I take it over to the district attorney’s office where I already have an appointment with an assistant DA. This isn’t a trial, by the way. This is a hearing on the evidence and if we don’t get the gun admitted, the perp’s lawyer will ask for a dismissal and probably get it. So, like I said, there’s only one more thing I need to complete the file and seal the mutt’s fate and that’s the original of the property clerk’s invoice, which is why I hustle on down to the property clerk’s room and ask the property clerk, Sergeant Joseph Blatt, who happens to be the only Jewish alcoholic in the NYPD, for the original. I even give him my receipt with all the numbers right on it.”
    “And he can’t find it,” Moodrow said brightly. “Surprise, surprise.”
    “Shit,” Jim shook his head. “You think they screw it up this bad in the real world?”
    “How would we know?” Rose observed. “We never worked in the real world. We always worked for the city.”
    Tilley, his question having been purely rhetorical, ignored her comment. “Well, Blatt doesn’t have the property clerk’s invoice. Those invoices are numbered consecutively and cross-referenced by complaint number and Blotto Blatt has numbers 55432 and 55434, but no 55433. At first he says he never filled out the form, that I’m crazy, so I remind him that I have the investigator’s flimsy in my hand and that he signed it and that if he doesn’t cooperate I’m gonna beat the fuck out of him.”
    “Wrong move,” Moodrow observed neutrally. Nourished by the company of his friends and the bourbon in his bloodstream, he could afford to be philosophical. “I worked with Blotto Blatt for twenty-five years. The schmuck’s been pushed so far back in the job, he’s practically invisible. I got fifty bucks sayin’ that he offered to meet you any time, any place.”
    “That’s exactly right.”
    “Did he mean it?” Betty asked.
    Tilley shrugged. He’d been a fighter, professional and amateur, for years. Everybody in the room knew he could tear Blotto Blatt to pieces. “Drunks mean everything they say, but the guy’s a wreck. On slow tours, he sneaks into the back of the property room and