Hidden Riches

The one on the left—Snyder, Jed remembered—jerked to attention.
    “Captain, sir.”
    They were getting younger every year, Jed mused. This one was hardly old enough to shave. The only way through it was ahead. Jed nodded to both of them as he passed. “Officers.”
    He stopped at the desk, waited until the bull-shouldered sergeant turned. “Ryan.” The man might have had shoulders like a bull, but he had the face of a teddy bear. When he spotted Jed, that face creased into a smile so big his eyes seemed to disappear into the soft folds of ruddy Irish skin.
    “Captain. Son of a bitch.” He reached over the desk to grasp Jed’s hand like a vise gripping steel. “Good to see you. Really good.”
    “How’s it going?”
    “Oh, you know. Same old same old.” He leaned companionably on the counter that separated them. “Lorenzo got winged in a liquor store hit last week.”
    “I heard about that. How’s he doing?”
    “Milking it,” Ryan said with a wink. “Time was, a guy took a pop, he mopped up the blood and got back on the street.”
    “After he chewed the bullet out with his teeth.”
    “That’s the way.” Someone shouted for Ryan, and he shouted back that they should hold on. “We miss you around here, Captain,” he said, leaning on the desk again. “Goldman’s okay as an acting captain. I mean he pushes paper with the best of them, but let’s face it. The man’s an asshole.”
    “You’ll break him in.”
    “No, sir.” Ryan shook his head. “Some you do, some you don’t. The men knew they could talk to you, straight. Knew they’d find you on the street as often as you’d be riding the desk. With Goldman you gotta climb up the chain of command and tippytoe through regulations and procedure.” His genial face wrinkled into a sneer. “You won’t catch him going through the door, not unless there’s a camera and three reporters on the other side.”
    Whatever Jed felt about Ryan’s easy flow of information, he kept to himself. “Good press doesn’t hurt the department. Is Lieutenant Chapman in? I need to talk to him.”
    “Sure, I think he’s in his office. You can track him down.”
    Jed waited, then lifted his brow. “Give me a visitor’s badge, Ryan.”
    Ryan turned pink with embarrassed dismay. “Shit, Captain.”
    “I need a visitor’s badge, Sergeant.”
    “Makes me sick,” Ryan muttered as he pulled one out. “I gotta tell you, it makes me sick.”
    “You told me.” Jed clamped the badge onto his shirt.
    To get to Brent, he had to walk through the bull pen. He would have preferred a nice slow waltz on hot coals. His stomach clenched each time his name was called, each time he was forced to stop and exchange a word. Each time he forced himself to ignore the speculation, the unasked questions.
    By the time he reached Brent’s door, the tension was rapping at the base of his neck like a dull spike.
    He knocked once, then pushed the door open. Brent was sitting at his overburdened desk, the phone at his ear. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He glanced up. Instantly the irritation in his eyes cleared. “Yeah, yeah, and when you’re ready to shoot straight, we’ll deal. I’ll get back to you.” He hung up and leaned back in his chair. “I thought the noise level out there rose a few degrees. You were in the neighborhood, thought you’d drop by, right?”
    “No.” Jed sat down, took out a cigarette.
    “I know, you needed a fix of cop coffee.”
    “When I get that bad, I’ll have myself committed.” Jed struck a match. He didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to get involved. But he had to. “Is Goldman being as big an asshole as Ryan claims?”
    Grimacing, Brent rose to pour two cups of coffee from the pot on his hot plate. “Well, he’s not exactly Mr. Popularity around here. I caught Thomas down in the locker room sticking pins in a Goldman doll. I recognized it because it had those little beady eyes and big teeth.”
    Jed took the coffee. “What did you do about the doll?”
    “I stuck a couple pins in it myself. So far, Goldman doesn’t seem to be in any particular discomfort.”
    Jed grinned. The first sip of coffee wiped that off his face. “You know, I could put in your name with the chief. I figure he’d listen to my recommendation.”
    “Not interested.” Brent took off his glasses to wipe ineffectively at the smudges. “I’m lousy at delegating. Thomas might end up sticking pins in an incredibly handsome doll wearing