Gotham by Jason Starr

Author:Jason Starr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

FIFTEEN

At first, Bruno Walsh, the thug Harvey and Amanda had picked up from Roberto Colon’s room at the SRO, wouldn’t talk at all. Harvey didn’t know if it was because Walsh didn’t know anything, or he just wasn’t spilling.

Well, one way to find out.

With Amanda watching through the one-way glass, Harvey went to the old stand-by—his favorite pair of brass knuckles. When Walsh, with his jaw broken and a few of his teeth on the floor, still claimed that he and his dead friend were hired guns, and he had no idea where Colon went or anything about the stolen Picasso, Harvey finally believed him.

He left the interrogation room and instructed a uniformed cop to clean up the mess and book Walsh for attempted manslaughter.

“You got it, Harv,” the cop said.

Amanda approached Harvey.

“Did you have to work him over so hard?” she asked.

“Look who’s talking,” Harvey said, “my ninja sidekick.”

“Touché,” Amanda said.

At seven, it was time to call it a day. The captain had assigned a couple of other detectives to pursue Colon and, assuming there wasn’t a middle-of-the-night bust, Harvey and Amanda would resume the hunt manana.

Harvey went to his apartment, did two of the three S’s—no need for a bearded man to shave—then hit Old City, his favorite watering hole just around the corner from his apartment building. Old City was a classic art deco Gotham bar, with high tiled ceilings and classy booths to sit in, not these mosh pit style bars they were building nowadays. Once upon a time, when he was at the police academy, he used to moonlight, bartending at Old City.

Jesus H on a popsicle stick, that was a long time ago.

Sidling up to his regular seat at the end of the bar, Harvey had Smitty, his favorite bartender, pour him a pint of bitter and a double of Jameson, straight up. He downed the Jameson like a man, taking it straight down his throat, not even moving a muscle to swallow it, and then chased it with the bitter. Finally, after a long-ass day, he’d gotten his hair of the dog.

The infusion of alcohol livened him up and numbed the pain in his ribs from the beating he’d taken, and the pain in his wrists from the beating he’d doled out. On the bar’s TV, he watched the Williams-Sanchez fight. He was pulling for Sanchez only because Williams was cocky as hell, and Harvey hated cockiness. If you could walk the walk, you didn’t have to talk the talk, and he had more respect for guys like Sanchez who buckled up, shut their traps, and got the job done.

Other than that, he really didn’t give a damn.

Sanchez went down in the third. “Goes to show ya,” Harvey said to Smitty, “boxing’s like life—the jerkoffs always seem to come out on top.”

He took it easy, drinking wise—only had a couple more brewskies—then hit the road. He had energy still, didn’t feel like hitting the hay… well, not alone anyway. So he got on

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