Mad Dog Justice by Mark Rubinstein Read Free Book Online Page B

at the restaurant … that April. Danny and I met him in the back office and decided to end the operation. Kenny had a headache, so we drove him home.”
    “Where was that?”
    “We dropped him off at a pharmacy near his apartment.”
    “And that’s the last you saw of him?”
    “That’s right.”
    “What’d you do after you dropped Egan off on 9th Avenue?”
    How does he know where we dropped Kenny off? What the hell did Danny tell this guy?
    “Just give me a timeline of what you did afterward, Doc.”
    “I’d driven into the city for the meeting, and Danny tookthe train in from Tuckahoe. So we drove in my car to Dan’s office in Yonkers to talk about the tax picture after we got out of McLaughlin’s. It would be a loss on my return.”
    Jesus, this guy’s got me talking about the night we killed Kenny and Grange. He’s zeroed right in on things. I’m sticking with the story, just the way Dan and I planned that night in the parking lot of the Tuckahoe station. Is Danny sticking with the story?
    “Then what?”
    “I drove Dan to the Tuckahoe train station, where his car was parked; then I went home.”
    “What time was that?”
    “It was late. Probably close to midnight.”
    “Can anyone verify all this? That you were in Yonkers and then Tuckahoe before you went home?”
    Don’t let it look rehearsed. Don’t overplay it
.
    “Actually, I’ll never forget that night. There was an incident at the train station. As I was dropping Danny off, a bunch of police cars pulled up and stopped us. They even frisked us. There’d been some muggings and stolen cars at the station late at night, and they checked us out. I’m sure it’s in the Tuckahoe police records.”
    Morgan pulls a small pad and pen from his jacket and jots something down.
    An image of the six Tuckahoe cops with their guns drawn flashes through Roddy’s mind. Yes, they were the best thing that could have happened—the stop was iron-clad proof he and Danny were in Tuckahoe that night. Roddy even recalls two of their names—Smythe and Caldwell—etched on their name tags as police lights swirled in the parking lot. He recalls the smell of fumes from the squad cars, the galvanic current streaming through his skin as he wondered if the cops would command him to open the Sequoia’s rear hatch. There were the pink cones of light from the sodium vapor lights, the residue of soil from Snapper Pond on his boots, and the smell ofparking lot asphalt. His heart slammed furiously in his chest. Amid these thoughts, Roddy looks up and sees Morgan’s still writing. How long has it been since the detective’s last question?
    “Let’s get back to Ken Egan,” Morgan says, looking up from the pad.
    “As a matter of fact, after Kenny went missing, we reported it to the NYPD.”
    I should’ve told him this right off the bat. Jesus, I’m rattled. Gotta calm down
.
    Roddy takes a deep breath; he knows he’s talking too much—and way too fast. The words are spilling from his mouth—a verbal deluge. He’s talking like a guy with plenty to hide.
    “The Missing Persons Squad, right?”
    So, he already knows about it
.
    “Exactly. Danny and I went down there and spoke with someone.”
    “Uh huh. Your friend Burns told me everything.”
    I can’t believe Danny would spill everything to this guy
.
    “He told me you spoke to a Captain Greene.”
    “That’s right.”
    Roddy’s thoughts race frantically as he recalls everything about that night and what happened afterward.
    Morgan shifts his eyes back to the pad. He writes something down. His eyelids look heavy, almost sleepy. “Let’s get back to Egan,” he says, looking up at Roddy. “How much did he ante up as his share to buy the place?”
    “Three hundred thousand,” Roddy says as his throat begins clogging with phlegm.
    “What I mean, Doc, is how much of his
own
money did he put up?” Morgan’s eyelids rest at half-mast, like he’s bored with the line of crap he’s being handed.
    “I