of the new mayor’s health crusade, which would eventually lead to the banning of trans fats in restaurants and the creation of a city-wide bike system.
“It’s twenty degrees below outside. Let me just have a minute and…” He took another thick puff.
“Either put out the cigar right now or I’ll write you a ticket,” I said, stepping in. Technically it was the job of the Cabaret Unit to monitor illegal smoking, but I owed the maitre d’ a favor.
“This cigar probably cost more than your ticket,” Holden said, looking me over. “But if you’re leaving, I’ll go with you and smoke it outside.”
“Fair enough,” I replied, staring back at him. His zero-fat body and aching good looks were a genuine anomaly. A couple hundred years ago, such absurd perfection would’ve gotten him shunned as a freak.
“You know, I have an even better idea,” he said. “Why don’t I put out the cigar and you join me for an early lunch?”
“Because I’m on duty.”
He stood up and escorted me outside, then—despite the fact that he was wearing only a light sports jacket—followed me into the arctic chill.
I suppose I should’ve been flattered, but I knew from Maggie’s constant chatter about him that Holden was already involved with someone. a surgically enhanced airhead heiress called Venezia Ramada. She had worked briefly as a fashion model, but her breasts were so salined up that they crowded the return lane on the catwalk. Recently she’d completed her first movie—with co-star Noel Holden.
“How about a quick drink?” he persisted as he followed me up the frozen block. “A wholesome cup of cocoa. What do you say?”
“I’m on duty, sir.”
“Surely an Amazonian princess like you can do anything you want.”
O’Ryan must’ve spotted us leaving the restaurant. Sneaking up behind us, he suddenly shoved the actor up against a closed store-front. The icy sidewalk forced Holden to grab hold of O’Ryan to regain his balance, at which point O’Ryan slipped backwards on the ice and fell right on his ass.
“I’m so sorry,” the actor said, unable to avoid a snicker as he extended a hand. “I’m Noel Holden.”
Slapping it away, O’Ryan sprang to his feet and yelled, “I know who you are, asshole! That doesn’t give you the right to harass a police officer!”
“Pardon?”
“It’s okay,” I told O’Ryan.
“If you ever disrespect a cop again,” O’Ryan said, shoving his long index finger into the man’s pretty face, “I don’t care who you are.”
“Was I disrespecting you, my dear?” the handsome one asked me innocently. Of course he wasn’t, but I couldn’t say that. You were supposed to back up your partner. I simply turned away and walked east. O’Ryan followed.
Female civilians are constantly flirting with male cops—I couldn’t count how many times I’d seen O’Ryan enjoying this—but when a guy did it, apparently it was harassment. Nearly a month had passed since Eddie’s failed deflowering of me, and he still hadn’t so much as mentioned it.
It wasn’t until we turned down Ninth Avenue that I finally said, “What the hell is your problem, Eddie?”
“It’s just—I thought he was coming on to you.”
“What if he was?”
He looked away, red-faced. “I saw you coming out of that restaurant with him trailing you,” he said contritely, “and I thought you might be in trouble.”
“Did I look like I was trouble?”
“What were you doing in there anyway?”
“I had to use the goddamn bathroom.”
We proceeded silently down Ninth Avenue, searching for quality-of-life violations or anything that might put the awkwardness behind us.
“Help! Police!” we heard as we reached the corner of Thirty-fifth Street.
We turned to see our sergeant grinning at us from his patrol car. Warm air seeped from his half-lowered window as he asked, “So which one of you wants your first big murder case?”
“What do you mean?” O’Ryan asked.
“I got a crime scene needs protecting.” Sgt. McKenner said.
Security guard work. O’Ryan didn’t say anything, so I said, “I’ll take it.”
O’Ryan often bragged about his pals in City Hall and was hoping for some big administrative appointment in the Mayor’s office sooner or later. He had offered to take me with him when it came through, but back then all I wanted was to be in homicide. Still, he usually would’ve fought to be on a murder scene, so I figured he was trying to make amends.
“Pick up some lunch. You’re going to be there a while.”
“Where?”
“The Templeton, southeast corner of Forty-second and Ninth.”
“We just passed there.” The hotel was half a block east of the pricey restaurant where I had just peed. It was a dive.
“The body was called in this morning, but the murder probably took place last night,” the sergeant explained. “I need you to go and relieve the first on the scene.”
I grabbed another tea on the way. Rookies always caught the jobs no one else wanted. We were constantly being tossed into line-ups or watching investigation sites. And if we were lucky, we occasionally guarded a murder scene.
Several police cars were parked out front of the Templeton. In the lobby was a sloppily dressed clerk who silently pointed to the metal gate to his right. When I went over to it, he buzzed me in, then I went up a flight of stairs.
The browning wallpaper looked more like flypaper. The lighting was permanently dim, and the floor tiles were worn down or missing altogether.
A yellow ribbon sagged loosely across the end of the second-floor corridor. As I stepped over it, I heard a police radio and traced it to Room 236. A big, middle-aged patrolman named Lenny Lombardi was leaning in the doorway finishing a hotdog.
“What’s up?”
“It’s the Blonde Hooker thing,” he replied. Somebody had killed two prostitutes within the past two months, both of them tall and blonde. I didn’t know exactly what had happened, but there were rumors that the murderer had mutilated the bodies horribly.
“So what exactly does he do?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know. And you don’t want to go in there.” He pointed behind him with his half-eaten hotdog.
“I’ve seen bodies before,” I replied, although actually I had only seen new ones. At that point, childbirths were my one claim to fame. I had driven one
