Cat & Mouse

Gary Soneji angrily sprang forward at the figure in bed. He clasped a metal pipe tightly in both his hands. He raised it like an ax. He swung the pipe down as hard as he could.

“Detective Goldman, so nice to meet you,” he whispered.

Chapter 42

THE JOB was always there, waiting for me to catch up, demanding everything I could give it, and then demanding some more.

The next morning I found myself hurrying back to New York. The FBI had provided me with a helicopter. Kyle Craig was a good friend, but he was also working his tricks on me. I knew it, and he knew I did. Kyle was hoping that I would eventually get involved in the Mr. Smith case, that I would meet agent Thomas Pierce. I knew that I wouldn’t. Not for now anyway, maybe not ever. I had to meet Gary Soneji again first.

I arrived before 8:30 A.M. at the busy New York City heliport in the East Twenties. Some people call it “the New York Hellport.” The Bureau’s black Bell Jet floated in low over the congested FDR Drive and the East River. The craft dropped down as if it owned the city, but that was just FBI arrogance. No one could own New York -except maybe Gary Soneji.

Detective Carmine Groza was there to meet me and we got into his unmarked Mercury Marquis. We sped up the FDR Drive to the exit for the Major Deegan. As we crossed over into the Bronx, I remembered a funny line from the poet Ogden Nash: “The Bronx, no thonx.” I needed some more funny lines in my life.

I still had the irritating noise of the helicopter’s propellers roaring inside my head. It made me think of the nasty buzzing in the doghouse in Wilmington. Everything was happening too fast again. Gary Soneji had us off balance, the way he liked it, the way he always worked his nastiness.

Soneji got in your face, applied intense pressure, and then waited for you to make a crucial mistake. I was trying not to make one right now, not to end up like Manning Goldman.

The latest homicide scene was up in Riverdale. Detective Groza talked nervously as he drove the Deegan. His chattering reminded me of an old line I try to live by-never miss a good chance to shut up.

Logically, the Riverdale area should be part of Manhattan, he said, but it was actually part of the Bronx. To confuse matters further, Riverdale was the site of Manhattan College, a small private school having no affiliation with either Manhattan or the Bronx. New York ’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani, had attended Manhattan, Groza said.

I listened to the detective’s idle chitchat until I felt he had talked himself out. He seemed a different man from the one I’d met earlier in the week at Penn Station when he was partnered with Manning Goldman.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked him. I had never lost a partner, but I had come close with Sampson. He had been stabbed in the back. That happened in North Carolina, of all places. My niece, Naomi, had been kidnapped. I have counseled detectives who have lost partners, and it’s never an easy thing.

“I didn’t really like Manning Goldman,” Groza admitted, “but I respected things he did as a detective. No one should die the way he did.”

“No, no one should die like that,” I agreed No one was safe. Not the wealthy, certainly not the poor, and not even the police. It was a continuing refrain in my life, the scariest truth of our age.

We finally turned off the crowded Deegan Expressway and got onto an even busier, much noisier Broadway. Detective Groza was clearly shook up that morning. I didn’t show it, but so was I.

Gary Soneji was showing us how easy it was for him to get into a cop’s home.

Chapter 43

MANNING GOLDMAN’S house was located in an upscale part of Riverdale known as Fieldston. The area was surprisingly attractive-for the Bronx. Police cruisers and a flock of television vans and trucks were parked on the narrow and pretty residential streets. A FOX-TV helicopter hovered over the trees, peeking through the branches and leaves.

The Goldman house was more modest than the Tudors around it. Still, it seemed a nice place to live. Not a typical cop’s neighborhood, but Manning Goldman hadn’t been a typical cop.

“Goldman’s father was a big doctor in Mamaroneck,” Groza continued to chatter. “When he passed away, Manning came into some money. He was the black sheep in his family, the rebel-a cop. Both of his brothers are dentists in Florida.”

I didn’t like the look and feel of the crime scene, and I was still two blocks away. There were too many blue-and-whites and official-looking city cars. Too much help, too much interference.

“The mayor was up here early. He’s a pisser. He’s all right, though,” Groza said. “A cop gets killed in New York, it’s a huge thing. Big news, lots of media.”

“Especially when a detective gets killed right in his own home,” I said.

Groza finally parked on the tree-lined street, about a block from the Goldman house. Birds chattered away, oblivious to death.