“No. He shot someone on the job once and he didn’t like it.”

Mulgrew wrote that down, too, and flipped the notebook shut. So much for Joel. An ex-PA cop with a never-been-a-cop girl employee, unarmed because he was squeamish about shooting people, arguing with a stickup artist in his one-man office. What did he expect? Case closed.

“They have their own ambulances,” I said.

“What?”

“Orthodox Jews. There are special ways you have to handle the body.” Actually, I wasn’t sure Joel cared. He’d told me once about the ambulances, but I didn’t remember him saying to make certain he was carried away in one. But he had said I should get up here fast, and I hadn’t. In case the ambulance thing was important to him, I wanted to get it right.

Mulgrew hissed a sigh. “I think the Department can handle the protocol. Okay, go. Wait-what about you? You don’t carry, right?”

“I do sometimes, but not now.” I opened my jacket and showed him. Before he could ask, I opened my bag, too. He waved it closed as though I were trying to sell him something.

“So you do and Pilarsky didn’t?” Clearly for him that was backwards, just wrong.

“I shot someone once, too. I didn’t like it either. But I’d have liked it less if he shot me.”

Mulgrew smiled.

I still wanted to slug him.

7

Mary drove me back to Chinatown. Somewhere past Fourteenth Street I roused myself to ask, “Can I call Alice?”

“The client?”

“I assume that charming Mulgrew will follow up with her?”

“He thinks there’s probably no connection. He’s hoping for the messenger with the jones who can close this and the three open robberies at the same time. But he’ll go through the motions.”

“Then I’d like her to hear it from me. He doesn’t have the greatest bedside manner. Or any kind of manner. The bear gets you. Jerk.”

“I guess it’s okay.” Mary’s tone said that as a friend she agreed and as a cop she’d rather I didn’t call. I ignored the cop.