Author's Quick Little Note: Not to spoil anything for you first-time readers out there, but you'll notice some striking similarities between this chapter and the direction the show has taken in Season Six. The original version of this chapter was posted over a year ago, and back then I had no idea that Internal Affairs even did stuff like ... well, you'll see. If you haven't already guessed, anyway. But if the show's anything to go by, I seemed to have gotten most of it right anyway. And now that I know I wasn't being totally unrealistic, I think the chapter reads with a little more confidence than it did a year ago.

I left Schaeffer's rank as Detective, however, even though I see now that he'd probably be in Captain Finney's position. I didn't bother to go back and insert Finney, either, because Finney's dirty and frankly, I just like my character better. Schaeffer doesn't hate Cruz as much as Finney did - Schaeffer hates her more. >;)

Chapter 4

Bosco

I.

Of the four men sitting across from him, Detective Brent Schaeffer was the one Bosco was the most afraid of. There was Swersky, and there was Patrick Whitney, the PBA representative. No problems there - aside from the fact that Whitney was young and obviously new to the game. Then there was Schaeffer's partner (or lackey - Bosco thought that probably hit closer to the mark), Detective Ian Grady. Grady was the strong silent type, about ten, maybe fifteen years younger than Schaeffer. Though he kept quiet throughout the entire interrogation, Grady smiled whenever Schaeffer spoke. It was almost pitifully obvious that Grady thought the sun shone directly out of Schaeffer's ass, and wanted to be just like him.

And then there was Schaeffer himself.

The simple fact was, he was a beast. He exuded a gleeful, malicious good humor that he made no attempt to conceal, and it was extremely unsettling. In Bosco's experience, IAB detectives were usually dry, dour middle-aged men with absolutely no warmth in them at all, and that was what he was used to dealing with. Not that Schaeffer had any such thing as warmth, mind you. His unseemly manner may or may not have been a put-on, just his own way of throwing his subjects -

(suspects)

off their guard, but whether it was an act or not Bosco thought he had the guy pegged; Schaeffer was a self-appointed Grand Inquisitor, a man who probably thought of himself as a tragic and unappreciated hero, a man who loved to nail dirty cops (or perhaps just any cop he happened to decide was "dirty") to the wall and didn't mind showing it.

Bosco was ready to take what he had coming (at least, he kept telling himself he was) but he knew he would still have to be extremely careful around this guy.

He had already told them everything. He had done exactly what he'd promised Faith he would do - he'd cut the bag open and let the whole corrupted mess run out onto the floor. Everything - no detail omitted. Everything that he and Cruz had done as partners (including the fact that they'd balled each other silly for almost three months, something which Bosco didn't think was relevant but had blurted out anyway), plus everything he knew about her past exploits for good measure. He didn't actually know much on that score; most of it had come out of what he'd read in Noble's notebook.

The notebook Cruz had thrown back in his face at the bar that night.

The notebook he'd promptly handed over to IAB.

There was a word for what he'd done, of course. A verb. A verb that also just happened to be the descriptive noun for what he had made himself into, and the word was rat. He had ratted. He was a rat. See how well they fit, how easily it just rolled off the tongue whatever way you said it? Verb or noun, take your pick. See Maurice rat. Maurice IS a rat.

And what would happen when his colleagues found out?

See Maurice run. Run, Maurice, run.

Grammar lesson over for today, kids.

For his part, though, Bosco didn't much care about other people's opinions - as far as he was concerned they could brand him whatever they wanted. Hell, he'd already systematically alienated most of the Five-Five outside Anti-Crime, and right now he was more or less resigned to the fact that his days in the NYPD were over anyway. But it didn't matter in any case. He had done nothing more than own up to his mistakes. He had accepted responsibility. As far as Bosco was concerned, you didn't call that being a rat. You called it being a man. Whatever else his father might have been, he had somehow managed to impart that much wisdom to his oldest son; a man owns up. Bosco didn't think Pop himself had ever followed that advice very closely (any more than Ma could have stood behind her lies breed lies crap - Ma with her bruises and fat lips and her phonebook-length list of implausible excuses) but he was a better man than his father. He was a better man. He'd owned up. And if he took Cruz down with him, so be it.

She wouldn't have hestiated to do the same to him. He knew that now.

None of this was to say it had been easy. He'd tried to be professional about it, of course - proud, dignified, sure of himself. And he'd ended up with his eyes downcast, talking into his chest, the way a devout man might if forced to recite something loathesome and profane. Fidgeting the whole time, too, his right knee jittering under the table as his hands wrestled with each other above it. Worrying about whether or not he was doing the right thing even as he was doing it, thinking about his own future, the end of his career, the end of life as he'd always known it. Thinking about all the convictions that might be overturned, the cases that might be reviewed and thrown out. And he'd kept flashing on a melodramatic image of Maritza Cruz being led through a prison cellblock in leg-irons and cuffs, head down, the air hot with jeers and catcalls from all her new friends.

But when the deed was done he'd felt fine. He'd felt cleansed. It was, if you'll forgive the crude analogy, like taking a long, heavy and much-needed dump. The rest he could deal with. He was now officially on suspension. So be it. IAB seemed to be taking their sweet time sorting through it all, but once they had their house in order Bosco knew he'd be looking at dismissal and probably criminal charges.

And that was actually what he'd assumed today's little adventure would be about. They'd serve him his walking papers, maybe slap a set of cuffs on his wrists in the bargain. Or maybe they were going to offer him a deal: testify against Cruz and he'd still walk away a civilian ... but he'd be a free civilian.

But this interrogation (Inquisition - with Schaeffer it would be better referred to as an Inquisition, capital I ) wasn't about Cruz or her dirty methods or even about Bosco himself - it was about what happened in Aaron Noble's hotel room. Bosco didn't have much left to say on that matter, either. He'd already given them a minute-by-minute walkthrough of the whole fiasco, up to and including the lie, that one crucial little lie that centered around that one crucial little question: who acted first?

Nobody seemed to have any trouble believing that it was Cruz.

But here they were, going over it all again, Bosco stuck in a small, stuffy interview room with Schaeffer, Schaeffer's personal ass-kisser Grady, and Patrick Whitney, the PBA rep who didn't look old enough to shave and didn't even seem to know where he was.

And Lieutenant Swersky.

Throughout the questioning, Bosco found his eyes wandering back to the Lieu again and again, to the only familiar face here, looking for some kind of support ... or even just a hint of what the man might be thinking. But Swersky, normally so protective of his officers (even the ones he didn't much like), was offering nothing. After the shooting he had been absolutely nuclear, screaming himself hoarse at anyone unwise enough to wander under his nose, but at the moment he was completely, uncharacteristically quiet, and somehow that was worse. This whole mess - this whole little Inquisition - was terrifying, and Bosco had no qualms about admitting it. Swersky was his only anchor, and he had barely spoken two words to him. He didn't even look smug or angry or disgusted; if he had any discernable expression, Bosco would call it a distant, preoccupied kind of worry.

With a touch of fear.

This had something to do with Faith. Bosco was sure of it. They knew. Somehow they'd figured out what really went down in that room.

He didn't know why that should scare him the way it did. Since leaving her alone in the washroom at Mercy he'd barely spared Faith a second thought. He made a few crippled little attempts to explain this away, telling himself that he could afford to put her out of his mind because he knew she was going to be okay, and that he'd do better to worry about himself. The truth, however, was that he had put her out of his mind simply because he was still too deep in shock over what she'd done, and he hadn't even begun to sort out how he felt about her now. Everything he thought he knew about Faith Yokas had been thrust into an entirely new light, and if Schaeffer had somehow put it together that she had shot Cruz in the heat of the moment, Bosco wasn't really sure if it should bother him or not. It was, after all, the truth.

Faith had asked him - rather harshly - if he remembered "truth."

Bosco found he did.

So what does that mean? he thought uneasily at himself. If this hump decides to ask you point-blank if Faith Yokas tried to murder a fellow officer, you'll sit there and nod your head and agree? Turning over on Cruz was one thing - she had it coming. But Faith has a family. She's got Charlie and Emily to look out for. Are you seriously gonna rat her out? Are you gonna rat out your partner of nine years?

Bosco didn't think he would. The idea was absurd, really.

But the truth was, he really didn't know.

"Okay, Boscorelli," Schaeffer said cheerily, yanking him out of his reverie. The detective poured himself a tall glass of water from a pitcher set out on the table between them, making no move to offer one to anyone else. "Let's go over this one last time for posterity, starting from the part where Officer Yokas broke into Noble's room and found the gun. While that was going on, you were at a bar with Noble, and Cruz showed up. Am I doing okay so far?"

Bosco merely offered a cold, barely perceptible nod.

Schaeffer nodded back and continued. "Cruz is one smart little cookie. She figured out what you were up to and went to Noble's hotel room. You followed her. Why?"

"What do you mean why? I was trying to stop her."

"Stop her from doing what?"

"I told you. I was trying to stop Cruz from putting a guy away for something he didn't do."

But of course this wasn't what Schaeffer was asking at all, and Bosco knew it.

Why are you being so difficult? You've been through this already, and if Schaeffer wants to rub it in a little, let him - after all, you brought all this on yourself. Forget Faith and forget what she did to Cruz - what she tried to do to Cruz - and take your medicine like a man.

I am taking my medicine, he answered himself sullenly. I already have taken my medicine. Doesn't mean I have to do anything to make this jagoff's job any easier.

Schaeffer was glaring at him.

Bosco shrugged helplessly and went on. "Okay. Okay, I was also getting ... I was getting worried. Cruz was going too far. I was afraid she was gonna do something ... something she'd regret later."

"Something she'd regret," Schaeffer said dryly. "Such as harm Officer Yokas?"

"Yeah," Bosco said, though that was really only a half-truth - he had chased Cruz out of the bar fearing that she was on her way to harm Faith, but not in the literal sense; he'd been afraid that Cruz would catch her in the act of tossing Noble's room, arrest her, and charge her with breaking and entering - something Cruz would have been within her rights to do. Then she would have made sure Noble's gun remained undiscovered, and Faith would have ended up taking the fall.

As always, Bosco had only been trying to look out for her. Trying to protect her. The way he supposed he was going to have to protect her now.

"Okay," Schaeffer said, nodding. "You follow Cruz. Noble follows you. Everybody ends up facing off." He leaned forward, eyes locked with Bosco's. "This is the part I'm the most interested in, Boscorelli, so as always I'll ask you to think very carefully before you answer. Exactly what did Sergeant Cruz do?"

"She asked Faith for the gun."

"Asked for it? 'Pretty please with sugar on top?'"

"Okay, she ordered Faith to hand it over."

"That was all? Cruz just came in and said, 'give me the gun,' acting in her official capacity as Officer Yokas's superior?"

Bosco sighed inwardly, suddenly deeply tired of all of this, of all these stupid runaround games - Schaeffer's and his own. They'd played them all before and he'd lost his taste for them. "No. Cruz got ... agitated. Started waving her gun around, yelling about how cops need to do whatever it takes, that Anti-Crime's job is to do whatever needs to be done, no questions asked."

"So that's how you'd describe her state of mind? Agitated?"

"Yeah. Agitated."

"Unstable, maybe?"

"Yeah, I suppose you could say that."

"She's a very angry woman, isn't she?" Schaeffer said with an odd little smile. "There's a lot of bitterness there. A lot of pent-up rage."

Bosco nodded nervously. "Yeah. A lot."

"And what did she do when Officer Yokas refused to hand over Noble's gun?"

Bosco paused, watching the detective carefully, trying not to look as uneasy as he felt. Behind his fastidious little goatee Schaeffer's face was heavily-jawed and wide-lipped, his watery gray eyes set a bit too close together under a thick, scowling brow. But those eyes were bright and searching and intense, and Bosco wondered just how far into him the man was really able to see. That was the trouble with being a cop - he knew what it was like to be on Schaeffer's side of the desk. He knew exactly what it was like, and it was part of what made Schaeffer so dangerous. An interrogation was cat-and-mouse, teasing your prey, playing with them, trying to trick them into making a mistake. Schaeffer was in charge of turning that whole dynamic on its head, making the interrogator into the interrogated. Schaeffer knew all the tricks. What was worse, he knew that Bosco knew all the tricks, too.

But it wasn't as if he had many options when it came to how he answered the question. The lie was already out and he would have to stick to it. For his own sake as much as for Faith's.

There you go - you knew you'd never sell her out. So say it. You've already said it, so say it again. The final lie, the magic lie that's supposed to make everything all better. You hope. The final lie.

You hope.

"Cruz saw that Faith wasn't gonna hand over the gun," Bosco said finally. "I saw Cruz ... Cruz raised her gun and pointed it at Faith. Faith didn't have time to clear her own sidearm, so she just flipped Noble's and used it instead."

Schaeffer clucked his tongue. "Risky. Risky to just take an unfamiliar firearm and try to use it, right from the hip like that. She must have really felt Cruz meant business."

"Yeah ..." Bosco said slowly, searching the detective's tone for anything that sounded like suspicion or sarcasm and finding nothing. He was starting to notice something a bit odd, though: Schaeffer referred to Faith as Officer Yokas ... but rarely used Cruz's proper rank. "Yeah, well, I guess she just prayed it was loaded and ready to fire."

Schaeffer laughed sourly. "And I guess it was."

"It was," Bosco said softly, remembering the sound of the shot, stark and brutal in the close quarters of the hotel room. Remembering how surprised he had been, how staggered he had been, and how quickly he'd managed to react nonetheless. Then the fevered, half-remembered screaming match that followed, the second standoff in which he had been sure he would have to finish the job Faith (Faith!) had started, that he would have to kill Cruz.

And through it all, the only thing he could think about was the first night he and Cruz had slept together. The night after the fire, the night after her sister died, rutting like a couple of animals on the floor of her apartment. He'd kept seeing that, remembering how it had felt, all the while waiting for the moment when he would have to blow her brains out. He would see Cruz as she was when she met him at the door, dressed only in her robe, hair still wet from her shower and hanging in erotic disarray, skin beaded with moisture, and the way the air had felt between them, the way it had crackled, and how he'd known what was going to happen between them from almost the minute he walked in the door ... and then his mind's eye would blink, and he would be in the hotel room again, wondering how it would feel when he squeezed the trigger, wondering what he would feel when Cruz was lying on the floor with half her head missing in action. Sex and death and sex and death, flashing from one to the other as if through the shutter of a camera. It was grotesque.

"Yokas's bullet takes Cruz in the shoulder," Schaeffer went on, the detective's rough voice again breaking into his thoughts and dragging him back to the present. "You fire one round at Cruz but miss. Yokas dives behind a couch. Noble's against the wall pissing his pants. Cruz drops to her knees and you start facing off all over again. Now, this is the part I still have trouble with - Cruz was on her knees, still conscious and still a threat, pointing her weapon at Officer Yokas?"

Bosco nodded. "Yeah. So?"

Schaeffer shook his head. "To be blunt, I find that extremely unlikely. Given her injury, that's almost superhuman. Do you realize that, Boscorelli?"

Bosco shrugged uneasily, thinking that this was grim irony - Schaeffer seems to buy the lie of Cruz's initial threat and then finds something fishy in what really happened. "It's the truth. Cruz is tough."

"From what I heard, that bullet nearly took her goddam arm off. I guess she's tough. Okay, I believe you. For now. So there's yet another stalemate, and then Cruz finally goes down. Is that all correct?"

"Pretty much."

"'Pretty much?' How about a 'yes' or a 'no,' Boscorelli?"

"Yes."

Schaeffer exhaled and sat back in his chair. He looked at Bosco for a long time, maybe as long as thirty seconds, studying him contemplatively.

Finally, he said: "You have a small penis, don't you, Boscorelli?"

It was spoken in the tone of a perfectly natural question, as if Schaeffer was idly asking him what he liked on his toast - jam or butter? For a moment Bosco could only gape at him, utterly floored. Grady, Schaeffer's Strong Silent partner (lackey), was trying to hide the fact that he was laughing into his palm. Whitney, the PBA rep, coughed lightly and fired Schaeffer a warning look. The detective either didn't see it or pretended not to.

Bosco leaned forward, head tilted to one side as if to hear better. "Excuse me?"

Schaeffer didn't so much as blink. "I said: you have a small penis, don't you, Boscorelli?"

Bosco looked at Swersky for support, but the Lieu still refused to meet his eyes; he didn't even look surprised. He still didn't even look interested, his mind apparently a million miles away. Bosco turned back to Schaeffer, mouth still agape.

Schaeffer only watched him with his bland, close-set gray eyes. If it was a joke, he was letting it spin itself out.

"Detective ..." Whitney began tentatively.

Schaeffer finally cracked and waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, relax, pee-wee. He doesn't actually have to answer." He turned to Bosco again. "Sorry if I offended you, Boscorelli - I know you're a man of delicate sensibilities. It's just that I can't figure you out. I've read your file, and all I can come up with is that you suffer from some kind of crippling inferiority complex ... and if a man is packing a derringer instead of a magnum in his drawers, that usually does the trick. Reading some of it, I can't imagine why you haven't been fired before now. Or killed. I'd say you should have been killed a hundred times over by now. They say God looks out for drunks and small children. Maybe God also looks out for guys with little dicks." Schaeffer looked up at the ceiling in a pantomime of deep philosophical thought, hands spread, palms-up. "Maybe He feels bad for shortchanging them."

The initial shock behind him, Bosco found his face growing hot with shame and building fury. He'd been expecting another grilling after Schaeffer finished his recap, even a point-blank accusation - we know Yokas shot Cruz in cold blood, so what say you now, Boscorelli? In its own way, this was almost as bad. He'd dealt with IAB before, and this was not IAB, this was not how rat-squad detectives were supposed to speak or act. Not at all.

Bosco realized - with something like relief - that he had every right to be indignant.

It sort of gave him the upper hand, didn't it?

"Is there a point?" he said, and grinned a big, savage (and rather Schaeffer-ish) grin. "'Cause if there is, you might want to get to it before I come around this table and kick your ass."

Schaeffer suddenly sprang forward in his seat, all traces of that light good humor disappearing instantly. The unexpected ferocity of it made Bosco falter and pull away.

"The point is," Schaeffer said, voice low and dangerous. "Let's talk about you, Boscorelli. I believe you, you know - I believe everything you said. About Cruz going off on a rant, about her pulling a gun on Yokas, everything. Even that stuff about Cruz trying to stand her ground after taking a dumdum in the shoulder. Off the record, you should know that Yokas is almost certainly in the clear. And as for the good Sergeant ... heh, well, of course she's going down, and going down hard. We arrested her earlier today, in fact."

Bosco looked up sharply. "Cruz?"

Schaeffer sighed wearily and sat back again, shaking his head. "Jesus Christ. No, Boscorelli, the Queen of England. Yes, Cruz."

"That was fast."

Schaeffer smiled, a thin, cryptic little smile that immediately set Bosco's alarm bells ringing. "Yes," the detective said wryly. "It was fast, wasn't it?"

He's got something. Oh, he's got some bomb he just can't wait to unload on me. I don't think it's anything to do with Faith, but whatever it is, you can bet your ass it isn't good. They arrested Cruz. Shit. They're still getting all their facts straight even now, and she's sure not going anywhere. Why be in such a hurry?

Bosco shrugged inwardly decided it was best not to pursue it. In time, it would all come out. If he'd learned nothing else from all that had happened over the course of the year, it was that when you were this far in, things could probably only get worse. And you'd be smart not to keep wishing yourself toward it.

"So what about me?" he said after a moment.

The detective shrugged. "What about you? Well, let's see ... you've already admitted that over the past eight months you backed Cruz up on everything she did, every report she filed. Your name is on those reports, but you know you don't need to worry about going down for them alone - we already know Cruz's stink is all over them. Now, what else ... ah, yes ... she falsified a dying declaration against one Vernon Marks, which you backed her up on. Marks ordered a hit on a twelve-year-old boy, and I don't doubt for a second that he did it. But guess what, Boscorelli? Marks is gonna walk."

Bosco went livid, and before he could stop himself he was shouting a throaty, "That's bullshit!" across the table. He'd been expecting this, of course, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow. Marks. Marks was gonna walk, that swaggering, cocky son of a bitch was gonna be set loose. Ordered a hit on a little kid - that was absolutely true. On Miguel. Miguel White. Sent some homeboy with a MAC-10 to kill the kid while he was riding to Mercy in an ambulance, for Christ's sake. And the homeboy hadn't been too picky about who got in the way, either.

Marks is where it starts, that cooler, sober-sounding part of his mind said. But brother, just remember this - Marks is only where it starts.

"Bullshit is right," Schaeffer said. "I absolutely concur with you there. And you know it won't just be Marks, either. But who's to blame, Boscorelli? Hmm? Cruz, that's who. And you. You both sicken me."

"With all due respect," Whitney broke in timidly, making his first real contribution to the discussion. "Can we please confine ourselves to the incident in Aaron Noble's hotel room ...?"

Schaeffer shrugged, eyes wide and innocent. "Sure. Absolutely. Of course. But I have to say, I feel that this is all relevant, that it's all connected to the same basic problem. I also feel I should tell Officer Boscorelli what's been going on behind his back while he and his little gal-pal were running around rewriting the law up, down and sideways."

Schaeffer opened his briefcase and produced a battered yellow notepad. "Next out of the bag: we have this. You say Cruz brought this to the bar the night of the shooting and handed it back to you?"

"Yeah."

"After she took the trouble of stealing it from Aaron Noble? I still can't figure out that logic. Any guesses?"

Bosco shrugged weakly. "Guess she had a look through it and figured nothing in it could hurt her. She said it was all hearsay."

"It's still another nail in her coffin," Schaeffer said, tossing the pad aside. "Pardon the expression. In a way she's right - on its own, the notebook is useless. Problem is, it backs up everything we've already gathered on her."

Bosco froze.

"What do you mean?" he said slowly. "What you've already gathered on her?"

Schaeffer grinned, sat back in his chair, and put his hands behind his head. "I'm a very happy man today, Boscorelli, in case you haven't noticed." He laughed. "Go ahead and ask me why."

"Why?" Bosco said hoarsely. His throat suddenly felt as if it had closed to a pinhole.

"Internal Affairs has been investigating the Fifty-Fifth Precinct's Anti-Crime unit for about a year now. With particular attention focused on the erstwhile Sergeant Cruz." He turned to Grady and whispered something Bosco didn't catch. It looked like go get her.

Detective Grady got up and left the room. Bosco barely noticed him, his eyes locked on Schaeffer, heart pounding hard in his chest. He also didn't notice that both Swersky and the PBA rep were now watching the detective warily.

Schaeffer looked up at the ceiling and appeared to address some audience only he could see. "Interesting thing about Cruz," he said in loud, lecture-hall tones. "Everybody knew what she was, everybody always has known, but she was always so goddamned bulletproof. Absolutely bulletproof. I mean, she had spots on her record - big ugly smears, really - as many reprimands as she had citations, and she even ended up pretty close to the fire a couple of times." Schaeffer looked back at Bosco. "She got herself into a sticky mess a few years back, did you know that? That time it was money - her partner and a few other guys on her team were pocketing drug money. Except she wasn't. Too smart, maybe. Or maybe she just covered her tracks better than the others. Who knows? At any rate, she came out clean, just like always, slick as shit through the goose." He shook his head. "Goddamned aggravating, I can tell you. Never could get anything solid on her."

Schaeffer took a deep breath and eyed Bosco thoughtfully.

Then he said: "Did you know that in the past two years, two of Cruz's Confidential Informants have turned up dead?"

Bosco shook his head numbly. He was peripherally aware that his right leg was jittering and jiving under the table again.

Schaeffer nodded. "Oh yes. A small-time drug dealer named Leonard Gaines in 2001, and a recovering crack addict named Michael Alvarez in 2002."

Bosco suddenly saw where this was going. He thought he was beginning to see where all of this was going, and he rejected the notion immediately.

"Okay, so what?" he heard himself say. "It happens. The jagoffs find out these guys have turned on them, and there's hell to pay. It's exactly what happened with Noble."

"Oh come on, Boscorelli," Schaeffer chided him. "It's part of Cruz's responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen. But that's not even the point - the point is, these two deaths happened in very close proximity to one another, and both had been shot in the back of the head, execution-style. Now, I'll grant you that it was a different gun and a different caliber in each case." Schaeffer smiled a bland, innocent smile. "But it's still interesting. Wouldn't you say?"

"No," Bosco said simply.

"'No?' What do you mean, 'no,' Boscorelli? No, it's not interesting?"

"You're saying Cruz killed them. Executed them. I'm saying no. You're wrong."

"Maybe I am saying that. Maybe I'm not. But didn't you just sit here and tell me that Cruz aimed a loaded gun at Officer Yokas with intent to kill?"

Bosco nodded helplessly. Trapped, he thought wildly, and though his face was stony, inside he was laughing like a maniac, laughing at the perfect, cosmic absurdity of it. Laughing even though it was pretty fucking far from funny. Trapped! Cruz wasn't gonna hurt Faith, she wasn't gonna kill her over some fucking C.I., over a fucking gun. I still don't buy that. I can believe a lot of things about Cruz, but not that. Ruthless I can believe, dirty I can believe, but psychopath is where I draw the line. No way.

"Why?" Bosco said. Out loud his voice sounded whiny and puerile. "Why would she kill her own informants?"

The detective shrugged. "That's what we're gonna have to find out, aren't we? Maybe they were screwing her around, feeding her bad tips. Pissing her off. Maybe she just got tired of looking at them. Who knows?"

"Even if she did something like that, she wouldn't be stupid enough to kill them both in the same place, in the same way."

Schaeffer smiled. "Ever hear the expression 'hiding in plain sight,' Boscorelli? Cruz figures, hey, these guys are just a couple of worthless skells. Nobody'll ask questions about 'em. If they both turn up dead in the same place, so what? Doesn't mean anything. Why would it? What exactly points to her specifically?" Schaeffer spread his hands in a grandiose shrug. "Why, nothing!"

"Right," Bosco said, perplexed now. "Exactly. So what's the problem?"

"The problem is, Alvarez's mother filed a complaint with us not long before he was killed. She said Anti-Crime officers had been harassing her family and threatening her son. Cruz was one of those identified. So we started looking around. A few others came forward and told us that Anti-Crime cops were involved in some shady stuff. Stuff involving drugs, money, a few shootings people felt might have been unjustified. They told us about how Cruz was known as Two-Bags on the street because she carried dope around to blackmail people with. Or bribe junkies with."

Schaeffer sighed. "Long story short, IA started getting very interested, and we began an investigation. And we weren't about to let our little snakey-poo slither away on us again. Remember that other scandal I mentioned, the money thing? That time the break came from this rookie, guy named Hart. His testimony put those cops away, including Cruz's partner - that guy ended up shooting himself, as I recall. Hart took a lot of shit over it, of course, and ended up having to quit. Very unfortunate. Kid had potential."

"Too bad," Bosco said neutrally. Under the table, his knee was at it again - the left one this time. He made it stop with an irritated little wince that he hoped no-one noticed. The PBA rep, pointless little twerp that he was, was right - this had gone way off course, and Bosco didn't like the direction it was headed in. Not one bit. And here he had been worried about Faith. He'd been worried that Schaeffer was going to sit here and grill him about exactly how Officer Yokas came to her decision to put Cruz in a box.

"What made it even more unfortunate - and I'm aware I'm repeating myself here - was that Hart didn't get anything on Cruz," Schaeffer went on. "Everybody but. I suppose I have to give the kid credit for not just making something up, but I can't tell you how frustrating that was - to nail everybody else and have her waltz away, knowing the whole time that she was the worst of the bunch. So this time around, we knew we'd better do things a bit differently." Schaeffer looked up and called over to the door, "You can come back in now, Ian. Bring our friend with you, if she's ready."

The door opened and Detective Grady came back in. He was followed by a young woman. A young woman who was dressed in civvies and wearing a badge around her neck.

A young woman Bosco recognized immediately.

"What is this?" Swersky said darkly, glaring at Schaeffer.

"Reyes," Bosco breathed. "Sergeant Reyes."

For once Schaeffer looked genuinely surprised. "You've actually met? Face-to-face?"

Bosco started to reply but Reyes beat him to it. Her eyes had fallen on him the moment she entered the room and stuck fast. "We worked a shift together once. Just before he started working with Cruz."

"Isn't that interesting," Schaeffer said mildly. "That was never in any of your reports, Chris."

Reyes never took her eyes off Bosco. "Wasn't relevant. It was only the one day, and my Minute-Man here never did anything illegal when he was with me. Acted like a jackass, nearly got both of us killed, but nothing illegal."

Schaeffer nodded. "Well, at any rate, you two still haven't been properly introduced. Officer Boscorelli, I want you to say a big friendly hello to Detective Christina Reyes, Internal Affairs."

"Now listen!" Whitney piped up indignantly, at last showing some real emotion. "This isn't the time or the place for - "

"But I think it is!" Schaeffer shouted back. Then, in a gentler, almost fatherly tone Cruz would have recognized as completely bogus and very dangerous: "I told you - this is all hooked together. What happened in Noble's room leads back to the same core problem. So let's get all our cards on the table, shall we?"

"You," Bosco said quietly, glaring at Reyes, ignoring the detective entirely. He tried on his earlier wide (and Schaeffer-ish) grin and this time it only came out feeling pasted-on, phony. "You were ... you were working for this guy the whole time? You were ... you were spying on Anti-Crime?"

Reyes didn't answer. She held his eyes evenly, her face blank, and Bosco heard himself blurt out helplessly, stupidly: "You worked the same desk as Cruz!"

She snorted a short laugh but didn't smile. "Best place to be, I'd say."

"It's almost poetic, isn't it?" Schaeffer agreed, grinning. "Reyes works one shift, Cruz works the next. Same desk. Cruz leaves all her shit lying around because she thinks Chris here is as dirty as the rest of them. Anti-Crime cops got each other's backs, after all. It came together so perfectly that it was ... well, like I said, it was poetic. A work of art. Reyes and Cruz. Day and night. Good and bad. Right and wrong." Schaeffer laughed. "I'm gonna retire and write a fucking book on this, my friend. Noble better look out."

"Look," Swersky said sharply. "I know I'm just talking into the wind here, but I have to agree that this isn't - "

"Isn't what?" Schaeffer broke in lightly. He reached over and poured himself another glass of water, which he began to sip with the lazy calm of a man at a backyard cocktail party. "The 'time or place?' Why not? I think Boscorelli has a right to know what's been going on right under his nose, don't you?" He looked at Bosco and tipped his glass at him in a little salute. "I'll bet you wish you never stepped through Anti-Crime's door. Don't you, little man?"

But Bosco was no longer the slightest bit interested in Schaeffer; his attention was fixed solely on Reyes, who was still watching him with that maddening, cool disdain. By his estimation it would take two or three steps to close the distance between them and throttle her, and he was sorely tempted to test the theory. He kept trying to remind himself that this was all bought and paid for, this was all part of what he had coming to him ... but it wasn't, this wasn't what he'd expected, it wasn't what he'd wanted, and what he felt now was only a queasy kind of humiliation. Humiliation, because it had all been so much bigger than him, right from the beginning. He had struggled so fiercely with himself over the decision to come forward and do what was right, and now it comes out that IAB knew everything anyway. He'd been played, he had tried to take the moral high road and now he was just another fish caught in this asshole's net.

This asshole and his little spying bitch.

"Do you know what they'll do to you?" Bosco whispered fiercely at Reyes, stepping forward and getting right in her face. "Do you know what's gonna happen to you? Huh? How can you stand there like that? Huh? Do you know what's gonna happen to you when people find out what you are?"

Reyes held her ground. "I'm not ashamed of 'what I am,' Boscorelli," she said coldly. "I did my job. I did it well. And I don't have any regrets."

"She's right," Schaeffer agreed placidly, taking a long, wet chug that drained his glass. "J.D. Hart was just some kid who didn't know what he was looking at. Chris here is my professional Cruz-buster. She knew what she was after, and she got it."

But Bosco was still as focused on Reyes as she was on him, and again he found his mouth going off before his brain knew what was happening. "You're a fucking rat."

Reyes didn't flinch.

"Oh, can you hear yourself, Boscorelli?" Schaeffer almost moaned. "You're as much a 'rat' as Chris here. You've come forward and confessed. Hell, I suppose I have to respect that. And you already admitted yourself that Cruz is dirty. Which is something pretty much everybody already knew anyway - but every little bit helps, right? She did us a big favor by going loco against Yokas, you know. Sped things along. Finished the job. Added that final loving touch. It's all over now, and it's been a big success. Arrests have already been made, even as we've been sitting here. We should go up to Anti-Crime later on and watch the fun - they'll be ripping the place apart right now."

He stood up. "I'm a bit of a showman, Boscorelli. I'll admit that, and I don't apologize for it. Believe it or not, it's because I take my job very seriously. So does Detective Reyes. I enjoy putting an end to cops like Cruz and her little gang of thugs."

"Yeah," Bosco said bitterly. "Yeah, I picked up on that."

"Now, let's finish up here. You'll be placed under arrest. For obstruction, the false reports on the dying declaration and the Nunez thing. You understand that?"

Bosco nodded miserably.

"We'll go through the formalities later. Also, whether the charges stick or not, you're gonna lose your job. You understand that?"

Bosco didn't even bother nodding this time. So they were going to serve him his walking papers at this little get-together after all. Shouldn't come as much of a surprise, he supposed, but the reality of the road he was now headed down could still hit him from a fresh angle. Like Marks. Like the idea of Vernon Marks being cut loose. Jesus.

Was there even a point to this? he thought wearily. Was there even a point to this whole goddam interview, interrogation, Inquisition, whatever you want to call it? Or was it really just this jagoff making an ass out of me for his own amusement? And where the fuck was Swersky the whole time? Why'd the son of a bitch sit here and allow all of it?

"Boscorelli?"

"Yes!" he shouted. He put a hand to his forehead, behind which he thought he could feel the first sparks of a monster migraine starting to flare up. "Shit, I was gonna quit anyway!"

"We've been concentrating on the long-term members of Anti-Crime, and you've only worked with them sporadically. You're lucky to be getting off as lightly as you are. If half of what we have on Cruz is proven in court - and it will be - she'll be wearing dentures by the time she gets out of prison." Schaeffer's serene expression didn't change, but his eyes grew distant and cold in a way Bosco found decidedly familiar. "There won't be any deals for her, either. No plea-bargains, no compromises. I am going to personally make sure she goes away for a long time and serves every last second." Schaeffer picked up his briefcase and Noble's notepad. "Hell, if it were up to me, she'd get the black needle. Put her down like the rabid dog she is."

Jesus, he's exactly like her, Bosco thought with a humorless internal chuckle. In his own way, he's exactly like Cruz. I wonder if he's ever thought of that. I wonder what he'd think if I told him that? Or here's one - I wonder what he would have done in that hotel room if he'd been in Faith's shoes?

Faith.

Bosco looked up. "What about Faith?"

Schaeffer, in the midst of stuffing Noble's notepad back into his briefcase, looked at him blankly. "What about her?"

"You're sure she's gonna be okay?"

The detective snapped the case closed and shrugged. "Why shouldn't she be? What's she done besides break into that room - which, incidentally, she did for all the right reasons? Shooting Cruz was clearly self-defense. Dear, sweet Maritza disagrees, of course, but then dear, sweet Maritza lied about everything else, and I'd take Yokas's word over that maniac's any day. Yokas is free and clear, Boscorelli. Probably be back on the job by the end of the week."

Bosco nodded. He had expected to feel something - a little relief, at least - but he found there was really nothing to speak of. Faith and questions about her fate really didn't seem to hold much interest for him these days; if he asked them, it was only as an afterthought and only out of a forced sense of duty. The fact was, he didn't know Faith anymore. That sounded terribly melodramatic - as melodramatic as the image of a beaten and humbled Cruz being led through a noisy cellblock to her doom - but it was true: he didn't know Faith Yokas anymore. He looked at Schaeffer again, and again he saw an almost geometrically perfect irony; this dickhead was suggesting that Cruz was the cold-blooded killer. What about Faith? What about Faith trying to line up a kill-shot on Cruz with no real provocation?

She said she feared for her life. She said she believed Cruz was nuts. Look at 'Ritza's behavior over the last few months and tell me if maybe - just maybe - Faith was right.

He pushed that away. Nuts - insanity, even in the most clinical sense - was way too strong. Faith had to find a way of rationalizing what she did, and so she'd decided to play the crazy card. Cruz was not insane. She was ...

Disturbed.

No. No, that wasn't the right word, either.

Then why did it come to you so quickly?

Bosco exhaled wearily and ran his hands over his face. He was getting so tired of fighting with himself, with this wheedling conscience that seemed to have awakened in him. Cruz was not disturbed, Cruz was not insane, Cruz was just a dirty cop who'd gotten too close to the job, who'd taken the job too personally and formed grudges too easily (against criminals and against fellow officers), a dirty cop who only saw the ends and didn't care who she stepped on to get there. Now she was paying the price, and that was the end of it. Cruz, at least, he could understand.

But Faith ... Faith ...

Does it even matter now? Does any of this even matter now? You should be more worried about your own ass at the moment, pal. Not Cruz's. Not Faith's. Yours.

There was a sudden loud, harsh flik! sound that startled him; somebody snapping their fingers to get his attention. "Boscorelli? Hey, Boscorelli. Wake up."

Schaeffer. Who else?

Bosco looked up and saw that the detective was now standing next to the door, briefcase in hand. Swersky was next to him, looking off into space with that same expression of distant worry ... though now, at last, it looked tinged with disgust as well. Swersky obviously didn't care much for having been kept in the dark about Schaeffer's little game, but even so Bosco had stopped expecting any sympathy from him. Swersky's face was almost that of a heartbroken father, and Bosco was coming to believe that the Lieu knew that this one was a lost cause. That was why he'd kept his peace while Schaeffer played his games; Swersky knew there was no point in trying to defend Bosco, because Bosco had already sold himself out.

Swersky knew this one belonged to IAB. To Schaeffer.

Patrick Whitney was still at the table, rummaging self-consciously through his own briefcase. Bosco stared hard at him, and for the first time he wondered if Schaeffer had pulled strings to make sure the ineffective little shit ended up in here with them. Wouldn't surprise him. At this point, very little would surprise him.

Whitney, perhaps sensing that he was being watched, paused and looked up ... and then, incredibly, he flashed Bosco a lame little sympathetic smile. Bosco looked away quickly. Throttling Whitney had crossed his mind, too.

His eyes fell on Reyes.

Reyes.

Reyes still didn't seem to have lost her intense, owlish interest in him. Reyes, standing there in her street clothes, badge still on its fine silver chain around her neck, looking just as she did the day he'd met her. The day he'd ridden with her. That had been almost a year ago, but he still remembered what it had been like. He remembered what she had been like, and never in a thousand years would he ever have guessed what she really was, what she was really doing. He could not recall having seen anything in her behavior that might have tipped him off. Hell, he even remembered Reyes dishing out some very convincing weary-cop cynicism, complaining about how they have too much holding them back, too many governing bodies to answer to. Sergeant Reyes, just another haggard and jaded Anti-Crime cop, no different than Cruz or any of the others. If nothing else, the woman was a top notch actress.

Across the room, Schaeffer muttered something side-mouth to Swersky. Swersky hissed something back at him - Bosco couldn't hear the words, but he imagined it was probably something to the effect of we're not done talking about this just yet. The Lieutenant fired a final hard look at Bosco, one that was so morose and so full of regret that it almost looked like grief. Then he banged the door open and stalked out of the room.

And so the exodus began. Ian Grady went next, as silent as ever. Reyes muttered something unintelligible under her breath, gave Bosco her own version of Swersky's glare, and then turned and followed Grady out without another word. Whitney took this minor distraction as an opportunity to make his own exit, coughing nervously as he passed Bosco. He was quite clearly expecting a kick in the ass to help him on his way, and Bosco again had to fight the urge to extend a foot and oblige him.

He was now alone in the room with Detective Schaeffer.

The big man was watching him with his usual bland, half-interested curiosity, his hand on the doorknob, eyebrows raised. "We're done here. You coming or not, Boscorelli?"

Bosco looked at the detective and decided he wasn't. Not yet, anyway. He actually wanted to be the last one out of the room. He didn't quite know why that was, but he suspected it had something to do with not appearing hemmed-in, to not appear as a prisoner, to not look as if he were being led to his fate. He wanted no one behind him, no one flanking him, and he certainly did not want to feel his arm taken hold of. Particularly not by Schaeffer. He wanted to walk into this under his own power. Unassisted.

He was about to tell the detective to get his ass in gear when his eyes lit on the briefcase in Schaeffer's hand - the briefcase with Noble's notebook inside - and something else occurred to him. Another loose end. "What about Noble?"

"What?"

"Aaron Noble," Bosco said, motioning at the briefcase. "What happens to him now?"

Schaeffer laughed. "'What about Faith?'" he mocked, amiably enough. "'What about Noble?' You seem so concerned with everybody else's welfare, Boscorelli. Everybody's but your own. That's very ... well, that's very noble of you."

"What happens to him?"

Schaeffer sighed. "Stop me if you've heard this one: Once upon a time, a celebrated writer shot and killed a biker by the name of William Griffin. Mr. Writer was then coerced by a Wicked Witch and her Faithful Manservant to lie about it. This was so the Wicked Witch wouldn't lose her favorite snitch. She then returned Mr. Writer's gun to him - "

"You ever get tired of being such a miserable bastard?" Bosco flared.

Again Schaeffer abruptly switched gears from flippant to deadly serious, and again the change was alarming, almost frightening. "It was an above-the-board case of self-defense," Schaeffer said coldly, stabbing a finger at him. "Noble ran away from it only because you and Cruz made him run away from it. Though I admit it was probably mostly Cruz. Am I right?"

"The guy's a fucking junkie!" Bosco shouted, realizing in some vague way that he was only stalling for time here, trying to put off the inevitable. He was ready, he was still ready to face what was waiting, but he was also quite naturally scared. And he desperately wanted to take Aaron Noble down with him; the writer deserved it as much as anyone else. "He hung out with drug dealers, for God's sake! He knew the risks!"

"Noble had every right to meet with whomever he wanted to meet with in order to research his books," Schaeffer said gently. "It's called freedom of association. That was his profession. That was his living. He was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and if Willie G. tried to pop a cap in him, Noble was well within his rights to pop one in Willie. He went in on the lie with you and Cruz because you were cops, crooked cops, and he was intimidated by you. No jury would convict him."

Argue with him all day, and he'll still one-up you every time, Bosco's sober mind-voice intoned. You'll have to leave here sooner or later. Better make it sooner. Or do you like this guy's company that much?

Bosco licked his lips nervously and started for the door. He didn't want Schaeffer behind him, though. He really didn't.

He was almost there when something else popped into his mind and promptly exited by way of his mouth. "What about the bullets?"

"Jesus," Schaeffer hissed under his breath, and looked at his watch. "What bullets? Look, Boscorelli, I've got other places to be -"

"Dumdums!" Bosco cried. "Those things are fucking illegal!"

"Don't get your panties in such a knot. Noble may still be charged for that. But if you want my opinion, it'd be hardly worth pursuing. In his own way Noble helped take down some of the dirtiest cops in the NYPD without even realizing it, and he walked away with a sore paw in the process. He's learned his lesson."

Bosco all but hopped into the air, jabbing a triumphant finger at Schaeffer, aping what the detective had done a moment ago. "You're gonna look the other way!" he spat viciously. He was grinning like a madman, and he had to wonder if he was going mad, because suddenly making sure Noble went down seemed to be the most important thing in the world to him. That, and scoring even the pettiest victory over Schaeffer. "After all that shit about cops doing the right thing, you're gonna just look the other way and let him walk! You're as bad as Cruz."

"From anyone else that might hurt," Schaeffer said, utterly unruffled. "But you, I'm afraid, lack the credibility to make it sound like a serious insult. Now I'm going to use my press-conference voice on you, so listen closely: Aaron Noble will not be treated any differently because of his celebrity, or for any other reason. I assure you of it." Schaeffer grunted laughter and rolled his eyes. "Shit, why am I even arguing with you about it? Noble isn't even my problem. Look, Boscorelli - let's just get out of here and finish our business so we don't have to see each other again. Sound good?"

Bosco's mind cycled through a number of possible hot-blooded comebacks, but he could already feel himself deflating. This was all too much, too much to get his head around on such short notice. Too much, too fast. It was all moving too fast for him, it had been moving too fast for him right from the hotel room, right from the moment Faith turned that fucking gun on Cruz, from the very second the bullet left the barrel and the blood started to flow. Before that, even. It had started moving too fast when they'd been standing in that shitty little hovel where Noble had gone to meet with Stevie Nunez. Willie G. dead on the floor, Cruz handing Noble's gun back to him, telling him to make himself scarce. And then blaming Nunez. And they'd actually caught Nunez. They weren't supposed to catch him, but they had. Everything had been so perfectly screwed up, right from the start.

And now Reyes turns out to be IAB and Faith was a cold-blooded killer and his career was over and Cruz was maimed for life and headed for a long (and probably brutal) stretch in prison and Noble was going to walk away a free man it was crazy, it was all so fucking crazy, and he had to get out of here, get away from this man in front of him before he really started to lose it. Before he lost his wits and his baser instincts took over and he started a fight. An actual fistfight. One he'd probably lose, by the look of the detective.

Bosco started for the door. Almost lurched for it, blindly.

Schaeffer stepped lightly aside, held it open for him, and then followed him out.