Badge of Evil by Bill Stanton Page B

Even worse, however, he was sometimes seen as a kind of court jester, someone to provide a little diversionary entertainment and nothing more. For these people, laughing at Bishop was reason enough to hang out with him. By his own description, he was “the girl you wanted to fuck, not the one you wanted to take home.” This image of him was mostly the result of his younger, significantly wilder days, and he was still struggling to overcome it.
    But Bishop had no regrets. In the small, competitive world of celebrity private eyes, image and self-promotion are everything. “You’ve really got to bang the drum and make some noise to get them in the tent,” Bishop told people. “But once they’re inside, you’ve got to give them a good performance or they won’t come back.” He never forgot that without the wild-man, do-anything, take-your-pants-off-and-get-up-on-the-bar character he’d created early on, no one would’ve noticed him. It was the thing that separated him from everyone else.
    That, and the Bishop charm, which for many people was an acquired taste. There was nothing subtle, sophisticated, or cool about Bishop. By contemporary standards, he was pure caveman—an honors graduate of the Frank Sinatra–Arnold Schwarzenegger finishing school. He was disarming and often shockingly blunt. At a chic Manhattan restaurant one night Bishop was chatting up several attractive, obviously successful women he’d just introduced himself to at the bar while everyone was waiting for a table. There was some mildly suggestive, playful teasing and everyone was all smiles. A little while later, when the women had been seated at a table next to Bishop’s, one of them got up to go to the ladies’ room.
    She stopped and said something innocuous to Bishop about her after-dinner plans. He smiled; picked up the long, thick pepper mill from the table; and said, “How ’bout I get some batteries for this and we have a party?” Rather than smack him or walk away horrified, she smiled, leaned over, and began stroking his ridiculously ample chest.
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    One of Bishop’s plugged-in friends had once told him you know you’re totally wired in New York when you can get anything you need and anybody you want to reach with two phone calls, whether it was playoff tickets, restaurant reservations, or a favor from the mayor. It was all about who you knew, not how much you had. While Bishop hadn’t quite reached the Zen plateau of two phone calls, he was getting close—it took five calls to find Anthony Pennetta.
    Bishop’s sources told him that outside of his family and his job, Pennetta’s only real passion was flying. Early in his career, he had been in the Aviation Unit, where he got his pilot’s license. When he was promoted to lieutenant, he went over to the Emergency Service Unit, but he never lost his love of flying. Pennetta had four kids and was completely devoted to his family, so money was always tight, but he’d worked out a deal for flying time in exchange for giving lessons at a flight school at Republic Airport in Farmingdale, Long Island, about a forty-five-minute drive from Manhattan on a relatively quiet, traffic-free Sunday afternoon like this.
    Pennetta was making final preparations for the sky time he’d been looking forward to for days when Bishop unexpectedly rolled up. Though Pennetta had no idea who he was, he figured him for someone on the job with his cocky walk and badass attitude. When Bishop introduced himself, Pennetta just stared at him. He remained silent while the private detective told him he was representing the lone survivor of the terrorist raid.
    The ESU commander was an imposing physical presence, a mass of tightly controlled energy. Bishop was rarely intimidated, but with Pennetta looming over him like a stack of boxes about to topple, he felt vaguely threatened. But since