Double Bang

When 500 designer suits are stolen from a Pierre Cardin showroom, detectives Vinnie Crow and Billie Benson, two veteran and none-too-scrupulous New York cops, discover that the mastermind behind the robbery is ""Sally'' Fish, garment district button-man and nephew of Mafia boss Frankie Carbonaro. The detectives squeeze Sally, and he puts them on his payroll. All might have been well with the ensuing business transactions were Sally not a megalomaniac, whose brains are further scrambled by excessive toots of cocaine. He embarks on a murder spree that makes him the focus of a massive federal and city investigation and the ire of his old-line mob superiors. Gould, whose Fort Apache, the Bronx was the basis of the movie, is up to the mark in the new thriller. This astringent, fast-paced narrative keeps the reader right on the edge. Gould has a keen ear for metropolitan vernacular, and his characters are sharply drawn and pleasingly quirky. Wise-guy cynics, most of them, they can't save themselvesno matter how knowing they think they areand that goes for the good guys as well as the bad. (March)