Don't Blink (9 page)

“Now, where were we?” said Torenzi. “By the way, Anastasia, my name is Bruno. That is my
real
name.”

Hearing that, the girl began to cry even harder. She knew what he meant.

“That’s right. You know my name. You know what I look like,” he whispered. “You might as well enjoy your last time in the sack.”

DWAYNE ROBINSON’S unspeakably sad funeral unfolded under a rain so heavy that had it been a baseball game, it would’ve surely been postponed. There was no church service. Instead, we all gathered graveside with a nondenominational minister at the sprawling Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, final resting place for Joseph Pulitzer, Miles Davis, and Fiorello La Guardia among so many others.

The turnout was sparse, although bigger than I thought it might be. Many of Dwayne’s ex-teammates were actually there — former Yankees and heroes of mine, whom on any other day I would’ve been thrilled to see in person.

Just not on this day.

Also on hand was Dwayne’s ex-wife, who had left him the same week that he’d been banned from baseball. She was a former Miss Delaware. Alongside her were their two children, now approaching their teens. I remembered reading
that she had petitioned for full custody of them during the divorce and won without much of a fight from Dwayne. For a man unaccustomed to losing on the mound, once off it he had clearly known when he’d been beat.

“Let us pray,” said the minister at the front of Dwayne’s mahogany casket.

Hanging toward the back, hunched under an umbrella like everyone else, I felt strange being there. Technically, I’d only met Dwayne once. Then again, I was one of the last people to speak to him.

Maybe even the very last. Who knew?

Certainly not anyone standing around me. As the service broke, the chatter was all about the “man they once knew.” It was as if the poor soul who had reportedly jumped to his death from the terrace of his high-rise apartment had been a complete stranger to just about everyone at his funeral.

“Once he was banned from the game, it’s as if Dwayne stopped living,” I overhead someone say.

Now he’d just made it official.

What wasn’t official yet was the autopsy, but in the intense media frenzy following Dwayne’s death, a leaked toxicology report showed he was high on heroin. Space-shuttle high. That probably explained why he hadn’t left behind a suicide note.

One mystery down, perhaps.

Another still unresolved.

What the hell had Dwayne wanted to tell me?

Weirdly, I felt as though I was also hiding some kind of secret. Courtney was the only other person who knew about
the late phone call Dwayne had made to me the night he killed himself.

But as secrets go, mine was minor league. Dwayne’s was a whole lot bigger, and he’d just taken it to the grave.

I walked back to my car, an old Saab 9000 Turbo — my one “extravagance,” if you can call it that, in a city dominated by subways, taxis, and crosswalks.

Closing up my umbrella and sliding behind the wheel, I kept replaying that last conversation with Dwayne in my head. I wondered if I was overlooking something, if there was an important clue I wasn’t catching.

Nothing came to mind yet. Or maybe my memory was a poor substitute for a tape recorder. What I wouldn’t give to have a recording of that last phone call with him.

I was about to turn the key in the ignition when my phone rang.

I glanced at the caller ID.

Now, I’m not a big believer in the notion that nothing happens by accident, but for sheer timing this was stretching the boundaries of coincidence. It was spooky, actually.

The caller ID said “Lombardo’s Steakhouse.”

“HI, I’M LOOKING for Tiffany.” I said this to the man with the reservation book standing behind the podium at Lombardo’s. I thought I recognized him, but it took me a few seconds to be sure.

Of course. He was the manager. I remembered seeing Detective Ford interviewing him on the afternoon of the murders.

“She’ll be right back — she’s seating someone,” he said, barely looking up at me. He was average height and build, his tone sprinkled with an air of superiority that presumably came with the job. “Are you the man with the jacket?” he asked.

Actually, I was the man
without
the jacket.

Although not for long.

Before I could answer, I heard a voice over the manager’s shoulder. “You made it,” she said.

She remembered me. I certainly remembered her. “Tiffany,” I said, extending my hand. “Like the pretty blue box.”

She smiled. Great smile, too. “Hi, Mr. Daniels,” she said.

“Please, it’s Nick.”

I followed Tiffany to the coat-check room opposite the bar area. “Your jacket’s over here,” she said with a glance back at me. “We kept it nice and safe for you.”

I nodded. “Listen, I appreciate your calling me. I didn’t even realize I’d left it here.”

“Pretty understandable, given the confusion that day.” She stopped on a dime, turning to me. “
Confusion
. That word doesn’t really capture it, does it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Tiffany shook her head. “You know, I was going to quit this job the next day. Go back to Indiana where I’m from. I even discussed it with Jason.”

“Jason?”

“The guy you talked to at the desk. The manager.”

“What did he tell you?”

“That this was New York, and I should just suck it up, and I would if I belonged here.”

“What a sweetheart.”

“I know, tell me about it,” she said. “Then again, look around at the crowd of ghouls. I don’t know whether to be amazed or really depressed.”

I could see what she meant. Lombardo’s Steakhouse was even more crowded than usual, if that was possible. Call it the perverse logic of hipness, especially in Manhattan and, I would guess, LA. After serving as the backdrop to three vicious murders, the joint actually
gained
in popularity.

Tiffany continued on to the coat-check room, grabbing my jacket. “Here you go,” she said. “It is yours, right?”

“Yep, that’s it, all right.” A leather car coat I had gotten for a near steal years back at a Barneys outlet sale.

As I folded it over my forearm, something occurred to me. “Tiffany, how did you know this was mine?” It was a good question, I thought. It’s not as if I had my name sewn inside the collar like some kid at summer camp.

“I went through the pockets. Hope you don’t mind,” she answered. “I found one of those e-tickets for a flight you recently took to Paris. It had your name and a phone number listed. That’s how I —”

She stopped.

“What is it?” I asked.

Tiffany’s jaw dropped. I could practically see the wheels churning behind her dark brown eyes.

“Oh my God!” she blurted. “You were here with the baseball pitcher that day, weren’t you? The poor man who just killed himself?”

“Yes, Dwayne Robinson,” I said. It still hurt just to say his name. “I just came from his funeral, actually. Very sad.”

She shook her head slowly. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it on the news.”

“You remember him, huh? From when he was here that day?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “And from the day before, too.”

I looked at her sideways as her last sentence knocked around in my head.

The day before?

IT DIDN’T MAKE SENSE, none at all. Dwayne Robinson hadn’t been at Lombardo’s that first day. He had stood me up.

But he
had
been here. At least according to Tiffany.

“When?” I asked. “What time was it? Sorry to bother you, but it’s important to me. I was supposed to do a story on Dwayne. For
Citizen
magazine.”

“I’m not sure exactly. It was on the early side. Noonish, maybe.”

That had been before I’d arrived, about a half hour before Dwayne and I were supposed to meet. Odd. Crazy.

“You’re sure it was him?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course, I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I remembered seeing him only after they showed his picture on TV. I’m not a big baseball fan. I didn’t know who he was until then.”

“Did you seat him?” I asked.

“No. I didn’t even talk to him.”

“What was he doing? Did you happen to notice? Anything at all?”

“I don’t know. I was busy with other customers. I just remember seeing him at one point. He was looking around.”

For me?

Had he thought we were meeting at noon instead of twelve thirty?

I stood there utterly perplexed, trying to think this new mystery through. All I knew for sure was that Dwayne had been at the restaurant the following day at twelve thirty. Courtney had said she’d never bothered to ask his agent why he had stood me up. Could Dwayne have thought I had stood him up? But then why would he have gone to the trouble to meet with me the next day?

For the past dozen years, asking questions has been second nature to me. It’s how I do my job. I ask questions, I get answers, I find out what I need to know.
Boom, boom, boom
. Simple as that. Especially when I’m really into a story.

But this was different. The more questions I asked Tiffany, the less I understood about what had happened.

“I’m sorry to keep pressing, but is there anything else you can remember?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

She turned her head away, thinking for a moment. “Not really. Except …”

“Except what?”

“Well, he did seem
really
nervous.”

“You mean, like, he was pacing?”

“Nothing quite so obvious,” she said. “It was more his
eyes. He was a big guy, but he looked almost … scared to be here.”

I literally smacked my forehead as a Latin expression from my school days at St. Pat’s came rushing back to me.
“Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.”

I was always so-so at Latin, yet this mouthful I’ve somehow never forgotten. It’s the basis for what’s commonly referred to as Occam’s razor. Translated, the phrase roughly means “entities should not be multiplied more than necessary.” In other words, all things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.

And what was I
simply
forgetting about Dwayne Robinson?

His anxiety disorder. Of course.

It made total sense now. He had arrived early to meet me for lunch that first time. He looked scared, according to Tiffany. That’s because he was. He was nervous about doing the interview and perhaps just nervous to be in the crowded restaurant, period. People could see him; some of them would definitely recognize Dwayne Robinson.

So he got cold feet and left.

I thanked Tiffany for my jacket and her time and help. I thought she’d thrown me a curveball about Dwayne Robinson, but as I walked out of Lombardo’s, I was convinced I had it all figured out.
“Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.”

Unfortunately, what I didn’t know at the time — what I couldn’t know — was that I actually had it all wrong. Because as theories go, Occam’s razor isn’t foolproof. Sometimes, the simplest solution
isn’t
the best.

Like I said, I wasn’t terribly good at Latin. Downright
horribilis
, to tell the truth.

DAVID SORREN JUST loved one-way mirrors. To him, they represented the heart and soul of his job as Manhattan DA, a literal metaphor for his success.

I’ve always got my eye on you
.

And I never blink
.

Ever since he’d been a rising-star prosecutor out of NYU Law, he’d been standing behind these one-way mirrors, his arms crossed, tie loosened — watching, gauging, sizing up hundreds and hundreds of criminals. Occasionally there’d be an innocent person thrown into the mix, but they were few and far between.

The simple truth was, if you ever found yourself in a police station, on the wrong side of a one-way mirror, the over-whelming odds were that you had something to hide.

And David Sorren’s job — no, his
mission
— was to find out what it was.

Then nail you to the wall for it and throw the proverbial book at you.

“I say we play the recording for this douche bag bastard and watch him squirm,” came a voice over Sorren’s shoulder. “Make ’im squirm, make ’im turn.”

As in, turning state’s evidence.

Sorren heard every word of what his assistant DA Kimberly Joe Green was saying, but his eyes remained locked on Eddie “The Prince” Pinero on the other side of the glass.

Dressed in a natty gray-pinstriped suit with his trademark black handkerchief stuffed into his lapel pocket, Pinero was seated with his attorney — his
new
attorney — in the second-floor interrogation room of the Nineteenth Precinct.

No stranger to these rooms, Pinero clearly knew he was being both watched and recorded. He wasn’t saying a word to his attorney, and he was staring straight into the one-way mirror with a smile on his handsome, ruddy face that declared,
Here I am, folks. Stare at me all you like!

“Yeah, play him the tape,” came a second voice behind Sorren in the observation room. It was Detective Mark Ford. “Pinero’s about to return for sentencing. If there was ever a deal to be made, the time is now. Hate to admit it, but I’m with Kimberly Joe on this one.”

Ford, a first-grade detective, and Green had an openly contentious relationship, to put it mildly, having endured numerous run-ins over the years. That said, they both knew how good the other was at their job. Respect, even when it came begrudgingly, trumped just about everything in law enforcement.

Finally, Sorren turned around to face Green and Ford. He could feel the heat rising to his head.

“A deal? Fuck, no,” he said. “There’s no way I’m ever giving that son of a bitch immunity.”

“But —”

Sorren cut Green off. “The hit on Marcozza got two detectives killed. Two good guys with wives and children, seven kids between them. No, there’s only one way I want Pinero, and that’s with his head on a plate,” he said.

But even more than the words, it was the way he said them.

Teeth clenched.

Eyes unblinking.

As if the life of everyone in the room depended on it.