Monkey in the Middle (3 page)

This year's windows are no exception: flying dragons, a roaring lion (Aslan of Narnia? Epstein isn't sure), Harry Potter sweeping across the rooftops of London. The detail is astounding. Every millimeter of the back wall is covered, the floor and the ceiling as well. The colors are bright, primary, and the effect is magical, a demand that he revisit his childhood, that he become once more innocent. This effect is made all the more powerful by an anomaly. On any other day the crowds would be six deep with the luckiest kids astride their daddies' shoulders. Now the sidewalk is part of a crime scene, the space before the windows empty, as if they were meant only for him.

Suddenly embarrassed, Epstein glances up. A dozen helicopters hover overhead. The reporters have to be loving this, he thinks. And they'll be loving it even more when the name of the victim is released and they find out he's a local gangster. Given this nudge, he knows, it's even possible that some enterprising scribbler will connect the death of Tony Maguire to three prior murders. The victims of these homicides, like Tony, were known members of Paul Marginella's crew. Paulie Margarine, who claims to be clueless but who's about to start a war.

Epstein clips his badge to the lapel of his jacket, then approaches a cop doing sentry duty at a break in the crime scene tape blocking off the sidewalk. He flips open a bill-fold to reveal his ID: Lieutenant Solomon Epstein, Organized Crime Control Bureau. The uniform logs the information, along with the time of day.

‘Anybody else here from OCCB?' Epstein asks.

The cop's finger trails backward through his chart. ‘Sergeant Boyle. Arrived thirty minutes ago.'

‘Good.'

With the obsessively competent Billy Boyle on the scene, Epstein won't have to sweat the details. Epstein isn't averse to details, but he prefers to have others collect, sort and label them before he considers their implications.

The store's interior decorations stop Epstein, as they did Carter. Elsewhere, in more upscale department stores, the overall scheme is resolutely cool. White lights and pale ribbon, greens and pinks, nobody getting too excited. After all, it's only Christmas. Not so Macy's. Much to Epstein's satisfaction, Macy's showroom is pure Christmas overkill, the red of the poinsettias as garish as onrushing blood.

In Epstein's opinion, Christmas is all about overkill. When his son is finally born, Epstein will cover the boy's first Christmas tree with red and green and blue and yellow lights. He'll fill the branches with ornaments, crown the tree with a golden angel, stack presents to the ceiling.

Though Epstein's father was Jewish, he was raised by his Italian-Irish mother, his old man having fled the scene before Epstein's first birthday.

Epstein fiddles in his pocket, finds his cell phone and speed-dials his wife, Sofia.

‘Yo, gringo,' she says when she hears his voice.

‘I just wanted to let you know that I'm on the scene. I'm gonna be tied up for a while.'

‘Don't worry. Nothing's happening.' Sofia is two weeks past her due date and the doctors are threatening to induce labor if she doesn't give birth soon. ‘If it does, I'll call you first.'

‘Call me second, after you call your sister for a ride to the hospital. And don't be a martyr. I know you. Macho is in your blood.'

‘Bye, honey.'

Epstein hesitates a second longer, to admire a half-dozen cops from the Crime Scene Unit in their white paper suits. They've fanned out from a pool of blood and are now dusting the many display cases with black fingerprint powder. At the end of the room, a pair of uniformed officers have the witnesses nicely corralled. Billy Boyle is standing a few feet away, notebook in hand, questioning a middle-aged woman in a navy business suit.

When Boyle finishes up with the witness, he turns to face his oncoming commander. As always, Boyle's nicely tailored black suit is immaculate, his red tie perfectly knotted; the starched collar of his white shirt all but stands up and salutes. Epstein appreciates the effort but considers it wasted. Bailey's face looks like it was reassembled in the dark by a first year surgical resident after going through a brick wall. Heavy bones at weird angles, or pushed to one side, nose going one way, chin the other. This is the guy you didn't want to meet near the East Side docks after midnight. Say in 1855.

‘Lieutenant,' Boyle says.

‘Billy.'

Boyle stares at Epstein through eyes the color of wet mud. ‘Our boy fucked up this time.' He sweeps his arm in a long arc to indicate all three aisles of the immense room. ‘Surveillance cameras. Every fuckin' inch. They got a control room downstairs, monitors, the works.'

‘You wanna make a bet?'

Boyle shifts his weight. He raises his chin to stare along the length of a short, flat nose. ‘Bet about what?'

‘About whether our boy fucked up.'

Boyle ponders Epstein's offer, then shakes his head. ‘Man, I hope you're right, because this bullshit is not gonna go away.'

Epstein shrugs. ‘Anything else I should know?'

‘I checked out the murder weapon. A dagger, double-edged, with an ivory handle. The handle's inscribed in Arabic.'

‘Arabic? How do you know?'

‘A stock clerk named Massoud, originally from Lebanon.'

‘You showed him the murder weapon?'

‘Yeah. According to Massoud, it says, “War is deception.” A quote from the prophet.'

You have to admire the son-of-a-bitch, and Epstein truly does. Epstein is in Macy's basement, in a suite of rooms dedicated to the store's security functions. He stands next to Macy's head of security, a retired NYPD captain named Curt Majalewski. Behind them, Billy Boyle hovers, his arms folded across his chest.

Seated before a bank of eight small monitors, a technician guides them through Carter's every move. Epstein sees Carter approach and enter Macy's, meander from aisle to aisle, kneel before a jewelry counter, finally approach and stab Maguire, the movement so fast that the stop-action video barely records it. He watches Carter walk the length of the store to exit onto Seventh Avenue, just another Christmas pilgrim, a body in a crowd. Not for a moment, not even for a second, does Carter raise his head. Epstein's view is of a wide-brimmed hat and the point of a short beard, an occasional flash of cheekbone.

Coordinating the eight tapes is a tricky business and it takes almost an hour to cover the sixteen minutes Carter is inside Macy's. Epstein is impatient by the time the tech shuts down the last tape. His boss, Captain Tom Champliss, is already on-scene.

‘Am I gonna be able to take the tapes with me or will I need a subpoena?' Epstein asks Majalewski.

‘We're cooperating, a hundred per cent.' Majalewski has the husky voice of a long-time smoker. Broken capillaries radiate from his nose like the whiskers of cat.

‘That's great. Sergeant Boyle will collect the tapes and write receipts.'

Epstein would love to rerun the tape. He hasn't got the time, but he knows that once the techs at the NYPD lab splice the footage, the squad will review the tape over and over again. As if they could reach into the monitor and yank the perpetrator out. They'll watch from the other end, too. Watch Tony Maguire progress from shopper to vegetable.

Because that's what they're saying at the hospital. Tony Maguire's brain is severely damaged and he's unlikely to recover any significant function. For all intents and purposes, Tough Tony's off the count.

This will not make Captain Champliss (known to one and all as Captain Champissy) smile. Nor will the failure of Macy's security system to record the perp's features. Epstein needs an angle to soften the blows, a line of investigation impressive enough to buy a little time, yet unlikely to produce results.

Epstein finally turns to Billy Boyle. ‘I want you to collect surveillance tapes from the subway stations, uptown and downtown. Go south as far as Fourteenth Street, north to Columbus Circle.'

‘You wanna get started right away?'

‘Yeah, Billy, that's the whole point. But you can pull the detail if we don't have anything by tomorrow morning.'

Five

E
pstein waits respectfully, hands at his sides, while Champliss consoles the store manager, Bob Kasman. Captain Champliss is all sympathy, from his watery black eyes to the palms of his extended hands. At appropriate moments, he nods, cocks his head, draws long theatrical breaths.

Rumor has it that Champliss is gay, but Epstein's not buying. Champliss is married with four children. But then again, Champliss does habitually stand with a cocked hip and his movements have a languid, feminine aspect. It's undeniable. And his pursed mouth seems perpetually disapproving. He might be a fashion designer offended by the sudden appearance of a grimy, skid row drunk. Oh God, what next?

Bob Kasman wears a beautifully tailored suit, an overly starched white-on-white shirt and a lavender tie. The cuffs of his trousers fall exactly to the tops of his shoes. To Epstein, in his tweed jacket and rumpled Dockers, Kasman seems fabricated, as if somebody started with the idea of a big-time businessman, then designed a human to fit the image. Every strand of the man's graying hair is in place.

‘Can I be honest with you, Captain?' Kasman rushes ahead before Champliss can unwrap his pursed lips. ‘It rained through the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Every afternoon, a cold rain. As a direct result, our take is now fifteen per cent below last year's.' He pauses long enough to swallow. ‘Bottom line, Macy's intends to cooperate fully but we need to be up and running tomorrow. If it's at all possible.'

Champliss finally gets in a word. He glances at his watch, then says, ‘Have a clean-up crew at the ready. We'll be out of here by eight o'clock.'

Kasman favors Champliss with a nod, a tight-lipped smile and a manly handshake. When he marches off, Epstein approaches, his bandy-legged strut in sharp contrast with his superior's listless posturing.

‘I got here as soon as I could,' he says.

‘Bad news. I see it on your face.' Champliss is standing beside a floor-to-ceiling tree composed entirely of red poinsettias. He examines Epstein for a moment, a prophet in search of a sign, then sniffs, displaying another mannerism his underlings can't stand.

‘I watched the video. It's useless.'

‘And why is that?'

‘The perp wore a wide-brimmed hat and didn't raise his head. Oh, and get this, the knife he used, it's one of a kind. Ivory handle with an inscription in Arabic. “War is deception”.'

Champliss considers this information for a moment, then says, ‘A message from Toufiq?'

A Moroccan Arab born in the United States, Rachid Toufiq is in line to benefit most from the ongoing damage to Paulie Margarine's crew. Or so the common wisdom has it. A striver to his bones, Toufiq has assembled a rag-tag gang from the large Arab community living in the Queens neighborhood of Astoria. Their turf is southern Astoria, near the Grand Central Parkway. To the north, Astoria is predominantly Greek and Italian, with a fair population of young professionals unable to afford Manhattan rents. This is Paulie Margarine's stomping ground.

Epstein takes one of the poinsettia leaves between his thumb and forefinger. He holds it for a second, imagining his small dining room made smaller at Christmastime by a dozen similar plants. Imagining the room virtually ablaze.

‘I don't think it was an ego thing, leaving the knife,' he finally declares. ‘I think he used a knife that he knew couldn't be traced. Rather than buy a knife and risk our tracking it to a particular store. Plus, you have to consider that Paulie Marginella's ready to explode. Guaranteed, if we release a description of the knife, he'll start a war.'

But Champliss isn't having it. ‘A few days from now, if you don't have a suspect in custody, we're going to put that knife before the public. I want it to lead the news on every channel. I want it on the front page of every newspaper. No man could own a knife like the one you described and not show it to somebody.'

Epstein doesn't argue the point, though he'd readily bet his next paycheck against a psychopath's word of honor that the knife won't be traced to the man who stuck it in Tony Maguire. Not through publicity. But a clue is a clue, and this particular clue is as photogenic as clues get. The media will eat it up.

‘One more thing, Captain.' Epstein gestures to a display case fifteen feet away. ‘The perp knelt in front of that case. He may have touched it, the video isn't clear, or he may have breathed on it and left DNA. I already conferred with Sergeant Washington. He's gonna take it into the lab.'

Sgt. Vernon Washington is supervising the Crime Scene Unit. The collection of trace evidence is his responsibility. OCCB has no juice here.

‘The whole thing?'

‘No, just the part in front of the diamonds.'

‘That's impossible.'

‘Impossible? Washington's already called for a truck.' Epstein looks down at his watch. ‘The way it's shaping up, CSU's gonna be working all night.'

Champliss takes the news without flinching. Much to his credit, Epstein decides. Despite his peers' general disdain, Champliss is a problem-solver. Most likely, he's already composed an explanation for Kasman.

‘What about witnesses?' Champliss asks.

‘As it turns out, there aren't any.'

‘How's that?'

‘We questioned every clerk on the floor at the time of the attack. What came back is simple and consistent. The sales floor was packed and nobody noticed the vic until he grabbed his chest and fell to the floor. Heart attack – that was their first thought, and one of them actually went for a defibrillator. Then the vic yanked the knife out and they saw the blood and after that it was all panic. As for the actual attack, it's strictly
nada
. As in nobody saw nothin'.'

‘What about the customers?' Champliss sweeps the room with his hand, describing a delicate arc that draws Epstein's attention. ‘There had to be a couple of hundred people in here.'