Need You Now (12 page)

20

I
t was more
wind than snow that forced Lilly indoors for cover. She found a deli down the
street from the church, but a nervous stomach made eating impossible. She
ordered a camomile tea to calm herself down.

“Anything else?” asked the cashier.

How about a Xanax?

“Just the tea, thanks,” she said.

Lilly broke one of her last remaining fifties.
She’d fled Singapore with $9,990 in cash, just below the currency reporting
requirement. Burning through money was easy in Manhattan. Her wallet was getting
thin, but she didn’t dare use a credit card. Cash wouldn’t leave a trail.

The only open seat was near the entrance at the
storefront counter. She claimed a stool and gazed out the plate glass window,
watching a sidewalk construction crew stand around and do nothing. An hour of
snow flurries was enough to block out the company name on the truck. Lilly
wondered if it was one of the Santucci firms. Construction was a staple of the
family’s many mob-run businesses—at least that was what her source had told
her.

A construction worker noticed her and winked.
Definitely not one of those ripped and gorgeous hotties on
Desperate Housewives
who sweated out pheromones. Lilly averted her
eyes.

Steam rose from her cup. A quick sip scalded the
roof of her mouth. It was a little thing that, cumulatively, was a big thing.
She almost started to cry. Lucky for Gerry Collins that he was already dead. If
he weren’t, she would probably have killed him.

Thank you, Gerry. Thank you
for using me.

Or had he?

Again, her mind replayed that three-year-old phone
message he’d left on her voice mail just before his death: “It’s blown up. I’ll
call you when I can. Talk to no one until I reach you.”

Was it possible that Collins had thought she was
aware of the scam? The arrangement had certainly been sweet. She’d essentially
done nothing, and BOS had still given her revenue credit for over $2 billion in
private banking activity. Perhaps Gerry had simply assumed that she was smart
enough to recognize a deal that was too good to be legit. Since his death, the
Treasury Department had certainly operated under that assumption, had even put
it in an internal memo.

Her cell rang. She didn’t recognize the incoming
number, but she knew it was him—her source. He’d promised to follow up after her
meeting with Robledo at the church. “Promised” was probably the wrong word.
Everything he said sounded more like a threat. She was tired of getting hit from
every direction—from him, Robledo, BOS, Treasury. It was time for her to find
her spine and push back. She walked out of the noisy deli, found cover beneath
the sidewalk bridge scaffolding, and answered her cell phone. He began with a
question.

“Do you trust me now, Lilly?”

She didn’t answer.

“Admit it,” he said. “I steered you right. Robledo
is the man you talked to on the phone every day at BOS, isn’t he? The same man
who threatened you in Singapore and your boyfriend in Times Square.”

“Yes. I recognized the voice.”

“So, do you trust me?”

“You nearly got me killed!”

“Watch your tone,” he said.

She didn’t back down. “Robledo put a gun to my head
and told me no extensions on the deadline.”

“Did you tell him you’re in control?”

“He knew I wasn’t in control.”

“Did you tell him that you know he was the numbered
account holder at BOS?”

“Not directly.”

“What does that mean?”

“I told him I got his name before I left Singapore.
That’s why the bank fired me.”

“Lilly, Lilly. You have to be clearer. His
connection to the numbered account is the whole point;
that’s
your control.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“I can only tell you what to say. It’s your job to
be convincing.”

“You’re the one who wants me to drag Patrick into
this. Robledo didn’t believe a thing I said about him.”

“What are you talking about?

“Robledo knew right away I was lying. Patrick went
to see him before I even got there.”

“What?
Did you give
Patrick his name? I told you
never
to share any of
our secrets with Patrick!”

Lilly had indeed been warned, and the accusatory
tone put her on the defensive. “I didn’t say anything to Patrick. I don’t know
how he got it.”

There was silence on the line, and Lilly felt the
construction guy watching her again. She walked around the barricades and
started down the sidewalk.

“We can work with this,” her source said finally.
“Actually, the fact that Patrick is meeting on his own with Robledo makes it
even easier for me to help you.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“You
need
it,
Lilly.”

“No, I don’t need anything from you. I can’t sleep,
I can’t eat, I can’t even drink a cup of tea without scalding my mouth. Just
leave me alone!”

“Lilly, you are in serious trouble. You helped
Gerry Collins funnel two billion dollars to Abe Cushman, and from the get-go,
Treasury refused to believe that you were unaware of the scam when you did it.
They still don’t believe you’re innocent.”

“Oh, and I suppose you have some kind of direct
pipeline to the Treasury Department, is that it?”

“Maybe I do.”

The way he said it, so matter of fact, gave her
pause.

“It’s all fitting together,” he said. “Patrick
Lloyd is Tony Mandretti’s son. Mandretti killed Gerry Collins. We need to show
Treasury that the real crook here isn’t you. It’s Patrick. If he’s dealing with
Robledo on his own, that’s the missing link we need.”

“What do you mean
we
?
And anyway, all they had was a conversation. That doesn’t mean there’s a
link.”

“The link was there before you even met
Patrick.”

“You’re making that up.”

“You’re in denial, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“If there was no link between your boyfriend and
Manu Robledo, why did he suddenly drop everything in New York and go to
Singapore?”

“Singapore is a BOS stronghold in Asia.”

“Really? And why did he immediately take to you
like a fly to honey?”

“Patrick and I . . . we hit it off.”

“Come on, Lilly. You’re a beautiful woman, but
let’s get real. He lied to you two days ago when he pretended not to know that
Tony Martin was really Tony Mandretti. If Patrick didn’t know Robledo before
going to Singapore, you can bet his father did. How else could Patrick have
tracked Robledo down at his church and met with him before you did? We can’t let
him get away with this.”

The cold wind chilled her—or maybe it was the
sickening realization of where his plan was headed. “Oh, my God. It’s not the
mob who is chasing Patrick.”

“Lilly, listen to me.”

“It’s
you
. You’re
keeping Patrick around long enough to take the blame for everything.”

“He deserves the blame.”

“I won’t do this to Patrick.”

“He would do it to you.”

“Patrick loves me.”

“Yes, so much that he left you all alone in his
apartment two hours after your reunion.”

“He had to catch a flight. It was a business
trip.”

“Another lie. He went to see Tony Mandretti in
prison.”

Lilly tightened her grip on the phone. “I don’t
believe you.”

“You don’t know a thing about him, Lilly! If it
wasn’t for me, you’d still think his name was Patrick Lloyd. I told you he’s
Tony Mandretti’s son. That’s the truth. The mob is after him and his father, and
it was the mob who put Patrick in the hospital. That’s why I told you to stay
away from him, but of course you didn’t listen. That scheme you cooked up to
sneak him out of the hospital was idiotic!”

“What did you expect me to do, just leave him
there, a sitting duck, waiting for the Santucci family to come and finish the
job?”

“I expected you to stay
away
from him! Do only what I tell you to do, Lilly!”

“I don’t believe you anymore.
You
put him in the hospital. Not the mob. I’m going to the
police.”

“And tell them what? You didn’t know Abe Cushman
was a fraud? You didn’t know Gerry Collins was a thief? You had no idea Patrick
Lloyd was Tony Mandretti’s son? Face it, Lilly. Patrick has caused you enough
problems. Treasury has already decided that the best lead on the Cushman money
is the Lilly Scanlon/BOS connection. Robledo shoved the memo in your face.”

Lilly stopped so short at the curb that she nearly
slipped on the ice. “How do you know about that?”

“I know everything, Lilly.”

It seemed as though he did. She was suffocating
with fear all over again. “I don’t understand why they’re targeting
me
.”

“You’ve been played,” he said, his tone softening.
“First by Gerry Collins, then, even worse, by Patrick Lloyd.”

She had a green light to cross Broadway, but she
didn’t move. “No one could be worse than Gerry Collins.”

“At least Collins was genuinely interested in you
before he drew you into Cushman’s scheme. Patrick played you from beginning to
end, on
every
level. Do you remember when you were
on Changi Beach in Singapore and that seagull came out of nowhere and
dive-bombed right on top of his head?”

Chills cut through her. “You can’t possibly know
about that.”

“I saw it happen.”

“You were watching us on the beach? That’s beyond
creepy.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not some love-sick puppy who’s
been following you around for six months. I was only doing my job.”

“Your job? Who
are
you?”

“Never mind that. Get back to my point about
Patrick and his lies: it was sunscreen.”

“What?”

“When you were looking up at the birds in the sky,
your poor, heartbroken boyfriend slapped himself on top of the head with a glob
of sunscreen. You had finally found the courage to dump him, and he wanted to
make you feel really bad about it.”

A passing bus forced Lilly to jump back onto the
sidewalk. The snow was ten minutes old and already turning to brown slush. “That
can’t be true,” she said.

“Trust me. The only shit on that beach was
Patrick’s BS. There’s so much more I could tell you.”

It was tempting to listen, but she reminded herself
that she was dealing with a sick son of a bitch. “Stop. I don’t want to hear
another thing.”

“Okay. That’s enough for now, love.”

“Stop talking to me like that!”

“You’re confused. I understand. But admit it. Deep
inside, you don’t really think I’m lying, do you?”

“I—I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“Believe this: I’m here to lead you out of this
mess. You should live.”

He was making her skin crawl, but she resisted the
urge to hang up. “Should Patrick?”

He didn’t respond.

“Your list of people who should live,” she asked,
“does that include Patrick?”

There was silence, but Lilly sensed that he was
still there. Finally, he answered: “That’s entirely up to us, Lilly.”

“What do you mean
us
?”

The line went silent, and he was gone.

21

L
ove was in the air. The little snow monkey was making eyes at the big, strong male. Nothing like fresh snow around the steamy cove to simulate the après-ski, in-the-hot-tub experience. All they needed was a bucket of ice, a bottle of chardonnay, and michael bublé on the loudspeaker.

“That’s Boo-Boo,” Connie told me. “The big guy is Yogi.”

“Cute, like the cartoon,” I said. “But I always thought the animated Boo-Boo was a boy.”

“So is this Boo-Boo.”

I took a closer look. If snow monkeys had a pop culture, Boo-Boo would be Sir Elton John. “Ah, now I get it.”

The Japanese macaque (aka snow monkey) exhibit was Connie’s primary responsibility at the zoo, and it was one of my favorites, especially in winter. I could have watched them all afternoon, but I actually did have a day job. I’d been doing my best by e-mail for the past two days, but sooner rather than later I needed to figure out if, when, and how I would return to my office at BOS. But not before I gathered some intelligence on Manu Robledo.

“Did you find anything?” I asked.

Connie leaned against the exhibit rail with arms folded, her back to the snow monkeys. The tribe had no interest in us, their attention focused on a pair of black-neck swans that had apparently asserted squatters’ rights on monkey island.

“I’m very nervous about this,” said Connie.

“Is Robledo that scary?”

“Well, possibly. But I mean, I’m uncomfortable about using Tom to check up on people like this.”

Tom was her fiancé. He was a trained but unpaid volunteer in the Auxiliary Police Unit at the Central Park Precinct, which meant that he wore the familiar blue uniform and seven-point shield, carried a standard-issue radio that linked him to regular NYPD officers, and patrolled Central Park as the civic-minded “eyes and ears” of the sworn members of the service. It did
not
mean that he had access to law enforcement databases to run background checks—unless he pulled strings and called in favors.

“I’m reasonably confident that Tom isn’t the first person to run a name through the computer for a friend.”

“But . . .” she said, her expression pained, “he’s a scoutmaster.”

So was Connie. They’d met while leading a group of aspiring Eagle Scouts on a ten-day hike through New Mexico. Rumor had it that Connie had flung Tom over her back and carried him the last eight miles. I wasn’t even aware that women were allowed to serve as scoutmasters, but Connie was totally committed. It seemed like the theater of the absurd: my life had been threatened, and it was still possible that my girlfriend had perpetrated a $2 billion fraud—but there I was before God and the gay snow monkeys, trying to console my sister about a possible violation of the Boy Scout pledge. A witness protection family was as dysfunctional as the next, I supposed.

“Connie, really. Just this once, it’s okay.”

“What’s done is done, I guess.”

“Tell me what you got.”

She took a breath, then let it go. “Manu Caesar Robledo. Born in Argentina. Forty-one years old, never been married. Travels between Miami and South America dozens of times a year. Owns a condominium on Brickell Avenue in Miami.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Gerry Collins’ office was in the Financial District on Brickell.”

“You’re thinking maybe Collins handled the finances of his so-called church?”

“Or his own finances. His condo on Brickell has to be pricey. That’s where you’ll find all those glamorous high-rises on the bay in the opening credits for
CSI: Miami
.”

“He wasn’t born rich, I can tell you that,” said Connie. “He’s from a little town called Puerto Iguazú. That’s in the Tri-Border area where Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil meet.”

“That may explain the bizarre accent he was able to patch together when I was at his church.”

“Could be. It’s an interesting part of the world.”

“You know it?”

“The zoo has a couple of endangered armadillos from that region. Ciudad del Este in Paraguay is right in that same neck of the woods. My supervisor went there on research three years ago. Said she felt safer in the jungle with the pumas and jaguars. It can be pretty lawless.”

“What about our friend Robledo—any problems with the law?”

“Nothing in this country or as an adult. He did get into some kind of trouble as a juvenile in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s, but Tom says he couldn’t tell anything about it from the computer entry.”

“Could be worth exploring.”

She looked like a nervous scout again. “We agreed that I would ask Tom this favor just
once
.”

“I meant
I
would explore it,” I said, but my words were drowned out by a piercing scream. My gaze shifted to the snow monkeys, where Boo-Boo was standing atop a boulder and throwing a hissy fit at Yogi.

“You tell him, Boo-Boo,” said Connie. We shared a laugh, but my sister was suddenly serious. My back was to the red panda exhibit, and Connie was gazing past me in that direction. “Don’t turn around,” she said.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“About a hundred feet behind you, standing beside a tree at about two o’clock from your left shoulder, there’s a man with a telephoto lens. At first I thought he was photographing the snow monkeys. But now it looks like he’s taking pictures of you and me.”

I immediately thought back to Puffy’s Tavern and the guy wearing the rapper’s hat who had come and gone without drinking his beer—who looked just like the guy who had photographed Lilly and me in the Singapore Mall, and who’d shown up again outside my apartment.

I couldn’t help turning my head, and Connie grabbed me.

“I told you not to look!” she said, but there was no stopping me. I wheeled around completely, and like a laser my gaze locked onto the photographer by the tree. The lighting was flat on such a gray afternoon, and he was wearing a heavy winter coat, but his reaction alone confirmed it.

“It’s him,” I said.

“Who?” asked Connie, but I was off like a track star.

“Patrick!”

I was at full speed, my legs churning, defying the ice and snow beneath my feet. The man with the camera ran for the exit, jumped the turnstile, and hoofed it up the hill toward East Drive. I jumped the same turnstile, slipped on a patch of ice, and skidded on my knees across the salted pavers. It hurt like hell, and my pants were torn. Worse, I was down long enough for the guy to put another twenty yards between us.

It occurred to me that he might have a gun, that I should give Connie a shout to call for security or dial 911. But he’d committed no crime, and I dismissed the thought. It was still daylight, and I had him in my sight. His lead was less than fifty yards. With everything I had been through in the past forty-eight hours, I could have closed the gap on Usain Bolt—even with my knees bloodied.

I pushed myself up from the cold walkway and was off like a rocket. The fool was running away from Fifth Avenue, the taxis, the subway, and other means of escape. He was trying to lose me in the park. This time, he was not going to get away. This time, he was mine.

“Patrick, stop!”

Connie was trailing far behind, but I could hear the concern in her voice. Strangely, it only propelled me. I was inside of twenty yards, and closing, as he darted in front of a horse-drawn carriage on scenic East Drive. The driver cursed and reined in his big draft horse, then cursed even louder at me as I, in hot pursuit, cut off the horse a second time. My target was slowing down, and adrenaline was pushing me even faster. He followed the sidewalk down a ramp and into a pedestrian tunnel. Wollman Rink was directly ahead, and I couldn’t let him get all the way there and disappear into a crowd. I went the other way, up and over the hill, and was dead even with him when he came out the other end of the tunnel. He glanced back into the tunnel and probably thought he had lost me as I dived like a hawk from the hill above him. He went down hard, breaking my fall like a human mattress beneath me. He writhed and squirmed, but he was exhausted from the run, and I was easily the bigger dog in the struggle. My knee was throbbing from the tumble over the turnstile at the zoo, but I drilled it into the small of his back anyway. He let out a miserable groan as I pinned his face to the frozen ground.

“Who are you?” I shouted.

He didn’t answer, but I wasn’t feeling much from him in the way of resistance.

“What’s your name?” I asked, harsher.

His resistance weakened even further. He was completely spent from the chase.

“Don’t hurt me!” he said, pleading.

“Tell me who you are!”

He started to cry—upper lip quivering, huge tears streaming down his cheeks. I had yet to slug him, and he was turning into gelatin. This was bordering on pathetic.

“Please, please, don’t hit me.”

It felt like I was beating up one of Connie’s Cub Scouts. “Start talking and no one is going to get hurt,” I said.

He drew a breath, then another. The crying was under control, but his body continued to tremble.

“Talk!” I said.

“My name is Evan,” he said with a sniffle, “and I can help you, Mr. Lloyd.”