Old Flame (5 page)

CHAPTER

11

T
he next day, the number-one item on my agenda was to see Lisa Hernandez. That lasted for about fifteen minutes. What I really needed was an Allie fix. I called her. She was apologetic. Her morning was jam-packed, but a quick hot dog at the Plaza Fountain was definitely in the cards for lunch.

I arrived promptly at noon and found Allie sitting at the base of General Sherman’s statue. She wore a denim vest over a Brooklyn Dodgers T-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a bun. She looked troubled.

“You didn’t get the account,” I said.

She forced a weak smile. “No, it’s not that. We haven’t heard yet.”

“Then what is it?”

She got to her feet, took my arm, and went for a big smile.

“Nothing, just the kind of a day that forces me to reexamine what I do for a living. I’ve got art directors who can’t even draw stick figures, copywriters who think they’re Hemingway, and clients who wouldn’t know good advertising if it jumped up and bit them on the ass. My mother should have done the decent thing and drowned me at birth. Let’s eat.”

We walked over to a hot dog cart, ordered two with mustard and onions, and found a spot on the rim of the fountain.

“How’s your life going, Steeg? Made any headway with your ex-wife?”

There were two ways I could have taken that remark. One, it was Allie’s shorthand reference to the case. Or, two, the green-eyed monster had made an appearance. I went with the former. For now.

“I’m in what you might call fact-gathering mode now. Lots of people to see, places to go. That kind of thing.”

“Really!”

Although she made a big show of it, I could tell she really wasn’t listening. Instead, her eyes kept straying to Fifth Avenue.

“What’s going on, Allie?”

She set her untouched hot dog down. “Did you ever get the feeling that you’re being followed?”

“From time to time.”

“No, I mean now.”

“Care to expand on that?”

“Do you see that gray van?”

“Where?”

“Parked on Fifth Avenue. I noticed it last night when I left the office. Since then, every time I turn around it’s nearby.”

Sure enough, there was a gray van. It was a good way off, and the windows were tinted, so I couldn’t make out the occupants.

“Could be one of those stick-figure-challenged art directors. And gray is the color of choice for vans. Hides the dirt.”

“I’m not crazy, Steeg, and this isn’t a joke. I’m being stalked.”

“Well, why don’t we find out what’s going on. You wait here. I’ll be right back.”

I got to my feet and walked to Fifth. When I was about twenty yards from the van, the window slid down partway, and a hand appeared with the thumb up and the index finger pointed at me. Before the window closed, I clearly heard the word “Bang!”

With a screech of its tires the van was gone.

I walked back to Allie. She was trembling.

“I saw that,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey, man, I got something for you.”

He was a black kid, about fourteen. There was a manila envelope in his outstretched hand.

“Who gave it to you?”

“A white guy. Gave me twenty dollars to deliver it to you, personally.”

“What did he look like?”

He shrugged. “A white guy. You want it, or not?”

I took the envelope, and the kid melted into the crowd.

Ally stared at the envelope. “What do you think it is?”

I opened it. “Let’s find out.”

I pulled out a sheaf of photographs. Candid shots of Allie, DeeDee, and me.

“My God!” Allie said.

Someone had definitely upped the ante.

CHAPTER

12

L
isa Hernandez would have to wait. That evening I had an early dinner at a Hell’s Kitchen red-sauce joint with Luce Guidry. She was all decked out in a narcissus-yellow two-piece suit featuring a gigantic strawberry pinned to the lapel.

I showed her the pictures. “Think it could have anything to do with the skanks I took down at Neon the other night?”

“Could. Even morons know how to operate a camera these days. Just point and click.”

“Turn up any witnesses?”

“Not a one. Nobody saw anything, or too afraid to talk. Hard to blame them.”

“The pictures might have come from another source.”

I told her about Ferris.

“I always liked Ginny,” she said. “Too damned bad, Jackson. I gotta give her a call.”

“She’d appreciate that.”

“Who’s working the case?”

“Pete Toal and his sidekick. Guy likes to be called Swede.”

She made a face.

“Don’t expect much, Jackson. The word is, Toal is mailing it in. Just about everything he touches seems to wind up on the back burner. I guess that’s what happens when you’re nearing the end of your string . . . or running a game.”

“Pete? He cuts corners but—”

“Pension ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Easy to wind up in someone’s pocket.”

“Anybody have Toal under a microscope?”

“Not as far as I know,” Luce said.

“Could the fact that he’s a dyed-in-the-wool homophobe be coloring your thinking?”

When Luce and Cherise got married, Toal gave them a sex toy as a wedding gift. Thought it was hilarious. Luce didn’t, and decked him.

She shrugged. “Could be.”

“He wasn’t the only one.”

“No, he wasn’t. Look, I’m just speculating here. But won’t be the first time one of our brothers in blue played fuck-around.”

On that happy note we called it a night. Luce went back to Cherise, and I went home, watched some television, and turned in early. I was awakened when my phone rang.

“Jake, it’s Dave,” he said.

I looked at the clock on my nightstand.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Everything’s just ducky. Why?”

“It’s five in the morning.”

“Yeah, well, some of us work for a living. Had a situation, but now it’s fixed.”

The less I knew about Dave’s “situation” the better.

“Anyway,” he continued, “remember those two problems you laid on me?”

“Ferris and Reno.”

“The former is still up in the air, but I might be able to help you with the latter,” he said. “Meet me at Feeney’s at eight. Breakfast is on me.”

At eight on the dot I was at Feeney’s. Dave sat in his customary booth at the back, reading the newspaper. Nick was at the bar, chatting with a guy I didn’t recognize.

I slid in opposite my brother.

Feeney’s was where Dave did business, and he always dressed for it. Today he was looking particularly spiffy in a perfectly tailored pearl gray, two-button number. A pale blue shirt and red tie with tiny yellow amoebas swimming all over it completed the outfit.

He jabbed his finger at an article in the sports section. “You see this?” he said, passing it over to me.

According to the headline, after years of eligibility, a star baseball player had just made the Hall of Fame on his last try.

“Yeah, I heard about it last night on ESPN. Apparently he had the stats and they couldn’t prove he was throwing games.”

“They should have talked to me. You know that condo I bought in Bal Harbour a couple of years ago?”

“Yeah?”

“Couldn’t have done it without him. And they let him into the Hall. What kind of a message does that send to kids?” He grabbed the newspaper back and balled it up. “There’s no fucking morality anymore.”

“Do you realize how insane you sound?”

“Why? I didn’t put a gun to his head. He came to me. And he isn’t the only one. I just handle their bets. Besides, if it wasn’t me, it would be someone else.”

Illogical? Sure. Did it make sense in an inverted sort of way? Absolutely.

“You said you could help Danny.”

“I did,” Dave said. “Help’s sitting at the bar with Nick.”

I took a closer look. Nothing impressive. Baggy suit. Bad haircut. Sallow complexion.

“Who is he?”

“Kenny Apple. An accountant by training.”

“I don’t need someone to do my taxes.”

Dave smiled. “I said, ‘by training.’ Actually, Kenny works for me.”

“Doing what?”

His smile faded. “Anything that needs to be done,” he said. “He is a little quirky, though.”

“Quirky.”

“Yeah. Kenny’s an Orthodox Jew. Doesn’t work on the Sabbath.”

“And he works for you? Are you shitting me?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Orthodox Jew and a lapsed Catholic. You can’t make it up.”

“Sounds to me like a marriage made in heaven,” Dave said.

“Why him?”

“Danny has a problem with Zev Barak, right?”

“Right.”

“Who better to grease the skids? Set a Jew to catch a Jew.

We were back to that inverted logic thing again.

“You want to meet him?” Dave said.

“Why not?”

He motioned to Kenny.

Kenny exchanged a few more words with Nick, slid off his barstool, walked over, and sat next to Dave.

“Kenny,” Dave said, “this is my brother, Jake.”

We shook hands.

“Do you know what this is about?” I said.

“Dave hit the high points.”

“How do you think you can help?”

“I know Barak. Tough guy.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Russian by birth. Name then was Visnetzski. Came to Israel as a teenager. Went into the army. Golani Brigade. IDF shock troops. When Barak left the army, he got involved in the arms trade and eventually branched off into other, uh, businesses.”

“Do you think you can help my friend?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but we can try,” he said. “Maybe he’ll listen to me.”

“And if not?”

He shrugged again. “I feel sorry for your friend,” he said. “Do you know what they call Barak?”

“No.”

“The Golem. Do you know what that is?”

“Not a clue.”

“There is an old legend about a rabbi who lived in Prague. A pogrom raged in the city. Thousands of Jews were slaughtered. The rabbi, a famous mystic, went down to the riverbank and formed a man out of the clay. A giant. He inscribed a magical sign on his forehead, and the golem came to life. Now it was the rioters’ turn to die.”

“So, you’re telling me Barak protects Jews?”

“Religion has nothing to do with it. Barak protects only what is his.”

CHAPTER

13

I
called Torricelli to see if Lisa Hernandez, Ferris’s assistant, was in. She wasn’t. Still had the flu. I asked for her address. Turned out to be Alphabet City, a neighborhood in transition on the southeastern edge of Manhattan.

When I had worked the area, the neighborhood was a slagheap, a rickety place filled with rickety people. Dealers, hookers, outlaw bikers, and brain-burned junkies who boosted wiring, pipes, and whatever else wasn’t nailed down. Sometimes from abandoned houses, more often not. And caught in the middle was a largely immigrant, working-class population hanging on by its fingernails.

Now change was in the air.

Heeding the siren song of cheap rents, creative types and urban pioneers had moved in and recalibrated the landscape. Alphabet City had become a very tony “in” spot, and the Prada and Armani crowd willingly coughed up a couple of thousand a month for apartments that were going for a fraction of that just a few years before. Lisa’s four-story walk-up didn’t fall into that category, so getting in wasn’t a problem.

Her apartment was on the third floor, one of three on the landing. The marble tile floor hadn’t seen a mop in years.

I rang the bell.

No answer.

I knocked.

The door to the apartment on my left opened. A short, round woman wearing a floral-printed housedress stood there.

“You a cop?” she asked.

“No.”

“Oh, then you’re
another
one.”

I heard some shuffling footsteps coming from Lisa’s apartment. A dark eye appeared at the peephole.

“Who is it?” she said.

I held my card up a few inches from the peephole and kept my voice low and friendly.

“Lisa, my name is Steeg. I need to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Tony Ferris.”

I heard the quick snap of three locks being unlatched. Lisa Hernandez was a very careful woman.

At the last snap the door swung open, and Lisa appeared. She stared at the short, round woman.

“What the hell do
you
want?” Lisa said. “This ain’t your business.”

The short, round woman’s face creased into a sneer.
“Puta,”
she said.

“Bruja,”
Lisa lashed back.

This had all the makings of an entertainment.

The short, round woman retreated into her apartment and slammed the door.

“What was that all about?”

“My day is complete. The bitch knows everybody’s business. It’s annoying.”

Even in a white floppy robe and wearing no makeup, Lisa was a definite looker. Early thirties. Long, glossy black hair. A complexion that no tanning salon could hope to duplicate. Her eyes appeared clear, nothing leaking from her nose. Fluless. Maybe this was a mental health day.

Lisa stared at me as if I were a hair floating in a bowl of soup.

“Come on in,” she said.

I did.

She led me down a short foyer and into the living room. Her slippers made soft scuffing sounds on the hardwood floor. We passed a small kitchen, then a bathroom. The bedroom was off the living room.

The apartment was neat and furnished a hell of a lot better than mine. A very stylish cream-colored sofa, a couple of expensive-looking end tables, an Oriental area rug on the floor, and a flat-screen on the wall.

Not bad for someone who made thirty-five grand a year, tops.

She settled in on the sofa without offering me a seat. I sat down next to her anyway.

“What about Tony?”

Why beat around the bush? “He’s dead.”

She wrapped her arms around her thin frame and stared off into the distance. “I heard,” she said. Her voice was flat. Resigned. After what seemed a very long time, she looked back at me. “How?”

I filled her in on the general circumstances, leaving out the more gruesome details.

“All I want is some information and I’ll be on my way,” I said.

“I’ve worked for him for over a year,” she said. “He was always nice to me. Treated me well. I can’t believe this!”

“Tell me about him.”

“We had a normal business relationship. He’s the boss. I’m the peon. I do what he tells me. But unlike most of the schmucks I worked for, Tony was a good guy. Really cared about what he did. I mean, the job isn’t like saving the world, but Tony was like, y’know, into it.”

“Into it?”

“Yeah, into it. Like it mattered.”

“I would imagine that in the course of his business he stepped on some toes from time to time. I mean, when you’re, you know,
into it,
hurt feelings are hard to avoid.”

“It happens,” she said. “I mean, getting a city contract is a big deal, even though you got to wade through a mountain of paper to even get your chance at bat. A lot of these contractors are just scraping by doing whatever comes along. So when they miss out on a job, a lot of them go under, and the losing bidder has to trade in his suit and tie for a pickax or a hod. Again. Are they pissed off? Sure.”

“Would they be pissed off enough to retaliate?”

“Wouldn’t you? I mean, most of these guys have everything they own locked up in the business. Their houses, cars, credit, it all goes up in smoke. Then their wives get up their ass ’cause they got to give up Bloomingdale’s for Wal-Mart. It ain’t pretty.”

Fair point.

“Anything out of the ordinary happen lately?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Something on the order of making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. That kind of out of the ordinary.”

Her voice tightened.

“Tony never mentioned anything,” she said.

“It’s funny you say that. Torricelli said that he had received some strange calls that bordered on threatening. Did Tony ever get calls like that?”

She twirled a hank of hair in her fingers. “Not that I recall,” she said. “Look, I’m a glorified clerk. Too far down on the totem pole for stuff like that. The higher-ups like Torricelli, or even Tony, don’t, like, confide in me.”

“I see.”

“Do you really?”

“Did Tony ever talk about his wife?”

She smiled. “The bitch?” she said.

“That’s awfully harsh.”

“I guess you didn’t know her.”

“Actually, I did. We were married once.”

“Poor you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Were you asleep most of the time?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She shook her head. “Guys are really stupid.”

“No argument there.”

“You all think you know everything, but you know jack.”

Apparently.

“What am I missing?”

“Character is destiny.”

“Could you elaborate?”

“What’s the point?”

When I reached the street a gray van was pulling away.