Polterheist: An Esther Diamond Novel (11 page)

I followed him. (Other people comply when Lopez gives orders. Me, not so much.)

He approached the same trio of thick tree trunks where Rick and I had located the grimacing gnome earlier today. And I realized he was right: There was smoke. I could see it in the dim light of Solsticeland now that I knew where he was looking.

But based on the way it was rising in a thin coil from behind the three trunks, then lazily dispersing itself through the surrounding air, I didn’t think it was the start of an electrical fire.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Lopez said a moment later, and I knew for sure what the source of that smoke was. “Are you
kidding
me?”

I came to his side. He was so exasperated with our quarry that he forgot to be annoyed that I had followed him rather than staying where I was.

Her face and torso mostly hidden by the bunched-up folds of her voluminous white ball gown, Princess Crystal sat huddled in the hollow next to the grinning gnome, puffing away on a cigarette.

“What are you doing?” Lopez demanded.

I said, “She’s having a cigarette.”

“I can see that,” he said with forced patience. “I mean, why here?”

Cigarette dangling from her lips, Princess Crystal said in her throaty voice, “I can’t get out to the fire escape when it’s not my break.”

“What?” Lopez snapped.

“The fire escape is the only place she’s allowed to smoke,” I explained, “and only when she’s on break. If she tried to go out there now, she’d be noticed.”

Crystal took a long drag, then said, while smoke poured from her nostrils and mouth, “God, it is
inhuman
to expect me to go so long without a cigarette!”

“But she can usually disappear for five minutes without Miles noticing, so she has some favorite spots around the store where she goes for a smoke.” I added, “I didn’t know this was one of them. Crystal, did you know this whole area is pretty much off-limits for the rest of the night?”

“Yeah, no visitors. So I figured I wouldn’t be seen.”

Looking as if he suspected she suffered from brain damage, Lopez pointed out, “There’s been an accident here, and there are police, security guards, and maintenance workers roaming around this area.”

“But no Miles!” she said triumphantly. “
Perfect
spot.”

“You can’t stay here,” Lopez said firmly. “Come on, get out of there.”

“Says who?” Princess Crystal challenged.

“NYPD.”

“Shit!” She stubbed out her cigarette in the gnome’s ear. “NYPD? Are you serious? I can’t
believe
how strict Fenster’s is about this!”

“Come on,” Lopez said. “Let’s go.”

I stepped back, waiting for Crystal to emerge. There was some rustling of cloth, some grunting, and then more rustling, followed by some cursing.

She said, “I’m trapped! It’s this damn dress. Can you help me out of here?”

She stuck her hands out of the hollow, flapping them at us. Lopez and I each grabbed one hand and heaved. There was a moment of suspense, then Crystal and her dress popped out of the tree trunk like a cork coming out of a bottle.

She started straightening her billowing gown. “Damn it! You tore it! How am I going to explain that?”

Lopez said, “I’m sure you have somewhere you should be right now.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting proposed to?” I asked.

“Oh, crap, is it nearly time for that?” She grabbed Lopez’s wrist to check his watch. “You’re right. Gotta go!”

She lifted her heavy white skirts and dashed off, trotting through the Enchanted Forest toward Solstice Castle. From this angle, she actually
looked
like a fairytale princess running to meet her prince.

Gazing after her, Lopez said, “I’m starting to feel like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.”

“Yeah, I think that feeling is to be expected around here.”

“Does Fenster’s keep these people locked away somewhere and just take them out every November, letting them roam the fourth floor for a few weeks before they go back into cold storage for another year?”

“Please don’t suggest that to the family,” I said. “It sounds like something they’d consider trying.”

“Why are
you
working here?” he asked.

“I had some auditions, but I didn’t get hired for anything after
The Vampyre.”

“What about Stella’s?”

I looked at him in surprise. Since Bella Stella was a notorious mob hangout where several murders had occurred in recent years—one of which I had witnessed from about two feet away—Lopez had been candid about hating the fact that I worked there. Back when he and I had been dating oh-so-briefly in the spring, it had wound up adding a little strain to our budding romance that his bureau had my place of employment—and, by extension, me—under surveillance.

“Suddenly you’re in favor of me working at Bella Stella?” I asked dubiously.

“Actually . . .” He shrugged and admitted, “I just need to know why you’re
here.”

I frowned for a moment, puzzled; and then realization dawned. “We’ve just had a scene change, haven’t we? This is my police interview.”

“Yeah,” he said apologetically. “It is. I need to know—”

“Heads up! Coming through!”

Startled, we both fell back a step as a guy in coveralls came through the door in the west wall, behind which was a maintenance and storage area, pushed aside the dark netting that masked that wall, and entered the Enchanted Forest with a toilet plunger in his hand. “Don’t panic! I’m here!” he announced. “Where’s the trouble?”

“Maybe we should go somewhere else?” I suggested to Lopez.

“Good idea.”

9

I
knew we couldn’t expect to talk uninterrupted in the break room, so I suggested going into Miles’ office; the manager was likely to be making the rounds on the floor the rest of the night, given the disruption we’d had. His office was a plain, stark, small room with two uncomfortable chairs, which Lopez and I used, that were placed opposite the desk where Miles sat when he was here.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked suspiciously.

“No, you’re not,” Lopez said. “But I need some clarification.”

“Of what?”

“You were a material witness when a Gambello
capo
got whacked. Now you’re working for a company that’s experiencing a series of hijackings in which the Gambellos are the prime suspects. So I need to know—”

“What?” I said in surprise. “The Gambellos? Really?”

“You didn’t know? It’s been all over the news,” he told me.

“I haven’t seen the news,” I said irritably. “I’m always here! I haven’t seen any Gambellos lately, either. By the time I finished
The Vampyre
and needed to go back to work at Stella’s, she was already overstaffed for the season. She hardly has any shifts available for me until after the holidays, when the kids go back to college. So I haven’t been to the restaurant since I worked a lunch shift there early last week.”

“That’s why you took this job?” Lopez asked. “Because you couldn’t get enough hours at Stella’s this month?”

“Yes. Satsy—Saturated Fats, from the Pony Expressive—told me there were jobs available here because performers keep quitting. In fact, some of them don’t even bother to quit, they just stop showing up,” I added, blaming Moody Santa, in part, for the rough morning I’d had. “So I was able to get a job here right away. Solsticeland is covering my bills until Stella can give me full-time work in January.”

I noticed Lopez’s relief at how logical my account was, and I recognized the significance of his interest in my reasons for working here. Feeling incensed, I added, “I resent the implication that I’m involved in the hijackings!”

“I’m not implying that you’re involved,” he assured me. “But as soon as your name popped on the list of Fenster employees—”

“My named
popped?”
I repeated, not liking the sound of that. “Am I in some sort of OCCB database or something?”

“Of course, Esther,” he said, as if this should be obvious to me. “You witnessed a mob hit seven months ago. We don’t keep your name pinned to a bulletin board or anything, but we didn’t throw away those reports after we closed the case.”

“Oh.” I admitted, “I guess that makes sense.”

“But it didn’t pop that way,” he added. “I meant that
I
saw your name. We’re just starting to look at company employees, so we haven’t run any matches yet. There’s a separate, shorter list of seasonal employees, which I looked at as soon as we finally got it today.” Lopez paused before continuing, “Your name jumped out at me. And I figured this investigation would go better for both of us if I took the lead on clearing up exactly what you’re doing here.”

“I’m helping Santa,” I said. “And paying rent.”

“Okay.”

“Is this why you turned up on the fourth floor today while I was being strangled by a tree?”

He nodded. “After my meeting with the Fensters, I came down here to look for you, so I could ask you about this.”

“Am I going to be grilled by your colleagues?”

“No. You’re not under suspicion of anything. You were a witness to a hit, not a criminal accomplice.”

Apparently not wanting to rake up old arguments, Lopez tactfully avoided mentioning my friendship with certain members of the Gambello family. Nor did he mention my involvement, of which he had vehemently disapproved at the time, in exposing the culprits in that murder investigation.

He continued, “But if Gambello soldiers are the hijackers, then your connection to a previous Gambello case means that I need to know what you’re doing here, and I need to be able to explain it to my lieutenant and the other investigators.”

“Oh. All right.” I definitely preferred being asked this by Lopez to being questioned formally by his colleagues, so I nodded. “Fair enough. Um, is that the end of the interview?”

“Pretty much.” Seeming more relaxed now that he’d gotten an explanation from me which he could credibly share with OCCB, he leaned back in his chair, trying (without success, I suspected) to get comfortable. “Unless, that is, you’ve seen something unusual around here that you can tell me about?”

I wouldn’t pick up that cue for all the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in the world.

Lopez had stubbornly conventional views about mystical matters. Although he liked me and cared about me, he thought I was a crackpot for believing in supernatural phenomena, let alone for attributing various mysterious, disturbing, and criminal events to paranormally empowered perpetrators.

I found his attitude frustratingly rigid for someone who was, after all, a fairly religious Catholic. I didn’t know the extent of his faith, but I knew he’d been raised in the Church and still attended Mass regularly. And it’s not as if religion is a bastion of logic and consistency, after all, or as if spiritual faith is based on reason and evidence.

Then again, human nature is rarely founded in logic and consistency, either. And Lopez’s dismissive attitude about the supernatural was a common position, after all. Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d witnessed the sort of undeniably magical acts and events that had made me a believer. There were certainly times when I wished he would just take my word for something; but
I
wouldn’t have taken anyone’s word for it, after all, if I hadn’t experienced powerful mystical phenomena myself, up close and personal.

Lopez’s conventional beliefs about this sort of thing were also a big factor in his ambivalence (on a good day) about Max. Which was pretty ironic, since Max thought that Lopez might be gifted with mystical power of which he was unaware. By now, I had started to think that Max’s suspicions about this had merit. I wasn’t sure, of course; and neither was Max. We certainly wondered, though . . . But Lopez himself clearly hadn’t the faintest notion of any such thing, and I knew he would (depending on his mood) just be exasperated, bemused, or amused if we suggested it to him.

So there was no way I was going to tell him that Evil was haunting Fenster’s. I knew from experience that it wouldn’t get us anywhere. And I couldn’t think of anything I’d seen or heard here that might be relevant to the hijacking case.

So I said, “Unusual? Hmm, do you mean something like—oh, for example—an enchanted tree attacking me?”

“That was a pretty disturbing experience.” His expression changed and he looked concerned again. “I think I should get a police car to take you home now.”

Since I didn’t intend to go home, I shook my head. I also didn’t want to explain to Lopez why I urgently needed to go down to Greenwich Village now to see Max, so I said, “I don’t need a ride. It’s an easy trip to my place from here.” And that was perfectly true, in fact. Fenster & Co. was in the West Fifties, a couple of blocks south of Central Park; I lived in a shabbily comfortable rent-controlled apartment in the West Thirties, which was very convenient from here by subway.

Lopez was familiar with my apartment and knew this, but he still seemed concerned. So I added, “Look, it’s not as if I’m afraid the tree will follow me home. I’ll be fine.”

“Hm.”

I could practically see his thoughts in subtitles as he gazed at me, wondering whether he should insist on an escort or just drop the subject. We’d had conversations in the past that followed this route, and the scenery was getting familiar.

I was a creative, imaginative person (he was thinking), working in a weird and surreal place, suddenly endangered by a huge apparatus with spooky features and an audio program. I’d experienced a powerful combination of fear, adrenaline, and oxygen-deprivation in confusing and violent circumstances. All of which accounted for my high-strung behavior in the aftermath, as well as for my claiming some very peculiar things had happened during the incident.

The question in his mind now was whether I’d be all right, or whether I was more distraught than I realized.

I decided to get his mind off this question, which wouldn’t lead either of to any place productive, by changing the subject. “Do you really suspect the Gambellos in these hijackings?”

He blinked, obviously having been lost in his thoughts. “Huh? Oh. Well, we’re busily tearing apart their lives in an effort to find out, one way or the other. Pressure from the media and the Police Commissioner have put the family—and also OCCB—under a bright spotlight, so we’re bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘thorough investigation.’ By the time we’ve arrested someone, I’ll probably know how often the Shy Don gets up to use the bathroom at night.”

Victor Gambello, the Shy Don, had been the head of his crime family for decades. A contemporary of Constance Fenster’s, he was now in poor health and extremely frail. We had met briefly once, after I’d helped expose a killer who was trying to start a mob war that would consume his family, and he’d declared his friendship to me.

“God knows the Fensters seem convinced the Gambellos are responsible for this,” Lopez continued. “Hijacking trucks is certainly one of the Gambellos’ favorite pastimes. It’s sort of a family tradition with them. And they have a history with the Fensters, after all.”

“They do?” I knew both families now, sort of, but hadn’t had the faintest idea that they knew each other.

“Oh, sure. It goes way back. Hijacking trucks, knocking over warehouses, extortion. This all happened back when this place was still Fenster and Powell’s.” He paused, evidently remembering that I was from Wisconsin. “But an out-of-town girl like you probably doesn’t remember that or know about the Powells.”

“I’ve heard,” I said. “Elves talk.”

That made him grin. He continued, “A joint task force was assigned to the case. They made arrests, got convictions, and shut down the whole thing. So it all ended a long time ago. But because that history is there, now that someone is hijacking Fenster trucks again after all these years, the media have convinced themselves—and the public—that the Gambellos are the culprits.” He added with a touch of exasperation, “Which is interfering with the investigation and which will also make prosecution a big headache, no matter who we arrest.”

“So you aren’t convinced it’s the Gambellos?” I asked curiously.

“I’m looking for more evidence before I fall in love with a theory,” he said. “But . . . I’m a little skeptical. There was a hot spotlight on them and on the hijackings by the time the third truck got taken. I think that made the heist feel . . .” He shrugged, looking for the right word. “Too daredevil for the Gambellos. Too flashy. Too
risky,
” he added with a nod. “They’re crooks, but this is business to them. And one of the reasons the Gambellos are so successful is that they know it’s not good business for them to attract that much attention. So this just doesn’t seem to me like the way they do things.” He shook his head and concluded, “Their usual pattern would be to drop this plan like a hot rock the moment they realized every TV news camera in the city was suddenly trained on them—not to go knock over a third truck.”

“So it
is
three trucks? Not two?”

Lopez nodded. “The media doesn’t know yet about the first one, but that’s bound to change any minute. And then the heat on NYPD will get even hotter, what with Fenster’s being a Christmas favorite and all.”

“The police kept the first heist out of the news?” I guessed.

“No, the Fensters did,” Lopez said, his voice dry. “And they didn’t call the cops.”

“Seriously? Why?” Calling the cops struck me as a pretty self-evident thing to do after an armed robbery. Surely even someone as dim as Freddie Junior knew that?

“Esther, I just had a two hour meeting with that family and I
still
don’t know why they didn’t call the cops after the first heist,” he said wearily. “
Or
the second one.”

“They didn’t tell you about the second robbery, either?” I said incredulously.

“Nope. The police found out the way everyone else did—when news of that hijacking got plastered all over the media,” Lopez said, his face darkening with anger. “So we
started
the investigation with two trucks already hit and the media screaming blue murder that we weren’t doing anything. And then the next truck got hit.”

“Merry Christmas,” I said.

“It’s been a hell of a week.”

“How did the press find out about the second truck, if the Fensters weren’t reporting the robbery?” I asked.

“Freddie Junior told people about it. He’s also how the press first got ‘tipped’ that the Gambellos are behind this.”

“Why did he tell people?” I asked in confusion. “If the Fensters were trying to keep this a secret—”

“
I
don’t know why!” Lopez realized he’d snapped at me and said, “Sorry. But have you met Freddie? It’s like talking to porridge that’s been sent to an expensive prep school.”

“Yes,” I agreed with a startled laugh, “that’s exactly what it’s like.”

“Preston Fenster is in favor of letting the police handle this now.” Lopez scowled as he added, “But he doesn’t have control of the family, and they’re not all on board with the crazy notion of bringing in cops to investigate a series of armed robberies.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re idiots!” He added, “But you can’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Are they giving you any reasons?”

“For being idiots?” he grumbled.

“For not wanting the police involved,” I said patiently.

“Well, Helen Fenster-Thorpe seems to think that
negotiation
is the way to deal with armed robbers, and the police should just stay out of it and leave this problem to the professionals. So I suppose she’s one big reason no one called us.”

“What would she negotiate
for?
” I asked in puzzlement. “I mean, it’s not as if the hijackers are trying to do business with Fenster’s, is it? They just disappeared with all the merchandise, according to Arthur.”