by Blake Banner
“But you won’t obstruct me.”
“If you can prove—with hard facts—what you believe to be true, then you should do your job. But don’t expect me to help you in persecuting her.”
“You’re close, aren’t you?”
She hesitated. “We were once. But that’s another story. I admire her.”
That was when I saw him. He was about twenty yards away, beyond an ice sculpture, in an evening suit that probably cost as much as my car.
I turned to Shelly. “Will you excuse me for a moment, Shelly? I’ll be right back.”
She looked a little sad. “Of course. Go do your job, Detective Stone.”
I crossed the room and strolled up to Jackson Lee. He was chatting urbanely to a cluster of attractive women in sparkling dresses. They seemed to think that what he was saying was funny. I wondered if he would think that I was funny.
“Good evening, Lee. What a surprise to find you here.”
The women all turned to stare at me. Lee blinked at least half a dozen times. “Detective Stone. What are you doing here?”
I smiled as though his question surprised me. “The same as you. I was invited. Didn’t you know, Lee? I am a great benefactor of the underprivileged, of society’s marginalized minorities, of those who have no voice and are the victims of abuse. Those are my people, and I look out for them.”
He didn’t answer and I looked at the sparkling girls with which he had surrounded himself. “Mr. Lee and I have a little business to discuss in private. He’ll catch up with you in just a little while, won’t you, Lee?”
“Um…” He looked at them and nodded. “Yes, indeed. I’ll catch up with you in just a moment.”
They looked put out, muttered something about “Yeah, sure,” and drifted away.
I leered at Lee. “Introduce me to Hennessy.”
“What?”
“Do it now.”
“I can’t just go over and…”
“I’m not giving you an option, Lee. I know you’re connected. This is your chance to start backing the right horse.”
He frowned and shook his head. “No! Leave me alone. How the hell did you get in here, anyway?”
“You’d be surprised at the friends I have, Lee. Now I am going to give you one more chance to do the right thing. Introduce me to Hennessy, now.”
“No!”
“Do you know what I have in my pocket?”
He sighed. “Stone. Leave me alone or I’ll call security.”
I grinned. “I really wouldn’t do that, Lee, because by the time they get here the two ounces of crack cocaine I have in my pocket will be in your pocket, you’ll be face down on the floor and cuffed and facing prosecution for possession in the third degree. That’s a class B felony, Lee, punishable by one to nine years in prison. And you can be sure I will make it a show trial.”
“You wouldn’t…”
I laughed. “Why not? Because you’re connected? Screw you. Did you see who my date is, tonight? The editor in chief of the New York Telegraph. You know what she’d pay me for that exclusive?”
He had gone very pale. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Very probably. Now we are going to stroll over, like old pals, and you are going to introduce me to Carol Hennessy.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Somehow, I don’t think he’s on your team.”
He placed his empty glass on a passing tray and picked up a full one. He drained off half of it, took a deep breath, and led me across the crowded room to where Hennessy was talking to D’Angelo. They were moving slowly away from the group she’d been talking to.
She looked up at us as we approached and I noticed that her eyes were a very pale blue, and very hard, like diamonds that managed somehow to be ugly. I also noticed that D’Angelo was shaking his head at Lee. Lee’s voice croaked as he spoke.
“Senator Hennessy, what an honor. I have been required, in the strongest possible terms…” He laughed as he gestured toward me. “I have literally been given no option, but to introduce you to… to my acquaintance, Detective John Stone, of the NYPD.”
She looked at me with cryogenic eyes and a face that was devoid of any expression at all.
“Detective Stone, aren’t you a little out of your element?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. I feel right at home here. It’s just like Hunts Point, only with less diamonds and more coke.”
“Is that a joke?”
“No.”
“What do you want, Detective Stone?”
“I want to talk to you, Senator Hennessy. And let me tell you something before you answer. I will talk to you. I am not a Rottweiler. Rottweilers piss themselves and whimper when they see me coming. I am not relentless or obstinate, either. Relentless and obstinate adopt the fetal position and sob when they see me coming. You need to know that I am here, Senator Hennessy, and you need either to kill me, or talk to me. Which is it going to be?”
There was a very embarrassed silence. D’Angelo had gone ashen, and Lee was staring at me with his mouth slightly open. But Hennessy was giving me all the confirmation I had been looking for in my little speech. I have seen people decide to kill me several times in my career. Looking into the eyes of somebody who has decided to kill you is a unique experience. They transmit some kind of subliminal message which tells you that that part of the brain that deals in empathy and compassion has shut down, and they have made a commitment that goes beyond what normal human beings are capable of. They are going to do a terrible thing to you. That was what I saw in Senator Carol Hennessy’s eyes. And I also saw something else. She had arrived at that decision without difficulty. It was a place she was used to.
She gave a small sigh.
“Very well, Detective Stone. Come to my office tomorrow, at the Foundation. We’ll talk there and we’ll reach some kind of understanding.”
“Good. What time?”
She turned to D’Angelo. “What time?”
He blinked several times and drew breath. “Um, three. Three tomorrow afternoon.”
She looked at me with her blue ice-eyes, calibrating me, calculating, trying to read me. “Satisfied?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ll see you tomorrow, Hennessy.”
I walked away, toward where I had left Shelly. She was talking to a couple of guys with expensive hair-perms, but excused herself as she saw me approaching and came to meet me.
“You are either going to make my career or destroy me. Which is it?”
I shrugged with my eyebrows. “That’s up to you. You have to make a choice about whom you are going to back. But I’ll give you a tip, Shelly, because I like you and I believe you are a good person.”
“So much bewildering stuff in one short speech. A cop who says whom? You like me? I’m a good person? A tip?”
“All of those things. Within the next forty-eight hours, Senator Carol Hennessy will make an attempt on my life. When you see that happen, make a choice about where you stand.”
She stared at me. “You’re crazy.”
I nodded. “Very probably.”
She stared at me for a long moment. Then shook her head. “You are too intense for me, John. You are just all, totally, all or nothing. There is no gray area for you, is there? You’re just full on, all the time.”
I wasn’t sure what to answer. For a moment I had a flash of my wife saying something similar to me, a long time ago. And at the same time I saw Dehan, lounging in her chair, staring at the screen of her laptop, totally focused, full on, no gray areas. Then my cell rang. I pulled it from my pocket and looked at the screen. It was Dehan.
I glanced at Shelly. “I have to take this.”
She sighed. “Detective Dehan?”
“Yeah, Stone.”
“Hey, Sensei. Hope I didn’t get you out of bed.”
“Funny.”
“Soon as you can, Stone. You need to see what I’ve got.”
I looked Shelly straight in the eyes and said to Dehan, “
I’m on my way.” I hung up. “I’m sorry.”
She gave a cute, lopsided smile and said, “I misread you, Stone. I misread you both. It’s not that she’s in love with you, though she clearly is. It’s that you’re both in love with each other, but you won’t admit it.” She stepped forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Be happy, John, but just remember, under all that attitude and cocky self-confidence, she is just a vulnerable, lonely girl.”
I smiled and shook my head. “I have no idea what you are talking about, Shelly. But thanks, and you know you have the exclusive on this.”
She patted my arm and I left, with a hot pellet of excitement in my belly. The game had shifted, now we were moving in for the kill.
FIFTEEN
It was gone nine PM when I climbed out of the taxi under the frozen stars and walked into the station and made my way to the detectives’ room. Most of the desks were empty, but Dehan was still there, sitting in a pool of lamplight. She looked up as I approached, and grinned at me.
“Whoa! Look at you! James Bond, eat your heart out. How come you never dress like that for me, Stone?”
I dropped into my chair and studied her grinning face for a moment, smiling at her. “I’ll tell you what, if you wear a long, red satin dress with a split from ankle to hip, a pearl choker, and those little high-heeled shoes with a strap across the ankle? You know the ones? You wear that, and I’ll take you to dinner in my tux. Deal?”
“In your dreams, Sensei. Get your head out of the gutter and focus on this.” She threw a sheet of paper across the desk at me. “Pre-2008 Lee was an attorney working for Bismarck, Jones and Epstein, a reputable firm in Manhattan. In February 2008, he ditches David Thorndike, a good client, and two weeks later Thorndike is murdered. Now, buckle up. Three months after that, Lee resigns from Bismarck, Jones and Epstein to take up two directorships, one on the board of Consolidated Imports, the other on the board of PC Derivatives. Both New York based import-export companies. His position in those companies is non-executive. In other words, he gets paid for doing nothing.”
“Holy cow.”
“The cow gets holier. Over the next nine years, he accumulates four more directorships, all non-executive: Allied Petrochemicals, Gulf Shipping, United Investment, and Petro-Plastics. I guess he must be really good at doing nothing, because he keeps getting headhunted by multinationals that want him to do nothing for them—and are ready to pay big bucks for it. He is on the board of directors of six corporations, making an average of six hundred grand from each one every year. His total annual income is three million, six hundred and forty-five thousand bucks. For doing zip.”
“Do we know anything about these companies…?”
“Did I tell you you could unfasten your seatbelt? Siddown, lover boy. Each and every one of these companies belongs, directly or indirectly, to the Hennessy Investment Fund, in that they own controlling shares in them, or they own a company that owns them.” She grabbed another sheet of paper and slid it across the desk to me. “Consolidated Imports and PC Derivatives both belong directly to the Hennessy Investment Fund. Allied Petrochemicals belongs to the Global Corporation in which the Hennessy Fund has a forty-five percent stake. Gulf Shipping belongs to Consolidated Imports and Petro-Plastics belongs to United Investments, which in turn belongs to PC Derivatives. All, ultimately, are controlled by the Hennessy Investment Fund, and of course Carol Hennessy is the CEO of the Fund.”
“So the directorships were a pay off.”
She shrugged and spread her hands. “It’s not proof, yet, but it is very, very suggestive. He was in Hennessy’s pocket. When Dave told him about the article, he passed it on to Hennessy, with the added warning that he knew how good and how thorough Dave would be in his investigation. Plus, if we are to believe the anonymous letter—and it’s a big ‘if’—there was the added risk that Dave was in touch with her hit man. That’s something even Mrs. Teflon couldn’t slide out of. So she makes a deal with Lee. He kills Dave, and she takes care of him for life.”
I thought about it for a long moment, turning it around and examining it from every angle.
“That is good work, Dehan. Exceptional. I have a meeting with Hennessy tomorrow at three. We should get Lee in, at midday, and confront him with this, see if we can make him crack. Then go for Hennessy.”
She made a ‘yeah but’ face and said, “Nnnyeah, maybe. Just hear me out a bit.”
“Talk.”
“Okay, we both said how weird it was that as soon as you rattled Hennessy’s cage by talking to D’Angelo, we got an anonymous tip off and Lee suddenly came clean.”
“Right, that’s true, and it’s still weird.”
“Well, what if the mysterious hit man who was operating for eight years as her exclusive executioner is just a red herring? I mean, she used Lee for Dave, right?”
“Probably. We haven’t proved that yet. And besides, he was presumably retired by then and spilling the beans.”
“Okay, but even just from a common sense point of view, who has an assassin on a retainer? Who expects to have that many people iced?”
I scratched my chin. “Yeah, I take your point. But if anybody did, I would expect it to be Carol Hennessy.”
She looked unhappy. “I’m not comfortable with it.”
I shrugged. “Okay, I agree. We keep it in reserve until we can confirm it. You happy with that?”
“Yeah. Like the Telegraph, we confirm every fact before we commit to it.”
We sat staring at each other for a while. It was something we did sometimes when we were thinking. It freaked other people out, but it helped us to focus and concentrate. But this time, she frowned at me and said, “What?”
I gave my head a little jerk. “You are a very exceptional investigator, Dehan. And an exceptional person.”
She made no expression with her face, but kept watching me while she picked up an eraser and threw it at me.
“Cut it out, Stone. Stop getting intense on me. That’s my job. I’m Jewish, remember? You’re the cool Anglo-Saxon WASP. Especially dressed like that. Geeze! Lock up your daughters!”
I laughed. “Well, as long as I am dressed like this, what do you say? You want to grab a meal?”
She gave a mischievous smile. “Yeah, why not? Even if you didn’t dress for me.”
“I told you, red satin.”
She stood and grabbed her jacket. “Maybe I’ll surprise you one day.”
I grinned. “But don’t forget the little strappy shoes and the pearls.”
“Looks like you won’t.”
We stepped into the cold night. A biting wind was coming off the Sound and I paused a moment and shivered. I glanced up at the sky, but the glare from the city had obliterated all but the brightest stars. She stopped a couple yards ahead of me on the sidewalk and turned back, dangling my keys from her fingers, watching me and smiling. The amber light from the streetlamps touched her skin. It was an odd moment, as though my brain had decided to take a photograph of that instant, to preserve it for all time. I smiled back.
“Do you remember the town of Shamrock, in Texas[3]?”
“How could I forget?”
“We came out of… What was that place?”
“Big Vern’s Steak House. I had never seen so many stars.” She had known what I was going to say without my having to tell her. I stepped down and she went on, “Good steaks, too.” She linked her arm through mine and we walked toward the Jag. “I’ve never been on the arm of a man in a tuxedo before, and I probably never will again. You going to drive or shall I?”
I didn’t answer for a moment. My mind was elsewhere. Finally, I said, “How about you drive there, and I drive home?”
She hesitated a second and I saw her brows contract. “Okay…” I went around to the passenger side and leaned on the roof watching her. She said suddenly, “What’s up with you today, Stone? There’s something odd about you.”
I sighed. “I don’t know. Something Shelly said. It’s stupid. It’s nothing.�
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Her frown deepened. “What? What did she say?” Then her frown turned to a scowl. “You’re not getting feelings for her, are you?”
I laughed. “No, far from it. It was something about you. Well, about both of us.”
Now she was intrigued and she leaned on the roof across from me. I was beginning to shiver and I could hear her teeth chattering. Big clouds of condensation were billowing from our mouths.
“What? What did she say?”
“Nah! It was stupid, and it would probably make you mad anyway…”
“Stone! Tell me! What did she say…?”
I smiled, then grinned. The light from the lamp over her head made her eyes shine and she grinned back. For just a second I had the strange feeling that we had already said everything that we needed to say, that we both knew everything that was in the other’s mind, and no more speaking was necessary. We stood like that for a moment that was timeless, in silence, smiling at each other.
Then the high whine of an accelerating engine ripped the night in half. I saw her blink in slow motion and turn to look. Tires screamed on the wet blacktop and I saw the dark Audi skid around the corner. I was already shouting at Dehan to duck. Moving impossibly slow, she turned to look at me. I was running, as though I were wading waist deep in water, scrambling around the trunk of the Jag as the Audi accelerated. I saw the back window roll down. I saw the flash of fire, once, twice, three, four, five times. Then the noise like firecrackers going off. But by then I was throwing myself at Dehan, dragging her to the ground.
The sound of the engine receded. The tires squealed around the corner at the end of Fteley Avenue and I lay for a moment, staring down into her face. She was motionless. Her eyes were wide staring up into mine. Then I saw the blood on her blouse, and the blood on my hands. I said, “Dehan, no…” I felt the searing, burning pain in my chest, and black oblivion enfolded me.
SIXTEEN
I opened my eyes briefly. I felt strangely at peace. There was intense, burning pain, but I was somehow detached from it. A dark sky stretched to infinity overhead, pierced by one or two silver stars; and there was lamplight. A cold breeze touched my face. There were voices, shouting but indistinct. They sounded worried.