Hard Hit

by J. B. Turner

  “Get a life, Kelinski.”

  “You’re leaving New York!”

  “Not possible. My daughter is in the hospital here.”

  “She has to go too.”

  Reznick grabbed the man by the throat. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me!”

  “Now you listen to me, my daughter can’t be moved. She’s in a goddamn coma.”

  Kelinski closed his eyes as Reznick loosened his grip. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “She’s in a goddamn coma. So my answer is no, I won’t be leaving New York.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Jon. The decision has been made.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “She will be moved to a new hospital. And you will leave New York. The security and national interests of the United States are in play.”

  Reznick shook his head. “Motherfucker. Are you kidding me?”

  “Deadly serious. You’ve got forty-eight hours to get out of town.”

  Thirty-Two

  A few hours later, Acosta had finished her paperwork for the day. She stifled a yawn; she hadn’t slept much the past few nights. She was worried about the escalating scenario between Reznick and Brutka. But she was also wondering what all the political infighting between the Feds, the NYPD, and the State Department would come to.

  The only one who seemed to gain from this mess was Brutka himself.

  Acosta sympathized with Reznick’s position. All the cops at the Nineteenth Precinct did. She felt sorry for him, alone in New York, his daughter fighting for her life. She knew he was going about it in a reckless manner. But she also knew that Reznick’s actions had exposed a terrible rift between the NYPD and the FBI on one side and the State Department on the other.

  Acosta sensed that matters were coming to a head. And it was all down to Jon Reznick, seemingly on a one-man mission to bring Brutka down, no matter the personal cost.

  She secretly admired his direct, no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners approach. It would most likely be how her own brother, Diego, would have dealt with things if she had been the victim of a hit-and-run. These men were definitely cut from the same cloth.

  Acosta had been toying with putting Reznick in contact with someone who knew far more about Brutka than she did. A guy she trusted.

  She had been hesitating since she had first met Reznick. But she had heard about the ultimatum from the State Department, telling Reznick to leave town. It was the final straw.

  She took a deep breath, wondering if she should do it. This wasn’t how an NYPD detective should be acting. But Acosta reasoned that while she didn’t condone lawbreaking, she was also human and wanted to help Reznick in any way possible in his pursuit of Brutka.

  An email pinged in her inbox. Acosta had been waiting for the email for hours. She maneuvered the mouse and clicked to open the attachment from the NYPD Computer Crimes Squad. It was the last photo taken on Daniela’s cell phone, found hidden inside a bag of frozen peas in her apartment. It took a few moments for her brain to process the image. It was a bloated Brutka, sleeping, white powder on his nose.

  “What the hell?”

  Acosta stared at the image in shock. Dumbfounded shock. It was the real Aleksander Brutka. Not the carefully cultivated persona of the smooth-talking elite diplomat. But a man who clearly lived a shadow life. A life of secrets. Dark secrets. A man with something to hide. The hit-and-run and leaving Lauren Reznick in a coma were just the tip of the iceberg. Aleksander Brutka was using drugs. And now here he was, on the cell phone of a dead hooker. Why? Did she want her abuser or dealer to be known if something happened to her? That made sense.

  Her mind began to race. She thought of Daniela dying alone in her apartment, only hours after she had called, saying people were following her. She said there had been a car outside. Was this who’d killed her? Was this who’d ordered her murder?

  The more Acosta thought about it, the more convinced she was that Aleksander Brutka was far more dangerous than she had first thought. She wondered why she hadn’t figured it out earlier. It wasn’t just the callous way Brutka had run down and left Lauren Reznick for dead. That was bad enough. But she was beginning to see how Brutka might also be to blame for Daniela’s death, either directly or indirectly. The guy was appalling. He was a monster. The bastard had to be stopped. But how? As it stood, she was powerless. The thought of that arrogant prick going free depressed her as much as the thought that she hadn’t been able to get Daniela to safety in time. A wretched end to her young life, in a shitty room in East Harlem, either overdosing or being made to look like she’d overdosed.

  Acosta began to make the connections. Brutka wasn’t just a drug user. He was almost certainly a drug dealer. And perhaps even a pimp. Was this guy, this fucking privileged diplomat, responsible for far more than just getting high and drunk driving? Was he the violent bastard who’d beaten Daniela, abused her, and drugged her? And did it really end with just Daniela? Or were there other victims?

  She waited as she contemplated whether to speak to Reznick or not. She realized that what she was about to do might get her suspended or even fired. But despite everything, she found herself dialing his number.

  “Yeah?” His voice was low.

  “Jon, can you meet up for a drink?”

  “Now?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “That’s fine. Where?”

  “Baker Street Pub, an Irish sports bar, on First Avenue.”

  “See you there.”

  Reznick hung up.

  When she arrived, Reznick handed her a beer as he nursed his own. She pulled up a stool beside him at the near-empty bar, a Yankee game being rerun on the TVs.

  Acosta wondered if she was doing the right thing. She felt tense knowing she was acting completely out of character. She had two things she wanted to tell Reznick. She took a sip of the cool beer and looked at Reznick. He looked tired, haggard. “You look like shit,” she said. “You need to get some sleep.”

  Reznick took a couple of gulps of beer. “Lot on my mind.”

  Acosta edged closer, voice low. “I know. You really are a stubborn bastard, Reznick. Anyone else would’ve just moved on.”

  “Not the way I work. I didn’t realize how many friends in high places this guy has.”

  Acosta said, “I heard you had a run-in with Brutka.”

  “And two of his goons the previous night.”

  Acosta shook her head. “Seems like you’re on the radar of the State Department.”

  Reznick nodded.

  “I heard you’ve been asked to leave the city.”

  Reznick shrugged.

  “I’m not condoning what you did to Brutka, let’s be clear, and I can only imagine what it must be like. But I’m telling you, your instincts on Brutka are correct.”

  “Look, I’m sorry for giving you so much grief on this. But I just can’t let this go.”

  “Like I said, I’m not condoning what you’ve done.”

  “I want him off the streets. But somehow I’m the one being told to leave New York. I mean, what the fuck?”

  “We all want him off the streets.”

  Reznick glanced up at the game on the TV.

  “I heard the FBI wants him gone.”

  Reznick nodded. “It’s the State Department. That’s where the problem lies. Had a little chat with one of their guys this afternoon outside the park. Not far from here. In an SUV on Fifth Avenue.”

  Acosta sipped her drink. “Fuck.”

  “I’m assuming that the State Department guys don’t normally go cruising around New York City.”

  “It’s really disappointing that this is their position. In fairness, in the past, if it was diplomats charged with drunk driving, theft, or sexual assault, they were always hauled off home.”

  “That would make sense.”

  “Brutka is clearly being protected by the State Department.”

  “Which makes me wonder if that’s why he acted with impunity.”
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  “Here’s the thing: Brutka wasn’t on the radar of law enforcement or the Feds, although his habits might have been known to the State Department. I thought you might be interested to know that Brutka is, apparently, on the radar of a prominent journalist. This guy keeps his cards close to his chest. I trust him. I don’t know what he knows about Brutka. But from what I’m hearing, he hasn’t been able to lay a hand on him. Yet.”

  Reznick smiled. “Why do you think that is?”

  Acosta sighed and leaned in close. “Why do you think? Money, influence, powerful friends.”

  Reznick was quiet for a few moments. “I’m assuming you didn’t just want to meet to shoot the breeze, pleasant though it is.”

  “Not exactly. I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things.”

  Reznick shrugged.

  “A little while ago I got confirmation about the overdose death of a girl up in East Harlem. Claimed she had been threatened, abused, beaten, treated like a sex slave, but didn’t press charges. She was scared out of her mind. I spoke to her yesterday, and she said there were people outside her apartment. I put in a call, some cops went by a couple of hours later, but there was no answer. Eventually, I turn up at her apartment, super lets me in. Dead. Within hours of speaking to me.”

  “Fuck.”

  “She told me shortly before she died that she had taken a picture of the guy who beat her up after he’d passed out in her apartment. Guess who?”

  Reznick fixed his steely gaze on her. “You’re kidding me.”

  Acosta shook her head.

  “Brutka?”

  Acosta nodded. “It was him alright. So now there are more questions.”

  “But with the same answer.”

  “No doubt.”

  “There’s a lot more to this guy than just a hit-and-run.”

  Acosta took a gulp of her beer. “I think you can assume Brutka’s job as a diplomat is simply a cover for him staying in New York and doing whatever the hell he wants, no matter the cost. I would wager that this guy is involved in pimping, drug dealing, violence. Who knows? Maybe even murder.”

  “But what the hell can anyone do about it?”

  Acosta leaned in closer. “That leads me to the second point. The guy I was telling you about. The journalist. He might be interested in your story.”

  Reznick sipped his beer. “I’m not that enamored of journalists, I have to tell you.”

  “He’s a good guy. Very diligent. Very thorough. But also very discreet. He’s got sources across the city. I know him. I know him well. And I trust him.”

  “Have you told him what happened to Lauren?”

  “I mentioned it, yes.”

  Reznick nodded.

  “This journalist, when I told him about Brutka and the hit-and-run, he began to open up a bit. Said he had been on the receiving end of Brutka’s reach. Lawsuits against the New York Post like you wouldn’t believe. The paper came under intense pressure to pull a story the journalist was working on. And guess what? Despite a major investigation into Brutka, which lasted for eighteen months, all that hard work amounted to nothing.”

  “They scrapped the investigation?”

  Acosta shook her head. “Put it on hold. About a year ago the journalist said that a freelance reporter contacted the National Enquirer with another story about Brutka, and they had it all lined up. They bought the rights to it. Half a million dollars changed hands.”

  “So what the hell happened to the story?”

  “I heard someone at the magazine got a call from someone to kill the story. They were paid another fat sum to spike the damn thing.”

  “Kill the story?”

  “And that was the end of that.”

  Reznick sighed. “What about the journalist? How did that work out?”

  “Here’s the thing. I’ve been in touch with him. He says that the new editor wants to pursue this. But he wants more meat on the bone, so to speak. A few of his sources were problematic, since the victims were illegal aliens in this country. Ironically, from Brutka’s own country. Ukraine. Prostitutes, mostly.”

  Reznick drank the rest of his beer and ordered up another round for them. He hunched over his drink. “So this guy has been investigating Brutka . . . He just needs more information?”

  “The guy has a dossier on this scumbag. He’s got the story. He wants to bring him down. So that’s something you have in common.”

  “True.”

  “He knows everything about Brutka. But if you could let him know what transpired, in your words, it would give the story about your daughter’s hit-and-run, the guys attacking you in the park, all that stuff, a way in. It would mean an overwhelmingly convincing firsthand account.”

  “You want me to speak to him?”

  “That’s up to you. But yeah, you could help him. His aim is to get even better evidence to nail the bastard. But he can also help you learn far, far more about the big picture. I think we’re only scratching the surface. But the journalist, Tom Callaghan, knows the full story.”

  Reznick pondered what Acosta was saying. “I’m not going on the record.”

  “You don’t have to. He just wants someone to tell him, not via NYPD sources, what really happened.”

  “The fun guy from the State Department I bumped into said I’ve got to be out of town in forty-eight hours. I think they’re deadly serious.”

  Acosta sipped her beer. “You’ve got a window of opportunity. Your call, Jon.”

  Thirty-Three

  The following morning, just before lunch Reznick met up with Tom Callaghan at the Old Town Bar in the Flatiron District. Inside, it was all dark wood and low lighting. A few barflies looked up from their beers.

  A big, stocky guy signaled him from across the room. It had to be Callaghan. He wore a short-sleeved white linen shirt with a couple of pens in the top pocket, jeans, sneakers. “Nice to see you.”

  Reznick shook his hand.

  Callaghan ordered a couple of Heinekens. He handed one to Reznick. “Wanna sit down?”

  Reznick nodded and followed the journalist to a quiet booth at the far end of the bar. He sat down opposite the journalist. He felt as if he was being scrutinized. He looked around to get his bearings. “My kind of place.”

  “Favorite haunt of mine. Spend way too much time in here, my wife says.”

  Reznick sipped the froth off the top of the beer. His gaze wandered around the bar before he looked across the table at Callaghan. “Here are the ground rules: no photographs of me or my daughter.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Also, you can’t identify either of us, do you understand?”

  “I just want to say that I have a daughter myself. And I can only imagine what you’re going through. It’s a terrible situation.”

  Reznick nodded. “Appreciate that.”

  “What’s the latest on your daughter?”

  “Still in an induced coma.”

  “Really sorry, Jon. Listen, can I say where you’re from?”

  “You can say I’m from Maine. And that my daughter was visiting New York. She’s a college student, that’s all I can say. That is accurate but doesn’t reveal our identities.”

  Callaghan leaned across the table. “Fine,” he said, lowering his voice. “Is it OK if I record this conversation on my cell phone so my editor has a verbatim account of our conversation?”

  “Do not identify me. Am I clear?”

  “Totally. That’s fine. I want you to be comfortable. And I want to assure you that I protect my sources. This is important to me. Underpins what I’m all about.”

  Reznick sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  Callaghan took out his cell phone and started recording. “Tell me what happened, in your own words.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did you get involved with Aleksander Brutka?”

  Reznick took a gulp of beer before he began a broad-brush overview of events, beginning from the moment he was told by cops th
at his daughter had been in an accident. He talked for nearly an hour, trying to fill in as much as he could. The surveillance of Brutka’s building, gaining access through the Realtor, and telling Brutka to leave town at gunpoint. And he also mentioned what Acosta had revealed about the cell phone photo of Brutka lying passed out, discovered at the dead girl’s apartment in East Harlem.

  Callaghan was taking shorthand notes, flicking through page after page. “That’s wild.”

  Reznick then went on to talk about how he got pulled over by the NYPD Hercules counterterrorism team when he put Brutka’s apartment under surveillance. Then about attacking Brutka inside the UN.

  Callaghan took a few moments to reply, as if assessing exactly what he’d been told. “Are you kidding me? Inside the UN? How on earth did you get in?”

  “I know a guy. Hacker friend. Managed to get into their identification department.”

  Callaghan whistled. “And you . . . approached Brutka in the bathroom? Are you kidding me?”

  “I had been keeping an eye on him inside for fifteen minutes or so. Then I got a chance to get him one-on-one. He didn’t like that.”

  Callaghan was quiet for a few moments. “Was there something that made you want to confront him again?”

  “He sent my daughter flowers. With a note. And he called my cell phone to say he was checking her out on Facebook. He said some vile stuff.”

  Callaghan nodded.

  “In my eyes, he had crossed a line again.”

  “Couldn’t agree more. Listen, what you’re telling me matches the same arrogant, narcissistic, violent behavior I know he’s capable of. Brutka is very dangerous.”

  Reznick sipped some more beer. “I’m not an expert, Tom, but he seems to get off on the thrill of it all. Knowing he can’t be touched. I mean, who would send flowers to the girl he left in a coma?”

  Callaghan shook his head and scribbled more notes. “I really appreciate you sharing all of this.”

  “I want to do anything to bring this fucker down.”

  “I don’t want to underplay it, but your daughter, as you may know, is only the latest casualty.”

  Reznick said nothing.

  “I know of at least eight young women who have been abused and assaulted by him.”