Nightbird

by Edward Dee

  “Don’t blame me for this mess,” Gregory said. “Your beloved uncle needed to borrow some clothes. Where do you shop, anyway, Preppy City? Nothing but Dockers and blazers. Your poor uncle’s gonna look like Biff the Yuppie Cop.”

  “Where is he?”

  Gregory pointed to the bedroom. “In there, asleep. Don’t wake him up, he’s had a rough day.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “It’s a long, sad story, but it has a happy ending. He’ll tell you himself when he wakes up. Right now, you’d better call your magazine—your machine is full of messages.”

  “Is it okay if I use my own bathroom? Or is the chief of detectives in the shower?”

  “The chief is a bubble-bath man,” Gregory said, waving his hand toward the bathroom.

  On the way in Danny saw his uncle, the covers pulled up to his neck, his head wrapped in bandages. Danny turned around quickly.

  “Tell me what the hell happened to him. Right now.”

  “Use the bathroom, kid. Before you start dancing around. Then I’ll tell you.”

  “Tell me now, goddamn it.”

  “Relax, for chrissakes, will ya? You’ll wake him up, screaming like a banshee. Just be quiet. Your uncle will be all right. He was involved in a minor tussle, that’s all.”

  “I’d hate to see a major tussle.”

  “He has eight stitches in his scalp, and his right hand is in a cast. Some little bone is fractured. But you should see the other guy.”

  “Who is the other guy?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. We’re gonna snap him up tonight.”

  “Does Aunt Leigh know about this?”

  “She knows we’re here, and he’s okay. But don’t you dare call her. I’ll personally kick your ass if you talk to her.”

  Danny hated the way cops like Gregory thought they had to spoon-feed bad news. As if their knowledge required a warning label: Weaker doses recommended for civilians. In the bathroom he found a blood-streaked towel tossed across the shower rod. The sink looked like a butcher’s tub. A black sweatshirt balled up in the trash can. When Danny came out of the bathroom Gregory was looking through the items he’d dropped on the telephone table.

  “You went to the track today,” Gregory said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Two-dollar bills,” he said. “Anyone with a roll of two-dollar bills is coming from the track.”

  “Must be great to know everything.”

  “It’s a heavy burden, my boy. Now sit down and we’ll talk.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  “Fine,” Gregory said, and he handed Danny a glass of chill-able red he’d poured from the box in the refrigerator. “Your uncle got jumped in Faye Boudreau’s place, by some guy whose name I can’t tell you right now.”

  “Because you don’t know.”

  “Oh, we know,” Gregory said. “Guy named Victor. Complete ID is forthcoming. We’ll know it all by sunup, podner.”

  “Muscular guy, dark hair,” Danny said. “Born in Mexico. Lives in Florida, but currently residing in the Bronx. Spends summers here working as a street performer in midtown, most likely a juggler.”

  Gregory looked at him, appraising, then said, “It appears that Victor is involved with Faye Boudreau in a scheme to extort money from Trey Winters.”

  “Her name is Faith,” Danny said. “Her real name is Faith.”

  Danny knew Joe Gregory wouldn’t tell him anything he could avoid saying. To Joe Gregory information was a one-way street. It went against his nature to tell a civilian anything at all.

  “We have a team watching Two Ten Echo Place,” Gregory said. “If we had the right information, we could execute a search warrant within the hour. You got something specific you want to tell me?”

  “You don’t need me. You’ll know it all by sunup, podner.”

  “I hope you’re not holding back information.”

  “That’s against the law,” Danny said.

  Gregory smiled. “I can only tell you so much,” he said.

  According to Gregory, Winters told them that last Tuesday night he was going to meet Abigail Klass when this dark, bodybuilder-type man handed him an envelope. Inside the envelope was a note outlining money demands and threatening exposure of a sexual relationship between Winters and Gillian Stone. Pictures were involved. Yesterday the same man delivered a second envelope with instructions on how the money was to be delivered.

  “Who took the pictures?”

  “Winters doesn’t know,” Gregory said. “He denies he slept with her. He claims he’s being set up all around.”

  “If there wasn’t some basis in truth, he would have called the cops last week. Why is he even paying if it’s not true?”

  “Because he’s full of shit all around,” Gregory said.

  “This muscular guy is Victor,” Danny said. “The same guy who jumped my uncle.”

  “That’s the story as we see it.”

  “His name is Victor Nuñez. A few years ago he was considered one of the world’s best trapeze artists. He lives at Two Ten Echo with a guy named Pinto Timoshenko. The lease is probably in Timoshenko’s name.”

  Gregory wrote on the back of a magazine, around the edges of a Gap ad. “Whatever you got, kid, you better give it all up. We haven’t got time to play games. This exchange is going down in a couple of hours.”

  “Then talk faster,” Danny said. “Was Gillian involved?”

  “Not directly,” Gregory said. “At first Winters thought she was involved, trying to get even with him somehow. That’s why he brought the costume that night. Figured he could change her mind. But he realized she didn’t know shit, the way she was acting. And she wasn’t a good enough actress to fool him.”

  “What a bastard,” Danny said.

  “We figure Gillian told Faye about the affair. And Faye and this guy Victor set up the scheme. We don’t know how they’re connected yet.”

  “They grew up together,” Danny said. “In a circus family outside Sarasota.” He handed Gregory a circus program and pointed out the picture of Victor Nuñez.

  “I’m going to wake your uncle up, see if he can identify this mutt. Then I’m going to Mid-Town North and get this picture out. Get a warrant going. They’re probably long gone from Echo, but we’ll give it a shot.”

  “What was Scorza’s role?”

  “The bank. Winters says he couldn’t ask his wife for the quarter of a mil. He was protecting her.”

  “What happens now?”

  “At one A.M. Winters is supposed to get a phone call telling him where to meet. The exchange is the money for the pictures. We’re going to grab him then.”

  “Where did you get so much money on such short notice? Are you risking Scorza’s money?”

  “What money?” Gregory said. “No reason to risk real money. It’s not like someone’s life is hanging in the balance. We got about five hundred bucks on the outside of the stacks, the rest is fake. Just cut-up paper.”

  “So who killed Gillian?”

  Gregory shrugged. “Right now we don’t know any different than we did last week, and we may never know.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Danny said. “That’s not right.”

  “I hate to be the bearer of all this bad news. But you can’t write about this affair, either. Your uncle says he doesn’t want to hurt Darcy Winters any more than he has to.”

  “That’s the meat of the story. That’s everything.”

  “I know,” Gregory said, smiling. “Sometimes your uncle is a little too much of a bleeding heart, isn’t he. And don’t bother asking… you can’t go with us tonight.”

  “You fucking bastard.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t my decision,” Gregory said. “Call the chief of detectives, you want to bitch at somebody. You got anything further you want to tell me? How does this Victor get around? He own a car, or anything?”

  “No,” Danny said. “Victor Nuñez does not own a car.”

  Gregor
y went into the bedroom. Danny rubbed his arms in the icy cold room. He walked over to the telephone table and put on his seersucker jacket. He picked up his wallet, the roll of two-dollar bills, and his car keys. He yelled that he was going out to grab something to eat. Gregory said something from the bedroom, but Danny was already out the door.

  43

  Hats and bats, they call it when the NYPD goes all out. The phrase had its origin in the riotous sixties, when cops were hurriedly summoned from precincts all over the city and ordered to bring helmets and nightsticks. In the last hour of Wednesday twenty cops jammed into two chaotic rooms at the Hotel Edison. Another three dozen waited in cars spread out around the Times Square area. The chief of detectives spared no expense, determined that the life of a high-profile citizen like Trey Winters would not end on his watch. Hats and bats was the order.

  “Know what, pally?” Joe Gregory said from the queen-size hotel bed. “From the back you look like the Invisible Man.”

  “Then pretend you can’t see me,” Ryan said.

  Ryan wore his Yankee hat over the white hospital turban. His borrowed wardrobe consisted of Danny’s blue woolen blazer, tan chinos, and a blue oxford button-down. His head was mummy wrapped, his arm in a sling, and his gun hand encased in blue molded plastic. He looked more as though he should be marching with a fife than working a case. But he was thinking about Trey Winters. Wondering if he was getting away with murder.

  “Or that old Bogart movie,” Gregory said. “The one where he gets all the plastic surgery. What the hell was that movie? Lauren Bacall. Bogie’s whole head is wrapped in bandages, and he’s walking around in a suit.”

  Gregory reclined like a man of leisure, tie loosened, pillows stacked behind him, a copy of the Post in his hands. He kept glancing at Ryan, talking him up. Mother hen watching. On TV Letterman waved the top ten list.

  “Dark Passage,” Ryan said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The movie where Bogie wears the bandages.”

  Both Ryan and Trey Winters recognized Victor Nuñez from the picture in the circus program. In his last message Nuñez had instructed Winters to be in his office at one A.M. with all the money in one soft bag. He was told to have a cell phone and a car ready nearby.

  “Couple more cops in here and we could open a gin mill,” Gregory said. “All we needed were two experienced detectives. Me and you, pally. We coulda pulled off this caper with half a load on.”

  The Major Case Squad was running the show. With their youthful crew running around the overcrowded hotel room, they made Ryan and Gregory look like chaperons on a high school field trip.

  More than fifty cops were linked into the hotel room base by radio. The husky voice of Sergeant Rosalie Minardi, born in New Jersey, directed all movements from the adjacent room, via the airwaves. They called her “Totowa Rose.”

  Ryan asked, “They execute the warrant in the Bronx?”

  “Place was cleaned out,” Gregory said. “Except for some weight equipment and three banged-up bowling balls. Perfect tenants, the landlady said. Quiet, paid their bills. She ID’d Nuñez from the circus picture. Ringling Brothers is supposed to be faxing up a picture of the Russian.”

  “The landlady say if they had a car?” Ryan said.

  “The Russian had a beat-up old Chevy, but she hadn’t seen the car or them in a coupla days. And Faye is still among the missing.”

  With slightly more than an hour to go, Trey Winters was in his office, learning his lines with remarkable composure. The star awaited his cue with wires running across his upper body and a battery pack taped to the small of his back.

  Winters had been briefed on exactly what was expected of him when Nuñez called: Make sure you make a strong plea for the pictures. If you cooperate too easily without doing the natural thing, the extortionist will suspect a setup. But say the minimum, then drive normally to wherever directed, drop the money, and leave. That’s it. Don’t improvise. Don’t linger.

  “We’ll only be in here for one phone call,” Ryan said. “This is going to be a road rally.”

  Tech Services equipped Winters’s car with a new tracking device based on the technology used in the map locator systems in expensive cars. The car had also been chemically marked on top, so it could be seen from the NYPD helicopter. But the helicopter was grounded because of the weather. Letterman ran a canned ham out into the audience.

  “No way this amateur gets away,” Gregory said. “We’ll be in Brady’s by last call, guaranteed. I definitely want to be there when you walk in. We should get some more bandages, cover your whole face like Bogie. For laughs.”

  Funny money had been provided to Winters. A backpack containing stacks of paper had been topped with a veneer of U.S. currency. It was wrapped to mimic the exact specs of a quarter of a million dollars in old fifties. The weight was the trick. The fake boodle was broken down into five bundles, each six and a half inches tall. Weight had to be added because plain paper, like new money, was feather light. Grit, grime, and body oils added surprising heft to greenbacks. The total actual weight of a quarter mil in old fifties was twelve and a half pounds.

  The call came at two minutes after one. Winters picked up on the first ring.

  “You have the money?”

  “Yes,” was all Winters said.

  The male caller asked for Winters’s cell phone number, then said, “Drive to the corner of Central Park West and Ninety-fifth Street and wait for my next call.” He asked Winters to repeat the location, told him to leave immediately, then hung up.

  “Winters is being too brave,” Ryan said, fishing his nephew’s blazer out of the closet. “He should be more nervous. Worried that we might lose him in traffic. Worried about something.”

  Gregory helped Ryan on with his jacket. Ryan slipped his left arm into the sleeve. His right arm stayed inside the jacket, which Gregory laid over the sling.

  “It’s too easy,” Ryan said. “It’s a bad omen.”

  Gregory began to sneeze. Hotel doors opened and closed, and the sound of heavy footsteps hurried down the hallway. The weighty bump of cop gear thunked against walls, the squeak of leather shifting on a moving hip.

  “You shouldn’t think so much, pally,” Gregory said. “It takes all the fun out of being a cop.”

  44

  Danny Eumont walked out on Joe Gregory and drove straight to the Bronx. For two hours, he scoured the area around Walton Avenue and East Burnside until he found a battered Chevy Nova with Florida plates. It was a piece of the puzzle he hadn’t surrendered to Gregory. Jake Bugel had told him that Victor Nuñez and Pinto Timoshenko sometimes stayed with his cousin, who still lived in this “hellhole.” Danny knew they hadn’t returned to the Echo Place apartment. He figured Jake’s cousin was worth a shot. He parked his Volvo on the next block and waited.

  The Chinese-Spanish takeout on the corner handled a steady stream of customers. Danny locked his car doors. A man sold compact music disks out of the trunk of a Lexus. Danny rolled up the windows, despite the heat. Luckily, he didn’t sweat for long. At nine-thirty P.M. Victor Nuñez and Faye Boudreau came around the corner, Nuñez pushing an old bicycle, a blue duffel bag slung across his shoulder. Faye slid behind the wheel of the Chevy. Nuñez tried to wedge the bike into the trunk, but the lid wouldn’t close on the handlebars, so he tied it down with rope. Danny wondered where the Russian was.

  As soon as Nuñez got in, Faye pulled away from the curb. She made the left on Jerome Avenue. Danny followed them down the Major Deegan Expressway onto the Triborough Bridge. At the bridge toll, Danny was two cars behind the Nova. He prayed the drivers in front of him had the correct change and no stupid questions. Faye handed her money to the toll collector. Danny leaned out his window, trying to see if they’d take the Manhattan exit or go on to Queens. But the Nova cut immediately to the left, its trunk lid bouncing. Fifty yards past the toll, it disappeared down the ramp to Randall’s Island.

  Danny knew there was only one way to drive off the islan
d: they had to come back his way. He cruised down the ramp onto the broken and unmarked pavement. Very slowly, very carefully. The island was a spooky place, abandoned by cars and people. A lost world between Manhattan and Queens, junky and overgrown. All roads seemed to lead to traffic circles that spun you around to where you began. He spotted the Nova pulled up onto the grass near the high chain-link fence that surrounded the NYC Fire Department’s Training Academy. Danny parked and snapped off his lights.

  Victor Nuñez took the bike and the duffel bag out of the trunk. He slung the bag over his shoulder, said something to Faye, then pedaled away. Danny scrunched down in the seat as Faye drove straight toward him. After she passed he sat up and followed her off the island, to Queens. First to a liquor store on Ditmars Boulevard, then to this spot on Shore Boulevard. Directly across the Hell Gate from Ward’s Island.

  Danny wished he’d brought a cell phone. He should call his uncle, let him know that Nuñez was on the island. But he was already committed. In for a penny, in for a pound, as Joe Gregory always said. Danny had already lied about Timoshenko’s Chevy Nova and the fact that Victor Nuñez might be at Jake Bugel’s cousin’s apartment. But if he’d told Gregory everything, he still would have been cut out. Police business, Gregory would have said. Danny couldn’t let that happen.

  This wasn’t about closing a case to him, and it wasn’t even about writing a story. It was about a phrase his uncle always used: “Do the right thing.” He made it sound so simple. The “right thing” in this case was to find justice for Gillian. If the police weren’t going to do it, he was.

  The rain had stopped as Danny got out of the olive and walked along Shore Boulevard. Just a light drizzle fell through the lights of the Triborough Bridge far above him. He walked under the massive stone highway, traffic a low, steady roar.

  He came up behind the Nova, on the passenger side. Faye was behind the wheel. She had her head back, eyes closed as if sleeping. He knocked on the glass. Her reaction showed no hint of surprise. No fear. Between her legs was a pint of dark rum. And something shiny, which she held in her hand. He was already in the car, sitting next to her, before he realized it was a gun.