“You have no right to open that door!” His challenge of the cop’s authority was a serious mistake. They began a shouting match and without warning the policeman kicked the man in the groin. As he doubled over, the policeman grabbed his hair, snapping the head upright. A fist smashed into the man’s face, sending him staggering backward. The policeman came after him, ramming his fists into the man’s shoulders. The force of the blows slammed him against the truck. He slid to the ground, blood trickling down his shirt front. The driver jumped from the truck and ran back to help his fallen friend. “Take your fuckin’ buddy and get the hell out of here,” the document taker said, throwing the license and registration inside the truck. The driver helped his friend off the ground, leading him back to the safety of the truck. The detectives watched as the truck bucked several times and then lurched forward and sped off down York Avenue.
“Let me see what that was all about,” Malone said, yanking open the door. He walked over to the policemen. “Did they give you a hard time?” he asked.
The policeman who had attacked the passenger had grease stains over the front of his summer shirt. Too many pizzas, thought Malone, looking over the team. The attacker’s breath was stale and smelled of alcohol. Both needed a shave.
“A search warrant,” the attacker grumbled. “Imagine that fuckin’ foreigner asking to see my search warrant.”
“What were their names?” Malone asked.
The one who accepted the documents read from his memo pad. The driver was Hillel Henkoff and the passenger Isaac Arazi. Both gave an address on Borden Avenue in Long Island City. The truck was registered to the Eastern Shipping Company of the same address.
Malone looked at Heinemann and said thoughtfully: “That is where Sara Eisinger worked before she went to work for the Braxtons.” Malone turned to the cop. “Was there anything else inside the truck?”
“A bunch of boxes with funny markings,” said the officer who had knocked the passenger around.
“What kind of markings?” Malone said.
“Dunno. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure, the inside of that truck stunk from cosmoline.”
Malone’s left eyebrow arched. “You sure?”
“I spent four years with the First Airborne. I know cosmoline when I smell it. I woulda popped one of them crates open only I didn’t figure it a smart move with that guy throwing a shit fit.”
“Anything else we can do for you, Lou?” the document taker said. “We’re anxious to get back to serving the public.”
Bullshit. They probably have a six-pack stashed under the seat of their radio car, Malone thought, but replied, “That’s it. Thanks.”
As the two uniformed cops sauntered back to their radio car, the document taker half turned and waved over his shoulder.
“What now?” O’Shaughnessy said.
Malone looked over to Gus Heinemann who was leaning against the fender of the Buick, matching the sides of a pair of dice. Seven all around. “You in the mood for one of your performances?” Malone said, lifting his chin toward the building Braxton’s friends had entered.
Heinemann nodded, dropped the dice into his shirt pocket, and pushed away from the car. He returned fifteen minutes later, a satisfied smile on his face. “The doorman was a retired cop. He told me that they went to the thirty-first-floor apartment that’s owned by Braxton Tours. The corner apartment, facing Eighty-second.”
Malone looked up, surveying the canyons of terraced elegance which surrounded them. “That building over there,” he said, pointing, “faces the Braxtons’ apartment. If we could get onto the roof with a pair of binoculars we just might get a look-see inside that apartment.” Malone turned to Davis. “Bo, get the glasses from under the seat. You and I will take a look. The rest of you stand by. If any of them leave before we get back, tail them.”
Early-morning haze lingered high above the city streets. Davis looked over the edge, quickly stepping back. His palms were suddenly sweaty. Malone stood with his feet firmly planted on the pebbled roof, trying to get his bearings. Everything looked different so high up. He squandered a minute and took in the view across the river. The red-tipped stacks of the Con Ed plant rose majestically in front of the new sun. He could make out the bubbled tennis courts that dotted the shoreline of Long Island City. The brick-sheathed generator plant of the Midtown Tunnel ascended vertically over the mouth of the tunnel. The gothic crockets of the Queensborough Bridge seemed to be holding up the sky.
Malone looked away and walked over to the edge, staring across at the range of buildings, searching for the target building. He saw acres of glass and silver and steel skyscrapers and medium high-rises and low apartment buildings and terraces and penthouses and duplexes—Manhattan.
He picked out the Braxtons’ building and leaned over the edge, starting to count the floors upward from the street. When he reached the thirty-first floor he brought the binoculars up to his eyes and began scanning the floor, adjusting the focus. He moved the glasses right to left. Suddenly he lurched forward, straining, sharpening the focus.
“Wadaya see?” Davis asked.
Malone kept silent. He remained motionless, the glasses fixed to his eyes. After some minutes, he turned abruptly and handed the binoculars to Davis, pointing to the corner apartment on the thirty-first floor.
Davis took the glasses and looked through them, making a slight adjustment on the focus wheel.
“That’s one helluva party they’re having. It’s hard to tell who is doing what to whom,” Davis said.
“Recognize the woman?”
“Noooo. But she sure has one beautiful pair of tits.”
“You’re looking at the female star of the porno film that we found in Eisinger’s apartment.”
Metal lockers lined one wall of the dormitory, black-faced combination locks hung through the hasps. Four bunk beds were flush against the wall. Large slivers of peeling paint drooped down from the walls and ceilings. Glossy posters of nude women covered the wall next to the beds. Heinemann lay on the bottom bunk, his right leg hanging over the edge. The men snored and the ripe smell of their farts hung in the air. O’Shaughnessy slid off the top bunk and padded to his locker. He pushed it open and took a toilet kit from the shelf. He left the room with his kit under his arm and his right arm thrust into his underpants, scratching his ass.
Starling Johnson was half asleep when O’Shaughnessy returned twenty minutes later, shaved, washed, and smelling like a perfume factory. Johnson shot up. “You mother! Bad enough I’ve got to listen to all this farting and snoring. I don’t need you sashaying in here smelling like a French whore.” Johnson leaped off the top bunk, put on his trousers, and walked barefoot out into the squad room. The smell of freshly made coffee filled the air. He walked over to the urn and poured a cup. A lone detective was doing day duty. He was at the far desk with his head buried in the typewriter. He looked up and nodded to Johnson who grunted hello.
Malone was leaning back and resting his shoeless feet on the desk. He had a coffee mug on his knee. He was looking at the blackboard, digesting the growing outline.
“It’s beginning to fill out,” Johnson said, walking in and draping an arm over the filing cabinet next to the door.
“We’ve still got a long way to go,” Malone said.
Johnson asked, “Are you going to cut them men loose or do we keep going?”
Malone’s left hand rose in a gesture of despair. “I hate like hell to lose the momentum, but we can’t keep going forever.”
One by one the detectives started to file in, sleep-filled eyes glancing at the blackboard. The telephone rang. Without taking his feet down, Malone stretched over and snatched up the receiver. After spending most of the night sitting on the Interlude, he was in no mood for Zambrano’s abrasive voice. “Wadaya come up with last night?”
Malone pushed the instrument away from his ear and grimaced. Holding the phone in front of his face, he recounted the night’s activities. He told Zambrano that O’Shaughne
ssy had followed the woman to a row house on Park Place in Brooklyn. The men were tailed to a loft in Soho.
“Did you get a make on them?” Zambrano asked.
“Not yet. O’Brien and Mullens are on the woman. Martinez and Valenti are on the men. They’ll I.D. them.”
“Why didn’t you tail the guys in the truck?”
“Because I didn’t have enough vehicles or men and because I wanted to get them the hell out of there so I could find out what was going down inside that apartment.”
“How many men you got doing day duty?”
“I’ve got one detective holding it down. The other two are on the woman. The detectives on the men I pulled off tonight’s night duty.”
“So you’re going to have just one man covering the chart tonight.” There was a tinge of annoyed doubt in the inspector’s voice.
“That’s right.”
“And you’re holding yesterday’s day duty team on O.T.”
Malone forced a flat calmness into his voice. “Right again.”
“You’re stretching it kinda thin.”
“Don’t you think that I know that.”
Zambrano yawned. “Guess it’s time for me to get out of bed and get into the salt mine. Seeya later.” Zambrano hung up.
Malone stared at his mouthpiece. “Son-of-a-bitch.” He looked over at the detectives. Tired men make mistakes. “Go home and get some sleep.”
“What are you going to do, Lou?” Starling Johnson asked.
“I’m going to pay a visit to a shipping company in Long Island City.”
As Malone was about to leave, O’Shaughnessy called out and told him that he had a telephone call on line three. He went back into the squad room. This time there was no pretense or introduction. The voice that had been attributed to the name Madvick was harsh. “If you know what’s good for you, Malone, you’ll shitcan this Eisinger thing.”
“Go fuck yourself, pal.” He slammed down the receiver and left.
A maroon sedan kept a respectable distance behind the taxi as it maneuvered through the morning traffic on Flatbush Avenue. The cab made its way onto the Brooklyn Bridge. At Park Row it exited the bridge and sped east to Chatham Square. At the Bowery it turned north. When the taxi reached the corner of Hester Street it double parked and a woman got out. The chic clothes and fashionable wig of last night were gone. She was dressed quietly, her hair was held tightly in place by a paisley kerchief. She hurried away from the cab, walking up Hester Street. In the middle of the block she ducked into a three-story building. A sign in Hebrew was over the entrance. A plaque in English was bolted to the right of the door: EAST SIDE MIKVAH.
The maroon sedan glided in to the curb in front of a fire hydrant near the corner. “What’s a mikvah?” O’Brien asked his partner.
“It’s a religious bath that Jewish women go to once a month to get cleansed after their period,” Mullens said.
“A hooker like that?”
“It takes all kinds.”
Twenty minutes later the woman exited the mikvah and walked north. O’Brien slid out of the car. The woman walked five blocks, occasionally casting a nervous glance over her shoulder. In the middle of the fifth block she entered a restaurant with Hebrew lettering on the window. She went to an empty table next to the window. She was so distraught that she did not notice the man who entered a short time later and sat three tables away.
A stooped waiter with a seamed face shuffled over to O’Brien. “You vant something?”
The woman played with the food the waiter had brought her. She kept looking out the window, casting glances up and down the street, checking her watch. O’Brien had finished his dairy dish and was considering ordering another when a man walked into the restaurant and moved directly to the woman’s table.
“Well?” he demanded, lowering himself into the seat across from her. O’Brien could just overhear their conversation.
“It wasn’t there,” she said.
“Are you sure that was the only mikvah she went to?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said peevishly.
“We must locate that damned list,” the man said.
“What more can I do?”
“I don’t know. But I do know that the police are involved.” The man leaned across the table, whispering, and O’Brien was unable to hear the rest of the conversation. Suddenly the woman sat back in her chair, agitated. “I don’t know where she hid it. She kept mentioning some goddamn song.”
5
FRIDAY, June 12 … Noontime
Van Dam was the last westbound exit on the Long Island Expressway before the Midtown Tunnel. Borden Avenue began on the other side of Van Dam and sliced through the industrial heart of Long Island City. At Borden and Thirtieth the men in hard hats from Tauscher Steel were standing on flatbeds loading shipments of I beams. The sidewalk in front of Alcock and Alcock Box Company was blocked with workmen assembling wooden crates. There was a continuous scampering of hi-lows in front of Capital Provisions as condiments for the city’s restaurants and hotels were loaded. Detached trailers were parked everywhere. Railroad sidings crisscrossed the avenue. The normal flow of traffic was constantly blocked by tractor-trailers backing into loading bays. The outdoor vats behind Biddle and Gottesman Pickle and Sauerkraut Company gave the air a sharp, tangy smell.
Starling Johnson had not gone home. He had nothing better to do so he decided to tag along with Malone. He wasn’t tired, so why not? Lately he found himself able to get by with less and less sleep.
He had not gotten used to living alone even though he had been divorced for two years and living alone for three. The clock still ticked too loud and the quiet was still too thunderous, and booze was still needed to get to sleep. He hated going into his apartment and turning on the TV or the radio right away. He knew that it was a sign of loneliness; but he just had to hear voices, see people. He had a girlfriend; in fact, he had quite a few girlfriends. He found them boring and found himself counting the minutes until they got up, dressed, and left. He had a standing rule: no women were permitted to stay the night, nor were they allowed to leave any personal things in his apartment. If they left and he found anything of theirs he’d throw it in the garbage. No female was going to stake a claim on him or his apartment.
They had stopped for some eggs and coffee before heading to Queens. After breakfast they drove through the Midtown Tunnel and exited onto Borden Avenue right after the toll booth. It took the toll collector a few extra seconds to copy down the number of their vehicle identification plate before he waved them through the toll. Johnson was annoyed at the delay; perhaps he was tired.
Johnson parked the department auto across the street from the Eastern Shipping Company. After spending thirty minutes watching the place they both decided that there was something definitely off key. The other businesses on Borden Avenue were busy, with trucks pulling in and out of loading bays. The Eastern Shipping Company appeared to be abandoned. The building that they were watching was one and a half stories high and built in the shape of an irregular octagon. There were several banks of loading bays, each bay sealed by a sliding metal door. The windows were high and covered with steel mesh. In the rear of the building there was a railroad siding that was enclosed behind a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The filthy water of Newtown Creek flowed past the building’s end. Gray crisscross girders of the Long Island Expressway dwarfed the front of the building. All around the outside were high-density lights, as well as TV cameras which surveyed the structure’s periphery.
“Somethin’ strange going down inside that place,” Johnson said, puckering and lifting his eyebrows.
“Why don’t we go see what.” Malone got out now and led the way to a door with a sign on it that read NO SALESMEN EXCEPT BY APPOINTMENT. They walked into a tiny drab room paneled in fake pine veneer. Behind a sliding glass panel in the far wall a receptionist who wore astoundingly oversized pink-framed glasses greeted them with total indifference. “May I help you gentlemen?�
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“We are here to see the boss,” Malone said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a packet of business cards. He extracted one and glanced at it before handing it to her. “I’m John Grimes of the U.S. Department of Labor and this is my associate Tyrone Washington. We’re here on official business.”
The woman took the card, swung around in her chair, and pressed a button on the switchboard.
Johnson poked the lieutenant. “Tyrone Washington, man. That be an ethnic name.”
Malone winked at him. “Ten-four,” he whispered, looking around the reception area. There was only one inner door and it was fitted snugly into the wall. An avocado plant was next to the railing by the entrance. A few leatherette chairs and a coffee-stained table with some out-of-date magazines completed the décor.
A man in his late thirties came out. He had a large, hawklike nose that dominated his dark features. He wore khaki shorts, a sweaty undershirt, and Roman sandals, no socks. His muscular torso strained against his undershirt.
“I am David Ancorie. What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked, kicking the door closed and leaning against it. He had a smooth British accent. Malone took the card back from the woman and walked over to Ancorie, handing it to him. Ancorie looked at the card and smiled. “So?”
“We have reports that there are violations of Federal Employment Guidelines within the Eastern Shipping Company,” Malone lied. “We’re here to discuss the matter with your boss.”
“I see.” A mocking grin lit up Ancorie’s face.
Malone had the uncomfortable feeling that he had not fooled Ancorie with the card. But fuck it. He’d go through the motions and see where the game led.
“If that’s the case, I’d better let you talk to Anderman himself,” Ancorie said, snapping the door open and motioning the detectives through.
One Police Plaza Page 7