“Sure. That’s when I go upstate and bathe in nature. I just have a higher tolerance than most.”
“Probably challenges your faith.”
“On the contrary. It strengthens it, Fish.”
“Don’t get it.”
“When you know your enemy well, you know his strengths and weaknesses, and you know how to conduct battle. Your faith is your searchlight.”
Fish looked at him. He expected to see him smiling, but Blake looked deadly serious. He nodded. Saint Matthew. Made sense. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll investigate your past and find out who you are.”
“Let me know what you find out. I’ve been trying to find out who I am for years.”
They drove on. Fish was getting more courageous about digging into Blake’s life, but it was still like pulling nails out of cement. He had the feeling that at any moment, he would tell him to mind his own business and concentrate on their work and not him. Did the guy have any friends? No one at the precinct seemed to know, and no one there fit the bill.
After a few more minutes and a few more turns, Fish felt more relaxed. “At least we’re searching in a better neighborhood.”
They drove to a more upscale apartment complex off Pelham Parkway in the Bronx following the directions Blake’s informant had given them. The parking was horrendous, and they had to double park. This time, Fish put the bubble light on the roof and turned it on.
“I had a nightmare about a parking-enforcement officer giving me a ticket in the cemetery for being under the tombstone too long,” he said.
Blake finally laughed. “You have a great sense of humor, Fish. It’s refreshing.”
“No shit?”
“Don’t get too needy, Fish. I have only a few compliments a day to spend on anyone.”
“I believe that,” Fish said, and Blake laughed again.
Maybe he was making some headway and that initial wall of uncertainty and concern between two police partners was breaking down. At least, that was what Fish hoped.
They checked the names on the apartment-house directory and pushed the buzzer for Skip, real name Barry Tyler. There was no response, but an elderly lady stepped out of the building, and Fish deliberately caught his foot in the door to keep it from closing. She looked at him sharply. He quickly reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out his identification.
“Worry not, ma’am,” he said, showing it to her.
She shook her head. “That’s what makes me worry,” she replied, and walked down the short cement stoop. Fish and Blake had started to enter when Blake reached out and squeezed Fish’s upper right arm, squeezing it pretty hard.
Fish turned sharply. “What?”
Blake nodded toward the street, and Fish looked. He saw a black Chrysler Town Car pull away from the curb.
“Who’s that?”
“I’m pretty sure it was Tom Beardsly.”
“Tom Beardsly? Why do I know that name?”
“He was the FBI agent who killed those two innocent civilians in a shoot-out last summer in Manhattan, down on Wall Street. Big story. One of the people was an international financier, a philanthropist and close friend of the mayor. It was headline news in the Wall Street Journal.”
“I remember. So that was Beardsly?” he asked. He was really wondering, What the hell does it matter? What’s it have to do with any of this?
“Yes,” Blake said. “He freelances as a private investigator for attorneys these days.”
“Attorneys. So? This is a big city, right? Legal issues on every corner. Oh, I get it. Coincidence again, huh?”
Blake didn’t reply. He looked very thoughtful for a moment and then walked into the building and went to Skip Tyler’s apartment on the first floor. He started to push the buzzer but stopped. The door was not quite closed. He looked at Fish and opened the door. They both stood there a moment listening.
“Tyler?” Blake called. He looked at Fish and then took out his pistol. So did Fish.
They moved through the living room, glanced into the kitchen, and turned right to approach the bedroom. That door was open, too, and Skip Tyler was on his back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. He was in his briefs, his arms stretched out to the side in crucifix fashion. Below his left hand was a syringe, and they saw the preparations for heroin on the nightstand. Tyler’s eyes were wide open, a look of surprise and terror on his face.
“Overdose,” Fish said.
“I don’t think so,” Blake said. “Let’s get forensics up here. I can see a bruise on his right wrist,” he said, walking around the bed.
“Tryin’ to find a vein, maybe?”
“No.” Blake studied the bruise a moment. “It’s not a trauma from a needle puncture. It looks more like he was grabbed, tightly.” He looked closely at Tyler’s naked chest. “There’s another here. I think someone put his knees on him and held him down. It looks like he was struggling. The syringe was injected, and Tyler stop resisting. We’ll get it officially confirmed. You call. I’m looking around.”
He returned to the living room, where he sifted through some papers and looked in drawers. Then he paused at a corner of the sofa, where he saw a cell phone. It was still powered on. He went to the contacts list and then put the phone in his pocket.
“They’re on their way,” Fish said. “Find anything?”
“His cell phone. I want to check out some numbers. The names are obviously just tags, code for some of his deadly contacts. You stay. Don’t go back into the bedroom, but check out the rest of the place.”
Fish had the feeling he was being given busywork. “Maybe your desperate informant got money from someone else first, Lieutenant, someone who wasn’t happy with a deal Tyler made.”
“No. He’d be afraid I’d find out. Besides, it feels like . . . something more to me than just an argument. Someone came here deliberately to get him off the chart.” He started out.
“Lieutenant?”
“What?”
“You think that ex-FBI guy had something to do with this?”
“Remember my motto,” Blake said.
“Enlighten me. I forgot.”
“There’s no such thing as a coincidence,” Blake said, and walked out.
“How could I have forgotten?” Fish muttered.
Outside, Blake took off the bubble light, got into the car, and started to call in the phone numbers. When the names began coming back, he wrote them down. All were of some interest, but one in particular shouted out at him. He had almost gone after this man because of another killing. The dates of the calls to this guy were close enough to murders he either had investigated or knew about. One date especially interested him. It was just before the Strumfield murder. He started the engine and drove off slowly, planning a strategy.
He smiled to himself.
Perhaps he would be able to put a smile on Michele Armstrong’s face before long, too. Suddenly, he realized, that had become very important to him, and not just because he was helping her do her job, either.
9
Stoker Martin sat at the bar in Ernie’s Tavern and fingered the hundred-dollar bills in his left pocket. Of course, he knew it was stupid to carry so much cash, but ever since he was a kid, he’d enjoyed the feel of money, especially a great deal of it. Just looking at numbers on a bank or brokerage statement never satisfied him, no matter how big the numbers were. Anybody could print numbers on a paper and claim to be rich, but he could pull out a wad of hundreds and fifties and instantly widen eyes and raise eyebrows if he ever wanted to. No one could convince him that seeing so much money didn’t still impress people, even in the age of credit cards. They still had movie scenes with suitcases loaded with bundled dollars, didn’t they? He could see people in the theater smile or look envious. They didn’t react as vividly when numbers were mentioned or viewed on a page.
As nutty as it sounded, he also liked the scent of money, even coins. He fantasized about filling a bathtub with hundred-dollar bills and submerging himself in it. It
got to the point where he seriously planned to have Tanya take a picture of him doing just that, maybe next week. The only thing that made him hesitate was that he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to let her know how much he really had. She knew he was flush most of the time, but she surely never imagined how rich he was becoming. And she never asked any questions. She was the kind of girl who always closed her eyes when violent scenes came on in a film.
He glanced around the tavern to see if anyone was looking at him. He wasn’t stupid about it. He didn’t show the money in public. He could feel it in his pocket, but he wouldn’t exhibit it, especially in a place like this. In his wallet, he kept the money he would spend, and he kept that in fives and ones, barely totaling fifty dollars.
Ironically, he was proud of the fact that he had never robbed anyone. It seemed beneath him to do that. Any idiot could figure out how to rob someone of whatever he carried, and most petty thieves weren’t capable of pulling a trigger. They were simply bullies with courage propped up with a gun or a knife. Victims were cowards, on the other hand. If they put up any resistance, the creeps would probably hightail it. Yeah, there was a little gamble involved, but there was always what he called a fail-safe point, a moment when you realized this creep could pull the trigger. Then and only then would you give in. He was confident he had the ability to see that. He looked in the mirror, didn’t he? The thought brought a smile to his face.
Of course, the way you dressed and carried yourself also invited these creeps. If you looked like a wimp, they’d come after you. The trick was to look tougher than they were. In fact, you should look like you might rob someone yourself. That would keep them away. Of course, that meant he shouldn’t carry a weapon until he was on a job. He could be just as interesting to cops as he was threatening to crooks, and one thing you didn’t want to be caught carrying in New York City was an unlicensed concealed weapon. He didn’t even have them in his home. Skip provided the weapon. He liked the fact that it couldn’t be traced to him. Of course, this was especially true of the last job.
“Part of the service for my ten percent,” Skip had kidded, but it wasn’t a joke to Stoker. He expected that kind of service and preparation. He took more precautions than a Boy Scout.
Maybe I should run a survival course for people like me and people who live in urban areas, especially these tough neighborhoods, he thought. Make it a side job. Who better to teach it than someone who would cut your throat or put a bullet in your head for the right price?
“Another?” Ernie asked.
Stoker checked the time. He was going to pick up Tanya at eleven tonight. He was tempted to forget about it. She would talk his ear off until he stuck his dick in her mouth, and even then, she would mumble some final words. Like he was ever interested in her work or her customers or, for that matter, anything she had to say. It was time to dump her and go for someone with a little more class. With the money he had to spend, he deserved someone younger and far more educated. Maybe he would spruce up his wardrobe and start hanging out where professional working women would hang out. He could pick up one of those high-priced escorts or something.
The clump of people talking behind him let out loud laughter, as if they had just heard his plan. You? Find someone with class? What would you talk about, driving a gas tanker? The last book you read was the phone book. You don’t even know the name of your congressman. He glanced at them disdainfully. And then enviously. Maybe if he thought back to grade school, he could recall having a group of friends like that. It was times like this when he was struck, and struck hard, at just how much of a loner he had become. The work required it, he rationalized, and turned back to Ernie.
“Yeah, one more, but that’s it,” he told Ernie. “I don’t want to be arrested for WUI.”
“WUI? What’s that?”
“Walking under the influence,” he said.
Ernie Stratton smiled, and Stoker shook his head in disgust.
Ernie was five foot ten and at least twenty-five pounds overweight, but he had a great personality for a tavern owner, always able at least to appear interested in whatever his customers had to say, even if what they said was clearly stupid. Ernie would have made a great politician, Stoker thought, but he did have a lucrative tavern, always busy, with a tribe of regulars who had turned it into their private teepee. Here they argued politics, business, and whatever tabloid story led the headlines. There was always a lot of chatter and laughter. It had a friendly, warm atmosphere and was as close to an English pub as any American bar could be. If Stoker was being truthful, he’d have to admit that was what drew him here. Maybe he wasn’t part of any clique, but he could at least pretend to be. He could even join in the laughter from time to time. It was a simple place, sparsely decorated with old movie posters in frames, some wall sconces, the usual plaques and licenses, and pictures of Ernie’s family. Ernie and his son manned the bar, and his wife and daughter-in-law ran the kitchen to produce the simple menu that satisfied those who also wanted something to eat. Occasionally, Stoker had some of their fish and chips. In his own way, Ernie was a success.
But what disgusted Stoker was Ernie’s bad teeth. He was missing at least two on the lower right and three on the upper left. When he smiled, he looked like someone from the hills in Deliverance, Ernie’s favorite movie. Ordinarily, that would be enough to discourage would-be customers, but many of the people who came in here weren’t much better-looking and were also missing some teeth. In fact, Stoker thought he probably had the best set of dentures of anyone in the joint.
“What if I paid for your dental work?” Stoker offered when Ernie brought him his third vodka and cranberry juice.
“Who needs it? I ain’t goin’ to be in any magazine ads or movies, and my wife loves me just the way I am.”
“She has no choice,” Stoker said, and sipped his drink. Ernie smiled again, and again, Stoker shook his head. Did he get the point? Of course, his wife had no choice. She wasn’t very good-looking, either. If ever two people settled into each other comfortably, it was those two, he thought. They deserved each other. Stoker vaguely wondered if anyone who had seen him with Tanya had similar thoughts about them. He’d hate that.
“Oh, shit,” Ernie said, returning. He was carrying a sealed eight-and-a-half-by-eleven envelope. “I forgot about this. Some guy left it here a few hours ago.”
“For me?”
“Yeah. See? He wrote your name on it.”
Stoker took the envelope slowly and looked at Ernie. “Who was he?”
“He didn’t say. He was a pretty good-lookin’ guy. Never saw him before. He wore a jacket and tie and, oh, yeah, a pair of sunglasses.” Ernie leaned over the bar to whisper. “He wasn’t cleanly shaven. He looked like one of those guys you see in fashion catalogues,” he said, nodding at one of his regulars. “Otherwise, he looked like an FBI agent or somethin’.” He squinted. “Are you a spy? I always wondered what you did, Stoker.”
“I’m a janitor. I clean up other people’s messes,” Stoker snapped back at him.
“Really? I thought you were the CEO of IBM,” Ernie returned, but he smiled.
Stoker studied the envelope. Skip would never send anyone like that around to give him an assignment. It wasn’t his style. They were always extra careful about everything. Ernie stood there a moment more, watching him eye the envelope. Stoker looked up at him sharply.
“I didn’t open it or nothin’. He was adamant about that.”
“Huh? What do you mean, adamant?”
“He said, ‘Make sure you don’t open it,’ and when he said it, he took off his sunglasses and looked at me with eyes of cold steel. I think the guy could scare the shit out of Dracula.” He looked around his tavern. “Creepy,” he added.
“What?” Stoker asked.
“I could feel him watchin’ me afterward, even though he’d left. I almost feel him watchin’ me now.” He turned quickly and studied the crowd again. “No, he ain’t here,” he said. “He’s not the kind of guy who ca
n get lost in a crowd. You’d spot him in Madison Square Garden during a Knicks game.” He returned to the other end of the bar.
Stoker studied the envelope, especially his name. There was something weird about it, he thought, and then realized: it was in his handwriting. It looked as if he had written his own name on the outside of the envelope. What the fuck. Whoever wrote it was good at forgery.
He started to open it but stopped and looked at the man sitting two stools down. The man glanced at him and then looked away quickly. Stoker checked his left. The two couples there were in loud conversations and didn’t know he even existed. He looked behind him, too, but didn’t see anyone taking any particular interest in him. The clump that had been laughing were now broken up into smaller groups of three and four and had moved away.
Confident that it was all right, he began to tear open the envelope carefully. He separated it and slowly plucked out some photographs.
They were of people he had killed! Blood and all, lying dead at the scenes of the hits. These were like . . . police photos.
He quickly shoved them back into the envelope and tried to seal it, but the glue wouldn’t take. He felt as if he had fallen into a vat of ice water.
He looked around again. Someone was obviously watching him for his reaction. What the hell was this? Who would do it? If it was a cop, why didn’t he just step up to arrest him? Was that coming at any moment? He felt his heartbeat in his head. The pounding resonated that hard.
This was probably going to turn into some sort of blackmail, he concluded when no one stepped up. Maybe someone from the police forensics teams had put this together. A police department was a rich garden in which to grow blackmailers. It puzzled him that there wasn’t a note inside, a number for him to call. Was that coming later? He nearly jumped when he heard Ernie’s phone ringing. He watched him talking, holding his breath the whole time, but the call wasn’t about him. It didn’t last long, either. He wasn’t going to wait for another.
As nonchalantly as he could, he put down the money for his drinks, took another gulp of his last one, and slipped off the stool. Ernie wasn’t paying attention, and Stoker didn’t feel like saying good night anyway. Ernie might hurry over to ask more questions about what was inside the envelope. Stoker turned and walked very slowly toward the exit, trying not to be obvious about the way he studied people on his left and right. No one was paying much attention to him. He was almost out, but what then? Would whoever did this be waiting for him? He hesitated at the door. Now he wished he was packing a revolver.
Judgement Day Page 9