by Stuart Woods
“Hold still!” Abney snarled. “Don’t worry, you’re going to enjoy it.” His face was flushed, and he was breathing hard.
Viv started to struggle again, and he put his free arm across her throat and pressed hard. She couldn’t breathe, and she thought she felt something in her throat snap. Then she passed out.
Abney felt her go limp. “Shit!” he said aloud. He didn’t want a rag doll; he liked the resistance. Then he froze. She wasn’t moving, didn’t seem to be breathing, either. He reached for her throat to get a pulse and found nothing. Swearing, he got up and pulled up his trousers, then went to the rear door of the room and looked down the stairs. It was clear.
He went back to the table, slung her handbag over his arm, then went to the sofa, pulled her up into a fireman’s carry, and left through the back door, down the stairs to the alley.
Dino pulled up, and Rosie was out of the car, waiting for him.
“Let’s go,” Dino said.
“Don’t rush,” she said. “We don’t want to call attention to ourselves.”
They walked into the restaurant, and the headwaiter approached. “I’m afraid it’s going to be another forty-five minutes before I’ll have a table.”
“We’ll just have a drink at the bar,” Dino said. They took two stools, and Dino looked around. “I don’t see her,” he said. “Do you see Abney?”
“No,” she said. “They’re not here.”
Dino called the bartender over. “I was supposed to meet Ed Abney here. Have you seen him?”
“Sure, he’s in the upstairs dining room,” the bartender replied, nodding toward the stairway. “But he doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s up there.” He winked for emphasis. “Can I get you a drink? He won’t be much longer, if he’s true to form.”
Dino grabbed Rosie’s hand. “Come on!” he said, and ran for the stairs.
46
Dino ran down the upstairs hallway and tried the door: locked. He knocked. “Mr. Abney?”
“God knows what’s going on in there,” Rosie said from behind him.
Dino knocked again. “Mr. Abney, it’s the police. Open the door.” No response. Dino pulled his weapon, took a step back, and kicked the door open, splintering the jamb. Rosie followed him in. There were dishes and glasses on the table, but the room was empty.
Rosie opened one of the two other doors in the room. “Powder room,” she said.
Dino opened the other door and found the back stairs. “Let’s go!” He ran down the stairs, pushed open the fire door, and stepped outside. He found himself in an alley and it was raining. There was a dumpster and half a dozen trash cans scattered about.
“He’s got a car,” Rosie said. “The shortest way is back through the restaurant.” She tried the door, but it had locked behind them. “Shit!” she yelled. “We’ll have to go around!”
They started down the alley at a run, but as they ran, Rosie heard a sound like a car alarm, muffled as if from a garage, but there was no garage in the alley. “Wait!” she yelled at Dino, then she turned back, looking around.
“What is it?”
“I hear an alarm. Viv was wearing a wristwatch with a panic button.” She ran to the dumpster and pushed up the lid. Viv was lying inside in a pile of garbage, her eyes glazed.
“Give me a hand,” she said to Dino. Together, they lifted her out of the dumpster and laid her on the wet tarmac.
Rosie produced her cell phone and called 911.
“I can’t get a pulse,” Dino said, bending over Viv and gently moving her hair from over her face.
“We need an APB for Abney’s town car,” Rosie said.
Dino got on the radio. “License number?”
Rosie sighed. “I didn’t get it, and there are a million black town cars in this fucking city.”
DINO PACED up and down the hallway outside the ER, talking rapidly into his cell phone. “Rosie, do you know Abney’s address?”
“He lives in a hotel on the West Side, the Broadway Savoy.”
Dino got back on the phone. “Abney lives at the Broadway Savoy, on West Forty-sixth, west of Eighth Avenue. If he’s not there, try his office.” He made a beckoning motion to Rosie.
“West Forty-fourth, a couple of doors west of Sardi’s.”
Dino relayed the name and address. “The charge, for now, is assaulting a police officer.” He hung up.
“I could kill myself, not getting the license plate,” Rosie said. “That’s rookie stuff.”
“It might not have helped,” Dino said. “There are too many town cars.” He sat down on a steel chair in the hallway.
“What the fuck are they doing in there?”
A young doctor in green scrubs pushed through the doorway, followed by Viv on a gurney. “OR four,” he said to the orderly. “I’m right behind you.” He turned to Dino. “She’s been drugged. We won’t know what until the tox screen comes back, but it’s probably some sort of date rape drug. They’re everywhere. She’s also got a partly crushed trachea, so she’s headed for surgery. The drug may have saved her life. It slowed her respiration and heartbeat. If she’d been conscious and had panicked, she might not have been able to get enough air. OR four is on the third floor. I’ve got a reconstruction surgeon on the way in. She’ll be okay in a couple of hours. Gotta go.” He turned and ran down the hall after the gurney.
Dino sat down again. “I should never have let you two do this thing.”
Rosie sat down beside him. “We didn’t count on the restaurant, and once we knew about it, we didn’t count on the upstairs room. From what the bartender said, it was a regular stop for Abney.”
“He threw her in a fucking dumpster, like she was garbage,” Dino said.
“He must have thought she was dead, or he would have finished her off.”
Dino looked at her. “If you tell me she got lucky, I’ll transfer you to the Bronx.”
THREE AND A HALF hours later, a man in scrubs walked into the surgery waiting room. “Who’s the lieutenant?”
Dino stood up, and so did Rosie.
“Detective DeCarlo is in recovery and out of the woods,” the surgeon said. “I replaced about two inches of her trachea.”
“Replaced?” Dino asked. “With what? A plastic tube?”
The surgeon shook his head. “The real thing, from a cadaver.”
Dino’s face fell. “From a cadaver?”
“Don’t get all creeped out, Lieutenant, it’s a standard procedure these days. We transplant bone, cartilage, all sorts of body parts. It works. Her injury was below her voice box, so her speech won’t be affected. She’ll be on her feet in the morning and out of here in a few days.”
“Thank you,” Dino said. “Send the bill to the police commissioner.”
“There won’t be a bill,” the surgeon said.
DINO AND ROSIE were there when Viv came to. The nurse allowed them to stay long enough to speak to her, then threw them out.
Dino got on his cell phone. “Have we got Abney? Why the hell not? Hang on.” He turned to Rosie. “Where does Abney hang out?”
“Sardi’s upstairs, but I doubt if he’s there this late. That’s all we got on him.”
Dino spoke into the phone again. “Check the upstairs bar at Sardi’s, if it’s still open. Add to the APB that the suspect badly injured a female cop.” He hung up. “Maybe somebody will shoot the son of a bitch,” he said.
47
Dino and Rosie were at the Bright Lights, Ink, office at the stroke of nine a.m. He showed his badge to the receptionist. “Is Mr. Abney in?”
“No, he normally doesn’t arrive until around ten,” she replied.
“Who is his secretary?”
“Margie Quinn.”
“Where does she sit?”
“Through the double doors, across the big room to the corner office. Her desk is just outside his door.” She reached for the phone.
Dino put his hand on hers. “Don’t,” he said, “and when Abney arrives, act normal, you unde
rstand?”
“No, I don’t understand,” the woman said.
“I have a warrant for his arrest,” Dino said. “There’s room on it for your name, too.”
“I understand,” she said.
“Let’s go, Rosie.” Dino pushed open the double doors and entered a large room with more than a dozen cubicles. He walked around them and came to Margie Quinn’s desk and showed her his badge. “Come with me,” he said, and pushed open the door to Abney’s office.
It was big enough to hold a large desk, a conference table, and a sitting area with a sofa and a pair of chairs.
“What is this about?” Quinn asked.
“It’s about Mr. Abney,” Dino said. “How long have you worked for him?”
“Twelve years,” the woman replied.
“Then you know what this is about.”
She bit her lip. “What do you want from me?”
“Sit down, Ms. Quinn,” Dino said, pointing at the sofa.
She did as she was told. “Has Ed Abney ever put his hands on you?”
She looked away.
“How long ago and how often?”
“The last time was a week ago. A couple of times a month for the whole time I’ve been here.”
“You must be very well paid,” he said.
“I am, but at first, it was a love affair. I know now it was never that, but I’m single and I have a daughter in a good private school. There aren’t any other jobs this good out there.”
“Last night, he tried to murder an NYPD detective,” Dino said. “I have a warrant for his arrest and another to search this place.”
“Good God,” Quinn said, and buried her face in her hands.
“First I need information: Abney isn’t at his residence, and he’s not here. Where else would he go?”
“He has a place in the Hamptons,” she said, getting up. “I’ll write down the address.” She went to the desk and came back with a slip of paper.
Dino handed it to Rosie. “Call it in,” he said. “Tell them I want two detectives over here, in case Abney comes in, and I want a police helicopter on the West Side pad right now, fully fueled.” Rosie left the room and went to Quinn’s desk to use the phone. Dino turned back to Quinn. “Where else?”
She shrugged. “I can’t imagine. His apartment, the office, and the house out there are his world, except at night.”
“Where at night, besides Sardi’s?”
She got a pad and wrote down a dozen restaurants and bars.
“Who’s his number two here?” Dino asked.
“He doesn’t have a number two. He doesn’t trust anybody else to help run the place.”
“You know,” Dino said, “off the record, if I were you, I’d put together a few people here and make Abney a lowball offer for the business. He’s going to need the money for lawyers.”
“That’s not the worst idea I ever heard,” she said.
“If Abney calls, everything is normal,” Dino said.
“I get you.”
“If he comes here, my people will take him in, but my guess is, since he didn’t spend the night at his apartment, he’s in East Hampton.”
“I think that’s likely,” Quinn said. “If he is, he’ll call in about ten and start giving orders. I’d better let everybody know to expect that, or they’ll say the wrong thing when he calls.”
“I’ll leave that to your judgment,” Dino said. He followed her out of Abney’s office and helped her climb onto her desk.
“Listen up, everybody!” Quinn yelled. People stood up at their desks and looked over the partitions at her. “The police are here, and for good reason. I’ll explain that later. In the meantime, if Ed calls in, everything is as usual, got that?”
Everybody nodded. “I want Pierce, Williams, and Cohen in Ed’s office right now.” She got down from the desk and went back to Abney’s office. The three others came in, looking curious.
Dino stood in the door and listened.
“Listen to me carefully,” she said. “Ed is going to be arrested before the day is out, and you can guess why. This time, he’s not going to get away with it. I think the four of us can buy this business cheap, as soon as he realizes how much trouble he’s in. He’s going to need cash, and quick. Who’s game?” Three hands went up. “All right, let’s talk about your 401(k)s and mine,” Quinn said.
Dino closed the door and went out to the reception room, just in time to meet the pair of detectives who were arriving. He gave them their instructions, then turned to Rosie. “Let’s go. I’m taking you to the Hamptons.”
“Why, boss,” Rosie said, “I didn’t know you cared.”
“PULL OVER here,” Dino said. They were at a map store at Forty-third and Sixth Avenue. “I want to get a map of East Hampton.”
“Map?” Rosie said, looking at him askance. “A paper map? Didn’t you ever hear of GPS, boss?”
“Have you ever tried using a cell phone map in a moving helicopter?” Dino asked. “Maintaining an Internet signal at a hundred knots?”
She shrugged.
“I’ll be right back.” Dino bought a map of East Hampton, then Rosie used the siren, while Dino found the street on the map. When they got to the West Side heliport, a police chopper was sitting on the pad, its rotors turning.
Dino opened the pilot’s door, gave him the street map, and pointed out the house. “Put it down as close as you can get to the house.” He got into the passenger compartment with Rosie, and they put on headsets.
The chopper rose from the pad, turned out over the river, and gained a couple of thousand feet, then turned and flew over lower Manhattan. The view was spectacular. They crossed Brooklyn, got past the Verrazano Bridge, then followed the south Long Island waterfront east, toward the Hamptons. There was an overcast a few hundred feet above them, but as they flew, the sky cleared and the ocean shone beneath them.
“He’s going to be there, I know it,” Dino said.
“I’ve never flown in a helicopter before,” Rosie said.
Dino patted her on the knee. “They’re very, very dangerous,” he said.
48
Dink Brennan finished his breakfast, then went to his computer address books and began making calls. It took three before he got lucky.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Vanessa, it’s Dink.”
“Hey, Dink, how are you doing?” Her voice was bright and inviting.
“I’m doing great,” he said. “I don’t know if you heard about Parker and Carson, but they’re in rehab.”
“Yeah, I heard last night.”
“Best thing for them, really.”
“I can believe it. Last time I saw Carson she was mucho strung out.”
“What’s the name of that place they’re in?”
“I can’t think of it, but it’s that place up in Westchester.”
“Oh, yeah, The Refuge.”
“That’s it. When are you coming to town?”
“I’m in town. You want some dinner tonight?”
“Love to.”
“Come over here, and we’ll order in.” He gave her the address. “Say, seven?”
“See you then.”
Dink hung up and googled The Refuge, got the address and a map, then he put on a suit and tie, got his new briefcase, and went down to the garage for his car.
An hour later, Dink pulled into the parking lot next to a large colonial house set in several acres of meadow and woodland. There was no fence, as there had been at the farm, and only the windows on the third floor had security screens. He wondered if Parker and Carson were up there.
Dink walked into the marble-floored lobby and presented himself at the front desk. “Good morning,” he said, handing her Herb Fisher’s business card. “I’m Herbert Fisher, attorney for Parker Mosely, who is a guest here. I have an appointment to see him.”
The woman checked her computer. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fisher, but I don’t see an appointment here.”
“My secretary would
have made it for eleven o’clock.”
“Perhaps she didn’t call.”
“I’m going to have to speak to her about that,” Dink said. “May I see him without an appointment? I’ve driven up here from the city.”
“Let me make a call,” the woman said. She dialed a number and explained the situation to her boss, then she held out the phone to Dink. “Mrs. Elliott would like to speak with you.”
“Certainly.” Dink took the phone. “Good morning, Mrs. Elliott.”
“Good morning, Mr. Fisher. I just wanted to confirm: You’re Mr. Mosely’s attorney?”
“Attorney for his family,” Dink replied. “His father asked me to come and see him.”
“Is this about getting Mr. Mosely discharged?”
“Not per se,” Dink said, “but his father did ask me to inquire about that while I’m here. Do you feel that Mr. Mosely is ready for release?”
“It’s funny you should turn up here today, Mr. Fisher, because his case is up for review this morning, and I was about to go to the meeting. Tell you what, I’ll give instructions to have Mr. Mosely brought to the library, and if there are any developments, I’ll contact you there before noon.”
“Thank you, that’s very kind of you.” He gave the phone back to the receptionist.
“Yes?” she said into the phone. “Yes, he gave me his business card. All right.” She hung up. “Mr. Fisher, would you please go down this hallway to the end, where the double doors are? That’s the library, and Mr. Mosely will be brought to see you there.”
“Thank you,” Dink said. He reached for the business card. “Oh, do you mind if I keep this? It’s my last one.”
“Not at all,” she said.
Dink walked down the hall and let himself into a handsome, walnut-paneled room filled with leather-bound volumes. He took a seat in one of a pair of wing chairs at a front window overlooking the grounds.
A couple of minutes passed, then a middle-aged woman in whites entered the room, followed by Parker Mosely, who was dressed in his own clothes-a blue blazer and khaki trousers.