Ironically, this time she was coming from talking to a police officer. And she had no idea who would want to follow her.
She worked out a plan in her head anyway. She turned east, toward the river. She wasn’t far from the United Nations building. Once she had gone a couple of blocks, she made another assessment. The woman was still back there.
Alex didn’t like to commit violence she wasn’t being paid for. Especially violence against a woman. She would do what she had to, but she didn’t relish the idea of using her stiletto on this woman, who was using a phone to call out Alex’s movements to someone else.
Alex led the woman down to the FDR Drive, then found a place to cross.
She had the river on one side of her. Now she focused on what was coming toward her.
Chapter 46
Alex was now on the banks of the East River, and she no longer saw the young woman who had been following her. That didn’t mean she was no longer in danger. She sat on a bench to wait. A few minutes later, she saw the two men.
Both men were young. One looked to be in his midtwenties and a little on the heavy side. The other one was tall and lean with long, straight hair.
Alex needed to draw them closer. She dug out her iPhone from her purse, leaving her stiletto and pistol within easy reach. She pretended to be engrossed in texting, but in fact she turned on her camera and was watching the men as they approached.
Alex made a quick survey of the area to ensure there were no witnesses close by. She even had a moment to enjoy the view of the East River and the relative quiet compared to the rest of the city.
As the men came closer, Alex casually dropped her right hand to her purse and gripped her stiletto. She rested the stiletto in her lap and suppressed a smile as the men came blundering into her trap.
She felt a change in her breathing, and her heart rate picked up. It was more excitement than fear. These were the types of challenges she had to overcome in her profession. One of the biggest things in her favor was the fact that men tended to underestimate a woman. That was their choice. She’d make them regret it.
Now they were close. She could tell they were Hispanic. Her guess was that they were Dominicans.
The heavier one said in Spanish, “Hello, beautiful. Why would you be sitting alone on a lovely night like this?”
Alex said, “Unfortunately, I am not alone. I’m being bothered by a couple of assholes who showed up uninvited.”
The chubby man let out a laugh. “Show me where they are, and we’ll get rid of them for you.” He looked to his thinner friend for support.
The young man drew a long fixed-blade knife from behind his back. His smile told her he enjoyed terrorizing women.
Alex stood quickly, pressing the button to extend her stiletto as she came to her feet. The movement clearly took both men by surprise.
She leaned back as the young man with the knife took a wide swipe at her. After all her training and experience, it felt like it took place in slow motion. But the young man meant business. It was a blow designed to kill her. And he had aimed it at her throat.
Now she felt anger at the way these men would treat a person, not to mention a woman. She took two steps and let the men bump into each other as they tried to grab her.
Now she stepped to the far end of the bench. She needed them to come to her.
“I hope whoever you work for didn’t pay you too much. You must be new to this.”
It was an insult—and, more important, it was an insult coming from a woman. She knew that would force one of them to come at her.
It was the heavier man who moved first. He stepped forward, still unaware that she had a weapon in her hand. He reached behind him as though he had a gun. She wasn’t going to wait to find out if he really did.
Alex took a step to the side and then, almost like a ballerina, shifted her weight and stood up on her toes as she drove the stiletto into the man’s solar plexus and up into his heart.
She knew she had hit the target immediately. The way the man stopped midmotion, and the way his eyes went blank, instantly told her he was out of the fight.
As she stepped away, pulling the stiletto from his chest, the man crumpled and tipped over the low seawall into the East River. She couldn’t have planned it any better.
She had no time to admire her handiwork and immediately had to parry a lunge from the man with the big knife. It was a good thrust, but all she had to do was turn sideways, and the blade missed her completely.
She grabbed the young man’s wrist with her left hand and drove the butt of the stiletto hard into his forehead.
She caught him as he lost consciousness. She said, “Have a good sleep. You’re going to need it.”
Chapter 47
I was sitting on the couch trying to hide how tired I was from Mary Catherine and Juliana. I was recovering, but the long days seemed to hit me hard in the evenings.
I never wanted to say anything to the family, because I cherished these evenings at home with the children. Working on school projects, talking sports, listening to their dreams and hopes. It was magical. Usually.
At the moment, I was in a serious conversation with Juliana. I know that an eighteen-year-old in New York can legally make her own choices. But that’s not what parenting is all about. I’m not naive. Sometimes you can’t be the fun dad who always cracks jokes. This was one of those times.
Juliana said, “You don’t even know Cade.”
I said, “You mean Carter?”
“I mean the man I’m currently dating.”
That stung a little bit. I didn’t like to think of my daughters dating. But I was realistic. She was a beautiful girl, and now she was going to be on TV. I had to watch what I was going to say.
“You mean the twenty-six-year-old man you are currently dating.” So much for watching what I said.
“I’m legally an adult. It doesn’t matter how old he is.”
Now Mary Catherine leaned in and said, “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s take a break and talk about it tomorrow.”
With that, Juliana stood up quickly and said, “Fine.” She stormed out of the room and left me shaken.
I looked at Mary Catherine and just shook my head.
She put an arm around my shoulders and said, “She has a point. She is an adult. Maybe it would be better to give her a little space and not push too hard.”
“It’s just that I don’t like to see my children make mistakes. I’m trying to save them from going through the same things I did.”
“But we all make mistakes. I would think a man of your advanced years would know that by now.”
That made me smile. Only for a moment. Mary Catherine was absolutely right, but I was still a father worried about his daughter.
Mary Catherine said, “Is there something here I don’t understand? Or are you just trying to set a certain bar for the other girls as they get older and start to date?”
I dropped my head into my hands and admitted, “I just don’t want to make the same mistakes I made with Brian.”
“What mistakes? You’re a great father. You did everything you could to be a good father to Brian. Sometimes people make poor choices. They make mistakes. Hopefully they learn from them and move on. I think that’s the position you might have to take with Juliana.”
“I know. That makes sense. I was just considering my other options.”
“Such as?”
“Having one of my buddies arrest this young man and maybe losing him in Rikers Island for a few months. Is that a realistic possibility?”
Mary Catherine let out a short giggle and hugged me. Maybe things might work out after all, if I gave them a chance.
Chapter 48
Alex relaxed in a chair near the hotel-room door, watching the unconscious young man tied to a chair next to the bed. It was amazing what a cabdriver would accept when he was afraid your “drunk little brother” would throw up in his cab.
This hotel in East Harlem looked l
ike it was generally used by prostitutes and pushers. There was no hourly rate posted, but based on Alex’s interaction with the clerk, any amount of time could be negotiated.
By the time she walked into the hotel, her captive was stumbling along with her. She’d undone her ponytail and allowed her hair to fly wildly around her shoulders and face. The wide dark sunglasses obscured what little part of her face was visible. And the hundred-dollar bill she handed directly to the clerk ensured that he didn’t pay much attention.
Now she waited patiently for the young man to completely regain his senses. He had lolled in and out of consciousness since they’d entered the room and she’d secured him with the cord from a lamp.
Then the young man’s head snapped upright, his eyes open wide.
He was much younger than she had originally thought. Probably around twenty. He was a good-looking boy with thick lips and a long, straight nose.
She wasn’t sure what to expect. Usually it was begging, and sometimes it involved offers of fast wealth if she would let him go. He went in a different direction and surprised her.
He snarled with a remarkably clear voice, “You will release me right now. If you don’t, you’ll regret your decision the rest of your short, miserable life.”
Alex was speechless for a moment. “Did I hit you too hard? You’re not making any sense. You’re the one who’s tied up.”
“And you’re the one who’s not making any sense. I was thinking I might sleep with you until you started acting like such a bitch.”
Alex just stared at the young man.
“I’ll still let you suck my dick, but you better untie me right now.”
Alex said slowly, “I’m confused. Are you trying to scare me or make me think you’re crazy?”
“I am crazy, and you should be scared. You have no idea what I’ve done to other women who disrespected me.”
“I probably have an idea. But I’m not one of those women. The only reason you’re not dead is because I have a few questions. There’s a chance, if you answer my questions, that you’ll see the sunrise in the morning. But if you’re going to keep up this attitude, I will not waste any more time.” She stood up and made a show out of opening her stiletto. It still had his friend’s blood on the blade.
Alex saw his eyes open wide and realized she was on the right track. She knelt down in front of him and unbuckled his pants. She thought that was all she’d need to do.
Then the young man said, “You better start sucking or you’ll be the one who regrets this.”
She couldn’t believe how some men acted toward women. She jabbed him in the leg with the stiletto. Nothing too serious. But she still had to put her hand over his mouth to keep him from screaming. Then she tilted the chair back so his head banged against the bed.
Alex put the point of the stiletto onto his groin and pressed slightly.
The man let out a yelp.
She knew he’d tell her anything she wanted now.
“Why were you and your friend after me?”
“We know you killed Cesar Ramos in his hospital bed.”
“Who is we?”
“The boys in our crew.”
“The Dominican gunmen?”
“There’s no way you get away with this. One word from me and you’ll live in misery for a week before they let you die.”
“Then I guess I better not let you give the word.”
When she was finished, she left the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door and casually walked out the hotel’s rear exit.
Now she had another complication with this contract.
Chapter 49
I arrived at the hotel in East Harlem about two o’clock in the afternoon. No one in this neighborhood seemed terribly surprised to see police activity around the building. There were a few hotels in every neighborhood that attracted people interested in doing their worst.
I chuckled at the cheap neon sign. FINELLI BUDGET INN. FBI. It had to be on purpose.
I saw the young homicide detective I was looking for. Roddy Huerta was a solid investigator and had proved his reliability over the past few years. He wasn’t particularly big on imagination or finding creative ways to solve cases, but he was a good cop. He was the new breed. Young, fit, smart, and college-educated. But he went by the book. On everything.
I came from the school of investigation that said you had to clear cases and actually get murderers off the street. And to do that, sometimes you had to take chances.
But this was his show, and I was just trying to gather information.
Roddy glanced up from his notebook and pushed his glasses back onto his nose. He looked surprised and said, “Hey, Detective Bennett. What are you doing over here?”
“Just curious to see if it’s related to something I’m working on. Whatcha got, Roddy?”
He followed me as I walked into the hotel. Some detectives would be offended to have someone wander onto their crime scene, but I knew Roddy was more interested in showing me how smart he was.
The younger detective said, “I’ve got a Hispanic male victim laid out in the bed. It looks like he’d been bound at the wrists and died from a single-edge-weapon wound to the chest.”
I said, “Technically to the heart.”
“The ME will have to determine that. Why are you interested?”
“Not the first I’ve seen this week.”
He perked up. “A serial killer.”
“Drug war.”
He looked disappointed, and I understood why. He was one of those homicide detectives who worked a very specific geographic area and really didn’t want to know about anything else going on. To catch a serial killer in an area like that would be something to crow about. Drug wars were a little more common.
We stepped into the room, and I saw the forensics people, wearing complete biomedical suits, processing the scene.
Roddy said, “It was a little tight in there, and the body had been in the bed at least twelve hours. I did my initial examination and decided it would be better to let the forensics people do their thing.”
“Have you canvassed potential witnesses?”
“The clerk doesn’t remember anyone coming in, and there’s no record of this room being rented. There are so many patrons coming and going that we probably won’t get anything useful out of processing it.
“The victim moved from the Dominican Republic sixteen years ago. He has sixteen arrests and four convictions and has never done any prison time.”
Roddy looked at me and said, “And please don’t just write this off as a Hispanic thing. Not all Hispanics are involved in the drug trade.”
“Did I say or do anything to make you think that?”
“Sorry—just a little defensive.”
I looked into the room at the face of the young man with a gray complexion staring lifelessly up at the ceiling. I’d been looking at this as a homicide investigation when in fact it was more of a narcotics investigation.
Chapter 50
If I needed to know something about narcotics investigations, I knew exactly who to turn to. Sergeant Tim Marcia. When I explained that I wanted to start looking at the homicides as if they were one big narcotics case, he understood immediately.
That’s how we found ourselves on Audubon Avenue, a few blocks from Yeshiva University in upper Manhattan. We sat in a booth in the kind of café where all types of business are conducted and no one pays much attention to who comes and goes.
I said, “Who exactly is this guy we’re meeting?”
“John is what people call a regulator.”
“And what is a regulator?”
“It’s an odd little position in the drug world. Someone respected and trusted by all sides of the narcotics business. His job is to iron out disputes and keep things quiet and profitable. It’s exactly the kind of job the NYPD would create if they understood anything about narcotics.”
“So everyone listens to him?”
“Everyone except for the cartels. You
can’t tell them shit. They think they can run the world.”
The front door opened, and as soon as I saw the man step inside, something told me he had to be the regulator. He was about fifty and had spent way too much time out in the sun. His hair was brown with streaks of silver and tied in a long braid that draped over his left shoulder. He was dressed like he lived in the West, complete with cowboy boots and a plaid shirt. In New York, he would be written off as just another colorful character.
A much younger woman stepped in behind him. She was stunning, with thick black hair and curves that seemed almost unbelievable. Even though he walked toward us, she sat at another table on the other side of the room.
The regulator stepped right up to Sergeant Marcia and nodded as he sat down.
Sergeant Marcia said, “Mike, this is the man I was telling you about.”
The regulator spoke with the raspy voice of someone who’d smoked since childhood. “Call me John. Everyone does.”
I looked across at the beautiful woman sitting by herself. “Is she with you?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He looked over his shoulder and waved to the young woman. She smiled and nodded her head. “She was provided to me by the Santos gang, near Yonkers. The idea is to make sure I don’t talk to the other side during a crucial negotiation.”
I said, “What negotiation?”
“It would be unethical for me to disclose that. It has nothing to do with what you want to talk about.”
For the first time I noticed a slight European accent. I had the distinct impression he didn’t mind a beautiful young woman following him everywhere.
I said, “I don’t mean to throw a wrench into anything, but I’m curious as to why you agreed to meet us.”
The man took a moment, as if he was gathering his thoughts. “Sergeant Marcia understands the balance of the streets. You do what you have to do, and I do what I have to. That balance is crucial to a happy life for a lot of people. I know about your issues with the Mexican cartel. Their use of a hit man and Dominican gunmen doesn’t involve me at all. Personally, I avoid Dominicans whenever possible.”
Ambush Page 10