She is at your disposal. Isn’t that what his benefactor had said?
There would be power in that, no? Telling her to undress, having her submit — tell her it was part of the job, she could not say no.
He had set up his hidden camera, so he would need to bring her back to his room if he was going to record this.
Perhaps he would make her undress first, then walk from her room up to his naked.
The thought of that sent heat to his very core.
He dressed, set his cell phone on vibrate, then left his room and headed down the stairs. He had a copy of her room key — a necessity, in case something happened to her, he had told her. In case he had to “scrub” her room — remove any equipment she may have left behind, any incriminating evidence or identifying articles of clothing.
It was partially true, yes. But she had looked at him in a way that led him to suspect that she knew fully well what it really meant.
He reached her room and knocked on the door. As he waited, he looked up and down the corridor, saw no one. When he didn’t get an answer, he knocked once more, then used the key card and entered.
The room was empty, the bed made. He checked the bathroom. There was no indication of recent use — the sink, tub, and shower curtain were all dry.
Vitali checked the dresser drawers. Empty. So was the closet. A single duffel bag lay beside the TV. Something told him to grab it.
He was back in his room and about to go through the bag when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket.
An incoming text, not a call.
His benefactor had never texted before, so Vitali was immediately suspicious. But the message it contained seemed straightforward enough.
Meet Smith, NE corner 23 and 8, 15 minutes.
Vitali replied, Will do.
He was heading for the door when a second text came through.
Bring her clothing.
There was only one “her.”
He grabbed the duffel.
The car that pulled to the curb was a late-model Ford sedan. Vitali made sure that Smith was the vehicle’s only occupant before getting in.
Smith tossed an unopened pack of Camels onto Vitali’s lap.
“So you can stop bumming mine,” Smith said.
Vitali thanked him, then asked where they were going.
“Up north. Thirty minutes from here.”
Vitali didn’t need any more information than that.
They rode in silence up the West Side Highway, crossed into the Bronx via the Henry Hudson Bridge, then headed north on the Saw Mill River Parkway. Vitali chain-smoked four cigarettes, tossing each one out the window when he was done with it.
Twenty minutes later they were exiting the parkway. Several quick turns after that, they were pulling into the parking lot of the Saw Mill River Motel.
Smith noticed that Vitali was looking for surveillance cameras.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s clear.”
Smith removed two pairs of gloves from the glove compartment. He kept one pair and offered the other to Vitali.
They exited the vehicle and headed for the room farthest from the manager’s office. Vitali slung the duffel bag over his shoulder. Smith unlocked the door with a key card and the two men entered.
The curtains were drawn over the only window, the room surprisingly dark for daytime. Still, Vitali could see that the woman named Rachel was lying on the bed, under the blankets. Her eyes were closed, her breathing soft but steady. A bandage was wrapped around her head.
“What happened?” Vitali said. He spoke softly, more curious than concerned.
“The Coyle woman got the better of her, apparently.”
Vitali stepped closer to the bed and studied the woman’s injuries. “How bad is she?”
“Don’t know.”
“She unconscious or sedated?”
“Sedated. We need to get her back to the city so our doctor can check her out.”
“I can’t be seen with her.”
“It’s all right.”
“How we will get her into the hotel?”
“We’re not going back to the hotel. He has a new place for you two.”
Smith pulled back the covers. The blonde was naked. Vitali didn’t need to ask why; her clothes had likely been tainted with her own blood, and maybe the blood of her attacker, so they would have been disposed of. Had she done that? In her condition? Not likely. And she couldn’t have had new clothes to change into, so she would have had to return from wherever she had tossed them naked, or, at best, wrapped in a blanket from the motel bed.
No, someone else had taken care of that. The same someone who had sedated her and wrapped her wounds.
Vital took a look at the woman’s body. Strong, but he knew that, had determined that during their initial meeting. She probably weighed a good 150 — her height and powerful legs and broad shoulders accounted for much of that, but she also carried a layer of body fat evenly distributed throughout her torso.
He noticed that she, like himself, had no body hair at all. The sight of her bare vagina, combined with her unconscious state, stirred him.
“We need to get her dressed,” Smith instructed. “But first things first.”
Vitali looked at the man. Smith was aiming his cell phone at the woman. He took several photographs of her, some full body shots from a few feet away, others extreme close-ups of her private parts. “Don’t be shy,” he said to Vitali.
Vitali, to his surprise, felt a wave of jealousy. But he ignored it.
When Smith was done taking pictures, he removed a capsule of smelling salts from his pocket and broke it under the woman’s nose. Her head rolled lazily from side to side. Smith kept it close to her nostrils. She came to, but only barely.
Vitali handed Smith the duffel, and from it Smith removed a blouse, pair of jeans, and shoes. There were undergarments among her things, but Smith didn’t want to bother with them. They proceeded to dress the woman, Smith pausing now and then to touch her — first her waxed vagina, which he said was the smoothest he’d ever felt, then her breasts, which he concluded were real. Vitali felt a powerful mix of jealousy and arousal but said nothing. Nor did he join in. He was sure he would get his chance with her. His chance to fuck her and then kill her. He hoped, suddenly, that before this was over he would get the chance to kill Smith as well.
A gesture of professional solidarity.
After the woman was dressed, Smith removed the bandage from around her head. Her short blonde hair was matted with blood in several places. Vitali searched through the duffel, found a cotton cap with a long bill — standard issue for someone in their line of work, a simple solution to keeping one’s face hidden in a world of overhead surveillance cameras.
Vitali held on to the cap as Smith used another capsule of smelling salts to wake the woman. When she attempted to pull away, Smith grabbed the back of her neck and held her so she couldn’t move. It took a moment before she could look Smith in the eye with a degree of cognition.
And then, to help her reach full consciousness, Smith slapped her face once, then again.
Vitali felt a rush of rage — nothing more, he told himself, than the displeasure of seeing a fellow professional being treated in such a manner. He didn’t hold his tongue this time.
“Hey,” he said.
“We need her awake,” Smith replied.
Vitali decided it would be best to keep his objection free of anything that could be interpreted as concern. “She has head injuries,” he said. “You want to make them worse?”
“We’re on a schedule,” Smith replied impatiently. He turned his back to Vitali, and it was then that Vitali noticed that Smith was wearing a bulletproof vest under his shirt.
Now that he wanted to kill Smith, his eyes sought out such things.
Smith addressed Rachel as if she were an infirm old woman. “We’re going to get you out to the car. You’re going to have to walk. Can you do that?”
She nodd
ed, then looked at Vitali, locking her gaze on him.
He tried to read her expression but couldn’t. Had she heard him come to her defense just now? Was her look that of one seeking out the only ally in the room?
Or was she simply aware that her failure with the Coyle woman meant Vitali would likely be ordered to kill her at some point?
Was her stare, then, just a matter of her being unwilling to take her eyes off him?
The last man she would want to wake up and see.
The last man she may very well ever see.
Smith pulled the woman to her feet, did so roughly. He had no patience, didn’t care that she was injured, clearly just wanted to get the hell out of there. He told Vitali to strip the bed of its sheets and pillowcase — anything that might retain traces of the woman.
Vitali did what he was told, then exited first, carrying the items he’d gathered in the duffel. He made a visual sweep of the area as he walked toward the Ford but saw no one. He was in the backseat when Smith and Rachel finally exited. They were walking arm in arm, as a couple would. Rachel was wearing the cap to hide the blood, but also to obscure her distinctive face with its long bill. Smith’s head was bowed slightly. They moved quickly but casually.
The woman sat in the backseat with Vitali as Smith drove them back toward the city.
The only words spoken were when the woman asked for a cigarette.
They pulled up to an abandoned warehouse, not in Manhattan but Brooklyn. Rachel knew enough about the layout of New York City to determine that much. And she had taken note of the street names once they got off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and the series of turns made to bring them to this place.
Smith parked at the loading dock entrance, got out, pulled open the heavy overhead door, then got back in behind the wheel and steered into the open bay.
Ahead was a small, enclosed office, its wide windows covered with wire mesh.
In it was a man Rachel did not recognize. In his fifties, bearded, dressed in a cheap suit. The man who hired her had saved her from the Coyle woman last night. He had helped her to his car, had tended to her in the motel room. She had seen his face, not just once but several times. Not just in the dark outdoors, but in the lighted room.
The bearded man inside that small office was not him.
Vitali and Smith stood outside the glass-enclosed office and watched casually as this man — a doctor or medic — checked Rachel’s eyes. They were smoking when he took her blood pressure, didn’t look away when he asked her to open her blouse so he could listen to her lungs with a cold stethoscope.
Five minutes later the bearded man was standing on the loading dock with Smith and Vitali while Rachel remained in the office and buttoned up her blouse with hands that trembled slightly. Though the door was closed, she could hear the doctor well enough.
“Mild concussion,” he told the two men. His accent was Serbian. “You’re lucky. Any worse, and the sedation could have killed her.”
“Can she do her job?” Vitali asked.
The doctor shrugged. “Sure, why not? She’s a strong woman. Very strong. Good heartbeat.” He looked at Smith. “You’ll lock up?”
Smith nodded.
“Can I borrow one of those?” The doctor was nodding toward the cigarette in Smith’s hand.
Smith held out his pack. The doctor dug out a cigarette with one finger, then left.
“There’s a room with two cots upstairs,” Smith said to Vitali. “Wait there.”
Rachel could tell by the Russian’s body language that he didn’t like this. But he accepted his orders without question.
She knew he would do the same when it came time to kill her.
Smith stepped over to the office and opened the door. Rachel, tucking in her blouse, acted as if she hadn’t heard a word.
“Well?” she said.
“You’re good to go,” Smith told her. “You two will wait here.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as it takes.”
She and Vitali were led up to the next floor. It was a maze of small, makeshift rooms — dozens of them divided by plaster walls that didn’t come close to reaching the high ceiling. A half-built call center, she thought. Or perhaps some kind of sex club. Either way, someone’s attempt at making money from this decrepit building.
In one of the rooms stood two cots and a half-dozen shopping bags, undoubtedly filled with food and water, medical supplies, cell phone chargers, and so on.
“There’s a bathroom on the other side,” Smith said to Rachel. “No shower, but there’s a sink. I put a box of hair dye in there. Dark. It might sting a bit, considering those cuts in your scalp, but he suggests you use it. Do you understand?”
Rachel nodded.
Smith looked at Vitali, said, “Keep an eye on her,” then left.
It was just Rachel and that disturbed Russian kid now.
She sat on her bunk on one side of the small room, and he on his on the other.
In her duffel was a sweater, along with several actual weapons and other common items that she could use as weapons. She asked the Russian if it was okay if she got her sweater. He said nothing, then stood, picked up the duffel, and carried it to her. He laid it by her bunk, then returned to his own and sat.
She opened the duffel and removed the sweater, but made sure one of the weapons — a stiletto knife — was on top of her remaining clothing and within easy reach. Then she placed the still-open duffel by the foot of her cot.
She put the sweater around her shoulders as the Russian stared at her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Johnny and Haley were approaching the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Seventh Street when a text came through to Johnny’s cell phone.
He removed it from his pocket and read it as they walked, a puzzled look crossing his face.
“What?” Haley said.
“It’s a number.”
“Phone number?”
“No. Room number, I think.”
He slowed to a stop, Haley with him. His eyes, as always, were scanning their surroundings aggressively but discreetly.
“Maybe they changed rooms,” Haley said.
Johnny thought about that for a moment, then nodded. They continued on, but Johnny was clearly wary.
The lobby of the Gershwin was crowded, so Johnny and Haley were able to pass the front desk without being seen by either of the two busy clerks.
Regardless, a tattooed girl and her man clad in jeans and a black T-shirt were not an unusual sight for this European-style hotel.
There was only one elevator, but before they got into it, Johnny made a quick visual sweep of the area. There was no second exit — if there were, it would certainly have been clearly marked.
So only one way out of the lobby.
Haley waited with him, knew what he had determined, and why it was important. Together they stepped into the elevator and rode in it with several other guests. They were its only occupants by the time it reached the seventh floor.
The corridor was a series of swinging doorways. Johnny had never seen a hotel designed quite like this. He did immediately recognize, however, a tactical advantage to staying at a place like this.
They reached the door and knocked.
Cat studied Johnny as he walked to the center of the room. She could tell by the way he moved that he was injured, and probably badly.
She knew by this — and by the redheaded woman acting almost as a crutch beside him — that he had in fact been in the car that crashed in Brooklyn last night.
Johnny’s eyes went to Cat’s right arm, set in a nylon cast and suspended in a sling. He looked back at her face again but she just shook her head — Don’t ask, I’ll tell you later, there are more important things we need to deal with now.
“It’s good to see you, Johnny,” she said.
“You, too, Cat.” He introduced his sister to Haley. As they said hello, Johnny looked around the room. It was actually a small suite — li
ving room and bedroom divided by French doors, which were currently closed. The windows of the doors were frosted white.
“He’s in there?”
“Yes. He’s still a bit groggy, though. Still under the effects.”
“Of?”
“Heroin.”
“So he is using again.”
“No. He says someone injected him against his will.”
“And you believe him.”
Cat nodded.
“Who would do that?” Johnny asked.
“There were two men. One was the guy we saw in the surveillance video, and the other was an undercover detective named David Smith.”
“Why would an undercover cop inject Jeremy with heroin?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know about the guy?”
“Not much. It seems that he was tasked with infiltrating Dickey’s crew. But the thing is, it’s starting to look to me that he’s actually part of Dickey’s crew. Working for Dickey, maybe giving him information, helping him stay one step ahead of the cops and the Feds.”
The accusation was a familiar one.
It was the same thing, more or less, that their father had been accused of, following his murder.
Of course, John Coyle Sr. hadn’t infiltrated Dickey’s crew. He had, over his career, infiltrated the crews of other mobsters.
All rivals of Dickey’s.
And the cover that had helped Coyle make his way into those crews — and stay alive for the time he operated within them — had been provided by Dickey.
According to an informant, Coyle had gathered information as much for Dickey McVicker’s benefit as for the FBI’s.
And was paid well for it by McVicker.
All lies, but in the end, that didn’t matter.
Then, or now.
“So you’re saying that guy in the surveillance video and this undercover cop are both Dickey’s men,” Johnny said.
“Yes. Smith was at the warehouse when we met. You, me, Dickey, and Donnie Fiermonte.”
The Betrayer Page 23