Speak of the Devil

by Richard Hawke

  Your Nightmare

  I looked up. “When did you receive this?”

  “A little over two weeks ago. Tuesday the eighth.”

  “And ‘the show.’ I’m guessing that’s Miss Gilpin’s show?”

  “It was opening that Thursday.”

  “Was it a known fact that you’d planned to attend the opening? Was it publicized?”

  Leavitt shrugged. “It certainly wasn’t being treated as a secret.”

  “Is this the original?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a copy.”

  I looked at Carroll. “Forensics?”

  Leavitt answered for him. “Like we told you yesterday, we’re keeping this contained.”

  “Maybe you are,” I said. “But I think your Mr. Nightmare has some different ideas.”

  “So it would seem. We’re proceeding with caution,” the mayor said. “Which is where you come in.”

  “Oh? And where do I come in? I was under the impression after last night that I was already out.”

  Carroll spoke up. “We’ll explain.”

  I looked at the letter again. “Okay, then, the hundred-dollar question. Or, I guess, the million-dollar question.”

  Leavitt nodded. “I wore a red tie.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at Carroll. The commissioner looked as if he might have entertained a few apelike creatures of his own overnight. His skin sagged and his eyes held none of their usual crisp alertness. “Of course we weighed it,” he said. “You don’t like to hand over a psychological victory just like that.”

  “But you also don’t want to be stupid, right?”

  “Exactly. Right off the bat, the prick got us into a lose-lose.”

  “Score one for Mr. Nightmare.”

  “He chose the right goddamn name,” Leavitt muttered.

  “So he could have been anywhere,” I said. “He could have had a ticket and been seated near you. He could have been outside the theater when you arrived. Or up on the roof of a building with a pair of binoculars. Anywhere. For all you know, he might even be someone in the show. Or someone working for the theater.”

  “I do not like being jerked around by this creep,” Leavitt said emphatically.

  “And you’re convinced that it wasn’t Diaz who sent the note?”

  Carroll answered, “We know there were at least two people involved, Diaz and whoever left the bomb at Barrymore’s. It seems likely that’s the same person who phoned the mayor to gloat yesterday after the parade shooting.”

  “Maybe the shooting was unrelated,” I said. “Maybe the guy who wrote this letter saw a chance to piggyback on the parade shooting. Maybe the bomb in the coat-check room was all he was planning from the beginning.”

  Leavitt looked to Carroll. “We’ve considered that,” the commissioner said. “But I’ve got a gut feeling on this one. We’re feeding the ‘two unrelated incidents’ story to the media, but I’m sure as hell not buying it. I smell a real nut job here, Fritz. Make that a pair of them. We got one. We got Diaz.”

  “Correction,” I said. “You had Diaz. You had a man who could have told you something about what was going on, except that someone blew his brains out. Before we go any further, I want to know what that’s all about.” I turned to the mayor. “I need to know.”

  “We’re getting ahead of ourselves here,” Leavitt said.

  I picked up the creamer. “That’s okay with me. We can get back to you and your red tie in a minute. I need to hear what happened to Diaz and why.”

  “He had a second gun,” Tommy Carroll said.

  The creamer froze in midair. “He had a second what?”

  “A pistol. Strapped to his ankle. A Tomcat.”

  “The arresting officer missed a weapon? Tommy, don’t ask me to believe that.”

  “Do you hear me bragging about it? You don’t get more fundamental than a basic pat-down. But what can I tell you? Cox retrieved Diaz’s Beretta, then shoved him into his cruiser. He just wanted him out of there. He missed the other gun.”

  “Jesus Christ, Tommy, a six-year-old with a month of television under his belt knows you pat down a suspect.”

  “So maybe I should start enlisting goddamn six-year-olds. I just told you, I’m not happy about it.”

  “Let’s hear about the head shot.”

  The mayor and the police commissioner shared another look. I couldn’t read the look. Might have been nothing. Might have been something. Either way, I was ready. My bullshit meter was primed and humming.

  Carroll shifted in his chair. “After I cut you loose at the Municipal Building, Cox and I went back up to get Diaz.”

  I stopped him right there. “Tell me again why it is that your boys brought Diaz and me to the Municipal Building instead of a precinct house. From where I sit, that don’t smell good.”

  “Control. We didn’t know who or what we were dealing with yet. Or how many were involved. For all we knew, there were snipers stationed at all the precinct houses, waiting for us to bring their man in. It was a diversionary tactic that reverted the timing of things back into our control.”

  “But you had no reason at that point to think it was anything but a lone gunman.”

  “Wrong. You’re forgetting, we already had two possible shooters in custody. Diaz wasn’t the only one running around waving a pistol. We didn’t know what we had. We took the precaution.”

  The “precaution” of avoiding taking dangerous suspects directly to a police station. The needles on my bullshit meter were dancing wildly.

  Carroll continued, “When Cox and I got up to where Diaz had been secured, Diaz pulled his weapon.”

  “The Tomcat.”

  “Exactly.”

  “The Tomcat that Cox had failed to detect.”

  “Correct.”

  The needle continued to flick. “I assume he was still cuffed.”

  Carroll nodded. “He was cuffed.”

  “I saw him being cuffed at the fountain. At least Cox got that part right.”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Fritz. Cox’s partner had just been gunned down by this punk. You might want to cut the man a little slack.”

  “I saw Cox cuff Diaz behind his back,” I said. “That must have been a hell of a thing, for Diaz to contort himself all over the place to get the gun out. How exactly did that work, Tommy? He somehow got the gun out with his arms cuffed behind his back, and then what? Was he turned away from you and Cox when you came in? Was he aiming over his shoulder?”

  “He was cuffed to the table.”

  “Oh. The table. So you uncuffed him, then cuffed him again, this time to the table.”

  “Right.”

  “One hand?”

  “Correct.”

  “Other hand free?”

  “Correct.”

  “Free to pull out his pistol when you and Cox are coming in the door. My goodness, it’s almost his lucky day.”

  “Lucky days don’t end up at the morgue,” Carroll said. The mayor grunted his agreement.

  “Okay,” I said. “So Diaz pulls his pistol. What then?”

  “Cox drew and fired.”

  “And he hit Diaz right between the eyes.”

  “Not exactly. But close.”

  “Did Diaz get his shot off?”

  Carroll shook his head once. “He did not.”

  “That’s fast shooting on Cox’s part,” I observed.

  “For which I am grateful.”

  I took a sip of my coffee. The eggs on all three plates were untouched and going cold. I looked over at the mayor. “How’s all this sound to you?”

  “Officer taking a man into custody and failing to detect that he has a weapon? Frankly, I’d like to have his badge. But we have special circumstances here.”

  I picked up the letter.

  Enjoy the show.

  Your Nightmare

  Tommy Carroll leaned forward. His shadow eclipsed my plate. “You make instant decisions and then you live with them. You know how that is. Listen, Fritz, w
e want our citizens to feel that they’re safe. That’s our job. ‘Hero cop kills massacre suspect in shootout in Central Park’ versus the ugly and embarrassing truth. I like choice number one. Either way, the scum is dead. Cop-killer scum at that. It’s a shortcut to justice, but in the end it’s still justice.”

  “In the end it’s a cover-up, Tommy. You know your history. The cover-up’s always the thing that ends up biting you more than the crime itself.”

  Mayor Leavitt chimed in. “We’re trying to control history this time, Mr. Malone. That’s why we’re telling you all this.”

  “We need to catch the guy, Fritz,” Carroll said. “He’s still out there. We thought we had him yesterday. We thought Cox killed him. But Cox only killed part of the problem.”

  I quoted, “ ‘The nightmare has just begun.’ ”

  “We’re not releasing the information that Nightmare contacted us two weeks ago,” the mayor said. “Categorically not. I hope I’m clear on that, Mr. Malone. It’s crucial. This letter does not exist.”

  “We’re calling him Nightmare?”

  The police commissioner answered, “This is an operation. We need a name for it, and that’s the name we’re going with.”

  “It’s an operation no one knows about,” I observed.

  “Exactly.”

  “You don’t even know if it’s one guy or a half-dozen.”

  “Doesn’t really matter at this point,” Carroll said. “ ‘Nightmare’ covers however the hell many of him there are. Or them. I don’t give a damn about that right now. Beginning in another hour, my next headache is the press. They’re clamoring for a clarification from us about why we think the two incidents aren’t related.”

  “I saw that Rebecca Gilpin’s presence at Barrymore’s was surgically removed from the news accounts. Good work on somebody’s part, but how long is that going to last?”

  “Not long enough, I’m sure,” Leavitt said.

  “Why not just say she was there? Try your luck with the copycat story.”

  “Because the story stinks,” Carroll answered. “This was a fricking bomb. Not the most sophisticated bomb, but still not something a copycat freak is going to whip up in one afternoon. We put the blanket on Miss Gilpin’s presence at Barrymore’s partly to buy time. But also because at this point, if the word gets out, the chance of an actual copycatter increases. As of this moment, Miss Gilpin is essentially under house arrest. Nobody gets to her. As soon as she’s stabilized, we’re taking her out of the city to an undisclosed location. Nightmare has had two cracks at her. That much, at least, is over.” Carroll gave me a rueful look. “Shortest job you’ve ever had.”

  “He doesn’t mention her specifically in his letter,” I said.

  “Taking a shot at Rebecca was strictly to piss me off,” Leavitt said. “I’m being messed with here, Mr. Malone. That’s part of the M.O.”

  “And you’re sure about that?”

  “I am.”

  “What about the possibility that someone might have a specific beef with Rebecca? Or a fixation? You know the kinds of loonies who latch on to celebrities. So far, she’s the common link here.”

  Carroll responded, “Fine. Of course. That’s just it. It could be all of those things or none of them. Hell, I’d love to think that getting Miss Gilpin off the scene shuts down the problem. That’d be nice. But how stupid do I look? This Nightmare character is clearly a psychopath. We have no reason to think that he’s gotten his ya-yas out and is just going to go away. He wants something. Besides the thrill he must be getting from blowing people away, he wants his goddamn million dollars.”

  “So if you’re not planning on letting people in on the fact that this nutcase is trying to blackmail the city, what exactly are you planning to tell them?”

  “First thing we’re doing is we’re sticking with the story that the two events are not related. We don’t want people thinking we’re suddenly under siege. Unfortunately, Miss Gilpin is the key to that, and we don’t know how her situation is going to play out. It’s going to take a lot of spin once people discover that she was in that restaurant. But right now the plan is to isolate the two incidents. The parade? Diaz did it. Diaz is dead. Loco cabeza. Hero cop to the rescue. All is well. Case closed. On to the next incident. The bombing at Barrymore’s? We just don’t know at this time. God’s truth. But we’re going all out to find out who’s responsible, and as soon as we know, we’ll apprehend the responsible party or parties. That’s the line. It’s also the truth.”

  “It’s nice when those two coincide, isn’t it?” I picked up the letter and read it one more time. “Do your investigators know about this?”

  Carroll fielded the question. “There’s nothing in that letter that assists the investigation.”

  “I would think that its very existence assists the investigation.”

  “Our teams are sifting through the restaurant. They’ll put the bomb back together. That might tell us something. They’re interviewing everyone they can locate who was at or near the scene last night.”

  “Nobody’s interviewed me,” I said.

  “We know what you know,” Carroll said.

  I indicated the letter. “And I know more than most.”

  Leavitt folded his cloth napkin precisely and set it on the table. “Commissioner Carroll says we can count on you, Mr. Malone. I knew your father. Not terribly well, but we had some dealings. And of course I knew his reputation. I had great respect for Harlan Scott.”

  “So did I,” I said, maybe a little more tersely than I needed to.

  “Tommy says you caught his best genes.”

  “Well, Tommy ain’t the most poetical hen in the house. But I’ll take the compliment.”

  Leavitt nodded. “I understand you were planning at one time to follow in his footsteps.”

  I glanced over at my father’s successor, who was giving his fork a hard look. “I took a few steps in that direction,” I said. “Some things happened and I made an adjustment. I decided the badge might be a little too heavy to carry around after all. I like being a little lighter on my feet.”

  Carroll set the fork down, made sure his eyes were nice and dead by the time they met mine. The mayor didn’t seem to notice. He leaned forward and took the letter from me and gazed at it grimly. “We want you to help us stop this creep from doing any more damage, Mr. Malone.”

  I picked up my coffee mug. “I’d be happy to, Mr. Mayor. But genes or no genes, I don’t know what you think I can do.”

  “We’re going to pay him,” Leavitt said.

  “You’re going to pay him? You’re going to give this creep a million bucks?”

  “That’s what he wants in order to stop. I’m not going to have him ravaging my city. He’s proved his point.”

  I looked from Leavitt to Carroll and back again. Good poker faces. “I’m guessing you gentlemen didn’t bring me here to see if I had a spare million on me.”

  “You’re going to deliver the money,” Carroll said flatly. He reached out and placed a hand firmly on my wounded shoulder. “That’s what you’re going to do. And then you’re going to never breathe a word about it.”

  NIGHTMARE HAD DELIVERED A SECOND LETTER. HE’D LEFT IT IN AN envelope in a freezer bag, tucked beneath the handful of frozen turkeys that remained in the horizontal cooler at a Gristedes grocery store two blocks from the mayor’s residence. A call had come in to the City Hall switchboard at around three-thirty in the morning. The caller was a male with a slight Hispanic accent who identified himself as “the mayor’s worst nightmare.” The operator described him as soft-spoken. The caller had said, “Tell the mayor that if he wants to stop the killings and is ready to talk turkey, he should go buy one at the Gristedes on York. No delay. If you don’t deliver this message immediately, the blood will be on your hands.”

  The operator had contacted Philip Byron immediately at his home and played the message for him. Byron had phoned Tommy Carroll, and the two met in front of the Gristedes within the hour. C
arroll was armed with a warrant to seize the store’s security-camera tape for the past twenty-four hours. Not ten minutes after they arrived, they were joined by two members of the police department’s bomb squad who’d brought a pair of sniffer dogs. Two clerks, the night manager and four customers were evacuated to a coffee shop two blocks away, where a patrolman was assigned to keep them from leaving until Carroll questioned them. Tommy Carroll and Philip Byron stood next to a barrel of pumpkins while the bomb squad and their dogs traveled up and down the aisles and through the rear storage area. The letter was located beneath the turkeys within five minutes, but Commissioner Carroll had instructed that it not be removed until the bomb sweep was completed.

  The men from the bomb squad gave the store a clean bill of health just after five in the morning. Carroll put the plastic freezer bag containing the envelope and letter into a holiday gift bag that he’d appropriated from a display near the front of the store, then led Philip Byron up the block to the coffee shop to question the people they’d detained. Nobody reported seeing anyone poking about in the horizontal freezer section. Carroll took statements from the four customers as to what items each was shopping for in the Gristedes at that hour of the morning. He had them photographed by the patrolman, took their names and addresses and released them. Then he badgered the night manager and the two clerks for descriptions of the people who had come into the store after midnight, which was when their shifts had begun. One of the clerks, a lanky black guy with a silver earring, remembered “a couple of bitches that can kiss my ass” who came in around two o’clock and tried to walk off with two pints of Ben & Jerry’s. “They was dustin’, dude. High as a kite. You want to arrest somebody, those muthafuckas is prime.”

  The two “muthafuckas” aside, the only customer coming into the store between midnight and three-thirty who’d drawn any of the employees’ attention was a nun who, according to the night manager, arrived at around three.