Shoot
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It was still warm outside and a gentle breeze stirred the puffy sea grass clumps near the pool. I directed my host to the flat area near the barbecue, where the two large octo-copter drones sat silent, my twin stealth aircraft. A long, looped twelve-foot line from each was stretched out on the paving stones. I hit a key on my phone and both whirlybirds buzzed into life and lifted off. They stopped and hovered ten feet above us, lines dangling straight down.
“Presto!” I told Walter. “I used magic to get here.”
“You have got to be joking,” Walter said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Drones? You are suicidal.”
“No, I’m not. Actually it was great, really cool. Airborne. I recommend it, Walter. Two thumbs up. Speaking of which, put your hands up, please,” I ordered, pointing the tube gun at him again.
He raised his hands.
“You’re going to rob me?” he sneered.
“In a way,” I said, quickly grabbing the lines, looping them over his wrists and tightening them.
“Hold on, Walter,” I told him, hitting another command on my phone. “Hold on tight!”
Walter, panic in his eyes, clutched the ropes above his wrists, as the black drones buzzed furiously and pulled him ten feet vertically into the night air.
“Wait! What are you doing? You have no proof! You have no proof!”
“Walter, son, you only need proof if you’re going to court. I’m settling out of court. You said you were flying to the Virgin Islands in the morning? I just got you a free ticket to your island tonight on the Red Eye. God Bless America. Have a nice flight!”
Of course the batteries in Sparky’s drones would last less than an hour, so it was impossible for Walter to actually reach paradise. Hey, it’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey. At about thirty miles per hour, Walter would become Icarus and fall from the sky about twenty-five miles out to sea. Unless he got free of the ropes sooner and his weight brought him down in a controlled descent. It was a long shot but he could still come out of this alive if he didn’t panic. It was better odds than he gave Chesterfield and the others.
I hit the last command and Walter rose high into the sky, toward two thousand feet, and began moving on his south-south-easterly course, which would take him over midtown, the East River, and the harbor. As he rose higher, Walter’s cool cracked. I thought I heard yelling. The drones were swallowed by the background of night, leaving a surreal image of a thin man in loud golf pants, flying gently through the sky. In a few seconds I couldn’t hear him anymore. Soon after, his checkered golf pants vanished behind the sparkling skyline.
Presto.
I walked back inside and made sure the cat had enough food and water until the cops arrived. I shut off the tube gun and left it on the coffee table. I found one of my host’s baseball caps in the front closet and let myself out. I took the stairs because I didn’t want to get caught in the elevator or by its video camera. It was a long descent but at least it was downhill. At the lobby, I peeked out. The same doorman from the other night was on duty, nodding off in a chair behind his podium. I waited until I saw his chin drop to his chest and I sneaked out, the cap’s brim low over my face. I silently shut the stairwell door behind me. Walking quietly to the elevator door, to give the illusion I had just emerged from it, I then walked straight out, startling the drowsy doorman.
“Night, Eddie,” I mumbled from under Walter’s hat, hustling out the swinging door, hoping most guards didn’t pay as much attention to people leaving as they did to those trying to get in.
“Can I get you a cab, sir?” I heard Eddie say halfheartedly inside, not bothering to rise, as I disappeared.
As I walked, I thought about what I had just done— framed a killer with planted evidence and executed him, without trial, in a state without the death penalty. All in a day’s work. I felt bad but not nearly bad enough. It felt like justice to me.
Walking faster, I made a traceless digital web call through a free internet service in Amsterdam called ZeroTrace, which distorted voices and deleted all electronic signatures once the call ended.
“Hello?”
“Is this Detective Lieutenant Negron of the Major Case Squad?” my robot-like, altered voice asked.
“Yeah, who the fuck is this? Iron Man?”
“Not important,” I told him. “What’s important is that a secret source is tipping you off to who is behind your political murders but you need to move fast to get him.”
I told Izzy Walter’s name, address and penthouse number and suggested he get there before Cantor committed suicide or fled the jurisdiction. I mentioned a flag as evidence, a dangerous weapon on the coffee table and reminded him to feed the cat. That was probably enough for NYPD to get in the door without a warrant.
“Who the hell is this?”
I hung up.
Walter Cantor had ordered the deaths of five people to throw an election but I wanted my last memory of him to be a positive one. I tried to think of him as a winged bundle of consequence, speeding toward his fate. His view of the city he loved would be magical right about now. High over the harbor, on his way toward the Atlantic Ocean, he would have a once-in-a-lifetime view of the Statue of Liberty, lifting her light beside the Golden Door.
I tossed Walter’s cap in a trashcan and headed home to Jane and Skippy, my real magic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KIERAN CROWLEY was a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning investigative reporter, who received communication from an actual serial killer and deciphered his secret code. He covered hundreds of trials and thousands of murders and recovered evidence missed by police at numerous crime scenes, some of which helped bring killers to justice. He passed away in 2016.
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