Trap (9781476793177)

by Tanenbaum, Robert K.

  Every once in a while he’d say something to let her know that he was still entertaining amorous thoughts. But as district attorney, she’d been even more unambiguous that the power dynamic had changed; she was the power now.

  Yet, it wasn’t just his oafish leers or suggestive remarks that formed her low opinion of him. While he could be clever in his dishonesty, and certainly knew how to wield power to achieve their shared goals, the years of being the top dog of a politically powerful organization had made him arrogant and careless. As she continued to set her aspirations at ever higher levels, such as a seat on the federal bench, or even governor, she’d worried that he was becoming a liability. However, she still needed the backing of his union, and so for the time being their fates were tied together.

  Monroe leaned forward in his seat across from her and tossed a computer flash drive onto her desk. “This,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “A copy of the video taken by security cameras at headquarters about three a.m. There was a break-in.”

  “A break-in? Who breaks into a teachers union office?”

  Monroe pointed to the flash drive. “Take a look.”

  Frowning, Stone picked up the flash drive and inserted it into the USB port on her computer. Grainy video feeds from four security cameras popped up in the quadrants on her screen. At first there was nothing; then two men appeared in the upper left-hand quadrant that showed the glass front doors of the building. They were all wearing black balaclava masks and gloves, except for one of the men, who appeared to have something white around one of his hands.

  The men knew what they were doing, quickly gaining entry and then disappearing from that camera’s view. They showed up again in the next frame, racing through a semi-dark hallway; then in a third in front of a door Stone knew led to Monroe’s office. Again the lock wasn’t an obstacle.

  This time, however, when the men entered the office, one of them pulled out a can of spray paint and used it on the security camera lens. “What’s that on his hand?” Stone asked as the screen turned black.

  “Looks like a bandage,” Monroe said.

  The recording stopped. “That’s it?” Stone asked.

  “Got ’em leaving, too, about five minutes later, but basically that’s it.”

  “So what were they doing? You keep a lot of cash around?”

  Monroe shook his head. “There was some petty cash in a drawer, but they left it,” he said, then hesitated.

  “Well?”

  “Well, it looks like they were after my computer.”

  “They stole your computer?” Stone asked incredulously.

  “No, they didn’t steal it,” Monroe replied. “I think they were looking for information.”

  Stone felt her stomach contract and the muscles of her face tighten. This was not going well. “What were they looking for?”

  “I can’t be sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “They wiped the history for everything after I shut it off when I left the office yesterday.”

  Stone eyed the dagger-like letter opener on her desk and imagined sticking it in Monroe’s throat. “Well, what might they have been after?” she asked, her voice icy and her anger barely under control.

  Monroe licked his lips nervously. “I don’t think they could have got into my computer. But there are some records on there . . .”

  “What records?”

  The big man tilted his head to the side. He let out a long breath. “There’s one folder in there with some account information and real estate documents that, uh, we’d rather not go anywhere else.”

  “We’d?” Stone glanced at the letter opener again. “What do you mean ‘we’d rather not go anywhere else’? What in the hell did you have on that computer?”

  Monroe squirmed in the chair. “Pretty much everything.”

  “What!” Stone’s response wasn’t loud but it was hard as a brick to the head. “You fucking idiot.”

  “Your name’s not on any of it,” Monroe said. “At least not your real name. It’s mostly dummy corporations and surrogates on the leases and documents, and all of it’s encrypted.”

  “Yeah? And in the wrong hands how long do you figure it might take someone to break the code and track some of that down? Maybe lead them back to us? I can’t believe you’re so stupid.”

  This time Monroe frowned as his face flushed with anger. “Don’t tell me you don’t have ‘records’ that could incriminate me stashed away somewhere.”

  Stone’s eyes blazed. “Not anywhere anyone else could find.” She glared at her partner in crime a moment longer, then took a deep breath and let it out. She’d always believed that she was smarter than everyone around her—that she deserved whatever she wanted because of her superiority—and she hadn’t made it this far by panicking when things weren’t going right.

  “So who do you think was behind this?” she said as she pulled the flash drive out of her computer and put it in the middle drawer of her desk. “The charter school association?”

  Monroe looked thoughtful. “Could be. Maybe somebody with his nuts in a twist because of that stupid car bomb.”

  Stone got the jab. He’d been uncomfortable with the assassination plan even though she’d argued that the timing would be perfect because of threats Rose Lubinsky had been getting from neo-Nazis. Then the thugs had cooperated by showing up to demonstrate. “But don’t they have a suspect in custody?”

  Monroe shrugged. “My sources in the NYPD don’t know much. And I have no ins at the New York District Attorney’s Office.”

  When Monroe hesitated again, Stone knew more bad news was on the way. “What is it? You got somebody in mind?”

  The union president nodded. “I don’t know who the shorter guy with the bandaged hand is, but I think the other one is Micah Gallo.”

  “Well, that’s just fucking great,” Stone exclaimed. “We should have destroyed him and left it that way.”

  “I believe you were the one who said, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,’ ” Monroe pointed out. “You thought it would be useful to corrupt him and use him against the charter schools.”

  “I believe Sun Tzu said that, but it doesn’t matter now. If it’s him, what’s his game? Blackmail?”

  “Could be. Maybe he’s been playing us all along, waiting for a chance,” Monroe said. “Or maybe revenge?”

  “Revenge. He’s up to his eyeballs in our little side business. He takes us down, he goes with us.”

  Monroe shook his head. “I’m not talking about revenge for what we did to him.”

  “What then?”

  “This car bomb stunt,” Monroe replied. “He was close to Lubinsky. It might have pushed him over the edge.”

  “What makes you think that? I mean, with those Nazis there, what connects us?”

  “Well, he was supposed to show up at the Jay Street Bar precisely at eight,” Monroe explained, “but he was closer to nine. Said he’d been in the city, meeting an old friend. But he was pretty nervous about it. Then when the news came on about what happened, he was real shook up. Took off about as soon as he could get out of there.”

  Stone didn’t answer right away so Monroe used the gap in the conversation to get in another dig. “It was a mistake to have your ‘friend’ in your office the other night.”

  “You were early.”

  “Yeah, early enough to hear all the bumping and grinding. What the hell are you doing fucking that guy anyway? Talk about playing with dynamite.”

  Stone shot up from her seat and grabbed the letter opener. “How dare you!” she yelled.

  Monroe snorted. “What? You going to stab me now because you’re playing hide the monkey with a sociopath? That will look good in the papers.”

  The letter opener clattered to the top of the desk as Stone sat down with a groan. She was quiet for a moment, then looked up at Monroe. “Do you know for sure if they were able to get into that file folder?”

  Monroe s
hook his head. “No. They wouldn’t have known what to look for either. It’s named ‘Family Album’ and I’ve never showed it to Gallo. And like I said, even if they got into it, it would have just been a bunch of symbols. I’ve got a computer forensics guy looking at my machine to see if he can tell what they accessed and maybe the history they erased.”

  “Good. Have you tried to reach him?”

  “Who? Gallo? Yeah, I’ve called him a couple of times, but all I get is his answering machine. I haven’t said anything about the break-in.”

  “What about the police? Did you report it?”

  “Are you kidding me? Last thing I need is the cops nosing around.”

  Stone nodded. “Okay, maybe it won’t matter.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Don’t know yet,” she replied. “Think about it. Let me know what your computer guy finds out and if you hear from Gallo. Now I’ve got to get back to work.”

  After Monroe left her office, Stone sat thinking for a few minutes before calling up her email account and opening a new message. In the subject line she typed: “Need to meet asap. Coney Island. Two jobs.” She then hit the Send button.

  The next five minutes seemed to take forever. Then a message popped into her inbox. “One hour” was all it said. After reading it, she erased both her message and the answer before pressing the intercom button.

  “Tony, I’ve had something come up and need to go out,” she said to her office administrator. “Cancel my appointments and send any calls through to the answering service. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  14

  LARS FORSLING WALKED THROUGH THE door leading into The Storm Trooper and paused for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dimly lit interior. The only windows looking out onto the sidewalk had been painted over to prevent the detractors and the curious from looking in and so the only light came from a few yellow bulbs set in the walls or behind the bar.

  The dingy brick interior was decorated with photographs of famous Nazis and of the German Army, as well as the front pages of German newspapers heralding great victories from World War II. Nazi flags and decorative daggers were hung on the walls and from the ceiling, including a particularly large one behind the bar next to a life-sized portrait of Hitler. The whole place smelled of spilled beer, sweaty bodies, and cigarettes—despite New York’s ban on smoking in public establishments.

  Sitting at the bar were the bouncer, Jimmy Gerlach, and Bob Mencke. Otherwise the dive was empty of patrons and anyone else except for an unshaven, middle-aged barkeep, wearing an old black SS uniform shirt too small for his beer belly, which he left open, exposing his wife-beater undershirt. He looked up and smiled. “Well, if it ain’t the man of the hour,” he said. “Good work, Lars. I’m surprised they let you out.”

  “Right on, Lars,” Gerlach agreed. “I was there, man, ka-boom, one Jew and two Jew lovers toast.”

  “I couldn’t make it to the rally,” Mencke said. “But I knew you were planning something big; I could see it in your eyes, Herr Forsling.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Forsling replied.

  “Yeah, yeah, sure, I understand,” said the bartender, whose name was Frankie LaFontaine. “Mum’s the word, but you’re among friends; let me buy you a beer, just because . . . wink, wink.”

  Then LaFontaine saw the look on Forsling’s face, and his smile disappeared. “What’s up?”

  “That fucking Jew district attorney and his nigger cop,” Forsling snarled, fighting not to break down. “They killed my mom when I was in lockup. They think I did the car bomb so they burned her out.”

  “That’s fucked up,” Gerlach said.

  “All part of the Zionist Occupation Government,” Mencke added. “They want to shut up anybody who’s on to their scheming.”

  “Damn right. What can we do to help?” LaFontaine asked.

  Forsling looked around wildly, shaking his head and breathing heavily. “You still have that Luger?” he asked.

  The bartender’s eyes widened. “Yeah . . . what are you planning to do?”

  “Better if you don’t know. That way they can’t say you helped me, but if I don’t make it, you’ll know the truth.”

  “Where you going to go after you do it?” Gerlach asked.

  “Idaho,” Forsling replied. “I’ll disappear. No one will ever find me. But keep that to yourselves.”

  LaFontaine looked at the others, who nodded solemnly. He then reached under the bar and brought out something wrapped in cloth; he removed the rags to reveal a vintage German Luger pistol. “I don’t know if it even works,” he said. “It’s an old model. It’s loaded, though. . . . Just remember, you didn’t get it from me.”

  “Don’t worry, Frankie, I ain’t no snitch,” Forsling said. “One more thing, I need the van.”

  LaFontaine shook his head. “The cops can’t trace the gun back to me,” he said, “but the van is registered in my name. Besides, I need it to get back and forth from my place in Queens. I can’t let you have it.”

  Forsling glared at LaFontaine. Then he picked up the gun and pointed it at the bartender. “I fucking need the van,” he said. “You can say I stole it from you.”

  Several things happened at once. With a growl, Gerlach scooted his bar stool back and started to charge Forsling, who swung the gun in his direction and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun firing and the sight of the top of Gerlach’s head disappearing in a spray of blood and bone seemed to stun everyone for a moment.

  Then Gerlach’s heavy body collapsed to the floor as Mencke let out a high-pitched scream that seemed to wake the others up. It might have ended badly for Forsling otherwise, but he turned in time to notice LaFontaine make a sudden move for something he had under the bar. He was able to turn the gun toward the bartender just as the other man brought a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun up.

  Forsling fired twice more, both bullets striking LaFontaine in the belly. The bartender fell back against the counter, bringing a dozen bottles crashing to the floor.

  In the meantime, Mencke just kept screaming until Forsling pointed the gun at the Oberkommando of the New York City Nazi Party, who backed up against the wall. “No, don’t,” the man squeaked just before another bullet struck him in the chest. He slid down the wall with a look of surprise as he gazed down at the growing bloodstain on his shirt.

  Forsling stood for a moment as if stunned by his own actions. He couldn’t seem to hear, but wasn’t sure if that was because of the gunshots or the pounding of his heart in his ears. His breath came in short pants as his mind raced through the past few minutes. They made me do it, he thought, the Jew Karp and the nigger cop. They killed my mom. They pushed me over the edge. It’s their fault my mom and my friends are dead.

  All at once, Forsling’s mind cleared. He still had a mission to complete. He hurried over to the front door and locked it. He then walked back to the restroom and checked to make sure there was nobody in there. Then returned to the front and slipped behind the bar.

  LaFontaine was still alive, holding his hands against his belly. “You son of a bitch,” he gasped weakly.

  Forsling aimed at the man’s head and was going to finish him but then reconsidered. If you’re lucky, nobody heard the first shots, he thought. The bar was in a warehouse section of Hell’s Kitchen and there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic. But he didn’t want to risk someone hearing more shots.

  “You should have given me the van,” Forsling said to the wounded man, who didn’t reply except to writhe and grunt in pain. He looked under the register and found a box of shells for the Luger. He thought about taking the shotgun but decided against lugging it around. Instead he opened the cash register and took the money before roughly rolling LaFontaine over on his belly and removing the man’s wallet and keys.

  Someone knocked on the front door. Forsling quickly stepped over the pool of LaFontaine’s blood and walked toward the back of the bar. Opening the door and walking out into the alley, he spotted the beat-up,
older model Ford Econoline van. It had once belonged to a welder and the faded sign for Eric Woodbury & Sons Metalworks could still be seen on the side. He’d thought about the van on his subway ride over from East Harlem to Hell’s Kitchen, and it had helped formulate his plan for revenge.

  Forsling got in the van and saw a New York Yankees ball cap on the passenger seat, which he put on to hide his shaved head and tattooed forehead. Starting the van, he drove fast down the alley, nearly striking a white-haired man in a business suit at the entrance. He then pulled into traffic, headed for Third Avenue and 29th Street and Il Buon Pane.

  Arriving at the bakery, he noticed workmen for a glass company packing up their truck. He waited and then pulled into the spot next to the side of the bakery, just behind an area of blackened snow where the car had burned the night before.

  Pulling the ball cap down and sticking the Luger in the pocket of his black leather coat, he got out of the van and quickly walked to the front of the store. Opening the door, he walked inside and saw two teenaged boys at the counter saying something to the old woman on the other side.

  The old woman smiled and made a welcoming sign with her hands though she didn’t speak. The boys looked at him curiously. “Sorry, but we’re closed,” one of them said.

  “Oh, uh, I’m with Woodbury and Sons Metalworks. I was told to stop by and see if there was anything the owners needed,” Forsling replied, looking past the boys at the room beyond. He’d expected to find the old couple who fit into his plan to get even with Karp. But things had worked out better than he’d hoped.

  Forsling had recognized the teens. He’d seen Karp talking to them the night before from the backseat in the police cruiser. But that wasn’t all. The district attorney had photos of his family on the wall of his office where he’d been brought. One of them showed Karp with the young men he was looking at.

  “Metalworks?” the other, bigger teen asked. “I didn’t know someone called for a welder. Who are you?”

  The teen’s attitude and question irritated Forsling. He pulled the pistol out of his coat pocket. “I’m the guy with the gun, jerk-off,” he said. “Now you’re all coming with me.”