“And?”
He had hardly been given a commitment. Despite this, he didn’t show even the slightest bit of hesitation before boasting, “She’s gonna take care of it. No worries.” He was that confident.
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, Monte. For crying out loud, she’s my daughter, isn’t she?”
“From what I’ve heard, I’m surprised she didn’t put one between your eyes herself. She’s supposed to be some kind of a tough cookie, ain’t she?”
“Yeah, tough, tough as nails. I read that she got a Silver Star for blowing away two Taliban scumbags over in Afghanistan.”
“So how’s she gonna bag this hit man without compromising her career? Are you sure we’re not going to do time for this? I’m too old to rot away in the can my last few years.”
“Monte, I said relax. She’ll handle it. She just needs a little time to figure things out.”
“I hope to Christ you’re right, Al. My goddamn daughter and kids, Al—they can’t even go back into their own house. The boys can’t sleep at night, and my son-in-law is so hot he’s threatening to hit me with a restraining order. The only good news in all this is that Carla and the boys gave the sketch artist a good description and the Jersey police are looking for him right now.”
“New Jersey Police? Ha! Did you say the Jersey police? Might as well be the Keystone Cops.”
“Al, you think this is funny?” Rossetti asked with a grave expression.
“I know. I know. It’s pretty bad, but the Jersey cops … what a bunch of amateurs.” He ran his hand back over his hair, then covered his mouth with his hand and dragged it down over his chin while he gathered his thoughts.
Rossetti pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He handed it to Al. “Take a look at this ugly mook—have you ever seen a kisser that messed up?” The police sketch was in black and white. The artist had expertly shaded the drawing to depict the attacker’s blistered and mottled skin. “Gives me the willies.”
Al sat down on a side chair and studied the drawing. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find a guy with a mug like that,” he quipped. “Poor bastard’s got a face only a mother could love.”
Rossetti glanced at him with a deadpan expression. “I’m hysterical laughing.” He sat down on the end of the bed, facing Al. “We’ve got to figure this out, you and me—quickly. Who’s behind this? It’s got to be Benzino, no? I mean, who else could it be?”
“Sure. That would figure, but … do you think?”
“That he’d kill us, all of us?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nunzio, on his death bed, told me that he did three years in the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, for Benzino. You think he gave up three years of his life just to be nice? You know as well as I do that he wasn’t given a choice. So if you’re asking me if Benzino would have us killed … Yeah, I think he’d do that. Look, Otho is dead. Faciamano is dead, and it looks as if I’m supposed to be next in line.”
Al rubbed his chin. “Hey, what about the guy who worked for the town? What’s his name? The guy we paid off.”
“I didn’t know about that.”
“Sure. Come on. What’s his name? He was a big fat son of a bitch. You met him.”
“Longinus? Stan Longinus? I didn’t know he was in on it.”
“Come on, Monte; you kidding? You think he was just naïve? He got a chunk of money to look the other way every time a tractor trailer dumped off a load. You know, a bigwig with the town like that with a pension to risk. Maybe it’s him if he’s still alive. Let’s say he figures he’s going to get implicated in this dumping investigation and is eliminating anyone who can do him any harm.”
“I don’t see it.”
Al pursed his lips. “I don’t know—a big scandal coming down like this one. He gets pinned for this, the fuzz start looking around, and who knows what else they’ll find. Longinus always was a nervous son of a bitch.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Al. I mean, Jesus, you’re picking at fucking straws.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Let’s get back to Benzino. Anyway, how do we get to him? It’s a lot more likely that he’s calling the shots than an old overweight former town employee.” He stood and began to pace the room. “Benzino. Christ! I mean, the guy is never alone.”
“None of that matters because we wouldn’t know what to do even if we got to him. Neither of us are killers. What are we gonna do, grab his shorts, give him a wedgie, and make him cry?”
Rossetti pushed out his cheeks. “For Christ’s sake, we don’t even know that he’s the right one. It’s just a hunch.”
Al seemed thoughtful, but slowly began to smile. “I don’t know if Benzino is guilty or not, but I know where to start.” He smacked the artist’s rendering with the back of his hand. “You don’t mind if I keep this, do you?”
Chapter 23
“Christ! What are you doing?” Liam dropped his briefcase on the floor and rushed into the bedroom. “Are you nuts?”
I was pushing aside boxes on the top shelf of my closet, up on my tiptoes and frustrated as hell. “Could you give me a hand?” I said with exasperation unmistakable in my voice. “You know, like the one I’d like to use except that it’s strapped down and useless. I have a box of holsters up here and …”
“Easy,” he said, moving me out of the way. “My God, Chloe, chill out. You a little irritable or something?”
He was too much of a gentlemen to ask if I was getting my period. You a little irritable or something? was Liam speak for, Are you on the rag, sweetie?
My closet was organized just so with everything neat and in its place like I had been taught in the marines: lines, columns, and rows—there was no place in my life for disorder, yet there I was tearing my closet, my shrine, to bits. Understanding that he was inquiring about my menstrual cycle, I responded unfiltered, “It’s not PMS, it’s ARM.”
He had his hands on the box I had been looking for and was sliding it off the shelf when he turned to me. “I think someone’s abusing their medication. You all right,” he asked with concern.
“ARM, Liam,” I repeated insistently.
He put the box atop our bed and shrugged. “What the hell are you talking about, Chloe?”
“ARM. Albert Royce Mather.”
Revelation flashed across his face like the billboard in front of a roadside motel. “Oh!” He plopped down on the bed. “Still freaked out about your old man, I see.”
“Freaked out? You have no idea—that man thinks about no one but himself! He cornered me this morning and …”
“Where?”
“As I was docking Lazy Daze. He was waiting for me.”
“So what does he want?”
I shook my head and dragged my hand down over my face. “I can’t say.”
“What?”
“I know, and I understand how crazy this must sound, but … just give me a little time with this, okay?”
He looked pensive and frustrated as if weighing his next words and actions. “You’re seriously not going to tell me?”
“I will. Just not this second.”
“When?”
“When I come to terms with what he wants.” I pulled the top off the box and dumped the holsters on the bed, grabbed a waist holster and jammed it into my slacks.
“I thought you didn’t like that kind anymore?”
I lifted my left arm, extending it out to the side like a chicken wing. “Can’t wear the shoulder rig, now can I?”
His mouth dropped. “You’re going to work?”
“Have to, Liam. I have to keep my mind off him, and I can’t deal with Wallace’s murderer walking around free as a lark and me doing nothing.” I felt the corners of my mouth turn down. “Shit! I’m rambling.” I covered my eyes and fought back tears.
He stood and put his arms around me. “Chloe. Don’t let your father do this to you. He’s not worth it.”
“I know he’s not, but …”
“You’
re still his flesh and blood, huh?”
I nodded, then kissed Liam on the cheek. “I’ve got to get my shit together. I’m meeting with Stone in a couple of hours.”
His eyes brightened. “You’ve made your decision?” he asked in a hopeful tone.
“Not yet, but I will before I walk into his office.” I checked my watch. “Christ, I have to get moving.”
“Which way are you leaning?”
I grinned like a clown and leaned to the left—“This way”—then to the right—“and this way.”
“You really are a steaming-hot mess, aren’t you?”
I bunched my lips and nodded.
“Think you can get your ducks in a row in the next two hours.”
I nodded again, this time differently. “Yeah.”
“You don’t sound very confident.”
“I don’t know, Liam. I either go up the ladder or back out on the street, and if I choose the street, I’ll make Stone my enemy for life.”
“You think Stone will be vindictive?”
“Vindictive? No. But he’ll never think of me the same way, and career-wise that’s as good as being dead.”
He took my hands in his. “I think you should go for it, Chloe. Taking a promotion doesn’t mean you have to babysit a desk for the next twenty years. You can be as involved in the cases as you choose to be.”
“In theory, yes, but in practicality … I’m not so sure.” I flipped my blazer in the air and let it settle on my right arm. “A car should be waiting outside for me. Wish me luck.”
“Just push your no-good father out of your head and remember how good you are. People like you don’t need luck, Chloe. They make their own.” He kissed me and reluctantly let me go.
Chapter 24
“Deputy Director Stone is in a meeting, SA Mather, but he said you’re welcome to join him.” Estelle Lerner, the executive admin, was as welcoming as a basket of kittens. She gave me the room number and continued to smile as I walked away. If given the opportunity, I think she would have offered to knit me a sweater.
As I approached the glass-panel wall, I saw Stone sitting at the head of the conference table. Cabrera was to his right. Herbert Ambler, the SSA in charge of the New York office, criminal division, sat to his left. Ambler was one of the good ones, a no-BS-get-the-job-done type.
Zev Bakal, one of the New York office team leads, was to his left. I wasn’t happy to see him there. The little I’d had to do with the man was never very pleasant. He was always prying, always hoping to get a leg up on you—a man whose intentions were never obvious.
I knocked twice and entered.
Stone, Ambler, and Cabrera rose immediately. Bakal remained seated. He grinned. At least I thought he grinned. It could’ve been gas.
“You’re looking better, Mather.” Stone greeted me with a robust smile and an attaboy pat on my healthy shoulder.
“Happy to be on the mend, sir.”
Ambler shook my right hand and smiled with one of his earnest, straightforward expressions. “I heard about your act of bravery, Mather. I’m glad that you’re feeling better.”
My connection with Cabrera transcended words. He said, “Hi, Mather,” instead of, “Howdy, Gumdrop,” which for him was a major concession, but one that was necessary. Calling me Gumdrop would not have gone over well.
Ambler pointed to Bakal. “You know SSA Bakal, don’t you, Mather?”
“We’ve met.” I offered Bakal my hand. “Sir.” He reciprocated by plopping a wet fish in my hand. The man had all the warmth of a centipede.
“Join us,” Ambler offered as they once again took their seats. “Maybe you can help four testosterone-minded men find an angle we’re not seeing.”
“Coffee, Gumdro—I mean SA Mather?” Cabrera had to twist his lips to prevent himself from laughing over the blooper that was only obvious to the two of us.
I accepted his offer and sat down while he filled a mug with java from a carafe. “Are we getting close to Sand?”
“Two workable leads,” Ambler began. “He was spotted on the C train riding uptown in his Stormtrooper’s uniform.”
“The C goes all the way up to Washington Heights. Did anyone see him getting off?”
“He rode it to the end,” Stone reported. “He was seen getting off at 168th Street. NYPD and every man the bureau can spare are going door to door in the area.”
“That’s a tough area to cover, block after block of tenements and apartments filled with police-hating Haitians. You won’t find compassion for a fallen federal agent up there. What else do we have?”
Bakal swiveled in his chair until he actually made eye contact with me. “The costumes were rented from a store in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, called …” He smirked. “Ho-Ho-Kus Pocus.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, that is just dreadful. It’s just the kind of stupidity you get when some lamebrain entrepreneur thinks he’s clever and there’s no one with the guts to tell him how bad an idea it actually is. Let me guess, rental fee and deposit were both paid in cash, and the contact information provided was erroneous.”
“I see your injury hasn’t slowed your thought process, Mather.” Bakal made a note on a legal pad. “Good for you,” he said in a condescending tone.
My first instinct was to leap across the table and strangle him, but I’d have a tough time choking him with only one serviceable hand. Eat shit, you phony. Nowhere near as cathartic as the real thing and definitely passive-aggressive, but it’ll have to do … for now! “Camera footage? Descriptions?”
“No camera,” Cabrera said. “The renter was a young black woman. Thin. Average height. The storeowner remembered that she wore an oversized lilac cap with the Kangol embroidery on the side. We found it online. It’s called a Bermuda Apple Cap that can be purchased in any number of places.”
“Are we checking stores in Washington Heights that sell it?”
“Yes. Of course,” Bakal replied as if by my question he had been offended, and that an agent as savvy as he was wouldn’t miss something so obvious.
“Do we have a sketch?”
Bakal pulled one out of a folder and slid it across the table to me. It didn’t give me much to go on; all that was depicted was a dark-skinned woman in a big hat, wearing enormous sunglasses.
“She paid in cash, as we mentioned,” Ambler said. “Drove her van around to the rear of the store and drove off as soon as it was loaded.”
“License plate?”
“Registered to Jo’Ell Sand,” Stone reported categorically.
I sat back in my chair and tried to imagine the events that led up to the firefight in which Wallace was killed. I pictured myself behind the wheel of the SUV and the first time I noticed the Stormtrooper garrison on 43rd Street crossing Broadway west-to-east, leading Chewbacca away in handcuffs. We were sitting at the light, waiting for it to change. I rewound and forwarded several times and something jumped out at me. “Now that I think of it, Chewbacca wasn’t all that tall.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Mather? Mind filling us in?” Bakal asked with irritation.
“Hold on,” I said as I cut him with a hot glance. “Chewbacca is supposed to be a giant, but I distinctly remember him being shorter than the Stormtroopers who were marching him away. Could it have been her? Maybe …”
“Would you have us put out an APB on a Wookie?” Bakal quipped.
Stone looked at Bakal angrily. “That’s uncalled for, Zev.” He turned to me. Our eyes locked and he began to grin. “I think I know where you’re going with this. Birds of a feather, Mather?” There was a good reason for Stone being the head honcho. He had it all, passion, intellect, and the confidence to go with his hunches.
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“What are we talking about?” Ambler asked. “I don’t like being the only dummy in the classroom.”
“You’re not, Herbert,” Stone said, shooting Bakal another nasty look. “I don’t want to steal your thunder. Go ahead, Mather.”
&nbs
p; “They were all in costume, clever costumes, granted, but the main reason for covering your face is—”
“To conceal your identity,” Ambler said, jumping at the opportunity to make the point.
“Yes, but there’s more to it than that. Sand and his crew were all facially deformed and they would have attracted too much attention in Times Square if they were all seen together, but in costumes in Times Square …”
Cabrera completed my sentence. “They were less conspicuous.”
“Hard to believe but true,” Stone interjected.
“Which could mean that if this woman was in the Wookie costume, she may have had a facial deformity as well.” I turned the artist’s sketch around so that everyone could see it clearly. “She’s hiding her face here. She’s got her hat pulled down low and with the massive sunglasses …” I turned to Bakal, looking him straight in his shit-eating face as I put forth the line of investigation he had failed to see. “So we run a database search for women of the appropriate race and color born with facial deformities, especially those whose deformities, like Sand, were caused by severe methotrexate syndrome. Cross-reference that list with those living in the Washington Heights area and—”
“That could be a very large list,” Bakal said in an expectedly negative tone.
“You’ve got a better idea?” Stone asked, then reached across the table, and slapped me five.
Chapter 25
The room emptied quickly. Stone needed fifteen minutes to make a call to DC. Cabrera and Bakal went off to pursue our newest line of investigation. Of course, Bakal paused long enough to inform me that he would be my interim CO until a successor for Wallace could be assigned, a notion that chilled me to my very core. I turned around when the door closed and noticed that Ambler was still seated and didn’t appear in a hurry to go anywhere. He was looking at me with a smile on his face.
“You remind me of my goddaughter,” he said.
“Sir?”
“I’ll explain. My goddaughter, Stephanie Chalice, is an NYPD homicide detective. The two of you have a lot in common. You’re both young, headstrong, and smart. I think you’d like her.”
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