by Stuart Woods
Unfortunately, there was no one he could call on for the next part of his mission. He and he alone had a shot to save Melanie.
The cab pulled up on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Thirtieth Street. Herbie paid the driver and got out. The downstairs door was open. Herbie went in and rang for the elevator. The car came, an ancient one with buttons that stuck. He pushed eight and rumbled up to the eighth floor.
Herbie strode down the hallway and banged on the frosted glass door with the sign saying FINANCIAL PLANNER.
Carlo flung it open. He gawked when he saw who it was. “What the hell do you want?”
“I need to see your boss.”
“About what?”
“None of your fucking business.”
That was the right answer. Carlo stepped aside and let Herbie into the office.
Herbie’s heart was pounding. He had his gun on his hip, loosely covered by his sports jacket. He’d bullied Carlo to avoid a pat-down, and it had worked. Now if he could just carry it through.
Mario Payday sat behind his desk. Ollie the Ox and another big goon stood on either side of him.
Herbie walked up to Mario, spread his arms wide, and grinned. “It’s Payday.”
98
WHEN HE GOT the call, Dino Bacchetti came out of his chair. “You arrested who!?”
Ten minutes later the guard at the lockup let a rather sheepish-looking detective out of the cell.
“What the hell happened?” Dino said.
“Some guy attacked me for no reason.”
“You couldn’t handle him?”
“He sucker-punched me, and he knew what he was doing.”
“Why did he attack you? Was he drunk?”
“That’s how he acted, but I’d bet he was stone-cold sober. He hit me, and it was all I could do to respond. The next thing I know I’m in the back of a police car.”
“What was he like?”
“He looked like a marine sergeant, right down to the crew cut and square jaw.”
Dino turned to the officer accompanying him. “Let me see the arrest report.”
Dino looked at the report. He flipped a sheet. His eyes widened. “Damn it to hell!”
Joshua Hook was sitting on a cot, his face marred by a black eye and a bloody lip.
“Why’d you beat up my officer?”
“What officer?”
“You beat up the officer I had tailing Herbie Fisher.”
“That was a cop?”
“Who the hell did you think it was?”
Josh shrugged. “He looked like a thug.”
“You knew he was a cop. That’s why you did it. Would it surprise you to know the doorman observed Herbie Fisher leaving his apartment building at approximately the time the fight started?”
“They told me I don’t have to say anything until I see my lawyer. Are you him?”
“All right, don’t tell me, I’ll tell you. The cop was tailing Herbie for his own protection. Herbie always seems to pick a fight with the wrong people. This time he picked a fight with Tommy Taperelli, and Tommy Taperelli is not unresourceful, and Tommy Taperelli doesn’t play nice. Now, I don’t know what story Herbie told you about the guy, but there’s a good chance it was Tommy Taperelli who killed his girlfriend.”
“This wasn’t about a drug bust?”
Dino sighed. “It is and it isn’t. Look, Josh, anything Herbie told you about a drug bust is probably true. I’m guessing he didn’t tell you Taperelli probably killed his fiancée.”
“I thought it was a burglar.”
“So did we. But it might have been Taperelli. We just found out, but I think Herbie suspected all along. Since Herbie found out Taperelli may be behind it, he’s come unglued. I don’t know what he’s contemplating but it can’t be good.”
Josh frowned.
Dino sighed. “Look, Josh, I’m not just a good friend of Herbie, I happen to be a good friend of Mike Freeman, the founder and CEO of your parent company, Strategic Services, and Mike also happens to be a good friend of Herbie—in fact, Mike was the guy who hired Herbie to work with you in the first place. If I have to get Mike down here, I will, but I don’t really have the time. So if you know anything, anything at all that can help me deal with the situation, since thanks to you I have totally lost all contact with Herbie Fisher, you’d better tell me now.”
• • •
DINO CALLED STONE. “Herbie got away.”
“What? How?”
“Herbie got Josh Hook of Strategic Defenses to beat up my detective. He also got him to give him a gun. That’s where he was this morning, at the upstate training facility brushing up on his shooting.”
“Josh beat up a cop?”
“He thought he was one of Taperelli’s men.”
“Why did he think that?”
“Herbie sold him on the idea. I don’t know how, but he did.”
“I can’t believe Herbie spotted your man. Your men are good.”
“Yeah, but Herbie’s running on pure adrenaline. He’s doing things he shouldn’t be able to do. He’s also attempting things he shouldn’t attempt.”
“Do you think he’d go after Taperelli?”
“That was my first thought. I rushed men to his office, but he’s gone for the day. I’m putting men on his house.”
“Where is Herbie now?”
“I have no idea. But didn’t Yvette show him that app?”
“Find My Phone?”
“Yeah. If we had his laptop, we could track him.”
“And if we had his phone, we could find his laptop.”
“Stone.”
“Relax. It’s probably at his apartment. I’m on my way.”
Stone thundered down the stairs. “Fred!” he yelled.
99
MARIO WAS SKEPTICAL. “You don’t have the money?”
“I have the money. I don’t have it now.”
“That’s the same as you don’t have the money.”
“Not at all. I have the money, and I will give it to you. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Today. I will give it to you today because today is payday and you are Mario Payday, and you are the one who gets paid.”
“That is a lot of fancy talk for a man who doesn’t have the money.”
“Let me explain.”
“I don’t want to hear you explain. I just want the money.”
“I quite understand. Do you understand? Your business, I mean. Do you understand your business?”
Carlo took a step toward Herbie, but Mario stopped him. “I understand my business perfectly. I do not need a lecture from you.”
“You understand your business perfectly from your point of view. You don’t understand it from mine. What kind of a guy borrows ninety thousand dollars from Mario Payday?”
“You didn’t. You borrowed it from Vinnie the Vig.”
“Exactly. And more to the point, what type of guy borrows ninety thousand dollars from Vinnie the Vig?”
“He’d have to be pretty desperate,” Carlo said.
Mario gave him a look. It was bad enough listening to the guy’s talk. He didn’t need his own boys helping him.
“You’ve got to be a pretty bad risk to borrow from Vinnie the Vig,” Herbie said. “You need to be at loose ends because the interest is going to kill you more often than not. To put yourself in that kind of hole, you must be a hard-core addict, the type of gambler who can never walk away from the table a winner because as long as he’s got any cash at all, he’s going to bet it. You know that type of guy? Of course you know that type of guy. That type of guy pays for all your fancy suits.”
“I’m not amused, Mr. Fisher. You’ve got two minutes before you’re out the window again. I wouldn’t waste them.”
“You know what it’s like with an addict. One drink, and they’re back on the sauce. Or one hand of cards. Well, that’s me, and that’s how I ran through my money, and that’s why I have a conservator. He was put in charge of clearing up all my past debts, and making sure I did
n’t accrue any present ones. Well, this is a past debt, and he has to honor it, which he is willing to do. The only problem is he won’t give me the money.”
“Hey,” Carlo said, “what kind of runaround is this?”
Mario put up his hand. “Mr. Fisher, my boys are getting impatient. You say you can get the money, then you say you can’t. While I certainly appreciate the circuitous logic you’re spewing, if it does not end with me getting the money, it would be very unfortunate for all concerned.”
“Of course you get the money, and you get it today. I’m just explaining why it isn’t in my pocket. My conservator wouldn’t give me ninety thousand dollars to pay you because he knows I am an addict, and you don’t give ninety thousand dollars to an addict. He knows I’d go straight to the track.”
“That would be most unwise, Mr. Fisher.”
“To try to double my money before I paid you off? To an addict like me that would seem like the wisest thing in the world. But that’s not going to happen because my conservator won’t give the money to me, but he’ll give it to you. Which frankly would be a big relief. I would like this matter resolved as much as you would. So what do you say? Let’s go get it.”
“Who is this conservator?”
“My uncle Henry, who was put in this position because he was a hard-nose, pain-in-the-ass stick-in-the-mud who won’t make a move without a second or third opinion. You can be assured he has looked you up, knows you are who you say you are, knows you have a reputation, and knows you are not the type of man to forgive a debt. He has come to the conclusion that you have to be paid, though I must say, he is not happy about it.”
“The happiness of your uncle is not my top priority.”
“I understand. Unfortunately, it’s one of mine.” Herbie gestured to the door. “Shall we?”
Mario Payday frowned. “Are you sure Uncle Henry has the money?”
“I just got off the phone with him.”
“Why can’t he bring it to us?”
“He doesn’t like traveling with that much cash.”
“And yet he has it with him. That makes no sense.”
“He lives near the bank,” Herbie said. “He doesn’t live near you.”
Mario Payday took a puff on his cigar. He exhaled a billow of smoke and nodded to the goon who was his driver. “Bring the car around.”
100
DAVID’S CABBIE WAS getting antsy. “How much longer are we going to wait here?”
“Not much longer,” David said, though of course he had no idea, and he was getting antsy himself. The meter kept clicking over, and while he could cover it with a credit card, keeping the cabbie happy might take a cash bribe, and he was low on cash.
There was a bank across the street.
“See that ATM? Hang in here. I’m going to get you some money.”
David waited for the light to change, then hopped out of the cab and sprinted across the street. He swiped his card, punched in his security code, and took out four hundred dollars.
Herbie came out of the office building with two goons and a plump man with a mustache and a big cigar. A town car drove up to the door. They climbed into it and it took off.
David raced across the street, dodging a bus and a truck, jumped into the cab, and said, “That’s him in the limo.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
David fanned the wad of twenties. “Drive, or I’m hopping out.”
The cab took off.
101
FRED SCREECHED THE BENTLEY to a stop in front of Herbie’s building. Stone hopped out and pointed his finger at the doorman. “I have to pick up Herbie’s iPad. Give me his key.”
The doorman knew he was a friend of Herbie’s, had actually been there when Stone helped Herbie furnish the place. He gave him a key and sent him up. The hundred-dollar tip probably didn’t hurt.
The iPad wasn’t in Herbie’s office, or in the living room, or in the bar. He eventually found it in the bedroom sitting on a bedside table next to a bottle of perfume and the latest issue of Vogue. Yvette’s side of the bed. Stone wondered if Herbie had ever used the iPad himself.
Stone switched it on and opened the tracking app.
A light began blinking in the midst of a map.
Stone rang for the elevator and called Dino. “He’s in Queens.”
“Then he’s not going after Taperelli. He lives in Jersey.”
“Who’s in Queens?”
“I have no idea, but I’m on my way.”
“You calling the cops?”
“Not the local cops. Herbie wouldn’t want that. I’m taking my best men.”
“I’m one of them.”
“I can’t wait for you.”
“Are you kidding me? I’ve got the iPad. Fred’s double-parked out front. You’ll be lucky if you keep up.”
102
MELANIE WAS WEIGHING her odds, which she was hard-pressed to do because she was almost delusional with exhaustion and hunger. They hadn’t been feeding her. She’d complained, but they hadn’t given a damn. They clearly weren’t prepared for keeping prisoners, or at least they weren’t prepared for keeping one alive. No one knew where she was, including her, and no one was coming to help, and the options she’d rejected before were looking more and more attractive.
She thought about the window. Even if she could get it open—and that was a big if—would she be able to survive the fall and run far enough away to get help?
Was that a better chance than attacking a man on her way to the bathroom? It seemed a toss-up. They had their guns out now, each time they opened the door. Still, they wouldn’t be expecting an attack, wouldn’t realize how agile she was. Could she disarm an armed man?
She liked the idea better than the window, all that jagged glass slashing her to bits as she smashed her bones on the pavement below.
She’d do it the next time they took her to the bathroom. She’d hear the key in the lock and she’d be ready.
103
TAPERELLI WAS SITTING in his large leather chair with his feet up and a drink in his hand. On a local chat show Jules Kenworth was pontificating on the benefits his new building would have for the community. To hear him talk, Jules Kenworth was almost singlehandedly responsible for easing unemployment and bringing commerce to New York City.
Tommy Taperelli’s wife stuck her head in the study door.
“Not now,” Taperelli said irritably. His wife knew better than to disturb him in the study.
“There are cops outside. I thought you’d want to know.”
Taperelli kicked his feet off the settee and spilled his drink. “What the hell!?”
He went to the window, lightly brushed aside a corner of the curtain, and looked outside.
• • •
TAPERELLI CALLED MOOKIE. “I’ve got cops on my house.”
“Oh?”
“So far they’re just doing drive-bys, no one’s knocked on the door. But they’re staking the place out, so maybe someone talked and they’re looking for the girl. If so, they’re looking in the wrong place. They’ve got no reason to look in the right place, but be alert. You out there now?”
“Yeah.”
“How many guys you got?”
“Me, Gus, Chico, and Lou.”
“Everybody carrying?”
“Sure.”
“Check on the girl.”
Mookie hung up the phone and went upstairs. The door was closed, the key was in the lock.
Mookie raised his voice. “Back away from the door.”
Mookie took his gun out, unlocked the door with his left hand, twisted the knob, and pushed the door open.
Melanie was standing by the door, close enough to have kicked him if he hadn’t been wary. When she saw the gun in his hand she took a step back.
“That’s a good girl,” Mookie said.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Yeah, well, I’d like to win the lottery,” Mookie said. He slammed the door and went downstai
rs to get a beer.
104
DINO SWERVED AROUND a taxi with his cell phone plastered to his ear. He straightened the car, barked at Stone, “Where is he now?”
Stone was thrown sideways as Fred overtook a semi, skidded into the outer lane. “L.I.E., heading east toward City Field.”
“Where are you?”
“About ten minutes behind.”
“I’m catching up.”
“Bullshit,” Stone said. “Your only advantage is you don’t have to worry about getting pulled over.”
“You’re sweating a speeding ticket?”
“I don’t want to miss the action.” Fred nosed the Bentley through a gap the size of a pinhole and floored the gas.
• • •
HERBIE WAS CRUSHED between Carlo and Ollie the Ox. With the town car this crowded, Mario Payday was sitting up front with the driver, leaving the others to the backseat. Herbie didn’t mind being squished, he was just afraid they’d notice his gun, or the damn thing would go off and he’d shoot himself in the leg. The gamble was desperate enough. He didn’t need the attempt to be over before it began. The thug squishing his gun had so much fat and muscle he didn’t seem to notice the hard metal jamming into his leg.
The town car took an exit. The turn jammed the gun even harder into the side of the thug.
Herbie tried to control his breathing, and prayed that Ollie the Ox lived up to his nickname.
• • •
THE CAB ALMOST missed the exit. David had to scream at the driver, who nearly totaled the cab, causing a ten-car pileup that would have shut down the L.I.E. He cut across two lanes of traffic and fishtailed onto the exit ramp as a chorus of car horns applauded the move.
The cab was much too close to the car for comfort.
“Slow!” David warned. “In case the light’s red.”
It wasn’t. The town car breezed right off the exit just as the light was changing.
“Make it! Make it! Make it!” David screamed.
The cabbie missed the last flash of yellow and flew through on the red, prompting another blare of horns.
A block ahead, the town car appeared to take no notice. It slowed and took a right. The cabbie graced David with his ritual grumble, and followed.