“You been kicking back with Fox and Friends?”
“Get a grip. No, I saw a ticker on the screen up there.” He pointed up to a corner of the bar where a TV screen showed one of the rolling news channels. “There was footage from Bryant Square and the back of the New York Public library. The ticker said Butler would hold a press conference there this after noon.”
I said, “We’ll all just get press accreditation and hop on over. What could be simpler?” Noah shook his head while I said, “He’s bound to want to hang around and chat after, right? After he’s given the news about the slayings in a public park. Do you think he’ll have many people with him?”
“No more than a few hundred cops. Plus marksmen.”
“Nothing to it.”
Noah said, “There may be a way.”
The sports bar was just a couple of blocks from the library, and it wasn’t too busy in the middle of the afternoon. I pointed to the screen nearest to our booth asked Laney, our bouncy server, if could she set it to the news channel that was covering the press conference. She said no, because it would piss off the manager.
“He hates it when there’s anything on the screens but sports. The news channels are all politics, and he hates politicians.”
She looked up at me with a cute tilt of her head. “I kind of feel the same way, you know? But we keep a couple of tablets for saddo’s — sorry — for the customers who want to watch something else. Should I get you one of those?”
When she’d taken our order she went and got a tablet and set it up for us to watch tap into their digital channels.
Butler stood tall behind a lectern in the sunshine. The buttons on his immaculate uniform shone and he was on a raised platform on the steps of the 5th Avenue entrance to the library. He looked around slowly at the cameras with that watchful, commanding look that cops use to be reassuring in dangerous times. The look that says, ‘We’ve got this. Put your faith in me.’
The park at the back of the library must still have been too messed up for the image he wanted to project.
Thick lines of uniformed police surrounded the platform, looking outward. News crews surrounded them all.
He made a speech that began, “My fellow New Yorkers,” and it made me think that we were in for a very long afternoon.
He talked about the victims of this ‘heinous crime,’ and he said, ‘one of whom was a serving FBI agent,’ but he covered his bases by adding, ‘although his exact reasons for being here at the time of the shootings have yet to be determined.’ That was obviously to leave some scope for putting blame on Schultz or maybe even the FBI if he needed to. He talked about how the incident, ‘shattered the peace of the lives of good citizens.’
He was just getting into the part where the ‘hard-working, law abiding New Yorkers’ should be confident they could ‘rest assured,’ about the ‘inexhaustible efforts’ that he knew they would expect ‘New York’s finest’ to deliver up for them.
Right in the middle of one of his over-wrought and over-written sentences, everybody ducked. Everybody, all at the same time. He looked around, startled. The cameras swivelled, hunting for a reason, something to explain why all the cops were crouched with their guns drawn, and all looking around.
Then the picture zoomed in on Butler. Two tiny green laser dots danced on the breast of his tunic.
Vesper took up the phone and looked at me. She pushed the button to dial.
Butler had seen the dots, too. Just like any normal person, he touched them, as if he could brush them off. Then I saw his shoulders make the instinctive flinch to duck. To his credit, he resisted. He kept his poise and stayed standing.
He looked about him, trying to see where the lasers might be coming from. But he knew that was useless, just as useless as hiding behind the flimsy podium would be. I was impressed, though, that he had the presence and the guts to stand in the firing line. This looked like a man with a serious political future in his mind.
Then he stopped. Looked down and took out a phone. He glared at it and looked back up before he answered.
Vesper spoke quietly. “Stay still, Commissioner. Do not move.” On the tablet the camera zoomed in on his face. His eyes hardened and his lips tightened.
Vesper told him, “You don’t have to talk yet.”
Butler glowered around him. “You don’t have to worry about seeing me,” she said. “I can see you. That’s all that matters.”
He stood. Straight and still, he held his composure. Until she said, “We know about the boilerhouse project, and we know about your involvement with it.” His face reddened as he drew his breath in.
He looked at the phone, as if he might be able to do something to it. Something that would change this situation. He took a step back.
“Stay where you are. Stay at the podium. This can all go smoothly, but you will have to do exactly as I tell you. Nod to show that you understand me.”
He nodded once, slowly.
S I SPOKE into the phone, I watched the Commissioner’s face on the tablet screen. The corners of his eyes tightened. “WE know that you have conspired in criminal enterprises.” His eyes narrowed and I pressed him. “You took part in the events surrounding the murders of the Bonaventura brothers.” His chin flattened. It wasn’t evidence but to a trained interrogator, it was proof that I’d hit the right button.
The timer I’d set was down to forty-five seconds. Butler looked up at the camera. His jaw muscles clenched and his eyes burned as he stared straight out of the screen. He looked right at me. Like he could see me.
Horse watched me intently. Whether the intensity was because he was nervous for me or protective of me, I couldn’t tell. He wasn’t a man I’d expect to see being nervous, but I still couldn’t take his instinct to protect me for granted.
Evenly I said, “You knowingly had an innocent man sent to jail.”
“Aw,” his voice was hard, “Did a bad man had to go away for the wrong crime? I didn’t know the Bureau had such precious flowers on the front line.” My breath caught and he heard it. His eyes sparkled. “That is who you are. You’re in the New York Bureau. That’s right, isn’t it?” the corners of his mouth tugged in the start of a grin. “You’re a Special Agent in line for a whole world of special hell.”
I recited some of the more significant names and accounts on Schultz’s memory stick for him.
“Well, if ‘doing the right thing’ is what you’re so fucking determined to do, then I guess you won’t care that we’ve got the goods on a whole lot of the whiter than white politicians, city managers, cops. As well as plenty of Federal Agents.” I felt the sneer in his voice, and I saw the curl of his lip. “Being as how you’re such a crusader for the truth and blind justice, you won’t stop to worry about the hurt it will bring on their families or the losses it will cause to their communities. Am I right?”
“That’s why I want to give you one chance, Commissioner. To give you the one opportunity to do the decent thing. Call the Mayor. Resign. There will be a limited set of charges. You’ll get off pretty light.”
“And so I take the fall for everybody, right? One sucker fits all.”
“Commissioner, you’re taking a fall whatever you do. Why not minimize the damage to yourself. And to your family.”
“You dare talk about my family? I’ll take every motherfucker in this city down.”
“There are murder charges outstanding, Commissioner. Murder and conspiracy to murder. Do it my way and you’ll be faced with the corruption. You’ll go away, but not for so long. There might even be a way for you to come back.”
He snarled, “Do your fucking worst.”
“My worst for you will go all the way back to Missouri.” His face changed then. He knew where I was headed. “And the case of a very young girl named Gina Haddon Tate. You may recall her very striking cocktail dress.”
His cheeks drained pale.
“Your resignation, Commissioner. Immediately. Do it now.”
His laugh wa
s hollow and chilling. “What do you mean, now?”
“Step up to the mic, Commissioner. Address the Mayor directly.”
His eyes darkened and his mouth tensed. He spoke slowly. “If I don’t?”
“If you do, I’ll send the files that I have on you to the DA and the State’s prosecutor.”
His mouth pursed.
“And if you don’t, all of the files I have on you as well as all of your conspirators will go to the prosecutors, and to the media. There’s a timed email with a very long distribution list, ready to go. All it needs is one simple action from me to stop it. Every single day.” His face darkened. “In case you were thinking about anything unfortunate happening to me.” I watched him boil.
“Believe me,” I said, “If all of that material gets out, your playmates won’t be your friends anymore.”
He still looked like he was ready to fight back. I said, “The people you’ve been associating with, the other players in this little drama, they don’t like a loose end, do they?” I let him chew on it for a couple of seconds. “Remember Damian Crane?”
I had only a few moments before I would have to end the call and we needed to leave. “That was why you went to all the trouble of setting up and framing an innocent man to take the rap for the Bonaventura killings, isn’t that right? So that he couldn’t talk. If he didn’t know anything about it, he couldn’t give anyone up for a plea bargain.”
His voice was hard and hollow. “Well? The guy who did do it is at peace in the Hudson. You have no proof, what are you going to do?” He looked up as if a thought had just crossed his mind, “Even if you’ve recorded this call, I have dozens of forensics people who I know will discover that the recording has been edited beyond recognition.”
Quietly I said, “That would blow up in your face. The recording is logged and time stamped on a dedicated FBI server.”
He laughed. “You are FBI. I fucking knew it.” He’d bluffed me. His shoulders lifted. “I know who you are. I had a feeling, but now I’m sure. You do realize that we have conclusive and damning evidence, enough to have every agent in the New York Bureau discredited and jailed. Including you.”
“It would have to be manufactured evidence.”
“Ooh, that would be bad, wouldn’t it. Only nasty, nasty people would do that.”
“Why kill the Bonaventura twins?”
“They were unreliable. The FBI was about to question them. They were too soft for jail and they knew it. One or both of them would have cracked.” The contempt in his voice made my blood run cold.
I had to get off the phone. “You make your choice, Commissioner. It’s up to you. You can resign and turn yourself in, or be exposed and then hunted down by your playmates. From what I’ve seen, they can be pretty effective.”
That call was too long. We had to get out of the bar and we had no way to know whether he did what I told him or not.
We left the sports bar as fast as we could. Horse drove us the few blocks to collect Noah.
On the way he asked me, “Do you really have the recording time-logged on an FBI server?”
“Mm, not exactly, no.”
“Do you have it recorded and logged at all?”
“I have it recorded, sure.” I felt that we were in this together. It felt kind of bad. And I mean in a good way. “And it is kind of logged. It would be good enough for evidence if it was needed, put it that way.”
He laughed. I didn’t remember hearing such an easy laugh from him before. Maybe ever. Or maybe I was still buzzing a little.
“That was a nerve-wracking conversation.” I shook my head a little, “It took me by surprise, how much it ramped up the tension, seeing his face. Having him looking out of the screen at me while I talked to him.”
“While you faked him out,” I could hear the grin in his voice. “While you blackmailed him.”
“Oh, what, you think I should have just invited him and his lawyer down to the Bureau office for a formal interview? Are you defending him now? The corrupt police Commissioner?”
“No,” his smile went all the way up to his eyebrows. And all the way down to my pussy. “No, I’m just shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Hearing you resort to the use of such unscrupulous methods.”
“Yeah, okay. I’m a common criminal now.”
“There’s nothing even slightly common about you, Vesper Cross.”
Noah was waiting for us at the edge of the sidewalk.
He grinned as he climbed in the back.
Horse said, “Hey, Noah. You got sniper positions established pretty damned quickly,” and looked up at him in the rear-view mirror, “you’re going to have to show me how you did that.”
Noah chuckled. “Sniper positions would have been pretty difficult in the time available.” Horse’s eyes flicked back to the mirror, questioning.
“A couple of laser pens, though. That wasn’t so hard.”
I said, “So you couldn’t have shot him whatever happened.”
“Shot the police Commissioner? In front of all those cameras and surrounded by about half the NYPD? That would have been an awful thing to do.”
Horse chuckled. “Since you could be certain you’d be caught.”
“You mean shot,” Noah laughed, too.
I said, “From the look on his face, you definitely had him convinced.”
“Maybe.” Noah sounded unconvinced, “It’s a bet that isn’t worth making. You see laser dots on you, there’s no upside to calling the bluff. Why would he take a chance and risk showing his brains all over the news?”
He sat back. “No, all the good work there was yours, agent Cross. Watching his face I just wished I could have heard what you were saying to him. Coz it sure as hell had an effect.”
Horse said, “Did he resign?”
“Oh, you didn’t stay for the end of the movie?”
I said, “Come on, Noah. Spill. Did he or didn’t he?”
“Slow down, his car’s just up at the end of the street. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
Horse laughed. “Give, Braxton.”
“He stepped up and announced his resignation. To a crowd, I might add, who were stunned into silence.
Horse said, “He’s a slippery fuck, though. There’s still always the chance that he’ll call the Mayor and say that he was acting under duress.”
I’d thought about that. “Could be. I don’t think it will matter.”
“What,” Horse turned to look at me. “Do you mean what I think you mean?”
I just lifted my eyebrows. “We’ll find out.”
HE SURELY COULDN’T have meant what I was thinking. I had seen so many sides to Vesper Cross in the space of a couple of hours that it was starting to make my head spin.
Noah reached from the back and pointed over my shoulder. “His car is right up the street. There on the corner.”
At the end of the street, a thick cluster of police moved as a mass around a group of cars. Butler ducked into the middle vehicle. Some of the cops got aboard the SUVs front and back.
I knew that it was coming. I just got a sense of it. Still, the manner of it surprised me.
Two black vans rushed by and stopped to box the three cars in. The Kevlar-covered beetle barreled out of the one at the back. From the front of Butler’s car, two cops got out and stepped away. The car in front moved forward and the car behind moved back, leaving Commissioner Butler’s car isolated. All of the other cops backed away from the vehicles.
Hunter: Perfect Revenge (Perfectly Book 3) Page 22