by Todd Merer
The gate was locked.
Not. The gate was hasped but unlocked. I went through it, found my bearings, then headed uphill.
In the purple twilight the cemetery was still. I went around bend after bend with the lights of Brooklyn unraveling below. Finally the Mini crested the high point where Val had told me the Revolution had been saved. Battle Hill.
I, too, wanted to be a savior.
By saving Jilly, I might save myself. She could truthfully testify I was duped into the escape. She’d be incriminating herself by doing so, but she was already in so deep, there was no way out. An insanity defense, maybe. Jilly, victim of a Svengali who’d programmed her to flirt with the guards. Hmm. It might work. At the very least, it could enable a compassionate plea to a lesser charge—
Jilly . . . who, on another Fourth of July six years ago, had bitten an apple, leaving tooth marks that matched her slightly crooked front tooth, the less-than-perfect flaw that made her perfect . . . before she’d been transformed from a vital beauty to a broken spirit by two bad cops in a cheap motel room. Had she blacked out during the rapes? No one would ever know. Nor did it matter any longer.
No one would ever know. Nor did it matter.
No doubt she remained a victim of the trauma of killing a man to defend herself. Poor Jilly was the kind of woman who escaped one problem only to find herself a worse one. Like when, years later, with her life finally stabilized . . . along came Joaquin Bolivar again.
He’d murdered her husband and conspired with Kursk to take her inheritance and invest it in Murmansk-54, a shell corporation intended to finance exporting cocaine via the unguarded polar route to Murmansk and northern Europe.
Much of her vast fortune was gone, but she’d purchase $150 million in gold. An investment recommended by her financial guru, Raphael Borg?
The tragedy abruptly ended when Jilly was coerced into assisting in Bolivar’s escape. During it, I was certain she was stoned, hallucinating a nonreality. Only then to abruptly suffer the ultimate betrayal: Bolivar joined by an unexpected person or presence in the bulldog limo.
And so Jilly had fled to her one true love: Filly, entombed in a faux pyramid.
Fascinating story. What a closing punch. Jilly was nuts. Have pity.
Or so I’d argue. The prosecution would claim she’d murdered Mongello, helped murder her husband, knowingly participated in the escape.
I didn’t know what the real truth was. Or care.
I was thinking like a lawyer again, remember?
I thought all this in the few seconds between cutting the engine and retrieving the Mustang from beneath the seat. I jammed it into my waistband, then got out and walked to the edge of Battle Hill. And looked down.
Filly’s pyramid was outlined against the near-dark sky. A car was parked nearby, driver’s door askew. I went down the path.
Light faintly flickered from the side of the pyramid. It came from a small rectangular opening. Maybe two by three feet. Enough for someone to crawl through. Clearly, Jilly had. Big question was whether anyone else had followed.
Only one way to find out.
I made my way to the side of the pyramid, grabbed hold of the edges of the opening, and levered myself into cool dimness without a sound.
There, I heard a sound:
A muffled sob.
Jilly.
My eyes adjusted.
What light there was came from a small candle set before a raised casket with a glass lid. Probably hermetically sealed, because the woman lying in it was as perfectly preserved as Vladimir Lenin. She wore a gold-flecked gown and gold jewelry. Her eyes were heavily mascaraed, her lids painted bright blue.
Filly Randa. Jilly’s mother. In life she had played a servant girl; in death she’d become a leading lady. An Egyptian queen.
From the other side of the sarcophagus, another sob.
Jilly sat against the casket. Mascara streaked her cheeks. The top buttons of her blouse were undone, and she gripped her golden ankh tightly, as if it were a crucifix, its chain necklace dangling. Her voice was a strangled whisper.
“You were right,” she said to her mother, again and again.
I went to Jilly. Even in extremis, she was radiant. A mad beauty. Unaware, or uncaring, of my presence, she reached within her blouse and undid a safety pin on her bra and from it took a twenty-dollar bill.
“See, Momma? Just like you told me. Always keep emergency money. That way, if it comes to put out or get out, I can leave. Just like you told me . . .”
“Jilly,” I said quietly.
“Soon, Filly,” she said.
Soon? I flashed on the film Filly had never quite been in: the pharaoh’s diabolical method of sealing himself and his treasure . . . forever. I looked back at the opening, so small in the heavy stone wall.
“Jilly,” I said. “Let’s go.”
She spoke, but not to me.
“I’m staying with you, Momma. I don’t care what he says. Mr. Joaquin Himself can keep that other woman. I’ll bet you a Lincoln penny he’ll come crawling back, begging forgiveness. But no way I’m going off with him again. We had ourselves a couple or three nice times, and thanks for the memories, but one thing we didn’t and won’t ever have is love. And I’m done looking in all the wrong places. So here we are again. The two of us. Just like before.”
I knelt by Jilly and took her hand in mine.
“Hello,” she said.
But I doubted she recognized me. She’d been heavily stoned in the jail, and God knew what else she’d ingested since. I had to convince her to leave of her own volition; no way could I force her through the small opening.
Since there was no reasoning, I spun a lie. “Joaquin’s waiting outside. The other woman’s gone. He loves you.”
She shook her head with the vehement denial of a child. “Please, tell them that I didn’t mean to kill him.”
She’d shifted time and place incoherently, talking now about her dead husband, Sholty Chennault III.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Everyone knows you didn’t mean—”
“I couldn’t help it . . . they wouldn’t stop pounding atop me . . .”
They? Then I got it. She wasn’t referring to her husband’s murder, but to the motel room in which she’d killed Scally’s partner, Vince Mongello.
“Pounding, pounding. They took turns pounding . . .”
I tried to move her, but she wouldn’t stir. What to do? Then I remembered her fascination with the woman who’d posed for the golden statue atop the Municipal Building.
“Listen to me, Jilly. If you stay here, you’ll end like poor Audrey Munson. You’re not a forgotten statue like Audrey: you’re a winner, a star.”
Light sparked in her eyes. “I’m a star. Like Filly said.”
“That’s why you need to come with me. Now.”
Again, I tried moving her, and this time she stood—
A sound. I turned and saw a man entering through the opening. In the flickering candlelight, his cheeks were shadowed with pits.
Scally. With a gun in his hand.
“Sit with the bitch,” he said.
CHAPTER 93
After registering Jilly’s mental state, Scally turned to me. “Where’s the gold?”
“I have no idea,” I said.
Scally held his gun at her head. In the dimness, she was pale as plaster. She clutched the golden ankh tight against her breast.
“Tell me, or I’ll kill her,” Scally said.
I said, “Tell you, you’ll kill us both.”
“A deal. The gold, you live. Five seconds you got to decide. One, two . . .”
Something sparked in my mind. A realization. “I’ll give up the gold. But you’ll have to let us go in order to get it.”
“After I get it, you go.”
“Not possible.” I tapped Filly’s sarcophagus. “The gold’s here.”
“Hidden inside the coffin?”
“No. It is the coffin.”
“What a
re you talking?”
“This room. The coffin, and the platform, and the floors and inner walls are solid gold. Tons and tons of gold. A hundred fifty million dollars’ worth of gold. But the only way to get it out of this tomb would be if Jilly applies for a court order to do so legally. If I tell her to, she’ll do it.”
Scally frowned at the dull finish of the sarcophagus. “Prove it.”
“I’m going to put my hand in my pocket. Slowly. Okay?”
The gun’s muzzle became a dark eye, staring at me. I put my hand in my pocket and took out a quarter. I held its serrated edge atop the sarcophagus, applied pressure, scraped . . .
If, as I suspected, the gold was hidden beneath the matte finish, then Scally would have no choice but to deal. Not that I could trust him if and when, but the first order of business was getting out of the pyramid before Jilly carried out what I now knew was the final act of her plan.
The coin scraped the sarcophagus’s surface with a metallic sound that sounded like a scream in the small space. When I lifted my hand, the sarcophagus was scratched, revealing the dull, yellow glow of gold beneath.
Scally whinnied a laugh. “We’re in business—”
A flash of gold as Jilly swung the ankh at Scally’s skull. Thunk! He fell, and his gun bounced across the floor.
“He’s one of them who hurt me,” Jilly said.
Scally propped on his elbows—
Whack! Jilly dealt him another blow to the skull with the ankh. Scally fell hard and didn’t move.
“See, Filly?” she said. “Like you taught: if a man gets fresh, slap him.”
I took Jilly’s hand. “Come on.”
“No.”
Again, she raised the ankh. I went to block her but no need. I wasn’t her target. I heard glass shatter and realized Filly’s Hollywood role had come to life. In Land of the Pharaohs, the mad ruler constructed the last opening to his treasure chamber so that tons of stone rested on sand-filled glass tubes that, when broken, would drain, allowing the final slab to lower, sealing the tomb for eternity.
Already sand was spilling from the glass tube, and I heard the faint rumble of the slab beginning its descent. Scally was stirring again, trying to roll over. I stepped over him and went to grab Jilly, but she danced from my reach.
“Please come, Jilly,” I said. “Please . . .”
But she backed away to the opposite wall, ankh in hand, her eyes focusing on nothing and on everything at once. Behind me, the exit was narrowing. Too late for her now . . .
I dived toward the open space—
But I managed to get only halfway through because Scally gripped my leg, trying to escape with me. I fumbled in my waistband for the gun, pointed it behind me, pulled the trigger.
The shot was deafening. I felt Scally’s grip shudder, saw his shoulder bloom red, yet he held on, dragging me back inside.
I pointed the gun again, but he swatted it down, and it fell inside the pyramid.
Deadlocked. Despite the blows to his head and the gunshot wound, Scally had strength enough to hold me in place. And the slab was low now, touching my jacket. If I remained in place, it would crush me.
Another gunshot rang out, and I felt Scally’s grip loosen. Behind Scally, I saw Jilly pointing Scally’s gun at him. Another shot, and Scally let go. The slab was pressing down on me. I scrabbled, pushed, and pulled myself through the opening.
Behind me, the pyramid was almost sealed.
My last glimpse within was of Scally’s malevolent face . . . for an instant, his image changed to George Maledon, the executioner.
Let no guilty man escape.
I heard a shrill cry. Jilly. A laugh or a sob? I’d never know. The slab closed with a thud. I’d killed again; again without regret.
Exhausted, I lay still on the grassy embankment below the pyramid. Gradually, I became aware of headlights and the sound of a car approaching. I didn’t get up. No point in doing so: too late to run, no place to hide. The headlights grew brighter, closer. I turned toward them and behind their glare saw the chrome teeth of the bulldog, growing closer—
But then the lights paused.
And I heard other sounds:
A siren, growing louder.
A car door opened.
A gunshot echoed.
The door closed.
The bulldog’s headlights swept past me as it turned around. There was a crunching sound, and the bulldog was gone.
I remained still. The grass smelled sweet. Above me, the pyramid’s face was strangely turning colors: red, white, blue . . . and I became aware of the distant whumps of fireworks.
I stood and walked to the top of Battle Hill and watched the July Fourth fireworks illuminate the big city I loved and—in one way or another—was about to leave forever.
That wasn’t all that had changed. I’d crossed a red line and become one of them. One of those who killed. Traum, Scally, probably Natty. I could justify the killings as self-defense, but the truth was that I had no regrets.
The siren was close now.
CHAPTER 94
Bubble lights reflected off the mausoleums. A second car appeared. I’d thought it would be feds, but it turned out to be a blue-and-white NYPD cruiser. Two uniformed cops got out.
I kept my hands in plain sight.
“You drunk, pal?” the first cop said.
“Not drunk,” I said, realizing cemetery security had called them; apparently, they had no idea of what had transpired at the jail.
“Cemetery’s private property,” the second cop said.
“What’s that?” The first cop shone a flashlight on the ground nearby.
The beam played over a body. A man lay on his back, his face a mash of flesh and bone caused by the tires of the vehicle that had driven over it. The bulldog.
One cop went back to the cruiser and got on the radio.
The other stayed with me. “You know this guy?”
I shook my head, although I recognized the clothes Natty had worn to the jail, and his eye patch and yarmulke. Natty’s things and Bolivar’s corpse. It made me wonder:
Why had they—whoever they were—killed Bolivar? Because he’d threatened to cooperate if convicted? Because he was Sombra and they wanted to depose him? Was the dark-haired woman in the bulldog Laura?
“You’re under arrest for trespassing, and maybe a lot more to come.”
The least of my worries. I stayed mute as the tombstones around us.
They cuffed my hands and sat me in the cage in the back of the cruiser while they waited for backup. But before any more NYPD arrived, a pair of white federal cop cruisers did.
I saw the feds talking with the local cops, apparently as to who had jurisdiction and custody. Then more NYPD showed, and the conversation grew heated. Through the grimy window of the cruiser, I watched the last Fourth of July fireworks spark out, then sat there, waiting . . .
About an hour later, a midsize sedan appeared, and Kandi Kauffman got out. She conferred with the feds, then with the locals, then approached the cruiser and opened the rear door.
“Poor Benn,” she clucked. “You really stepped in it this time. Don’t suppose you want to talk with me? Like, cooperate?”
I just smiled. “I’m already lawyered up.”
“You dumb fuck. Your attorney?”
“You’re looking at him.”
“Only a fool . . .”
“Why do fools fall in love?”
“You really have lost it.”
“Why do birds sing so gay?”
“Keep on laughing, sucker. I could let the locals pull you in, but why waste time and money on a state misdemeanor charge when you’re looking at a bunch of federal felonies?”
“Why indeed.”
“Your participation in Bolivar’s first escape attempt was a coin toss, but after tonight, the case against you is a slam dunk. Soon as the marshals finish their forensics—not just for the dead man here, who I have reason to believe is Bolivar, but for another dead man in
the MCC visit room . . . but I guess you know about that.”
“My client takes the Fifth.”
“Soon as the marshal reports are in, I’ll be presenting the matter to a grand jury. Tell your client to prepare to be indicted.”
“I take it that, until that happens, he’s free.”
Kandi nodded. The cops unhooked me.
I got in the Mini and left Green-Wood.
CHAPTER 95
Monday morning, I went to Judge Trieant’s courtroom for the resumption—and end—of Bolivar’s trial. I had a nodding acquaintance with the clerks and the steno, but none of them would look at me. I figured the word was out: a dirty lawyer was going to the cleaners. Kandi was already there, dressed to the nines, perfectly coiffed. I’d assumed Nelson Cano would be present, but there was no sign of him. Probably there was no need for him to be there, because Bolivar had been ID’d and the case was over.
“All rise!”
Judge Trieant entered, sparrow-size in a black robe. The son of a bitch had to know what had occurred, but he looked at the empty space next to me, and oh-so-innocently asked where my client was.
“I don’t know,” I said, which was technically true.
“You’re aware of the penalty for perjury?”
“I am. But thanks for asking.”
Trieant’s face became flushed, as if he were verging on a stroke. Made me think that even in the worst of times good things can happen.
Kandi stood. “If I may make a statement for the record, Your Honor?” She proceeded to state that the defendant was deceased. She allowed a small smile, looking at me pointedly, as she continued. “At this time I am not free to state the particular circumstances of his death, but in the very near future, the government will be making the, ah, matter public.”
I remained expressionless. It wasn’t easy. The copy of Pimms’s memo pad was in my bag. If I presented it to the court as deliberately concealed 3500 evidence, Kandi was fried. And since she was the guiding force behind my investigation, no other prosecutor would pick up the torch.
Trouble was, I’d have to explain how I got the 3500 material, which meant a good cop named Nelson Cano would be ruined as well.