Congers asks, “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”
“I wanted them to come after me, so I could break the logjam and learn something. Which they did, and which I did. And if you don’t blow it, then they’ll come after me again.”
The meeting breaks up with a promise from me to start keeping everyone informed, though I don’t mention that it’s not a promise carved in stone. If I’ve always been this big a pain in the ass, I’m not surprised that Bradley suspended me.
* * *
I leave the barracks with my guard in tow, and head for the hospital to see Nate. Jessie is just leaving as I arrive. “How’s our patient?” I ask.
“Not great,” she says. “He’s got some kind of infection; can’t have visitors.”
“Are they worried?”
She shakes her head. “They say they’re not, and that they’re just being careful.”
I decide to take a shot. “You want to have a drink?”
“Doug…”
“It’s not a date; it’s a drink. Come on, we’ll toast to Nate’s health; you can’t possibly refuse that.”
She thinks for a few moments, and then says, “Okay. Where do you want to go?”
“Just tell me where we always used to go, and let’s go someplace different.”
It was the eleventh such meeting that Luther Castle had.
To that point he had eight of ten people agree to his proposition. He needed a total of twelve, plus two alternates, just in case. Sort of like picking a jury, Castle thought, and the reference made him laugh out loud.
He was conducting four meetings each day; people showed up by appointment in the back room of the local bar that Castle used as his office. The meetings were spaced out, so that if law enforcement for any reason was watching him, it wouldn’t attract undue attention.
This session was with Frankie Parelli, and for the first time Luther was approaching one of these conversations with mixed emotions. Parelli was young but possessed the qualities that made him a valuable employee; he was smart and tough, and not at all afraid to use violence when it was called for. He made good decisions, unaffected by conscience.
He was not someone that Castle was anxious to lose.
“I’ve got a proposition for you” is how Castle began all these conversations.
“I’m listening” is what Parelli would have said if he were talking to anyone other than Luther Castle. Castle hated wasted words, and he already knew damn well that Parelli was listening. So instead he just kept his mouth shut and waited for Castle to lay out the proposition.
“You should feel free to accept it or not; I don’t really care much either way. We will have no trouble getting enough volunteers, so if you don’t feel comfortable with it, I’ve got no problem with that. Understood?”
Parelli nodded. “Understood.”
“Good. Your job would be to drive a car into New York City, and leave it in a parking lot. You will be told exactly where to park it. Once you’ve done that, you go to the Port Authority and take a bus back. That’s it.”
“What is in the car?” Parelli asked, though he had a good idea.
“Not your concern.”
“How many people are going to die?” Parelli’s concern was not really the potential human carnage, though he didn’t think of himself as a mass murderer or terrorist. He simply knew that the death toll would be directly proportional to the amount of heat afterwards.
“Very few if any, because of the time of day the event is set for. The idea here is to make a point, not kill a bunch of pain-in-the-ass innocent victims.”
“What’s in it for me?” Parelli asked.
This was Castle’s favorite part of these meetings. “Two million dollars. A million when you’ve done your job, and a million after the event.”
Parelli knew the event had to be an explosion, but all he could focus on was the amount of money at stake. “Holy shit,” he said.
“Exactly.”
“What happens afterwards?” Parelli asked.
“Whatever you want. You feel like it, you can retire and spend all day counting your money.”
Parelli was stunned by the money, but smart enough not to be blinded by it. It didn’t matter how much money he had if he was in federal prison, or lying on a table with a needle in his arm. “The heat will be intense,” he said.
“There will be no way to trace it back to you, but if they do, we have a contingency plan.”
Parelli just waited to hear it.
“When you get your second payment, you will also get plane tickets and foolproof identification documents, enabling you to fly to a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. You would be free to stay there and live like a king, or you can return here at any time with another set of perfect documents. That would be your choice, but it is not a choice you are going to be faced with. Every contingency has been planned for.”
“How long do I have to make up my mind?”
Castle looked at his watch. “About five minutes. Like I said, whatever you decide is fine with me. If you choose to be in, you’re in for good … no backing out. But either way, you talk to no one about this other than me. No one. Violating that rule would not be a healthy thing for you to do.”
“I understand,” Parelli said.
“I figured you would. So make the call.”
He didn’t need five minutes. “I’m in.”
Jessie has a car at the hospital, so she says I should follow her.
She leads me to a bar in Edgewater called River’s Edge, which I have never been to or which I’ve been to frequently during the last ten years. Your guess is as good as mine.
People pay fortunes to live in high-rise apartments on the West Side of Manhattan, adjacent to the Hudson River. They do it for the view, and while that is nice, the great views are on the Jersey side. That’s because when you’re in Jersey, you’re looking at Manhattan. When you’re in Manhattan, your view is New Jersey.
It’s not that complicated.
The place is dark and relatively quiet, and not at all crowded. We get a table right by the window. Jessie orders a glass of Chardonnay, and I take a moment to think about it. It’s been ten years since I’ve had a real drink, so I want to get this one right.
“Bloody Mary,” Jessie says. “No salt. It’s your favorite.”
I turn to the waiter. “I’ll have a Bloody Mary, no salt. It’s my favorite.”
“Spicy?” he asks.
I look at Jessie, and she shakes her head.
“Nope,” I tell the waiter. “Not spicy is my favorite. I’m very particular.”
When he leaves, I say, “It’s sort of nice not having to make decisions.”
“No memory return?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. I wish I had kept a diary.”
She smiles. “Not even close to your style.”
“I shot someone yesterday,” I say, in what has to be among the greatest subject changer lines of all time.
Her eyes register her surprise, but she doesn’t ask me about it, so I continue. “In the leg; the person who owned the leg was there to kill me.”
“Did it bother you?”
“Not even a little bit. But like everything else, I just wish I knew if that represented a new me, or the old me. What do you think?”
“I would say that if he was planning to kill you, then your reaction is the same as it would have been. I think most people would have that reaction.”
“I may be the least self-aware person in America,” I say.
“Which is ironic, because you never had any doubt about who you were.”
I nod. “Okay, I’m tired of talking about me, and even more tired of thinking about me. Tell me about you; assume I know nothing, because that is the case.”
“Doug, I can’t do this. We’re not on a first date; we’re not on a date at all. I’ve seen this movie; I know how it ends. It’s a tearjerker.”
“I understand—we�
�re just two friends and coworkers getting to know each other.”
She seems wary, probably with good reason. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
“Where you’re from, where you went to school, were you an only child, how was I in bed, that kind of thing.”
“Brunswick, Maine; Bates College; one brother; mediocre.”
I smile. “Feel free to expand on your answers at any point.”
She returns the smile. “Thank you.”
“What did you study at Bates?”
“Art history and modern dance.”
“That’s incredible,” I say. “Those are my two favorites also.”
She laughs. “I know even better than you how ridiculous that is.”
“So you took art history and modern dance and you became a cop?”
“My father was a cop, and that’s what I always wanted. He wanted otherwise, so I went through the very expensive motions at Bates. It’s a great place, but it didn’t change my mind.”
“What did your mother want?”
“I don’t know; she died when I was six.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“That’s okay. I haven’t been six for a while.”
The waiter brings the drinks, and she’s right, I really like the Bloody Mary, no salt, not spicy. I also like sitting and talking with Jessie very much, but the only like I mention out loud is the drink.
We talk a lot about the department, and about her feeling dissatisfied with being typed as the “cybercop” when she really wants to be out on the street.
She is smart and funny, and seems better looking every time I see her. The old me obviously broke up with her, and hurt her in the process. The old me was just as obviously an idiot.
“Tell me about the case, or at least what you can,” she says.
I lay it all out for her, everything that’s happened. I don’t have to tell her that the New York Times story was bogus, because she planted it.
She takes it all in and says, “I want to help.”
“You’ve already been a big help.”
“I want to do more. I want to do what Nate would do if he were with you.”
“Bradley wouldn’t go for it.”
“Bradley wouldn’t have to know. And I put in a while ago for vacation time next week.”
“Are you going away?”
“No.”
All of a sudden it hits me why she put in for next week as vacation time. I should just shut up at this point, but I think my injury has damaged the part of my brain that has any sense at all. “Next week was going to be your honeymoon. Our honeymoon.”
She nods. “And now it isn’t. Now I’m staying home and helping you.”
“A different type of togetherness,” I say, lamely.
“That’s okay. I’m going to be a real cop for a week.”
The leg wound was not nearly as bad as it could have been.
Not that Doug was aiming that way, but it had missed the bone entirely. Carl Swanson, the owner of the injured leg, formerly known as Mr. Right, was a large man. His partner, Jerry Daniels, aka Mr. Left, was even larger, but his belated willingness to talk to Doug had left him physically unscathed.
Swanson and Daniels had gone from Eastside Park directly to Dr. Thomas Rausch, a physician who had an ongoing relationship with all employees of Nicholas Bennett’s “businesses.” Hospitals asked questions of shooting victims, looking for details; Dr. Rausch considered them none of his business. He treated the wounds and injuries; he didn’t question their origin. And he was very well paid for his efforts.
The wound and the treatment were painful, but that was going to be a day in the park compared to their upcoming meeting with Luther Castle. Castle had sent them to kill Doug Brock, and they had failed miserably. Castle would not be pleased.
So Swanson and Daniels nervously went to the bar in downtown Paterson that Castle often used as his home base. They went into the back room, where he was waiting for them, along with two other men that were on the same level in the hierarchy as Swanson and Daniels.
“Let me guess,” Castle said when he saw Swanson limp in with Daniels. “Brock is still alive, and you have a bullet in your leg.”
“Luther,” Swanson began.
Castle interrupted. “Did you shoot yourself?”
“No. Brock shot me.”
“Yet, if I’m not mistaken, you were supposed to shoot him.”
Before either of the men could respond, the side door opened and Nicholas Bennett entered. They had actually only been in Bennett’s presence once; the second time was unlikely to be a charm.
Bennett just took a seat and didn’t say anything. He was going to be an observer. Castle continued, “You were about to tell me why he shot you, when I had instructed you to shoot him.”
Daniels, not liking the way this was going at all, jumped in. “He got lucky; it won’t happen again.”
“Did you talk to him?”
Swanson and Daniels took a quick glance at each other, and Daniels spoke. “Not really; he ambushed us. As he was running away, I yelled that we were going to find him and fucking kill him. But that was basically it.”
“You didn’t tell him anything about what might be going on?”
“No. We don’t know what is going on.”
Castle looked at Bennett, who nodded slightly, got up, and left the room.
Both Swanson and Daniels viewed his departure as a negative. “Hey, come on, Luther,” Daniels said. “You know we’re stand-up guys. We keep our mouths shut.” Swanson nodded vigorously in support of his partner’s words.
“I gotta be honest, boys. I have my doubts. I think you told him everything you know. Mr. Bennett and I view that as disloyal.”
It was nine hours later that a jogger in Pennington Park happened upon the bodies of Swanson and Daniels, wedged up against a Dumpster.
It was ninety minutes after that when the local TV stations broke the story, calling them mob-style execution killings. Doug Brock saw the report, and although he had not pulled the trigger, he was aware that he’d killed them both as surely as if he had.
He was fine with that.
It’s a used car lot and body shop, nothing more.
At least that’s as far as I can tell, though the truth is that I can’t tell much of anything, especially since I’m just sitting in my car in the parking lot.
The phone GPS said that I had visited this lot a few days before I was shot. I arrived at nine o’clock on a Monday night, and stayed for about a half hour.
I can’t be sure whether my visit had anything to do with the Bennett case, but I certainly have no idea why I would have been looking for a used car. I called and asked Nate before I came here, and he said that I never mentioned anything about needing a car, and he couldn’t imagine I would have bought one. I have the Crown Vic and my beloved Mustang. Also, a suspension from a job doesn’t generally trigger a buying spree.
I am tired of blundering about in the dark, and sick of being frustrated. It makes me want to shoot someone, although I’ve already tried that, and it didn’t really help.
Since I’m already here, I might as well try to accomplish something, whatever that might be. I get out of the car and go into the showroom. I want to see if any of the people that work there will react to my presence with surprise, or nervousness, or anything other than viewing me as a prospective used car buyer.
I walk around for a while, pretending to check out the cars. All three of the salespeople that I see approach and ask if they can help me. I don’t see anything unusual at all about their reactions. The receptionist gives me a smile, but not a hint of recognition.
I wander into the service department/body shop and run into the same thing. I pretend to be interested in their prices for things that I say are wrong with my car, and I try to be seen by as many people there as possible.
If they’ve encountered me before in anything other than normal circumstances, they are excellent actors and actresses.
As I’m leaving, I stop at the receptionist. “Excuse me, how late are you open?”
“Depends on what night you’re talking about,” she says, giving me a big smile.
“Monday nights,” I say.
“Six P.M.”
“That’s every Monday?”
“Every one,” she says.
“What about the service department?”
“Five P.M. Every night except Saturday, when we close at one P.M. And of course we’re closed Sundays. Would you like to make an appointment?”
“No, thanks,” I say as I leave. If I accomplished anything, it’s well hidden at this point.
I decide to call a meeting of our investigative team.
It’s not exactly a reincarnation of the Untouchables, and would seem unlikely to strike fear in the hardened criminal community. It consists of an overweight cop lying in a hospital bed with tubes in his arms and up his nose, a jilted female cybercop who’s on vacation, and a thirty-five-year-old cop who has no idea where he’s been or what he’s done since he was twenty-five.
We’re meeting in Nate’s hospital room; his infection has been sufficiently conquered to allow him to have visitors. I’m updating them on what’s been happening, and hoping they can provide some inspiration for what I can do next.
When I finish, Nate is focusing on the two guys that just wound up dead. “Why would they kill those guys?” he wonders out loud. “I don’t understand that.”
“They screwed up,” I say. “They were sent to kill me, and they failed.”
“So what? They don’t work for ISIS. And they aren’t old-time Japanese warriors who have been humiliated to the point where they want to go hang out with their ancestors. They tried, they lost, and they took a bullet in the process. Bennett should see that as ‘no harm, no foul’ and move on.”
“Maybe he thinks Doug can link them to him,” Jessie says.
“No chance; Bennett has layers of cushion between himself and anybody he uses. But even if these guys could be traced to him, so what? They could just as easily be traced dead as alive, and if they’re dead, there’s more reason for the cops to want to trace them.”
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