Hooked

by Polly Iyer

  Good. He’s checking the back exit to see if Steele saw anyone leave.

  Linc was astounded at the crime boss’s gall. There were no threats Linc could make to a dying man, no words to convince him to tell where Reggie Cart had taken Tawny, if that’s what even happened. But he had to try.

  “Where is she, Russo?”

  “You mean Tawny? Why would I know?”

  “She has to mean something to you after all the years.”

  Russo nodded. He looked down the street and took his time. “She means a lot to me.” Then he met Linc’s gaze. “Best whore in the city, and believe me, I’ve known most of the good ones. Smart, sexy, and incredibly beautiful. Most perfect breasts I ever sucked into my mouth. I can taste them as we speak. That woman knows how to bring a man to the edge of paradise and carry him over.”

  Russo’s pale, gaunt face gave off an almost holographic glow in the dim light of the street lamps, his dark eyes steady, his smug lips curled. Linc wanted to stop him, recognizing a bizarre sense of betrayal to the woman who had burrowed her way into his heart. But some perverted curiosity riveted him to Russo’s every word.

  “Have you had the pleasure, Walsh? It doesn’t take much to open her legs. Only a few thousand dollars. Off your pay scale, I imagine. But the best part is after all the years she’s been in the business when you put it in her she’s still as tight as a virgin. Isn’t that amazing? In fact, Benny gave her to me Monday night as a present. She got me off, too, even though the debilitating effects of the chemo have wreaked havoc on my libido. Only someone special has those magical powers. Bet she failed to mention that, didn’t she?”

  Linc’s fists were clenched so tight his nails dug into his palms. Never in his life had he wanted so badly to lay someone out. Not in his youth when anger had been his soul mate; not in Iraq at the bastards who took his best friend’s legs. However misguided, those people were fighting for a cause. Russo was plain evil, as toxic as the malignant cancer that ravaged his insides.

  All the talk of the gentleman don, the ethical mobster who wouldn’t prey on the weak, was so much bullshit. Linc willed himself calm, relaxed his fists, and swallowed the venom bubbling like a witch’s brew in his gut. He wouldn’t be goaded into sinking to Russo’s level, although the temptation equaled an alcoholic’s desire for the taste of whiskey on his tongue. Linc drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Tawny Dell cheated the government. She will pay.”

  “Determined to get your man…or woman, are you? I hope you find Tawny, Officer.” Russo snapped his fingers. “Oh, it’s detective, isn’t it? Sorry. Anyway, hope you find her. She’s a special lady.” He smiled. “But then you know that, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Russo shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Best be going. Good night.”

  I can’t let the fucker just walk away. Linc wanted to go after him, but for what? No one denied Tawny was at Cooper’s tonight. The only lie Linc caught was Cooper saying he didn’t know who Cindi Dyson was. Without Tawny’s verification that he did, Linc couldn’t prove that either. He’d drag in every woman who worked there if necessary. Someone would break. He could pull the Coopers in too, but their lawyer would have them out within the hour. Rounding up everyone tonight wouldn’t help find Tawny, and he had a sick feeling he needed to do that before he did anything else.

  He stood on the doorstep. He believed Benny Cooper. The man was a sex fiend and a pimp, but he didn’t know where Tawny was or he would have told. But Russo knew. He gave the orders. He’d made people disappear for years, and the police had never nailed him for any of their disappearances. Linc watched him walk down the street to his car with a stride that said Gotcha, cop.

  Linc turned around, safely out of the mob boss’s sight, and punched in Clauson on speed dial. “Did you hear from Steele? Did anyone leave through the back entrance?”

  “I’ve tried, but he hasn’t answered. I saw your partner head toward the alleyway a few doors down. Check, will you? I’ll stay on Russo.”

  Linc had a bad feeling. He hurried toward the alley, then started running, past two buildings, three. Turning up the speed, he got to the end of the buildings to the alley and backtracked until he saw Dennis hunched over a fallen figure.

  “Steele,” Dennis said. “He’s bad. Looks like a sledge hammer hit him. Before he passed out, he said they took the woman out the back door and the big guy took him down. I’ve already called it in.”

  “Cart. Shit. Shit.” Linc’s heart raced as he punched in Clauson’s number and told him what happened. “Dennis called it in, and I’m calling the captain for a warrant to turn this place upside down and putting out a BOLO for Cart and his buddy. Stay on Russo. He’s our only hope to get the woman.”

  Linc called the captain, then punched in Harry’s number. “I’m getting a warrant for Cooper’s place. Russo was there, but he’s gone.”

  “You talk to him?” Harry asked.

  “Yeah, but Cart hammered your man Steele. We’ve called EMS, and Clauson’s on Russo now. If he can stay on him and he goes to Dell, we’ve got him.”

  “How’s Steele?”

  “I don’t know. He’s out cold. We’ll have to wait and see. The two men drove off with Tawny Dell right under our noses.”

  “If Russo’s behind this, and he knows Dell saw Cart at Martell’s, she’s in serious trouble.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He shut off his phone, disgusted with himself for being so tunnel-visioned. When he arrived, all he could think of was getting Tawny out, even if he had to arrest her. He should have gone in earlier. Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. All moot. He didn’t. He slapped his leg, impatient. Getting a warrant would take forever.

  “Hurry up,” he said under his breath. “Hurry up.”

  “We’ll get her,” Dennis said. “Someone will tell us where she is.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  Tawny had done her job too well and found out enough to get her killed. He’d put her in danger, and if she died he’d be at fault. A sick feeling roiled in his stomach that he hadn’t felt since he was a boy. Since the day his whole world came crashing down in a bloody sea of red.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  So Close, So Far Away

  Oh, Walsh, I messed up.

  Tawny wriggled in the backseat of the car. When they drove past Upper Eighties, she glimpsed two men standing at the door of the townhouse. She couldn’t see clearly for the passing cars, but the one ringing the bell looked like Walsh. She’d screamed Walsh in her throat. Look this way. I’m right here. A few feet away. So close.

  But tape covered her mouth, and Colin drove by, looking straight ahead.

  She thought back. After Charles announced the police were at the door, Mario met her pleading gaze with a hopeless shrug. Business, his gesture indicated. Just business.

  She drew in a breath to scream, but Reggie clamped a hand over her mouth and held her in a viselike grip while Colin followed Mario’s instructions to find something to restrain her. No question who called the shots.

  Colin returned with a roll of duct tape, tore a piece, and slapped it across her mouth the minute Reggie let go, sealing any chance of making herself heard. She tried to squirm away from the big man, but she might as well have tried to move a mountain. His muscular arms didn’t even twitch in answer to her pitiful attempt to free herself. Colin grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her. She marveled at the small man’s strength as he wrapped a long strip of tape around her wrists.

  Mario spoke to Reggie quietly and gave him a key. Colin listened. Why Reggie? Though neither Reggie nor Colin were candidates for MENSA, Colin appeared to be the brighter of the two. She determined Reggie would more likely follow orders without asking questions, confirmed when Colin started to say something and Mario cut him off.

  “Get her out of here,” Mario said to Reggie. Colin huffed but avoided looking at the crime boss when he did.

  As Reggie pushed Tawny ahead of him, Mario whispered tha
t he’d see her later. So they weren’t going to kill her right away. That was the one positive note in a long, ugly evening.

  Reggie and Colin hustled her into the elevator and descended to ground level. She was a rag doll in Reggie’s hold, unable to break loose. They exited the back door to a walled-in patio where the scent of lilac filled the air. Colin separated one key from a ring and unlocked the gate.

  The minute they dragged her through the door, she heard, “FBI. Let the girl go, and turn around.” Reggie handed her off to Colin as if they’d practiced the move, turned, and ignoring the demand to stop, launched himself at the agent so fast, Tawny couldn’t keep track of what was happening until she saw the gun fly out of the agent’s hand. Reggie whacked him again and kept whacking him until he went down and didn’t move. Tawny feared the guy was dead.

  No matter how hard she tried to free herself from Colin’s hold, the little man held firm until Reggie once again took control. Her feet barely touched the ground as he dragged her through patches of green, past the backs of three buildings, and into an alley where their car waited. She let out a deep-throated moan, hoping to attract the attention of someone in the buildings, but it faded into the sounds of late-night street traffic, music that thrummed from one of the apartments, and the wind that had kicked up since early evening.

  “You shut up or I’ll put you to sleep,” Reggie said.

  She didn’t doubt for a moment he could or would. He pushed her into the backseat of a small car, got in beside her, and they rolled out of the alley onto the street, another car in late night traffic no one noticed. That’s when she saw Walsh, and all hope of rescue faded.

  Reggie tied a rag over her eyes. Good. They wouldn’t see the fear that mixed with tears. She wondered why it mattered if she saw where they were taking her. She had little chance of escaping and less of survival, especially now that Mario had taken charge.

  How naïve she’d been all those years. How Mario’s caring, almost fatherly attention had lulled her from what everyone in the world knew but her. She’d refused to believe his other side existed. Now she knew enough to put everyone in that room on death row. She’d wind up like the other two women and the Hansen guy, in either the harbor or a garbage container, or maybe a landfill, covered by tons of trash. By the time someone found her, if they did, the cops would need dental records to identify her.

  Benny―poor, stupid Benny―was the victim of his own greed and voracious sex drive. A reluctant accomplice by way of his murderous wife, a woman afraid to lose everything, and who, in the end, would. The days of Upper Eighties were numbered. Tawny wished she could warn the women who worked there that now would be a good time to take an extended vacation before the police pulled them in and exposed their lives. That was the threat she and many others faced in choosing their lifestyle. Death had seemed a remote consequence.

  Tawny leaned back in thought. Mario clearly disliked Colin. By blackmailing Martell, the Cockney started a chain of events that resulted in disaster for everyone. But as she suspected earlier, there was more to it. Reggie wouldn’t murder one of Mario’s people without authorization, which meant Mario had contracted the hit on Martell. Why? A family matter? Cheating on his wife’s niece? By his own admission, Mario didn’t think that was a mortal sin. So there had to be another reason to kill Rick Martell. Revenge? For what?

  Ah, for the one thing Mario wouldn’t tolerate. For the same reason he was going to kill Tawny: betrayal. Martell had done something Mario couldn’t forgive, and for that he paid the ultimate price.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out why Mario entrusted Tawny to these two. He could employ smarter people to do the job. This was Mario’s swan song, and he didn’t want anything muddying his family after he was gone. Colin and Reggie were expendable. So was she. As Mario had tied up the murders of the two women, pinning them on Martell, he would now eliminate her by pinning it on the two hapless dolts in the car.

  Even if Tawny’s analysis was on the mark, it didn’t mean a thing. She’d figured out the answers, which only made her more dangerous to everyone if she were free. Maybe she could convince Mario she wouldn’t talk. But he’d seen Walsh go into her house. He’d seen her eating lunch with an FBI agent. How in hell could she sweet talk him out of that?

  Walsh was searching for her. That’s why he was at Upper Eighties. Would he continue when he learned she wasn’t there? Did she even matter to him, or was she nothing more than collateral damage in his pursuit of solving bigger crimes?

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  No Honor Among Thieves

  Relieved, Linc watched as two NYPD squad cars and one unmarked sedan screeched to a stop in front of Upper Eighties. Another car blocked the alley two buildings up from Cooper’s. A for effort; fucked up for timing, Linc thought. Dennis picked up the warrant a detective from their unit brought while Linc went to the unmarked car. Harry was answering his cell. He listened, then snapped his phone shut.

  “Clauson lost Russo.”

  Linc’s gut twisted into a pretzel. “How?”

  “Another car pulled out and blocked his way. By the time the guy moved, Russo was out of sight.”

  “Did he nab the guy?”

  “Yeah, but he was just a kid who said some guy paid him a bundle to get in the way. Didn’t know Russo from Adam. Clauson took his information and let him go. He put out a BOLO on Russo’s car and plates, but he’s probably positioned one of his boys to do a switch. He’s done that before.”

  Things weren’t adding up. “How’d he know about Clauson’s car?”

  “Having followed Russo for years, he always expects someone’s on his tail. He’s usually right.”

  “Shit! That may have been our only chance to find Tawny. We’re going into Cooper’s. You coming?”

  “Yeah,” Harry said, “as an observer.”

  Linc raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “If the Coopers don’t where those two guys took Tawny, we’re screwed.”

  “Benny should have kept his job on Wall Street. I don’t think he knew the hole he’d dug himself until tonight.”

  Dennis, warrant in his hand, joined Linc and Harry, with the cops following. Charles let them in and stepped aside when Dennis waved the warrant. Cooper answered the door of his apartment with the phone to his ear. His demands indicated he was talking to his lawyer. One of the NYPD detectives read Benny and Eileen their rights, while a uniform made the rounds of the rooms on the first floor and two others took the stairs to the upper levels.

  “I had nothing to do with this,” Eileen Cooper argued. “It was all Colin. Colin and Reggie.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “Benny might have known.”

  Benny rolled his eyes and strained to turn, fighting the cop snapping on handcuffs. “Shut up, Eileen. They can’t prove anything if you shut up.” His body wilted, and he released a long sigh. Pitiful basset eyes centered on Linc. “I could never see past the tits.”

  “You don’t think we can prove anything, Benny? People will be waiting in line to flip on you.” But it was Tawny he was worried about. She knew enough to put the guilty culprits behind bars for a very long time, and it’d be in everyone’s interest if she were never found. “A federal agent is on his way to the hospital because of Reggie Cart. Tell me where Russo took Tawny Dell, before you’re charged with another murder.”

  Cooper’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I never knew about any murders until yesterday. None of them. Well, Martell crushing Cindi was an accident. You have to believe me.”

  The suitcase that was supposed to contain Cindi’s body that Martell wrote about in his suicide note hadn’t been found, so Cooper’s admission confirmed the woman’s cause of death, whether divers found her or not.

  Dennis towered over Cooper. “But you covered it up, you son of a bitch.”

  Cooper swallowed, a big clunking sound in his throat. “She was already dead. What could I have done?”

  “You could have called the police.” Linc’s voice shook. “S
he has family. They need closure.” He turned away in disgust, then back. “Maybe you never gave that a thought. Well, here’s something else to think about. Dirk Hansen died because you didn’t call the police, and an innocent woman might still die tonight if we don’t find her. Your silence caused Rick Martell his life. Murder is written all over you.”

  Dennis pumped his finger in Cooper’s chest. “That makes you an accessory after the fact, before the fact, conspiracy, procurement. I could go on. You’ll be old and gray by the time you get out of prison.”

  “Where is she, Cooper?” Linc asked again.

  Dark stains ringed the armpits of Cooper’s shirt, all the way to the green alligator logo. His face was red and blotchy, eyes watery, and his voice trembled. “I don’t know. I swear. Don’t you think I’d tell?”

  Benny Cooper was the kind of guy who’d give up his own kid if it kept him out of prison. Linc wished he found pleasure in the Coopers’ turning on each other, but that wouldn’t help find Tawny.

  “The only thing I might have heard,” Benny said, “and I’m not sure, was…” He stopped.

  “Was what?” Linc asked, hope flaring.

  “If I tell you, you’ll give me a deal, right?”

  Anger boiled in Linc’s gut, and he charged Cooper with fists drawn. Dennis pulled him away. “Ain’t worth it, partner,” he said in Linc’s ear.

  Linc nodded and took a deep breath. “Tell me and I’ll keep Russo from knowing you spilled your cowardly guts to save your ass.”

  “New Jersey,” Cooper blurted out. “I think I heard Russo whisper New Jersey in Reggie’s ear.”

  “What are you doing?” Eileen whined. “If they find her―”

  “If they find her, what?” Dennis asked Eileen. “You know where they took her?”

  “No, and I wouldn’t tell if I did. I’m not stupid, you know. You’re gonna try to pin everything on me.”

  Benny snorted. “Now she shuts up. Jesus.”