The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  A young woman, rather erudite-looking to be working in this Dickensian establishment, McCall thought, walked over to him with a smile. She was dressed in black and wore Diane von Furstenberg dark tortoiseshell glasses hiding big brown eyes. She was petite with a knockout figure who looked like she should be having breakfast at Tiffany’s.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “If you can tell me the name of this Brahms rhapsody you will have renewed my faith in human endurance.”

  Her smile broadened. “I know it has something to do with an Alto.”

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “Almost two years.”

  “Tell your boss if you hear one more Brahms symphony or concerto you’ll tear your hair out. Tell him you want Maroon 5 or Usher or even some Judas Priest.”

  “That would break his heart. Are you here to see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “At some point.”

  “He’s in his office at the back.”

  She pointed to a doorway at the very end of the long counter. McCall started walking toward it.

  “But he really gets crabby if you disturb him while he’s…”

  “Tinkering,” McCall finished for her.

  He walked around the counter and through the open doorway.

  Beyond it was a cramped office that looked like a miniature version of the store, only more chaotic. Brahms was slumped at a cluttered desk with the guts of at least three laptops scattered on the scarred wood. Circuit boards, hard drives, optical drives, keyboards, pieces of soldered electronics that looked like they would fit into the heads of pins surrounded his pudgy hands. There was a small soldering kit in the middle of it all. McCall thought he was probably in his late fifties, but he’d always looked older. His hair was steel gray and stood out in every direction like he’d stuck his finger into a light socket. He had very gentle eyes. McCall had always thought he looked like George Costanza’s dad on Seinfeld. He looked up.

  “Robert McCall,” he said softly.

  “That’s the second time in twelve hours my name has been said with a kind of reverence.”

  “It’s fear.”

  “You don’t look very frightened.”

  “My face hasn’t had an expression on it in twenty-seven years. Hilda wiped them off at the wedding when she told me she’d given up oral sex. I think it was for Lent. Shhh!”

  He raised a hand as a particular passage of Brahms thundered around them.

  “You remember this piece?” he asked.

  “I don’t remember any of them, Brahms.”

  “A haunting rhapsody for alto, male chorus and orchestra, based on three stanzas from an ode by Goethe, in which he described life as a pointless struggle against inevitable misery.”

  “That’s the optimistic Brahms I remember.”

  “No one remembers me. That’s why I’m still alive. You, on the other hand…”

  He waggled his hand back and forth.

  “I try not to be memorable. Sam Kinney called you.”

  It was a statement.

  Brahms shrugged. “Old spooks network. We like to stay in touch.”

  McCall moved to the desk where Brahms was fitting together a couple of pieces of a fractured circuit board.

  “Don’t come any closer,” he said. “These flakes of silicone are delicate. I don’t want you bumping into the desk.”

  “That Brahms rhapsody is shaking the whole office.”

  “I don’t hear it. It’s just a part of me. I can’t make a mistake here.” He soldered two tiny electronic components together. “The real Brahms was a perfectionist. If he finished a piece and didn’t like it, he destroyed it. Or he didn’t finish it and left those works unpublished.” He patted a Mac that was on a table beside him with seemingly all of its innards intact. “That’s why I search. There are gold nuggets to be found in little music shops in Berlin and Hamburg and Bremen, if you keep looking for the clues, digging until the dirt spills away and there it is, lying tied up in faded red ribbon beneath some Schimmel piano, pages of copy in the master’s own handwriting.” Brahms glanced back up at him. “You look good for someone who took a blow to the head last night that would have killed an ox.”

  McCall looked down at the explosion of circuitry on the desk.

  “Where are the transistors?” he asked wryly.

  “Actually, there are transistors in a computer. Also resistors, diodes, LEDs, capacitors, but you’re not here for the Apple laptop course. What can I do for you?”

  “I need a sophisticated piece of bugging equipment. Short range. Across a room, but there might be all kinds of ambient noise in the place and I want it filtered out.”

  “What kind of a room?”

  “A restaurant. I’ll be at the bar at one end. Two people will be sitting in a booth at the other. A man and a woman.”

  “I thought you were going to ask me something difficult.”

  “I need you to be able to trace a cell phone call from the table.”

  “How do you know anyone’s going to make a call?”

  “The man will make it. It won’t be a long call. Probably fifteen seconds at the most. I need the location of the place he calls.”

  “You want me patched into you at the same time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s at this mystery location?”

  “A teenage girl. She was abducted last night.”

  Brahms sat back, regarding him. Idly he picked up a micro-compressor and turned it over in his hand so that it jewelled in the light.

  “The last time I checked, kidnapping is a federal offense. You should call the FBI.”

  “This is something I have to do personally. A promise I made. As soon as I involve other people, the risk to the girl increases. I didn’t want to involve you, but I can’t do this alone. I’m putting your life at risk. These are nasty people.”

  “And, God knows, we’ve never come up against any of those in our careers.”

  “You can say no.”

  Brahms looked back down. “You saved my life once upon a time,” he said quietly. He was examining his delicate work carefully. “I owe you a debt. Isn’t that what you’re collecting?”

  “There is no debt. You do this for me or you don’t.”

  “You get a lot of refusals when you ask nicely?”

  McCall smiled. “I don’t usually ask nicely.”

  Brahms got up from the desk and walked over to rows of small enclosed glass shelves. He opened them one after another, rummaging through more electronic components, but these were shinier and had government labels on them.

  “Who’s the kidnapper?” he asked.

  “An enforcer named Bakar Daudov.”

  “Daudov. Chechen name. Who does he work for?”

  “Borislav Kirov, could also be Chechen. He manages a nightclub on the Lower East Side called Dolls.”

  “Ask them if they need a piano player. I could do some moonlighting.”

  “They might not want to hear Brahms.”

  “I also play some mean ragtime. As a young man, Brahms played piano in restaurants, taverns, and brothels. He was quite the lad. Arthritis stopped me playing piano. But not putting wiretaps together.”

  He returned to the desk and dropped some components onto it.

  “When does this go down?”

  “Four thirty this afternoon.”

  “I’ll be here in my office. You’ll be able to talk to me using this.” He handed McCall a flesh-colored piece of putty. “No one will notice it in your ear.”

  “Thanks, Brahms. If we had a debt, it’s settled.”

  “I wake up every morning and thank God for Katy Perry and Robert McCall. I listen to Hilda kvetch. I watch the Today Show. I like that Savannah Guthrie. If I were sixty years younger…” Brahms looked up at him again. “Our debt’s not settled. It never will be. Come back in two hours.” McCall nodded, turned away. “This stuff is highly illegal, by the wa
y. Unless you’re in law enforcement or work for the FBI or Homeland Security. No showing it off.”

  “I’ll try to contain my enthusiasm.”

  McCall walked out of the little office.

  “Try to stay alive,” Brahms said.

  He turned up the Brahms on the surround-sound system.

  * * *

  Katia walked into Bentleys and sat down at the first booth in the window. It was 4:25 P.M. Sherry was already at her hostess station, setting out the dinner menus. McCall was behind the bar putting glasses up into their slots. Andrew Ladd had just ducked under the bar hatch and was tying on his black apron. The restaurant was more crowded than usual at this hour. Two servers were working seven tables, three of them holding loud, boisterous parties. Early dinner revelers. Through the restaurant window, McCall saw the Lexus pull up outside. Sully, the bouncer from Dolls, got out and opened the back door. Bakar Daudov stepped out, looked up and down the street, saw Katia sitting at the booth in the window, said something to Sully, and walked into Bentleys. Sully got back into the Lexus and sat there, engine idling.

  Daudov smiled as Sherry came around the hostess station, waving the menus away. He slid into the booth opposite Katia. McCall had placed the small, silver bug he’d picked up from Brahms earlier in the afternoon under the table. Now, as he took two Chardonnay bottles out of a fridge and put them in the bar well, he held his breath. It was unlikely that Daudov would check under the table, but McCall could feel his stress level rising. But the enforcer just settled into the booth and looked across at Katia. She was very still. She appeared calm, but McCall knew the fear and frustration that was going on inside her. Daudov had all the emotion of a corpse. He didn’t speak. She had called for this meeting. She would have to do all of the work.

  McCall set more glasses up into their slots. “Laddie, would you mind getting the drinks order for booth one?”

  “Sure.”

  The young bartender ducked under the bar hatch and crossed the restaurant to the booth. McCall half turned away, but Daudov had not once even looked in his direction. McCall touched the putty-like earpiece in his ear, almost unconsciously. It was completely undetectable. He turned back and watched Laddie reach the booth.

  “Can I get you folks some drinks?”

  “Grey Goose vodka, double shot, straight up,” Daudov said. “Katia?”

  She shook her head. McCall could hear every word, up close and personal, the ambience in the restaurant like white noise in the background. Brahms hadn’t let him down. Ever.

  Laddie moved back toward the bar. McCall continued to stack up glasses, not looking toward the booth. He didn’t have to.

  “I am here, Katia. You wanted to speak to me in person?” Daudov said cordially.

  “You are a bastard,” she said, her voice very soft.

  He smiled and his eyes hooded. “I have been called so much worse. I know you are upset. Emotion is clouding your judgment.”

  “Natalya did not come home last night.”

  “She is a strange child. She walks the streets at ungodly hours. It is a dangerous city.”

  “I know you took her. Bring her home and never go near her again and I will do whatever you ask of me.”

  He reached out a hand. There was a long moment, then Katia took her hands out of her lap. She touched Daudov’s hand, as if it was something slimy and contagious. He trapped her hand tightly in both of his.

  “It is not enough to comply. You must do it willingly.”

  “You risk a great deal, Bakar,” she hissed. “If I made one phone call…”

  “You will not do that,” Daudov said, although McCall detected the barest hesitation in his voice.

  Did Katia have a personal card she could play against him?

  Why didn’t she play it?

  Daudov still held Katia’s hand tightly in both of his. “You are a beautiful, passionate young woman. Enjoy your times with these very special men. They will report to me. I will know.”

  “I understand.”

  She pulled her hand away. Laddie had poured a double shot of Grey Goose into a glass at the bar and was heading back to the table with it.

  “I want to speak to my daughter,” Katia said.

  Daudov showed some surprise. He looked up as Laddie set the vodka down in front of him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” Laddie asked Katia.

  She shook her head again. The young bartender walked back toward the bar, but veered over to one of the tables where a young woman was motioning to him as if the restaurant were on fire.

  Katia leaned across the table. “I want to speak to Natalya right now. Or we have no deal.”

  “I was not aware she spoke at all,” Daudov said. “I have never heard her utter a single word.”

  “She speaks to me and to no one else.”

  At the bar, McCall touched the putty in his ear, pressing it in tighter.

  “You getting this, Brahms?” he asked softly.

  In his office at the back of the electronics store, Brahms was hunched over a monitor. On it was a Google Earth map of Manhattan. There was a silver Bluetooth in his ear. Brahms played softly around him. Symphony No. 3 in F. The office door was closed and locked.

  “I’m here, McCall,” he said.

  In the booth Daudov regarded Katia for a moment, then nodded.

  “It is a reasonable request. I would have demanded the same.”

  He took a BlackBerry Z10 out of his pocket and punched numbers.

  “He’s making the call,” McCall murmured.

  Brahms’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I’m on it.”

  The Google Earth Manhattan map began to shift and change.

  Daudov waited, then said into the phone: “Kuzbec.” There was another pause, and then the young man’s voice echoed from the phone. McCall could hear it as if the BlackBerry were pressed to his own ear. Brahms had told him this bug would pick up a robin farting in Central Park.

  “This is Kuzbec,” the voice said.

  “Bring her the phone,” Daudov directed.

  There was another pause. McCall thought he could hear movement, like Kuzbec was walking to another room.

  “How are you doing, Brahms?” he murmured.

  “Working on it,” Brahms snapped, but there was no real irritation in his voice. “The signal’s bouncing from one cell tower to another.”

  The sound of movement over the BlackBerry stopped. Kuzbec said something, but not into the phone, too muted for clarity. Then: “She is standing beside me.”

  Daudov offered the phone to Katia. She took it from his hand. Now her emotions betrayed her. Her voice trembled with anxiety. “Natalya!” she said into the BlackBerry. “Let me know this is you. Say one word to me. Just one.”

  There was some heavy, erratic breathing on the phone. No speech.

  “Running out of time, Brahms,” McCall muttered.

  Brahms was moving through a labyrinth of signals.

  “Working on it, McCall,” he said again.

  “Work faster. Fifteen seconds was optimistic.”

  “Please, Kotik,” Katia begged. “Let me know you are not harmed.”

  Nothing.

  “Brahms…” McCall whispered.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Pause. Then:

  “Mama,” a barely audible voice said on the BlackBerry.

  The Google Earth map started to plunge down into the canyons of the city.

  Katia gasped, as if this one word was a triumph of untold proportions. Daudov snatched the BlackBerry out of her hands.

  “Very good,” he said into it.

  “Now or never, Brahms,” McCall said.

  On the monitor, the Google Earth map zeroed in onto the Sutton Place area of Manhattan near the Roosevelt Island tramway. An address popped up in a black circle.

  “Number Five Sutton Square, right below East Fifty-ninth,” Brahms said.

  And then the map on th
e monitor disappeared.

  At the booth, Daudov had disconnected the line. He dropped the BlackBerry back into his jacket pocket.

  “I will see you at the club tonight,” he said matter-of-factly, as if they’d just finished a pleasant lunch.

  He started to rise. Katia grabbed his hand.

  “You will bring her home to me today?”

  “Not today. We will see how charming you can be to a special customer tonight. Or perhaps tomorrow night. Natalya will not be harmed in any way. You have my word. Come to my office before 4:00 A.M. We will have a glass of brandy together. We will talk. I might even allow you to speak to her again. If you keep your word, your Natalya will be home with you very soon.”

  He had to actually wrench his hand away from hers to free it. He stood up, drained the glass of Grey Goose, set the empty glass down on the table, put money beside it, and walked out of the restaurant.

  He had not once looked in the direction of the bar.

  Through the window, McCall saw Sully hop out of the Lexus and open the back door for Daudov. He slid inside. Sully closed the door, got into the driver’s seat, and pulled out into the traffic.

  Katia waited until the Lexus had turned the corner of West Broadway. Then she jumped up. Laddie moved away from the bar with a tray of drinks for one of the big tables. Katia ran up to the bar. There were tears brimming in her eyes.

  “I know where she is,” McCall told her.

  The tears spilled down her face. “Maybe we should call the police.”

  “Too dangerous. Go home. Try and get some sleep. Go to the club tonight and put on that black dress and dance with the customers. Only dance. I’ll call you on your cell. Before 4:00 A.M. I’ll bring Natalya home. You have my word, Katia.”

  She nodded. Let go of his hand and walked past the hostess station and out of the restaurant.

  “I got it, Brahms,” McCall said softly.

  “Enjoy your night,” Brahms said, and took the Bluetooth out of his ear. He sat for a moment listening to the Brahms symphony No. 3 in F. After the daring modulations in the inter-relations building up to the climax, the finale had a decidedly subdued coda.

  Brahms picked up his cell phone from amid the glittering computer fragments on the desk and dialed.