The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  McCall looked around again. There were still latecomers moving through the gravestones toward the knot of people around Gershon’s grave. Perhaps he’d guessed wrong. Then he saw a black Lincoln pull up onto the path that skirted this part of the beautiful cemetery. One of the Chechen enforcers, Rachid, jumped out of the back and opened the passenger-side door. Borislav Kirov stepped out. Kuzbec got out of the driver’s side. McCall hadn’t been sure that Kirov would come—but Gershon had worked for him for over a year, and it might appear strange that the affable nightclub owner did not want to pay his respects for an employee tragically struck down by a hit-and-run driver.

  McCall was three hundred yards away, but he had rehearsed the next scene in his mind a dozen times. Now he just had to see whether it played out or not.

  A young woman came running past the parked Lincoln. She was clutching a wicker bag bouncing on her left shoulder. She was wearing a tan blouse and a long skirt of some kind of sheer material. Even though it was now drizzling, the afternoon light shone through it as she ran. McCall was very glad he’d bought her some underwear. He’d even guessed her bra size.

  He was getting good at that.

  She was eating a Hershey’s almond candy bar and not really looking where she was going. She ran right into Kirov, almost knocking him to the ground. She stumbled, grabbing his jacket to stop herself from falling. Kuzbec and Rachid both leaped forward, but Kirov waved them away. McCall couldn’t hear what Candy Annie was saying to him from where he stood in the trees, but she was obviously apologizing profusely. She kept grabbing his jacket, as if to steady him, and he gently shoved her away. He nodded—he was fine, no harm done. She spoke to him for another few seconds, then continued on her pell-mell run through the gravestones, late for the service.

  She reached the back of the crowd. Kirov, Kuzbec, and Rachid climbed up the gentle slope after her, but veered off toward the other end of the gravesite. The crowd swallowed them up. McCall pushed gently through the throng of mourners, murmuring indistinct apologies, until he was standing right beside Candy Annie. She did not acknowledge him. She was pale and breathing heavily. McCall didn’t think the labored breath had anything to do with her run to the gravesite. It was being topside, above ground. It scared her. It had taken McCall half the night to persuade her to do this. And then he hadn’t been certain if she would really come through for him.

  McCall half turned and saw Jackson T. Foozelman, dressed appropriately in his usual outfit, black jeans, black NYU torn T-shirt, heavy brown workmen’s boots. He had an old black crushed fedora hat that he held respectfully in his hands. He stood near the path and the parked Lincoln town car. He wasn’t coming any farther. McCall guessed he had come along to make sure Candy Annie didn’t let her emotions get the better of her being out in the fresh air in the real world. It gave McCall a moment of alarm. He looked at Kuzbec and Rachid amid the crowd. If Rachid turned he’d recognize Jackson T. Foozelman, even at a distance. He was a striking figure in his black tattered clothes and his skeletal face, looking as if he’d just dragged himself out of one of the stone crypts. Rachid would know the chances of Fooz being there could not be a coincidence. He didn’t even live in the real world. But Rachid, Kuzbec, and Kirov were looking ahead at the minister, who had begun his eulogy.

  Candy Annie had regulated her breathing. She was calm now. McCall nudged against her. There was something clutched in her hand. She opened her fingers and let it fall into McCall’s open hand.

  Kirov’s silver lighter. His real one with the initials BK in silver at the bottom.

  Candy Annie had dexterously lifted Kirov’s lighter out of his right jacket pocket and dropped the fake one, which McCall had given her, into his pocket. She’d done it as she’d jostled and held on to him. He’d never felt a thing. It was as good a bait-and-switch as McCall had ever witnessed. Fooz had murmured something about Candy Annie pickpocketing on the streets of New York when she was a teenager, before she’d fled down into the subterranean tunnels.

  The lighter would look and feel the same to Kirov. It had his initials in exactly the same place, same height of letters. Jimmy had done a good job. The difference was the lighter Kirov now carried had a very tiny, sophisticated homing beacon in it that Brahms had attached. It weighed nothing and would not be detected. But McCall would know exactly where the man was at all times.

  The minister finished his eulogy.

  McCall dropped Kirov’s real lighter into the pocket of his tweed jacket. He squeezed Candy Annie’s hand. She gripped his fingers tightly, like she didn’t want to let go, but knew she had to.

  They started to lower Danil Gershon’s coffin into the cold ground. His sister, whose name McCall had never known, threw a bunch of lilies onto the coffin. What were obviously his mother and father stood stoically, although tears streamed down his mother’s face. Her husband held her hand tightly. McCall walked away, feeling the weight of that death squarely on his shoulders.

  Kostmayer caught up with him in the copse of trees where he’d first waited. McCall was looking at the far end of the group of mourners who were breaking up now that the coffin was in the ground. Kostmayer followed his gaze and picked out Borislav Kirov and the two young enforcers heading back to the parked Lincoln.

  “Anyone I should think about killing?”

  “You should remember the faces of the younger ones,” McCall said. “They were probably at the Liberty Belle Hotel. The older man is Borislav Kirov. He runs the Dolls nightclub.”

  “What are they doing here?”

  “Paying their respects. Danil Gershon was employed by Kirov. How’s Sam Kinney?”

  “They moved him out of intensive care a couple of hours ago. Upgraded his condition from stable to fair.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I’m going to be out of the country for a few days. Big trade summit conference in Prague. It just got moved up forty-eight hours. The White House wants security beefed up at these meetings, even though there seems to be one every month. Control is coordinating the security. I’ll be with him.”

  McCall nodded, not interested.

  “I won’t have your back here in New York.”

  “You can’t always be there for me, Mickey.”

  “Someone should be.”

  “It doesn’t always work out that way.”

  Kostmayer’s gaze shifted over to Granny, in the midst of the exodus from the gravesite.

  “Be careful if it’s Granny. He’s unreliable.”

  “And he speaks so highly of you.”

  Kostmayer gave him an ironic look. “Whatever you’re going to do against Kirov, make sure you’ve got all the bases covered.”

  At the gravesite, Control turned around and looked at them. Beside him, Jason Mazer turned and recognized McCall. He said something sharply to Control. Control just shook his head.

  “You’d better get out of here,” Kostmayer advised. “Jason Mazer is out for your blood.”

  “He’ll have to take a number. Good luck in Prague, Mickey.”

  “Routine stuff,” Kostmayer said.

  He walked out of the copse of trees to meet Control and Mazer.

  McCall walked the other way, skirting around a pond where koi fish leaped in the air, on down to the ornate gates and through them. The green parakeets swirled around, diving and wheeling, protecting their turf. He was looking for Candy Annie or Jackson T. Foozelman. He could see neither of them. Cars were streaming through the main gates as the mourners for Danil Gershon left his last resting place. McCall remembered that Leonard Bernstein was buried here. Danil was in good company.

  The black Lincoln town car drove through the gates and turned down the road toward Manhattan. McCall caught a glimpse of Kuzbec driving. No one was looking at him in the woods across from the gates. The town car drove away into the gathering twilight gloom. McCall’s iPhone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID.

  He didn’t recognize it.

  But he did recognize S
am Kinney’s voice. It was low and hoarse, but the words were distinct.

  “Room three-two-five. Come now!”

  That was all.

  * * *

  The cab ride to Lenox Hill Hospital took thirty-two minutes. McCall ran across the main lobby and took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. Room 325 was in the J Wing. It was quiet in the ward, that muted sense of life-and-death urgency being dealt with matter-of-factly and efficiently. McCall moved quickly past the nurse’s station to room 325 at the end of the ward.

  The door was half open.

  McCall pushed inside.

  Sam was in the far bed. He was the only patient in the room. The bed nearest the door was vacant.

  But he wasn’t alone.

  Salam was standing in green scrubs at Sam’s IV drip. He had a syringe in his hand. Sam lay in the bed hooked up to various machines. His right eye was bandaged. His left one was closed. He was murmuring something McCall couldn’t hear.

  Salam whirled at the sound of someone entering the room. McCall was beside him in two steps. He grabbed the syringe from the enforcer’s hand and hurled him away. He slammed hard into the wall, the entire room shaking. McCall would have gone after him, but Sam grabbed his arm, tugging him toward the bed.

  “Let him go!” Sam whispered.

  The hesitation was all that Salam needed. He bolted out the door into the ward.

  “You break his neck, we’ve got cops all over us,” Sam said. His voice was above a whisper now, but barely. There was no strength in it, like a very distant voice over a bad phone connection. “He thinks he got what he came for. Let him go back with that.”

  McCall pocketed the syringe, walked to the open door, and looked out. There was no sign of Salam. If any of the nurses had noticed the new intern leaving the room in a hurry, they didn’t think anything of it. Salam was too smart to have run from the room. But he would be halfway down the stairs to the lobby by now. McCall closed the door and walked back to Sam’s bed. The door to the room opened almost immediately and a nurse strode in. Her voice was clipped and severe. Nurse Ratched, eat your heart out.

  “Mr. Kinney isn’t allowed visitors unless they’re family.”

  “He’s my uncle,” McCall said. “You might want to check his IV. I stumbled against it when I got to the bed.”

  The nurse hurried over to the IV drip, checked it, checked the monitors.

  “It’s fine. You can stay five minutes. The doctor is on his way down to see Mr. Kinney.”

  McCall nodded. The nurse left, leaving the door to the room open. McCall pulled up a chair to Sam’s bed. The old man’s left eye was watery, but clear. He reached up a trembling hand and McCall caught it in one of his.

  “At least you didn’t say I was your dad.”

  “What happened?”

  “He came in about half an hour ago. I recognized him right away, even in the green scrubs. One of the men in the hotel lobby. He thought I was asleep. He couldn’t do anything because there was a uniformed cop right outside my door. A homicide dick had questioned me. I didn’t know anything. Some guys came in to rob the hotel. Started shooting. I shot one of them. Didn’t see any faces. I’m a bad eyewitness.”

  “Most eyewitnesses are.”

  “As soon as the homicide dick left, I called you. They let me keep my cell cause I told them I was expecting a call from my son. Yeah, like that was going to happen. They pulled the cop outside my door about five minutes ago.”

  Sam started to cough and McCall squeezed his hand.

  “Don’t talk anymore.”

  Sam ignored that. “A couple of minutes later the intern in scrubs came back in. Said he had to check my chart. He closed the door. I pretended to be delirious. Like I was still talking to the homicide detective. Saying how you came into the hotel and threatened me. I’d never seen you before. I was afraid of you. Crap like that. Then the creep got a cell phone call. I couldn’t hear the voice at the other end, but I got the gist of it.”

  Sam shuddered and took in a breath and let it out.

  “How’s your right eye?”

  “I’m not gonna lose it. Let me talk. The door opened and the uniformed cop told the intern he couldn’t have a cell phone in the ward. He apologized and pocketed it, made a show of checking my chart and left. I guess he came back to finish me off with whatever’s in that syringe.”

  “I’ll get rid of it.”

  “How was the funeral for Danil?”

  “Respectful.”

  That was as much as Sam could manage. He nodded and McCall let him rest, never letting go of his hand. Five long minutes passed. McCall waited. Then Sam opened his left eye again.

  “Whatever’s happening, it’s going down tomorrow. That’s what I heard. Whoever the intern was talking to is going out of town tomorrow. Some big deal. Best intel I can give you, McCall, for a dying old man.”

  “You’re not dying.”

  “Aren’t all of us dying?”

  “When I want to have a deep, philosophical discussion, I’ll play chess with Granny.”

  “Don’t do that. He cheats.”

  “He doesn’t have to. I’ll check up on you later.”

  “Who asked you?”

  But there was a smile on Sam’s face. He closed his good eye again. McCall sat still for another two minutes. Sam’s breathing became rhythmic, and McCall knew he had slipped off to sleep. He let go of his hand, stood up, and walked out of the hospital room.

  McCall walked up to the nurse’s station. The nurse who’d entered the room was sitting behind it, on a computer. She looked up.

  “He’s sleeping,” McCall said. “Make sure no one else goes in there.”

  “You shouldn’t have been in there.”

  “I know. Thanks for letting me see him.”

  She didn’t quite swoon, but her gaze softened to a glare.

  McCall walked out of the ward, took the stairs down to the lobby, and walked out onto Seventy-seventh Street. He took Salam’s hypodermic out of his pocket, smashed the needle on the top of a trash can, and dropped it in. He took out his iPhone and dialed a number he knew by heart.

  Control picked up after one ring. “You could have talked to me at the funeral.”

  “Sam Kinney. He’s at the Lenox Hill Hospital on Seventy-seventh. There was an attempted robbery at Sam’s hotel a couple of nights ago. He was shot.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “He’s out of intensive care, but one of the robbers was in his hospital room this afternoon. Probably worried he could identify them. I chased him away.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “If I’d killed him, I’d be talking to you from a police precinct. I just scared him off.”

  “What’s this about, Robert? You’re both ex-Company agents. What do I need to know?”

  “You don’t need to know anything more than I’m telling you. Sam’s life may be in danger. You need to move him and make sure no one knows where he is.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I’d consider it a favor,” McCall said.

  “That’s a two-way street.”

  “I’m not coming back, I’m just reaching out.”

  “I’ll see that Sam’s well looked after.”

  “Thanks.”

  McCall disconnected.

  Almost immediately his cell phone rang.

  “Yes, Brahms,” he said into the iPhone.

  “It’s Mary,” her light, refreshing voice said. “I just heard from Brahms. He’ll be finished with his treason, as he calls it, by nine o’clock. Where can I meet you?”

  “There’s a Starbucks on Delancey Street at Orchard. I’ll meet you there at nine-thirty.”

  McCall disconnected.

  * * *

  Mary was waiting for him at the Starbucks on Delancey Street when he got there. It had long since stopped drizzling, but the outside tables were deserted except for the one at which Mary was sitting. She had on a very chic raincoat that looked like it was wort
h more than three months of McCall’s apartment rent. He slid into the chair opposite her.

  “Do you mind if we sit out here?” Mary asked. “It’s packed inside and I get claustrophobic.”

  “Out here is fine,” McCall said.

  “How was the funeral?”

  “Like all funerals. They need to happen, but they’re for the living, not the departed. It was sad, but it’s a gorgeous place. Danil will rest easy there.”

  “Do you believe he’s really there? Or is this earthly body like an old coat we throw off when we’re not using it anymore? Isn’t his spirit somewhere else?”

  “It’s a nice thought. Brahms couldn’t come himself?”

  “No. He had to go home. He told me this was very important to give to you.”

  She took a small manila envelope out of her bag and handed it to him. He opened it and saw a thin black flash drive inside. He closed the envelope and dropped it into the pocket of his jacket. Mary took off her Diane von Furstenberg tortoiseshell glasses and looked down the street. McCall had never seen her without them. Her eyes were brown and gorgeous.

  “He told me he shouldn’t have done this for you.”

  McCall nodded. “Treason.”

  “He said he no longer owed you. I know you’re going to say he never did, but he felt like he did, and Brahms is very passionate about what he believes.”

  “Do you know his real name?”

  She looked back at him and nodded. “He introduced himself to me as Brahms, when I came in for the job interview, and he’s never told me. But bills come to the store sometimes addressed to Mr. Chaim Mendleman. I only think of him as Brahms. He said I should tell you, and I’m sure my Yiddish pronunciation is mangling this: ‘A legen ahf dir.’ He said it means: ‘You should live well and be well.’”

  “Brahms has always been kind of a father figure to me, too, even though we’re not that far apart in age.”

  “You know his wife is very sick?”

  McCall stared at her. “I didn’t know that.”

  Mary nodded. “Hilda,” she said, as if Brahms had had several wives. “Ovarian cancer. Stage two. She’s a fighter, but it’s really taking a toll on my boss.”