The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  “Has he told you what the doctors are saying?”

  “She’s undergoing chemo. There’s an experimental procedure she qualifies for at a Boston hospital, but it’s a lot of money and Brahms can’t afford it. His insurance only goes so far.”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  “He won’t take that kind of charity from you. Or anyone.”

  “Brahms has given a lot of himself. To his wife, to his family, to his country. Maybe it’s time for someone to give back to him.”

  “It would be nice.”

  “I know he has a grown-up son and daughter.…”

  “They call and they e-mail, but they live out of state and they’re both very busy.” She smiled a tired smile. “I’m kind of the surrogate daughter right now.”

  She stood up suddenly and offered her hand. McCall stood and shook hands. Her grip was firm and did not linger.

  “I hope whatever is on that flash drive is worth all the trauma you put him through.”

  “So do I. Thanks for bringing it. Is Brahms at home?”

  “He’s at the hospital with Hilda. He doesn’t need to know we had this conversation. He’d be very mad at me. The other night he was merrily going through the last of the dry sherry and I was working late on the accounts with him. We schmoozed a lot.” She grinned. “He looked at me in a way that was not appropriate for a boss checking out his one hardworking employee.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “So here’s the scoop. When I’m making love, I do only wear my glasses. And sometimes I even take those off.”

  She winked at him, put back on her Diane von Furstenberg glasses, and walked away from the table. McCall smiled, but the news about Brahms’s wife had disturbed him.

  He took out the envelope with the flash drive in it.

  He knew this would disturb him even more.

  * * *

  He’d walked into her apartment building while good old doorman Harry was on one of his frequent breaks. He’d taken the stairs up to the fourth floor and was standing outside apartment 4G. He tried the door. Locked, of course. He set down his heavy backpack and removed a set of thin steel pincers from his jacket pocket. It took him seconds to pick the lock. That wasn’t the hard part. But like a lot of New Yorkers, Carlson suspected she’d have at least one bolt across the door from the inside.

  She had two.

  That was fine. That’s why he was carrying the backpack.

  He unzipped the top and took out a heavy industrial magnet. He laid it against the door just above the lock. Moved it across the door. Nothing happened. He tried it higher up and found the first bolt. Slowly he pulled the industrial magnet across the door. Inside, he heard the bolt moving and sliding across. It clunked into place. He froze and waited for a moment. Heard nothing. He brought the industrial magnet down about two inches, then four inches, then it vibrated a little. He’d found a second bolt. He did the same maneuver, carefully sliding the magnet across the outside of the door, moving the bolt on the inside with it, until it clanged into place.

  He put the industrial magnet back into the backpack, zipped it up, and heaved it up onto his shoulders again. He stopped to listen. Still heard nothing.

  Carlson opened the door to Karen Armstrong’s apartment and stepped into her hallway and closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 36

  Carlson liked the way she had decorated her apartment. Cream-colored sofa and chairs, bleached pine bookcases jammed with paperbacks, lots of glass and ceramic elephants: a collector. There were modern paintings on the walls, bright chaotic colors. There were framed photographs everywhere, on the bookshelves, on the glass tables, on a piano. Mostly of Karen at home, he guessed. It was a beautiful house on a river, big front lawn, wraparound porch, just the kind of idyllic setting he’d imagined the bitch would come from.

  There was an open door at one end of the living room. Presumably to her bedroom. He could hear the faint thrumming of a shower running. He was a little disappointed. He liked to make them strip for him. She would already be naked, unless she hadn’t undressed yet, but in his experience young women didn’t turn the shower on until the last minute. Water conservation. Probably only took a few seconds to get hot.

  Carlson set the backpack beside one of the glass tables nearest the front door. He unzipped one of the compartments in the front and took out the knife. It was a KIYA Deba Honkasumi Japanese chef knife, Yasuki steel, 180 mm blade. It had a pale wood handle and a black enamel wrap before the blade. It could cut through a hunk of sirloin steak like it was butter. It would slice through a human being’s cheek down to the bone in a second.

  He walked silently through the living room to the open doorway. He picked up one of the small glass elephants from a bookshelf, about four inches high, and dropped it into the pocket of his coat.

  He always liked to take a souvenir.

  He stepped into the bedroom. There was a burgundy quilt on the bed and clothes waiting for her on it. A soft gray blouse with small pearl buttons, dark blue jeans she would have to squirm to get into, a black lacy bra and panties and wraparound white sandals on the floor. Where was she going at this hour? Out to dinner? It was almost ten-thirty! What happened to eating dinner at civilized times, like 8:00 P.M?

  There was a bureau, and a rocking chair with a red throw cushion on it, piled up with discarded clothes. There were three paintings on the walls, all of them Picasso prints, their names etched in gold script on plaques beneath two of them. One was Woman in a Hat with Pompoms and a Printed Blouse. Another was Picasso Presley. There was no title for the Picasso over Karen’s bed, but it was of a naked girl washing herself from a jug of water in a small round kiddie’s pool in a room with a blue bed, blue walls, and she herself was tinged blue. Weird, but not unattractive.

  What jumped out at him immediately was an old Smith & Wesson pistol on the bedside table. He pulled out the ammo clip, emptied it, and slid it back in again. Then he set the gun back down on the table.

  The sound of the shower was louder. The door to the bathroom was ajar. Steam curled through the doorway. From his position in the middle of the bedroom, Carlson could see some blue tile and the edge of a toilet. He walked silently toward the bathroom. His breath was coming a little faster now. The excitement always built this way. He was about to step around and look through the ajar bathroom door. He had thought of what her body would look like so many times. He wondered if she’d be facing him or have her back to him? If she was facing him, he would have to move in on her immediately. It was always better if they were facing away. He’d have a moment to savor her, check out her ass, the slope of her back. He wondered if she had any hidden tattoos. One of the women he’d raped looked so demure when dressed, white shirt, wool skirt, sensible shoes, like a classic librarian in some old Jimmy Stewart movie, but when he’d made her strip, and turn around, there’d been a snake tat that started on her lower back and then wrapped itself around her ass.

  Never judge a book by the cover.

  He stepped to one side of the bathroom door. He could see part of the shower. The shower door was open. A bonus. He hated his first look of their figures to be distorted through glass. But his view was being cut off. He raised his foot and gently nudged the bathroom door open all the way.

  He had a clear view of her.

  Karen had her back to him in the shower. She was washing shampoo out of her blond hair. He wondered if she was a real blond. She’d have to turn around for him to discover that. His bet was real blond. Her ass was dynamite, like he knew it would be. And she did have a tattoo: a lacy blue butterfly with black edges on the wings on one of the cheeks of her ass. Her legs were long and much better looking outside of the short skirts.

  She was not aware of him at all. Didn’t even have the slightest twinge of danger. He could have leaned against the doorway, made himself at home, and watched her soaping herself for another few minutes. Until she turned around and saw him. Maybe that’s what he’d do. He didn’t want to rush this. Let her rinse and s
oap again and then turn and see him.

  See the Japanese chef’s knife in his hand.

  See that he was blocking her only exit from the bathroom.

  See the look of realization that would come into her eyes. They’d look beyond him. Knowing she had the gun on her bedside table. Knowing there was a way to get past him, let him ogle her body, seduce him with pleas of terror, he can do anything he wanted, just don’t hurt her, don’t cut her, out into the bedroom where she could reach her gun and shoot him dead.

  But it wouldn’t happen that way. He’d let her walk into her bedroom. It was too cramped in the bathroom and he didn’t want to slip on a floor suddenly slick with water. He might even allow her to grab her gun, point it, and pull the trigger.

  And see the shock and despair in her eyes.

  He’d use the chef’s knife to make her go down on her knees and beg him.

  Then he’d make her do everything he wanted.

  That didn’t happen, either.

  He never heard anyone come up behind him. Maybe it was the sound of the shower masking the footsteps. Or perhaps the footsteps were completely silent. All he knew was that suddenly an arm snaked across his throat. Simultaneously the Japanese chef’s knife was wrenched from his hand, even though he’d been holding on to it very tightly. It didn’t drop to the floor. It had been caught. The pressure around Carlson’s throat tightened. He was choking, but he couldn’t even struggle, the grip around his neck was so tight. The world started to rush away from him on all sides. He felt his body go slack and then his world suddenly reversed and darkness began to rush toward him.

  And engulfed him.

  Two minutes later Karen turned around fully in the shower. She gave her hair one more rinse and stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel.

  * * *

  McCall had been one block from his apartment building when his iPhone had beeped a distinctive beep. He’d fished it out and had seen a video picture of Karen’s apartment building on the LED screen. Jeff Carlson was entering the lobby. McCall had hailed a cab and given the driver Karen’s address and told him he’d double the fare if he got him there in ten minutes. He got him there in twelve, but McCall doubled the fare anyway. There’d been no doorman standing outside the apartment building. McCall had taken the stairs up to the fourth floor and found Karen’s apartment door not quite latched shut. He’d noted Carlson’s backpack lying beside a glass table near the short hallway into her living room. He’d heard the sound of the shower. He’d run across the living room and entered her bedroom. He hadn’t pulled his Beretta. He didn’t want to shoot Carlson if he didn’t have to.

  He’d seen the young man lounging in the doorway of the bathroom, the sound of the shower thrumming loudly now, steam streaming past him. He had a large knife in his right hand, some kind of a Japanese Ginsu kitchen knife. McCall had reached the doorway to the bathroom in three silent strides. He’d wrenched the knife out of Carlson’s hand and brought his arm around his throat in one move. He’d held the rapist so tightly he couldn’t even struggle. He’d just wanted to incapacitate him. It was easy to crush the larynx if you weren’t careful. Only then had McCall looked into the bathroom. He’d seen Karen through the open door of her shower, rinsing shampoo out of her hair. Her back was to them. She’d turned slightly, water splashing off her breasts. She still hadn’t seen them.

  Two seconds later Carlson had slumped unconscious into McCall’s arms. He’d dragged him away from the door. Karen hadn’t heard them. The sound of the shower filled her ears. At the bedroom door McCall had heaved Carlson over his shoulder and carried him back out to the living room.

  McCall had leaned the unconscious rapist against the sofa had gone through his pockets. Found a clip of ammunition for a Smith & Wesson—Karen’s gun—and a small glass elephant. McCall had glanced at the bookcases, seen a space where the elephant probably lived, and had gingerly put it back. Then he’d heaved Carlson back over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and had run over to the last glass table. He’d picked up Carlson’s backpack with one hand, still carrying the big knife in the other. He’d looked around to see if there were any signs that Carlson, or himself, had been in the apartment. Nothing seemed disturbed. He’d walked out of the apartment and closed the door behind him. The lock had caught and held. He’d carried Carlson’s unconscious figure through a staff door and down a flight of back stairs into a service corridor on the lobby floor. He’d carried him out a side entrance to the apartment building.

  Kostmayer had parked his black Chrysler rental exactly where McCall had asked him to, two streets over. The doors had been unlocked, the keys in the glove compartment. McCall had hit the button to raise the trunk. There was a roll of gray duct tape there. McCall had dumped Carlson into the trunk and bound the young man’s hands and ankles tightly. Then he’d slammed the trunk shut, slipped behind the wheel, found the keys, fired up the Chrysler, and pulled away from the curb.

  The whole operation had taken four minutes and fourteen seconds. Karen would have stepped out of her shower, toweled off, got dressed in the clothes that had been waiting for her on her bed. She might have checked her gun and found the clip was empty. She might think she had forgotten to load it, or she might not. But she probably wouldn’t have checked. She’d have dropped the Smith & Wesson pistol into her faux Louis Vuitton purse. She might have noted the two bolts were not drawn at her front door when she went out for her dinner date, but she could have forgotten to throw them across. She would still feel secure that she had her stalker situation under control.

  And she did.

  She just didn’t know how.

  It all went through McCall’s mind as he sat on the edge of a dented fender amid the jumbled panorama of smashed and discarded vehicles. The automobile wrecking yard was in a remote industrial area in Queens. Moonlight fractured through the piled-up metal carcasses. There were big iron gates shutting off the yard, with razor wire coiled at the top. But the padlock on the gates had been no trouble for McCall. The Chrysler was parked a few feet away from the opening in the gates.

  Jeff Carlson stood upright in front of McCall at a towering mountain of wrecked cars. His hands were high above his head, taped together around a steering wheel that protruded from the smashed dashboard above him. His ankles were duct-taped together. He looked like he was doing some kind of extreme yoga exercise where you reached up as high as you could for the sky without moving your feet apart.

  He was naked.

  McCall had the KIYA Deba Honkasumi Japanese chef knife at his balls, blade up.

  Carlson stirred and opened his eyes. McCall gave him a few seconds of orientation. He was cold and shivering. He noted a dark car parked at some open gates. There was moonlight reflected off the rotting car skeletons.

  And then he looked down.

  And saw where the knife was.

  He gasped. It was audible, like a whimper, which echoed across the glistening canyons of destruction. He twisted around, but couldn’t see who was sitting beside him, holding the knife. His face was in shadow. All he could see were jeans and black loafers.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you,” McCall said. “Not an inch.”

  Carlson froze. His eyes flicked desperately left and right, but there was no one strolling along this desolate piece of real estate. The sound of traffic was a low murmur, very far away.

  He was terrified.

  “Breathe deeply,” McCall advised. “You don’t want to start hyperventilating. Not with this knife blade where it is.”

  Carlson took in a deep breath and let it out. McCall allowed him to take a couple more.

  “Here’s how this is going to work,” McCall said, his voice snatched away by a rising wind and thrown down the rotting metal corridors. “I’m going to ask you some questions. You’re going to answer yes or no. Do you understand?”

  Carlson shook his head. He didn’t understand. Was this Karen’s boyfriend? Her father? Some old professor?

  “Don’t shak
e your head,” McCall said. “I need to hear your voice. Do you understand me? Yes or no.”

  “Yes,” Carlson said, but his voice was so hoarse it was barely audible.

  “Do you know Karen Armstrong?”

  “Who’s that?”

  McCall applied a little upward pressure on the knife blade. Carlson gasped and shut his eyes tight.

  “Yes or no answers,” McCall said. “You’ve been stalking her. Let’s not go down the path of ‘I walked into the wrong apartment, I’m an old friend, I was just scaring her with the knife, I used to fuck her but she dumped me.’ Because if we go down that road, my hand is going to twitch. She was your next rape victim. But did you know her personally?”

  Carlson opened his eyes, took another deep breath, let it out.

  “No.”

  “Are you from New York?”

  “No.”

  “So you haven’t lived here long?”

  “No.”

  “Rented apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anything in that apartment you can’t leave behind? Any personal stuff that you’d really want to take with you?” Carlson opened his mouth to speak, but McCall said, “It’s a trick question. It doesn’t matter if you say yes or no. You’re not going back to your apartment. You’re leaving New York tonight with the clothes you have on your back. Well, the ones I folded and put into that crumpled Ford Mustang about seven feet west of us. Second level up. You and I are going to come to an understanding. There’s no discussion or negotiation. Either you do exactly what I tell you, or I cut off your balls and let you bleed out. Clear?”

  “Yes.”

  Carlson’s voice was so constricted he could barely get the word out.

  “When I leave, you’re going to get dressed. You’re going to walk to the nearest main thoroughfare, which is about twenty streets west of here. You’re going to hail a cab. You’re going to go to LaGuardia and take a plane out of the city. I don’t care where you go. I put some money into your coat pocket. It will get you wherever you want, unless it’s the Bahamas. And you can’t go there without your passport. You won’t come back to this city again. You will never go near Karen Armstrong again. With me so far?”