“I’d like to buy a round of drinks for that table over there,” I said, pointing. “That tall gentleman with the white hair is a friend of mine. Nathaniel Yorke.”
“Certainly, sir.”
He walked over to the table and leaned down and whispered something to Yorke, who looked toward the bar, smiling. I waved. He spotted me. And stopped smiling. A few minutes later the drinks I’d ordered were served and all the men except Yorke raised their glasses to me. I raised my beer glass and gave them a big smile. Yorke said something, got up and walked over to where I was sitting.
“Alton, how nice to see you.” The smile was back. “Thanks for the drinks. What are you doing in Albany?”
“Would you believe I just happened to be in the neighborhood?”
“Are you?”
“No. I’m working a case.”
“Really. Can I ask what it’s about?”
“John Panetta.”
I thought I saw his tan lighten by a shade or two.
“The man who was murdered?”
“Yeah. Good old Gunner Panetta. Your childhood pal. Who was in your outfit in Nam. With the recently deceased Vito Rizzuto. The guy who saved your cookies and your reputation when you left him alone in the bush. The guy you and Bowles had murdered when he inconveniently showed up on Staten Island and decided that it was time to end the fraud that is your political career.”
The tan was being replaced by gray. Not quite 50 shades, but enough for me to worry that he might stroke out.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Sure you do, Nate. Right now, you’re wondering what I’m doing still alive. You’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop ever since your boy Rizzuto got himself killed after murdering Panetta’s cousin and her husband in Pulaski. Well, let me clear it up for you. Rizzuto spilled the beans before he croaked. To me.”
Our voices had remained conversational. Just two pals talking at the bar, which was crowded and noisy. We could have been talking about the Yankees for all anyone knew, not mass murder. I didn’t think anyone overheard us, but Yorke looked around nervously and then leaned in to me.
“You’re insane,” he rasped. “Go back into the fucking hole you came out of. I never killed anyone. You have no proof. Sure, I knew Panetta. I just didn’t want to capitalize on our relationship to win an election. I’m a respected legislator who is going to be the next borough president of Staten Island.”
“Yeah. And the next mayor, and governor, and president, yada, yada, yada.” I took out my cell phone and held it up for him to see. “But you might want to tell your wife and campaign manager to be a bit more discreet.”
He stared at the video, His mouth opened and closed, in a pretty good imitation of a guppy. Some spittle formed at one corner. Then he turned abruptly and started to walk away. By the time he reached the door he was running and almost knocked over a couple just walking into the restaurant. One of the men at his table shouted after him and then they all stood up in shock. They looked at me and I went over to them.
“Don’t worry. He’s OK. He’s running home to give his wife the Heimlich Maneuver.”
***
I considered my visit to Albany an unqualified success, so I decided to drive back to Staten Island. I wondered if Yorke would keep his flight date the next day with the Advance reporter, or try to rush back himself. I was pretty sure I’d beat him and wanted to be around for the fireworks. I wasn’t particularly proud of showing him the video, but, then, I hadn’t orchestrated or caused the murder of three innocent people. And, of course, he had been trying to have me killed for weeks.
I called Cormac from the New York Thruway. I told him what I now knew about Bowles and Teresa Yorke, and what I’d done in Albany.
“You continue to spread cheer and joy upstate, don’t you?”
“They need it. It was a tough winter. Look, I’m going to stake out Bowles’s house. I think something may break.”
“You think?”
“Want to join me?”
“I’ll bring sandwiches and coffee.”
“I’ll pick you up when I hit the Island.”
CHAPTER 26 - THREESOME
There were three cars in the driveway. One, the black Range Rover emblazoned with “Yorke for Borough President” stickers, I knew belonged to Bowles. The silver Mercedes was Teresa Yorke’s. The third was a Chevy Malibu. Had Yorke somehow shot back to Staten Island before me?
“I don’t like this,” I said.
We had just pulled up to Bowles’s house. Mac was already eating a salami sandwich.
“Why?”
“That Malibu could be a rental. Yorke’s.”
“Maybe it’s bridge night,” Mac said. “How do you want to play this, Alt? Just ring the doorbell and say we were in the neighborhood looking for evidence and thought we’d drop in?”
“Pass me a salami sandwich while I come up with a plan.”
It turned out I didn’t need one. The windows in my Hyundai were open. We heard a woman scream from somewhere deep in the house.
“Oh, crap,” Cormac said.
We ran to the front door. It was locked and too sturdy for us to kick in.
“Hold on.” I said.
I ran back to my car and grabbed a pry bar from my trunk. I looked at Cormac.
“Gotta do it,” he said.
“You have mustard on your cheek,” I said and jammed the pry bar in the door frame. The lock fell out, along with a fair amount of splintered wood. I kicked the door open. We moved into the house, guns drawn. There was another muffled scream, coming from down a hallway. We ran to a room at the back of the house. The door to the room was also locked. We heard moans, and then — laughter. We put our ears to the door. It sounded like the New York Rangers were having tryouts.
“Oh, God, I’m coming,” a woman cried out, clearly Teresa Yorke. “Go faster.”
Even while in the throes of passion, her voice had an upper-crust clipped accent.
“Wait, I’m almost there,” a man groaned. Bowles sounded like Bowles, if a bit out of breath.
“Shit, there goes my pension,” Mac said.
“Jesus, it’s so good,” a woman moaned. “Go slower.”
It wasn’t Teresa Yorke. It was someone else, apparently not on the same sexual page as the other two. Cormac and I looked at each other. We holstered our guns.
“This, I got to see,” he said. “Stand aside.”
I did, and he backed up a few paces and then threw his considerable bulk against the door, which flew off its hinges. It had been some time since Cormac had busted into a room. He was out of practice. The momentum of his lunge was too much for a graceful entry. Cormac is a bit top heavy and he fell forward, winding up on all fours. In that respect, he fit right in with the other three people in the room, although he had his clothes on.
They were all splayed naked on a huge round bed, above which was a ceiling mirror. Bowles was between and under the two women, who were facing one another. Their activities had ground to a sudden halt with our rather undignified arrival, but it wasn’t hard to see what each of their roles had been. Unfortunately for Bowles, under the ministrations of the two women he had reached the point of no return, sexually, and was in the midst of what was probably one of his less enjoyable orgasms. We politely watched until his spasms subsided.
“That’s not something you see every day,” Cormac said as he lumbered to his feet.
The woman facing us was Teresa Yorke. The other woman’s head turned slowly toward us.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
I was definitely going to take up Pilates. It was Joan Tolentine.
***
“Can’t you at least let us put our clothes back on?”
After some maneuvering, the energetic threesome had managed to untangle. The two women stood mute and didn’t even bother covering themselves. I didn’t want to stare at them but it beat looking at Cormac or Bowles, who had his hand over his privates and was
alternately whining and blubbering. There was an unpleasant odor in the room, a combination of sex, sweat — and fear.
“Just one more,” Cormac said, aiming his iPhone and snapping another picture to go with those he’d taken while they were immersed in their sexual gymnastic poses. “Say cheeseburger.”
“None of that is admissible in court,” Bowles blurted. “You broke in without a warrant. We have rights.”
“You have the right to shut the fuck up,” Cormac said. “Your days of screwing broads are over. You’ve got a standing, or maybe a bending, date with guys name Bubba and Rufus in Sing Sing for the next 100 years.”
I could hear sirens approaching. When he wasn’t snapping pictures with his iPhone, Cormac had called for backup.
“Let me do the talking,” he said.
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“OK,” he ordered, “you three get some clothes on.”
I heard footsteps behind me. I assumed the backup had arrived. Until I saw Bowles’s face. He had managed to get one leg in his underwear. Then his expression changed from embarrassment to fear, with a bit of horror thrown in for good measure.
“Please don’t,” he whined.
He let go of his drawers, which fell to his ankles. I whirled around. Nathaniel Yorke was standing in the doorway holding a very large revolver.
“You fucking cunt!”
“Nathaniel, put the gun down.” It was Teresa Yorke, sounding amazingly Bostonian for someone standing naked in front of an enraged husband with two equally naked lovers by her side. “I can explain.”
That, I wanted to hear. But Yorke was having none of it. Tears were streaming down his face.
“I put up with your crazy ambition,” he cried. “I let you kill Gunner, my friend.”
“I did it for you, darling. He would have ruined us with his lies.”
“They weren’t lies. I ran away. I was afraid. I told you everything before we got married. And you’ve used it against me ever since. I’m not afraid now. And I’m not running anymore.”
“Don’t be a fool,” she said. “Stop crying. Act like a man for once in your life.”
Her voice had taken on a scolding tone, probably the one she’d always used on her husband when she egged him on to higher office, holding his war cowardice over his head.
“Lady, I think maybe you should put a sock in it,” Cormac said. “I’m a police officer. And you’re all under arrest.”
Yorke looked at Bowles and Joan Tolentine, then back at his wife.
“You said you didn’t like sex anymore.”
Teresa Yorke laughed derisively.
“I just didn’t like fucking you. You couldn’t get it up half the time anyway.”
I didn’t like the way this was going. If Teresa Yorke wanted to commit suicide it was fine with me, but I wasn’t interested in joining her.
Bowles was shaking like a leaf. Why he decided to throw more gasoline on the fire, I’ll never know.
“Nathaniel, this doesn’t mean anything,” he said in a quavering voice. “I’m not the only one. She’s screwed half of Albany. She seduced me.”
Christ! Yorke started laughing. It was that nutty laugh Alice called a chortle. She was right. It was completely inappropriate, especially now.
“Yorke,” I said, “we can handle this. They’ll pay for what they did. Just put the gun down.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Teresa Yorke said. “We can still get out of this. Kill them both. They broke in. You can claim you didn’t realize who they were and shot them in self-defense.”
Yorke pointed his gun at my chest.
“I let them talk me into killing Panetta. A man who saved my life.” Another goddamn chortle. “How are you going to handle that, Rhode? You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”
“Do it,” she hissed. “Show some balls for a change.”
It was absolutely the worst thing she could have said. Or maybe, as far as I was concerned, the best.
Yorke turned the gun toward Bowles and fired. Bowles screamed in agony and crumpled to the floor, holding his crotch. I didn’t want to think about where the bullet caught him. Cormac and I reached for our weapons but stopped in mid-draw when we heard the tinkling of glass hitting the floor near the window to Yorke’s right. His head jerked sideways and a plume of red mist shot out one of his ears. His face lost all definition and his arms dropped to the side. His knees collapsed and he fell at my feet, like a marionette whose strings had suddenly been cut. I instinctively looked at the window. There was a small hole in it, surrounded with spider web cracks.
I thought I caught a flash of blond hair on a figure sprinting away, but I couldn’t be sure. I reached down and felt for a pulse in Yorke’s neck. He was dead, and blood started to trickle out his ears and nose. I heard loud sirens and screeching tires. The women were whimpering and Bowles was rolling around in a fetal position, screeching like a wolverine getting a prostate exam. I stood up. Two uniformed cops burst into the room, guns drawn.
“Holy shit,” one of them said.
I turned to Cormac.
“You are definitely doing all the talking,” I said.
***
“What am I going to do with you two?”
Mike Sullivan was pouring three drinks from a bar in the den.
“This room is bigger than it appears from outside the window,” I said, looking around.
Cormac took his drink.
“Are we supposed to be drinking a perp’s booze, boss?”
Sullivan sighed.
“You’re worried about goddamn propriety after breaking down two doors in a house crawling with naked people? I know I’m going to need another drink when I hear your stories. And, please, don’t give me that bullshit you told the detectives out there.”
I could see police cars, ambulances, coroner’s vehicles, EMS trucks and media vans out in front of the house. Curious neighbors had begun to gather. The rest of Bowles’s home was swarming with cops and technicians. Sullivan had closed and locked the door to the den.
“Two people shot, one fatally,” he said, shaking his head. “The one who is dead was certain to be the next Borough President. Jesus Christ!”
“Actually,” I said, taking my whiskey, “it’s six people, five fatally. But only if we go off the record.”
Sullivan slumped in a chair.
“God help me. Let’s hear it. Everything.”
Twenty minutes later, he stared at us.
“I assume a commendation is out of the question,” Cormac said.
EPILOGUE
Alice had come for the weekend and insisted we work in my basement, which, she decided, had to be turned into something “that doesn’t look like the one Tom Cruise hid in during War of the Worlds, not that any alien would ever go in it.” Alice can be quite cutting in her criticisms of my lifestyle. The dumpster I’d rented was sitting in my driveway almost half full of the clutter my family had accumulated over 60 years. And we weren’t half done.
We were sitting on the back deck, mercifully taking a lunch break. It was one of those perfect late June days when no one in their right mind should be filling a dumpster. But I’d made some bacon-lettuce and tomato sandwiches on rye, fixed a plate of bread-and-butter pickles and added two bags of potato chips. Alice had somehow made fresh lemonade. The ice-filled pitcher and our glasses were dripping condensation. Alice, while a bit bedraggled, still looked beautiful. That’s not always the case with women. I decided I would cope.
Scar, who could smell bacon like a shark can smell blood, was snoozing on the porch a few feet from us. Alice had fixed him a dish of bacon and tuna fish.
“You know, he really is kind of beautiful, stretched out like that,” she said, “when you can’t see his face.”
“Don’t let him hear you. He’s very sensitive about his looks. He likes being the ugliest cat on the East Coast.”
“He’s hardly ugly.”
I had made three BLT sand
wiches and the third, meant for us to split, still lay on its plate. Alice usually let me have her half of any third sandwich. But it’s not a given. She’s been working like a stevedore and burning calories. I’m not a big fan of potato chips, so I had already slid my bag to her side of the table, trying to fill her up.
“What happens to them now?”
“Who?”
I had been distracted by the remaining BLT.
“Teresa Yorke, Bowles and the Pilates woman.”
“It’s anyone’s guess. Mike Sullivan says they all turned on each other, but then common sense prevailed and they lawyered up. He said he doesn’t know if their initial statements will hold up legally, given the circumstances. Or as he put it, the ‘shitburger of a case’ we presented him with. He’s not sure whether Mac and I had a legal right to break into Bowles’s house. Loud sex probably doesn’t rise to the level of exigent circumstances.”
“Thank God,” Alice murmured.
“And then there’s the circumstance of a dead borough presidential candidate lying on the floor after he just shot Bowles in the balls in front of two naked women.”
“Not to mention the killings upstate. Will you be tied to them?”
“No. Cormac and Mike will squash any hint I was involved. They have to link Chief Rizzuto to the Yorke camp and the best way to do that is to find a money trail between them. That shouldn’t be hard. Then everything will fall together without me. They don’t need more complications. Even given the best lawyering, Teresa and Joan will have to plead out to something. Just too many dead bodies. They’ll all do hard time. Bowles will be trying out for lead soprano in the Attica choir.”
“What about the photos Cormac took?”
“Almost certainly inadmissible, but they could be useful if the defendants fall out between themselves.”
“You mean ‘amongst’ themselves. ‘Between’ refers to two individuals. More than that is ‘among’ or ‘amongst,’ which I prefer. It sounds nicer.”
GUNNER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 5) Page 17