Playing Dead

by R. G. Belsky

  I bet the entire $23,000 on the underdog small school to beat the eighteen-point spread. All they had to do was get within eighteen, for chrissakes. It was a cinch. Hell, they might even win the game outright.

  The game was close most of the way. But, late in the second half, the defending champions started to pull away. It still didn’t look like they would go more than eighteen points ahead until they put on a furious finish at the end of the game. With ten seconds to go, the score was 81–62. Then, with time running out, they fouled the best shooter on my team as he drove to the basket. There was only time for two foul shots. If my guy made both of them, I won the bet. Even if he made only one, it was still a push—which meant everybody got their money back. That was OK too.

  The first foul shot hit the rim of the basket, rolled around it for a few seconds, and then bounced off.

  The second one was an air ball—it didn’t even come close.

  As the crowd spilled out onto the court to congratulate the winners, the announcers were talking about what a gutsy performance the little school had put on during the tournament. They talked about their heart. Their hustle. Their spirit. They said everyone could go back home with their heads held high.

  Me, I didn’t really listen to any of it.

  I ordered a double bourbon and drank it down in a hurry. Then I ordered another—and did the same thing. After that, I walked around the city for a long time, wondering what I was going to do next. I didn’t even have enough money for an airline ticket home now. Eventually, I wound up back in my hotel room which was paid up until the end of the week. I told Connie what had happened. When I woke up the next morning, she was gone too. I never saw her again.

  I had a wristwatch that Susan had given me for Christmas one year. I pawned it to get enough money to buy a bus ticket. I then spent several days traveling cross country before I finally made it back to New York City.

  I was flat broke.

  I didn’t have a job.

  I had no prospects.

  I’d thrown away a small fortune in a very short period of time.

  And the worst part of it—the absolute rock-bottom realization—was that I still desperately wanted to make a bet on something.

  That’s when I first started to think I might have a gambling problem.

  Chapter 23

  Greg Ackerman looked like a man on the way up.

  I could tell that after just spending a few minutes with him. He sat behind his desk—dressed in a dark pinstriped suit, starched white shirt, red suspenders, and an Ivy League tie—and talked to me confidently about Franze, the dead call girl found with him, and Lisa Montero. He made it very clear that he thought he could convict her for the killings.

  I’d found out from people at the paper that Ackerman was a real political comer. During the past year, he’d made headlines by successfully prosecuting a longtime Mafia boss, a wealthy drug lord, and a scandal-ridden city councilman. He won spectacular jury convictions in the first two cases—and got the councilman to plead guilty in return for reduced jail time.

  People were already talking about him as a candidate for district attorney—the incumbent was nearing retirement age and expected to step down—or maybe even for mayor or governor somewhere down the line.

  That was why he’d gotten handed such a high-profile case like the William Franze murder.

  “How can you be sure Lisa Montero did it?” I asked him.

  “I’m sure, believe me. I’ve got witnesses who put the lady at the scene of the crime. And I’ve got a dead bang motive—she caught him in bed with another woman.” He laughed. “Poor little Lisa Montero—she’s got all that money and she’s got all that power, but what she doesn’t have is an alibi. Too bad for Lisa, huh?”

  “What about the second woman she says she saw at Franze’s house the night of the murders?”

  “There was no second woman,” Ackerman snapped.

  “How do you know?”

  “We checked the escort agency—they only sent one girl. We even went through Franze’s phone records, every friggin’ call he made on the day he died. Just in case he called some other agency or girl. Almost all the calls were to business associates.”

  “And the others?”

  “There was one to the escort agency—and five to a plumber.”

  “A plumber?”

  “Yeah, he was trying to get his toilet fixed,” Ackerman said.

  I stared at him.

  “The toilet next to Franze’s bedroom—where the bodies were found—was broken. It had apparently been out of order since that morning. Franze kept trying the plumber—but the plumber was busy. He wasn’t able to get there until the following morning. When he did, he walked in and found the two bodies.”

  “A busted toilet,” I repeated. I shook my head. “Jesus, ol’ Billy Franze really had himself a bad day, didn’t he?”

  Ackerman leaned across his desk and smiled confidently at me.

  “Look, there’s no question about it, Dougherty.” he said. “Lisa Montero was the only other woman who was there the night Billy Franze was killed. She did it, my friend. She fought with him, she got jealous, she came back with a gun—and bang, bang, bang! Now she’s going down for it. End of story.”

  He looked down at a front page of the Banner that was on his desk. My story was there. The interview with Lisa Montero where she had proclaimed her innocence.

  “You don’t really believe any of this stuff she told you, do you?” he asked.

  “I think both cases are related,” I said. “The Franze murders and the David Galvin death list.”

  “Yeah, I read some of your other stories,” Ackerman said. “All about how Billy Franze might have been the victim of a sinister gang of ex-college assassins. How a repentant David Galvin confessed all this to you on his death bed. Sorry, I don’t buy it.”

  “Why not?”

  “David Galvin was a nut.”

  “Galvin seemed very sane to me at the end. He was afraid of dying without cleansing his soul. He was getting ready to meet his maker. I believed him.”

  Ackerman shook his head.

  “Where the hell did you come from anyway, Dougherty?” he said. “I mean I know all the other reporters at the Banner who’ve been working on the Franze murder, but I never heard of a Joe Dougherty. So I decided to check up on you. I found out they brought you back to life to do the David Galvin confession business. And now you show up here in my office with this wild theory about conspiracies and deathbed confessions and killer college students from more than a decade ago. What’s the deal with you anyway?”

  “I just think that the same person who killed William Franze and the call girl is also responsible for all the new murders on the list that David Galvin gave me,” I repeated.

  “Then that would be Lisa Montero.”

  “If she really killed Franze.”

  “Oh, she did it all right.”

  “But what if she didn’t? Then there’s another very dangerous person out there that we don’t know about.”

  “She did it,” he repeated. “I don’t know anything about all this Galvin stuff, but Lisa Montero shot William Franze and the hooker as sure as we’re sitting here, my friend.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  Ackerman sighed. “Let me tell you some things about Lisa Montero and her family,” he said. “The Monteros are not very nice people. They’ve been getting away with stuff like this all their lives. They think they’re above the law. Did you ever meet her father?”

  “No, tell me about him.”

  “Okay,” Ackerman said. “For twenty-five years, John Montero has been a big man in this town. He rules people with an iron fist. Cross him, and he’ll destroy you. Stand up to him, and he’ll knock you down. Threaten him, and he’ll get rid of you. There’s a lot of bodies piled up in the graveyard because of Montero.”

  “You’re speaking figuratively, of course.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “
What are you telling me? That Montero has people killed?”

  “No one’s ever been able to prove that.”

  “C’mon, Montero’s a businessman, he’s not an underworld boss. We’re not talking about John Gotti here.”

  “Let me tell you a couple of stories about John Montero,” Ackerman said.

  “Story Number One: A long time ago, there’s an idealistic guy in the Department of Justice—a young, ambitious prosecutor, a lot like me—who does an investigation of one of Montero’s businesses and uncovers a massive federal kickback and tax fraud scandal. He thinks he’s got Montero nailed. He sweats one of Montero’s top people, a guy named Louis Archer. The prosecutor threatens Archer with hard jail time—and convinces him to turn state’s evidence. Only when it comes time for Archer to testify, he mysteriously changes his story. Says he doesn’t know anything about any Montero business at all. Convenient, huh? Montero somehow got to this guy and scared him—scared him so bad that he was even willing to go to jail rather than tell the truth. Anyway, Montero beats the rap, he goes back to business as usual, and the idealistic federal prosecutor . . . well, he’s so disheartened by the whole process that he quits the department.

  “Story Number Two: Another time Montero tries to engineer a takeover of a small but extremely profitable business. Except one of the partners won’t sell out to him. They word is Montero offers this guy all sorts of money to get him on his side—but nothing works. He tells Montero he’ll never change his mind. Then one day this guy doesn’t show up for work—and his wife and little ten-year-old daughter go to the police station to report him missing. The wife says he’d been scared ever since the business with Montero started, that he was convinced someone was following him—and she wants Montero arrested. But the cops can’t do anything, because they have no proof. A few days later, the guy’s body is found floating in the East River. In the end, Montero buys the business from the dead man’s partners, the guy’s wife winds up a widow, and the little girl has to grow up without a father. The case is still unsolved.”

  I let my breath out slowly.

  “You think the same thing happened to William Franze?” I asked.

  “Well, he sure didn’t die in his sleep, did he?”

  “But we’re talking about Lisa Montero here, not John.”

  “Like father, like daughter,” Ackerman smiled.

  That afternoon, when I got back to the Banner office, there was a note waiting for me. It had been delivered in the regular mail, and it was postmarked from the Bronx. There was no return address.

  To Joseph Dougherty:

  If you’re looking for answers about the Wall Street murder and the Great Pretenders, the Bronx is the place to look. Take it from someone who knows—it’s a great place to drop out of sight!

  A Banner reader

  I read the note over several times. I had no idea what it meant. The Bronx is a big place. I couldn’t go looking for someone in the Bronx any easier than I could find one of David Galvin’s accomplices among all the people who’d gone to NYU.

  Maybe it was just a crank letter. Or maybe it was another clue. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure about anything with this story anymore.

  I kept looking for answers.

  But everywhere I went, all I found were more questions.

  Chapter 24

  Lisa Montero was being held in a cell on Rikers Island.

  Rikers Island is a grim city prison that’s on an island in the middle of the East River. To get there, you had to take a special bus across a bridge from Queens to the main entrance of the jail. It wasn’t quite as remote a place like Alcatraz, but the geography definitely made escape very difficult. Every once in a while you’d read about some inmate making a break and trying to swim for either the Manhattan or Queens shorelines. Most of them didn’t make it. I didn’t figure Lisa Montero as the type to try anything like that.

  When I finally got to see her, she was wearing a prison outfit that looked a size or two too big for her. She looked tired. And scared too. She knew she was in trouble. She knew what was at stake here. And she knew how much she had to lose. A little time in a place like Rikers Island can do that to you.

  There were dark circles under her eyes, and her hand trembled slightly as she tried to light a cigaret. We were talking on a phone in the visitors’ area, where a Plexiglas window separated the prisoners from their friends and relatives.

  She told me how they had come to get her in the middle of the night.

  There were a half dozen cops—four uniforms and two homicide detectives—along with someone from the DA’s office. They woke her up at 2 a.m., told her they had a warrant for her arrest, and then put handcuffs on her. After that, she was taken to a precinct house downtown, where she was finger-printed and had her mugshot taken. They questioned her throughout the night. No one gave her anything to eat or drink, no one let her get any sleep.

  By morning, she was exhausted. But she still had to go to court. This was a real photo opportunity for the district attorney’s office, and Greg Ackerman took every advantage of it. He made sure Lisa was marched into the Criminal Courts Building through the front door—wearing handcuffs again—where an army of photographers and TV crews was waiting to record the big moment. It led every news show that night.

  Greg Ackerman was a real piece of work.

  “My father thinks he can get me out of here,” she told me.

  “That’s not going to be easy,” I said. “It’s a murder charge.”

  “Dad knows some judges. They owe him favors. He figures one of them will come through and set bail. He’ll put up whatever amount it takes to convince them that I won’t flee the country or anything—and I’m not exactly a threat to society if I’m out on the street, am I? Anyway, that’s what he says is going to happen. I hope he’s right. I’m in a cell with a three-hundred-pound lesbian named Bertha. I think Bertha is falling in love with me. I may have to get married if I stay in here much longer.”

  She tried to smile, but I could tell it was a real effort.

  Bertha was more of Greg Ackerman’s doing, no doubt. Make it as uncomfortable for her as possible. Make her squirm.

  “Ackerman will fight the bail request,” I told her.

  “No kidding.”

  “What’s the deal with him anyway? How come he hates you so much?”

  “He hates my father.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s never been able to get at my father before. He’s wanted to hurt him for a long time, but he never could because Dad’s too powerful. Now he can finally hurt him. Through me.”

  “It has nothing to do with you?”

  “Why would an assistant DA like Greg Ackerman have a vendetta against me?”

  I told her how I’d found out that she and Ackerman had gone to NYU together at the same time.

  Just like David Galvin.

  “So?” she asked.

  “So did you know Greg Ackerman back then?”

  “I never even heard of this clown Ackerman until Billy was murdered a few weeks ago.”

  I decided this was the time to press the point. “You’re sure he didn’t used to carry your books for you across campus at NYU?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t ask you out in school?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t buy you a corsage for the big fraternity dance?”

  “No.”

  “What about David Galvin? Did you know him back at NYU?”

  I was waiting for her to lie about this one. I, of course, already had the answer to the question. She had known David Galvin when they were NYU students. His parents told me that. So, if she denied it now, I would pounce on it. Make her admit the truth. Then maybe I could get her to tell me the truth about everything.

  “Yes, I knew David,” she said.

  I was stunned. “You did?”

  “We were in some classes together my freshman year. We studied at the library a few times. I never went out with him or anythi
ng—there was no romance. We just hung out together. After my freshman year, we kind of drifted apart and I hardly ever saw him on campus anymore. I was as surprised as anyone when he was arrested for all those murders. I guess you never can tell what some people are really like.”

  “Did you ever meet his parents?”

  “Yeah, once or twice. They came down to campus to visit David, and he introduced me. I felt really bad when I saw pictures of them on the news afterward. They seemed like really nice people.”

  Okay, so much for all my great detective work. All I had to do was ask her. Brilliant, Dougherty.

  I decided to change topics.

  “What do you think happened on the night William Franze was murdered?” I asked her.

  “Someone was waiting outside when I left his place. Maybe they were planning to kill us both. Or maybe my leaving so suddenly gave them the chance to go ahead with the killing right then. Or maybe one thing had nothing to do with another—it was all a coincidence that I was there and had the argument with Billy. But, whatever happened, someone went upstairs after I left and did the murders. It wasn’t me.”

  “And the only person you saw was this mystery woman going into the house when you tried to go back?”

  “Yes.”

  “You figure maybe she was the killer.”

  “Or a witness,” Lisa said.

  I shook my head. It didn’t make sense. “If she was there, and saw the whole thing, then why wasn’t she murdered too? Like the woman from the escort agency.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or why hasn’t she gone to the police?”

  “Maybe she’s afraid.”

  “We have to find her,” I said.