“I can’t budge.”
“Goddammit.” Samantha rattled the handcuffs that secured her to the top of the bedspring. Belts lashed her legs to the bottom. “You’re hogtied on the floor, and I’m shackled to this thing. They’re going to come back and kill us. Me on camera.”
Taylor shifted his legs against each other, a painful sort of rubbing where his ankles crossed. He had feeling above the ropes. Was it possible? He did it again.
“They didn’t search me?”
“No. Tied you where you dropped. Probably thought you only carry notebooks. You don’t …. Do have your gun?”
“In my ankle holster.”
“What good’s it going to do?”
“Not sure yet.”
He struggled violently against the ropes around his ankles. Nothing. Breathing heavily, he closed his eyes to get his strength—just for a moment.
“Taylor!”
“Wha … was just resting.”
“You probably have a concussion. Worst thing you can do is fall asleep.” Samantha rattled the handcuffs again, this time more violently, and let out a yell. “I don’t want to die here. I sure as hell don’t want to die in Slive’s porn.”
Samantha was able to move her hands fairly well, even if they were shackled. An idea, a long shot idea, pierced the painful static in Taylor’s brain. He wasn’t sure how far it would get them, but doing something was better than the nothing of waiting for Slive to come back. He rolled onto his back.
The sledgehammer hit the back of his head again. “Goddamn that hurts!” Sharp pain stabbed through his crossed and tied wrists as the weight of his body bore down on them. His injured ribs chimed in too.
“What are you doing?”
He bit his lip. Couldn’t even talk to explain the plan. He rotated his body and bumped on his back toward the bed frame rising at a 45-degree angle from floor. The pain was going to knock him out again if he didn’t hurry.
“Taylor!”
Wrong, it did knock him out.
He started moving again. His put himself in a reverse sitting position, his butt against the wall and legs running up it. He’d need to stretch to reach her hand.
“This should be”—a grunt—“the easy part.”
Wrong again.
Pushing with his arms and shoulders, he stretched to get his tied ankles close to Samantha’s hand. “Get the gun out.” He held the position for five seconds but Samantha was only able to use her fingertips to move his pants clear a few inches.
“You need to get closer.”
Taylor slid back down the wall, huffing from the extreme exertion, but motivated to try again because his legs took the weight off his wrists once they were up on the wall. Of course that position only made his ribs hurt more. Again, he pushed himself into what must have looked like the worst ever attempt at a headstand. Just as Samantha reached and unsnapped the leather strap that held the pistol in place, Taylor fell over sideways.
“Damn. Almost had it.”
Noise came from out in the hallway. Not noise, talking. “Shit.”
The voices, a mumbling sort of patter followed by loud laughter, approached the door. And passed. A door opened, more laughter and a slam.
Taylor again shifted into position to crawl up the wall, feet first. If it didn’t work this time, he might not have the strength to try again.
His ankle approached her hand. Because the leather strap was already off, the pistol started to slide out.
It was going to drop to the floor, out of reach.
Her hand shot forward and grabbed the gun by the barrel as it fell.
“Oh yeah, I got you.” She shifted to hold the pistol by the grip.
Taylor collapsed onto his side.
“Think I can cover the door.” She pointed the gun in her cuffed hand toward the entryway.
“How are you going to drop them all?”
“Qualified top five percent of my class on the range. Pretty good for a girl. What do you suggest?”
“Use it right now. Someone will come. Shots fired.”
“This high up in the Riis Houses? You need more than that to get any attention.” She sighted down the gun out the window. “We need to do something that will definitely get a response.”
“Wouldn’t recommend shooting someone.”
“You can joke. Must be feeling better.”
“Actually, no. Just trying to keep talking.” It was then he remembered her cast. “What about your arm?”
“Hasn’t bothered me in days. If there’s pain, I’ll have to play through it. Not much choice. Now, there must be something … the sector patrol. The car for this area should come down that street at least once every hour.”
“Even better, you’re going to shoot a police car.”
“Near a police car.”
“What if Slive comes back before then?”
“Back to plan A. I’ll put bullets into the door, hopefully get Slive and scare whoever’s with him.”
“Not sure which idea is worse.”
“You have a plan for what to do when you’re tied up at the feet of a woman handcuffed to a bed in her underwear?”
“No.”
“Special situations call for special approaches.” Having a gun in her hand had taken some of the despair out of Samantha’s voice. “Now keep talking so you don’t drop off and die on me.”
“Thought you were mad.”
“You did come to rescue me—”
“I walked into a trap.”
“You got here. Lots of points for that.”
“I spoke to your father.”
“Yet you live.”
“He’s really worried about you.”
“This point, he should be. Wouldn’t want to be Slive if he finds out about this.”
“His story is Schmidt set him up to get Slive off the Oh-Nine cops.”
“Do you believe him?” Samantha continued to watch out the window.
“I did. That was in a whole different universe. It’s all about Slive now. We have no idea what his whole operation is. What anyone else’s deal is.”
“Top Deck’s real enough.”
“Plus a dirty Internal Affairs man in the precinct who makes snuff films. They working together?”
“Shit, Slive’s car just pulled in. He’s with the black guy who cold-cocked you. Plus two others.”
Taylor rolled toward the apartment door, each revolution a belt in the head followed by wrenching pain in his wrists.
“What are you doing?”
“Blocking it. If they can’t push the door open, you’ll get off more shots—”
As if he’d given the command, she fired. His gun might be small, but it sent deafening concussive echoes bouncing around the one-room apartment. His head screamed in pain. He wretched and threw up.
“It’s the sector car.” Samantha pulled the trigger twice more. “Okay, that hurt. Three for a signal and saving three in case they don’t get here in time.”
He groaned.
“Got the front windshield of the Ford the Oh-Nine guys were driving past, then put one somewhere near the patrol car. Pretty good for a girl. Both officers are out. Positioned behind their car, waiting for backup.”
“Slive?”
“He and his guys ducked when I fired. Now they’re watching. No, they’ve figured out what happens next. They’re in their car and out of here.”
Taylor blacked out.
“Roll away from the door. Roll away from the door.”
Odd chorus for a song.
No, a command.
He rolled.
When Taylor opened his eyes again, the legs of NYPD officers were all around him. They had guns drawn. None of the cops was looking down at Taylor. He could have been the rug. They stared at Samantha, all jaws dropped.
“Shit, Callahan. This is how you turn yourself in?”
“Stop gawking, and get me off this. You guys need to track down Slive. He just left.”
“Why the
hell would we do that?”
“Because he was going to kill us.”
Chapter 27
Captain Sedgemore’s small office—everything in the Ninth Precinct was cramped—had two metal chairs outside its pine door. Samantha was inside with the captain, dressed in street clothes she’d dug out of her locker. Taylor had had to argue furiously to keep from being taken to the hospital. Whatever had hit him—probably a sap—hadn’t broken skin, so with no blood he was able to convince the cops he was fine. He wasn’t, but he needed the captain more than a doctor.
The captain, on the other hand, had absolutely no interest in hearing from Taylor, who sat on one of the hard metal folding chairs, his head throbbing in nice even time with his pulse. A detective stopped by another office to talk to a lieutenant and gave Taylor a long look on the way out. He sat there half an hour. The story had changed. Actually, the story had been pulled out from under him.
Need something, anything official. If I can trade what I know ….
The door finally opened. Taylor rose to his feet. He had to use the wall to catch his balance as the room did a couple quick loop de loops. Samantha exited, head down and frowning, and walked straight past Taylor. He wanted to follow her, but needed this interview.
The office door was immediately filled with the blocky head and blue uniform of the precinct commander.
“We’re not talking.”
“I’ve got information you need.”
“Just spoke to my officer. I know what I need. We don’t air our dirty laundry in public.”
“Samantha doesn’t know the whole story.” Sedgemore didn’t respond to that. “What are you doing about Slive?”
“Ongoing investigation.”
“This precinct has uniformed officers shaking down criminals.”
Sedgemore yelled over Taylor’s head. “Get the desk sergeant up here to throw this asshole out.” The lieutenant picked up his phone.
On the first floor, Priscotti was at his desk doing paperwork. In the hallway leading to front door, Schmidt leaned against the wall. Two other uniforms stood with him.
Probably Top Deck.
Their eyes followed him as the sergeant escorted him out the front door into the late autumn afternoon. Rain was no longer in the air. A chill instead.
Samantha gave a small wave from the direction of Second Avenue. He went to her.
Concern pushed the frown off her face. “How’s the head?”
“Only hurts when I think.”
“You’re safe then.” She tried smiling, couldn’t hold it.
“What did the captain say?”
“Let’s go somewhere and sit. I hurt everywhere from that bed. You probably want to get off your feet too—even if you should really be in the hospital.”
“All right. That place.” Taylor pointed at a coffee shop across East Fifth.
“No! I want to get the hell away from the precinct. They leered at me the whole way out. If the door weren’t closed to me already, today did it. Hard enough without six of them seeing me in my underwear. I don’t want to be around any of those bastards again.”
“There’s one bastard I do want to see,” Taylor said, “Priscotti. When he scampers off to report to Slive.”
“How do you know he will?”
“That’s what rats do. So we wait and watch.”
A short, middle-aged man with a Greek accent showed them to a table by the window. For Taylor, hearing him talk was like a welcome home. The odors from the grill right behind the counter were another story. Normally, they’d set his mouth watering. Instead, they set his stomach flipping. Can’t puke. She’ll have me in the ER in a heartbeat. He ordered a can of Canada Dry ginger ale and sipped from the tumbler. The light snap of ginger brought back a memory of being home sick from school, his mother handing him a glass after stirring away the bubbles. Probably the last time I had it.
“You need a doctor.”
“Not going anywhere until I know we’re both safe from Slive.”
“Where’s safe?”
“I don’t know. What’s the captain going to do?”
“Claims he’s hamstrung, since Slive is IA and not under his command. Which is bullshit because next thing he says to me is my story sounds like a bunch of lies coming from someone who disappeared under suspicion. I’m indefinitely suspended. You know what they added to the list? Improperly discharging a weapon at Jacob Riis. ‘Don’t you worry, missy, everything will get looked into.’ That was the last thing he said.”
“How did we end up tied and handcuffed then?”
“Lot of theories on that going round.”
“Did you tell him you were attacked on Halloween? Probably by some of his officers. You ran because you weren’t safe.”
“What’s my proof?”
“I’m your proof.”
“You’re nothing. You’re worse. You’re trying to crap all over his precinct.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”
“What we don’t know is what Slive’s up to. Not all of it. Not how it ties together. He tells you he’s going to put you in a snuff film. Kristy Copper may have been murdered making one—a crime Dodd seemed to be investigating. Is that Slive’s main deal? Porn with murder? Is he connected to Top Deck? Protecting them? Christ, why isn’t Sedgemore taking this seriously?”
“You said Slive has the great rep for cleaning up precincts. That’s against what they believe I did. Abandon my partner. What I am. A woman wearing their uniform.”
“Something needs to happen right away. We’re real witnesses Slive has to get rid of fast.”
Samantha sipped her Coke through a straw. “One thing I didn’t get a chance to tell you. Slive’s had his hair cut short since I went on the run. That crew cut. I realized it soon as I saw him.”
“So?”
“Was medium length or a bit longer. He’s got gray in there. Which means with the longer hair, his description—”
Taylor added it up. “Slive’s tall. Bullet-shaped head. The cop who threatened Mortelli at the squat …. It could have been him, not Schmidt.”
“Builds are similar. Hair was similar.”
“That pretty much nails it. Dodd must have found out something about Slive’s operation. Something that connected Slive to the killing of Kristy Copper.”
“And this. Was too busy saving our asses to connect it. Dodd and I were the sector car that covered the Riis Houses for two months into the middle of October. If that’s where Slive operates out of ….”
“Do you remember anything?”
“No. But I had to take a course for four days during that time. He rode by himself.” A pause. “The day after the class ended, that’s when Dodd started acting all different.”
“When was the class?”
“First full week of October.”
“Kristy Copper was pulled out of the river on October Eighth.”
“A week later, Dodd sent me looking for the missing person’s report.”
“Dodd sees something. Something involving Copper’s death. Now he’s a threat. Why didn’t Dodd act? If he’d reported Slive, he might still be alive.”
“This was an Internal Affairs officer. Maybe Dodd was trying to figure out who to go to and still have a career. Maybe it took him a while to put the evidence together. We don’t know what he was doing during that period, except asking me to check one missing person. And talking to Slive several times. What he had to do was a lot harder than putting out a story and hoping you’re half right.”
“Ouch. Think that hurt more than my head.”
“Should,” she said. “This job is tougher than you think. You talk to a couple of people, write it up, and walk away to the next crime. We’ve got to live with what we do.”
He couldn’t take any more pain right now, emotional or physical. Didn’t have the time, either. They could do a postmortem on the misery he’d caused after they were safe. If they were eve
r safe again.
“Need to make one quick call.”
Jersey Stein at the DA’s office picked up on the second ring. Taylor gave Stein everything he knew or guessed about Slive, Dodd, and Schmidt. He left out Mick Callahan. He knew why. Samantha.
Stein started asking questions just as Samantha started waving furiously at him. “No time. Either I’ll be able to answer them or I’ll be dead, and that’ll be your answer.”
“This isn’t your job.”
“No one else is doing it.”
Taylor dropped money on the table and followed Samantha out the door. Priscotti was at the bottom of the precinct steps talking to another cop.
“How does he commute?” Taylor asked.
“Subway.”
“Thank Christ. The Ford’s still over at the Riis Houses.”
“Without a windshield, don’t forget.”
“Ah shit, right. Your excellent marksmanship.”
“What do we do if he leads us to Slive? We’re unarmed.”
“Step one, find Slive. Better we find him than he finds us. Step two, hope step three presents itself.”
“Great plan.”
Priscotti moved with strange little steps for a fat man. Taylor and Samantha kept him in sight while leaving a good distance, which turned out to be smart, since Priscotti was wary. He peered over his shoulder several times. The distance was dangerous too. They could lose him. They had no other choice.
Priscotti turned north onto Cooper Square and then left on East Eighth Street and appeared to be heading for the Astor Place subway stop, the starting place for the chase that ended Dodd’s life. Half a block past the Cooper Union, Samantha pointed to where their patrol car had been parked when the mugging went down.
Priscotti didn’t go underground at Astor Place; instead he walked to Broadway and the Eighth Street-NYU stop. Once he disappeared down the stairs, Taylor and Samantha jogged to keep from losing him. At the bottom, Taylor turned abruptly, caught Samantha by both arms and kissed her. Priscotti had stopped to buy tokens at the booth. A train was approaching.
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