“The Green Warriors have access to this construction site?” asked Georgia. “I would think the only way they could get in would be to break in.”
“Maybe they’ve got a sympathizer,” said McLaughlin. He drove the SUV through the gates and parked about twenty feet from the trailer. On the other side sat a battered pickup truck with a cap on the trunk bed and Jersey plates. Only the denseness of a shadow in the driver’s seat told her someone was sitting in the cab. She wondered if the driver had a gun trained on both of them.
McLaughlin stepped out of the car and walked around to open Georgia’s door. Before he could get there, she flung the door open herself and stepped out. The ground was uneven and her high-heeled boots sank into the half-frozen muck. She stumbled. McLaughlin grabbed her just before she fell and tried to steady her, but she pushed him away.
“For chrissakes, Georgia,” he growled. “You think it’s gonna kill you to touch me? Now would be a good time to start acting like you’re my girl, you know.”
He was right, much as she hated to admit it. She grabbed his arm and forced a smile.
“That’s better,” he said, slipping an arm around her waist. He winked at her. “You could get to like this.”
Next time I hold your arm, it’ll be to cuff it, she thought, but kept it to herself.
They walked up to the trailer door and McLaughlin knocked. A tall, gaunt man with long hair, a beard and glasses opened the door and ushered them into a dark room with desks and computer equipment scattered about. At first, Georgia thought he was black, because his hair was in dreadlocks. But as her eyes adjusted, she could see that he was young and white, though trying desperately to look like a much older, more culturally hip Rastafarian.
A short, stocky figure in the corner turned on a small desk lamp, casting a dim light through the interior. Georgia saw now that she was a woman. She wore a cape over a peasant dress and had long brown frizzy hair that seemed to fan out in a perfect triangle from the center parting on her head. She reminded Georgia of a sphinx.
“Hey there,” said McLaughlin, giving a mock salute to the young couple. “How many of your people are here tonight?”
“Just the two of us,” said the Sphinx. She had a nasal voice and a sharp-edged manner that suggested that she, not Dreadlocks, was in command. “And our driver.”
McLaughlin nodded in the direction of the front gate. “Somebody had a key to this place, I see. Are we going to encounter any trespass issues?”
“We shouldn’t,” said Sphinx. “Our driver will lock up when we’re through.”
Georgia had to hand it to McLaughlin. He had managed very deftly to uncover the fact that one of the Green Warriors had legal access to this construction site. She couldn’t have finessed the information any better.
McLaughlin rubbed his hands together. It was cold in the trailer, cold enough to see their breath. “So…you got my assignment?”
“It’s a big one,” said Dreadlocks. Georgia could see the white of his teeth set in a grin. Good, straight teeth—the product of thousands of dollars of orthodontic work, she’d guess. It was in total contrast to what Georgia could see of his clothes: baggy denims and a frayed sweatshirt, which looked as if it had come from the Salvation Army. Georgia wondered what he would have made of McLaughlin’s lemon yellow Porsche or his John Constable oil painting. Then again, with teeth like that he didn’t exactly grow up in a soup kitchen.
Sphinx pulled her cape around her and regarded Georgia suspiciously. “Before we go any further, we’re going to have to check you for wires.”
McLaughlin held up his arms. “Be my guest.”
“Not a frisk,” said Sphinx. “A strip search. Both of you.”
Georgia froze. She shot a quick glance toward McLaughlin. A frisk probably wouldn’t uncover the wires in her bra. But a strip search would. It would blow the entire investigation. Not to mention that she could easily wind up dead before the Feds could find them. Maybe this was what McLaughlin had in mind all along.
McLaughlin put an arm around Georgia’s shoulder. It felt strangely reassuring. “You want to strip-search me? No problem. But no one—and I mean no one—sees my girl naked but me. You touch her, I’ll walk and you’ll have to explain it to Coyote. And you know Coyote won’t be pleased.”
Sphinx frowned. “Then she waits in the car.”
McLaughlin walked over to one of the trailer windows. “You want me to send my girl away when you got a driver in that truck out there, and I can’t even see him? How do I know he hasn’t got a gun pointed at me?”
Sphinx and Dreadlocks looked at each other. “He’s not part of the negotiations,” said Sphinx.
“Fair enough,” said McLaughlin. “Order him to get out of the truck and stand near the trailer door where I can keep an eye on him. Then I’ll send my girl back to the car.”
Sphinx pulled a handy talkie out of the pocket of her cape and relayed McLaughlin’s instructions to the driver. A few seconds later, Georgia heard the truck door open and shut and the crunch of what sounded like work boots on gravel. She felt a sigh of relief. She was going back to their car. It would all be over soon. As much as she hated Michael McLaughlin, she had to admit that, in this instance, he had helped save her life.
McLaughlin kept his eye on the trailer window. When he was satisfied he could see the driver near the foot of the stairs, he gave Georgia the okay to leave.
She opened the door and stepped out. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness outside. In that moment, as she started down the stairs, McLaughlin grabbed her rear end and gave it a squeeze, in full view of the two radicals inside and the man from the truck at the bottom of the stairs. Georgia kept her head down, clenched her teeth and said nothing. She didn’t want to chance tripping again in her stiletto-heeled boots. She just wanted to get to the car and have this meeting be over.
Yet even with her head down, she sensed the man from the truck staring at her. She could see his thick-soled work boots and the baggy legs of his jeans. She lifted her head and looked at his face. A stalled breath escaped her lips, misting in the cold night air. Her brain reacted slowly—at first recognizing the face, then arguing against it.
He was wearing a baseball cap, the brim pulled low enough to cast shadows that could play tricks on the mind. And yet, judging from his startled reaction, this was no trick of the mind. Their eyes met. She took a step backward. A breeze rustled through the tall brush. It was the only sound Georgia could hear besides the distant whoosh of cars along the Turnpike and the thumping in her chest. Eight years had changed a lot of things—had made his face fill out, had made his shoulders widen. Eight years had made that dimple in his chin more pronounced, as Richie’s would be more pronounced one day. The man in the baseball cap looked just like her boy. And that was only natural. Rick DeAngelo was Richie’s father.
He took his hands out of the pockets of his insulated denim jacket and made a move toward her. He was going to speak. He was going to blow everything—maybe for both of them. She was wired. Every word would be recorded. She had to cut him off. She shot him a pleading look, but kept her words cool.
“Hey, buddy, if I have to leave the warmth of the trailer,” said Georgia, “I’m sure as hell not gonna stand out here and kill time smoking cigarettes with you.”
He flinched like he’d been punched in the shoulder. His dark hooded eyes were glassy and full of that hurt puppy look he always knew how to give. For a moment she was almost taken in by it. Then the realization hit her like an Atlantic breaker. Rick wasn’t a cop. He was an electrician. He’d let the Green Warriors into this construction site. He was the one with the key. He was here of his own free will. She gave him a cold look back. She didn’t even know which she was madder about—the fact that he was working with terrorists, or the fact that he hadn’t had any communication with their son in eight years. Before he could try to speak again, she turned on her heel and headed to McLaughlin’s SUV.
Georgia didn’t look back u
ntil she was inside. What am I going to do? she wondered. If she told Nelson and Krause that she knew Rick, they would include him in their sting. He would be arrested. She would have to testify. Her testimony could send the father of her son to prison. God, how will I ever explain that to Richie? Yet to withhold that kind of information would mean compromising the FBI’s case. Her career would be ruined. The Feds would never turn McLaughlin over to the FDNY after a fiasco like that. McLaughlin’s counting on me to withhold what I know about Rick to the Feds. That’s his game. That’s why I’m here. He knows.
Georgia watched Rick standing by the trailer, hands in his pockets, shooting occasional glances in her direction. He didn’t walk over to talk to her. And just as thankfully, he made no moves to alert Dreadlocks and Sphinx, either. After what seemed like an eternity, McLaughlin emerged from the trailer and walked back to the car.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he stepped inside.
“Fine,” she said tightly.
“You owe me a thank-you. The wire may be a bust, but I saved your ass in there.”
“I seem to recall you grabbed it more than saved it.”
“Just keeping in character, lass.” McLaughlin started up the engine. “You seemed a might nervous when you walked by their driver outside. I think you spoke to him. You know each other or something?”
“I didn’t really see his face,” Georgia lied. “The light was bad.”
A small grin spread across McLaughlin’s freckled features. “Funny, I thought the light was just perfect. Maybe we only see what we want to see, eh?”
21
Krause and Nelson refused to tell Georgia anything about the Green Warriors’ plans. “The less you know, the safer you are,” Krause explained.
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Georgia.
The agents interrogated McLaughlin privately in the back of their Chrysler at a remote spot off the New Jersey Turnpike, while Georgia changed back into her own clothes and waited in McLaughlin’s SUV. There, her thoughts bounced from one extreme to the other. She knew what she was supposed to do: tell the Feds about Rick, then ask to be taken off the case. But if she did, she’d be responsible for sending her son’s father to prison.
If I don’t tell, how can they prove I recognized him? But Georgia understood the folly in that reasoning. Rick might already be telling the Green Warriors about her. It wasn’t only a question of ethics, but safety as well. And what if the whole thing was a setup? What if the Feds know I saw Rick? Her integrity could be riding on whether she came forward.
And yet she couldn’t. Not tonight. Not this way. I need to sleep on this, Georgia decided. Tomorrow, she’d tell the Feds. Georgia felt certain McLaughlin was somehow behind this. He seemed to know so much about her. Yet after three hours with him, she knew almost as little as when she started. All she had on him was that tape Nathan Reese had given her—and she couldn’t even make that public. Randy wouldn’t tell her anything more about McLaughlin. Neither would Paul Brophy. She had only one option left.
At Federal Plaza, Georgia retrieved her gun, cell phone and belongings, including Reese’s tape from her desk drawer. Krause offered to have an agent drive her home, but Georgia declined. Instead, she took a subway north to an address on West Forty-eighth Street that she had written down. The building was a chocolate brown turn-of-the-century tenement that had seen better days.
Georgia walked up the front stoop and into a small, tiled vestibule where mailboxes were set into the wall. The entrance door beyond the vestibule was locked. She scanned the mailboxes until she found one marked J. Sullivan, 3B. Georgia smiled. Jamie Sullivan was a lottery millionaire and a retired firefighter with a pension. He could have afforded a nice beachfront condo in Florida or a co-op on the Upper East Side. Instead, he lived in a dilapidated building that Georgia suspected he’d been living in for easily thirty years. It was the way of so many firefighters, especially the older ones. They took incredible physical risks every day. Yet emotionally and socially, they seldom ventured far from the familiar. When they were comfortable with something, they stuck with it.
She hit the buzzer and waited. A dog barked somewhere inside the building. There was no response from 3B, so she searched for the superintendent’s buzzer and rang it.
A gray-haired, barrel-chested old man hobbled to the front door and squinted at her. Georgia produced her FDNY shield. She sensed it would carry more weight here than any Federal I.D. He unlocked the inside door.
“I’m looking for a Mr. James Sullivan.”
“Nope, sorry,” said the super. “We don’t need any paint or wallcovering.”
Georgia suddenly noticed the hearing aid in the man’s right ear. She wondered if he had it turned on.
“I’m not selling paint,” she said loudly. “I’m looking for Mr. Sullivan.”
“Who?”
“Sullivan,” she shouted. “A retired firefighter. He lives in—”
“I know where he lives,” growled the super, switching his hearing aid on. “Man owns the whole building. Don’t you think I know where he lives?”
“Sully owns the building?” asked Georgia.
“Yeah. After he won the lottery.” The super allowed a faint smile. His teeth were so full of gaps they reminded Georgia of clothes pegs on a laundry line. “The owner was gonna tear this place down for condos, kick all the old people out. Sully didn’t want to leave. So he bought the building.”
“Do you know where he is this evening?”
“I know where he isn’t—on my doorstep with the twenty bucks he owes me from poker last night. I’ve been banging on his door since early this afternoon and he won’t answer.”
“Could he be away?”
“Away where?” asked the super. “Everybody he knows lives within five blocks of here.”
“Would you mind if I looked around—made sure he’s all right?” asked Georgia.
“You think he’s sick?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to check it out.”
The super nodded and fished out a huge ring of keys from the front pocket of his faded work pants. Then he led Georgia up two flights of narrow stairs. The beige carpet was brand-new and had a cheap plastic smell to it. It did nothing to make the walls, painted the color of yellowing newspapers, look any less dingy.
“Sully really saved the building, I tell you,” said the super. “See this carpet? Sully put it in. And the front security door, too. Next year, he’s gonna replace all the broken mailboxes. It makes all the old people feel safe again, you know?”
Georgia nodded politely. In truth, the building still looked shabby, but it was possible the old-timers were comfortable with things the way they were.
When they reached the third floor, a cold breeze flew at their faces. The super walked over to a window at the end of the hallway. It was wide open. “Who opens a window in December, tell me that?”
He tried to close it, but it wouldn’t budge. Finally, he waved a disgusted arm at it. “I’ll fix it later. Next thing we should do is get new windows around here, if you ask me.”
At a steel door marked 3B, the super made a fist and thumped loudly. “Sully, open up.” The only sound on the other side was the mewing of a cat. The cat sounded hungry. Even the super suddenly looked concerned.
“He wouldn’t go away and leave Cinders without food.”
“Cinders? That’s his cat?”
“Saved her from a fire. Damn thing’s fourteen and blind now, but he treats her like his baby.”
“Does the fire escape run by any of his windows?” asked Georgia.
“The living room window,” said the super. Georgia climbed out the open window at the front of the building and onto the fire escape. Sully’s window was locked, with a heavy drape across it. She returned to the hallway.
“Do you have a key to his door?”
“Of course,” said the super. “Just because Sully owns the building doesn’t mean everything’s changed.”
The old m
an sorted through his ring of keys until he came to the right one. “I hope you’re decent, Sully,” he yelled at the door. “’Cause I ain’t looking at no floor show.” He slipped the key into the lock and Georgia heard the mechanism give way. She pushed the door open. The light from the hallway flooded the room. She couldn’t find a light switch.
“Mr. Sullivan? This is Fire Marshal Georgia Skeehan. May I come in?”
No answer. The living room looked undisturbed. All the drapes were closed. It was a simple room, but neat. A big plaid recliner. A plaid couch. A couple of tables and lamps. The same new beige wall-to-wall carpet that had been laid on the stairs. No beer cans, laundry or pizza boxes on the floor. No signs of a scuffle. Or a robbery. Sully owned a 36-inch Panasonic television and a top-of-the-line VCR. Both sat placidly facing the couch. He didn’t live like a Lotto millionaire, but then, thirty years in the FDNY could do that to a person.
A light but steady breeze drifted over Georgia’s shoulder. It was coming from the open window in the hallway outside the apartment. It went through her like ice, then seemed to pass down a dark, windowless hallway that Georgia guessed led to a bedroom in the back. She called out again. Still no answer. The cat mewed at Georgia’s feet. She could smell a faint ammonia odor from the litter box. She couldn’t tell if it was faint because it had recently been changed or because the breeze through the apartment was sucking out the odor. She glanced at a small open kitchen off the living area. No dishes in the sink. She opened the refrigerator. Not a lot of food—a half-open can of cat food, a six-pack of beer, the remains of some Chinese takeout. Still, none of it smelled like it had been in here more than a couple of days.
Georgia wished she’d had her latex gloves with her. She didn’t want to touch anything without them. She slipped on a wool glove from her coat pocket and peered down the hallway. There was a square, chest-high opening on the left that Georgia guessed was an old dumbwaiter. The door to the dumbwaiter had been pushed up. The breeze picked up in this direction. Sully had to have left a window open in the bedroom. But in winter?
Fireplay Page 13