Mirror Maze j-4

by William Bayer

  "When I was a kid, and opened them all up, my father thought I was a genius. But it was easy. Want to know how I did it?" Janek nodded.

  "I just looked for his finger smudges on the glass."

  Such a strange childhood she'd had. Yet she'd emerged functional and relatively sane. Janek wondered whether he was kidding himself. Her bar seductions and takedowns proved she was disturbed, especially the fact that she hadn't engaged in them for money but solely to exercise power.

  It was her artwork, he thought, that kept her together. Without that, he was certain, she'd have long ago slipped over the edge.

  They drove back to Manhattan. The towers glowed before the failing New Jersey sun. Once in the city, they joined up with the squad, ordered in salad and pizza, then, at eight, drove downtown in the communications van to the World Financial Center.

  Janek was anxious to meet his new crew. There were four men and two women, all bright, young, alert. They had volunteered partly for the overtime, Aaron said, but mostly because they wanted to work with Special Squad.

  "We're a legend. Did you know that, Frank?" Janek smiled. "Right..

  They drove the van onto the sidewalk, parked it near the entrance to the Winter Garden, where, they hoped, it would look like a service vehicle.

  They set up one video camera facing the plaza where they expected most of the action to take place, installed the other inside a portable trash cart, which one of the volunteer cops, impersonating a janitor, would wheel around. Then they did two complete walk throughs in which Sue played Diana, Janek played Kane and Gelsey played herself. After that Sue wired Gelsey up. Just before ten, Janek beckoned her into the van.

  They sat facing each other. Then Janek reached for the phone and dialed.

  This time Diana snapped up her phone. Janek could hear severe stress in her voice.

  "World Financial Center, behind the Winter Garden? Sure, I know it, Gelsey. In half an hour-fine. Yes, the gentleman will be with me.

  Yes, he'll have the money twenty-five K just for you. That's a very good price, don't you agree? We mustn't be greedy, dear. Do as I do-take what you can get and enjoy it. That's what money's for." After the call, Janek asked Gelsey to wait in the van while he gave final instructions to his crew. He huddled with them in the great arched glass back wall of the Winter Garden.

  "They're planning to kill her," he whispered.

  Everyone looked at him. Aaron asked how he could be sure.

  "I could hear it in the lady's voice. Also, it makes sense. Once Kane confirms Gelsey's got the Omega, he'll shoot her in the head. He'll kill Diana, too, probably later, not here. According to Gelsey, Kim always pacs a gun.

  "Wouldn't Diana expect something?"

  "Yes, which is why she's probably not charging much to deliver Gelsey.

  She's got her own reasons for wanting to be rid of her. But Kane won't want witnesses. He'll off her and Kim soon as he can."

  "Geez, Frank… " Sue looked worried.

  "Okay, we knew it was going to be dangerous. Gelsey's understood that all along. Our job is to see she isn't hurt. The moment I sense trouble, I'm sending you all in whether she's got stuff on tape or not.

  Remember, Kane's a cop. It won't take him long to smell a trap. I'm counting on Kim staying with the limo. One less gun waving around." He paused. "Let's be clear. Gelsey comes first. Making the case is number two." He met each pair of eyes, waiting until each person acknowledged his instructions. When he was sure they all understood, he dispatched them to their stations.

  Walking back to the van, he broke into a sweat. There was always the feeling, on an operation like this, that something could go wrong, something he should have thought of but hadn't. One thing he felt he had going was Gelsey's ability to improvise. Her bar forays had been dangerous, but she'd always been successful. Perhaps the years of making decisions wandering through the maze had taught her to think quickly on her feet.

  From the van, he sent her to her position, a semidark alcove at the rear of the American Express Building.

  "Don't come out too quickly," he reminded her. "Wait till they park, then step out slowly and reveal yourself. But don't approach too close.

  I don't want Diana to be able to hear you from the car."

  Although each squad member wore an earphone invisible to passersby, only Gelsey was miked. Thus Janek could talk to them during the operation, but only Gelsey's words would be taped.

  "Everyone in motion," he instructed. "Don't wait for them to show before you get up to speed. It has to look real, like we're part of the life down here. Homeless Man pretend you're dozing. A homeless guy wouldn't be alert this late… "

  Again he felt the agony of a field commander just before a battle. Was there something he'd forgotten, a touch that would certify the scene as real? Most important, was there anything that would tip Kane off.?

  As far as he could see, it all looked good: a normal display in front of a vast office complex at night. All the windows of the buildings were lit up, lights on for the benefit of the night cleaning crews. Inside the phones were silent, but the fax machines spewed pages and the computer screens blinked data even though there was no one at the desks.

  It was the great humming machine of global finance-foreign currencies, stocks, bonds, commodities that operated twenty-four hours a day.

  Diana's white limousine appeared at North End Avenue just before eleven, gliding silently to a stop by the curb. The car sat there a while, utterly still. Janek, studying it through binoculars, could see nothing but its mirrored windows reflecting back the towers of the complex.

  He turned back to the alcove. Slowly Gelsey emerged. Janek was struck by her poise. Standing in a shaft of light cast by a lamp on the plaza, she looked stunning, an object of desire, dressed in black, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders.

  A window of the limousine opened. A hand reached out and beckoned.

  "Take a few steps," Janek whispered. "Then shake your head."

  Gelsey moved forward and shook her head. After a few seconds the car door opened. He made out Diana, and an indistinct figure beside her.

  "Gelsey," Diana called.

  "Over here," Gelsey called back.

  For a moment neither woman moved. Then Diana stepped out of the car.

  Janek whispered: "As she moves toward you, retreat a little.

  Remember-make her come to you."

  Gelsey waited until just the right moment, then took two steps back into the alcove. Diana quickened her pace.

  "Stop!" she ordered.

  "Backtrack two more," Janek whispered. "Make her understand she doesn't tell you what to do."

  Gelsey backtracked. Diana followed.

  "This is ridiculous," Diana said. "We can't do it like this. Stop!"

  "Okay, take a stand," Janek whispered. "Face her, let her approach."

  Diana began to speak even before she was within confidential speaking distance:

  "The buyer's gotta be satisfied, Gelsey. He won't buy a pig in a poke."

  "Tell him to come here and look. Tell him to bring the money."

  "He doesn't want to get out of the car." Gelsey sneered. "Is he a cripple?"

  "You're out of line, pet."

  "This is my party, Diana. Tell him he'd better hurry before I get bored and take a walk."

  "He's paying us fifty K-twenty-five apiece. You don't push around a man like that."

  "I bet he's paying a hundred."

  "Don't you trust me, pet?"

  Gelsey shrugged. "Twenty-five'll be enough to get me out of this crappy town. Go get it. I want to count it. Meantime-here's a peek."

  She opened her palm, showed the prototype chip, clasped her hand shut and grinned.

  Diana didn't know what to do. As Janek watched, he imagined her growing realization that this time she was not in control.

  "All right," Diana said finally, without an attempt to conceal her bitterness. "I'll try to get him to come out."

  As Diana walked back to
her car, Janek felt he had enough to implicate her in an illegal purchase of stolen goods. Perhaps not as much as he would have liked, but enough to secure an indictment.

  "Fade back a couple steps," he whispered. Gelsey retreated into the gloom. When Diana reached the curb, she glanced back just before getting into her car.

  There followed a short intermission. Janek tried to imagine what was being said. Diana would describe the quick glimpse she'd had of the Omega, while Kane would contemplate his best next move. Janek believed he would view his odds as good. A police trap was a possibility, but the location wasn't particularly congenial for a trap and Gelsey's hesitancy could be understood in light of her disaffected former employee relationship with Diana. Janek believed it would also occur to Kane that Gelsey knew Kirstin had been killed and would therefore want to unload the chip with minimal risk. Anyway, the object that Diana had described was certainly the Omega. There were few people about, so it would be relatively safe to leave the car, throw a few bucks at the girl, take the chip, shoot her, then split.

  Just as Janek finished his reverie, the limo door opened again. This time both Diana and Kane stepped out. Kane was carrying a paper bag.

  He thought: The gun's were inside the bag. He watched Diana and Kane approach. "Take two steps forward," he instructed Gelsey. "Stand in the light. Then hold your ground."

  As Diana and Kane crossed the World Financial Center plaza, and his own people moved with apparent languor toward their final positions, Janek felt he was watching something akin to the formation of a tableau vivant. There was a rigor to the design these players made that reminded him of paintings by De Chirico showing lonely figures on vast Italian squares. Except in the work of De Chirico, the Mediterranean sun always burned straight down and there were campaniles in the background, while here the scene was played out against a black sky and looming out-of scale office towers. Still, he felt the same strong ambience of ritual, inevitability and fate.

  When each figure reached his final position, all motion stopped.

  "Show it to him," Diana ordered.

  Gelsey stared at Kane. "You killed Dietz."

  "Never mind that, pet. Show him the goods."

  "You let them think I did it. Why?" Gelsey demanded.

  "What's this got to do-?"

  "Everything!" Gelsey said. "Twenty-five isn't nearly enough, not for what he did to me." She turned back to Kane. "You want your little thingamajig, you're going to pay a lot more than that!"

  Kane looked at Diana. "You said she was cool."

  Diana shrugged. "You're pushing it, pet. Better back off before things get nasty."

  "Kill me, too? Is that what you're threatening?" Gelsey turned again to Kane. "You killed Kirstin, didn't you?"

  At this point Kane must have detected the artificial phrasing that creeps in when a wired witness attempts to provoke a suspect. Perhaps, glancing around the plaza, he was struck by the positions of the other people, and, in that instant, suddenly viewed the scene as false.

  He's going to attack! The notion hit Janek a split second before he gave his order:

  "He's going for her! Get him! Now!"

  Janek flung himself out of the van, rushed across the plaza. Then everything seemed to happen at half-speed. From one side, Aaron, Ray and Sue charged in. From the other, the cop playing the homeless man and the four playing the night cleaning crew converged with drawn guns.

  Diana screamed. Then, trying to run back to her' car in her heels, she tripped and fell onto the granite. Kane, seeing he was about to be tackled, pulled a small revolver from his paper bag and rushed at Gelsey.

  He's going to take her hostage!

  But Gelsey was no easy victim. She took off toward Janek and the van;

  Kane, pursuing, was pursued in turn by the pack. Janek, gripping his pistol in both hands, leveled it at Kane. Gelsey feinted to the side and rolled. Kane slipped. In an instant the pack was on him, while Gelsey, panting, lay in Janek's arms.

  "Block the limo," Janek yelled, for it was now moving from the curb.

  Then he saw Diana, knees bloody from her fall, rushing after her own car, screaming at Kim to stop. A moment later the limo collided with an oncoming sanitation truck. The white car folded up. Diana, back down on the plaza floor, raged wildly at the night:

  "God! What have you done!" It was always that way, Janek thought-they never blame the breakage on themselves, instead hurl the accusation at the heavens. And because they don't take responsibility for their crimes, they never believe they are guilty of committing them.

  Kim was dead. Kane was silent. Diana was inconsolable. When Kane and Diana were properly booked and locked away, Janek drove Gelsey home.

  When they arrived at her building a little after three A. M., she made no gesture to leave the car.

  "So, is this it?" she asked, sitting still. "Case closed. We go separate ways?" "Is that what you want?" Janek asked.

  "Of course not! You've been good to me. Better than almost anyone.

  Even Dr. Z."

  He looked at her. "So, do you think I'm the kind who gives up a friend just because a case is closed?"

  She smiled. "Am I your friend?"

  "Of course you are."

  She nodded. "Thanks." She paused. "Can I call you when it rains, Janek?

  Will you come?" "I'll come," he promised.

  She smiled, kissed him quickly on the cheek, stepped out, then scampered up the wooden steps to her house. There she paused, waved, blew him another kiss. Then she disappeared.

  As he drove back he glowed, holding the memory of her smile. But then, as he approached Manhattan, he began to -feel an ache. The dark forms of the towers reminded him of Mendoza. Entering the Holland Tunnel, he steeled himself. There was still that knot to be untied.

  Through a Glass, Darkly At noon the following day he met his people at Special Squad. Though tired, they were still charged up by their success. He began by laying down new rules. They would be working on Mendoza. That meant new computer codes and passwords, filing cabinets with combination locks, a paper shredder, phone scramblers, regular electronic sweeps and new locks on the office door.

  "Starting today we're the only ones in here. We clean our offices ourselves. All trash goes through the shredder. When we want to see someone, we meet him outside. When we order in food, we pay for it at the door. We don't answer questions about what we're doing, not from any one friend, lover or spouse. We're careful what we say, even in cars.

  We're not accountable to anyone except the commissioner. That includes Internal Affairs."

  When they had absorbed that, he helped them work up a security schedule, making sure he, too, was assigned office-cleaning duties. Then, when that was done, he sat them down and stunned them with the news that his Cuban trip had been a setup.

  "Why would the Cubans propose a deal like that?" he asked after he explained the sequence. "What could possibly be in it for them?" Ray thought the answer was better relations. "They want us to drop the embargo."

  "A good reason to work with the feds. But not with NYPD." :'To get Tania Figueras off the hook," Sue suggested.

  "We'd stopped looking for her. Technically, Mendoza was closed."

  Aaron looked at him. "I know you've got a theory, Frank. " The others smiled; they knew him well.

  "Mendoza has a lot of money," he said. "Something like fifty million bucks. But it's no good to him because he's locked up for the rest of his life. Think about that. Put yourself in his shoes. If you were that rich and locked in a cage, wouldn't you be willing to spend whatever it took to pry yourself loose?"

  Everyone nodded.

  "Fonseca's a corrupt Cuban security official. He comes here, ostensibly to work with the DEA, except now it turns out he was running drugs. A guy like that, for the right amount of money, would do most anything you'd want, including pulling a con job on our Detective Division, convincing us a forgotten ' witness' is telling the truth when she throws doubt on the whole premise behind Mendoza's con
viction."

  "You think Mendoza paid Fonseca to run the scam on Kit'?" Sue asked.

  "That's the only theory that makes sense. The Cuban Government wouldn't care about Mendoza rotting in prison. liut Fonseca might care-if he was paid."

  Aaron nodded. "If that's true, there has to be a financial Connection.

  If money was paid out, it had to travel."

  "That's what we're going to look at-who paid how to whom. Aaron, I want you to examine all large payments from Mendoza or his lawyer, Andrews, to any person or entity that isn't easily explained. Use the computer.

  Go back a few years. Look into anything that seems the slightest bit phony. Track it down, check it out, stick with it till you're satisfied.

  Sometime, somehow, money was paid out, maybe through a foreign bank account or intermediary. I'm betting sooner or later you'll find something that leads you to Cuba."

  He was pleased to see he'd fired them up. But there was more.

  "There's another payment I want you to look for. This would have been made three or four years ago, about the time of the copycat killing in El Paso. Same MO as Edith Mendoza-society woman beaten to death, strung up by her heels. That's another thing Mendoza may have arranged, to make us think the real killer was still at large. He could have paid someone to do it. Which is where"he turned to Ray and Sue-"you guys come in.

  Check out Mendoza's career at Green Haven Prison. Who'd he bunk with?

  Who'd he spend time with? Did he spread his money around? If so, to whom? You may find your Cuban connection there. You may also find someone from Texas. Look at people he buddied with who later got released. What happened to them?

  Where do they live" Any signs of unexplained wealth? While Aaron's looking at the money, you two look at who might have gotten it."

  "And you-what'll you be doing while we're doing all that?" Aaron asked.

  "I'll be looking at a whole other side of the thing. The Clury side," he said.

  The bomb squad offices were situated in a former butter warehouse on Wooster Street. The old dairy vaults, with their curved brick ceilings, gave the space a cloistered, ecclesiastical look. In fact, in Janek's view, the bomb squad had much in common with a religious order. It was elite, there was an intense stillness among its members, an aura that spoke of being involved in sacred work. When Janek walked unannounced into Stoney's office, he felt as if he'd interrupted a rector at his desk.