Danny tapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. He tried to look at Avi’s photos, but they were set to private. He went back to the database and ran a basic person locator search for “Avi Lessing,” with the DOB, and got a hit for an Avram Lessing. There were six addresses listed. The first was in Queens. The second was 29 West Forty-Seventh Street.
Danny was sure this was the guy, but he needed a photo and he wasn’t going to get it from his Facebook page. He ran a quick image search, spent about thirty seconds going through the photos, and then decided he needed it faster than that. He thumbed through his contacts and found the number of a sergeant at the 18th Precinct—someone Wally Philpott had set them up with. The contact read Edgar.Rodriguez.NYPD.NIGHT.WP. Danny had never spoken with him, but he called him now.
“Rodriguez,” said Edgar Rodriguez, picking up after the third ring.
“Hi, sergeant, my name is Danny. Wally Philpott told us to call you if we ever needed anything during the night shift.”
“Who?”
“Wally Philpott.”
“Oh, yeah, right. What can I do for you, kid?” he sounded tired and unimpressed.
“I need a DMV photo for someone named Avram Lessing, DOB 12/3/74.”
“Fax it?”
“Can you email it?” asked Danny.
Sixteen minutes later the photo arrived on Danny’s computer. He looked at it. He then googled, “Lawyer for Barksdale in The Wire.” He looked at the picture that popped up for the actor Michael Kostroff. The two men looked similar.
Danny emailed the DMV photo to Valencia. The subject line read: IS THIS HIM???
It was 5:41 a.m.
Twenty seconds later, Valencia responded: $10,000.
* * *
Chris Cowley was standing in court arguing a motion in front of a sour-faced judge he’d never met before. A few of Chris’s high school classmates were spread out in the gallery behind him. They weren’t his friends: the truth was he couldn’t remember their names, and he had no idea why they were there. He looked at the jury box and saw that individual houseplants—the same kind that were in his mother’s house—had been placed in each seat. Suddenly, it all made sense: he was taking part in a mock trial, but he hadn’t prepared at all for it. He looked down at his notes and saw that they’d gotten wet and were now smeared and illegible. The ink had gotten all over his hands and he was just wiping them on his jacket when he woke up and understood he’d been dreaming.
The clock on his bedside table said it was 5:41 a.m.
After pulling the blankets over his head, so he could hide from any cameras, he masturbated. When he was done, he went straight to the shower, scrubbed his body, and washed his hair. He shaved at the sink, doing the job slowly, with focus.
In the kitchen, he made a smoothie using pretrimmed kale, yogurt, frozen blueberries, oats, orange juice, a banana, and a heaped scoop of protein powder. While he assembled and dumped the ingredients, he stayed partly aware of the camera in his kitchen. It was in the fan duct; he had crawled up and seen it. He wasn’t sure if there were other cameras in the apartment, but he assumed there were. It made him feel depressed; but he’d somehow grown used to the feeling.
He took his smoothie to the couch and began ruminating on the idea of revenge. He’d shoot the men that had made him do this. The skinny one that invaded his house—he would literally shoot him if he could. Yeah, what’s that bitch? How’s that? What? You don’t like guns in your mouth? Chris could see it all so clearly.
But that kind of thinking wouldn’t do. It served no purpose. He had to reframe the problem. This is an opportunity, he told himself, while he changed into his work clothes. You’re happy to spy for them. You’ll do whatever it takes. You will work for them, and you’ll do it in a cheerful manner.
He buttoned up his shirt, pulled on his sweater, and then closed his eyes and tried to convince himself that what he was saying was true.
Before leaving his apartment, he snuck up to the living room window and peered down at the street below. There was a white van parked on the corner in a no-parking zone. Its hazards were blinking. It seemed too obvious. Still, he stared at it.
After stepping out of his building, he went in the opposite direction from his normal route. He’d take the F train today. Fuck them, he thought. It was a small change, but it made him feel rebellious. I mean, who do they think they are?
He’d only gotten two blocks when he heard footsteps coming from behind. The speed of the steps caught his attention, and he turned his head to look over his shoulder. The man coming toward him appeared to be in his fifties. He was white and dressed like he was headed to a low-paying office job. Chris had never seen him before.
As he got closer, Chris noticed that there was something unsettling about his face; his expression was flat, but his eyes looked angry. He was waving his hand down, a gesture that to Chris, looked like, Keep going.
Chris was confused; still, he let the man catch up to him.
“Which way is the A train?” asked the man. He was over six feet tall, somewhere around two hundred and twenty pounds.
“Excuse me?” asked Chris, reflexively taking a step backward.
“The A train?” asked the man. He looked Chris up and down in a way that felt accusatory.
Chris pointed vaguely toward Cadman Plaza. “Up that way a few blocks.”
The man leaned in close. “And which way is the F train?” he asked, making it sound like a threat. Chris could smell cigarettes on his breath.
“This way,” said Chris. “That’s where I’m going.”
“Then I guess we’ll go together,” said the man.
A wave of nausea passed through Chris. What the fuck is this guy’s problem? He turned and began walking again.
The man caught up to him. “My routine is to take the A train,” said the man. “But what the hell. Live a little, right?” The man was clearly one of his tormentors.
Chris ducked his chin, lowered his voice. “The A is running with delays,” he said.
“No, it isn’t,” said the man, shaking his head and clenching his jaw.
For the first time, Chris noticed that the rims around the man’s eyes were red, like he had bad allergies. They both stopped walking again, and Chris suddenly worried that the man might try to fight him: there was that kind of tension in the air. Chris felt his own eyes fill with tears.
“Fucking bullshit morning,” said the man, turning and looking at all the buildings around him with a grimace on his face. “Thanks, pal,” he said, and then he continued toward the York Street station.
Chris stood there and watched the man walk away. Then he changed his mind about how he was going to get to work. He had no desire to see that guy again, so he turned around and headed for the A Train.
“You need to tell her,” said Valencia, looking at the receptionist, “that I can come and go as I want. I can’t stop and wait for you every time I get off the elevator.”
Andy, Elizabeth Carlyle’s assistant, nodded and stepped to the woman; he leaned down and whispered the message in her ear. She then stood, turned, and looked at Valencia. “I’m sorry Mrs. Walker, they trained me to stop everyone, but it won’t happen again.”
“Sweetheart, it’s not your fault, but I bill by the hour,” said Valencia, turning and walking toward Elizabeth’s office.
Andy caught up with her. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be,” said Valencia.
When they got to Elizabeth’s office, Andy bowed his head, opened the door for her, and then closed it behind her.
Elizabeth was sitting at her desk. Her bad mood lingered in the air like a foul smell. “What the hell happened?” she asked, leaning back in her chair.
“They’re good,” said Valencia. “Better than—”
“So you said last night,” said Elizabeth, interrupting her. “I need to know exactly what happened so I can tell the other partners.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, as if the room were cold.
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Valencia sat down on the chair facing Elizabeth’s desk. She took a moment to look at her own red fingernails. Breathing into her diaphragm, she loosened her shoulders, and made sure her posture was straight. She gathered herself up fully and, in a soft voice, sketched out the events as they’d happened: Dyker Heights, the golf course, the phone, Sheepshead Bay, the towers, the trash can, and the sewer.
When she finished the story, she shook her head, gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders, and then settled back into herself.
“So what is your plan?” asked Elizabeth.
Valencia opened the file in her hands, took out a piece of paper, and slid it across the desk. “Avi Lessing,” she said. “He’s the man who had the phone. There is a nine-in-ten chance that he’s involved in the blackmailing.”
“Nine in ten?” asked Elizabeth, sounding incredulous.
“Liz, this is what we have. I’m not working for them. This is crisis management; it doesn’t always go exactly how we plan.”
Elizabeth raised her hand to stop the lecture, then set her hand back down on the desk. “I thought that’s why we brought you in? I thought that was your thing—to know exactly what is going to happen and plan accordingly.”
For a moment, Valencia’s mind went to a couple of the tasks she’d taken care of the previous week. On Monday, she’d paid hush money to a pregnant hairdresser in Staten Island. On Tuesday, she helped kill a negative story about the CEO of a bank that was set to run in the Times. She’d had to get creative for that one.
She had Danny work up a background on the editor of the story. It turned out the man’s daughter had recently been rejected by Yale. Valencia knew the editor well. She’d been feeding him stories for years. She pressed him for a same-day lunch. Before the food arrived, Valencia managed to name-drop the dean of Yale College.
Over coffee, Valencia finally brought up the story about the banker. She said he was a friend and he’d asked her for advice. “It’s a very weak story,” she said. Right then her cell phone rang. She picked it up, looked at it, and laughed when she saw the New Haven number.
“Will you look at that,” she said, showing the editor the phone. “Dean Schraeger,” she said, answering right there at the table. “I was just talking about you. Listen, let me call you back, I’m having lunch with a friend.” She hung up.
“Anyway,” she said, “Dean Schraeger and I are very close. I call her my soul mate.” She looked the editor in the eye. “She would do anything for me. But that story does seem weak, doesn’t it?”
The man sat there blinking at his decaf cappuccino. “You know,” he said finally. “It is kind of weak, isn’t it?”
On Thursday, Valencia flew to Jackson, Wyoming, sat down with the COO of a large oil company, and convinced him it was time to retire. She hadn’t even needed to blackmail him. She just talked it through. That was just last week. So yes, taking care of these little problems was her thing.
Valencia looked at the woman sitting across from her. “Elizabeth.”
“What?”
“We’ll take care of this. We’ll clean it up. It might take a few moves, it might take more than a few moves, but we’ll have them soon. These problems are temporary.” She made her voice as soothing as she could. “Sweetie, this is what I do. Honestly, this hasn’t even gotten complicated yet.”
They sat in silence, Elizabeth staring at a spot on the ground to her right, Valencia staring at her.
“So this is where we are,” said Valencia. “Avi Lessing, forty-three years old. Lives with his parents in Queens. No criminal background. The guy is a nobody, but he has friends.”
“And?”
“And we believe he’s involved. He passed the files on to someone he knows. He’ll tell us.”
“How do we know it was him?”
“His shop’s abandoned. He literally moved out after we visited. Packed up and disappeared. I said ‘nine in ten’ cautiously. It’s higher than that. He’s involved.”
Elizabeth made a show of brushing her hair behind her ears. “I’m not—” She stopped and thought for a second. “Why didn’t you take care of this when you were face-to-face with him?”
“Because we were trying to keep our footprints small. We got the phone and—”
“And they blackmailed us.”
“And now it’s time to hit back.”
“How?”
“We’re going to apply pressure.”
“This is turning into such a royal pain in my ass.”
Valencia watched the woman’s chest rise and fall with each breath.
“I am so over this place,” whispered Elizabeth, looking around her office.
They sat in silence for a bit.
“It’s a beautiful place,” Valencia finally said.
* * *
Billy Sharrock spent the morning parked down the block from Avi Lessing’s parents’ house on 122nd Street, in Kew Gardens, Queens. The neighborhood had a suburban feel, more like Long Island than New York. The houses were stand-alone; they had pitched roofs and aluminum siding.
Billy had parked himself thirty yards north of the target house with the back of his van facing the door. His windows were blacked out with silvered polycarbonate; you could see out, but not in. He had a folding chair with a cushion on it. He sat on it now and watched the front door of the house.
His notes had three entries: at 6:49 a.m. he started his watch; at 9:14 a.m., an older man—Avi Lessing’s father—had exited the house and walked south toward the JZ stop on Jamaica Avenue; the third entry—GEL 5861—was the license plate number of a silver SUV parked in the driveway. Billy had sent the tag to Danny Tsui and it came back as registered to their target.
He’d been instructed to sit in that spot until he had visual confirmation that Avi Lessing was inside the house. He’d packed enough white bread, peanut butter and jelly, apples, corn chips, bottled ice coffee, and water. He kept the food in a large red camping cooler pushed up against a wall of the van. He also had a Hassock Portable Toilet, which he kept inside a second large plastic box. He could stay in the van without leaving for days.
When he’d arrived at the site that morning, he’d taken two 10 mg pills of Adderall to help him stay up. He took another one midmorning. They worked just like the old orange Dexedrines they used to pop in Afghanistan, and now his mind was humming right along. He chewed tobacco, and spit into a Gatorade bottle.
It didn’t take long to confirm that Avi Lessing was there. At 1:14 p.m., the man walked out of the house, wearing a brown sweater. He walked right past the van—within ten feet of Billy himself—and didn’t even glance at it. From the expression on his face it looked like he was trying to solve a complicated problem. Billy’s heart raced like a beagle’s on seeing a pheasant.
Yep, we got this son of a bitch, he thought. Right after the man passed, he texted Valencia: He’s here.
He then popped up out of his chair and moved to the front of the cargo area so he could peek out the front of the van. Ten seconds later he returned to the back window and watched the street that way long enough to confirm he was alone. In his mind, he repeated the meaningless phrase, shit-ma, just like he used to do in combat. He took the chewing tobacco out of his mouth and pushed it into the Gatorade bottle and rinsed his mouth with water.
Valencia texted back: We’re on our way.
Billy opened the door and popped out of the back of the van. Before he closed the doors, he fussed with a box and pulled out a big pair of headphones so he would look like everyone else. He stood there and plugged them into his phone, then quietly closed the van’s back door and began walking in the opposite direction from Avi. He passed the target house but didn’t even glance at it.
He walked another twenty yards down to Hillside Avenue, then crossed to the opposite side of 122nd Street and doubled back so he was walking in the same direction as his man. He couldn’t see the dude from where he was, but he knew he’d catch up to him. When he passed the house for the second time, he s
tole a look at it. All was quiet: the blinds were drawn, and there were AC units in the windows upstairs and down. By the time he passed his van again he could see Avi ahead of him about a hundred and fifty yards away.
Billy nodded along to some imaginary hip-hop, but the headphones were silent, and he was just thinking about how he’d like to choke this dude out. He’d put his head in his arm, wrap up his neck, and just squeeze. But not yet—just tag along and watch right now.
“Good boy,” Billy muttered to himself. “Good boy.”
By the next corner he’d closed the gap and he had to work to stay back. The sky was blue, and Billy was high from the pills. He pulled out his phone to make sure he hadn’t missed any calls, and when he looked back up, he saw a young woman walking a pit bull right toward him. She looked Puerto Rican or something, and she had hoop earrings, and she smiled when they passed each other.
Avi Lessing made a dogleg right onto Breevort Street, and Billy followed him. An old dude raking leaves from his lawn stared at Billy as he passed, and Billy threw up a two-fingered peace sign like someone bidding at an auction. The man looked down and kept raking.
Billy watched Avi Lessing enter a little bodega on the corner of Metropolitan Avenue. Without breaking stride, Billy walked right past it and sat on a bench near a bus stop with his shoulders slumped like a man who’d been waiting all day. He checked his phone, breathed in deeply from the pills he’d taken, leaned to look for the bus, tapped a little drum solo on his knees, and then glanced back at the bodega. Nothing. He shook his head, closed his eyes, and cursed.
His phone vibrated; it was Valencia, and after glancing again at the bodega, he answered.
“Where are you?”
“He went to the store,” said Billy, speaking into the microphone on the wire of his headphones.
“Okay, stay back, don’t get made.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Billy.
“You ready to pull him?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Billy.
“We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
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