The Anniversary Man

by R.J. Ellory

  ′I wouldn′t wear my uniform,′ Irving said.

  Beck hesitated. ′I believe there may be a meeting on Friday the fifteenth.′

  ′Where?′

  ′I am not so sure that—′

  ′We′re talking real people here, Dr Beck,′ Irving interjected.

  Beck raised his hand. ′I can tell you where, Detective, but I cannot get you in. That is something you′re going to have to do yourself.′

  Irving didn′t respond.

  ′Although I′m kept informed of these meetings, I haven′t been to them for years. The people I work with have private viewings—′

  ′Where is this meeting going to happen, Dr Beck?′

  ′I cannot have you—′

  ′I appreciate the fact that you′ve been honest with me,′ Irving said. ′I also understand that nothing would be gained by trying to influence you with threats. You know as well as I do that any attempt to investigate how you came about obtaining your documents and letters would come to nothing. I′m asking you to help me simply because—′

  ′The Village,′ Beck said. ′West 11th and Greenwich, there′s a hotel called the Bedford Park. It sounds fine, but it′s not. It′s a cockroach pit. There′s a meeting there on Friday evening.′

  ′And I get in how?′

  ′Personal recommendation,′ Beck replied. ′No other way.′

  ′And that′s something I cannot ask you to do?′

  ′That is something I would be very pleased if you did not ask me to do, Detective Irving.′

  Irving was quiet for a little while, and then he stood up, straightened his jacket, and said, ′Today is Tuesday. If I have nothing by Thursday morning I might come back and see you again.′

  ′Like I said, Detective, tomorrow morning I leave for Atlanta. I′m not returning until next Monday.′

  ′Is there some way I could reach you?′

  Beck handed his card to Irving. ′My cellphone and my pager number are on there.′

  Irving looked at the card, not to read what was written but to give himself a few moments to gather his thoughts.

  Those thoughts, whatever they might have been, were interrupted by Beck. ′The reason for this?′ he asked. ′Someone is killing people?′

  Irving looked up. ′Someone is always killing people, Dr Beck. Seems to be the way of the world.′

  TWENTY-TWO

  Captain Farraday was not happy. Chief Ellmann had appeared that morning and asked to speak with Irving personally. Farraday dealt with it, said that Irving was pursuing a vital lead. Ellmann wanted specifics, Farraday bullshitted, Ellmann saw through it, told Farraday to straighten up and fly right on this thing. Those were his exact words. Irving found it difficult to believe that anyone actually said that. Then Ellmann told Farraday that the Fourth Precinct was home for this nightmare, that Irving was to head it up, that it was their case. They would get an overtime allowance for uniforms to work on the files, additional research, such things as this, but as far as pulling detectives from the Ninth, the Seventh, the Third and the Fifth it was not going to happen.

  ′How many homicides this year?′ Ellmann asked Farraday.

  Farraday shook his head. ′This precinct . . . God . . . two-forty? Maybe two-fifty, give or take.′

  ′How many detectives here?′

  ′Six.′

  ′That′s forty or fifty each,′ Ellmann replied. He fired statements at Farraday like shooting practice. ′Irving gets all eight. This is his baby. He′s a good detective. He got cited. He′s not been under IAD investigation. He can handle it. And keep it out of the papers for Christ′s sake.′

  ′But—′

  Ellmann shook his head. ′This is eight homicides. I have a campaign for Chief, the Mayor has his own re-election. Closed cases is what we need, Captain. I can′t have four or five precincts collapsing all their manpower into what is essentially one investigation. Irving′s a grown-up, he can deal with it. I got you a shutdown on the Herald, and we spoke with The Times about this letter they got. We have an element of co-operation right now, and if they get wind of the fact that we′re tying up all our available resources into this thing, you can just imagine how excited they′re gonna get. Irving is the man. Tell him we need it done hard and fast.′

  The message was relayed when Irving arrived.

  It didn′t surprise him. He had half-expected it.

  ′I′ve given you the back half of the big office,′ Farraday said. ′All the files are up there. Everything has been brought over from the other precincts. It′s a mess, but you can have a couple of uniforms to help you sort it out. I′m here for about three hours, and then I′m gone until Thursday morning. Anything you need immediately?′

  ′I need to check a hotel booking, then I need to put a watch on whoever turns up on that.′

  ′I′ll sign what you need, have someone bring it to me.′

  ′How do I reach you if I need something else?′

  Farraday shook his head. ′Officially you don′t. If it′s life or death, call my cell, leave a message. I′ll come back to you as fast as I can.′

  ′Can I keep one of the uniforms?′ Irving asked.

  ′No, I can′t spare them. Right through to the middle of next month I can′t have anyone out on their own. I have an even number of people today. I′m giving you two because I give you two or nothing. You get them until lunchtime and then they′re out. Right now it′s all about visibility on the streets—′

  ′The elections,′ Irving said matter-of-factly.

  ′Our jobs,′ Farraday said. ′Think about it that way and it doesn′t feel so cheap.′

  Irving visited his own office briefly and then made his way up one more flight of stairs to the third. The room they had used the previous day had been divided down the center by partitions. On the left were the regular homicide detectives′ stations, their desks pushed together to create the necessary room, and on the right a pair of desks end-to-end, the whiteboards and files and stacks of documents that had been brought over from the other precincts heaped on the floor.

  Within minutes the two uniforms arrived.

  ′Take that wall,′ Irving said. ′Push the desks against it longways. Divide the case files into five sections, one for each murder, and then up on the wall I need photographs of the victims and crime scene images. Far right I need the Shawcross documents, the letter that went to The Times—′

  The younger of the two present, Michael Kayleigh, interrupted Irving. ′Sir, I know for a fact that the letter has gone over to Forensics. I think Mr Turner took it yesterday.′

  Irving nodded. ′Good. Saves one of you a trip.′

  ′I know what to do,′ the second officer said. His name was Whittaker, a recent transfer from the Eleventh. ′I′ve done this kind of thing before.′

  ′Okay, so I′ll leave you to it. Go through everything, find the holes in the paperwork, make me a list. Anything you′re not sure of put it to one side and I′ll deal with it when I get back.′

  ′You know we can only stay until lunchtime, right?′ Kayleigh said.

  Irving glanced at his watch. It was quarter of eleven. ′Better work fast then,′ he said.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The name of the individual who′d booked the Bedford Park conference suite for Friday evening cost Irving forty dollars. The receptionist was wary, unconvinced at twenty, and thus Irving doubled it.

  The Bedford Park was everything Irving had suspected it would be. Early fifties perhaps, built in the mad rush of expansion and prosperity that New York evidenced after the war. It had seen better days, and around it was an aura of lonely desperation that spoke of illicit trysts, drug deals, book-by-the-hour hookers and cockroaches. Within the building hung the smell of sweat, the memory of the unwashed and unwanted making their slow-motion way from one temporary job to the next. It was depressing, and Irving felt some considerable relief as he left.

  George Dietz. That was all Irving had, all that his forty dollars had given him.
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  Back at the Fourth he ran a search and came back empty. He called archives, spoke to one of the girls about pseudonyms, records of aliases and AKAs.

  ′All computerized,′ she said, ′but you need access from here, not from your own station.′

  ′Can you check it?′

  ′Give me the name.′

  Irving spelled it.

  ′I′ll call you back.′

  Irving sat for a while watching Whittaker and Kayleigh decorate the wall with the recent murders. Eight faces looked back at him - Mia Grant, Ashley Burch and Lisa Briley, James Wolfe - the hideous rigor of his clown-face staring back accusingly, as if asking Why weren′t you there? Why wasn′t anyone there to help me? Next came the three from the Third and Fifth - Luke Bradford, Stephen Vogel and Caroline Parselle. Last was the hooker, the Shawcross replica, Carol-Anne Stowell.

  The phone rang.

  ′George Dietz, right?′ said the girl from archives.

  ′Anything?′

  ′It′s a known alias for one George Thomas Delaney, and if you punch his name in your station you′ll find out what a charming and beautiful human being he really is.′

  Irving thanked her, hung up, typed in Delaney, and watched the man′s record unfold.

  Delaney was forty-six years old, born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Arrested seven times, starting at the age of nineteen. Lewd and lascivious conduct, exposure, attempted rape (charges never filed for lack of evidence), suspicion of pandering minors, burglary (a pornographic-film importer′s warehouse), soliciting prostitution, attempting to bribe a police officer and aggravated assault. He had never done time. He had missed the bus by the skin of his teeth. Delaney possessed the narrow-eyed, blemished-complexion, greasy-haired demeanor that seemed requisite to his trade. He had booked the Bedford Park. There was nothing illegal in booking a conference suite, regardless of how degraded the use of that suite might be. Delaney was not the way in. Delaney would be too well-known.

  Irving took Delaney′s address, a condo no more than two or three blocks from the Bedford Park on Bleecker. He printed off a copy of the man′s picture, tucked it into his jacket pocket, shared a few words with Kayleigh and Whittaker, thanked them for their time, and left.

  He drove back the way he′d come only half an hour or so before, a straight run down Sixth, right into West 14th, Eighth to Abingdon Square and Bleecker.

  George Delaney′s condo was suitably exhausted for a man of his reputation and social standing. The paint peeled back in numerous places, a patchwork of rust stains discolored the walls beneath the guttering, and there was garbage of all kinds strewn along the walkway above the street - a broken chair, its stuffing creeping out along a swollen seam, a child′s tricycle, once brightly colored but now discarded and forgotten, a stack of decaying newspapers tied with string. Irving found it difficult to understand why people were willing to live in such a fashion. Had it been his condo he would have rallied the neighbors together, cracked some beers, cleared the walkway, painted the facade, made-believe that what they had was worth maintaining . . . But people here led desperate, solitary lives - unemployed, hunched in chairs as they smoked weed, drank warm beer, ate cold pizza, sweated through endless hedonistic images on the internet.

  Irving parked across the street with a clear view of the building. There were cars parked out front, three of them, and he noted their license plates. The clock on the dash read ten to twelve. He took the picture of Delaney from his jacket pocket, unfolded it, propped it against the steering wheel. He looked at the man′s face and wondered what dark and unforgiving universe lay an inch behind his eyes.

  Irving, cursing himself for not bringing a sandwich or somesuch, eased back in the driver′s seat and set himself to wait.

  After forty-five minutes a beat-to-shit Buick Regal pulled up on the other side of the street. The man who exited the car could have been one of a hundred thousand. Faded jeans, leather jacket, hair slicked back, unshaven, a cigarette parked in the corner of his mouth. He locked the vehicle, hurried across the sidewalk, took the stairwell at a run and headed straight for Delaney′s door. Irving took the license plate, called Dispatch and asked them to ID it.

  The words that were shared didn′t matter; that Delaney never appeared mattered less. The only fact of interest to Irving was the name being relayed back to him, that Delaney′s visitor, one Timothy Walter Leycross, was precisely the kind of individual that Irving needed. Leycross was thirty-one, three outstanding traffic violations, did seven months in juvy, another two and a half years in Attica for attempted rape of a minor, and was currently awaiting word from the DA′s office as to whether a computer in their possession was giving up its secrets. Leycross had been arrested in a city-wide crackdown on internet child pornographers, his computer had been seized, and the best computer hacks in the DA′s employ were trying to untangle the maze of circuitous avenues and invisible boxes such people employed to obfuscate and hide the evidence of their proclivities. Irving was familiar with the case - Operation Secure - and though it hadn′t crossed his desk, he had spent sufficient time in Vice to know how difficult it was to make charges stick. Police actions slowed down the efforts of these people, but they would never be stopped. And if they were successfully arraigned, charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned, the leniency of the system now permitted people like this to return to the world within months, whereupon they went back to their business with a vengeance. There was money in their line of business, plenty of it, though Irving believed they were far less interested in the financial returns than they were addicted to the subject matter. Delaney and Leycross were representative of a particular type of human being, and the world within which they existed was extraordinarily dark.

  The conversation at Delaney′s door lasted less than a minute. Something changed hands, and when Leycross turned toward the stairwell Irving saw him bury something inside his jacket.

  Leycross drove away in a hurry, didn′t look back, didn′t appear to notice as Irving cruised up behind him. Irving followed the Buick for half a dozen blocks, fired the light on the dash as they crossed Gansevoort, and then pulled Leycross over beyond the corner of West 13th and Hudson.

  Irving was unarmed, and left his handgun in the trunk of the car. He knew a thousand Leycrosses, and merely waited while this one hustled whatever he′d taken from Delaney beneath the passenger seat.

  As Irving approached the rear fender of the vehicle, the driver′s door started to open.

  ′Stay inside the car, Timothy,′ he called out.

  It was a standard ruse: get out of the car, approach the officer, engage him in conversation, keep him out of the vehicle, attention always away from the vehicle.

  Timothy Leycross sat back and pulled the door shut.

  The expression on his face when Irving looked down at him was all too familiar. Fuck, it said. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  ′How are things, Timothy?′ Irving asked.

  ′Okay . . . sure. They′re fine, yes. I′m fine.′

  ′Good to hear you′re fine. License and registration is where exactly?′

  ′In the glove box.′

  ′Go slowly, my friend. Open up and let me look before you take anything out, okay?′

  Leycross seemed all-too-familiar with the routine. He co-operated. He didn′t resist or protest or bitch or complain. He didn′t ask why he′d been pulled over. He knew precisely why, knew also that he was going nowhere.

  Irving - merely to prolong the anxiety that Leycross was experiencing - pored over the documents as if there was something important to be gleaned from them.

  When he handed them back there was a moment, just a moment, something in Leycross′s expression, that questioned whether that was it.

  ′You have three outstanding traffic violations,′ Irving said.

  Leycross′s face fell apart.

  ′I meant to pay them—′

  Irving raised his hand. ′You have a computer with the DA′s office, Tim. They have your computer . . . go
ing through it to see if they can find all the kiddie porn, right?′

  Leycross feigned indignation, opened his mouth to vent something or other.

  ′I don′t want to know,′ Irving said. ′That′s between you and the DA.′ Irving leaned down, put his hand on the roof of the car, and smiled warmly. ′However, what I do want to know is what it is that you just bought from George Delaney.′

  ′Delaney? I don′t know—′

  ′Anyone called Delaney,′ Irving interjected. ′You don′t know anyone called Delaney, or Dietz, and if it′s gonna get you booked for something then I′m sure you don′t know your own mother either.′

  Leycross was agitated, annoyance creeping toward anger, but beneath that the unwanted certainty that this was not going to go his way.

  Words went back and forth for no more than three or four minutes. Leycross challenged Irving′s right to pull him over, said there was no probable cause for searching the car. Irving said that the very first thing that Leycross did as he′d stopped the car was reach forward and put something beneath the passenger seat. A gun? A consignment of drugs perhaps? Of course there was probable cause. He recognized the momentary flash of anger in Leycross′s eyes, but just as soon as that anger was visible he seemed to fold up in defeat. Irving wanted something, there was no question in Leycross′s mind that this was the case. Was it better to play tough and get booked, or throw in his hand and hope to hell whatever he had to trade wasn′t that bad?

  ′Have to look at it like this,′ Irving told him. ′Co-operate, and we′ll get through this. Be an asshole and I don′t doubt that someone will find whatever they want in your computer, and then you′re back to Attica with a child-rape tag on your name.′

  ′I didn′t rape nobody,′ Leycross said.

  ′You′ve been there, Tim. You know how things are. They don′t give a fuck whether you did it or looked at it, or sold pictures of it. There are some things that even the worst human beings in the world won′t tolerate. Gotta remember that most of them have kids, and while they′re inside worrying about their kids they see you out here going after them with your movie camera.′ Irving reached into his jacket pocket and took out an empty clip-top baggie. He opened it, held it toward Leycross.