Tower of Babel

by Michael Sears

  If he was successful, they’d keep him around as long as he was able to dance fast enough to stay out of jail. And if he failed? If he self-medicated with booze or drugs to assuage his guilt and inadequacy, if he developed ulcers and heart problems, if he screwed up and even once disappointed the client? Then he’d be out. Essentially where he was now, only older and terminally broken. Used up. Without even a shred of self-respect to keep him from stepping off the Jamaica Station platform into the path of the express train to Babylon.

  In a brief flash, he saw what Jackie had been offered and felt, for an instant, a touch of empathy. She hadn’t seen it coming. They’d offered a plum assignment, and she had assumed that she’d been chosen for her skills or because she had earned a place at the table—or because of her relation to Jill. They had only wanted her because she was expendable.

  And so was Ted.

  The Judge was having a hard time staying on point. His eyes kept flashing down to the watch he now held in his lap. “I can’t make you work for Hasting, Fitzmaurice, and Barson, though I cannot imagine why you would turn down such an opportunity. But I cannot protect you if you don’t. Do you understand me, Ted?”

  “I do.”

  The Judge’s words came faster, spilling over one another. Ted had never seen him like this, and it took him a moment to realize the Judge was afraid. “Other parties argued against offering this proposal. They preferred seeing you in prison or silenced.”

  “I said I understand,” Ted spoke ponderously, trying to wring some of the frenzy out of the air.

  It wasn’t working. “They will feel threatened if you are in a position that cannot be closely monitored.”

  “Well, I think I have a way around that, Your Honor. I could turn myself in.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I could claim to be Cheryl’s partner. The feds would believe it. Assistant DA Petronelli already believes it. And I could give them all the names. I’d get less time than Cheryl—maybe none. At the first threat, they’d put me in WITSEC and I’d be untouchable.” It was a wrestler’s trick. When desperate, go limp. They never expect it.

  “That would be madness.” The old man’s eyes were suddenly bloodshot. He was giving himself a stroke.

  “Maybe so, but it would be ruthlessly efficient. You would all be so busy covering your own asses that no one would even think to come after me. You’d all be pointing the finger at each other. Reisner would fight it on television because that’s what he’s good at, and he might win that way. The lawyers and politicians would be stuck between the police and the Russian mob. It would be fun to watch.”

  “What is it you want? Name it.” He was sweating. Beads were sprouting across his forehead. Ted had never imagined he would ever see Judge Cornelius Fitzmaurice break a sweat.

  “Mostly to be left in peace.”

  “That’s all?”

  “No.” Ted almost laughed at the eagerness of the Judge. “I want Lester to get his money.”

  “Done.”

  “I want to know that Barbara Miller is all right.”

  “You will see her.”

  “I think I’ll let Lester make that trip.”

  “As you wish.”

  “I want a green card.”

  “Certainly not for yourself.”

  The Judge patted his brow with his napkin. He was becoming comfortable again, no longer negotiating with a madman. Ted prepared himself for pushback.

  “I’ll get you the name,” Ted said.

  “As long as this person is not on a terror watch list, I don’t see any reason why we can’t make this happen.”

  “I want your guarantee that McKenzie Zielinski is safe and will remain that way.”

  “Her position seems to put her at odds with powerful people,” the Judge said, relaxing back into his seat. He was smiling again, believing that with these small concessions, he had retaken the high ground. “I can’t control them all.”

  “I think you may need to be more proactive. If anything happens to her—ever—then there is no deal.”

  “That may take some arranging.”

  “You’re good at making arrangements.”

  He looked away. Processing. Ted could now read him so easily. Finally, he nodded. “What else? What do you want?”

  “I want Richie Rubiano’s killer.”

  -70-

  “Who?” The Judge’s eyes widened. For the briefest second, he looked thoroughly confused. “Richie Rubiano?” He recovered quickly. The mask of the all wise, all knowing returned. His voice registered moderately hidden scorn. “Is he connected to your friend in the hospital?”

  Ted was thrown. He could not unsee that moment of nakedness on the Judge’s face. Either the puppet master had not been told of Richie’s murder, or something in the storyline Ted had devised was terribly wrong. Was it all wrong? No. The Judge had not so much as blinked when presented with charges of fraud, bribery, assault, and the attempted murder of Kenzie. But mention of Richie’s murder had taken him by surprise. Impossible. The tectonic plates of Ted’s world were in motion. He put his faith in what he knew to be true.

  “Richie Rubiano worked for me,” Ted said. “He was married to Cheryl. Someone killed him. I believe because he was investigating, in his own clumsy manner, Barbara Miller’s surplus money. Jackie’s little rainy-day fund. Her fraud led directly to Richie’s death.”

  “I’ve never heard of him,” the Judge said. He showed nothing more than a mild impatience. “The Reisners play hardball. Ask any of their competitors. They are capable of bending rules and making decisions that reflect ethical or moral persuasions many might find deplorable. That’s their world. Saints don’t prosper in the New York real estate markets. But murder? Or murder for hire? No, Ted. That is not possible.”

  “I don’t think they control the situation anymore,” Ted said. He’d witnessed two murder attempts on McKenzie Zielinski and was still shaking off the effects of his fight with the assassin. He didn’t want to hear about the ethical gymnastics of the rich and powerful. “Reisner is working with people who will use any means necessary to protect their investments. Richie got in their way.”

  The Judge blinked owlishly. Processing or denying? He mumbled something, then tried to steer the conversation back to what he knew. “The Russians are being handled. There will be no more assaults on your community organizer. You have my word.”

  But Ted wasn’t buying. He didn’t want weak promises. He was disgusted with opportunistic morality. Lines had been crossed that should never have been approached. “She’s still in a coma, dammit, and you give me nothing but words.” A strong, beautiful, caring human being was lying in a hospital bed, unconscious and a breath away from death, and no one would be held responsible. His stomach knotted at the outrage, and he yelled, “Who pays? Someone is going to prison for this. I swear it.”

  The waiter appeared at the table, almost trembling. Ted had been loud, he realized, but there was no one else there to hear. The Judge waved Oliver away, but he presented a phone. “I am so sorry to intrude, but the policeman was insistent that he speak to you.” He pressed the phone into the Judge’s hands and retreated.

  “This is Cornelius Fitzmaurice. To whom am I speaking?” The Judge’s voice held a lifetime of service on the bench.

  Whoever it was wasted little time delivering his news. The Judge’s face registered shock, then anger. He listened for less than a minute, then spoke calmly and coldly. “Thank you for the call, Lieutenant Bass. I will not forget your consideration.” He pressed the button to disconnect and looked at Ted with a touch of confusion in his eyes. “Do you know a Stavros person?”

  “I’ve met him. He’s a friend of Cheryl’s.” Ted could see the Judge was deeply shaken. He kept talking to hold back the delivery of more-terrible news. “A detective told me that he’s a small-time hood. An enforcer.”
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  Coldly, his mask in place, the Judge swung an arm across the table, sending glasses, plates, and silverware flying. The untouched burrata hit the floor and slid along it, leaving a trail, like a slug on steroids. The Judge looked surprised at what he’d done. “Sorry,” he said.

  Ted stared in shock, not knowing how to respond to this eruption from a man who never seemed to lose control. Ted waited a moment, then finished what he had been reporting. “They call him Nicky Greco.”

  The Judge nodded, playing catch-up, obviously putting pieces together in his head. His words came out without inflection, as emotionless as if he were reporting the daily rainfall statistics for the past month. “An hour ago, as Ron Reisner and his son were leaving the compound in Douglaston to come here, a man approached their car and shot both of them. The father is being taken to the hospital in serious condition. The son has been declared dead at the scene. Based on a witness’s description, the police are looking for this man, Stavros.”

  Ted thought that at six foot eight with a shaved head shaped like a basketball and the physique of a steroidal gorilla, Stavros would be easy to identify. How easy he would be to find, however, depended on his cunning and luck.

  “Greco, you said? Why has this man done this?” The Judge’s anger had withered, and what was left was helpless shock and confusion. “It was all arranged.”

  Ted was so shocked by the transformation in this man, who had never before shown a sign of weakness, that at first he missed the implication in the Judge’s last words. All arranged?

  Cheryl and her sudden confession. The light sentence. Even the payoff. The Judge would have been the one to direct all those arrangements.

  And then Ted focused on the Judge’s question. Why would Nicky Greco do this? Murdering Reisner or his creep of a son wasn’t going to get the big Greek any closer to Cheryl’s supposed windfall from the surplus money. There never had been much of a chance of that anyway. So if money wasn’t the answer, what was left? Love, money, honor, or revenge. Revenge was merely a response to being thwarted in pursuit of one of the other three. Honor, in any of its guises, didn’t apply. That left only love. The big gorilla loved Cheryl Rubiano.

  If Cheryl was taking the fall for Reisner and crew, Stavros Nikitopoulos, a.k.a. Nicky Greco, was going to make them pay. The Judge might understand murdering for love. “Why? Revenge. He’ll go after all of them. I’d have the police put a guard on Councilman Pak until this guy is caught.”

  The Judge blinked again. He had aged decades in minutes. “Dear God,” he whispered.

  Ted felt no sympathy for him. The Judge had operated as though he could control all the players, manipulating each one to secure success on his terms, as he saw fit.

  A new revelation hit Ted.

  “Jackie,” he said.

  -71-

  Ted grabbed the phone from the Judge and punched in Jill’s number. She answered on the first ring.

  “Where’s Jackie?” Ted said. “She’s in danger.” If Jackie was at work, she was safe. The giant wouldn’t be able to reach her. Security in the lobby would never let him into an elevator.

  “I thought this was her calling. Why should she be in danger?” Jill said. She sounded arch and dismissive. She did not believe him.

  Ted gave her the shortest version he could devise. “The Reisners were attacked a little while ago by a professional thug. Your grandfather and I think Jackie will be on this guy’s list.”

  “What have you done?” she growled in full attack mode. It was family dogma: when threatened, attack.

  “Jill,” he cried, “listen to me.” He heard the click and the immediate return of the dial tone. He hit redial. Straight to voice mail. “Damn.” Jill was alone and that mad giant would walk right through her if he thought he’d find Jackie there. Ted had to get there.

  He tossed the phone to the Judge, who fumbled but caught it. “See if Jackie’s here in the building. If she is, get her someplace safe.”

  The Judge was still in shock. Ted didn’t have time—or the inclination—to coddle him. “Now! Make the call,” Ted ordered. The Judge gasped once and dialed.

  Ted dashed out of the dining room, heading for the elevators. Jill’s apartment was thirty blocks uptown. A mile and a half. In college he ran two miles a day—four when he had to make weight. He wasn’t a track athlete. Eight-minute miles had been his norm, and he had not run a mile in ten years or more.

  There were three IT staffers—easy to identify by their blue color-coded swipe cards hanging from lanyards, as well as their identical wardrobe of khaki pants and black polo shirts—waiting at the elevator banks. The doors of a car opened as Ted approached, and he barged past the techies.

  “Take the next one,” he snarled. They stopped in surprise. Ted hit the button for lobby.

  He stopped before stepping out onto the street. The two marshals were standing by the big SUV, ostentatiously taking up space in a well-marked no-parking zone. They towered over a brown-jacketed traffic cop who was having no trouble ignoring them while writing a ticket.

  Ted saw his chance and took it. He walked out the door and cut to his left, walking fast like a New Yorker but not pushing it. The traffic was at a standstill going both downtown and up. If he could make it across the madness of Fifty-Seventh Street, the marshals would never even know he’d gone.

  He darted between cars as he crossed Fifty-Sixth. One block to go. He risked a look back. A mistake. From a block away, their eyes met. The marshal saw him. She grabbed her partner by the arm and pointed. Ted ran.

  As soon as he did, his body reminded him of the events of the previous night. He had pain when he needed energy. He hurt and felt winded after the first few running steps. The pedestrian light across the street was already counting down into single digits. He stumbled but kept moving.

  And then he was in the street—half running, half walking. The crosswalk timer ticked down: 3, 2, 1. The red hand stopped flashing and turned solid. He pushed ahead, passing the centerline. He looked to his right. Taxis in the inside lane. A city bus in the curb lane, followed by a fire engine. The bus was already moving, easing through the last remains of the red light.

  A siren sounded and for a nanosecond Ted thought it was the fire engine signaling the bus to get out of the way. He leapt the last few feet to the relative safety of the sidewalk before the realization hit. The sound had come from behind him. He looked over his shoulder and his heart soared. Rather than following him on foot, the two marshals were back in the SUV attempting to force their way through two solid lines of traffic. They still had to make a U-turn. They were obviously expecting their flashing lights and siren to have an effect on Midtown Manhattan drivers.

  The light changed. The bus slid across the intersection and stopped behind a cab depositing a fare in front of the Citibank. Ted considered making a dash for the emptying cab but decided against it. It was already committed to continuing west on Fifty-Seventh and away from Jill’s apartment. Ted quickstepped across the avenue as the fire truck edged forward and stopped, blocked by the bus and in turn blocking traffic. Flashing lights two blocks south marked the location of the black SUV.

  Both Fifty-Eighth and Fifty-Ninth Streets were one-way eastbound. The chances of finding an empty cab before the far corner of Sixtieth were nil. Ted could no longer run, but he pushed himself to walk as fast as he could. Pedestrian traffic thinned out on the far side of Fifty-Ninth. He made better time, but he was afraid to check his watch.

  And then a miracle happened. A taxi pulled around the corner on Sixtieth and stopped to deliver a tall grey-haired man at the first apartment building. Ted sucked in a breath and made a dash, climbing into the back seat before the doorman had a chance to slam the door.

  “Uptown,” Ted said, stuffing a hundred-dollar bill into the plastic tray. “I’ve got about two minutes to save a life.”

  The cabbie made it ten blocks before th
e staggered lights caught them. Ted was, by this time, almost comfortable with Mohammed’s driving. This ride needed the Yemeni’s touch.

  “Floor it, dammit!” Ted yelled. “I’ve seen Park Avenue before. Move it.”

  A long limo coming down Park made a left turn at Seventy-Eighth Street and barreled through the intersection in front of them. The cab missed its rear bumper by millimeters. Ted’s driver never took his foot off the gas.

  Ted twisted around to look for the black SUV’s flashing lights. Far back but coming on quickly. If the marshals were still using the siren, he couldn’t hear it.

  “You’re doing fine,” he said. “But don’t let up.”

  They made the light—deep amber—at Seventy-Ninth and flew through the next few blocks.

  “There,” Ted ordered. “The middle of the next block. Second canopy.”

  Ted knew immediately that something was wrong. There was no doorman on duty. Ted was too late. “Damn. Damn. Damn,” he said in a whisper as he entered the lobby.

  Ted heard a groan from the package room. Osvaldo was on the floor, looking dazed but alive.

  “He’s upstairs?” Ted asked, kneeling by the man and checking him quickly for wounds. He saw none, though there was a red welt on Osvaldo’s forehead that promised to swell into a nasty bruise. “How long ago?”

  “I tried to stop him and he hit me.” Osvaldo sounded surprised.

  The marshals would be arriving any minute. If Ted waited for their backup, they would waste time asking questions, demanding answers, and being careful to do things by the book. Ted wasn’t going to wait. “Help is coming,” he said. “Send them after me.” He ran to the elevator.

  -72-

  The elevator came up from the basement almost immediately. Ted pressed the button for the sixth floor. The moment the door slid shut, the enormity of what he was committed to swept over him, leaving a liquid feeling in his gut.