One weekday night last January, McVicker had told Johnny to close the bar early so a low-budget porn film could be shot there. Maybe McVicker was in that business, or maybe he was just doing someone a favor. Or maybe he, too, had been hit hard by the recession and was maximizing profits by renting out the bar from midnight to dawn. The two-man crew and three performers had begun arriving as Johnny and Haley were doing a quick clean-up and reset, and by the time he and Haley were ready to leave ten minutes later, the performers — two overly muscular males and a female with a sleeve of tattoos bolder than Haley’s — had already stripped down and were taking instructions from a young director wearing a baseball cap and ponytail. Apparently, there was little time to waste. The men were stroking themselves erect, and the lone woman, her hands on her hips, was listening intently to what the director, speaking fast and with a thick Russian accent, wanted to see unfold in the upcoming scene.
You’re at a bar, getting revenge on your weakling boyfriend because he cheated on you…
On the silent cab ride home, Haley had seemed both shocked and intrigued.
So for Johnny to hear that his boss might be closing the bar wasn’t a surprise. And while as a rule Johnny didn’t question Big Dickey McVicker about anything — the less Johnny knew, the better — this decision affected the people who worked for him, so he felt it was his duty to at least inquire.
“What’s going on?”
“We’ll put a sign in the window that says we’re closed for renovations,” McVicker answered.
“But that’s not why.”
“No. There’s something you might need to do. And if it’s what I think it is, I’d consider it a personal favor if you did it.”
Johnny glanced at the rearview mirror, saw that Richter was looking at him, then turned his attention back to McVicker.
He had made it clear when he came to McVicker a year ago and asked for a job that he wanted only legitimate work. Nothing to do with violence. A man like McVicker might look at a guy like Johnny and see only one use for him. And yes, Johnny was broke, had long-since burned through the money he had come into after his father’s death, but he wasn’t so broke that he’d do anything.
More than all that, he wanted nothing at all to do with anything that would separate him from Haley. Life for Johnny had become as simple as that.
“It’s all right,” McVicker said, as if reading Johnny’s mind. “It’s nothing to worry about. And it might not take you a few days. But we should be prepared, just in case.”
Johnny was about to point out that Haley could run the place with her eyes closed, and that he could probably get one of the other bartenders to cover his shifts, so there really wouldn’t be any need to close at all. And he wanted to mention that the people who worked there — Johnny and Haley included — needed every cent they could get their hands on, especially these days.
But again, McVicker seemed to anticipate what was on Johnny’s mind and spoke before Johnny could.
“It would be better if we closed up entirely for however long this takes you. I’ll keep everyone on the payroll. And I’ll even compensate the bartenders for lost tips. Does that sound fair to you?”
Johnny nodded. “Yeah.”
“Just write down what you think they should get and I’ll see to it that they get it. But from this moment on, until I tell you otherwise, the bar isn’t a concern of yours. Just put it out of your mind. Do you understand?”
Again, Johnny nodded. “Yeah.” McVicker was always reasonable — or at least always was with Johnny. Still, none of what he’d just said alleviated Johnny’s concern over the nature of what it was McVicker wanted him to do. If anything, it had heightened it.
When Johnny had told him last year that he needed a job for his girlfriend as well, and that they both needed to be paid off the books, McVicker had said that wouldn’t be a problem. And without even being asked, McVicker had offered them the apartment on Bedford Avenue — a safe-enough neighborhood, he’d said, and by that he meant two thirty-year-olds would blend in and not draw too much attention to themselves.
It was obvious to Johnny then that McVicker had understood that Johnny had come to him for protection. He didn’t ask from what, and that was, for Johnny, an indication of just how powerful the man was.
Whatever it was Johnny was looking to hide from, it wasn’t anything McVicker, with his money and his many connections, couldn’t handle.
For McVicker to come to Johnny now meant that what he needed done was beyond the abilities of any of the people at his disposal.
There was, as Johnny saw it, no point in beating around the bush. He had promised Haley he’d call her in an hour, and he’d already been away from her for ten minutes.
“Can you tell me what it is you might need me to do?” he said.
“It’s not me, actually, Johnny. It’s your sister.”
Johnny turned his head to the right and glanced out the window. He determined quickly that Richter was steering the town car toward the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Johnny asked finally, “What would she need my help for?”
“She didn’t tell me what she wanted, only that she needed to talk to you, in person.” McVicker paused, then: “At least listen to what she has to say.”
Johnny was too busy wondering if this could be in any way related to what had happened in Thailand to really hear what McVicker was saying to him.
One of the men who had come after Haley was an undercover Thai police officer — a corrupt officer, there was no doubt about that, but a police officer nonetheless. The friend she had gone to Bangkok with had been given a large amount of heroin to deliver, then hadn’t delivered it. When he was eventually found and beaten by these men, he claimed that Haley had betrayed him and taken the shipment for herself. By the time those men tracked her down — found her and Johnny in her hotel room — they weren’t, to say the least, in the best of moods.
If Bangkok officials were looking for Johnny, and why wouldn’t they be, and if they had tracked him to the States, which would have been easy enough to do, wouldn’t protocol require that they contact the FBI?
But as estranged as he and his sister were, Johnny couldn’t see her turning him in. So maybe she wanted to warn him. Maybe she wasn’t directly involved but had gotten wind somehow that Johnny was wanted, that negotiations between Thai officials and US authorities were ongoing.
But if that were the case, why arrange to meet with him like this? Why go to that trouble? Why not just tip him off through McVicker and be done with it?
No need to stand face-to-face, no need to be reminded by the sight of each other all that they’d lost.
Johnny cleared his mind of these questions, only to have another quickly arise.
“How did she know you’d know where I was?”
“I don’t think she did. She knew you were back, and probably hiding somewhere, but that’s about it. Your father turned to me whenever he needed help, so it makes sense that you might, too.”
“You didn’t tell her where I was, right?”
“No. And she didn’t ask. I just told her I’d bring you to meet them.”
“Them?”
“Donnie Fiermonte is going to be with her.”
Johnny’s concern deepened even more, but he said nothing.
Why the hell would Fiermonte be there? The last thing Johnny wanted was to be in the company of a state prosecutor and an FBI agent. It didn’t matter if they were family — one actual family, the other as good as family. It didn’t matter that Fiermonte had done all that he’d done since their father’s death.
Nothing mattered but Haley.
Johnny’s instincts told him to jump out of the car right then, make it back to Williamsburg as fast as he could, hitch a ride there, run there if he had to, just get there and get Haley and get the hell out, take the money they had managed to save and bolt.
The life they lived — few possessions, no ties — was designed for this very reason. Haley lik
ed to think they were two students of Zen, and while that was true, it wasn’t the whole truth.
Johnny thought of her back at the apartment, the doors all locked, the building seemingly unoccupied. They worked six nights a week, didn’t use the lights when they came home at four or five in the morning, rarely turned them on at all, even on their only night off. It was overkill, perhaps, but Johnny wasn’t taking any chances. And Haley trusted his instincts, never questioned any of the precautions he took, no matter how extreme or redundant they seemed. Living simply was what mattered to her, and lying together in the dark on their one night off, talking quietly, qualified as simple living to her.
A pair of cell phones connected them now — Johnny’s was in his pocket, and Haley knew to keep hers always nearby. They had three preplanned routes out of Williamsburg, each route with its own code name, and three places where they were to meet should they be apart when the time to run came.
All Johnny needed to do, if he was out and Haley was home, was to call and speak the appropriate code to her. If he couldn’t call, he would text it. One word, and she would put any of their three plans into action.
All that was needed then was for Johnny to get to the predetermined location, and together they would make their escape.
He could imagine nothing that would prevent him from doing that. Nothing that would stop him. He would even kill McVicker and his son, if it came to that. McVicker was like an uncle to him, Richter like a cousin. He’d known them both his whole life, had seen them only a few times a year at picnics at the house in Ossining, but his father had made it clear that these two were family.
But that was then, this was now.
Johnny kept a small KA-BAR knife hidden in his boot, and carried a retractable box cutter in the back pocket of his jeans. Even now he was ready to do whatever needed to be done, without hesitation or remorse.
But the instinct to flee passed. He would see this through, learn from this meeting everything he could. Better to be informed, know everything your enemy knew.
He was, after all, trained for reconnaissance as well as for killing.
As he calmed his mind, he realized just what a strange mix of people this gathering was going be. Fiermonte, the prosecutor with whom his father had worked closely to bust up organized crime, and McVicker, the shadowy underworld figure from whom his father had gotten help his entire career — and who no doubt had benefited with every crime boss that was eventually brought down.
If not for McVicker, Johnny’s father would not have been able to establish any of the covers that allowed him to do the work he’d done. More importantly, McVicker had kept his longtime friend alive by helping him maintain those covers, and had done so, Johnny was certain, at some risk to himself.
Of all these people, Johnny trusted McVicker most.
Still, he didn’t trust him implicitly, couldn’t, not while Haley’s well-being was at stake.
The town car pulled onto the expressway but traveled along it for only a few moments. After exiting, it made three turns, then pulled up to a warehouse in what was clearly a failed industrial neighborhood. A man Johnny had never seen before was standing outside a garage-style door, smoking a cigarette. When this man spotted the town car, he tossed the cigarette away and quickly raised the overhead door.
Johnny studied the man as the town car passed into a loading bay. Then the door was pulled closed behind them, the man remaining outside.
Richter stayed behind the wheel as McVicker and Johnny exited the vehicle. McVicker led Johnny toward a glass-enclosed office at the other end of the long dock.
Waiting inside that office, visible through the tall panes of mesh-lined glass, were Cat and Donnie Fiermonte.
Chapter Ten
McVicker closed the office door behind them. He and Johnny stood at one end of the narrow room, Cat and Fiermonte at the other. Between them was an old metal desk, its drawers missing. There was very little space for anything else.
Fiermonte said to McVicker, “We’d like to talk to Johnny in private.”
Johnny shook his head and said flatly, “He stays.”
Cat wasn’t surprised by this — Johnny, the soldier in the family, valued loyalty above all else, always had. Whether or not it was blind loyalty didn’t really matter to him, not years ago and clearly not now.
“This doesn’t concern him,” Fiermonte said.
Cat cut in. “It’s all right.”
If Johnny was the soldier in the family, then she was the peacemaker. Interesting how family dynamics can continue, she thought, even between adult children, even when whatever childhood bond you may have had has long since been broken.
Fiermonte backed down, but he wasn’t happy, that much was obvious. And he was nervous, too. But most people were around McVicker, even men with the power of the state behind them.
“Thanks for coming,” she said to Johnny. The last time she had seen him was two years ago, shortly before his trip to Vietnam. She had tried to talk him out of going — what would be gained by retracing their father’s steps? she’d said. Why not just save the money he’d inherited — life insurance, their father’s minor savings, proceeds from the sale of the house in Ossining. Or why not use it to buy a place, like she had? Why the need to burn through it?
But while the allegations that had been leveled against their father had troubled her and caused her career to suffer, Johnny had been all but devastated by them. He’d built his life around the notion of honor and service. And heroics. The Coyle Family Tradition — a long list of fighters going back to the Revolutionary War. Their father’s posthumous disgrace, which followed too quickly the abrupt end to Johnny’s own promising military career, had been a one-two punch that set him back on his heels.
Everything he had believed, plus everything he had worked for — just gone.
“How are you, Cat?” Johnny said. It was a reserved greeting, at best, but she wasn’t expecting anything more.
“I’m fine.”
“Dickey said you needed my help with something.”
It was obvious that Johnny wanted to get down to business, that seeing his sister and asking how she was doing was as much of a family reunion as he was interested in at this moment.
Cat gestured toward Fiermonte. “Actually, we both do.”
Johnny glanced at the man standing behind her.
“Good to see you again, son,” Fiermonte said.
Johnny nodded, respectfully, then looked back at his sister.
In his mind — still a Ranger’s mind — he was counting the minutes till he needed to call Haley.
He has changed, Cat thought. Or, more accurately, he was the Johnny she remembered, only so much more so. Guarded, taciturn, standoffish. A human fortress in every way. She had become accustomed to people — colleagues — treating her coldly, so this disconnect, and the utter loneliness it stirred deep within her, was something she had dealt with many times before.
Still, to get this from Johnny was difficult for her.
“I don’t really have a lot of time,” Johnny said.
Cat nodded. “So let’s get to it.”
She’d brought along a laptop computer and quickly set it up on the metal desk, then stepped aside with Fiermonte so Johnny and McVicker could watch a video playback.
It was grainy surveillance video that showed a motorcycle pulling to a stop on a city street. Color footage, but no sound. A time and date stamp ran along the lower edge of the frame. Today’s date, just shy of one in the morning.
Nearly twelve hours ago.
The camera that had taken this footage was motion-activated — the fact that there was no shot of the empty street prior to the motorcycle entering the frame made that obvious. The helmeted rider backed the motorcycle till its rear tire touched the curb, then lowered the kickstand with his heel and killed the motor. It was after the rider had dismounted that he removed his helmet.
Despite the poor quality of the image, and the limited lighting of the stree
t, Johnny immediately recognized his kid brother.
Leather jacket, jeans, backpack.
Johnny glanced at Cat, then looked back at the screen.
Jeremy had removed his leather gloves and was tucking them inside the helmet. Then he did something that struck Johnny as strange. He looked up and straight into the surveillance camera.
And waved.
Had he parked there on purpose? Had he known the camera would be there? Johnny asked Cat what street this was.
“Clinton, north of Delancey.”
Johnny nodded and continued to watch.
Jeremy exited the frame, then, after a quick cut, reentered it immediately. Johnny read the time stamp. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed from the time Jeremy had exited and reentered.
But now Jeremy was moving fast. His gloves were on but not his helmet. He was still wearing the backpack. He reached the bike and mounted it, scrambled to insert the key and turn the ignition. He was looking at something out of frame, something in the direction from which he had come.
It appeared for a second as if he were about to pull the helmet on, but another quick look in that same direction caused him to drop the helmet to the pavement. Upon landing, its visor broke free, became airborne, and then landed several feet away. Leaning forward and grabbing the handlebars, Jeremy pulled in the clutch with his left hand, stomped the foot peg shifter down into first gear with his left foot, and then released the clutch, cranking the accelerator with his right hand.
His back wheel spun slightly on the wet pavement, the bike fishtailed, but Jeremy expertly eased back on the accelerator and quickly regained control.
A figure entered the frame just as Jeremy sped from it.
A man — a large man. The long bill of a baseball cap obscured his face. In his right hand was a handgun fitted with a suppressor. With his left he kept reaching up and pressing his fingertips to his left eyebrow, then pulling his hand away and looking at it as if he was checking for blood.
The large man exited the frame, too, following Jeremy, then reentered it one more time. According to the time stamp, barely two minutes had passed. The man was running, but he paused to scoop up the helmet, though he either didn’t see the visor a few feet away or didn’t care about it. Johnny noted that the man was no longer carrying his handgun. With the helmet in hand, he continued running and exited the frame.
The Betrayer Page 8
