“You did more than that,” Marty said. “There’s no way you were here and didn’t look around. You’re smarter than that. You’re after something. Tell me what you found.”
“I didn’t find anything. I got out of there.”
“You said Wood killed herself because of you. I know you were there the day she died. I have an eyewitness who saw you leaving her house with a box. Obviously, you threatened her. I want to know with what.”
“We’ll talk about that later.”
“What’s your relationship with Wolfhagen?”
“We’ll talk about that, too.”
“What’s the importance of November 5, 2007?”
Silence.
“Talk to me, or I swear to God I’m out.”
A van passed on the street, taillights burning red. Marty left the living area and stepped back into the cold hallway, his shoes crunching on the broken glass. He removed his paper slippers, shook them and put them in his pocket. It was a moment before Maggie spoke.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll talk to you. But not over the phone. I’ll come there.”
“When?”
“Now. And while you’re waiting, look in Schwartz’s bedroom. Push past the clothes in his closet and see for yourself what we’re up against. You have no idea, Marty. None. You’re close to the truth, but you don’t know all of it. Look in that closet and see what I’ve suspected for years.”
~~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
8:19 p.m.
Marty pocketed the phone, turned on the hall light and took the stairs to the second floor. He looked right and saw the door to Peter Schwartz’s bedroom hanging off its hinges like a broken jaw. Splinters of wood led into and out of the room in concentric half-circles, as though scattered there not by force, but by a careful hand.
Unmoving, he stood just outside the room looking in.
Shafts of yellow light touched down from the opposite window, the bright shards of a wall mirror glinted like a splintered, frozen pond in the center of the embroidered rug, the smell of death, even here. He reached inside for the light switch and turned it on.
Tried to turn it on.
He flipped the switch up and down but nothing happened. No light would shine.
He listened, heard only the air conditioner, the gentle rippling of a curtain he couldn’t see, and removed the penlight from his pocket. He swept the room with the waning amber light and spotted a lamp on the side table next to the window. He went to it and turned it on.
Two bureaus, both with their drawers stuck out like dry wide tongues, were along the wall in front of him. Each had been emptied for inspection, their contents stuffed back haphazardly. The large, unmade bed was beside him, its high pale posts stretching to the ceiling, cream-colored sheets crumpled, pillow cases missing. The door leading to the adjoining bathroom was open. The closet was beside it, its double set of doors shut tight.
Marty went to it, swung open the doors.
Two rows of suits and shirts and folded pants on wooden hangers lined the top and bottom bars. Marty pushed the upper rack of clothes aside. In the sudden rush of air, he smelled the faint, unmistakable scent of leather and rubber--and knew. He parted the lower set of suits and glimpsed a waist-high door painted red against the dark wall. He cleared an area large enough to walk through and turned the black handle. He pushed.
On the street, a car alarm began to scream.
Startled, he glanced over his shoulder, toward the window and listened to the bleating. It was coming from one of the cars parked curbside and he cursed it. Schwartz’s neighbors would be looking out, noting the lighted window, filing it away unknowingly.
He needed to leave, but not before learning what Maggie Cain already knew. He ducked his head and slipped under the lower bar. The door gave easily. A light flashed on automatically, surprising him to the point that he drew his gun. The room was narrow and deep, floor painted black, air heavy and still.
Marty holstered his gun and stood.
Along the pegboard to his left were leather head masks with zippered mouths, full rubber body suits, heavy metal chains and gleaming handcuffs, a coiled noose, a birch switch, nipple clamps, feathers, dildos, knives. In another investigation, he’d seen something like this before. But then, Marty had never seen knives displayed for sexual pleasure, and now he could only guess what Peter Schwartz had done with them. Or what they had done to him.
He stepped deeper into the room, which opened to become surprisingly large and well appointed.
On the wall to his right were file cabinets, a desk with a computer, a telephone and an answering machine. Toward the back was an entertainment center, complete with a massive, flat-screen television, a DVD player, camcorder and stacks of DVDs, each listed in descending order by month and year. Marty scanned the dates, which began in the fall of 2001, and noted with interest that there was no DVD for November 2007. The final DVD was for July, just a month ago.
Marty grabbed it, went to the television, turned it on, popped the DVD into the player, found the remote and hit PLAY.
The screen brightened to a lighter shade of gray and suddenly he was looking at a row of well-fed white men with soft arms and softer stomachs sitting naked on a long wooden bench, their faces concealed with leather hoods.
Above them, a single bare light bulb swung from a black cord, casting shadows, throwing light. The camera panned left and Marty saw the object of their desire--in a large metal cage, a woman was lying naked on a gleaming metal necropsy table. She was young, fit, attractive. Cocooning her in duct tape was an older, powerfully built man, his dark hairy arms rolling her over and over, hoisting up her ass, shooting the tape through and around, pulling it tight. The woman’s lips moved and her head lolled sluggishly. She raised her head and seemed to scream, but there was no sound on this disc, only silence.
Marty clenched his jaw as the camera swung left.
The space was huge, open, industrial. Black walls, floor, ceiling. No windows. Smoke in the air. Strobe lights strummed at the rear of the room, briefly catching the jerky movement of other bodies, all wearing the same leather hoods, all naked and dancing. He thought of Judge Wood, of her naked friends and their dark car, and wondered where they were in this crowd.
The camera panned, stopped and zoomed in on the several people sitting across the room at the makeshift bar. And finally Marty saw faces. He leaned forward and saw faces. The leather hoods had come off and people were sitting on wide wooden stools. The bartender wore a black rubber apron and nothing else. He swung his hips and cracked open beers. He laughed while he served them.
Marty was startled to find that he knew the man, had seen his face time and again on television and in the press. He was Jackie Diamond, the well-known, right-wing, bible-waving, oil-rich, big-nosed senator from Arkansas. He was worth millions, hundreds of millions, and here he was wearing black rubber and serving canned beer to a group of naked men and women probably just as wealthy and as powerful.
The camera panned up and Marty glimpsed the image of a bull painted money-green on the wall above the bar. He pushed pause and the image froze. The bull was enormous and towering. It leaned over Diamond’s shoulder with bulging eyes and flaring nostrils, as though it would tear him apart if given the chance. A gold hoop shot clean through its snout. The rack of spotlights nailed to the ceiling illuminated it in a half-moon. The head was an exact replica of the tattoo he’d seen on Wood.
Marty turned off the television, ejected the disc and put it back in the stack. His hands were trembling. He was beginning to see all of it now. This club wasn’t just New York, it was nationwide and he was right in the middle of it.
He and Maggie Cain.
The car alarm stopped. Marty checked his watch, went to the file cabinets and pulled open the drawers. Empty. He turned on the computer and looked for files. None. They had been purged, the hard disk cleared and reformatted, which wasn’t a problem because the information was still ghosted there, assum
ing the person didn’t fully wipe it.
He opened the desk drawer and found empty folders, pens, pencils, a stack of printing paper, the usual. But what, if anything, had been in those folders? And why leave behind the DVDs? He checked himself. Why leave behind every DVD save for the one marked November 2007? It was no coincidence the disc was missing--November 5, 2007 had been scrawled in blood above Wood’s bed. He knew what was on it--more of what he’d just seen on the July DVD. Whoever took it obviously was on it. They didn’t want to be seen.
Was it Maggie Cain? She’d just been here. But not long ago, so had the person who killed Schwartz. So who took it?
He checked his watch. Forty minutes had passed and still she wasn’t here, and yet she said she was only three blocks away. He couldn’t wait for her. He’d already been here too long. He turned off the lights, slipped through the small door that was in Schwartz’s closet and stood in his bedroom.
And when he did, he was forced to rear back.
Facing him were two people--a man and a woman.
Marty went for his gun but the woman moved forward with such speed, he couldn’t get to it in time. She wrenched his arm behind his back and the man came forward. He removed the gun from Marty’s holster, patted him down and nodded once at the woman, who released Marty and said, “We will kill you if you move.”
She had an accent. Spanish? He looked at the man. Italian? “Who are you?”
The man cocked his head. “Mr. Spellman, we’re the end of your life.”
~~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
8:37 p.m.
For Spocatti, Spellman was just the beginning of a long night.
He appraised the man standing in front of him and could sense him trying to calculate a way out of the situation. Spellman was solid and well-built, and Spocatti sensed he probably was quick on his feet. But right now, without his gun, he was powerless. “Sit over there.”
“Which chair?”
“The chintz,” Spocatti said. “You couldn’t pull off the Stickley.”
He watched Spellman cross to the chair and sit down.
“Before I kill you, you’re going to answer some questions.”
“Before you kill me, I’m answering nothing.”
“Not quite.” He looked at Carmen, who was standing beside him, her hands on her hips. “Make the call.”
She withdrew her cell and Spocatti watched Spellman lean forward as she dialed. She put the phone on speaker and they listened to the ring. And then Spellman’s daughter, Katie, answered the phone.
“Hello?”
Spocatti drew his gun, pointed it at Spellman’s head and put a finger to his lips. “Is this Katie?”
“Who’s this?”
“A friend of your father’s.”
“Which friend?”
“It’s Mark,” he said. “We met a year or so ago at your sister’s birthday party. I was wondering if I could speak to your mother?”
“She’s out.”
“Oh,” he said. “Do you know how long she’ll be?”
“She’s with the creep,” Katie said. “We were told ten. I’m betting midnight.”
“That’s several hours away,” he said, disappointed. “And my wife and I are about to leave the city. Here’s what’s up. Your father is on a case and he wanted me to get you something quickly. He said it was important. If we stop by on our way to the airport, would you mind ringing my wife up so she can give it to you?”
She hesitated. “I’m not allowed to do that.”
“Can you call your mother and ask?”
“My mother only wants to be reached if it’s an emergency.”
Spocatti was unfazed. “I see,” he said. “Well, this isn’t one.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
He locked eyes with Spellman. “Look,” he said. “I’m supposed to keep quiet about this, but time is running out and we need to catch our flight. Can you keep a secret?”
“I guess.”
“Our dog had puppies a few weeks ago and your dad bought one for you and your sister. He wanted to bring it by tonight, but he got hung up and so he asked us to do it instead. He knows we’re leaving town for a few weeks and he didn’t want you to wait.”
“Dad bought us a puppy?” The thrill in her voice was unmistakable.
“He did.”
“What kind?”
“I can’t give away everything,” he said with a laugh. “Do you mind if we drop by? You can see what it is then. I’ll be in the car, but Michelle, my wife, will run the dog up to you.”
The moment Katie agreed, Carmen snapped the cell phone shut. Spocatti ignored the tension on Spellman’s face and looked at Carmen. “You know the address. Go there and wait. I’ll call you if he doesn’t cooperate.”
“I’ll cooperate.”
They turned to Spellman.
“What do you want from me?”
“It’s simple,” Spocatti said. “We need Maggie Cain. We know she hired you. We know there’s an investigation. Tell us where she is.”
“I wish I knew.”
“Bad answer.”
“It’s the only answer I’ve got. I don’t know where she is.”
“Then call her and tell her to meet you here. Tell her what happened to Peter and that you need her here immediately. Tell her it’s critical.”
“Do you want to reach for my cell or do you want me to do it?”
Carmen walked over to him as he stood. She dipped her hand into his pants pocket and pulled out the phone, but not before copping a feel. She looked at Spocatti. “I know where to shoot him first. You can’t miss it.”
“Just hand him the phone, Carmen.”
She did.
“Is she at home or is she out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Call her at home first,” Spocatti said. “Put the phone on speaker. If she answers, do what I told you to do.”
They watched him dial. Outside, on the street, there was the faint sound of an ambulance.
The phone rang. Standing there, in the darkness, they listened to it while the ambulance’s lights started to illuminate the street. It was a ways off, but its siren was growing louder. Spocatti nodded at Carmen, who went to the windows across the room and looked out. She craned her head into an awkward position and said, “I can’t see it.”
Maggie’s phone picked up. It was the answering machine. Her voice was barely audible above the ambulance’s alarm. “This is Maggie. Please leave a message.”
Spocatti reached over and snapped the phone shut. “Dial her cell.”
He looked over at Carmen and saw the ambulance’s sweeping red lights start to whip across her face. “What’s going on, Carmen?”
“I can see the lights, but I can’t see the ambulance.”
“Tell me when you can.”
“It’s the city, Vincent. Relax. People die.”
“You don’t say?”
The ambulance’s wail grew to a roar.
“I can see it now,” she said.
Spellman held out the phone as it started to ring.
“It’s not stopping here. It’s going too fast. It’s going to turn onto Fifth.”
And in that moment, just as the ambulance raced past the windows with its sirens screaming, Carmen Gragera crumbled in front of them and dropped to the ground.
* * *
For Marty, the next few moments came in waves.
From the doorway next to the windows, Maggie Cain rolled into the room, kicked the woman’s gun across the floor, lifted her own gun and started firing at the man named Vincent, but not before he dropkicked Marty and sent him flying over a chair. Marty went down with it, his cell slipped beneath him and he landed on top of it.
He was on his back.
He looked up to the sounds of muted gunfire and watched strobes of light reverberate off the walls. Maggie Cain was coming across the room, her gun poised in front of her, the determination on her face captured each time she fired.
With surprise on her side, she was shooting repeatedly at the man, but missing. He was taking his own shots at her, but missing. The room was too large and too dark to allow for accuracy, but with the chance for death so ripe, the space nevertheless was bright with fight.
Marty reached beneath him for the phone, tried to dial 911, couldn’t. He broke it when he fell.
There was another shot and this time the man reared back, the gun in his right hand now covering a wound on his left arm.
Maggie closed in. She fired again and this time a portion of the wall behind him exploded into bits of plaster. As a wavering white veil drifted up to consume him, the man stood at the center of it, his head turning to the door to his right.
Behind them came a groan.
The woman named Carmen was attempting to stand in front of the windows, but her balance was off. In the city light, Marty could see blood on her head, confusion in her eyes. She was clutching her side. Instinct lifted her up.
As she struggled to her feet, the man rushed out of the room, his hand over his arm, Maggie Cain racing after him, still shooting even as he ran down the hallway, took to the stairs and fled from the building.
Marty was about to run over to Carmen and tackle her for questioning when Maggie Cain rushed back into the room.
“Leave her,” she said. “This place is about to be filled with cops and I can’t be associated with any of it. I need you to move, Marty--now!”
* * *
Deep in shadow and halfway down the street, where he was concealed behind the back of a Mercedes SUV, Spocatti watched the front door of Peter Schwartz’s building open slowly before Spellman rushed out the building with Maggie Cain close behind him. He could see their guns in their hands. He knew they would shoot if provoked.
Running of the Bulls Page 18
