by R. G. Belsky
“And in addition to diverting me from the Reyes story you didn’t want me doing, you got a bonus out of it. I wound up uncovering a whole other story about Eric Mathis, the son of the man who wrote the book. And when that story fell apart, when the whole Kennedy angle and the case against Eric Mathis collapsed, it made your boss, Police Commissioner Ray Piersall, look foolish and incompetent. This likely will cost him his job. Which is a career boost for you. Because your name wasn’t connected to any of this, you weren’t the one out front taking the blame like he was. I don’t think that’s why you did it. I think you did it because you were so desperate to keep me away from the Reyes story. But what the hell, it all turned out perfectly for you on every level. You’re going to be the next police commissioner. It was win-win for you all around, Deputy Commissioner. You got everything you wanted. But that’s the way it always works out for you, isn’t it? You always get what you want.”
Lawton sat there impassively. If I’d shaken him up, he sure didn’t show it. I might have been discussing the weather or the stock market or the chances for the Yankees to win another championship for all the concern he showed in his face.
“The funny thing is, I think the Kennedy book is real,” I said. “I think Oswald really did come up with new evidence on the JFK assassination.
“I figure you and Nikki assumed he was some kind of a nut and you were just using him to get what you wanted from me. But the guy nailed it. He really did prove that Oswald couldn’t have killed Kennedy. That he wasn’t even in Dallas when the assassination occurred. After fifty years, we now have the proof that the Warren Commission and everyone else we believed about the JFK assassination were wrong. The killer is still out there somewhere, or at least never got apprehended.
“We could start all over again and maybe find out this time what actually happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963. I wanted to do that. I wanted to solve the biggest crime story of our times. I wanted to rewrite history. But not anymore. No one would ever listen to me now even if I did nail the damn assassination story.
“And you know what? No one else will believe Oswald’s book either because he’s been caught up in all this mess too. Even though he had nothing to do with it. He just got caught up in all the lies. His son Eric too, and that cost Eric his life.
“So now we will never know any of the answers about Kennedy. But the basic premise—that Oswald’s father couldn’t have killed Kennedy because he wasn’t even in Dallas that day—is still true. Except no one will pay attention to that either. That might be the biggest tragedy out of all this.”
Lawton didn’t say anything for a long time.
“Have you talked to anyone else about these ridiculous ideas of your?” he asked finally.
“No.”
“Will you?”
“It wouldn’t do any good, would it?”
“Because nobody believes anything you say anymore.”
“That’s right.”
“You’re damaged goods, Malloy. Accuracy challenged, as you put it.”
“Just another aspect of your little plan that worked. No one will believe something as far-fetched as this. But you and I know it’s true, don’t we? C’mon, admit it. Just the two of us sitting here . . .”
Lawton snorted contemptuously.
“Are you wearing a wire or something, Malloy?”
“I’m not wearing a wire.”
“Trying to get me on tape saying something you can use to back up these crazy ideas of yours?”
I stood up and unbuttoned my shirt to show him that there was no wire, no recording equipment of any kind.
“Want me to drop my pants too?”
“Doesn’t matter. Whether you’re trying to record me or not, I couldn’t care less. You’re the one doing all the talking. Not me.”
Lawton smiled now. Not a friendly smile anymore. A scary smile.
“Hypothetically speaking, though, let’s say that everything you just told me is true. It’s not, of course. I deny everything. Quite frankly, I think you’re delusional and probably need some sort of professional help. But even if it were true, there’s no way for you to ever prove it. No evidence whatsoever to back up any of your preposterous claims about me doing any of these things. The Kennedy half-dollars. The letter to you. Nothing to prove I had anything to do with them.”
“You’re right about that.”
“So then why are we wasting time here talking about Nikki Reynolds and Lee Harvey Oswald Jr. and Kennedy half-dollars and fake letters and all the rest of this nonsense? Without evidence, you have nothing. If you try to make these absurd accusations against me, all I have to do is point out your stunning and appalling lack of credibility in the past.”
“That’s right too.”
“So I think we’re done here.”
“Not exactly.”
“What else do you and I have to talk about?”
“Victor Reyes.”
“Victor Reyes?”
“Yes. The story I started on. A story I should have been doing all along. The real story here. I might not have any evidence connecting you with the Kennedy story, but I think there’s something still out there on Victor Reyes you don’t want me to know. That’s the story I’m going to find out the answers to. Victor Reyes.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure, you do. That’s why you killed Roberto Santiago.”
For the first time, Lawton looked worried. I let that last statement hang out there for a few seconds.
Then finally I stood up and started walking toward the door.
But, before I left, I turned around and said to Lawton:
“You got rid of Santiago, but you didn’t get rid of his files. I’ve got those files now, the files with everything Santiago found out about you in connection with the Reyes shooting before you killed Santiago. And those files are what I’m going to use to bring you down. First, for the Reyes shooting. And then the whole house of cards will come tumbling down for you. Santiago was a good cop. He would have nailed you for this, if he’d lived. And now I’m going to finish the job. All the evidence I need to put you behind bars for Reyes is in that file. And once I release the information in Santiago’s files, there’s nothing that can save you. You’ll find that out soon enough.”
Chapter 50
I WASN’T SURE LAWTON would come after me. He might really believe that I was no threat to him anymore. That I was so discredited at this point that no one would believe anything I said, even if it were true. But Lawton had come after Reyes when he perceived him as a threat. He’d come after Santiago too fifteen years later to make sure his secrets never came out. And, I now believed, he would come after anyone else who ever stood in his way on his rise up the police department hierarchy. I was betting that Lawton would come after me now after my little performance in his office.
There was no evidence that could nail Lawton in Santiago’s files, of course.
But Lawton didn’t know that.
And if he thought there was something in those files that could hurt him, he’d need to get his hands on them before I could make them public.
I wasn’t sure how he might do it. He’d used a gun on Reyes. A speeding car on Santiago. Which meant he might shoot me or run me over in the street, or maybe both. Or maybe something else entirely.
So after that day in his office, I started looking over my shoulder everywhere I went. And I made a point of getting out a lot to make myself visible to Lawton if he was somewhere waiting for me. I went to the store. I went to the bank. I took long walks on the streets of Manhattan, giving him plenty of chances to make his move.
But then, when he did, it wasn’t what I expected.
Or where I expected.
I let myself into my apartment, carrying a collection of the day’s newspapers. The Post, New York Times, even the
Daily News. Hell, old habits die hard. I’d been planning on making a few other stops too, but I remembered I needed to drop my laundry off at the cleaner on the corner. I went back to my apartment to get it.
In my apartment, the first thing I noticed was that lights were on. I didn’t leave them on. The next thing I knew I was shoved against the wall of the living room by someone who emerged from behind a piece of furniture. I screamed in pain and fell to the floor. He was standing there now. Looking down at me. With a gun in his hand. It took me a few seconds to clear my head and actually see who it was. But of course I already knew that.
“Where are the files, asshole?” Brad Lawton asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Santiago’s files.”
“I lied about that.”
He smashed me across the face with the gun. I started to black out but somehow held onto consciousness by a thread.
“I can do this all day, smart guy,” Lawton said. “In fact, I’d love to do it all day. Is that what you want? So let’s try this one more time, Malloy. Where are Santiago’s files on Reyes?”
I pointed toward the bedroom. He marched me in there ahead of him and the gun.
“You know, I figured you’d be out of the house longer,” Lawton said as we walked. “I was watching you. When you left, I assumed you’d be gone long enough for me to get in here and be gone before you even knew it. I wasn’t ready for you to show up back here so quickly.”
“The best laid plans sometimes go awry,” I said, trying to fight off the nausea and pain running through me. “Just like your plan to cover up the shooting of Victor Reyes. You’re screwing up all over the place, Lawton.”
He hit me again with the gun, on the back of the head this time. A glancing blow. There wasn’t any intention to hit me as hard as the first time. Just to remind me who was in charge here. Not that I needed any reminder of that at the moment.
“Gimme the damn file, everything you’ve collected,” he growled.
I had a desk in the bedroom with a file cabinet next to it. I took some papers off the top of the desk and handed them to him.
“This is it?” he asked.
“That’s everything.”
He walked to the filing cabinet and opened the drawers. He grabbed a handful of files, smiling as he looked at the name Reyes on the covers, and put them under his arm. Then he went through the rest of the drawers to make sure there was nothing else on Reyes. There wasn’t. He had it all.
“This is all about your ambition, isn’t it?” I said. “Always has been.”
Lawton smiled. Cool. Calm. Completely in control. Just like he’d been back in his office when I talked to him.
“You don’t care if a few people get hurt along the way. Like Victor Reyes.”
I needed to shake him up. Get him to lose his cool somehow. I wanted to hear the truth from Lawton, no matter what happened next.
“You were afraid Reyes might screw up your big career plan if he got into the Police Academy.”
“Can you believe that? A guy like him actually thought he could be on the police force.”
“So you shot him because you were afraid he might spill the beans about what you were doing with the gangs in the Bronx.”
“I didn’t shoot Reyes,” he said calmly. “I just didn’t want anyone looking into his death because I was afraid they might stumble onto the drug thing after all these years. But I didn’t shoot Reyes. No matter what you think you know . . .”
I shrugged.
“The bottom line is that you built your whole damn career on stealing those drugs from the evidence room back in the Bronx. How does that make you feel about yourself, Lawton?”
His face showed some emotion for the first time. Somehow, he still thought he was a good cop at heart. He didn’t like it when anyone questioned that.
“I saved hundreds of lives in the Bronx by what I did, using those drugs to get information off the street and make big drug busts.”
I decided to keep pushing.
“The great Brad Lawton,” I sneered. “Nothing but a corrupt cop.”
“I am not a corrupt cop!” he shouted at me.
“You’re a disgrace to the uniform,” I said.
“Don’t call me a corrupt cop . . .”
“Fuck you!” I said.
Lawton’s face contorted in rage.
“I am not a corrupt cop,” he bellowed. “You have no idea what it’s like on the street. You can’t always follow the rules. Play it by the book. Not if you want to win. And I always win. Goddamn it, Reyes was one lousy kid. I was saving an entire city. I made that judgment then, and I’d make it again. And there’s still so much more that I can accomplish. So many things I can do for the department, for the city.”
It sounded like a campaign speech. I remembered Susan telling me that people were talking about Lawton as a future mayor, and I could see that right now. I could also see how completely delusional and self-justifying he was about himself—and anything he did—somehow convincing himself that the ends justified the means no matter what if they helped to put Brad Lawton in power.
“The only place you’re going is to jail,” I said defiantly.
Lawton stormed over to where I was standing and smashed me across the side of the head with the gun butt. Hard this time. Even harder than the first blow, which had knocked me silly. I lost consciousness briefly, I think, the blackness enveloping me as I lay there on my bedroom floor trying desperately to fight it. Finally, my head cleared a bit and I looked up to see him grinning down at me. I wanted to hurt him back. I wanted to kill him for what he’d done to Reyes and Santiago. But I could barely move. So I just lay there, resigned to my fate.
“So what happens now?” I asked finally.
“What happens now is that I’m going to wind up on the front page of your old newspaper. When I’m announced as the new police commissioner. I plan to be on the front page of the Daily News a lot.”
“You’ll never get away with it,” I said. “No matter what you do to me, someone will put everything together. Santiago figured it out. I did too. Nikki Reynolds knows—or at least suspects you of something—based on the Kennedy stuff. There’s no way you’re ever gonna be able to pull this off without getting caught.”
“Well, Santiago’s not going to tell anyone,” he laughed.
“Because you killed him.”
“Santiago was killed by a drunk driver.”
“You set up that guy to take the fall.”
Lawton shrugged. “Like George Sledzec is going to be any loss to society.”
“Well, Nikki . . .”
“Nikki? You didn’t hear about Nikki? Poor woman took too many sleeping pills. They found her dead in bed. Or at least they will in the morning.”
“Jesus . . .”
Brad Lawton was getting rid of all the possible links between himself and the Reyes and Kennedy cases.
“So what about me?” I asked him.
He walked over to the open window in my living room and looked down at the street below. He kept the gun pointed at me.
“What are we here?” he asked. “About a dozen floors up?”
“Eleven.”
“Good enough.”
“Good enough for what?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“You’ve been depressed. You lost your job. Your career is over. You have nothing to live for. So you commit suicide right here in your apartment. You jump out a window because you can’t stand the pain of your failure anymore. I don’t think I’ll have much trouble selling that story to anyone, including your old paper, Malloy.”
I had left the window open that day like I usually did. I could hear the sounds of the street below. A few minutes ago, I’d been down on that street safe and sound. Now I was cornered by a psy
chopathic killer with a gun. I tried to keep him talking. For a lot of reasons, but one of them was I didn’t much care for the alternatives.
“Two suicides? Me and Nikki? Don’t you think someone will get suspicious?”
“There’s no real link between you and Nikki.”
“So I’m the last person you need to get rid of?”
“Just one more.”
I knew who he meant. “Carrie Bratten.”
“That’s right.”
“You were the one who told her about the Kennedy half-dollars. You were her secret source. Sooner or later, she’ll put it all together like I did. She’ll go public with that information and then—”
“No, she won’t. Because she’s going to have a little accident too. Poor girl likes to drink a lot. People who drink a lot sometimes have accidents.”
“And once we’re all gone—Nikki, Carrie, and me—you figure that no one will ever find out what you did on the Reyes and the Kennedy cases?
“Uh-huh.”
“There’s only one problem with that theory of yours.”
“What’s that?”
“They’ve been following me,” I said to him now.
“Who?”
“The police.”
“Right.
“I’m serious. I figured you’d make a move like this. That’s why I went to your office again. You can kill me if you want, but that’s another murder they’ll hang on you as soon as you walk out that door. And unlike Reyes and Santiago, this one will stick.”
