“There are a hundred other private investigators you could call in for this,” I said. “I can give you some recommendations.”
“But I don’t know what it is they’re going to uncover.”
“If they’re any good, it’ll be the same thing I’d uncover.”
She released the collar. “What I mean is, I don’t know what they’ll do with the information once they have it. I really don’t want strangers rooting about in my son’s personal life.”
“So then you do want me because I’m family.”
She recrossed her legs with military swiftness. “You enjoy being difficult?”
“I’m just trying to get us both on the same page. You want me to snoop on Paul to see why he’s getting into fights and can’t sleep. You want to be able to tell me to keep my mouth shut about it when I find out what he’s up to. And the reason I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut is because Paul and I share the same father. But I’m not supposed to view this as snooping on my own flesh and blood.”
“You could care less about Paul,” she said flatly.
“It might not be an affair. It might be something else. I just need to warn you that investigations don’t always go where the client thinks they’ll go. If I were to uncover something unsavory or illegal, why would I be inclined to keep quiet about it?”
“Because I asked you to.”
“I see.”
“I would be your client. I would be the one paying you for your services.”
“No family favors.”
“I’m not family.”
I gave my head a scratch. “The overall logic is a little shaky.”
“I’ll pay you in cash, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I still accept cash. Fits so snugly in my wallet.”
“Good. Then we have a deal.” She sealed her own conclusion with a sharp nod.
I asked, “Does Paul know that this is why I’m here?”
“I didn’t say anything to him about your visit.”
“You knew that I was coming today at noon. You didn’t go out of your way to keep him from seeing that I was coming by to speak with you.”
She turned her palms to the ceiling. “Let him wonder. That’s not really important. What’s important is that you find out what he’s up to and I’m able to see to it that he stops doing it.”
“He’s a grown man,” I reminded her.
She considered me a moment. “You do remind me of Harlan.”
“What would he have done in a situation like this?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
I did. “The old-school method,” I said. “He would have grabbed Paul by the ankles and dangled him from an upstairs window until he coughed up the goods.”
“Precisely.”
“But you’re going to count on my tact and delicacy?”
“Your tact.”
“And what about my delicacy?”
The high-priced psychiatrist gave a closed-lipped smile. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about your delicacy.”
11
NIGHTMARE WAS ONE BALLSY PIECE OF WORK. MAYBE BRILLIANT. Maybe naively stupid. Reckless, to be sure. Contemptuous of authority. An attention hound. Insecure. Angry. Vainglorious. Deluded. And he liked to dress up in nuns’ clothing.
Phyllis was right: could be anyone.
There are several fairly standard ways of handling a money drop. Often the person making the demand will designate a somewhat remote area where he (it’s usually a he) can get a decent sense of who’s lurking nearby. In the case of kidnapping, the kidnapper is holding the plumb card. So long as the hostage is still being held, no one is going to swoop down on the kidnapper in the middle of the pickup.
But in this case, Nightmare’s hostage wasn’t a single frightened person who was going to be released on a random street corner once the money had been paid and the kidnapper had safely blended back into the woodwork. It was the entire city. Or if it was one person, it was New York City Mayor Martin Leavitt. Whichever way you wanted to look at it, Nightmare held all the cards. And like I said, the way he was playing them was ballsy, brilliant, stupid and reckless all at once.
He wanted the hand-off to be done at the Cloisters Museum in the middle of a crowded holiday weekend.
In the coat-check room.
See? Ballsy.
“WHAT AN IDIOT,” MARGO SAID. “YOU GRAB HIM RIGHT THERE. OR you follow him and grab him later. He’s putting himself right in your hands.”
And I was putting a calamari right in my mouth. It was a tad overcooked-when I chewed, it chewed back. Calamari is tricky that way. It either melts in your mouth or it refuses to go down without a struggle. I had a pilsner glass of Carlsberg Elephant at hand to help subdue the calamari. Across the small table, Margo was confronting a spinach salad of Olympian proportions. She seemed uncertain where to start.
Margo and I were in the back room of Miss Elle’s Homesick Bar and Grill on West Seventy-ninth Street. Except Miss Elle had recently sold the place to a mystery writer named Dorian, and now the sign out front said Dorian’s. But it still looked like Miss Elle’s, the food still tasted like Miss Elle’s, and the hurly-burly crowd of regulars at the small bar in the front were Miss Elle’s regulars. So what’s in a name? It was still a duck.
Margo was reminding me of Tinker Bell today, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. Technically speaking, there’s nothing remotely Tinker Bellish about her.
“Can’t do it,” I said to her. “His note made it clear that if anyone tries to grab him at the museum, or if he’s picked up later, we’ll be seeing another bloody mess.”
“If you nab him, how can he do anything?”
“For starters, he could rig himself with explosives. We know he has the means. He could blow. But even if it’s not that, we have to worry about another accomplice.”
“You mean you can’t pick him up because he might have instructed someone that if you do, they should wreak havoc again somewhere else in the city. Preferably where there are big crowds.”
Margo was wearing a sort of leafy green blouse. Maybe that’s why I was thinking of Tinker Bell. But maybe not.
“Exactly. The guy has a built-in insurance policy.”
“But that’s ridiculous. If you follow that line of logic, then you’re talking about a person with total immunity. He could walk around the city with a sandwich board announcing, ‘I’m the crazed killer! But nobody touch me or else!’ ”
“That’s funny,” I said.
“What’s so funny about it? It’s horrible.”
“No. That you said sandwich board. Phyllis mentioned a sandwich board earlier.”
“A riot.”
“Two mentions of sandwich boards in one afternoon? And they went out of common use before you or I were even born.”
“Cosmic.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Mo. You go from pretty to gorgon.”
“That’s nice. You’re calling me a gorgon.”
“Figure of speech.”
“Not really.”
“In a way.”
“Then so is ‘sandwich board.’ ”
I picked up my Elephant. “Are we entering into an argument?”
“If we are, it would be one our silliest.”
“What say we skip it? You are so far from a gorgon that the very idea makes me choke up with laughter.”
Margo buried her fork deep within her spinach. “You look pretty calm to me.”
The drop-off was to take place the following day. Saturday. Two o’clock, when the museum would be gagged with people. The mayor was being forced to play the tie game again. This time he was supposed to wear a green one. The note that had been fetched from the horizontal cooler at the Gristedes said that if Mayor Leavitt was ready to agree to the conditions of the rendezvous at the museum, he was to make an appearance on the six o’clock local news wearing a green tie. He was further instructed to include the word “Wisconsin” in his appearance.
> We got the check. Margo had managed to eat most of her spinach salad. She had formed what remained into a little pyramid in the center of her plate. “Why Wisconsin?” she asked as I was calculating the tip.
“Who knows? Maybe the guy is telling us where he was born. All we’ve got to do is question every person in the five boroughs who was born in Wisconsin. Or maybe it’s for no good reason at all. The tie should be enough. It could just be part of the guy’s game. Jerking Leavitt around.”
The waitress came over and I handed her the check and the cash.
Margo asked, “Did you leave a good tip?”
The waitress was still standing at the table. I looked up at her. “Maybe you could answer that for me.”
The waitress blushed.
Margo blushed, too. “Oops.”
“You need to have your timing adjusted, sweetie,” I said.
The waitress was flipping through the bills. “This looks fine. Thanks.”
She left. Margo reached across the table and finished the last small sip of my beer. “That just popped out. Sorry.”
“You can trust me. I’m a big tipper.”
“I know you are. Sorry. So anyway. Wisconsin. How’s Leavitt going to make a sound bite around the word ‘Wisconsin’?”
“I’m sure he’s got his best and brightest working on it. He told me that he’s going to award a commendation to Leonard Cox this afternoon at around four-thirty. He’ll get media coverage for sure.”
“Do you think this guy will actually do something if he doesn’t hear ‘Wisconsin’?”
“Probably not, that’s the thing. He’s just playing Leavitt’s nerves like a harp.”
Margo frowned. “Ugly imagery.”
She skidded her chair back from the table and stood up. Beneath the leafy green blouse, she was wearing a simple black skirt. Beneath the skirt were Margo’s pale legs, poked into a pair of calf-high brown leather boots. As I rose from the table she trained her eyes on me and she pressed her palms against her hips, running her hands down along them several times as I rose from the table.
Pretty imagery.
12
I BROUGHT MARGO WITH ME TO ST. LUKE’S TO MEET REBECCA GILPIN. The cop posted at the door to the actress’s hospital room was none other than the black officer who’d bagged me-literally-the day before.
“Remember me?” I said to him. “I was the kid with the lollipop in your backseat.”
He indicated my shoulder. “We didn’t do that.”
I ducked my head and gingerly removed the sling. I gave the shoulder a few cautious swivels. The muscles weren’t exactly baby fresh, but the level of ache was acceptable. I was sick of the sling already. You look like an invalid, you begin to feel like an invalid. I balled it up and handed it to a male nurse who was passing by. “I found this on the floor.”
Margo asked, “Isn’t that a little premature?”
“I didn’t want it to go stiff from non-use.”
Margo looked at me blankly. Then her cheeks went red. “I just had a naughty thought.”
“Save it.”
This time I got the policeman’s name. It was a lot easier without a bag on my head. The name was right there on the gold bar above his shirt pocket. Patrick Noon. An expression of cautious distrust appeared to be Officer Noon’s mien.
“I’m here to see the lady,” I told him.
“No one sees the lady.”
“I’m not no one. I’m her former bodyguard.”
“No one sees the lady.”
“If you’d just pop your head in and tell her I’m here, I’ll bet-”
He cut me off. “No one sees the lady.”
I turned to Margo. “Is this station beginning to bore you?”
She blinked slowly. “No one sees the lady.”
I was surrounded by pod people.
“Ask her,” I said again to Noon. “Tell her Fritz Malone is here.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got my orders.”
“From Tommy Carroll?”
“It doesn’t matter from who.”
I turned to Margo. “I guess you don’t get to meet the famous star of stage and screen.”
“Officer Noon is only doing his job,” Margo said.
I was just about to ask Noon if he would at least pass on a message from me to Miss Gilpin when the male nurse reappeared. He was carrying a plastic IV bag.
“Excuse me,” he said, and the officer moved to the side. I took a step in the other direction as the nurse opened the door. I could see Rebecca Gilpin in the far corner of the room, propped up in bed. She spotted me and raised a hand in greeting just before the nurse slid the door closed. A few seconds later, the door reopened and the nurse popped his head out. “She wants to see you.”
I turned to Noon. “Who’d have thunk?”
“Five minutes.”
The actress was medicated to the teeth. The smile she tried to give me as I approached the bed nearly poured off her face. She was as pale as her hospital gown. Her right leg was wrapped like a mummy’s and elevated slightly on several pillows. A bandage covered her left cheek.
“You are, thank you… it’s… my thank you.” Clouds drifted across her eyes.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Listen, I brought a friend to meet you.”
“This was wrong, Fritz,” Margo said. “I shouldn’t be here.” She addressed Rebecca. “Miss Gilpin, I’m sorry for what happened. Best of luck for a speedy recovery.” She turned to me. “I’ll wait in the hall.” She left the room.
The nurse was changing Rebecca’s IV bag. “How’s she doing?” I asked him.
“There’s a lot of pain. The leg’s a real mess.”
Rebecca said, “The bastard who did me I can kill him with…” The rest of her sentence came in an unknown tongue. A pool of tears appeared in each of her eyes. I took hold of the hand nearest me. She closed icy fingers around mine. “I’m beautiful,” she muttered.
“Yes, you are.”
Out in the corridor, Margo was entertaining Officer Noon with her story about getting smashed on martinis with the queen of Denmark while she was interviewing her in a suite at the Plaza several years ago. Margo loves that story. Any one of a hundred cue words will get her rolling with it. Even Noon appeared to be softened up by it.
“You could charm the pants off a statue, couldn’t you?” I said to Margo as we waited for the elevator.
“I wouldn’t want to.”
The elevator arrived. It was the size of some New York apartments.
“Wait,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I retraced my steps. Patrick Noon watched me with a wary eye as I approached. “I was just wondering,” I said as I reached him. “Are they going to spell you for the ceremony this afternoon?”
“What ceremony?”
“Cox. The mayor is planning to fawn all over him for allegedly taking out Diaz in Central Park. I was just wondering if you were going to be there?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Nice irony, isn’t it? A cop forgets to do something as basic as pat down a suspect he’s taking into custody, and the next day he’s a hero.”
Noon said nothing.
“I’m just curious. Were you and your partner even on the scene yesterday? I mean officially? Are you supposed to be going along as so-called witnesses to Cox’s so-called shooting Diaz out there by the fountain?”
Noon’s eyes left my face for a fraction of a second. His glance took in the empty corridor. “We weren’t there.”
“Officially.”
He nodded. “That’s right.”
“What do you think about the story of Cox’s shooting Diaz up in the Municipal Building?”
“What am I supposed to think about it?”
“If you’re like me, you’re thinking that Cox was speedy on the draw in direct proportion to Diaz being pathetically slow.” Noon said nothing. “I put myself in Diaz’s position, and I think of at least two things I would ha
ve done. The second one is I’m sitting in that room with my pistol out and already aimed at the door five seconds after Carroll leaves me alone. I’m ready to shoot the moment it opens.”
Noon appeared to concede the point. He weighed it with a little ticktock of his head. “What’s the first?”
“The first is I never get into that room in the first place. I’ve just shot up the Thanksgiving Day parade. I’ve killed innocent people. I’ve killed a cop. I’m in custody in a police cruiser with the cop’s partner. I’m screwed six ways to Sunday. But I’ve got a Tomcat strapped to my ankle. I don’t give a damn if I’m cuffed behind my back, I get to the damn gun. I twist around in the seat any possible way I can and I shoot like hell through the gate. I take my chances.”
Noon considered the scenario. Or maybe he was considering what he was going to have for dinner later that night. The man was hard to read.
“Interesting,” he said at last.
“I think so, too. Either of my two stories sounds more likely than Commissioner Carroll’s account. For one thing, why uncuff him and then recuff him with a hand free?”
“You cuff him to a solid object,” Noon said. “That’s procedure. You don’t want him able to move around the room.”
“But you don’t want him to be able to reach for a gun and try to shoot you.”
“They didn’t know about the gun.”
“Right. Of course. Listen. Do you know this Cox guy?” I asked. “I mean, personally?”
“Cox and I are from different precincts.”
“What’s yours?” I asked.
“The Seventeenth.”
“What about Cox and McNally? I heard a reporter asking if they were from the Ninety-fifth.”
Noon hesitated before answering. “That’s right.”
“The Bad Apple precinct. What were they doing all the way in Manhattan?”
“Parade duty,” Noon said. “Overtime. You get cops from all boroughs.”
“So you’re not familiar with Cox? You don’t really know him?”
“Are you a lawyer or just a pest?”
“What did Carroll say to the three of you when you were hanging around the Municipal Building? Before he and Cox went inside.”
Speak of the Devil Page 10
