Killed in Action

by Michael Sloan

  CHAPTER 16

  McCall’s iPhone vibrated. He looked at the caller ID and pulled over. He glanced up in the rearview mirror. He didn’t see the following car, but he knew they’d have also pulled over.

  “This is McCall.”

  He could barely hear Tara Langley’s voice over the pounding music behind it.

  “I’m at another of those rave parties. It’s in a warehouse down at the Bowery. I followed Blake Cunningham here. If he follows his usual MO, he’ll be here for a couple of hours, checking out the babes. This is the first time he’s deviated from his mind-numbingly boring routine. Where are you?”

  “In Virginia.”

  “I picked up Melody at Dolls and brought her here, but I haven’t let her go inside yet. I need more backup and you’re too far away.”

  “I’ll get the backup there. I can be with you in just over an hour.”

  “So you do have a superhero suit under your clothes with a cape.”

  McCall had to smile. “What’s the address of the warehouse?”

  Tara gave it to him. He described Mike Gammon to her, hung up, and called Gammon. He got him on the third ring and told him what he needed. McCall expected to have to explain what was happening, but Gammon just asked for the rave party address and Melody’s description. Then he hung up. McCall called one more number, then pulled away from the side of the road, and this time he did lose the tailing car.

  Hayden Vallance met him at a small airfield on Wakefield Street near Arlington. He had a Citation Mustang private jet waiting on the tarmac. He didn’t ask McCall any questions either. He hadn’t when he’d flown McCall to Prague some weeks before, where McCall had stopped an assassin from killing the secretary of state and, as a bonus, the president of the United States. Vallance was a mercenary who’d been recommended by Granny. McCall buckled himself into the passenger seat. Vallance stepped into the cockpit and taxied down the tarmac. He flew McCall to Teterboro Airport in Bergen County, New Jersey. Only when he stopped taxiing and brought down the steps for McCall did Vallance ask, “Any word on Granny?”

  “No. I’m working on it.”

  Vallance nodded. McCall took a helicopter to the East Thirty-Fourth Street helicopter terminal. Jimmy was waiting for him in his silver Lexus.

  McCall gave him the address of the warehouse. “Thanks for picking me up.”

  “It’s been a slow night.” Jimmy drove and tapped into his iPad affixed to the dash. “Norman Rosemont, worth about two billion, lives in a penthouse apartment on Central Park South. His wife, Angie, left him six months ago. They’ve kept the split quiet. Three grown-up children: the daughter is an actress in Los Angeles, she’s on Game of Thrones, cool role; two grown-up sons, both in business, one in Chicago, the other in Miami. No one calls Dad a lot. Rosemont has had a couple of girlfriends, but nothing that lasts beyond the kiss, grope, and hasta la vista stage. Kind of a sad guy, for all of his millions.”

  “Not as sad as the tenants in his slum buildings. I may need you as a chauffeur again.”

  “Anytime.”

  There was no more to say. There never was with McCall. Jimmy dropped him at the warehouse in the Bowery. McCall could hear the faint pounding of the rock music. The warehouse looked like it had been erected at the same time Five Points was the center of New York. He followed a stretch limo around to the back, where the music vibrated loudly through three open entrances. Late teens scrambled out of the back of the limo, the guys in tuxes with carnations in their buttonholes, the girls wearing short dresses. They were greeted by the rave party bodyguards. This time, instead of hideous burn masks, they were wearing dead president’s masks. Nixon, Ford, and LBJ seemed to be the favorites. McCall didn’t think it was an improvement. He followed the teenagers into the prom from hell. Inside were open spaces, broken up by tall plants and some Chinese screens. This time, big LED screens were everywhere, pulsating with psychedelic colors synchronized to the music. The old warehouse had three levels, all of them packed with revelers.

  McCall spotted Melody standing at a table with Blake Cunningham. She was dressed in one of the shimmering blue dresses she wore at Dolls. She had a glass of champagne in one hand and appeared to be completely at ease. Blake was dressed in an Armani black Tonal Pindot wool suit with a mauve shirt, from which his 411 aviator sunglasses hung. He was doing the heavy verbal lifting. He was charming, nothing at all like the cobra McCall had promised Melody. But his eyes told a different story. They stripped Melody of her dress, then of her underwear, then of her skin, and examined the bones and tissues and nerves beneath. It was the look of a predator.

  There was a tug on McCall’s arm. Tara Langley put a glass of merlot into McCall’s hand. She raised her own glass to her lips. “Just for appearances sake. If you stand around at a party like this without a drink, they toss you out.”

  “How long did it take Blake to pick up on Melody?”

  “Five minutes tops. She looked a little lost, first time in New York, and her date didn’t show. Blake stepped right in. Are you sure this nightclub dancer of yours is from a small town in the Midwest? She’s got all of the innocence and naïveté, but she’s wrapping our Wolf of Wall Street around her little finger.”

  “She tells me she’s good at that.”

  “There’s no sign of Blake’s college thugs. He appears to be working solo tonight.”

  “Where’s Mike Gammon?”

  “In his Toyota Prius at the side entrance to the warehouse. If Blake tries to take Melody out that way, he’ll be waiting.” Tara looked at McCall’s face. “You think Emily Masden’s dead, don’t you?”

  “You haven’t seen her with Blake since I put the bug on him. I haven’t heard a word from her.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t know the answer. Did you report in to Emily’s mother?”

  “Yeah, I told her I was getting closer to finding her daughter. Told her not to give up hope.”

  “But you have?”

  “Not when I’m with you.”

  Something had caught McCall’s eye. A stooped young man in a green Army coat stood at one of the buffet tables. He wore a black hoodie, torn jeans, faded black Adidas, and wore small loop earrings in both ears. McCall caught just a glimpse of the scraggly dark hair and the pale eyes without eyebrows. Isaac had helped himself to two plates piled high with hors d’oeuvres. He was stuffing them into the pockets of his coat.

  “I need to talk to that guy.”

  Tara followed his gaze. “He’s a little creepy. That’s the third plate of food he’s helped himself to.”

  “His name’s Isaac. He’s homeless.”

  “Why should you care?”

  “He may have information I need.”

  “About Emily?”

  “No.” He looked back over at Melody and Blake. “If he starts to leave with her…”

  “I’ve got the receiver you gave me. If she gets into his car, I’ll be right behind them with Mike. I also gave Melody my cell phone number. I could take Blake down without breaking a nail, which is good, as I just got Cross My Heart Sinful Red put on them, but your friend Gammon looks like he chews concrete and shits bricks.”

  “He’s an ex–Brooklyn cop. Make sure you don’t lose sight of Melody.”

  McCall pushed through the crowd toward where Isaac stood near one of the entrances. Richard Nixon had just let in a young couple and appeared to be leering at the girl, although to be fair, that was probably the mask. LBJ grabbed another girl’s ass as she passed and she giggled. McCall moved right up to Isaac and touched his arm.

  The young man jumped as if he’d been electrocuted. “Hey, hi there, yeah, wow, you come to shindigs like this?”

  “Obviously you do.”

  “Sure, man, I keep track of these parties. Free booze, free food. I can usually get a week’s good eating out of one of them.”

  “You left your alleyway before I could ask you any more questions.”

  “Nothing more to say.�
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  “I think you know the guy who beat up those gangbangers.”

  A sudden haunted look was in Isaac’s eyes. He tried to make his voice casual. “What makes you think so?”

  “Experience. So you can tell me right now, or I can take you outside and beat the information out of you.” McCall thought that was a tad overly dramatic, but it was the kind of threat Isaac would respond to.

  Isaac nodded, his face screwed up as if in pain. “I might have something for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Maybe a name.”

  “Whose name?”

  At that moment a fairly inebriated blonde dropped a tray of champagne glasses. Isaac took the opportunity to bolt from the table, grabbing more hors d’oeuvres to stuff into his coat pockets. McCall started after him, then turned. Tara mouthed the words, I got this. McCall turned back in time to see Isaac push his way to one of the open entrances out of the warehouse.

  McCall went outside after him. It was misting rain. He saw Isaac’s running figure turn off Clinton Street into an alleyway between two more warehouses. McCall heard the homeless man suddenly cry out, then the sound of his body hitting the ground. McCall ran into the alleyway. Four men were gathered around Isaac on the ground. They were white, dressed in heavy coats, dark jeans, all of them wearing black hoodies. Two of them were kicking Isaac in the ribs. A third was dragging off Isaac’s Army coat and taking the food out of the pockets. The fourth had an Army boot pressed down against Isaac’s throat to keep him on the ground. It wasn’t necessary. Isaac had curled up into a fetal position, his hands covering his face, whimpering.

  The two men who’d been trying to break Isaac’s ribs turned as McCall ran forward. They were big. The one closest to McCall noted his age and broke into a smile that revealed several teeth missing. He grabbed for McCall’s coat. McCall knocked out several more of his teeth with one punch and kicked his legs out from under him. The second mugger picked up a length of pipe lying beside a row of old-fashioned metal trash cans. McCall disarmed him in two moves and slammed the pipe into his right knee, hard enough to bring him down, but not to shatter the kneecap. The mugger who’d been going through Isaac’s coat lunged for McCall. McCall picked up one of the trash-can lids, smashed it into the mugger’s face, then executed a knife-hand strike to his throat. He started gasping for breath. McCall threw him bodily into the trash cans.

  The fourth mugger took his foot off Isaac’s throat. A knife blade in his hand caught the oblique light in the alleyway. It flashed for McCall’s throat.

  Robert McCall hesitated.

  For a split second he saw Anita Delgado standing outside the ICU at Bellevue. “What kind of animal are you?” she’d asked him. Her son would never be able to see again. “Is that the kind of justice you’re dispensing, Mr. Equalizer?”

  McCall shut her out and twisted his head away from the knife.

  Too late.

  The blade sliced across the side of his neck, spurting blood. McCall ignored the sudden pain. He grabbed the mugger’s knife hand, got in two quick shots to his kidneys, and wrenched his right wrist at the same time. The knife spun out of his hand and clattered onto the concrete. McCall kicked him in the balls and threw him also into the trash cans. He hit the concrete and rolled over into the same fetal position as Isaac.

  None of the muggers got to their feet.

  McCall put a hand to his neck. His fingers came away sticky with blood. He took out a handkerchief, pressed it against the knife wound, and knelt down. Isaac’s eyes were closed tight. He was still whimpering, anticipating the next kick to his ribs. McCall took hold of his shoulders.

  “Isaac! It’s okay! Open your eyes!”

  The homeless man blinked in the fine drizzle, looking up at McCall. He stopped whimpering and McCall literally dragged him up to his feet. He swayed, but remained upright.

  “I’m going to get you to an ER. You may have some broken ribs.”

  Isaac shook his head, mumbling, “No hospital.”

  McCall picked up Isaac’s Army coat and handed it to him. Enough food was still in the bulging pockets for at least a three-day feast. Isaac shrugged on the coat, looking at the men lying beside the trash cans.

  “Do you know them?”

  Isaac shook his head. His voice was raspy and choked with pain. “‘A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.’ Proverbs six:seventeen.”

  “You had a name for me! The man who beat up those gangbangers.”

  Isaac looked back at McCall and smiled. “The way you beat up these guys.” Then he frowned, concerned. “Your neck is bleeding.”

  McCall shook him. “The name, Isaac!”

  Isaac blinked and nodded. “We call him DM. Demolition Man. He’s like a crime fighter. Patrols the streets. Calls himself something else now.”

  McCall let Isaac go. “The Equalizer.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. New name, same dude. He’s a badass.”

  Another subliminal memory assailed McCall. He was sitting in his new digs at the Liberty Belle Hotel, after he’d placed his ad, listening to fifteen phone messages. He remembered a low, husky voice: Hey, Equalizer, I’m DM—Demolition Man. I protect the streets of Manhattan. I patrol the area between …

  McCall had moved on to the next voice message.

  He looked back at Isaac. “What do you know about this—”

  Isaac’s eyes widened. McCall sensed the attack in the same moment. He whirled to see the first mugger he’d thrown into the trash cans coming at him with the knife he’d picked up from the cement. McCall sidestepped the blade and took the knife right out of the mugger’s hand. McCall threw his arm around the man’s throat, holding him in a viselike grip. He thought of breaking his neck, but then thought about Sofia Reyes and Anita Delgado. Instead he applied pressure until the mugger stopped writhing and lost consciousness. McCall dropped him to the ground. None of the others came to his aid. McCall walked over to the crumbling brick wall behind the trash cans, jammed the knife blade into a crevice, and snapped it off. Then he turned back.

  Isaac was gone.

  CHAPTER 17

  President Carter welcomed McCall back to the rave party. So not all dead presidents. The bleeding on McCall’s neck had stopped, but the bloodred knife scar was vivid and ugly. He pushed through the revelers toward the table where he’d seen Melody standing with Blake Cunningham. They were gone. So was Tara Langley. McCall made his way to the side exit guarded by President Bill Clinton. He graciously stepped aside to let McCall pass. McCall had always liked him. Outside it was still drizzling. No Toyota Prius was parked at the curb. McCall could only hope that meant Mike Gammon and Tara had followed Blake and Melody when they’d left.

  A silver Lexus pulled up. Jimmy purred down the driver’s window. “I didn’t like the look of this place. Decided to stick around. I was worried you might get sexually assaulted by some babe in a Lady Gaga outfit.”

  “Spock says…” McCall murmured. He slid into the passenger seat.

  Jimmy pulled away from the curb. “Spock says what?”

  “There are always possibilities. When she’s away from her Lady Gaga alter ego, I have a feeling Stefani Germanotta is a very sweet Italian girl.”

  Jimmy looked closer at him. “What happened to your neck?”

  “I got distracted. Drop me off at the corner of Forty-Second and Lex.”

  “What’s there, besides Grand Central?”

  “I need to visit an old friend.”

  The silence in the car was thick. McCall was worried about Melody. He didn’t like not knowing where she was. He checked his iPhone. No text from Tara. Fifteen minutes later Jimmy pulled over to the corner of Lexington and Forty-Second.

  “Can you wait for me?” McCall asked.

  “I live to serve.”

  McCall got out and walked up Forty-Second Street. Jimmy’s iPhone beeped. A text message from his wife: Bring home wine, eggs, and cereal. When he looked up, McCall had vanished.

  Mc
Call climbed down the iron ladder. He knew the manhole cover at this location was not secured tightly, but even so, it took him a few moments to slide it to one side and back again. He jumped down from the bottom of the ladder into the sewer tunnel. Rusting red pipes and two newer blue ones stretched away into darkness in both directions. Work lights cast a pale radiance. McCall wasn’t sure he’d know the way from here, but he had a blueprint in his mind. He transversed an old subway tunnel, climbed up a two-foot wall to a familiar iron door that led into the vaulted space that had the mural of the Williamsburg Bridge with the little girl and her mother in a vast field of daisies. McCall noted that the golden retriever had finally been painted at the little girl’s feet. Probably Fooz’s work.

  It only took McCall twenty minutes to find his place. The wide tunnel niche was decorated like a Victorian parlor straight out of a Strand Magazine illustration of a Sherlock Holmes story. The rolltop desk had empty minibottles of vodka and gin strewn across it. All of the Victorian Chloe Amore table lamps were off. The large circa-1995 TV was on, showing one of the new Sherlock TV episodes with no sound. Fooz was sitting bleary eyed on his Lucinda sleigh bed. He had a syringe in his hand, a piece of plastic tubing wound around his forearm, and was about to plunge the needle into his vein.

  McCall slapped the syringe out of the old black man’s hands and unwrapped the plastic tubing. He slapped Fooz across the face to bring him closer to clarity. His eyes cleared a little.

  “Mr. McCall,” he mumbled, barely forming the two words.

  “It’s bad enough you drink yourself into a stupor!” McCall shouted at him. “Now you’re going to shoot heroin into your body?”

  “It’s the damn rush,” the old man whispered. “Ain’t gettin’ it with the booze no more.” He flinched, as if expecting McCall to hit him again.

  McCall shook him instead. “What the hell’s the matter with you? You’ve been down in these tunnels forty years. What’s different now?”

  “Loneliness. Didn’t realize I’d miss Candy Annie as much as I do. She was like a daughter to me, forget the skin color. Got other friends down here, but I don’t see much of ’em. It’s a big neighborhood,” he added ironically. “When I sit here for too long, sometimes the monster comes out of its cage.”