Unknown Remains

by Peter Leonard

  Marquis followed Chetter into Frank DiCicco’s office. A dark-haired woman about forty, sitting behind the desk, got up and walked out of the room.

  “The housekeeper,” Chetter said. “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers.” He sat at the desk, looking at a computer.

  “Showing your age with that line.” Marquis walked over and stood behind him. “Last time I heard it, I was in grade school.”

  Chetter turned, glanced at him. “Footage from the security cameras. Check it out.”

  Marquis watched, and Chetter froze the frame when two men appeared at the front door, 6:56 PM on the time code in the left-hand corner of the screen.

  “Know them?” Chetter said.

  “The PR’s Ruben Diaz. I believe the other one is Duane Cobb. Collectors work for Vincent Gallo, who worked for Frankie Cheech. Let’s see what else you got.”

  Marquis watched Diaz and Cobb come out in a hurry at 7:12. Fifteen minutes later, Vincent Gallo and his driver showed up, Gallo carrying a duffle bag. “You know the time of death?”

  “M.E. said between six thirty and eight thirty, but it was a guess.”

  “Say it was Diaz and Cobb, why they do it?”

  “Money would be my first guess. Or something happened. Killing a made man is a death sentence.” Chetter studied the screen. “This is the camera in back.”

  Gallo’s driver was behind the townhouse, smoking a cigarette, looking in windows. He busted a glass pane in the door with his elbow, reached in, unlocked it, and went inside.

  Now they were watching Vincent Gallo on the front porch. The driver opened the door.

  “Look, he says something to Vincent. See his face? The dude’s worried.”

  “Maybe he’s the shooter,” Marquis said. “With Frankie Cheech out of the way, Gallo moves up the ranks.”

  “I don’t think so,” Chetter said. “First of all, he didn’t have time. Second, you kill a made man, you don’t bring a witness.”

  At 8:09, Vincent Gallo and the driver exited the townhouse as fast as Ruben and Cobb had about an hour earlier.

  “Let’s say Gallo’s innocent,” Marquis said. “Why didn’t he call the police?”

  “They take care of their own problems,” Chetter said. “They must know who did it. I should follow them, see who they got in mind.”

  Next stop was the subway. Transit Police had secured this crime scene. Staley, the evidence tech, was dusting a broom handle for prints when Marquis arrived. “Apparent murder weapon. Killer used it like a spear.”

  “What, you think we’re looking for a Zulu warrior?”

  “Or maybe a Hutu,” Staley said, his cadaverous face showing signs of life, breaking into a grin. He reminded Marquis of Steve Buscemi without the bug eyes.

  The room smelled like a butcher shop. The body of a dark-haired man was on his back on the concrete floor, a hole in his side, body resting in a pool of coagulated blood. “Who is he?”

  “Dominic Benigno,” Staley said. “Forty-two, lives in Brooklyn. AKA Dapper Dom, know him?

  Marquis was acquainted with him, crazy motherfucker, Sicilian, Frankie Cheech’s trigger. Benigno had done time for assault with intent. His gun, a silenced Beretta semiautomatic, was on the floor ten feet from the body, and he was wearing gloves. Marquis remembered the model at Sculley’s apartment building saying she saw a dude wearing gloves. “Any witnesses? Anyone see anything?”

  “Busy subway platform,” a transit cop named Kohl said, “someone had to hear it, had to see it, something this crazy and violent. But no one’s come forward. Janitor found the body this morning. And look at this: wood shavings from the killer sharpening the broom pole.”

  Marquis was looking at the bloody footprints all over the floor, and more heading toward the exit.

  Staley said, “We’re looking for a dude wears a nine Benny.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a shoe size, nine B. I measured the print; I used to sell shoes.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.” Marquis grinned. “Can’t be many men in New York City wear a size nine, huh.”

  Staley said, “Less than a million, I’d guess.”

  The For Sale sign on the front lawn surprised him. Mrs. hadn’t said nothing about selling the house. Marquis Brown rang the bell and waited. He walked up the driveway behind the house to the garage, opened the door, saw that Jack’s BMW was missing. He walked back to the house, stood at the side door. Mrs. hadn’t had the broken windowpane repaired yet; a piece of cardboard was taped in place where the glass had been knocked out. He pushed through it, unlocked the door, and went in, thinking this was one of the strangest cases he’d ever worked.

  Here’s what he knew: the husband allegedly had an affair with a young girl in debt to a loan shark. McCann agreed to pay the debt but died when Tower One collapsed on 9/11. Now two of Frank DiCicco’s collectors were trying to strong-arm Mrs. for the money. Three people connected with the case had been murdered: Vicki Ross, Joe Sculley, and Patrick Linehan, and this morning, Frankie Cheech and his bodyguards were found shot to death in Cheech’s townhouse. Add Dominic Benigno to the list, and there were seven dead. With all that had transpired, Diane was off his list of suspects in Vicki Ross’s murder. But he still thought she knew something.

  Marquis walked through the kitchen and breakfast room down a hallway to the den, looked in, saw bookshelves on one of the walls and a desk with a computer on it across the room. He didn’t know what he was looking for till he sat behind the desk, staring at the green and white Apple iMac. Marquis wasn’t especially good with computers, had a PC at the station house. His fourteen-year-old daughter Shareeta had shown him a few things, so he knew he could at least turn the motherfucker on. He pushed the button and the screen lit up.

  First thing, he started checking e-mail, saw a confirmation on an American Airlines flight: LaGuardia to Fort Lauderdale, yesterday morning. Went deeper, checked e-mails going back a week, nothing about a hotel or car rental, and then went back a month, wondering if Mrs. had been in touch with her disappeared husband. He didn’t see anything that suggested it.

  Marquis got up and stood in front of the bookshelves, scanning books, photographs, knickknacks, and so forth. There were three photo albums on one of the shelves. He took them down, went back to the desk, and opened the wedding album, Mrs. looking young and fine in the wedding dress, holding a bouquet of flowers, posing with Jack, starting their life together. Marquis wondered, when did it start to go bad? One day for whatever reason the dude decided to step out on her.

  Or was the affair bullshit, Mrs. made it up, covering for her man? Jack went down in the tower, but walked out before it collapsed. Faked his own death, Mrs. collects the life insurance, puts the house up for sale, meets him in Florida. But why? Dude was makin’ a lot of money.

  He closed the wedding album, opened the next one, turning pages, looked at vacations in different places. Rome and Paris, two of them posing at the Eiffel Tower, looking all happy and such. Then on a beach in some tropical place. Heading said Captiva Island, picture taken in front of a sign that said ’Tween Waters Inn. There were other pics taken at a house on the beach, Mrs. looking sexy in a bikini, posing and lying on the sand. Why would Jack be out tomcatting he had this fine woman at home? In one of the photo sleeves was a business card with a website offering vacation rentals.

  He took the card, sat in front of the computer, typed in the website, clicked on it. Marquis scrolled down till he found the house in the photograph.

  Something familiar about Captiva, Marquis remembering now, Mrs. telling him it was one of the locations they talked about living at. She wouldn’t have told him that if the husband was there. But if he was there, why’d she fly to Fort Lauderdale?

  Marquis drove back to Manhattan, visited Vincent Gallo again at the poker club in Little Italy.

  MARQUIS: Know who killed Frank DiCicco and the bodyguards?

  GALLO: I might have an idea.

  MARQUIS: What can we d
o to jog your memory?

  GALLO: Was Cobb and Diaz.

  MARQUIS: Came back in a hurry, huh? Why would they go after Frank?

  GALLO: I think it was a misunderstanding.

  MARQUIS (grinned): You think so, huh? You see the crime scene? That was some misunderstanding.

  GALLO: Find Cobb and Diaz, you clear up four murders.

  MARQUIS: Who else you talking about?

  GALLO: Vicki Ross.

  MARQUIS: (They didn’t kill Vicki.) Know where they at?

  GALLO: That’s what I was gonna ask you.

  MARQUIS: How would I know?

  GALLO: Isn’t that what you do, find people that don’t want to be found?

  MARQUIS: Tell me about Jack McCann.

  GALLO: Owes us a lot of money.

  MARQUIS: He’s alive?

  GALLO: Course he’s alive.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Jack cruised through Pompano past the pier and the public beach. It was four o’clock; the sun was starting its descent over the rooftops of the city. He turned onto Briny Avenue and pulled into a space behind the motel. Jack decided to pack first and then check out. He opened the gate and walked by the pool, saw a couple playing cards at one of the tables, glanced at the empty beach and the ocean, and walked up the stairway to his room.

  His suitcase was in the closet. He took it out, put it on the bed, and unzipped the top. He grabbed piles of clothes from the dresser drawers and fit them in. He pulled his shirts off hangers and folded them on top, got his toiletries from the bathroom, and zipped the suitcase closed. He carried the suitcase down the stairs and put it in his car trunk.

  The manager was behind the counter, his big body leaning forward, hands splayed on Formica, looking down at a newspaper that was folded in half, when Jack stepped in the office and closed the door.

  The fat man looked up and said, “Your friends find you?”

  “What friends?”

  “Two fellas came in asking for you.”

  Jack turned and walked out, looking around as he got in the car, and saw Cobb through the windshield coming toward him, bringing a shotgun up from his leg, racking it as Jack turned the key. Cobb came around on his side of the car, and then Ruben appeared on the passenger side, reaching for the door handle. Jack pushing the lock button, but too late, shifting into reverse now, the door was opening, the scene in Jack’s mind happening in slow motion, Ruben hanging on as Jack backed out of the parking space, the door opening all the way.

  Cobb was moving with the car, slamming the sawed-off end of the shotgun into the side window, the glass cobwebbing. Across the way, Ruben regained his balance for an instant. Jack shifted into drive, saw Ruben let go of the window frame as the car bolted forward. He glanced in the rearview mirror, saw Cobb getting into a red Mustang, backing out, seeing Ruben get in next to him. They’d obviously gotten to Sculley.

  He went left on Atlantic and got caught in traffic, waiting for the bridge to go down. There were cars in front of him, cars on both sides and behind him. He saw the mast of a sailboat going through the opening, moving past him on the Intracoastal.

  The bridge was going down when he saw Ruben in the rearview, moving between cars, looking for him. Then seeing Ruben in the side mirror, getting closer, two cars away as the bridge came down with a clang and the crossing gates lifted, and now Ruben stopped, ran back to the Mustang.

  Jack floored it, weaving in and out of traffic all the way to I-95.

  When Fish left, Diane dried her hair, changed into jeans and a tank top, and went outside. No sign of him, thank God. It was almost dark. She looked down the street at the Sands. The Mustang was gone. The time spent trying to get rid of Fish, she had missed them.

  She walked across the street to the Sands, opened the gate, and went out to the pool. There was no one around. The wind had picked up, the sea rough, beach deserted.

  Diane walked around to the office and went in. There was a heavy blonde sitting at a desk in a room behind the counter, putting on makeup, holding a pink Betty Boop compact in one of her hands, tracing a line of lipstick on her mouth with the other. The blonde glanced at Diane, closed the compact, and with considerable effort, stood up and moved to the counter, breathing hard.

  “I am sorry, we have no vacancies whatsoever,” she said in a Southern accent. “This time a year, you know.” The woman was chewing gum, and it looked like it was going to fall out of her mouth when she talked.

  “My boyfriend’s staying here. Can you tell me what room Duane’s in?” She smiled. “Duane Cobb. He loves surprises.” And thought, get ready.

  The blinds were closed but she could see there wasn’t a light on in the room. She knocked on the door, heard muffled voices, turned, and saw a young couple crossing the pool area. She decided to go for it, slid the key in the lock, opened the door, and turned on the light.

  Cobb’s airline ticket from Newark to Fort Lauderdale was on the desk. That’s why she didn’t see him at the airport; she had flown from LaGuardia. His clothes were in a suitcase on the floor. She ran her hands under the layers, found an envelope with a couple thousand dollars in it. She folded the money and put it in the back pocket of her jeans.

  There was an assault rifle wrapped in a blanket in the corner of the closet next to Cobb’s cowboy boots. She picked up the AR-15, ejected the magazine, rewrapped the gun, and put it back. She fit the magazine in the waist of her jeans under the tank top, turned off the light, and walked out the door.

  Jack got off the freeway, went east to Dixie Highway, and took a left. He thought for sure he’d lost them till he saw the Mustang coming up on his right approaching PGA Boulevard, blew through a red light, swerving around a car going left.

  The police cruiser came out of nowhere, Jack seeing its grille fill the rearview mirror and hearing the loud yelp of the siren. He pulled over on the gravel side road, lowered the damaged side window, and watched the trooper get out of the car, square his Sam Browne, and come up next to Jack, bending his tall frame to look inside. The Mustang passed by at that instant, Ruben making eye contact with him for a split second, and Jack thought, wait a minute, maybe this was a blessing in disguise.

  The trooper said, “License and registration.”

  Jack handed him his Richard Keefer New York driver’s license, wondering where this would lead, thinking he could be in deep shit.

  “What the hell you doing, Richard Keefer from New York City, running a red, jeopardizing the citizens of North Palm Beach? You want to tell me what that bonehead move was about?”

  Jack, with his hands still gripping the steering wheel, said, “I lost my concentration for a second. Looked up I was halfway through the intersection.”

  “Lost your concentration, huh?” The trooper, a young guy in a tan uniform with brown trim, maybe thirty, said, “Mr. Keefer, you been drinking?”

  It was hard to hear with the traffic so close. “No sir.”

  “Stay right where you’re at. I’ll be back.”

  Jack watched him in the side mirror, moving back to the cruiser, traffic zipping by. Jack wondered what was going to happen when the trooper ran Richard Alan Keefer in the computer, wondered if he should put it in gear and take off, then abandon the car, and take his chances. Or get out and run for the mall parking lot that was fifty yards to his right, hop the chain-link fence.

  It seemed like it took forever but it had been only seven minutes. Now the trooper was getting out of the cruiser, adjusting his hat, a piece of paper in his hand. At the window, the trooper bent his tall frame till he was eye level with Jack.

  “What’s strange, there’s a Richard Alan Keefer in New York City, but he doesn’t look anything like you and has a different license number and different address. What do you make of that?”

  Be cool, Jack told himself. This thing could blow up right here. “If you’re asking me to explain how bureaucracy works, why I don’t show up in the system, I can’t. New York’s a big city.”

  “This your current address?”


  “Yes, it is.”

  “What’re you doing down here?”

  “Working.”

  “What sort of work you do?”

  “I give seminars to brokerage firms like Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and others. I show them my forecast for the market, what I think is going to happen.”

  “You talking about stock brokers?”

  Jack nodded.

  “What should I buy?”

  “Gold. I don’t think you can lose.”

  “Gold, huh? Thanks for the tip. Now let me give you one.” He handed Jack a ticket. “Observe the traffic laws of North Palm Beach, you won’t get another one of these.”

  Why’d the trooper let him go? Probably ’cause the situation was too complicated to pursue. Why waste time getting involved? Palm Beach County would make their money off the ticket, and the trooper would get the credit. That’s probably all that mattered.

  Jack took the first right, got off the highway, looking for a red Mustang, and drove toward the ocean, considering his options.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Cobb had gone back around and parked on the side of the road, a hundred yards or so behind Jack McCann and the cop.

  Ruben said, “What’re you doing?”

  As if it wasn’t obvious. “Waiting to see what happens.”

  When Jack went through the red light, they were too far back, Cobb thinking at the time, Jesus Christ, this boy’s gone. And then, like divine intervention, a police officer mercifully appeared and pulled the traffic offender over.

  It took fucking forever to play out, Cobb thinking the cop was making a career out of stopping Jack. For the love of God. Finally, the trooper gave him a ticket, went back to his cruiser, and drove away. Jack took off right after the cop, and they followed him up the coast to a gated development with a pink wall around it on the ocean, the southern end of Palm Beach called Palm Cove. Duane got a kick out of the name: Palm Cove.

  It sounded like a place you’d want to live, you were a senior citizen, a mellow retirement community on the ocean. He pictured smiling residents with capped teeth and tight, surgically enhanced faces, wearing slick sportswear, saying, “Seventy is the new fifty. Let’s party.”