Just the same, I’d given my word. That meant something to me, even if handshakes and promises no longer seemed to matter much to the rest of the world. So I looked at the screen, waiting for the results to come up. Linh Trang’s last name had been Spears and I got lots of hits. She was the adopted daughter of Kevin and Victoria Spears of Bellport, New York. There were plenty of photos of her. Some better than the one her grandfather had shown me. Some older ones, too, grainy black-and-white newspaper reprints of her as a teenager. Despite the relative quality of the photos, there was no spinning the brutality of her murder. Just as Micah Spears had said, Linh Trang had been stabbed twenty-three times. She’d been reported missing by her parents early on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and her body had been discovered by a Great River couple out for an early-morning walk in Heckscher State Park later that day.
I got a sick feeling in my belly, remembering our first Thanksgiving and Christmas after John’s death. Holidays were the worst. There wasn’t a single thing in the house—the smell of roasting turkey, a dent in the hallway wall, the creaking of the basement stairs—that didn’t evoke his memory. The air was so thick with him, we all choked on it. Those first holidays were the final straw. We knew there was no future for us together after that, and we knew we could never live in that house again. Remembering the horror of those first holidays, it took everything I had in me not to cry for her parents and for myself. They had the added horror of Linh Trang’s death being so violent. I read on.
The unnamed police spokesman said the body had been moved to the park and that Linh Trang had been killed in a different location. I searched through all the stories but could find no mention of the actual murder scene having been located. I went back and read the stuff on the pursuit and capture of Rondo Salazar. Other than stating that he was a prime suspect in the unrelated homicide of a drug dealer, there was no specific mention of how the SCPD tracked him down. But I knew how to hear the words that weren’t spoken, and how to read between the lines. Either they had surveillance footage, they got an anonymous tip, or an informant gave Salazar up. My bet was on a tip or an informant. A lot of brilliant detective work came down to good sources and good luck. I’d be able to find that out easily enough. I’d been off the job for three-plus years, but I still had sources inside the department.
Micah Spears might have been a bit of a belligerent asshole, but he hadn’t lied to me. So far the little he had told me about his granddaughter’s murder had been spot on. The test would come when I looked into Salazar’s motives. I was just about to scan through the Newsday stories about Salazar when I noticed movement down the block. The front door to a crummy little row house opened only a few feet to the left from where Slava’s car was parked. Most of the houses on the street fit that description. Their façades were mostly beige brick—many chipped and dirty—with little stoops three or four cracked steps up from the sidewalk. The majority had bars on their first-floor windows. Some of the weary houses had dirty aluminum siding covering their brick façades and unattached flanks. A few had narrow little driveways.
The rain had stopped by the time Slava and Michael Smith came out onto the stoop. They did not walk down the steps. Instead, they stood on the stoop, facing inside the house from which they had just come. I assumed they were speaking to the third man, the one with the torn leather jacket, though the open door blocked me from seeing who it was. They were too far away for me to make out much of their facial expressions, yet there was something about how they stood that told me this hadn’t been a happy reunion of old friends. Their shoulders were slumped and, like the houses on the block, their bodies sagged. No, there wasn’t anything cheery going on here. Then, quickly and unceremoniously, Slava and Smith turned, trundled down the steps, and got into the old Civic. Neither looked back at the still-open door. There were no fond farewell waves. Slava started the car, popped on his lights, and pulled away.
I stayed behind, watching. I was curious about the man blocked by the door. I figured that I’d give him a minute to close the door and go back inside. Then I would drive up closer to the house, see what I could see, jot down the address, maybe take a photo with my cell. The door didn’t close. Instead, the third man, wearing that torn jacket, stepped out onto the stoop. He lit a cigarette, the flame of his lighter illuminating his face for a brief second. It was a cruel face, the cruelty enhanced by the red flame. He had a flattened nose, pitted skin, and a nasty-looking mouth. Standing there, he surveyed the street. His gaze wasn’t casual. It was a wary stare, not dissimilar to the stare I’d seen in my rearview mirror when I’d looked back at Michael Smith as I drove him from MacArthur to the Paragon. He was looking for danger that might come at him out of the dark.
At one point, he turned in my direction and seemed to focus his full attention on me. It was only after I caught sight of headlights in my sideview mirror and heard the telltale splash of tires kicking up water behind me that I understood the man on the stoop was looking over the roof of my car at another vehicle coming up the street, a white Dodge van. I kept switching my gaze from the man on the stoop to the van and back again. There was something about the white van he didn’t like. I could tell by how his body stiffened and how he tossed his cigarette. I didn’t like it, either. This Dodge was driving slowly, too slowly. I thought of how a cat moved when it was hunting. I tried to get a look at the driver as it rolled past me, but the windows were tinted nearly black. I focused on the rear of the van, staring at the New York tag number ENK 4771. I repeated the tag number aloud to myself.
The world got very quiet, the way it does when your body is going into fight-or-flight mode. My throat was suddenly dry and my heart was pounding. But the van rolling down the street kept going right on by the man on the stoop. My eyes, his eyes, stayed locked on it as it moved to the end of the street and turned left onto Mermaid. Even at this distance I could see him relax and breathe out a huge sigh. There was even a smile on his cruel mouth as he lit up another cigarette. As he relaxed, I relaxed, too. Then things changed. Everything changed. Neither the smoker nor I had noticed the man walking down the street in the opposite direction as the van, and by the time we noticed him, it was already too late. He was dressed in matte black and wore a silky black balaclava that covered his face.
In one balletic act, he reached behind him, drew a pistol, dropped to one knee, and fired. I lost count of the shots at five, and the fire spewing from the tip of the sound suppressor seemed continuous. The man on the stoop didn’t have a chance, his body tumbling awkwardly down the four front steps and onto the wet pavement. Calmly, coldly, the shooter let his empty clip slide out of his weapon and clink to the sidewalk. He quickly reloaded, racked the slide, walked over to the wrecked body of the smoker—the glowing red tip of the still-lit cigarette on the concrete beside the victim—and fired two shots into his head.
I was out of my car now, Glock drawn, moving toward him. As I moved, I used stoops for cover and tried to keep as quiet as possible. I didn’t shout a warning. No “Police! Drop your weapon!” Nothing like that. This guy was a pro, and pros knew that once you got caught in the act, you might as well keep killing. Innocent passersby or cops or retired cops, it didn’t matter. Amateurs didn’t dress in matte black, didn’t wear balaclavas or use sound suppressors. And they didn’t usually have the presence of mind to tap their victims twice in the head just to make sure the job was done right. Pro or not, I counted on his being too concerned about the task at hand and making a clean exit to notice me. It worked three row houses’ worth.
He looked up and must have seen my hair above the ledge of a stoop. He didn’t hesitate, firing three shots—Pop! Pop! Pop!—splintering the bricks above my head. I kept my head down and didn’t return fire. I was a good shot, but he was better and clearly more experienced. I didn’t want to risk a ricochet and have one of my shots careening off a sidewalk or lamppost and crashing through some kid’s bedroom window. He may not have cared about killing an innoce
nt, but I did. And I didn’t want to give him a reason to come at me. As it was, he knew I couldn’t identify him, and my guess was he just wanted to get out of there. If I fired at him, he might feel compelled to finish me in order to cover his exit.
When I worked up the nerve to peek over the ledge again, I saw that he was running back in the direction he’d come, toward Mermaid Avenue. I stood and calculated that even at full stride it would be more than a block before I’d be able to get close to him. When he reached the corner of Mermaid and West 21st, he rendered my calculations moot. There was the white van waiting for him, its side door open. He dove through the open door. The door closed. The van was gone. Then, as distant sirens filled up the night, so was I.
8
(SUNDAY NIGHT)
I’d zipped out of my spot, backed down the block, and onto Neptune Avenue. I didn’t stick around to see if those sirens were headed in my direction. I knew they were. I found my way to a shopping center parking lot a few blocks away, dimmed my lights, and tried to orient myself. It wasn’t like I’d never seen anyone killed before. I had, and I’d seen plenty of dead bodies, but I had never witnessed anything that calculated or cold-blooded.
I was torn between going back to the crime scene and getting completely out of there. The old cop in me wanted to go back, felt an obligation to, but what could I have told the cops? I couldn’t identify the killer. I hadn’t even been close enough to identify the weapon he’d used. I didn’t know the victim. I had only the barest description of the van, though I did have its tag number. It was probably rented or stolen. I suppose I could have explained my leaving the scene by saying I’d tried to chase the van. The cops would have bought that. The problem would have been explaining what the hell I was doing there in the first place. I always drive into Coney Island on rainy nights and park on a block where I don’t know anyone. And even if I could have explained my presence, I didn’t want to risk bringing Slava into it, at least not yet. Not until I had some idea of what was going on. I owed him that because I owed him my life, literally. Slava had saved my life at least twice.
I called Slava’s cell. He didn’t pick up and it went to voice mail. I left a vague message, hinting at potential danger, but not coming out and saying it. I wanted to leave both of us wiggle room if the cops ever got hold of his phone. I texted him: Call my cell, now! He didn’t call. He didn’t text back. I figured to give him a few minutes before trying his number again. As I sat there I wondered if Slava and Michael Smith were in danger, too, or if the hit—and there was no doubt that’s what it was—was specific to the cruel-faced man with the torn jacket. I wondered a lot of things. There was a lot to wonder about. I wondered if Smith’s arrival at the Paragon, his driving into Brooklyn, and the meeting with the now dead man were related to the dark and shameful past life Slava had only ever alluded to.
I remembered his first mention of it. We were at breakfast on a Saturday morning at the Airport Diner near the Paragon. I thought about that breakfast sometimes when I saw hints of who Slava really was behind his ugly, gap-tooth smile and goofy broken English. It was at that breakfast when he’d shown me his Makarov and the leather sap. It was also the first time he’d warned me away from asking too many questions about him. That conversation now echoed in my head.
“It would not be good to be curious about Slava,” he said.
“For you or for me?”
His face turned headstone cold. “For both, I am thinking.”
I had let that go for a few minutes, but came back to it.
“But maybe someday you’ll tell me your story.”
His expression was as mournful and haunted as any I had ever seen. As mournful as my own face in the mirror. “No, Gus,” he said. “I am never telling you this. I am shamed in my soul.”
Shamed in my soul. That phrase has never left me. I don’t think it ever will.
I looked at my cell phone for the time and saw that five painful minutes had crept past since I’d called his cell. I was about to dial him again when that sick feeling in my belly returned. What if Slava and Michael Smith weren’t in any danger at all, but had been the ones to set up the hit? Shame came in many forms. You could earn it in any number of ways. As anyone who had experienced it knew, shame could hurt like a bastard, but that if there was incentive enough, you would risk the pain. Bee stings hurt, too, but they didn’t stop people from collecting honey.
When the phone buzzed in my hand, I startled. It was Slava.
“Gus, why are making call to—”
I cut him off. “Don’t go home. Don’t go back to the Paragon. Find a landline and text me the number.”
I hung up without explaining. Even if he didn’t fully understand, I knew he would do as I said. I got out of my car and searched the stores in the shopping center for a pay phone. There was one in the pizzeria. The Mexican kid behind the counter tried to sell me a slice, but I waved him off. He shrugged and went back to watching a soccer match, the play-by-play announcer’s voice rising and falling in rapid-fire Spanish. Pay phones weren’t easy to find, and I figured Slava would have had to pull off the Belt Parkway to look for one, so I reconsidered and took the kid up on the slice. I had a Coke with it and was just polishing off the crust when Slava called.
“Hold on.”
I asked the kid behind the counter for a pencil and a piece of paper. He flipped the takeout order pad to me, a stubby pencil wedged under a few sheets. He went back to his match.
“Give me the number,” I said. “I’ll call you right back.”
He picked up on the first ring.
“What is happening, Gus?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. Whatever you do, don’t drop your passenger back at the hotel and don’t go back to your apartment until I see you. Go to Eleven Pinetree Court in Commack,” I said. “Do you think you’ll be able to find it?”
“I am finding it, no problem. We talk then?”
“Yeah, I’ll meet you there in about two hours or so. The keypad code for the garage door is one-seven-five-five-six. There’s a mountain bike hung up on the garage wall. Taped under the seat is a key that will get you into the house through the garage. Sit tight.”
“We are sitting tight,” he said.
“And Slava . . .”
“Yes, Gus.”
There’s a closed bedroom door on the ground floor. Please don’t go—”
“Slava and no one else is going in your boy’s room. I am promising you that.”
I hung up, threw ten dollars on the counter, and told the kid to keep the change. He was too busy with fútbol to thank me. I was too worried about murder to care.
9
(SUNDAY, LATE NIGHT)
Eleven Pinetree Court was the house Annie and I still owned in spite of ourselves. It was the house we had raised our kids in. The house we were planning to live out our lives in. Annie and me, we weren’t the move-down-south-after-retirement types. We were Long Islanders and we didn’t figure Florida or the Carolinas held any particular magic for us. I don’t know, but lower taxes and insurance rates didn’t sing to me. I was born here and always figured to be buried here, too. Like my son. After John Jr. died, I knew I would never leave, not while I was breathing. Anyway, the house became a nightmare for us. We couldn’t live in it and we couldn’t bear to sell it.
Funny thing is that there’s a cemetery behind the house, a Polish cemetery owned by a parish in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Since there’s a thick patch of trees and shrubs between the graves and our back fence, it was easy enough for us to ignore it, to forget it was even there. If the parish in Brooklyn hadn’t started to build a church on the property a few years back, one they haven’t finished, you might not know there was a graveyard there at all. And hardly anyone got buried back there these days. My mom once told me that’s what people from the Old Country—whichever Old Country that happened to be—did. They would band to
gether and buy land for cemeteries on Long Island, so they could be buried with their own kind.
The island was once a place of “out there” with potato and sod farms and lots of empty land. Not anymore. The “out there-ness” of Long Island had been swallowed up by tracts of split ranches and strip malls. The irony was in the power of our own denial. That Annie and Krissy and me, we pretended that the cemetery’s existence in our backyard had nothing to do with our inability to live here. Yeah, right. The crazy thing is that it took me years to recognize the role the cemetery played in our need to escape from 11 Pinetree Court.
For about a year, we were renting it to the Shermans. Nice people with two kids and two Siamese cats. But after the house got broken into last year, they turned and ran. I didn’t blame them. People don’t realize the sense of violation a crime victim feels. It didn’t have to be rape or murder. Any crime reminds us of how fragile we are, how vulnerable. It reminds us of how much we really do depend on everyone around us to play by the rules. I knew. I understood. When you’re in uniform like I had been for twenty years, you are the first person the victim deals with. It isn’t easy. After the Shermans left, we had a month-to-month rental, but he’d left at the beginning of April. Now, at least for the next little while, we had some new tenants coming soon.
The house was dark, but they were there. Slava would know to keep the lights out as a precaution. See, it wasn’t only that Slava carried a big Makarov and a sap that told me he was someone very different from the man he showed to the guests and the rest of the staff at the Paragon. Any thug can carry a gun and a sap. Any thug can use them. It was that he knew things that a laborer from the poorest part of Warsaw couldn’t have known: how to follow cars and people without being seen, where to hide a tracking device, how to disarm and incapacitate men larger than himself. I didn’t know what side of the law he had been on back home, wherever that really was, but he was more than a simple thug.
What You Break Page 4
