The Chessman

by Jeffrey B. Burton

  “I know, but I heard it in a movie once and have always wanted to say it.”

  The line disconnected.

  Cady switched phones as he jogged toward the steps of the subway station. “You get all that?”

  “Yes,” Agent Preston replied immediately. They’d rigged up Terri’s phone so she and Jund could both listen in. “Go north to Times Square. We’ll have some people in the car with you, but keep your eyes wide. If you spot him, grab his hands. You will have immediate backup.”

  “Anything on the phone?”

  “Triangulation is tricky in the city, but from what I’m overhearing they think he’s by the UN.”

  “Him and about two hundred thousand other people.”

  “They’re trying to trace his mobile phone through the roaming signal. Possibly get a more accurate bead if they can track his phone’s GPS through the satellite. The techs here talk in a foreign language.”

  Cady took the down steps three at a time. “He’ll be constantly on the move and switching phones. Or flipping his cell off until he calls again.”

  “We’ll flood the zones with agents and NYPD. Keep Westlow on the line as long as possible to slow him down and we might catch a break.”

  “He’s too smart for that.”

  “Try to puncture that façade he’s got going, Drew. That may stall him up.”

  Cady took the subway uptown one stop to Times Square, the busiest of all of the NYC subway facilities. He darted up the stairway, dodging in and out of passenger traffic, cut out through a 42nd Street exit right as Terri’s cell began ringing.

  “So the New York mob killed Kenneth Gottlieb?” Cady said into the phone.

  “Did I say that?”

  “You left DNA pointing us in that direction.”

  “Tangentially,” Westlow said. “I was staking out a lead, snapping pics of a man I suspected of having daily meetings with my lead. On the beginning of the third day I noticed Palma following this man. People who tail others tend to be founts of information, so I figured he’d be the one to talk to.”

  “What did your torture session tell you, Westlow?”

  “Torture? They waterboarded us in officer training. It was scary as hell, but a couple of hours later we were at a tavern and most of the guys were hitting on the cocktail waitress. Tell me, Agent Cady, can it be considered torture if you’re hitting on a cocktail waitress two hours later?”

  “Doesn’t sound like there’ll be more cocktail waitresses in Palma’s future.”

  “Who are you rooting for, anyway? That mob enforcer damn near killed me.”

  Cady switched tacks. “Did Patrick Farris rape and murder Marly Kelch that night at the lake?”

  A dead silence descended.

  “I’ll have to save that for another phone call, Agent Cady. Time for another jaunt. I need you to get to the 72nd Street stop along Central Park West. You’ve got twelve minutes and counting.”

  “You’re wasting my time,” Cady said to a dial tone, then turned back inside the station. He hustled down the steps, scanning heights and faces on autopilot, grateful that Agent Preston had a doubledozen federal agents shadowing his trajectory, each armed with a couple pictures of Westlow’s mug from his navy days. If the Chessman did attempt direct contact, they’d have him in a net. Of course, Cady knew in his gut it would never be that easy.

  “How’s your field trip to the Big Apple so far, Agent Cady?”

  “Peachy.” Cady stood on the corner of West 72nd Street and Central Park West, outside the Dakota apartment building. “You were going to tell me about Marly Kelch?”

  “You ever see King Kong?”

  “The giant ape?”

  “You’re missing some of the finer subtleties. Let’s see, there’s the classic from the ‘30s and the last remake by that Hobbit guy is pretty good.”

  “You got me here to talk movies?”

  “They did a film in the ‘70s, too, but best to skip that one.”

  “What the hell are you going on about, Westlow?”

  “Bear with me, Agent Cady. You see, Kong’s a busy fellow, eating dinosaurs, flinging natives—all sorts of crazy shit to do on Skull Island. But once Kong sees Ann Darrow, that’s all she wrote. He must be with her. He will do anything to protect her. He loves her. In the end, to borrow a line from Lincoln, Kong gives Ann Darrow his last full measure of devotion.”

  “You’ve got some eccentric musings on love, Westlow, but if I remember correctly, the ape spent most of the movie on a murderous rampage.”

  “There are, of course, those drawbacks,” Westlow responded. “Say, have you ever gotten a chance to visit the John Lennon memorial?”

  “Nope.”

  “Guy can’t come all the way to New York City without stopping by Strawberry Fields and paying his proper respects. You’re at the entrance. Can you imagine a better day for a quiet stroll and meditation on a nice pathway? Yup, Agent Cady, I’d highly recommend that you stick to the path.”

  “Enough of the bullshit, Westlow.” Cady crossed into Central Park. “It’s another phone call, already.”

  “As you wish.”

  “What made you get involved ten years after Marly’s death?”

  “The drowning made no sense. Marly was an incredible athlete. And just as unbearably painful as her loss, there was this silent river of uncertainty—running deep, forever cutting. Then one day Dorsey Kelch mentioned that Marly had known Patrick Farris at Princeton.”

  “The Newsweek article on the Farrises.”

  “Marly was loved by anyone who met her. The funeral was standing room only. Except a certain someone didn’t make an appearance. Care to hazard a guess, Agent Cady?”

  “Patrick Farris,” Cady responded, slowly stepping along the Strawberry Fields pathway. “So you went to have a chat with Bret Ingram.”

  “Ingram didn’t know diddly-squat, but the broken little man shared a common belief with me—that it was anything but an accident that had occurred.”

  “He didn’t know about the senator’s son?”

  “Like I said…diddly-squat about what truly went down. Swore he was shaken awake by the Zalentines and, after he barfed out more of his guts, he was promised shiny objects to say that Marly had been fooling about with him that night, that she didn’t get out of the water when he did, that the poor girl drowned while he was passed out on shore. The Zalentines told Ingram that it was all an unfortunate accident, but that any bad PR, however unfounded, could devastate the family business, and cause them financial ruin. It was later, after he’d already done his piece and gone on record, that Ingram began believing otherwise.”

  “Then how did you connect it to Farris?”

  “Ingram told me about the bribe—Sundown Point Resort—and about Sanfield, the Magician, who had arranged it all for him. I’d done my homework, Agent Cady. I knew Sanfield was Senator Farris’s right-hand man. That was all the connection I needed.”

  “What did Sanfield tell you in the last fifteen minutes of his life?”

  “Everything I needed to know.”

  “What happened at Snow Goose Lake, Westlow?”

  “I’m afraid the operator is insisting on another two bits and I’m all out of coins. Enjoy the memorial, Agent Cady.”

  “Westlow!”

  He’d been cut off. Cady dropped Terri’s cell into his front pocket and continued onward. Seconds later the phone in his breast pocket began vibrating.

  “Did you catch all that, Liz?”

  “More than that, Drew. He’s in Central Park.”

  Cady stepped to the side of the pathway and did a three-sixty. He scanned the grove of elms, glanced across the black-and-white mosaic with the word IMAGINE in the center, looked at Rose Hill and then down the pathway toward the bronze plaque. People were milling about everywhere—tourists, school kids, people watchers crowding the benches, picnickers with homemade sandwiches, and other lunch dawdlers in no hurry to return to the grind. An army of humanoids. Cady studied faces.
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  “Do they know exactly where?” Central Park was over two miles long and a half mile wide.

  “Yes,” said Agent Preston. “And after he hung up, he left his cell on. We’ve got the coordinates on the phone.”

  Cady listened as Preston talked to someone in the background.

  “He’s not moving, Drew. We have him at a hundred yards southeast of you.”

  “Get a team ready, but send a jogger by for a visual. He probably ditched the phone in a trash bin or behind a tree to play more games.”

  “Already happening. I’m also flooding the entrances and exits with our people.”

  “Good move, Liz, but he might already be out of the park.”

  “He’s not done with you yet.”

  “I’ve been instructed to stick to the path, which loops back around. I’m getting the feeling that something’s been left for me.”

  Less than a minute after Cady clicked off, Terri’s ringtone sounded.

  “What did Sanfield tell you?”

  “No time for small talk, Agent Cady?”

  “It was Patrick Farris, right? He raped Marly?”

  “Farris had done a dozen lines of cocaine by the time Marly arrived at Schaeffer’s party. He’d been washing that down with whiskey sours. He’d had a thing for Marly, all right, and the twins took the two of them out on Schaeffer’s pontoon, some kind of booze cruise, Farris had called it. Marly sipped wine, Farris kept sucking down sours out of a Princeton Tigers football mug. This led to some light necking. Then some untoward and not-so-light necking, Agent Cady. Marly kept telling Farris to stop it, but Farris was beyond hearing. He shoved his hand down the front of her pants.” Westlow’s voice had gone cold. “Marly slapped Farris across the mouth to make him stop. Stunned, he put the offending hand to his lip and came back with blood. He called Marly a ‘whore cunt’ and spit a mouthful of blood into the water. Then, like the ghosts from hell they were, the Zalentine twins were on Marly like a burial shroud, clutching at her arms, a sticky palm across her mouth as she tried to scream, pressing Marly slowly to the floor of the pontoon, ripping her shirt off, then her bra—then pants, then panties—spreading her legs as an offering for Patrick Farris to have his way…and Patrick Farris had his way, Agent Cady. He raped Marly on the floor of Schaeffer’s pontoon while the Zalentines held her still and watched. And afterwards, a decision was made by Adrien and Alain. Farris, Sanfield tried to justify, was a worthless lump by that point, not involved in the murder as he lay fetal himself in shock, knowledge of what had just occurred seeping in through a fog of whiskey and cocaine. The Zalentines then tossed the only girl I’ve ever loved in my entire life, Agent Cady, into the center of that dark fucking lake.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “They cranked Def Leppard from the boat’s boom box and revved the outboard to cover the sounds of Marly’s struggle and screams for help. You’ve been to Snow Goose, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know how big the lake is. No matter how hard Marly tried, the twins didn’t allow her to swim to safety. There was a pool net on board that they used to dunk her whenever she screamed or broke for the distant shore. Farris told Sanfield how it seemed to go on forever, but was likely no more than ten minutes before Marly fought her way back to the surface after a final dunking with lungs full of lake water. It went quickly after that, but Farris shared with Sanfield how even in the black shadows of that deadly night, he could see that Adrien and Alain had erections, obvious in their swim trunks, the entire time they ran around the boat killing Marly.”

  “Farris got Daddy and Sanfield to clean up for him.” Cady could visualize how it went down in his mind’s eye, had suspected the generalities, but the heartbreaking truth was no easier to absorb.

  “A sobbing Farris spilled his guts to Sanfield, telling him every detail so the Magician could best work his sleight of hand to fix the situation. Smart move, frankly, to get Farris and his fattening lip off the scene. As though he were never there.”

  “All that bloodletting, Westlow,” Cady said, squinting against the afternoon sun, “but it was never enough to bring Marly back.”

  “So much for playing God, huh, Agent Cady?” Westlow responded. “Funny thing, though. When I blew Alain’s brains out in the rest stop and then Adrien’s out on his boat, I mentioned Marly’s name before I pulled the trigger. Both times I got the same demented smile from each twin right before I sent them back to hell.”

  Nothing was said for several seconds.

  Westlow finally spoke. “As much as I’d enjoy hobnobbing with your colleagues, Agent Cady, I’m afraid I have to leave now. There’s a bouquet of red roses on the Imagine mosaic. Do you see it?”

  Cady looked at the memorial to John Lennon. “It’s littered with flowers.”

  “There’s a freshly wrapped bouquet sitting dead center.”

  “I see it.”

  “You’re a kindred soul, Agent Cady. I’ll certainly miss our little chats, but it’s time for me to fade away. I suspect you may be too smart for my own good.”

  And with that, Westlow was gone.

  Cady let the stares bounce off his back as he walked across the mosaic, making certain to step nimbly around the flowers that had been left in memory of the murdered Beatle. At the center he picked up the fresh bouquet of roses. He held it in his arms like a newborn and then peeled back the light blue wrapping with his left hand. The first thing he saw were three five-by-sevens, medium-range shots of two men he’d never seen before, talking together on a busy street—perhaps near Times Square. A yellow Post-It note on the bottom of one read: “I would advise keeping these in your utmost confidence. Marco, as I came to call him toward the end, told me that your mole would know these men. If warned, they’ll disappear like cockroaches under the fridge.”

  He peered in the bottom of the wrapped bouquet, down by the stems, and saw the second item. An item marked specifically for Cady and Cady alone. It was a cell phone with another Post-It attached. The note read: “I’ll use this to reach you if you ever decide to lose your entourage.” Cady thought for a half second, then palmed the phone into his suit pocket as he turned around and stepped off the mosaic. Agent Preston stood on the path waiting for him.

  “How did the bead on his phone shake out?”

  “You were right about that; we found it dropped in a bush. His last call points at 81st Street, but we’d already pulled everyone in to cover the park.” Agent Preston looked like she could sleep a year. “What have you got there?”

  “Pictures, Liz. And a major problem.”

  Chapter 38

  The dark-haired man known to Hartzell as the Coordinator was secretly delighted that the Yankees had won a 5–4 victory over the Sox, secretly delighted to grudgingly peel a hundred-dollar bill off his money clip, shake his head in faux displeasure, slap it into Hartzell’s hand, and watch as the two blottoed accountants followed suit. It was hard not to be partial toward the smooth-talking flimflam man, and the Coordinator knew that people were, on some unconscious level, seduced into wanting—or more accurately needing—Hartzell to like them back. But the Coordinator also knew the fate that was coming swiftly down the pike, so he was delighted to let the New York Investor Extraordinaire savor his winning night at the ballpark.

  He wondered if Loni’s flight had been on time, if she would be waiting for him in the Star Lounge at the Ritz-Carlton where he’d been living these past weeks. The level of his anticipation amazed him; he missed her and couldn’t wait to give the stewardess a bear hug as though years, not merely days, had passed. He’d take a long sip of her Shining Star served up with the Ketel One Citron, order a bottle of Dom and the two of them would head up to his room. If only the cabbie could make quicker time as they skirted Central Park. Duilio Fiorella had told him not to get too accustomed to living the high life, but Hartzell was booming business, so the Coordinator had been spoiling himself rotten. Central Park across the street, Broadway and Park Avenue a few Frisbee tosses
away. Damn, he was going to hate leaving the Big Apple and returning to the Windy City.

  The assignment, for the most part, had been cushy. Vince and David on Hartzell twenty-four-seven, St. Nick had the girl under his thumb, and after his pop-bys with the investment scammer were done, he had free days…and nights. And this stewardess—good God—Loni knew more about what made him tick after one night than Gina back in Chicago could possibly fathom after six years. Sure, Gina was a ten, no doubt about that, and she’d be the perfect mother to any potential sons or daughters, but the thrill had dwindled and now she just lay on her back while he did all the heavy lifting. He’d spot Loni an easy eight and a half, a strong nine in low light, but the flight attendant had titties out to Montana and enjoyed reverse cowgirl as much as he did. And she’d been screwing him dry near nightly.

  The Coordinator still felt the occasional pang of guilt, especially when Gina called during one of their trysts one evening and the stewardess, dominatrix-like, demanded he answer his cell phone. He pressed the green button, did his best to sound normal, but Loni slid his right hand, gripping the phone, slowly down their moist torsos toward the wet sounds of their lovemaking. After several thrusts of heightened exhilaration he jerked the phone back up to his mouth.

  “What’s that noise?” Gina asked.

  “It’s coming down cats and dogs, honey. Cats and dogs. I’m at the window sneaking a smoke.”

  And Gina bought it. Told him he’d better be careful about getting in trouble with the hotel. After he clicked off Loni rolled on top and brought him to the greatest orgasm of his life.

  Though not for a lack of living space, Fiorella had barred the Coordinator from living with the subject in the Midtown Manhattan penthouse, like the bean counters were.

  “He’s charismatic. A snake charmer, a pied-fucking-piper,” Fiorella had warned him. “That’s how he’s made it this far. If you’re around Hartzell for more than the daily check-in, it could prove unhealthy—a person might fall into the man’s orbit, go native, and start thinking the wrong thoughts. It’s axiomatic, but it would break my heart if St. Nick or our quiet friend had to pay someone I’m fond of a visit.”