by K. T. Tomb
“They’re well-oiled by now,” Albert said.
“Eh?”
“Getting quite drunk; probably the right time for some bastard to put on a move.”
“Probably.”
“So?” Albert frowned at him. “Either entertain me by making a move on one of them or pay the bill and let me go home.”
“But you’ll have a look for those files for me right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Wouldn’t want the elite streets of DUMBO to be running with your blue blood, now would I?”
Chapter Two
The taxi dropped Storm at the gate of his loft apartment in the DUMBO. He paid the driver using his Smartphone and suddenly wondered if he should start paying people in cash again. Who knows who could access his phone? If someone was out to get him, they could be trying to hack his phone. He shook his head and decided he was just being paranoid.
He unlocked the gate with his phone as well. He pulled up the key program that would generate a random QR code that could be read by the scanner at his gate. An old college friend had developed the system, and Storm was glad for it. The same program was used for the apartment itself, but it meant that nobody could ever open the gate or his doors unless he had sent them the app to open them.
And a secure system was needed as well. Not only was his trim physique the envy of guys like Albert, but this loft apartment was the envy of most, from the Upper East Side to Williamsburg. It had once belonged to the greatest gangster of the early 20th century and who’d occupied it at a time when no policemen dared to patrol that beat alone. To live in the apartment that housed one of the most talked-about gangsters of all time was something he could never tire of. William “Wild Bill” Lovett, in Storm’s opinion, was the greatest gangster in New York City history. It was the one reason he had bought the apartment.
The other reason for buying the loft was the eccentricities it was built with. He loved weird houses. Houses that were a bit odd. When he worked for the FBI, he had lived in a penthouse. It was one of the biggest, most expensive, most luxurious penthouses and the location was what any socialite dreamed of Upper East Manhattan, but it had not suited him. The layout was too standard, there were no surprises, and there was nowhere to hide.
That was the one thing he loved about this loft. There were places to hide. It reminded him of the great family home in Manhattan. It was one of those very old houses you can only find in certain areas of the city. It was large and full of nooks and secret places. The loft, owing to the Irishman it had been a home to, was just as intriguing.
Storm entered the 19th century-styled elevator and went up to the loft. The door swung open with another generated QR code and he went into the large hallway. Immediately, he took a left, which led him into his library. The room was massive. The room was, in fact, two levels, with a mezzanine that allowed access to the top shelves. There was a massive fireplace, a large table and a writing desk. He walked straight through it and into the next room. This was his smoking room. A large humidor took up one wall of it, but there was also a piano and some other instruments.
He had learned to play violin and piano when he was young, and he was still fond of playing, but right now he had another fancy. And he made enough money with his firm to indulge his fancies. There were a few amplifiers which he switched on and then he grabbed the electric guitar from its stand. He’d had it specially built by a guild craftsman in the UK and it was more expensive than the piano, but it sounded better than any instrument he had ever heard. He took up a pick and strummed a chord. He grinned, thinking of the rock star dream he had when he was a boy and then began picking the strings.
Not too long after he had begun playing, Storm realized the tune he was playing was quite melancholy. He stopped picking the strings and put the guitar down. He looked at the grandfather clock and decided it was late enough. He turned the amplifiers off and walked back through the library. In the hallway, he made for the grand oaken staircase. It was the sort of thing you could see a woman in a ball gown walking down without too much imagining. At the top of the stairs were a number of rooms, including another sitting room and his breakfast room. There were several suites, all in the same classic style, including his own bedroom. But he ignored that bedroom and took another flight of stairs to the third floor, and there, below the ceiling, was the room he would use tonight.
This was his second master suite. Unlike the classical rooms on the floor below, this suite and the others on this floor were very modern. There was a flat screen on one of the dressers; the bed was large and luxurious, covered in black satin sheets. A door, in the wall behind the bed, led to a large en-suite bathroom. Storm stripped off his shirt and dropped his trousers as he walked through the room to his personal bathroom. He turned the shower on, waited a moment for the water to warm and moved under it. He just washed with water, knowing the overuse of soap would dry out his skin. He was a vain man, something he was keenly aware of, but he had his limits. Smearing his skin with products to counter the effects of other products just seemed stupid to him.
He took a few minutes to wash, then stepped out and dried himself. Naked, he slipped between the satin sheets of the large bed. And even though he had plenty to ponder, he drifted off to sleep very quickly.
In the morning he woke from the sound of his butler knocking on the door. “Sir, it is time to get up,” the butler’s Oxford-accented voice said. “Your breakfast will be ready in half an hour.”
Storm rubbed his eyes and rose in the bed. He slowly swung his legs over the edge and got to his feet. Bleary-eyed, he stumbled into the bathroom and turned the faucet on. He placed his head under the cold water and suddenly felt himself wake up. He dried his short brown hair and wrapped the towel around his waist. He headed downstairs to his other suite, next to which was his private dressing room. He picked out a pinstripe shirt with a classic white collar, a pair of suit pants and suede loafers; and he dressed. To finish his look, he added a tie. Looking through his tie rack, he picked a simple one which complemented the colors in his shirt; he expertly tied a perfect Windsor knot.
His breakfast was already waiting for him in the breakfast room. His butler stood by the door with that day’s copy of the New York Times in hand.
“Thank you, Johnson,” he said as he took the paper and sat down. His breakfast today was a selection of fresh fruit, muesli and Greek yogurt. It was the breakfast he ate most often. He liked fresh fruit from warm climates, even in the stubborn winters of New York, where snowstorms would prevent deliveries from reaching the city. He liked pancakes and a full English platter too, but on most days it was just too heavy for the strains and stresses he was expected to deal with throughout the day.
There was nothing interesting in the paper, he decided fairly quickly, and he handed the paper back to Johnson. He was mighty pleased with his decision to hire the butler. It suited him and his lifestyle to have a butler in the first place, but he had always been hesitant to hire too many servants. He liked the good life and could afford it, but he did not want to appear like the rest of the elite who chose to live in the thick of it in Manhattan’s Upper East Side: pretentious. Of all the people in the part of town he lived in, he was one of the very few who actually had the breeding as well as the riches. As a result, he remembered that he could not, nor wanted to, display his wealth too much. He just showed it enough to make everyone aware of it. That was the reason he only had four people working for him in the loft. There was his butler, Johnson; Miss Graeme, the housekeeper; Juan, the gardener/ handyman; and his cook, Emily Harkness. In his eyes, the latter was the most indispensable.
After his breakfast, he went to brush his teeth and then he gathered his briefcase and went out. He walked to the eastern wing of his 3,800 square foot home and went down a flight of stairs. At the bottom of those stairs was his underground garage. He jumped into his favorite car, a green Jaguar E-type. He turned the key and the engine coughed. He turned it again and this time the engine roared into life. He pulled up
the key app again and opened the garage door. Moments later, he blasted out into the street. He laughed. There was nothing like the joy of driving a car like this.
Forty minutes later, he pulled up in the garage of his office building in Midtown East Manhattan. He took the stairs up to his office at the top of the building. Most people would take the elevator, but he liked walking the stairs. He had long decided he felt better starting his day in the office by walking all those floors up rather than taking the lift. Only when he was running late did he use the elevator now. It took him ten more minutes to reach his office.
His office was at the end of the building on the floor his law firm occupied. From the stair and elevator lobby, there was the kitchen on the left and the rest of the office on the right. His partners all had their offices along the main hallway, as did their assistants and their support staff. Then there was a library, completely dedicated to the law. It contained row upon row of almanacs and law books. Most of the changes in the law and the consequences of the decisions of judges were now conveyed digitally, but Storm liked having the books as well. He figured nobody could mess with them once they were printed. Besides, they looked good. Then, next to the library was his office. It was neighbored by his secretary, his assistant and by his private gym, complete bathroom suite and a small walk-in closet.
Storm swung into his secretary’s office and bid her good morning before cheerfully taking himself to his own office. He opened his laptop and began looking through his emails. It was a chore he hated to do, but a necessary one. The first thing he looked through was the updates from the courts, the updates from the New York Assembly, Senate, and Governor, and finally the Congress and White House updates. The next thing was the emails from his clients and business partners. One of them took his particular attention. It was from the Greek shipping magnate who had recently taken a controlling stake in American Stevedoring Inc.
Storm had never specialized in any particular field, but of course, he employed specialists in his firm. He liked being a jack-of-all-trades attorney. It meant he could take cases and clients of all sorts and deal with quandaries like the one Gregoris Sedakis posed him now. He pondered it for a moment. His firm had represented Sedakis in New York since his company’s takeover; it was a prestigious contract. But the question was a strange one. He was not sure he wanted to be associated with it.
Another email was from the agent of a young Canadian singer who had just been arrested for driving under the influence. The girl had been arrested for it before and this time, she had been charged with disturbance of the peace as well. Her neighbors in the prestigious Williamsburg area had finally had enough of her spoiled and extravagant behavior.
He pressed the button of the intercom and let it go immediately. It would be enough of a signal for his secretary to know she was needed.
It took a while for his secretary to show up, but eventually he saw her appear from the other side of the office, walk to her desk, notice the blinking light and come over to his office. She was holding an envelope. “Yes, Mister McCoy?”
“Can you set up meetings with Sedakis and the agent of Justine Lavoie? Seems she’s in trouble again.”
“Yes, I heard about it this morning on the radio.”
Storm nodded. He did not really listen to the gossipy news on the radio or television and was frankly not interested in it either. He knew a lot of the people that were commonly discussed personally. He preferred to hear their stories from the source.
“Will that be all?”
“For now, yeah. Thank you, Rachel.”
The secretary walked up to his desk and handed him the envelope. “This just arrived for you. And your friend Albert called.”
“Ah, thank you, Rachel.” He grabbed the envelope and reached for his phone. He put a Bluetooth headset on and selected Albert’s number on his screen.
“Agent Wylders.” Albert’s voice boomed in his ear.
“Fuck, why are you shouting?”
“Sorry, hold on.” The line went silent for a moment, then Albert was back, speaking normally. “Fucking dead guy in the harbor. Engines and shit.”
“Right. You called earlier?”
“Yeah, I found the file on your brothers.”
“Yeah?” Storm asked, picking up a letter opener and ripping through the sealed edge of the envelope. “Anything interesting?”
“Bad news. Denny Lang is AWOL.”
Storm pulled the letter from the envelope and folded it open. “And Quinn?”
“Released on parole earlier this week. Just a minute...” Storm heard Albert speaking to someone in the background. “Storm...” Albert came back. Storm did not answer. The letter was written in what was obviously blood. It had run slightly from the letters.
“Storm. The dead guy in the harbor. It’s Denny Lang.”
“You took years off my life. I will take the rest of your life. Lang,” the letter read.
Chapter Three
“Rachel,” Storm was pulling his jacket back on as he pushed his head through his secretary’s office door. “I’m going on the road, first to see Albert; I’ll see Sedakis this afternoon and will head down to deal with this Justine Lavoie thing when I’m done with Albert.”
“Yes, Mister McCoy,” she chirped. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mister McCoy?”
Storm shook his head. “Just tell everyone I’m busy all day.”
He took the elevator down and walked straight to his Jag. He fired the engine up and raced out of the parking garage. He turned onto the I278 that led to the harbor and immediately had to hit the brakes. The traffic was a nightmare, as usual. He tapped the steering wheel with his fingers. He was impatient. The letter was burning a hole in the inner pocket of his jacket. He took it out and looked at the lettering again. He could not see any fingerprints, but it was definitely blood. Someone had taken a calligraphy pen, dipped it in blood and written the note. That would explain the dripping as well. It was probably not held straight. He noticed now, staring at the letter in the middle of the traffic, that the hand was very fine. It was a very nicely written hand. Not many people had good handwriting these days, he thought. A pity penmanship was not really taught in school anymore. He shook the thought out of his head and pressed the gas pedal down. Seconds later he hit the brakes as the car in front of him stopped.
It took him an hour to make his way to the harbor, but then he raced through the remainder of the traffic to finally pull up by the side of a warehouse where an ambulance and several police cars stood. He saw the SUV with the inverted flowerpot and figured that must be Albert’s car. He jumped out of the open top E-type and walked to the door of the warehouse. An FBI tape was tied across the door opening. He looked in and ducked under the tape. “Albert!”
A woman with a long wavy ponytail and an FBI jacket rushed toward him and had already begun pushing him back behind the tape when Albert showed up. “What are you doing here?” he asked him gruffly. As an answer, Storm pulled the letter from his pocket and held it out for Albert behind the wavy-haired agent’s back. Albert grasped it and took the letter out of the envelope. He took a single look at it and he laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “It’s alright, he can come in here. He’s a former agent as well, so he knows the rules.”
The agent stopped pushing Storm back and stepped out of his way. Storm straightened his suit jacket and gave the woman a wink. Then he followed Albert, who was already walking to the back of the warehouse.
Storm had seen his share of horror in the FBI, but he was shocked by what he saw. Something that had clearly been a man lay close to the wall in a puddle of blood. The coroner and his assistant were still taking pictures. “Dear God...” Storm muttered when he came closer. “What the hell have they done?”
The coroner looked at him and shook his head. “Back with us, Storm?” He looked at the screen of his camera again. “I really have seen it all now.”
Albert came to stand next to Storm. “Messy, eh?”
; “What the fuck is this?” Storm still watched the horror scene in complete amazement.
“I believe they call this a Blood Eagle,” the coroner said casually. “Viking execution. They cut through the skin at his back, broke his ribs, spread them out and pulled out the lungs to lay across the broken ribs so it looks like wings. They then left the victim to die like that.” The man shook his head. “I hope to find they did this post-mortem. I don’t even want to try and imagine the pain he must have gone through otherwise.”
“The murderer must have been filled with rage to do this,” Albert remarked.
The coroner looked at him. “You’d think that, but this is a very calculated and detailed way to kill. Even if done after death, it might have required a lot of hate, but not anger. You have to be in control to do something like this.”
Storm suddenly felt sick and swiftly ran to the door of the warehouse. The back door opened out on the dock where he took in a deep breath of the sea and of dirty ship fuel. “Dear God...” he said again, trying to stop himself from throwing up. He was used to some things, but this just made him sick.
Albert came to stand next to him. “Like something out of one of your gangster stories.”
“You’re sure it’s Denny Lang?” Storm asked his friend as he laid his hands on his neck, pulling his collar open so he could draw deep breaths.
“Yeah. He matches the pictures and we found his ID in his pocket. Checked the fingerprints, but they’re not on record, meaning it isn’t Quinn.”
“Good.”
“Give your letter to the good old Doc as evidence. He can analyze the blood. If it’s the same, well…” Albert shrugged and nodded to the car. “Got your file over in the car. Oh, and anyone else touch the letter?”
“Envelope will be useless. My secretary and the mailman touched it. Everyone in the post office probably. I alone touched the letter.” Storm was still shaking and trying to breathe away his nausea. “Fucking hell...” he swore.
