by Stuart Woods
“Is he sitting down the hall from you?”
“Hang.” Dino put him on hold. “Nope,” he said finally, “he called in sick. He should be home in bed.”
“Thank you, pal.” Stone hung up and called Art. The call went straight to voicemail. “Art, it’s Stone. Call me, please.” He tried the landline: busy, busy, busy.
Maren walked into Stone’s office, looking fresh. “Good morning again,” she said.
“I found somebody who knows Little Debby well,” Stone replied. He called Art again, got the same trip to voicemail.
“Come on,” he said, standing up and getting into his jacket. “We’re going to go see him.”
“See who?”
“Art Jacoby,” Stone said. “He’s a detective on the DCPD.”
“Why does he know Debby so well?”
“Because they hate each other.”
“What better reason?” she asked. “Let’s go.”
57
It had begun to rain again, this time with lightning and thunder. The car was being hammered. They arrived at Art Jacoby’s place, and, in the lobby, were stopped by a man behind a desk.
Stone flashed his honorary gold shield.
“Sorry, but the guy upstairs has one of those, too, and he gave strict orders that no one is to come up.”
Maren pulled out her badge and pointed to the line on her ID that read, DIRECTOR. “This trumps them both,” she said, “or would you feel better with half a dozen angry special agents in your lobby?”
“All right,” the main said. “I’ll call upstairs.”
“You won’t get an answer,” Stone said. “We’re not sure he’s still alive.”
The man held the phone away from his ear. They could all hear the busy signal. He replaced the receiver. “Please, go right up,” he said.
They went right up. Art’s room was next to the elevator, so they didn’t have a long walk. Stone rapped on the door. “Art,” Stone called out, “open up. It’s Stone Barrington.” No response. This time he hammered on the door with his fist and shouted, “Open up!”
“Listen,” Maren whispered.
Stone leaned over to hear her better. “What?”
There was a loud explosion and a large hole appeared in the apartment’s door, exactly where Stone’s face had been, sprinkling them with bits of wood and dried paint.
Stone pushed Maren back and shouted from a couple of feet away. “Art, it’s Stone Barrington! Stop shooting at me.”
“Stone?” a voice called from inside. “Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. Stop shooting at us.”
“Who’s ‘us’?” Art asked suspiciously.
“Maren Gustav. Does that name ring a bell?”
“From the FBI?”
“How many Maren Gustavs do you know?”
“Come in,” Art called back. “It’s unlocked.”
Stone turned the knob and pushed the door, then stood back. “Put down the shotgun,” he called.
“It’s down. Come in.”
Stone indicated to Maren that she should enter. “You first,” she said.
“I’m coming in,” Stone said, then stepped through the door.
Art Jacoby was standing on a sofa across the room, a police-issue riot gun at port arms. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you,” he said.
“Then come down off that sofa and stop looking so threatening!” Stone shouted. “I’ve had about as much of this as I can take before I start shooting back!”
“All right, all right,” Art said, placatingly. “I won’t shoot.”
“Does that include me?” Maren asked from the doorway.
“Jesus, it’s you,” Art said, stepping down off the sofa.
“Who were you expecting?” she asked.
“Debby Myers,” he replied, as if she should have known all the time.
They sat at Art’s little kitchen table and drank terrible coffee that he had just brewed. “Good to the last drop,” he said, licking his chops.
Stone rolled his eyes. “No Italian would ever drink this,” Stone said. “Have you ever met an Italian?”
“I’ve put a few in prison,” Art said, “but we never had coffee together.”
“Can we get down to business?” Maren asked.
“What business do we have?” Art asked.
“The business that made you shoot through the door, because you thought Little Debby was out there.”
“Oh, that business. What do you want?”
“First,” Maren said. “Why do you think Debby wants to kill you?”
“Well,” he said, “she killed my girlfriend. She killed Donald Clark. She killed Eddie Craft, Frank Capriani, and Patricia Clark. Why should she make an exception for me?”
“Art,” Stone said. “Why do you think Debby killed Eddie Craft?”
“Well, he’s dead, isn’t he? After all, he was going to testify against her about the gun she stole from the property room. She wouldn’t need a better reason than that.”
“You think she did all these murders herself?”
“Of course not. She isn’t stupid.”
“Then who did she get to kill them?”
“My best guess is Rocco Turko,” Art said.
Stone looked at him blankly. “Who the hell is Rocco Turko?”
“Think Rudolph Valentino, with a little more weight and a few more years. In short, Little Debby’s type.”
“She has a type?”
“Well, she’s fairly liberal about that, I guess. Let’s just say he’s the ideal: good-looking, well-hung, and willing to do anything she wants, in bed or out.”
“Including killing people?”
“Oh, that’s his favorite thing,” Art said. “At DCPD, he holds the record for apparently unprovoked shootings. If he walked in here now, he’d be happy to put two in both your heads, if that’s what Little Debby wanted. Frankly, I was expecting him. That’s why there’s a hole in my door. Incidentally, I’m very sorry about that. I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee to stay awake for when he showed up, so I’m a little wired.”
“A little,” Stone said.
Maren spoke up. “Where can we find this Rocco Turko?”
Art shrugged. “Find Debby, he’ll be there. She never travels without him, he’s her official security detail and her unofficial supply of cock.”
“Do you know where she is right now?” Maren asked.
“In New York, I imagine. That’s where Eddie Craft and his girl were when they found him.”
“Any idea where?”
“She always stays at the Lowell, Sixty-third and Madison.”
“Then that’s where we should be,” Maren said, standing up and getting out her phone. “I need a SWAT team at the Lowell Hotel, at East Sixty-third, just east of Madison. We’re looking for Deborah Myers, chief of the DCPD, and, especially, a DCPD police officer named Rocco Turko, whom you may expect to be armed and extremely dangerous. And—this is very important—I’ll be there in fifteen. Don’t start without me.”
“Can I come along?” Art asked. “I’ll bring my shotgun.”
“Sure, Art,” Stone said. “You’d better reload.”
58
They arrived a few steps away from the Lowell, and as they got out of Stone’s car, he spotted a large, unmarked, black van at the opposite curb, idling, making its contribution to global warming. “That’s us,” Maren said. She raised a small radio to her lips.
“Willie, what’s up inside?”
“Chief Myers just called for a bellman, so I think they’ll be right down.”
“I’m going in. Don’t send in the boys unless you hear gunfire.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Let’s go,” Maren said to Stone and Art. “And, Art, hang your raincoat over your arm to conceal
the shotgun. No shooting, anybody, unless one of them starts it.”
Stone nodded and followed Maren into the lobby of the hotel. A bellman walked past them, pushing a cart of luggage, headed for the curb. Stone looked up at the elevator lights and saw one on the way down. “Descending,” he said to Maren.
“Got it,” she said. She centered herself on the elevator and stood there loosely, her hands folded in front of her.
The elevator opened and Deborah Myers stepped into the lobby, followed by a man who looked like Rudolph Valentino, but older and heavier and a sex addict, from what she had heard.
“Why, Maren,” Debby said, making an effort to smile. “What a surprise! What brings you to the big city?”
“I was hoping to run into you, Deborah,” Maren replied, “and my luck is good today.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m so glad you asked. I wondered if you and your bodyguard could take a ride with me downtown?”
“For what purpose?” Debby asked.
“There are some questions I’d like to ask you, and I hope you’ll have some answers.”
“The hotel has a conference room. Why don’t we go in there?”
“I’m afraid the nature of my questions requires a more official setting.”
Debby thought about it for a couple of seconds, then smiled again. “Sure, be glad to. I assume you have a car?”
“A very comfortable one,” Maren replied and headed with Debby for the street. “Stone,” Maren said over her shoulder, “would you give a lift to Deborah’s security man?”
“Of course,” Stone said, showing Rocco the Bentley, with Fred braced at the open door. “Art, will you ride shotgun?”
Art smiled. “Sure, Stone.”
No one in either car spoke on the ride downtown.
* * *
—
At the federal building, everyone placed his weapons in a tray and passed through the metal detector. It took Rocco three passes, to unload two handguns and an evil-looking knife.
Upstairs, Debby and Rocco were escorted to different interrogation rooms. Maren waved for Stone to follow her to an office, where she rang for a secretary, then dictated two documents, while Stone waited outside. When she was done, Maren motioned him inside and closed the door. She took off her jacket and began to unbutton her silk blouse.
“Really?” Stone asked, surprised. “In an FBI field office?”
“No, not really,” Maren replied. She took off the blouse, reached behind her and unhooked her bra, revealing what Stone had always felt was one of the finest views on the planet.
“You’re pressing your luck,” Stone said.
“Be a good boy, and you can watch me with Rocco.” Stone’s jaw dropped.
She put on the blouse again, but left the two top buttons undone, then she picked up a file folder from the secretary and started out of the office. Maren pointed at a door in the hallway. “You can watch from in there,” she said.
An FBI special agent came out of the interrogation room, bearing all three of Rocco Turko’s weapons, and Maren stepped in.
* * *
—
Stone took a seat and looked at Rocco, sitting calmly at the table in the interrogation room. He could hear him clear his throat.
Maren entered the room, and to Stone’s surprise, Rocco stood up to greet her.
“Good morning, Mr. Turko,” Maren said, offering her hand.
“Good morning,” he replied, shaking it.
“May I call you Rocco?”
“Of course.”
“And you may call me Maren,” she said. She took off her jacket and in so doing, her breasts nearly, but not quite, escaped her blouse. “I’m so glad we could get together.”
“So am I,” Rocco replied, smiling to reveal some very fine dental work.
“Listen, I know you’re going to want a lawyer, but if you can hold off that request for a few minutes, I don’t think you’ll need one.”
“Fine with me,” Rocco replied.
“First of all, are you acquainted with two people called Eddie Craft and Shelley Moss?”
“I don’t believe I am,” Rocco replied.
“Never met them?”
“No, not that I can recall.”
“Would you recognize them if you saw them?”
Rocco shook his head. “No.”
“They live in an apartment building at East Sixty-third Street and Park Avenue . . .”
Rocco began shaking his head.
“. . . in apartment 15D,” she said.
Rocco froze. “Say again?”
“Park and Sixty-third, apartment 15D.”
Rocco seemed unable to speak.
“Perhaps you know the people who live one floor below them, in 14D—a Mr. and Mrs. Moskowitz.”
Rocco’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“Mr. and Mrs. Moskowitz”—she consulted a sheet of paper in her hand—“Leo and Mandy—were involved in a very unfortunate incident yesterday—an apparent murder-suicide. Leo shot Mandy, then exited his apartment through an open window, falling to the alley below. No one we’ve questioned can understand it. They seemed such a happy couple.”
“I didn’t know them,” Rocco finally managed to say.
“Obviously not,” Maren said. “You will recall that yesterday was a very rainy day.”
“I recall that.”
“Did you notice that some water had collected on the floor of the service elevator?”
Rocco began to shake his head, then stopped. “What service elevator? At the hotel, you mean?”
Maren smiled. “No, Rocco.” She leaned forward just a little, to give him a better view of her cleavage. After that, Rocco didn’t look anywhere else.
Maren picked up the phone on the table and said, “Bring them to me, please.”
An agent walked into the room and placed a handsome pair of shoes, complete with shoe trees, on the table. “These are very nice,” Maren said.
“Not mine,” he said.
“Oddly, we took them from your luggage and”—she pulled out the tree from one shoe—“they were made by a gentleman called Sylvano Lattanzi, in Milano, Italy.”
“If you say so.”
She held up a shoe. “And here’s a nice little label in the shoe that says, ‘Made expressly for Rocco Turko.’”
“Oh, well . . .”
“Oh, well, indeed, Rocco.” She opened the folder next to her on the table and took out a photograph and held it up beside the shoe.
Rocco tore his eyes from her cleavage long enough to look at the photograph and the shoe.
“You will note that the heel on your shoe is identical to the heel mark in the photograph, which was taken in the kitchen of apartment 14D.”
Rocco’s jaw was working, and he was licking his lips.
“You know what that means, Rocco. You’re a cop, after all, and I’ll bet you’ve investigated hundreds of murders and the evidence that they turn up, like this photograph. It means that you were in apartment 14D, yesterday.”
“I think I’m going to need to speak to an attorney,” Rocco said. “Right now.”
“Give me a couple minutes more, Rocco, and I don’t think you’ll need one, because I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse, as the Don said in The Godfather.” She leaned even further forward.
“We’ve got you dead to rights on the murders of the couple in 14D,” Maren said. “So what you’re looking at, Rocco, is the rest of your life in a maximum-security federal prison, where you’re in your cell, alone, for twenty-three hours a day.”
Maren deftly undid one more button, just to be sure she had his undivided attention. She did. “It also means that, for the remainder of your days, you will never again have sex with a woman.”
“But Rocco,” Maren said, regaining his attention, “it doesn’t have to be that way. Would you like to hear how it could be?”
“Yes,” Rocco said, hoarsely.
“If you tell me everything you know about the murders of Donald Clark, Deana Carlyle, Eddie Craft, Shelley Moss, Patricia Clark, and Frank Capriani—Eddie Craft and his girlfriend lived in apartment 14D . . . sorry, my mistake about that . . . then you can plead to the murders in 14D, and I have already taken it upon myself to speak to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has agreed to recommend a sentence of seven to ten years, out in five, and not in a maximum-security facility, but in a Club Fed in Florida, where the winters are kind.”
Rocco sat back in his chair and took a couple of deep breaths.
“It’s a limited, onetime offer, Rocco, and it expires in thirty seconds. What’s it going to be?”
“I agree,” Rocco replied. “I’ll take the plea.”
“A wise decision,” Maren said, taking a document from her file and handing it to Rocco with a pen. “You will note that I have included in this agreement the fact that you committed these six murders on the instructions of Deborah Myers.”
“Fuck her,” Rocco said, then signed the agreement.
The secretary entered the room and handed Maren a longer document.
“And this,” Maren said, handing it to Rocco, “which is a transcript of our conversation today. Ms. Banks, here, will witness both documents.”
Rocco signed, then he looked back at Maren’s cleavage. “I want to see them,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Rocco,” Maren replied, “but that sort of thing will have to wait for five years.”
Two agents came into the room, handcuffed Rocco, and took him away.
* * *
—
Stone walked out into the hallway, and when Maren emerged, he followed her back to her office, where she stripped off her jacket and blouse and got back into her bra.
“Well,” Stone said, “I’ve had a better day than Rocco. And that was an interrogation technique entirely new to me.”
She laughed and gave him a kiss.
