I didn’t press her about it, nor did I ask her about how she felt when she heard Tillman was dead or when she found out that his death seemed to be beside the point. I didn’t ask her why she hadn’t gone to the cops immediately. I didn’t ask her where she was getting the money to pay. I didn’t ask her a lot of the questions it had occurred to me to ask. What did any of it matter now?
“I was tested,” Natasha whispered.
She could see the puzzlement in my eyes.
Tears were rolling down her freckled cheeks. “For HIV. I’m okay. I had the test the porn stars use when they get checked, the one that tells you right away. And I’ve had follow-ups.”
Neither of us commented on the irony in that. I’d been so focused on the nuts and bolts of the case, I hadn’t even thought about it. What an awful burden, I thought, as if the rape and blackmail wasn’t enough. As bad as I wanted to get this guy before, I wanted him much more now.
“Okay,” I said, handing the brown paper lunch bag to Natasha. “Just do what you always do. It’s okay to be nervous. He expects you to be, so if he’s watching you, he won’t see anything unusual. Make the drop like he told you and I’ll handle it from there. Just get off the train and wait upstairs.”
“Are you sure about this?” she asked. “The bag is awfully bulky.”
“I did that on purpose. It’s in small bills because I don’t want him to feel comfortable enough to take the money out of the bag and put it in his pockets. It’s easier to spot that way. Now go ahead, you should have plenty of time to walk from here to the 79th Street station.”
I didn’t follow Natasha. I knew where she was going and when she had to get there. Besides, Pam was already in position. I hadn’t told Natasha about Pam because no matter how much an amateur wants to cooperate, too much information makes them act in dumb and unnatural ways. The only thing I wanted Natasha to focus on for the moment was making the drop. When Natasha reached the corner, I put the Suburban in gear and drove over to the station.
The instructions were simple and it wasn’t hard to figure out the mechanics of how things would work. Natasha was to walk onto the downtown platform for the number 1 train and find the southernmost trash can on the platform. She was to wait until she saw the first number 1 train after two A.M. pull into the station, then she was to drop the lunch bag into the trash, and get onto the first car of the train. That was it. All very easy, quick, and clean. The blackmailer would either be on the platform or the train itself. The latter was the more likely because he wouldn’t risk being spotted before the train arrived. When Natasha got on the first car, he would get off the second or third car. He’d wait until the train pulled out of the station, walk over to the garbage, collect his money, and leave. There was a chance he might wait for the next train, but that seemed unnecessarily foolish and risky. He’d be a sitting duck. No, he would grab the sack and head right up to the street, grab a cab, or get to a car he’d parked close by earlier in the day.
I pulled over by a fire hydrant and kept the SUV running. I texted Pam my exact location. All things being equal, it would’ve been better if I could have been the one in the subway. Pam was a New Englander and though she had worked cases in New York City before and had spent a lot of time here since we began seeing each other, she didn’t know the lay of the land like a native. But all things weren’t equal. Natasha would have seemed way too comfortable with me close by. And the fact was, I’d been working the case for a while and many of the players, especially Escobar, knew me, knew my face. I’d also gotten a lot of press during the search for Sashi Bluntstone. I couldn’t risk blowing it all. Anyway, I’d given Pam a full description of Escobar. She was a total pro and could handle herself. I’d witnessed that myself.
I checked my watch: 2:03. As I did, Pam texted: On second car. Wrong choice. No Escobar. No men. I texted back that he was probably on the third or fourth car and not to worry. I was no fan of technology, but you had to love the fact that between cell phones, laptops, iPads, Kindles, digital video cameras, et cetera, it was impossible to tell if someone was just listening to music or doing surveillance. Even if Pam was the only person texting in that subway car, no one would give her a second thought.
Next text: Pulling into 86th St.
Next text: Man on. Not Escobar. Young. Black. Black hoodie, jeans, Nikes. Walking 2 back of train.
Next text: Pulling out. On way 2 79th. No men on car.
Next text: Slowing for 79th.
Next text: Stopped. Doors open. Out. No men! Young woman at can. Got it. Coming up.
A woman! Maybe Escobar was smarter than I’d given him credit for. It was wise of him to insulate himself, to give himself some deniability. And here I was thinking that using the 79th Street station had been a mistake. It had very limited street access and no access between north and southbound platforms. There were only two choices for escape: up the stairs to the street or to risk life and limb by crossing the tracks to the northbound platform.
In the brief instant that I did a double-take at Pam’s last text, I missed the woman coming out of the subway. When I gazed back up and into my rearview mirror, all I caught was a glimpse of long black hair, a bare leg, the bulging paper bag in tapered fingers, and a cab door slamming shut. What an idiot I’d been. I was the complacent one. I’d been so sure it would be Escobar making the pickup himself, so sure he would grab a cab on the avenue, that I had left myself in exactly the wrong position. Pam opened the Suburban’s passenger door and jumped in.
“I almost missed her completely,” I screamed. “She got in a cab.”
Pam didn’t need to be told twice; I was already moving before she closed the door and belted in.
“What about Natasha?” Pam asked.
“Call her and tell her that we’re following the money. Don’t mention anything else. Tell her to take a cab home and that we’ll be in touch.”
But as Pam made the call, I knew our cause was lost. The Suburban was facing south down Broadway and the cab had headed west along 79th. At that time of the morning, much of the traffic in the city was yellow cabs and spotting one from the other was like sorting through a penny jar. I raced down Broadway and cut west as soon as I could, but it was no good, no good at all. Even if I could have isolated each of the thirty cabs I’d seen on the way and the ones I was looking at now, I would have no way to pick which one I wanted to follow unless I could see the backseat passenger. Talk about fucked.
“We’ll just wait for the next payoff demand,” Pam said, trying to console me. “Now that we know he has a woman helping him, we can be alert for that. We can bring in help next time.”
“There’s no time for a next time.”
“Of course there is. Blackmailers don’t stop. Sooner or later, they want another taste. Natasha will understand. After Sarah’s wedding we’ll-”
“Pam, it’s not Natasha I’m worried about. It’s me that doesn’t have time for a next time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I barely heard the question because my mind was processing something. I closed my eyes and thought back to the glimpse I’d seen of the woman getting into the cab. There was something familiar about her, the color of her hair, the shape of her calf. It’s amazing how little we need to see of someone to recognize them. I knew her, but from where? Then, all at once, it came to me, and it made a sickening kind of sense. I pulled to the curb and slammed my hand hard against the steering wheel.
“What are you doing-and what was that crack about having no time?”
“I know her,” I said.
Pam was confused. “Know who?”
“It’s not Escobar. It never was.”
“Who’s not Escobar?”
“The girl in the cab.”
“Who is she?”
“Wrong question. It’s not who she is. It’s who she used to be. Call Natasha and tell her we’re coming over.”
FORTY-FOUR
When I described her, Natasha said she knew who I was talking about. She
said she worked as a bartender at Kid Charlemagne’s, but didn’t know what happened to her.
“She’s a very beautiful girl.”
I agreed.
“Do you remember her name?”
“It was an interesting name, foreign sounding,” she said.
“Was she at Piccadilly the night… you know?”
Natasha closed her eyes for a moment. “I think so, but I can’t be sure. I don’t remember a lot of it. Why?”
I didn’t have to answer the question for her. I saw the answer in her eyes.
…
It had been easy enough to get her address from Nathan Martyr and to confirm it with Chef Liu. It was no shock that the address matched Tillman’s. Of course they had lived together. Now it was only a matter of waiting outside her apartment, the top floor of an unremarkable house in the Long Island City section of Queens.
“If she was extorting more than two women, she could do better than this,” Pam said, staring up at the house for a second before returning her gaze to the passenger’s sideview mirror.
“Tuition.”
“What?”
“Tuition costs a fortune at SVA,” I said. “And she’s put her film education to good use.”
“Funny fella. I don’t think Maya Watson would have seen it that way.”
“None of them would.”
Pam tensed. “Here she comes. My side of the street, half a block down. You’re sure you want to do this?”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s not me you should be worried about,” she said. “Are you sure he’s going to go for it?”
“If he is who I think he is, yes. If not, we’re all fucked.”
On that cheery note, I got out of the SUV. Hiding behind the side of the Suburban, I dialed the number DiNardo had given me from Maya’s cell phone, the same number Natasha had given me: her blackmailer’s number. I heard the muffled ringing of a phone just as she passed me. I stepped out from around the Suburban, phone in hand.
“Hello, Esme,” I said.
She wheeled around. She knew immediately who I was, but pretended not to. “Do I know you?”
I waved my cell at her, smiling. “Why don’t you answer your phone?”
She ignored that. “Who are you?”
I clicked my phone off and the ringing in her bag was silenced. “Aren’t you curious how I got your number?”
“Not really, no. Who are you again?” Now she was just stalling for time, trying to make sense of the situation.
“Maybe you don’t recognize me without my old badge or a drink spilled all over me.”
“Oh, I remember now, yes. From the High Line.” She smiled at me, running her tongue over her lips as she had the second time I spoke to her. “How did you find me?”
“Finding your address was simple, almost as simple as blackmail.”
“You are crazy. I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Weak, Esme. That was weak. And you were doing so well up to then. See, I know all sorts of unexpected stuff about you, like how to email you at RT6969@constop. com.”
That chased the flirtatious smile right off her lips. Her face hardened and her eyes busied themselves burning holes right through mine. That was good because she was so focused on me she never even heard Pam come up behind her. Only when Pam pressed the tines of the Taser to Esme’s neck did she realize the tables were about to turn on her and turn hard.
…
I would have dismissed it as a scene out of a bad movie-a woman duct-taped to a chair in a semi-dark room in a warehouse. Only the warehouse belonged to my brother and me, and it wasn’t a movie. There were times when there weren’t very many options and this was one of those times.
When Esme stirred, she tried shaking herself fully awake. She tried moving her arms and legs to no avail and then looked down at the strange clothes she was wearing.
“You shit yourself when you got zapped,” I said, straddling a chair directly across from her. “It happens sometimes.”
“I’m gonna fuck you up for this.”
I clucked my tongue at her. “Sorry, Esme, but your fucking people up days are over.”
“You think so?”
“What’s the matter? Not so much fun when you’re not in control, is it?”
“Fuck you!”
“I’m not the one who’s fucked here.”
“What are you going to do, kill me, old man?”
“It’s a distinct possibility.”
I stood up and reached under my jacket for my. 38. I opened the cylinder and emptied the cartridges onto the floor. I picked a lone bullet up and made a show of putting it back in the cylinder. I walked over to her and spun the cylinder very close to her right ear. Then walked behind her, spun it again and snapped the cylinder shut. “Click, click, click, click… I love that sound. This is a trick I learned to play as a cop, Esme. Now let me teach it to you. You see, it’s stupid beating a confession out of someone. Too messy, too much potential fallout. In any case, we don’t really need you to confess, do we? No we don’t. Keeping that cell phone on you, that was really sloppy, and picking the money up yourself was just plain stupid. And sorry, but we’ve got your computer here, all your little sex toys and outfits, and all your video equipment too. I’m sorry. I’m getting off the point. Where was I? Oh, right. The trick.
“Yeah, like I said, it’s dumb hitting a suspect. And you know, I was always in uniform, so I never got to learn how to ask clever questions in that manipulative way detectives ask them. Some of those guys were amazing. They could get real hard-case motherfuckers to confess to terrible things, but sometimes it took hours, days sometimes. No, see, out on the street, we had our own way of interrogating suspects and we also got hard cases to confess to all kinds of shit, but it never took more than two minutes. That’s where the trick comes in. It worked every time too, ’cause no matter how different people are from each other, tough or weak, brave or cowardly, sane or psychopath, they all have one thing in common: they don’t want to die. And, Esme, I bet you think you’re different. I bet you always think that, huh? That you’re gonna be the exception to the rule. Well, you keep thinking that, okay?
“So here’s how it would work if you were a hard case. I would take this gun here with the one bullet in it and I’d jam it against the back of your fucking head or press it to your temple.” I lightly brushed her hair with the muzzle of the. 38. “Then I’d start asking you for where the video footage is stored, for all your access codes, and the master codes for your accounts. I’d ask you for a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers of the people you’ve been blackmailing. And the minute you stopped answering or started lying to me, I would pull the hammer back and squeeze the trigger and I would keep doing it until I got the answers I was looking for. See how it works? But here’s the trick,” I said, walking around in front of her and showing her the bullet in my left hand. “The trick is that I palmed the one bullet you thought was in the cylinder the second I moved out of your line of sight. The gun’s empty.” With that, I pressed the muzzle up to my temple, pulled the hammer back, and squeezed the trigger. I did it over and over and over again. “See?”
The look of utter horror on her face was astonishing. The cop who taught me this trick many years ago told me it would work just this way.
“It scares ’em more if you put the empty gun against your own head or put it in your own mouth and keep squeezing. That really scares the shit out of them. They’re already scared to begin with, but seeing that makes ’em think you’re just crazy enough to really kill them if you have to. And that’s the whole point.”
It went off perfectly, but I wasn’t feeling particularly proud of myself. Nor was I quite done, not yet.
I leaned over her and put my lips very close to her ear and whispered, “Someone is going to come talk to you now. He’s a real cop, a detective, but if you don’t cooperate with him and give him all the things we talked about, including your bank account and pin number,
I’m gonna come back in here and we’re gonna play that game again. Except this time, I won’t palm the bullet. I’m dying, Esme. I have gastric cancer and, unlike you, I’ve got nothing to lose.”
“You are full of shit,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to keep her voice steady.
I stepped back from her far enough so she could see my face. “Take a good look, Esme. Look in my eyes and tell me I’m full of shit. Tell me!”
She was silent.
I turned to go.
“What is this to you?” she called after me. “Why should you care what I do?”
I kept walking.
When Fuqua came out of the room, he handed me the cartridges I’d left scattered on the floor in front of Esme. I hadn’t done it out of carelessness.
“Here is the information,” he said, giving me a sheet of paper. “How long will you continue to hold her?”
“A few more hours. I have a computer guy who used to work for me. He’ll check this stuff out and wipe the videos.”
“Now, I believe you have something for me, non?”
I didn’t say a word as I handed him the fuel to feed the furnace of his ambition: a nine-by-twelve envelope and the digital voice recorder. I had that sick feeling in my belly again.
FORTY-FIVE
Empty.
Empty, that’s how I felt.
It was over.
Done with.
And who was better for it? Carmella? Maya? Pam? Natasha? Yes, Natasha. Maybe Natasha and the fourteen other women Esme had blackmailed. Pam and I checked their names against phone numbers, emails, addresses, and videos. Fourteen was the number, not counting Maya Watson, of course. It was hard to watch all the videos, even in fast forward, although there was a horrible, mind-numbing sameness to them. I didn’t hold out any hope that these women who had been drugged and raped and blackmailed would find an ounce of comfort in the fact that they weren’t lone victims. They were alone in every way that mattered, far removed from solace, though not quite as far removed as Maya. At least part of the nightmare was over for the survivors, but how much solace would there be in that? I felt like the doctor outside the triple amputee’s door preparing a speech about looking on the bright side. None of these women, I thought, was apt to see any silver lining.
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