Hooked

by Polly Iyer

  As if the thought of prison wasn’t enough of a nightmare, that threatening sleazeball, Dirk Hansen, hovered in the wings to cash in on his girlfriend’s disappearance. Threatening him. Benjamin Cooper. A man who could buy and sell the slimy little prick for less than he paid his maid. What will happen when Cindi turns up dead? Would she? Jesus. He raced into his bathroom and tossed the brisket.

  Then Russo himself called. Russo: the head of one of New York’s Five Families. He wanted to talk, or maybe he wanted to put a bullet in him to protect his accountant. A man like Martell could unleash the wrath of the government on the crime boss. The thought made Benny run to the toilet again. He loved brisket, but tonight it wasn’t sitting well.

  He didn’t want Eileen to see how upset he was. She always reacted with a cool head, but he’d never experienced problems like these. Even when the cops fished Serena out of the harbor, Eileen handled it like a champ. Never gave a thought that her death might come back to haunt him. It happens, Eileen said. Some women can’t stay away from the bad element.

  Then there was Melody. Sweet, delicious Melody. His cock gave a little jerk thinking about her lovely mouth. Poor thing. He’d called her to make sure she was all right, but she still sounded upset. Of course. Why wouldn’t she be? She’d seen her friend compacted like a discarded auto. Well, not exactly, since Melody was in la-la land when Martell sat on Cindi. But she knew what happened. She was about to leave town, get herself together. If she needed anything, he told her, all she had to do was ask. She’d be on easy street for the rest of her life.

  He was cursed. Some malignant alignment of the stars had put him on Nature’s shit list. He’d go to temple Friday night, beg forgiveness of God for all his wrong-doings. He’d make a list. It worked for Catholics. The priest told them to say a few Hail Marys and God forgave them. He’d go to church too. Take Eileen. She used to be Catholic. She’d show him what to do. You couldn’t get enough help in situations like these. Did it matter who showered you with absolution? God was God, right?

  A wave of calm washed over him. Things would work out. After all, Tawny Extra-Fucking-Extraordinary Dell was coming to work for him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Beware of Cops Bearing Gifts

  Linc mulled over what to do when Tawny set the parameters of her cooperation. Had she been serious? Would she go to jail to protect a few women she didn’t even know, or was she taking what could be the biggest risk of her life?

  “That’s the deal,” Linc said to Harry while eating lunch at their favorite Chinese restaurant. “Captain Bondell’s running her demands through Treasury. She doesn’t want any of the women charged unless they’re involved, and she wants everything in writing. If we don’t do it her way, she said we can haul her off to jail.”

  Harry Winokaur wove a cigarette through his fingers as if he were a sleight-of-hand artist manipulating a silver dollar. He’d quit smoking years earlier, and the constant twiddling was more habit than the need to smoke. The owner of the restaurant had stopped worrying that Harry would light up, a no-no in restaurants and bars in New York.

  “With those demands, I’d think Bondell would probably love to do that,” Harry said, fingers working furiously. “Who the hell’s in charge here? If the Marshall woman hadn’t been fished out of the harbor, Tawny Dell would be up on charges right now.”

  Linc raised both hands, palms out, in protest. “Don’t take it out on me, Harry. I’m just the messenger.”

  “The NYPD could bust Cooper’s place wide open right now. Get him for running a prostitution ring and put his ass in jail till his dick fell off. If he had anything to do with the girl’s death, he’d be begging to tell anyone who asked.”

  Harry had lost a lot of money in the stock market and cited Benny Cooper as a target of revenge, even though Benny retired from his Wall Street gig years earlier. For Harry, Cooper was a symbol of the economy’s downfall, no different than the scumbag mortgage lenders and heads of the major financial institutions who used his money to pay themselves huge bonuses. Linc probably understood Harry better than anyone. They went back a long way.

  “We could,” Linc said, “but what we have on Cooper is pretty slim. What’s he going to get? First-timer, rich guy, on a charge of procurement? Good lawyer, which he’d have, probably a big fine, maybe a year or two. More likely probation. But if we nail him for blackmail or make a murder charge stick, he’d lose his dick in prison for sure, probably to someone named Sweetcakes. Until then, we might have a hard time getting one of his people to roll on him. He buys loyalty with lots and lots of money. I’m sure everyone on his payroll will have a prepared story detailing why they’re there and what they do when they are there. Cooper’s a jerk, but he’s not stupid. Harvard degree, made millions in the 90’s boom. We go in too soon, he’ll slap a harassment suit on the department that’d cost a bundle and precious time to defend, and the notoriety would mess up other investigations.”

  At the rate Harry was twiddling his cigarette, the paper would disintegrate before lunch was over. He threw it down in frustration at the same time the waiter brought their food to the table.

  “I hate those guys. They think they can get away with everything, even murder.”

  “If Tawny can connect Cooper to something worse than running a whorehouse, we can nail him. If not, we can still shut him down.” Linc picked up a set of chopsticks and offered them to Harry in lieu of the discarded cigarette. “What do we have to lose? Another week or two?”

  “This lady knows how to tie up a guy’s balls, doesn’t she?” Harry said.

  Linc didn’t say anything, particularly since his balls tightened at the thought of her tying them up.

  He knew when he put Tawny’s demands to the captain it would have been a good time to get off the case. Right now, Linc, he said to himself at the time. But he let the moment pass until it was too late to bring it up. Instead, he endorsed Tawny. It wasn’t difficult.

  Clipping a potsticker with his chopsticks, he dipped it in the sauce. “She’s smart and cautious. She’d have to be to have stayed under the radar this long.”

  “And from every account I heard,” Harry said, “a real stunner.”

  The heat of Harry’s stare made Linc uncomfortable. He didn’t look across the table, afraid he’d give himself away. Harry knew him well enough to read his vibes. “She is that.”

  “You trust her?”

  Linc hesitated. He didn’t want to anxiously sing her praises. “Yes, I do.”

  “She trust you?”

  “Hmm, probably not.” An understatement, he thought. “But she’ll work with me.”

  “I’m sure Bondell will tell you to get everything straight with her before she goes in,” Harry said.

  “You’re federal. You think they’ll give her what she wants in return?”

  “Depends how bad they want Cooper.”

  Linc wanted to say he didn’t want Tawny hurt, but he let the time pass to mention that too.

  * * * * *

  Walsh’s call took Tawny by surprise.

  “All the parties agreed to your terms,” he said, “and we got the state’s attorney to sign the contract. Can we get together?”

  “Okay.”

  “I can come to your place.”

  The idea of Lincoln Walsh sitting on her sofa or having coffee at her table was both off-putting and tempting. Was it that she didn’t trust him or herself? She had no intention of finding out. “Better not. There’s a Starbuck’s in Astor Place.”

  “I’d rather not have this discussion in public.”

  A long moment passed before she responded. She could do this. “Ring the bell. I’ll buzz you in.”

  “Be there in half an hour.”

  “And you’ll be out of here in less time than that,” she responded, but he’d already broken the connection. What was she thinking? No coffee. She wouldn’t do anything to extend his stay beyond business. In fact, she needed to change her clothes. She’d been out all day and was
too dressed up. She took off her pantsuit and hung it in the closet.

  Rummaging through her drawers, she pulled out a Columbia T-shirt, then took it off―too elitist. Jeans. No, too form-fitting. A pair of loose drawstring pants and an oversized white T would do the trick. Comfortably perfect. Next, she washed off her makeup and put her hair in a ponytail. Plopping on the edge of her bed, she released a long sigh. He was just another man. Nothing special.

  Then why all the fuss? He’d come in, tell her what to look for, and how to go about it. Then he’d be gone. Piece of cake.

  Forty minutes. He said half an hour. Maybe she misunderstood and he decided to meet her at Starbucks. No, she told him to ring the bell.

  And there it was, sounding like Big Ben in an echo chamber.

  She pressed the buzzer to let him in. The old freight elevator creaked its way upward. She opened the door to wait. What was that smell? Whatever it was set her salivary glands working overtime. She realized that between the matinee of the off-Broadway play she’d wanted to see for weeks and a stop at the Mulberry Street Library to pick up a book they’d requisitioned from another branch, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The elevator reached her floor, and Walsh stood there, pizza box in one hand, bottle of wine in the other, and a can of Coke in his jacket pocket.

  “Peace offering,” he said, holding up the box. “Vegetarian. The wine’s for me.”

  Shit!

  He deftly juggled his offerings and pulled the cord that lifted half the elevator door and lowered the other half. “Hope you haven’t eaten.”

  She wanted to say she had, but the aroma radiating off the pizza box was too enticing to turn down. It’d be the classic cutting-off-the-nose-to-spite-the-face scenario. Why not fill her belly while getting instructions on how to save her ass so someone else’s could land in jail. The thought of being a traitor almost sent her hunger into time out.

  Walsh had ditched his suit in lieu of worn jeans and a burgundy polo shirt under a lightweight khaki jacket. The earthy colors played nicely off his olive skin and dark eyes. He wore different shoes. Though casual, they still looked both Italian and expensive.

  He scanned the large room, found the table, and headed for it. Tawny went to the cupboard and withdrew two glasses and two dishes.

  “Nice place,” he said, pulling the Coke from his pocket. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on one of the other chairs.

  Make yourself at home, why don’t you? The shirt was short sleeved, and his arms were taut and muscular. But she knew that, wished she could forget it.

  “Thanks.” She put a stack of napkins on the table along with a knife. “Thanks for the pizza. I am hungry.”

  He opened the box, separated the slices, and put a couple on each plate. “Business after food.”

  She nodded. “Oops, almost forgot.” Going back to another cupboard, she pulled out a small bottle of crushed red pepper. “I like spicy. How about you?”

  “I almost forgot.” He tugged his jacket off the chair and extracted a small packet of red pepper from the pocket, holding it up. “I like hot too.”

  “So far, that’s the only thing we have in common,” she said.

  He matched her gaze and smiled. “Don’t be too sure.”

  His eyes were like nuggets of coal set under a dark canopy of black fringe, and his smile set them sparkling. She couldn’t believe the Svengali effect he had on her.

  “Sure you won’t join me in a glass of wine?”

  She shook her head, and he popped open the can of Coke and poured it, then pulled the cork from the wine bottle. “I didn’t know whether you had a corkscrew, so I had the shop open the bottle.”

  “Since I don’t entertain here and don’t drink, I don’t have one. So good move.”

  He wrinkled his brow but didn’t say anything. Bet he thought she entertained clients in her apartment. Some women did. Not her. She didn’t want a client barging in at all hours of the night demanding extra or venting anger when she chose not to see him again.

  The pizza was delicious, with every vegetable topping known to pizzaland. He’d bought it at the same place right around the corner where she bought hers. Okay, so they had pizza in common, but she bet he usually ate his with pepperoni. She struggled to finish the third piece and pushed her plate aside.

  “How did you happen to get the pizza at Zuni’s?”

  “I looked up the closest place to your house and called. I asked if they knew you. Need I say they did? By name and description. Then I told them to make up a pizza the way you ordered it.” He pointed to the leftovers. “Voilà.”

  Tawny smiled. “Very thoughtful.” Walsh got up, stacked the dishes, and brought them to the sink. She cleaned off the table. He started to put them in the dishwasher. “Leave them. I’ll do them later.”

  “I see,” he said. “Let’s get to business so you can get rid of me.”

  “I wouldn’t be so rude after you bought me dinner. But, yeah.” He appeared genuinely hurt, and she wondered why she was being rude after saying she wouldn’t. “Only that it’s late, and I’m sure you’re tired.”

  “Right. Business it is.” He pulled a folded 6 by 9 kraft envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket and drew out a second envelope of photographs, along with two folded sheets of paper. He slid one sheet in front of her. “Your assurance in writing, authorized by the state’s attorney, that no federal charges will be brought against you if you find out whether Cooper had anything to do with murder or blackmail. You’ll have to pay all back taxes, interest, and penalties, but there may be probation. Depends on how things work out. That’s fair, don’t you think?”

  “Considering the alternative, yes. I appreciate it, but I still hate the idea of being a spy.”

  “Tawny, a very frightened woman called us and mentioned Benny Cooper’s name. Now she’s dead.”

  “If Benny’s involved, what makes you think the same thing won’t happen to me?”

  “Because you’ll be in contact with me every step of the way. Anything suspicious or if you feel threatened, get out of there fast, and we’ll take over. Okay?”

  Tawny nodded.

  “We’ve been watching the place ever since we connected the dead woman with Cooper, mostly at night because we don’t have the manpower to watch during the day. I have photos of people coming and going.”

  “Tell me about her.” She met Walsh’s gaze. “The dead woman. I need to know.” Would knowing give the task at hand more immediacy? To make it more real in terms of someone’s life?

  Walsh nodded absent-mindedly and referred to the other paper. “Real name, Sarah Marshall. Serena was her stage name. A beautiful girl from a nice home, college graduate, not a junked-out street hooker. She had her whole life ahead of her. Then she got into the business. A way to earn extra money, we found out from a friend. She thought being a call girl was a victimless crime, like you said.”

  Walsh’s stare penetrated into her like a heat-seeking missile. She tried to keep her expression neutral. She didn’t see any of her clients being victimized, and she never thought of herself as a victim.

  After pulling the stack of photographs from the envelope, he put all but two in front of her. “Here are the women we’ve been able to identify.” Their names were on the backs of the photos, and Walsh went through them.

  The girls were all pretty. Most were white, some of mixed ethnicity, a couple were African American, one Latina, although she could have been Indian.

  “Those two have stopped going to the building,” Walsh said, referring to the two other photos. One was blonde, quite pretty, a little too much makeup. She wore slacks and a sweater that accentuated her full bustline. “Melody Carnes is a model on Seventh Avenue.”

  “A little busty for modeling.”

  “Well, she’s not anorexic, for sure. She’s been holed up in her apartment, went out once that we saw, although our surveillance has been spotty at best. When she did, she wore dark glasses and a ball cap. We could pick her up, b
ut I don’t want to do that until you see what you can come up with. Might screw up what we have going. We haven’t been on this very long. Our guys took pictures in shifts, doing their best to identify the women. We recognized some of the johns, regulars on the club circuit. Rich guys with too much money and overactive libidos. We’re not interested in them right now, only the ladies. Busiest time ranges from early evening to late at night for both men and women.

  “This gal―” he swapped Melody’s photo for a younger, thinner girl, with an eager quality― “went to the townhouse a few times, but we haven’t seen her in over a week. She’s not in our files, so we have no idea who she is. She could be on a week-long cruise somewhere or decided she didn’t like the life.”

  Tawny knew women like these. Pretty, good figures, thought life in the fast lane was exciting. But perceptions differed from reality. Some learned how to deal with it, some didn’t. Some got out; some liked the life, others got in too deep and couldn’t get out for a variety of reasons, drugs being primary.

  “Cooper’s not there all the time, but two other men are,” Walsh continued. “Tax forms say the smallish fellow, Colin Harwood, is the building manager; and the doorman, Charles Higbee, lives in the basement apartment. Neither has a record. One other guy showed up once in the last couple of days. Not the usual customer. T-shirt and jeans. His picture matched a man by the name of Richard Hansen, or Dirk, according to his sheet. Domestic violence and battery, so not a nice guy. He might be a boyfriend. We’re doing a deeper check.” Walsh took his picture from the two he kept in front of him. “Know him?”

  Tawny studied it. “Not a very good picture, but no. Never saw him before.” She examined the photo closer. “Pretty boy. Model or actor, I’d guess. His hair’s professionally streaked, and he works out, which means he probably goes to a gym.”