Epsilon Creed (Joe Venn Crime Action Thriller Series Book 5)

by Tim Stevens

  Instead, they had to start shooting at the guy. And now everything was a mess.

  Micky had three problems, as he saw it.

  One: James and Tyrus themselves. From what he’d seen, their car looked pretty smashed up, and the big guy had fired on them twice and more than likely hit at least one of them. Possibly they were both dead. That was better than if either of them were alive. At least the cops wouldn’t be able to interrogate them. But they’d be easily identifiable, and they could lead the cops to Micky and his crew.

  Two: The cop had seen Stephen behind the wheel of the Range Rover when he’d driven by, and may have seen Micky’s face just before Micky opened fire with the assault rifle. Plus, it was possible he’d noted the license plate of the Rover.

  Three: The job wasn’t done. Micky’s target had escaped, unhurt.

  There wasn’t anything he could do about the first problem, not at the moment. And the third problem, though he’d need to address it quickly, could wait.

  Priority number one was ditching the Range Rover and lying low. At least until the dust settled.

  They needed to torch the Rover. Remove all traces of Micky’s DNA, and Stephen’s.

  Micky took out his cell phone. As always, he used an unregistered one, which he’d discard this evening when he’d finished with it.

  He called Charles, who was in the third car, the Honda, with two other guys.

  “The job’s aborted,” he said curtly. “James and Tyrus are dead. The cops are on to us. We’re going to Jersey. We’ll get rid of the car there. Head in that direction and be ready to come pick us up.”

  Without a word, Stephen swung the Range Rover in the direction of the Holland Tunnel.

  Chapter 7

  Venn leaned against the wall of the gallery’s façade, feeling the adrenaline ebbing. It always gave him a drained, unsteady feeling in his legs, but he wasn’t going to let it show.

  Beth clung hard to his arm. Her face was calm, but her eyes were frantic with mingled fear and relief.

  A couple of cops milled around nearby. They’d taken Venn’s statement – his preliminary one, though there’d be many further interviews later – and seemed to be trying to figure out if they’d forgotten anything. Out on the street, a phalanx of uniformed cops kept the crowds at bay and secured the scene. The EMTs were prizing the bodies out of the wrecked Toyota with the help of the fire department.

  Louis Mykels had appeared at the entrance, and he made his way across. His agent, Veronique, was at his side, as were the gallery’s manager and the two plainclothes cops from earlier.

  Mykels’ face was grave, his eyes intense.

  “Lieutenant Venn,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Venn waved a hand. “You should get back inside.”

  Mykels gazed over at the crime scene. “I suspect it’s safe now.” He turned back to Venn, his eyes shrewd. “Do I take it you believe these men intended to harm me, personally?”

  Venn shrugged. “It’s a possibility. They were obviously watching the gallery, so it’s a safe bet they were waiting for somebody to come out. You’re the star of the show, so...”

  Mykels nodded thoughtfully. “But there were a number of prominent people here tonight. Any one of them could have been a potential target. More than one of them, possibly.”

  “Whatever.” Venn drew a deep breath, felt his legs. They were steady once more. “It looks like gangbangers.”

  One of the plainclothes cops said, “Yeah. Triads, maybe.”

  To Mykels, Venn said: “Is there anybody who might want you dead?”

  Mykels didn’t smile - it would have been inappropriate, given the seriousness of the situation, and he appeared to respect that - but there was wry amusement in his eyes. “More than you could imagine, Lieutenant.”

  “I don’t mean in a figurative sense,” said Venn. “Not somebody who dislikes your work, or a rival artist. Nothing like that. I mean somebody who genuinely wishes to see you killed.”

  Mykels watched him levelly. Again, Venn had the nagging sense of being toyed with. “Possibly,” he said. “But not like this. Not hired gunmen.”

  Venn let it go. He gazed at his Jeep, which was surrounded by crime-scene techs. It sagged on one side where the tires had been blown out. No amount of panel beating was going to restore the damage to the bodywork.

  His last Grand Cherokee had been shot up, too, he recalled gloomily.

  Venn stayed at the scene for another hour, scouting about, giving statements, before he decided there was nothing more he could contribute. The cops updated him: the Range Rover hadn’t been found yet. Venn had given as close a description as he could come up with of the driver of the Range Rover, and of the man in the passenger seat who’d fired at him. But there wasn’t much to say. Like the guys in the Toyota, they’d been young, and of Chinese ethnicity. That was about it.

  Venn put his arm around Beth. “Come on. Let’s get home.”

  She buried her face in his shoulder.

  Beth had gone through a traumatic time almost three years ago. She and Venn had met when she’d been on the run from a man trying to kill her. Then, last summer, she’d been taken hostage by a drug baron named Diego Salazar, and had almost gotten killed all over again. The experience had left her with PTSD, and she and Venn had split up for a while, because she couldn’t cope with the violence he seemed to attract. Gradually she’d gotten better, and she’d decided her love for Venn was more important to her than the terror of the world in which he moved.

  But it was episodes like tonight’s, where Venn escaped death by a hair’s breadth, that made him afraid he’d lose her again. This time, for ever.

  A uniformed cop offered to give them a ride home, and they accepted. In the back of the black-and-white, Beth smiled at Venn, a brave, trying-to-hold-it-together smile.

  “I’m okay, Venn,” she murmured. “If that’s what you’re wondering.”

  He pulled her close.

  On the journey home, he remembered why he’d left the gallery in the first place.

  The toxicology result on Martha Ignatowski’s body.

  Venn took out his cell and saw he had a couple of missed calls. One was from Detective Harpin. He punched in the guy’s number.

  “James,” he said. “I’m real sorry.”

  He told Harpin what had happened.

  “My God,” said Harpin, sounding genuinely appalled. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Listen, it’s probably not the best time for me to come around –”

  “Hell, don’t even think about it,” said Harpin. “Go home, get some rest. Come by in the morning.”

  The other missed call was from Harmony Jones, Venn’s deputy.

  “For crying out loud, Venn,” she said as soon as he called. “I know you were going to that exhibition tonight, but you can still check your phone.”

  “I just did,” he said.

  “So how was it?” she said. “The arty-farty thing?”

  Venn decided he didn’t feel like recounting the story yet again. It could wait. He said, “More exciting than I expected.”

  “Yeah?” Harmony sounded uninterested. “Anyhow, the reason I called. I got Ignatowski’s week mapped out as best as I could. You’ll be impressed when you see my work. She spent Friday, the day she got killed, at a big fundraiser out at Oyster Bay, Nassau County. Long Island, you know?”

  Venn said: “What kind of fundraiser?”

  “For cancer research. It was at the home of some big-shot banker. Umm... here it is. Carl Torvald.”

  Venn had heard the name. He tried to keep up with finance, though he didn’t have much in the way of investments himself. “Interesting.”

  “You think we should pay this guy a visit? Maybe he can tell us what frame of mind she was in. If she seemed scared, like she knew something was going to happen to her.”

  “Yeah. Sounds like an idea.” Venn told Harmony about the toxicology report which found poison in Ignatowski’s system.


  “Holy shit,” said Harmony.

  “Uh huh.” Venn saw his and Beth’s house up ahead. “Listen, I gotta go. See you at the office around nine tomorrow?”

  “I’m starting to enjoy this one,” said Harmony.

  Chapter 8

  As Saturday progressed, Blowfly’s euphoria rapidly dwindled to a feeling of profound despondency.

  After cleaning himself up, and sobering up as best he could, he’d hit the computer. Using a photo-enhancement software package he’d invested in early in his career as a reporter, he tried to sharpen up the images he had of the silhouetted man he’d snapped at the front of the Ignatowski house. But the man had been in shadow, even when he’d been staring straight up toward Blowfly up on the wall, and nothing of his face was visible.

  The best Blowfly could say was that the guy was slim and relatively tall. He moved without any sign of a limp or other disability. Big deal. That described maybe half the population of New York State.

  He had no more luck with the car, either. He had the make, and the color, and the license plate. But Blowfly didn’t have connections in the NYPD, or the FBI, or the DMV. He couldn’t simply call up a pal and have a check run on the plate.

  For a while, Blowfly toyed with the idea of reporting the plate to the cops, saying the vehicle had ben involved in a hit-and-run. But he’d be required to make a full statement, and the police wouldn’t simply tell him who the car belonged to. Sure, they’d investigate, but whoever owned the car would come up with some alibi, there’d be no evidence of any crime having been committed, and Blowfly would be dismissed as a crank. Or, worse, charged with wasting police time.

  Nope. Blowfly’s elation this morning, when he’d first heard the news that Martha Ignatowski had been murdered, had been utterly misplaced. He saw that now. Because even if he had seen her just seconds before she was killed, he had nothing more to go on.

  He could of course go to the cops and tell them what he’d seen. But then he’d have to admit he’d been up on her wall trying to catch illicit pictures of her. The cops probably wouldn’t charge him with anything – they knew what assholes paparazzi could be, and they had better things to do than go after every last one of them – but they certainly wouldn’t reveal to him the identity of the car’s owner. If they caught the guy, Blowfly couldn’t expect to get any of the glory. And one of the biggest opportunities of his lifetime would slip through his fingers.

  The story of his rotten, wasted life.

  By eight in the evening, sitting in his apartment surrounded by empty fast-food cartons and cigarette butts which had spilled out of the foil ashtrays he favored so that they lay scattered on the carpet like trodden maggots, Blowfly decided to do what he normally did when faced with an insoluble problem.

  He went out to get a load on.

  The bar he chose was Trixie Chix, a dingy haunt down a narrow alley off Bleecker which avoided the term dive by a pubic hair’s-breadth. Trixie’s, as it was known, consisted of a square, low-ceilinged saloon with a pool room at the back. It was frequented by some of the more penniless students in town, a regular crowd of ageing alkies, one or two muttering schizophrenics, and the occasional preppie tourist trying to look cool by slumming it. Blowfly didn’t go there a lot, but the bartender knew where to score weed of reasonable quality, and Blowfly’s stash was running low.

  The first thing he noticed when he swung through the doors was that the place was more crowded than usual tonight. Yep – a preppie was there, resplendent in his college sweater and neat, side-parted haircut, entertaining a bunch of his douchebag friends. No doubt he was nonchalantly telling them how he came here often, to soak up the authentic atmosphere of bohemian Manhattan or some such crap.

  The second thing that caught Blowfly’s attention was that his favorite bartender, the weed guy, wasn’t working tonight.

  Blowfly felt the unfairness of the world bear down upon him anew. He considered for a moment whether to just turn and walk out of the fucking place. If he started hitting the bottle heavily now, in this kind of mood, he’d end up in a stew of self-pity and not even enjoy the night (he knew he wouldn’t enjoy the morning after anyway).

  No. He’d stay for one drink. A beer, with maybe a Jim Beam chaser. That counted as one drink. Then he’d move on, find somewhere livelier. Maybe even score a little coke. His budget didn’t really allow for it, but he’d never found anything better for lifting his spirits.

  Propped on a stool, he finally caught the bartender’s attention. He suspected the guy had been ignoring him, allowing other customers to order first. Blowfly felt the self-pity claw at him like a demon from the depths of the sea, trying to drag him under.

  He knocked back the Beam and swigged deep at his Coors, before settling into a sipping rhythm. Nobody at the bar, not even any of the other solitary boozers like Blowfly, was paying him any notice whatsoever.

  The TV on the wall over the bar was tuned to a new channel. What a loser bar, he thought. Not even sports or MTV for entertainment.

  Blowfly thought about the invisible man who’d emerged from Martha Ignatowski’s house, and was overwhelmed by a hatred so intense his fist made the beer glass creak dangerously.

  You son of a bitch, he thought. You murdered that woman, I was there, and you didn’t even show me the courtesy of letting me get a good look at your face. This is my story, dammit. My big break. And you screwed it up for me.

  He took a sup of beer.

  The first thing Blowfly was aware of was the smell. It was a rich, musky aroma, not that cheap hippie patchouli all the college girls favored. No: this was a woman’s perfume. A sexual brand.

  The second thing that caught his attention was the feel of her, at his side. Without touching him even in the slightest, she somehow made her physicality apparent to him.

  Blowfly turned on his stool. He was still sober enough that the movement didn’t make his head spin.

  The girl was perched on the stool beside him, right up against the wall. He didn’t know how she’d got there, hadn’t heard her arrive. Perched was the wrong word. There was an elegance to the way she carried herself which wasn’t at all birdlike. Her elbows were propped on the bar counter, her chin resting on the backs of her slender hands.

  She was maybe twenty-five years old. Possibly older, possibly younger. It was hard to tell, because she was kind of a Goth. But not really: she had the black clothes, and the kohl-adorned eyes, and the dark lipstick which on closer inspection turned out to be maroon rather than black. But her attitude was playful, teasing, rather than doomy.

  Her jet-black hair was tousled artfully on top of her head, giving her small face and petite body a pixieish quality. The huge eyes of deep blue added to the picture.

  Blowfly’s first thought was that she was just about the hottest girl he’d ever seen.

  His second thought was that she must be a hooker.

  Why else would a babe like her park her tush next to his in a sleazy bar? Unless she had drugs for sale. Blowfly perked up at that thought. He knew he almost certainly wasn’t going to get unpaid sex out of any interaction with her - that was the kind of calculation his mind did instantly whenever he met a woman, and the conclusion was the same almost every time - but if he managed to get high, that was nearly as good.

  Blowfly blurted: “What’s a girl like you doing in a nice place like this?”

  It was a real knee-slapper of a joke. At least he thought so when he was on his own. But even as the words came out of his mouth, Blowfly marveled at his stupidity. At his unerring ability to shoot himself in the foot at every opportunity possible.

  She eyed him sideways. One corner of her mouth turned up.

  God. She was gorgeous.

  “For that,” she said, in a soft tone that was neither the little-girl squeak her small frame might have suggested, nor the husky voice of a Hollywood screen vamp, “you owe me one drink, at least.”

  Without waiting for Blowfly to answer, she signaled the bartender, who for so
me reason seemed far readier to serve her than he had Blowfly. She ordered a vodka martini with a single olive.

  Classy, thought Blowfly. He chugged the rest of his stein, raised his finger for another. The bar guy looked from him to the girl and back again.

  Blowfly gave the guy the biggest, most shit-eating grin he could muster.

  By the time the drinks were served, Blowfly found that the girl had somehow edged closer, so that her crossed legs were almost touching him. He felt the electric thrill of close contact.

  “So,” she murmured, over the rim of her glass. “What’s your name?”

  “Blowfly,” he said immediately. Then, literally, he bit his lip. You idiot...

  She studied him seriously for a moment. Then: “Okay. What’s your name when you’re not trying to cover up intense feelings of social awkwardness and self-loathing?”

  Holy mackerel, thought Blowfly. He felt like her eyes were scouring out the back of his skull.

  “Wayne,” he almost stammered, as if he was a sixth-grader being chewed out by the principal.

  “Wayne.” She rolled the word round her mouth, as if she’d just taken a sip of her martini. “Like the Duke.” She turned her middle and index fingers into the barrel of a gun and sighted down them at him.

  For the first time, those plum-colored lips parted in a smile.

  *

  She asked him what he did, where he was from, what music he was into, stuff like that. Normal stuff. But she seemed to be hanging on his every answer, which was unusual in his experience.

  He answered dutifully. He was a journalist. He was originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but had been living in New York close to ten years. Musically, he favored Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins, Slipknot. He wondered if he ought to slip in a couple of Goth bands just to impress her, but he decided she’d know if he was bullshitting her, so he decided to play it safe and go with the truth.

  Blowfly was so engrossed in talking about himself that it wasn’t until they’d been chatting for fifteen minutes that he realized he didn’t even know her name. Guiltily, he asked it.

  Again there was that smile. She used it sparingly, and it was all the more effective for that.