by Tim Stevens
“I’ve been thinking about that question ever since you first posed it,” said Mykels. “And I’m afraid I’ve still drawn a blank.”
“Keep trying.” Venn headed for the desk sergeant in the precinct lobby. “In the mean time, is there anybody who knows your whereabouts at this moment?”
“The people I’m visiting with, obviously. And my agent. Nobody else.”
“Okay. Stay where you are. I’ll send a police escort to come pick you up.”
Mykels gave him the address in Connecticut.
Venn rang off. Harmony and the two detectives from downstairs had appeared. He said, “Mykels isn’t home, but Wong won’t know that and could be headed for the apartment. We need to get there right now.”
One of the detectives said, “I’m on it.”
Venn and Harmony rode with a patrolman in one car, with two other vehicles providing backup. As they hit the streets, Harmony said, “You think the guy’ll be dumb enough to go to Mykels’ place?”
“He’ll know it’s a risk,” said Venn. “But he’ll also know he’s got a narrow window left to finish the job. Once Mykels is under protection, Wong won’t be able to touch him. Wong’ll figure that Ho will crack at some point, and give up the story. But he may believe he still has a little time before that.”
The detective back at the precinct had been organizing a SWAT team, too. After Venn had left, Charles Ho had revealed that the Shadow Dragon Triad consisted of more than thirty members. If Wong was rallying his troops, this could turn into a pitched battle.
They reached the leafy square where Mykels’ apartment was located. The place looked quiet. The patrol car in which Venn and Harmony were riding pulled up in front of the apartment building, with the other two cars behind them.
Venn drew his Beretta and climbed out. The lobby beyond the entrance doors looked empty.
Just then he heard a shout from behind him. He turned, saw one of the uniformed cops staring down an alley alongside the building.
“Something down here,” said the cop. He began walking down the alley. Venn thought quickly, then said: “Harm, you go inside, talk to the doorman. I’m checking this out.”
He backtracked to the alleyway, just in time to hear the cop down there yell, “Hey,” and to hear the squeal of rubber on tarmac.
A red car at the other end was taking off.
Venn sprinted to the nearest patrol car, dropped into the passenger seat, shouted, “Go, go,” to the cop behind the wheel.
The car rocketed down the alley, dodging the other patrolman at the end. Across the main street on the other side, Venn saw the red car disappearing round a corner.
The patrolman gave chase, driving well, fast and hard, and although they lost sight of the red car, instinct made the driver take a left turn, which was when they reached Micky Wong’s body in the middle of the road.
*
Harmony caught up with Venn as he was questioning the bystanders. She said, “What the hell happened? Is that –?”
“Yeah,” said Venn. “Wong.” He told her about the description, now corroborated by two more witnesses, of a woman and an overweight man in the red VW.
One of the patrolman came ambling over. “Got a match on the car’s license plate,” he said. “It was stolen in Philadelphia two days ago.”
So far, Venn had gotten a partial description of the woman from the eyewitnesses. She was aged somewhere between twenty and thirty, black-haired, with kohl around her eyes and dark lipstick. Kind of Goth. The man was more nondescript, maybe early thirties. And chubby.
“He looked worried,” offered one of the bystanders.
“Scared shitless,” piped up another.
Harmony said to Venn, “Mykels’ apartment is untouched. The doorman reports nobody going past him in the last hour, apart from residents of the building.”
“Closed circuit cameras?” said Venn.
“Nothing on the internal ones so far. They’re checking out the one that covers the main doors to the building.”
“Okay.” Venn felt hyped up, ready for action, and enormously frustrated that he didn’t know where to direct it. He said, “Let’s go back and talk to Ho some more. Find out if he knows who this woman and the other guy are.”
More cops were filtering in, turning the streets into a sea of blue for several blocks. They caught a ride in one of the patrol cars back to the Chinatown precinct house.
When they got there, one of the detectives with whom they’d been questioning Ho said, “Heard about what happened. I already asked our friend downstairs. He doesn’t have a clue who these people who killed Wong are.”
“Damn,” said Venn.
“Another thing,” said the detective. “The cops back at Mykels’ apartment have just sent through the footage from the camera monitoring the front of the building. You might want to take a look.”
He led them into an office where a computer was set up on a desk. Venn and Harmony crowded round the screen. The detective called up the footage, the usual sequence of jerky, monochrome stills.
“There he is,” said Harmony.
Wong appeared, heading past the doors, hunched, his head bowed, his hands in his pockets but his face clearly visible. He carried a rucksack on his back, which hadn’t been found with his body. He disappeared again.
“Wait,” said Venn. “Back up a few frames.”
In one of the pictures, an older man was passing Wong in the opposite direction.
In another, a woman came into view behind Wong. She was dressed in black, and had a wild nest of black hair which partly obscured her face.
“That her?” wondered Harmony.
“Could be.” Venn said to the detective: “Can you zoom in?”
The woman’s face was no clearer in close-up. Her single visible eye looked dark, but it wasn’t obvious that she wore a lot of makeup.
“Okay,” said Venn. “It’s something.”
“The guys on the Upper East Side will be processing the images,” said the detective. “You should get a better picture soon.”
“Maybe,” said Venn. “I’ll send it to my own guy, anyhow.”
He called up his email and attached the footage. Then he took out his phone.
“Fil,” he said to Vidal. “I’m sending you some closed-circuit footage. I need you to get to work on it right away. The man you’ll see is Micky Wong, we know that. I’m interested in the woman who appears behind him.”
“Got it,” said Fil. “Something else you should know. I’ve been checking out that guest list for Torvald’s fundraiser.”
“Yeah?”
“One of the guests was Louis Q. Mykels.”
Venn felt a tingle up his back. It was a sensation he’d learned to pay attention to, over the years, both in the Marine Corps and as a cop. It wasn’t infallible, but it generally indicated that he’d hit on something significant.
Thinking aloud, he said, “May not mean anything. Mykels is a big name in this town. He probably gets invites to that kind of thing all the time.”
“Sure,” said Fil.
“But we need to follow it up,” said Venn. “Can you look for connections between Torvald and Mykels?”
“Already on it,” Fil said cheerfully.
Venn filled Harmony in. Then he strolled away across the office, stopped, closed his eyes.
Martha Ignatowski had been poisoned at Torvald’s fundraiser.
Mykels had been at the party.
Somebody had beaten Ignatowski to death later that night.
Somebody was now trying to kill Mykels.
It added up. Somehow. It had to.
But Venn didn’t have the first idea how.
Chapter 22
Wayne finally stopped blubbing after Shelly slapped him a third time.
Maybe I should just put a bullet in his head and have done with it, she thought. But no: she needed him.
He stepped back, cringing, shaking still, but at least that awful gibbering had ceased.
&
nbsp; “Wayne,” she said. “Look at me.”
They were in a clearing in a small patch of woods just outside a town named Anchorville in Eastern Pennsylvania. The cool of the evening was starting to descend, and the setting sun cast long shadows.
Shelly had taken them out of New York before the police dragnet could reach its peak, and she’d driven until the only cars and homesteads to be seen were a half-mile apart. Lucking out, she’d noticed a riverlet down a track off the main road, and had driven right up to it. It wasn’t deep enough to hide the car forever, but she didn’t need forever. Just a few days, maybe a week at most.
Wayne hadn’t said a single word during the trip out of Manhattan, and from time to time he’d been so quiet she’d glanced at him, wondering if he’d fallen asleep or passed out. But he’d been staring down at his lap, his pallid face making him look fish-like.
She’d had to yell at him before he climbed out of the car and helped her push it into the river. They’d stood watching the bubbles rise.
Then she jerked her head. “Come on.”
The town, Anchorville, had been a three-mile walk away. Shelly got impatient at Wayne’s slow progress, but he really wasn’t in the best physical shape and he’d had to stop for breath several times. She’d been planning to sit down with him in a diner, but as they reached the outskirts of the town, the delayed shock set in and he began to shake and wail.
Which was when she’d decided to divert them into the woods.
She studied his eyes, to see if he was registering her.
“Wayne,” she said. “You need to get on the clock. It’s going to be okay, but you need to get your head together.”
His eyes were wide. “It’s not going to be okay,” he said dully. “I killed a guy.”
“You killed a nasty little wannabe hood,” she said. “Doesn’t count.”
“You said you’d let him go.”
Shelly managed to avoid rolling her eyes. “Give me a break,” she said. “He’d have IDed us.”
“Who was he?” asked Wayne.
She shrugged. “You know as much as I do. But like I told him, a group of Chinese guys tried to kill Louis Q. Mykels last night. He was one of them, maybe not necessarily there, but part of the gang.”
Wayne’s eyes opened even wider, as if a new and terrible idea had occurred to him. “You think they might be... organized crime? Triads?”
“Maybe. Though Little League, I’m guessing.”
“Oh, shit.” He dragged the first syllable out. He was no longer looking into Shelly’s eyes, but off into the distance, as though contemplating his future. “I killed a Triad guy. I’m fucked.”
No, that happened the moment you met me, Shelly thought, but she didn’t say it. Instead: “Yeah, well, Wayne, shit happens. It’s all the more reason you need to get a grip right now. Your best chance of staying alive is if you listen to me, and do exactly as I say.”
He began breathing slowly, deeply, through his pursed lips, as if trying to fend off a panic attack.
Jeez, she thought. He’s going to be a problem.
Sighing inwardly, she glanced around. Then stepped closer to him. Wayne flinched, as if thinking she was about to hit him again. But she reached out gently, took hold of his belt.
He stared down, stammered: “W-what?”
She gave him what she knew was a killer smile. With her other hand she reached up to the top button of her blouse. Popped it.
“Melinda, we can’t –”
“Come on,” she murmured. “Don’t you want it?”
And of course, yes, he did want it, the way people who’ve just come through an experience more extreme than any they’ve ever encountered before, an experience involving death, feel the urge to engage in the most life-affirming act of all.
They dropped to the ground, tearing at one another’s clothes, raging under the open sky.
*
Back in Wayne’s apartment that morning, Shelly had noted the license plate on the Lexus Wayne had photographed at Ignatowski’s house, and had run it past her contact in the NYPD, the one she had a hold over. He in turn had checked with the DMV, and had gotten back to Shelly within ten minutes.
“It’s registered to a Louis Q. Mykels,” the cop said.
“You’re kidding me,” said Shelly. She was out of earshot of Wayne, whom she’d sent into the bathroom.
“I’m not,” said the cop, his tone wheedling. “Honest. Do you want me to check this Mykels out?”
“You don’t know who he is?” Shelly was incredulous.
“Should I?”
Shelly shook her head. Even when she’d been a cop herself, she’d been astonished by some of the dumbasses she’d encountered among her colleagues. Pig-ignorant deadbeats who had no interest in finer culture. She knew who Louis Q. Mykels was, of course. She didn’t care much for his art, but that was neither here nor there.
“Get me his address,” said Shelly.
Before going to summon Wayne back out of the bathroom, Shelly allowed herself a moment to bask in her good fortune. She now had the identity of the man who’d hired her. He’d been a voice on the phone until now, who’d been put in contact with her through the complex series of cutouts she employed to do business. He hadn’t wanted to say who he was, which immediately intrigued her.
But now, she knew that the man who’d hired her to kill Wayne Cronacker, the journalist who’d photographed him leaving Martha Ignatowski’s house the night of the murder, was none other than one of the most feted artists in New York society.
That gave Shelly the upper hand.
It also gave her options. She could demand an increase in her fee, and a damned hefty one at that. Or, she could use her knowledge of Mykels’ identity as leverage in the future. Leverage was good. It prized open seemingly airtight doors.
Or, she could have the best of both worlds. The leverage and the pay hike.
Shelly thought quickly about Wayne. She didn’t really need him any longer, which meant there was nothing stopping her from killing him right here and now. She could have killed him last night, of course, but the idea of finding out what he knew, learning more about the identity of the man who’d hired her, had proved too compelling to resist. Which was why she’d gone through the whole disgusting seduction thing with this guy who called himself Blowfly.
But now, with Mykels’ identity in the bag, was there really anything more she could gain from Wayne’s continued existence?
Maybe. Maybe not. She’d let him carry on for a little longer, because it might occur to her along the line that there was some way to use him. As a mule, perhaps, to carry stuff for her, like money or hardware. Except she didn’t quite trust him enough yet. She wasn’t quite sure that she had him by the balls.
So she fetched him from the bathroom, and made him more coffee, and avoided his questions. Her NYPD contact called back soon with Mykels’ home address.
Shelly considered phoning Mykels right away and telling him she knew who he was. But she decided instead to check out his home. Get a feel for how he lived, who he lived with, if anybody. She had time, after all. Though not limitless time, because she was supposed to present him with proof that her target, Wayne Cronacker, was dead. Proof in the form of a news item about a dead journalist.
While Wayne drank his coffee and sobered up on the couch, Shelly turned on the crappy portable TV he kept in his kitchen.
The Ignatowski murder was still the first item on the news, of course, but it was the second story that caught Shelly’s attention. There’d been a gun battle the night before, outside the Desiderata Gallery uptown. Two Chinese Americans had been killed, and an indeterminate number of others had gotten away.
The gallery had been hosting an exhibition by none other than Louis Q. Mykels.
And the cop mentioned as the one who’d foiled the attack, and who’d killed the two perps, was Detective Lieutenant Joseph Venn.
Shelly stared at the face on the screen.
Well, well, she tho
ught. Big Joe. How about that.
The news moved on to trivial items, and Shelly snapped off the TV. As she did the dishes, the gun on the counter nearby, just where Wayne could see it as a reminder, she found herself humming softly.
This was turning out to be a fascinating job, and she was enjoying it no end.
*
Finding the Chinese guy, Micky Wong, outside Mykels’ apartment had been the icing on the cake.
Shelly would have liked to spend longer questioning him, and in a more private setting. She got no particular kick out of torturing people, but she had a knack of getting information out of them, however long it took. But the cops had turned up on the scene – she didn’t know why – and they’d had to take off.
It was then she hit upon the idea of getting Wayne to kill Wong. She could have shot the guy herself, even while driving. But Wayne’s pulling of the trigger bound him to Shelly, irreversibly.
Now he couldn’t walk away from her. Now, she truly had him by the short and curlies. He was joined to her by sex and death, a powerful combination.
And a plan was starting to take shape in her mind. Nothing firm yet, but it held promise. She saw a new way that Wayne might be useful to her.
As they dressed – Shelly noted that her skirt was torn along one seam, but that didn’t matter – and Wayne peered around furtively, as if expecting to see that some voyeur had been watching them from the trees – Shelly thought about what she’d learned from Micky Wong. Somebody named Torvald was trying to kill him. So, task number one now that she’d ditched the car and calmed Wayne down, was to find out who this Torvald was.
Wayne’s face was flushed, but he looked more relaxed than he had a few minutes earlier. He had difficulty meeting her eye, but when she smiled at him – a genuinely nice smile, not a seductive or a smirking one – his embarrassment lessened.
“What now?” he said.
“We find ourselves a new set of wheels,” she said. “Then we head back to New York.”
“Back there?” He looked agitated again. “But the cops’ll be all over, looking for us.”
