by Tom Straw
“Twenty seconds.”
Without being asked, Macie took a seat on the nearest chair. “I may need a full minute,” she said. Eichenthal processed a beat, then blinked. He sat on a sofa opposite her. “My client got involved in a burglary crew, and he admits breaking in here.”
“Into my home.”
“But I’m not concerned about the burglary charge, not right now. My priority is clearing him of a homicide he didn’t commit.”
“‘Not concerned about the burglary . . .’ You’re definitely not in sales. This isn’t helping me get my art back.”
“Getting to that. There were three men on this burglary crew. I need to identify the leader, who may be the one who committed the murder, I’m not sure. But—finding him may locate your paintings.”
“Ask your client.”
“He’s in a coma.”
“Ask the other guy.”
“He’s the one my client is accused of killing. So, Mr. Eichenthal, I can help you if you help me, starting with what was stolen.”
“A Chagall, a Sargent, and a Wyeth.” He swept an arm to a wall across the room where bare hooks formed exclamation points in gaps between numerous other paintings. “These assholes knew just what to go for. They skipped the showy stuff and cherry-picked my most valuable. Cocksuckers.”
“Were you here when the theft took place? Or did anyone else see the three men?”
“If that was the case, they wouldn’t have made it out of here.” The threat broke on him as easy as sweat. Macie had misjudged him as a petulant millionaire. The street in him was real and not to be screwed with. “But to answer your question, my family and I were at our house in Vail. Except when I’m here on business, we’re either there or Amelia Island between Thanksgiving and June.”
“What about security video of them?” Wild’s gaze tracked up to the small camera bracketed in the corner that she assumed he was using to record the meeting.
Her question knocked him of balance. “That . . . ? That’s a new installation.” The implication being, after the cow had departed.
“Do you have any photo documentation of the stolen works?” Wild’s minute was up, but the victim was now engaged. He came to her with his cell phone and swiped across three images. “Beautiful,” she said, and asked him to text her copies. “I assume the police art theft unit also has these?”
“Screw them. I’ve got private security on this. We have some technology that will light up a trail. And where technology doesn’t do the job . . .” He paused for a knowing glance to Henry. “Well, we don’t have the same rules of engagement the police do, if you know what I mean.” His boyish face took on a sinister cast and he aged twenty years before her eyes.
“May I ask who wrote the insurance on these?” asked Monheit, who was still standing beside the security man.
Eichenthal snarled at him. “What the fuck kind of question is that? What business of yours is my insurance?”
Monheit took a step back and blanched. “Listen, I, ah . . . I’m just assuming they have a recovery team working this, too, and maybe we could, you know . . .”
Inarticulate as that was, it mollified Eichenthal, who said to Wild—not Monheit—that he’d have his secretary forward that to her along with the screenshots. Without a handshake or good-bye, the CEO turned and started to walk off to the back of the apartment.
Macie called after him. “If you get a lead on this burglary crew chief, would you mind sharing him?”
“Not at all,” he said with a grin. “What piece of him would you like?” It sounded like anything but a joke.
♢ ♢ ♢
Wild parted ways with Monheit and gave Cody a heads-up call. “Our stolen files beckon.” When Cody met her at the door to his loft he was showered, smooth shaven, and in fresh clothes, including a dress shirt that still bore geometric hints of a dry cleaner’s fold. “See what happens when you call first?”
“I hardly know you.”
“That’s the nap. And did I need it. Forty-plus hours of wake time take a toll. I even had this bizarre hallucination that you slugged me.”
“Man, you really were delirious.”
It was nearly six, beer time, he said, so she accepted a Sierra Nevada and sipped it while he disappeared into his editing studio. “You’re early,” he called out over the freestanding bookcase that partitioned the work space from his great room. “No complaints. It’s just you caught me in the middle of rendering some video. With you in a sec.”
He suddenly sounded uptight to her, so Macie asked if he could work and listen. He said he could, and she tipped another swig then gave him bullets from the team meeting: Hall’s coma; Pilar’s missing clothes; the missing Pilar; and Monheit’s lead to Gregory Eichenthal as The Barksdale theft victim.
“Lead? Wasn’t that in the Post this morning?” he said returning from his editing bay, seeming less crispy with her.
“The power of Jonny Midnight.”
“If you can’t be a good detective, be a lucky one,” he said, clicking necks with her bottle.
Cody called in their order for a pizza and salads, then they sat on the living room floor where he had left the milk crate of loose papers from Rúben Pinto’s desk. “So, time for the personality test,” he said.
“You never mentioned this.”
“Don’t worry, it’s multiple choice. Ready?” He gestured to the jumble of papers. “Sort or slog?”
“Slog,” she said without hesitation.
“You surprise me, Macie Wild. I would have figured you as a sorter.”
“The case against police profiling,” she said, making sure it carried a light touch. “I want to approach this in the same order Pinto put it in the drawer, kind of like a timeline. Unless you shuffled it when you tossed it into your bag.”
“Now who’s profiling? You go first.” Macie drew from the top, an unopened cable bill. Cody left then returned with a pair of steak knives, and she used hers to slit the envelope.
“Unpaid, past due,” she said. “He didn’t bundle his phone, so there’s no record of his calls.”
“Sharp eye,” he said, going for the next document, a parking ticket. “I have a feeling we’re going to see a number of these. Let’s start a pile and see if there’s a pattern to where he’s been.”
As they continued, one document at a time, he asked her about her visit to The Barksdale. She gave him the rundown, from Henry, the bodyguard, to Eichenthal’s abusiveness and out-for-blood revenge lust. “Afterward Jonathan wondered if Eichenthal’s whole over-the-top reaction to this is protesting too much.”
“Jonny Midnight said that? He may not be as useless as he looks.”
“Eichenthal is bypassing the police. He says he’s hunting for his paintings with private security. And not-so-veiled threats of violence. Jonathan even wondered if—”
“—Eichenthal or his goons did Pinto trying to get him to give up where the paintings are?”
She shrugged. “Just his theory.”
“And not a bad one. Don’t tell him I said that.”
“MetroCard.”
“Put it with the parking tickets. We may be able to run the magnetic strip for a history of his subway swipes. See? We are sorting. Sorta . . .”
“Question for you, gadget man. Eichenthal alluded to using technology to track the paintings? How?”
Cody crossed his arms and leaned back against the sofa. “Could be a number of things. Watermarks or embedded fibers like you see in money. But that’s mainly for verification once they’re found. My guess is maybe he has RFID chips either embedded in the frames or woven into the canvas edging.”
“Explain RFID.”
“Radio Frequency Identification. You use it every day. It’s a miniature chip, a transponder that emits a signal. The bigger ones are in your E-ZPass to tell the toll booth it’s you. Smaller ones are showing up in credit cards and in hotel keys that you touch to the door. I’m sure they make small-enough ones to attach to valuables like art. I
’ll check it out. I have a guy.”
“You have a guy?”
“Come on.” He gave a theatrical eye roll. “Gotta have a guy.”
They continued their slog, finding a few more parking summonses, some more MetroCards, and even an empty Butterfinger wrapper. “Hello,” said Cody. “Could this be a thing? Because I think it’s a thing.” He held up a printed form on white paper with some of the fields shaded in pink. It was a receipt made out to Rúben Pinto from Flamingo Jewelry and Pawn for an item marked “Statue” with a declared value of $300. His wall speaker buzzed a short burst. Cody hauled himself to his feet. “Know what goes with beer. Besides more beer? Pizza.”
Macie examined the pawn ticket and said, “Definitely a thing,” then placed it on the coffee table, not on the floor with the other pieces.
♢ ♢ ♢
They dined picnic style on the living room rug, ostensibly so they could keep sorting as they ate. But they fell into too much conversation, too much laughter, tacitly postponing the file quest in favor of letting down and being human for a decent interval. He commanded Alexa to play Soul from Spotify and the Echo across the room delivered “Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye. Macie wanted to hear some TARU stories, and on his second beer, he obliged.
There was the day he and his partner set up surveillance from inside the first-floor window of a Midtown office to snap photos of a city councilman who was supposed to take an envelope of cash at the Gregory’s Coffee across the street. “It was a perfect hide, we thought, because our window was that glass that’s all blue mirrored on the outside so we couldn’t be seen. And it was perfect until this homeless gent wanders up and starts taking a leak on our window. Let’s just say it was a view I could live without.”
Macie laughed. “And probably can’t shake.”
“Call it indelible. Let’s see, what else?” He picked up a pepperoni that had strayed onto the cardboard and chewed it, searching for another anecdote. “There was this one guy in our unit, Sam, really knew his shit. So he says to me when I get a gig bugging a Mafia social club, ‘Hide a surveillance camera behind a two-way mirror in the vestibule.’ Why? Because Sam had figured out that every single hood in the world stops to groom his hair before he steps out the door. And know what? He was right. Easiest way in the world to update the Insta-Goon database.”
“Sounds like you’re stereotyping. Every single one?”
He stood. “All right, smart-ass, come on.”
She took his extended hand for a boost and he led her around the bookcase into his studio. Video editing is computerized, so the cubicle consisted of two Macs, each connected to a pair of Thunderbolt displays. Wild took a place standing at the nearer tower, whose light was blinking energetically, even though its screen was dark. “You’ll want to ignore that one. It’s in sleep mode, rendering a cut I’ve been building.” She moved over beside Cody at the other stand-up desk as he tapped the space bar on a keyboard that woke up the monitor of that unit. Its screen filled with a menu of files on the hard drive. “This is a gag reel I put together for one of the TARU Christmas parties. Here we go.” He found the one he wanted and double clicked the trackpad. The display came to life with color bars, followed by a film title in bold font: “HAIR CLUB FOR MADE MEN.” Then, to a jaunty soundtrack of Mama Corleone and a dapper old Italian singing “Luna Mezz O’ Mare” from The Godfather wedding scene, a quick succession of clips played of mobsters, dons, and hoods facing Cody’s hidden mirror cam as they primped their hair in restaurant vestibules and apartment foyers.
“Oh, my God, you weren’t kidding.”
“Just wait.”
Young, old, middle-aged, Italian, African American, Irish, Latino, Russian, Asian—one after another they stepped into the entrance halls, and either patted down, combed, primped, or simply admired their hair before stepping outside. For comic variety, one stopped for a booger check. Another exited the door then immediately came back in and groomed his hair a second time before he left again. That was followed by the capper. A young enforcer whose face came full screen—while he used the mirror to squeeze a zit. “Nooo. Too gross. Enough, enough.” Macie groaned, recoiling from the image as she melodramatically shielded her eyes and backed away, bumping her elbow on the space bar of the keyboard behind her. She saw Cody’s eyes widen in alarm as the screen of the other computer awakened. “Oh, sorry, sorry. Did I wreck something?”
Cody made a lunge for the console, but it was too late. He had been rendering video while the screen slept and now that it was awake, she saw why Cody had been so alarmed. The monitor was rolling nighttime surveillance footage of Macie’s attacker—the same man from the fleabag with the Colt Anaconda—the same Russian they had chased into the subway. In this, Luchik was in a shoving match with a bouncer outside a strip club. With cold anxiety blossoming, Wild noticed the time stamp. The digits said that this had been shot two weeks ago. She regarded Cody. His expression, illuminated by the pale reflection of the monitor, looked exactly like chiseled marble. A new commotion drew her attention back to the video. The bouncer had landed on the sidewalk and the Russian began to stomp him viciously. Macie couldn’t watch it. She looked away to the Finder window and her stomach twinged anew as she read the file menu: “Luka Fyodor Borodin. Raw Surveillance Vids 1 thru 9.”
While the video beatdown continued, she turned back to Cody. Nothing could dam the tsunami of hurt and betrayal washing over her. “All this time, you knew who he was?—You knew his goddamned name?”
C H A P T E R • 16
* * *
Cody stared at Wild. He was speechless for the first time since she’d met him. His surveillance footage still rolled in the background, and Macie could hear the sounds of body blows, and felt as if each one was being delivered to her. She watched him fumbling for words, nothing like the smooth dude tossing her witty asides while driving the wrong way on a one-way street. The room began to tilt for her as implications of this two-week-old video of her attacker—and the other eight Cody had apparently filmed just like it—broke over her with a suffocating crash. Feeling his floor pitching under her like a jungle footbridge, Macie left his edit bay, left his loft, left him behind.
He followed, imploring, “Please, don’t go,” and “Come back. Sit down and hear me out.” Wild rolled the elevator’s scissor door shut and descended, watching him watch her until he became only torso then legs then shoes and then there were only the lateral CT scans of lower floors as she passed by. The whine of machinery quieted as the lift settled on the ground floor and, in the stillness, Cody’s voice, calm and soft spoken, traveled down the shaft and visited her as if he were right there speaking lowly into her ear. “Is this what you do when things get tough? You either walk out or lash out?” The aural effect was so eerie, so near, so confidential, that his question might have been her own inner voice.
Macie left her hand resting on the brass door handle, which was bright as gold from wear. His words had struck home. Not just because it had been her pattern with him. But also with her ex. It’s what had put her in a center seat on Air France and was Topic A in couples counseling. Wild hesitated. Then she pressed six and rode back up.
How many times over the years had Macie wished for a chance to pause the Life DVR and rewind the scene? Returning for this do over seemed exactly like that, rising into her exit in reverse sequence: Cody’s shoes, his legs, his torso, his face. However, this wasn’t a wish granted but a pain confronted, instead of bolted from.
When Cody reached to open the gate, she said, “Don’t,” and he withdrew his hand as if he’d get zapped. She stayed in her cage. “I want you to tell me why. No. I want you to tell me all the whys. Why you knew about this man for two weeks—at least two weeks—before he attacked me. Why you were following him. Why you were following me. Why you gave the police his description but not his name. Why you were able to sit there—right beside me in your van last night . . . after shaming me to go along with planting your rat trap . . .” Wild took a swallow, workin
g to keep civil. “We both sat watching that thug up in that room—and you never told me that you not only knew him, you’d shot video of him!”
He watched her a moment fuming through the bars. “I’ll tell you,” he said solemnly. No charming twinkle or playful smirk. But when he reached for the latch, she stopped him again.
“Not good enough.”
“I said I’d answer your questions. What more do you want?”
“I want,” she said, “to know everything.”
Cody didn’t need to think too long, and nodded. “Deal.”
“Good answer.” She rolled open the gate and stepped out.
♢ ♢ ♢
Beer gave way to coffee; the kitchen counter replaced the living room floor. Wild perched on a barstool, both hands swaddling a mug of French Roast, and hearing Cody out. “I’ll need to walk it back to my piece for VICE Media.”
“I have nothing but time, as long as you tell me the truth.”
“I promise. No bull, no smoke—”
“No First Amendment crap?”
He filled his own cup and began. “A month ago I was down at McSorley’s, catching up with some of the old crew. Everyone’s swapping tales, and this sarge from the West Village starts in about some rich foreign kid in his precinct who’s a one-man quality-of-life violation. The kid’s blasting hip hop out his windows at four a.m., or he’s drunk and pissing on somebody’s car—from his balcony. I’m thinking, so what, that’s your garden-variety pain-in-the-ass college kid. Maybe a little more interesting because this twenty-year-old delinquent claims he’s royalty—an actual prince from Angola. Most people swallowed that, but he’s not really a prince. Just a rich shit, whose even-richer mommy sent him off to Columbia University, thinking he’s in school instead of living his own personal twenty-four/seven spring break. But then it gets big. One of the detectives from Special Vics says he knows about this kid. Says this prince was named in a hooker battery complaint that disappeared when the woman in question gets a new Mercedes G, and suddenly claims it was mistaken identity.”
