Buzz Killer

by Tom Straw

  “Belonging to your wife or daughter?” she asked, earning a smile from him for knowing that Islam forbids men from wearing gold. “What was taken?”

  He recited a list of necklaces, bracelets, anklets, rings, earrings, and bangles with specific recall of gold tone and precious stones. Missing from him was his collection of wristwatches. Two Cartiers, a Louis Moinet Tourbillon, a Patek Phillippe, a Piaget, and one Ernest Borel.”

  Wild did her best with the spelling and tallied the items on her list. While she did, Gunnar asked, “Can you give us an estimate of the loss?”

  Without hesitation, he said, “Four hundred seventy-six thousand US dollars.”

  After the stunned silence that followed, Gunnar asked, “And you did not report this?”

  “And invite more upset? Scrutiny? Interference . . . ?” He gestured to the two of them. “My illness has educated me that, once your family is cared for, a fortune is trifling when you have limited days remaining. Any problem that is only about money is not a problem.”

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  Gunnar Cody’s check-in with his contact at the Seventeenth yielded no progress finding the kidnapped burglary crew chief, Jeff Stamitz. Their next stop brought them to the luxury condo of another wealthy target, although this one had reported her burglary to the NYPD. The victim was Holland Bridgewater, author of blockbuster horror novels and a tips-to-riches success story, having leaped from waiting tables to landing on the Fortune 100 Highest-Paid Celebrities list in a span of four years. Her personal assistant retrieved them and took refreshment requests on the ride up to the fifteenth floor of the majestic limestone pre-war on Fifth Avenue. They waited while sipping mineral water from Baccarat crystal tumblers in the darkly furnished living room with views of the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park and the Dakota, just beyond Strawberry Fields. While a grandfather clock tapped off the seconds with somber strokes, Gunnar went to the window to enjoy the Central Park vista. Macie took in the expensive, albeit gloomy artworks: original oil paintings of eclipsed faces peering out from shadows, a castle rook in the middle of a graveyard sheathed in fog, an oxidized copper statue of a knight who was either melting or sinking into a bog.

  When the writer appeared after ten minutes, she was already halfway across the thick carpet in her slippered feet before they noticed her. Holland Bridgewater smiled, introducing herself by her first name, and sat, hooking one leg under her. She was dressed for comfort in Gap jeans and a University of Vermont sweatshirt. Oh, and a necklace that Wild guessed could have paid her rent for the coming year and a half. “Sorry to keep you waiting. You caught me writing.”

  “Ten minutes,” said Gunnar. “That’s what for you? Two more best sellers?” Her response was unamused so he tried to recover. “I don’t mean any disrespect. Just the opposite. You’re so prolific. Didn’t the Huffington Post call you the female Stephen King?”

  “I see you haven’t read me. Stephen is a god, but our styles are utterly different. I’d like to see some identification.”

  “Of course,” Wild handed over her business card before Gunnar could speak.

  Bridgewater gave it a glance and said, “You’re not with the police?” Again skating ahead of Gunnar, Macie laid out the landscape. How she was defending one of the burglars, and that Cody was an ex-detective, and that they’d teamed up. In a lie of omission, she left out his VICE Media gig, assuming an investigative media connection wouldn’t be so welcome here. The author considered in silence. “So I don’t have to talk to you, do I?”

  In a role swap, Gunnar turned to Macie, deferring to her. After all, he had already opened the conversation by tripping on his shoelaces. “That would be purely your option, Ms. Bridgewater. But since I’m assuming the police haven’t done much for you, and the fact that my client was part of the team that was in here, my colleague and I are in a unique position to work toward recovering your property and bringing other participants to justice.”

  Bridgewater freed her leg from under herself and leaned forward, laser intent on Wild. “You mean there was a team of them in here?” Hooked, she gave the room a once-over, and it probably wasn’t the gruesome artworks that had suddenly creeped her out. “The police never told me that.”

  “They probably don’t know,” said Macie.

  Gunnar added, “Or aren’t saying.” His cred as an ex-cop was now working in his favor.

  “I’d like you to look at some photos.” Taking a page from the Cody playbook, Wild got right to it without asking for a green light.

  After Macie dealt out the head shots on the coffee table, the author reacted. “Hold on. Are you saying all these people were in here that night?”

  “No. Three, as far as we know. The rest may be involved in other ways.”

  “But involved,” said Gunnar with a weight that was hard to miss. As with Fahad Sharif, they asked her to review the faces in the context of minor encounters the days and weeks prior to the break-in—even negligibly—such as with a delivery person or repairman.

  “Afraid I won’t be much help with that. I was gone writing the three months prior to the burglary. I sequester myself either at my place in Vermont or Bermuda when I’m on deadline. The only real reason to come to New York is for meetings with my publisher or to get a decent cosmo at Balthazar.” She surveyed the faces anyway. Nobody scored a hit but she asked her assistant in to view the array. No matches there either.

  Holland Bridgewater had some of her own photographs to share with them: a file of pictures she had taken of the stolen property years before for insurance documentation. The folder not only held the shots but a copy of the single-spaced list she had provided the NYPD detectives working the case. On it there was some jewelry plus rare collectibles including mint first editions of books such as Notre-Dame de Paris, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Cask of Amontillado, the quill pen used by Edgar Allan Poe to write it, a lock of Boris Karloff’s hair, a shooting screenplay from House of Wax autographed by Vincent Price, and an obscure Austrian technical publication from 1893 entitled Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter, Polizeibeamte, Gendarmen. Bridgewater said, “Translated it means Handbook for Coroners, Police Officials, Military Policemen. It was a groundbreaking work in forensics and has margin notes by the criminologist who wrote it.”

  “And criminals stole it. I’m seeing the irony here,” said Gunnar, getting his first return smile from the writer. It didn’t last.

  “When can I expect my stuff back?” The process of review had picked at the scab. “You said your client was in on it. Can’t you get my property back to me?”

  “It’s not so simple. He was attacked in jail and has been in a coma. But when he’s well enough, I promise I’ll try to find it for you.”

  Bridgewater said, “I’m no detective, but I make a living studying human nature’s underbelly.” She floated a copy of the list of her stolen property onto Wild’s lap. “These aren’t iPhones or Xboxes that can be fenced anywhere.”

  Gunnar picked right up because he was already there. “Somebody knew what to look for. They only took what they came to find. Can you think of anyone who knew they were here, or has expressed an interest in them? A collector, maybe?”

  “The thing you obviously don’t know is this: I make it a point to make sure nobody knows I’m even living here. Too many fans, too many nut jobs, too many aspiring writers who show up and want me to critique their 800-page manuscripts. I’m serious. My name’s not even on the deed. I bought the place through one of the privately held limited liability companies my attorney set up for me. Any mail that gets delivered comes to Creve Coeur Enterprises LLC, not to Holland Bridgewater.”

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  “This one here.” The Jets all-pro wide receiver double tapped one of the photos from the spread Wild had dealt out in front of him. “Him, I know.” Macie and Gunnar tried not to telegraph their excitement as they craned from opposite sides of Larry Don Henkles to see who he was pointing out.

  It was Rúben Pinto.

 
; A handler from the athletic wear company that was paying the NFL star $5 million to endorse its brand strolled up. “Waitin’ on you, Knife,” he said, using the nickname Henkles got from the sound-alike cutlery company—and how he sliced through cornerbacks. Without excusing himself the athlete stepped away to crouch beside a kid in a wheelchair while photographers snapped away and a Channel 7 crew rolled video.

  Macie and Gunnar had found Larry Don there at the children’s hospital up in Harlem thanks to the doorman at his apartment building who bought Cody’s cop pose—especially when he showed him the photo array. Who asks for a badge when you’re getting fanned with mug shots? After poses and high-fives, the wide receiver made his way back over to them at the side table in the corner of the room. “You sure about him?” asked Macie, holding out Pinto’s pic.

  “Damn straight. Fuckin’ weasel’s dead meat, I see him again.”

  The defense lawyer in her wanted to caution him, but the moment passed when Gunnar started in. “Can you remember where and when you saw him? Was he hanging around your building? And how far before the burglary was it?” Larry Don’s face pulled into a knot of dismay. The handler started over but he waved him off. “Something wrong?”

  The football player’s lips tightened and he worked them back and forth in thought. “I’m wondering if I should have my lawyer here.”

  Macie and Gunnar traded glances and she chimed in, “I promise whatever you say to us will be confidential, Mr. Henkles.”

  Her words or, maybe, her way, reassured him. “I didn’t see him before. It was after. Two days after the break-in, a messenger drops off a letter at the front desk of my building. Note says he wants to sell me back my shit and to call this number and no cops or deal’s off.”

  “Did you keep the note?” asked Gunnar.

  “Yeah, but it’s just some typing on a sheet of paper. No handwriting, no name even.”

  He was starting to clinch up again. Gunnar said, “Keep going.”

  “Uh, so we talked . . . and . . . OK, here’s the deal. He wasn’t offering back all my stuff. Not the jewelry, the artwork, or the cash they boosted. Just one thing. Something that wasn’t on the list I gave the cops.” He made a privacy check then continued in a low voice. “A book. See, I do some betting. And I keep this ledger. I like to see how I’m doing, how much I’m up, you see.”

  Gunnar knew the answer, just as Macie did, but he asked anyway. “Sports betting?” Henkles nodded. “NFL games?” Another nod. “Let me guess. Betting on some of your own?”

  “Little fucker basically shook me down. You have to understand.” For a split second, Macie thought she was about to hear a murder confession. But he said, “I agree to his price of three Gs to make this go away. On the day I’m ready to do this, he calls and says, ‘Now it’s gonna be ten grand.’ Fucker’s squeezing my balls. So I end up coughing up ten large to get the book back. He told me to do it in cash, twenties, and bring it to this autograph event I had a couple of weeks ago. He wanted to do it in public. So he’s in line with the other collectors, and when it’s his turn at the table, I’m signing his jersey, and he gives me a peek at my ledger in his manila envelope. I slide him my envelope, he slides me his, and he’s gone.”

  “Did you talk?” asked Macie.

  “Not him. But I did. I said you try to milk this or call the league, I’m coming for your ass and you will be dead. But first, you’ll wish you were.”

  Macie heard the athlete’s stabs of breath and wondered if, maybe, he would need a lawyer.

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  Not exactly on a budget that allowed for posh Upper East Side dining, they hit the salad bar at Eli’s Essentials on Madison and had a lap lunch on the wooden sidewalk bench outside the storefront. Between bites and appraisals of passing couture and fancy dogs they reviewed what they had, and had not, learned from their interviews. Gunnar, whose detective training had taught him to look for these things, saw no apparent connections between the victims. All they had in common were wealth and the luxury apartments it afforded them. None of them knew each other nor did they belong to the same clubs, take part in the same charities, or socialize in the same circles. “One thing I did get though—nothing against rich people,” said Gunnar just as a man with a bespoke face strolled by in $1,700 made-to-measure Ballys, “but half the vics we talked to were absent from their gazillionaire condos for months around the burglaries. I mean, who buys these luxe urban palaces and leaves them sitting vacant?” Hit by a second thought, he added, “I’m not offending you, am I? I mean, your family isn’t exactly shaking cups of change outside the subways.”

  Wild had never shared that her parents were both well off, and she gave him a puzzled frown. He chuckled. “Oh, please, it’s all over you. Just watching how you hold that plastic fork is giveaway enough. The big clue, though, was the way you described the duck and olives in Paris, if you don’t mind me revisiting your romantic Fukushima.”

  “You got that from my breakup dinner?”

  Gunnar tugged at an earlobe. “I heard that and said, ‘Facility with haute cuisine. Not your Dollar General shopper.’ And before you accuse me of being judgmental, that’s where I get my crew socks and tighty-whities. Anyway, my point is . . . well, pretty much forgotten.”

  “You were talking about the crime victims being gone for long stretches of time. It’s really not unusual. A third of the posh apartments and condos uptown are vacant ten months a year. That’s from the Census Bureau. Go ahead and hate me, I’m a research geek.”

  “So the cop in me is wondering whether Stamitz, the crew chief, really had inside info, or if he knew that, too, and the odds were just in favor of vacant apartments to burglarize. That would explain the boner of stumbling in on the Grammy winner.” She set her salad bowl on the pavement and started a list of observations and questions on the next clean page in her Moleskine.

  Wild added, “I’d like to know if the MO of this team was to sell back stolen property to its victims.”

  “You mean instead of fencing it?”

  “Or, maybe it’s a combination of the two.”

  “Or, maybe Rúben Pinto went rogue, working his own scam like Spatone said.”

  Macie grew tired of staring at the baby spinach leaf that had landed on his thigh and plucked it off, then wondered if that was too familiar. When his eyes met hers, she immediately stood. “We should get back to our victim interviews.”

  Since they already had visited the pharma CEO at The Barksdale and Woody Nash at the Crystal Court, they crossed them both off and set out for the last place on their roster, which was down near Columbus Circle. They continued the conversation about the burglaries on the drive, adding a few more questions, including whether the crew had shopping lists going in, who the items were fenced to, and where they were stashed pending disposition. Since Jackson Hall might have those answers, Macie chanced a call to Dr. Edda. She reluctantly agreed to allow them some time with her patient, but not for another hour when Hall got back from ambulation therapy.

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  The Ajax, a spire of cobalt blue glass, looked as if it hadn’t so much been built up from amid the tight cluster of luxury high-rises off the southwest corner of Central Park as inserted down into it by the hand of some unseen god from another galaxy. Judging from the appraisal Macie Wild and Gunnar Cody received on their arrival in the cavernous lobby, the concierges also believed themselves to have been deposited there by celestial decree. Under their imposing stares, and surrounded by furniture and hanging fabrics that made her feel underdressed, Macie was all too happy to let Gunnar lead off. He started in full cop mode with a street, “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “May I help you?” was all he got. It sounded like verbal pepper spray.

  “Yeah, my partner and I are here to see your resident on the fifty-sixth floor.” He consulted a spiral notebook and added, “That would be your penthouse.”

  “And the nature of your visit today?”

  “Absolutely. We’re here t
o investigate the burglary in that residence on . . .”—another glance at his notes—“. . . the twenty-second of last month.” In their periphery, a formidable man in a charcoal suit with a communication earbud quietly moved over to join them. Gunnar gave the security man a nod and turned back to the concierge. “If you’d be so kind as to announce us, we can take it from there.”

  “And whom would you like me to announce you to?”

  Jackson Hall’s list didn’t include a name for this stop, so Gunnar tried to bluff it. “The resident. Tell them it’s Cody and Wild. Thank you.”

  But the man behind the counter didn’t pick up his phone. Instead he said, “I’m afraid you’ve been given the wrong information or address. There has been no burglary here at The Ajax.”

  “Trust me, we couldn’t be more sure of our information or our address.”

  “You are with the police?” When his look traced to Wild she tried not to cave.

  Avoiding a direct answer, Gunnar said, “This is a follow-up, so . . .” He mimed a visual urging, putting a phone to his ear with his thumb and pinkie.

  “I would like to see your identification. Both of you, if you please.”

  “That wasn’t mortifying or anything,” said Macie when she slammed the door of the van.

  Gunnar paid the parking attendant and they pulled out of the garage. “It’s an odds game. Look at all the access we got today. If this were baseball we’d be in Cooperstown on the first ballot.”

  “I don’t know what I would have done if they had called the police.” And then, just to be shitty: “The real police.”

  “May I say your anger is kind of a turn-on?”

  “No, that would qualify as exactly the wrong thing to say. Second only to calling me your partner for the second time.”

  “Is that my limit? Because the thing about my limit is that I never know what it is.”

  “You’re there.”

  “What do you make of the company line? ‘No burglaries. Not here at The Ajax.’” As was his way, Gunnar shifted the topic. She decided to hold him to it.