by Tom Straw
Back at the landing a familiar voice spoke from the stairwell a floor above. “I thought you were coming alone.” Gunnar drew Macie back to cover on the underside of the stairs.
Macie tilted her head up to the dark of the stairwell. “You know Gunnar Cody, Mr. Hall.” Just in case he had memory gaps from the coma, she added. “From the hospital?” Macie side glanced Gunnar and threw in, “I trust him with my life.”
There came a long pause and the voice asked, “What about mine?”
“That’s why he’s here. I wouldn’t have brought him otherwise.”
Jackson Hall’s answer came in soft footfalls descending from the upper floor. He rounded the final turn above them and held on a stair halfway down the flight. Somehow he looked even smaller to her than usual. And weak. Like he could hardly manage the baseball bat he was gripping.
♢ ♢ ♢
Without asking permission, Gunnar made a security walk through the apartment Jackson Hall was using as his hideout. He cleared the back rooms, closets, bathroom, and galley kitchen in short order. The place was not only small, the only furniture was a pair of mismatched lawn chairs and a sleeping bag, all in the living room. There was a silent portable radio plugged into a corner socket and a cooler whose lid looked as if it doubled as a dining table. The setup was ascetic—a campsite in a building under rehab.
Hall was explaining how he managed to slip out of the jail ward at Bellevue when Gunnar returned to the living room. “Everybody who’s locked up thinks every day about how they’d make their break, I don’t care what they say. It’s so ingrained that you spend your days going around like The Terminator when they showed what his evil eyes were seeing. Which is everything. Close-ups of doors, asking yourself if that one’s locked. Or who do those keys on the counter belong to, that sort of thing. But whoever thinks that getting put in the hospital ward is a launching pad doesn’t know how tight it is there. State-max tight.”
“So how did you?” asked Wild.
“Wasn’t as dramatic as you’d think. I’m walking back, my therapist stops to sign something or chat up some nurse, whatever, and I keep walking, because I see a corrections officer reading the bulletin board beside the elevator she’s supposed to be watching and the door next to her is wide open. So I just quietly got on and mashed the magic button and rode out of there. Keeping my head down and ears open, waiting to hear the shotgun pump.” He spread his arms wide. “As you can see I succeeded in my journey without becoming ventilated.”
“As your attorney, it’s my duty to tell you that this . . .”—Macie gestured to the safe house, which screamed futility—“. . . this can’t continue. You do know that, don’t you?”
He jerked his chin toward Gunnar. “That why you brought him? To drag me back?”
“Mr. Cody is not with the police.”
“Well, is it?” he insisted.
“You already know you have to call this game,” said Gunnar, but with the tone of a counselor instead of the heat. “That’s why you agreed to see Macie tonight. You just don’t know how to do it and keep yourself safe.” Jackson Hall’s look was his answer: the doleful face where swagger once lived. “As I hear your story,” continued Gunnar, “I’m convinced somebody inside Bellevue made sure you got outside—and for a reason. Same as somebody inside Rikers tried to kill you. Maybe for a different reason.”
“But why would somebody just let me out?”
“Because the only other crew members who can lead these people—whoever they are—to whatever they’re looking for are dead.” Gunnar had become the bad cop not by browbeating, but by working the fear already inside Hall. He saw his body count update register on the fugitive and affirmed it. “That’s right. They got Stamitz too. He died ugly.”
Fearing that Gunnar’s pressure may start to work against them, Macie intervened. “Mr. Hall? Let’s try to be practical about this. Now is the time to keep our heads and find a path out of this mess. Agreed?”
He gave her the same plaintive look. “I keep sinking deeper. I don’t know what to do.”
Since both lawn chairs were taken, Gunnar slid the cooler beside him and sat. “I have a thought, but first I need you to walk me through how you got into this. And I need you to treat us both like you’re in the confessional. No lies. No dodges. You fuck with us, you fuck yourself.”
In quiet submission, he hung his head and muttered, “Arright . . .” The man had endured too many days and nights of fear to need much more of a push. Jackson Hall’s resistance was prebroken, degraded by the force of his own terror. “What do you want to know?”
Gunnar could have taken it from there, but in a gesture of respect or, maybe, partnership, he gave the go-ahead nod to Macie. She knew right where to start. Where her torturer had left off. “I want to ask you about the take from these burglaries. You told me Stamitz, your crew chief, set up all the targets. Did he also handle fencing the take?”
“Yes, he was turnkey, that’s the expression he himself used. Man said, ‘I am the total package. Where to hit, when to hit, how to get in, what to score, how to dump it.’ Sometimes I felt like a glorified mover: lift and load.”
“A well-paid mover,” commented Gunnar.
Hall shrugged. “Yeah, enough.”
Wild continued her line. “What about Rúben Pinto? Did he feel undervalued?” The cross-examiner in her added, “Did he feel sold short?”
Even though Hall had once declared he was done protecting people, he now worked his jaw to contemplate an answer. Gunnar said, “Jackson, both these guys are dead. Fuck respect.”
That message cut through the moral clutter. “Yeah, Rú was always pissing and moaning behind Stamitz’s back. Especially since we never got the tally, you see. The chief just gave us a cut and we took it on faith.” The corners of his mouth hinted at a smile. “It was good enough for me. That was some good money.”
“But Pinto—” Macie paused. There was a sound from the hall. A snap. Was it the building settling or someone out there? Gunnar moved to the peephole and listened for footfalls on the kraft paper. Satisfied, he opened the door and stepped out, returning in a few minutes with a thumbs-up as he snapped the deadbolt behind him. False alarm or not, Macie felt more urgency and pressed more than she normally would have. “OK, let’s say it. Pinto was pissed off and was skimming, am I right? I’ve heard this from his pal Spatone, so let’s just say it.”
“It’s true.”
“But he was doing more than pocketing some of the take on the sly,” said Gunnar, gliding into her interview like a choreographed dance. “He went back to some of the victims to do shakedowns.”
“Trying to sell them their own stuff, as ransom,” she added.
Jackson Hall bobbed his head. “Pinto had his own game all figured out. Especially if he found anything the vic would rather not have seen or known . . .”
“Like extorting ten grand to sell back Larry Don Henkles his sports betting ledger? Yes, we know about that,” she said. “And Mr. Sharif’s wristwatches.”
“What about the paintings from The Barksdale? Did Pinto skim one of them too?” asked Gunnar.
Hall shook no. “I was on lookout with Rúben the whole time. Both of those paintings left there in Stamitz’s bag, I saw them.”
“Both?” said Macie and Gunnar at the same time. She clarified for Hall. “The owner claims three of his paintings were stolen.”
“Yeah,” said Gunnar. “Two by the crew and one by the owner, Gregory Eichenthal.”
“Let’s get to The Ajax.” Not wanting to lead him too much, Wild kept it open-ended. “Talk to me about the break-in there.”
“Our last job. Little did we know. Stamitz was obsessed with it. Me and Pinto, we said it was too risky. Big, secure, some serious shit. But he was all, ‘Grow a pair,’ and ‘Go big or go home.’ And I had to trust the man. Tight-ass, but knew his shit. Weird, now that I think about it, how he always knew who to hit, who wasn’t home, how to get in and out. Same with The Ajax. Rolled into the par
king garage in an air-conditioning truck. Chief had a swipe card for the private elevator and a little black remote he used to defeat all the electronics and alarms. The crazy thing was, we got into that big-ass penthouse—and it was empty. I don’t just mean nobody home, I mean empty-empty. This place we’re sitting now has more stuff in it. You could have roller-skated in there.”
“So what was there to steal?” she asked.
“Getting to that. Stamitz knows exactly where he’s going—again—and beelines for the master bedroom walk-in closet. It’s empty but there’s these two safes.” Hall demonstrated a full wingspan to indicate their sizes. “Free standers, like you see in old bank movies, except these had electronic lock systems. Stamitz brought along this remote clicker. He said it ran autodial software to do what he called a brute-force hack. I want to tell you, that thing popped both locks in under a minute. But even then he got all, ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’ The man’s in a rush because he knows we only have eight minutes before rounds get made and the shit fan revs up. So it got a little chaotic. He gives very specific instructions what to take and leave, and goes to work unloading the first safe. Pinto and I do the second one.”
Wild found herself echoing a word from her own interrogation. “What was the take?”
“First of all, cash. Stacks of it. That’s on the Go List.”
Gunnar asked, “How much?”
“Never found out. But in our safe, I’d call the stack two feet tall and another foot wide. So we got the cash, and some jewels in there too. Not like necklaces and such. More like stones. All into our duffel bag.”
“Anything else?” Macie was sensing the application of brakes from her client.
“Uh, yeah, passports. A fancy shoebox full of them.”
“Did they go?” she asked.
“Not on the list.”
“Did they go?” A lawyer always knows what to ask. He shook no. “That was it?” Then he hesitated.
“Jackson,” said Gunnar, showing impatience. “What did Pinto take?”
Hall licked his lips. “There was a canvas pouch. A zipper thing with a padlock like you see merchants use to take deposits to the bank.” He moistened his mouth again but his tongue made a dry click before his admission. “He pantsed it. Checked to see that Stamitz had his head in the other safe and slipped the pouch down his pants.”
“Was the pouch on the Go List?” Macie asked.
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t Stamitz know it wasn’t there?”
“Who the hell knows what Stamitz knew.”
“And Pinto saw you watching when he secreted this pouch?” He nodded. Then, even though she knew the answer, Wild asked anyway. “And you never told Stamitz?”
“Hell, no.”
“So,” said Gunnar, “in and out in under eight minutes. The safes were left how?”
“Closed and locked.”
“And the canvas pouch.” They both knew it ended up in that planter, but Gunnar let him tell it. “What happened to that?”
“On the drive off, Pinto chucked it out the window. Chief got all paranoid after Rúben boosted a Grammy from that fat fucker’s apartment and started doing random searches after gigs. So my man winged it into some bushes like a Frisbee when Stamitz was making his turn to Columbus Circle.”
“Back to the job,” said Gunnar. “Was there anything else in the safe or in the process that might be trouble?” Jackson Hall answered with a clean, credible no, which brought them back to Pinto’s private take. “What happened to the pouch?”
“Pinto went back and got it.”
“And?” said Macie.
“He tried to sell it back.”
Gunnar asked, “How did he know whom to call? The condo owner is unlisted. Or did you have a name?”
“No. No clue who the owner was. Rúben did it same as with the betting ledger. He called The Ajax front desk and said he found this canvas pouch and offered to return it to the owner. He left his number and some guy calls right back, saying he wants that property, and Pinto says sure thing but then starts to negotiate.” Macie and Gunnar traded a look. Both knew that Pinto had set his own murder in motion with that call. But who was the caller?
“Did this guy who called have an accent, did Rúben tell you?” she asked.
“Yeah, how’d you know? We figured Russian, because that’s where a lot of the passports were from.”
“Any names on the passports?”
“Yes, ma’am, and all Russian. I don’t remember any of them.” She asked if Pyotr Trifonov or Luka Borodin meant anything, and he just shrugged.
Ex-Detective Cody, who would not be deterred, reasked his question. “One more time. What happened to the pouch?”
“It was trouble, that’s what happened. Rúben’s coming up out of the subway the next day, and some dude starts smacking him around, wants the pouch, where is it, and all that. Pinto’s got some prison scrap in him, drops the guy, and splits. Then comes to me and asks if I’ll . . .” He paused, recognizing the leap he was making. Neither of the other two helped him fill the blanks. This had to be his own confession. “Pinto asked me to hold it for him. Which, stupidly, I did. Then I come back to my apartment and the door’s wide open and the place has been tossed. This is what Pinto and I were fighting about before he got himself killed. Getting me in his fucking scam. Folks scaring my girlfriend, searching our place.”
“But they didn’t find it because you just had gotten it,” said Gunnar. “If they had found that pouch, they wouldn’t have kept at it and killed Pinto, and Stamitz, and you wouldn’t have sent Pilar away to hide, and on, and on.” While Hall rested his chin on his chest, Macie reflected on poor Stamitz. The contingency planner-control freak didn’t know about Pinto’s take. The crew chief was being truthful the whole time he was tortured to death.
“What’s in it, Mr. Hall? What’s worth all this killing and trouble?”
“Honestly, Ms. Wild, nothing that appears too valuable to me. Looks like somebody emptied a desk drawer of office supplies into it and zipped it closed.”
She didn’t care if he was being truthful or not. Macie only wanted to know one thing. Same as Gunnar. And when they asked him, it was in a surprise duet. “Where is the pouch now?”
♢ ♢ ♢
Material evidence could be a two-edged sword. A coveted item or a smoking gun, literal or figurative, could damn the accused. Sometimes, however, it could lead to exoneration. A signed receipt that proves the defendant was out of town the day of a murder, as one example. Yet Wild’s experience as a criminal defense attorney had taught her that, yes, a sword had two edges, but also a point. And that sharp tip represented the third, most useful, alternative: material evidence that revealed the actual killer. That was the sort of evidence she was hoping for as they followed Jackson Hall, disguised in a wig from the back of Cody’s van, to the basement of the Spanish Harlem apartment building he and Pilar had fled. As they approached the storage closets for each apartment, Gunnar asked, “Didn’t the crime scene unit go through your space?”
“With extreme prejudice,” he said with a humorless chuckle. Hall flicked the broken padlock as he went by the door that still had a remnant of crime scene tape swaying on one side. At the end of the row of closets he reached up to a high shelf and retrieved a key from under a paint can. “I have a side agreement with an old lady who lives on the first floor, cash only, for some extra space. Let’s just say I found it useful over the years to temporarily park some of my overflow property.”
“Stolen goods,” said Gunnar, not asking.
“It’s this one here,” said Hall, not answering.
He opened the unit next to the basement wall. Inside he pulled a dangling string and the overhead bulb revealed that the right half of the closet was filled with old, musty furniture that was stacked tall, pipe racks of winter coats from the last century, and an artificial Christmas tree. The left side was clear enough for one person to squeeze in, which Hall did, slipping past a tower of moving
cartons to the back corner where some fishing rods leaned beside a net hanging by its aluminum hoop from a nail. There were three steel tackle boxes on the concrete floor. He picked up the one with the padlock and set it on one of the corrugated cardboard dish packs. After turning the barrel combination, Hall opened the lid, lifted the tackle tray of hooks and lures, and brought out the canvas zipper pouch that he had described. It bulged from whatever was inside it. Pinching the tab, he ran the slider the length of the thick brass teeth, which made a serious grating sound as it opened. Hall took a step back and Macie and Gunnar leaned forward to huddle over it, eager to see what was in there.
Wild held her iPhone flashlight over the mouth of the pouch. As advertised, it looked like a jumble of office items. Gunnar produced a single nitrile glove from his pocket. One by one, he fished out some of the items to examine. They were mainly rubber stamps, ink pads, and a few brass paper crimpers, the sort of tools notaries hand squeeze to emboss seals on documents.
They heard a pair of footsteps and froze. Gunnar quickly replaced the crimper he was holding and relayed the pouch to Macie. He peeked out the open door and relaxed. A pair of teenagers, no doubt looking for a place to do what teenagers do, froze when they saw him and ran back upstairs. “I’m thinking this may not be the best place for this,” he said, taking the pouch from her and giving it a firm zip.
They weren’t sure what they should do next, but whatever it was, it would be done downtown, so that’s the direction Gunnar pointed his van on the FDR. It wasn’t the most comfortable to have Jackson Hall perched on the divider between them, but his small build, so handy for break-ins, also made this work. As they were passing the Con Ed plant he asked Macie, “You really need to take me in?”
