“Easy to talk to me like that when I’m wearing these bracelets,” Vitale said. “Why don’t you take them off and you can find out yourself how big and tough I am.”
“With or without the pocket change? No, I think the cuffs look good on you.” Leary cycled through Pendleton’s recent calls and texts, but nothing jumped out at him as suspicious. Of course, he would need to call each of the numbers to confirm that Pendleton had not entered phony names to disguise the true identities behind the numbers. Mom could just as easily be Psycho Number 3 from the CJC as the woman who’d blessed the world with this shitbag’s existence.
“I’m sixty-seven years old,” Vitale said. “You know how many cops have tried to take me down? More than I can remember.”
“I’ve got no interest in taking you down, Carlo. I don’t have much interest in you in general, to be honest.”
“No, all you care about is saving the day.”
“That’s right.” Leary rifled through Pendleton’s wallet, hoping for a clue—an odd scrap of paper, a business card. All he found was cash and credit cards. He tossed the wallet on the floor.
“Aren’t you supposed to leave the body alone until the crime scene techs get here?” Vitale said.
“After the day I’ve had, breaking one more rule won’t kill me.”
Vitale huffed. “That’s a shame. I think I’d like to see you killed.”
Leary ignored the jibe and picked up Pendleton’s keys. An assortment of them hung from a ring linked to a BMW key fob. Leary rose to his feet and stretched, then gave the handcuffed old man a final look. “Wish I could say it was a pleasure, Mr. Vitale.”
When Leary stepped outside, he found the two meatheads lounging against the wall, chatting with Mack Biondi. The men came off of the wall the moment they saw him, and for a second, meeting their hard stares, Leary thought they might try to rough him up. Teach him a lesson for harassing their capo. Leary braced himself, but the moment passed. The meatheads shrugged and turned away from him. Biondi stalked past him, re-entering his own gym—from which he’d been temporarily evicted—with as much pride as he could muster.
Leary scanned the road for Beemers. Given the neighborhood, it didn’t take long to spot Pendleton’s glossy ride among the lesser vehicles. He jogged across the street, clicked the button on Pendleton’s key fob, and slid behind the wheel.
The scent of leather enveloped him as his body settled into the seat. A far cry from the unmarked cruiser the city provided him. But Leary wasn’t much of a car buff. If it could get him from point A to point B in one piece in a reasonable amount of time, a car served his purposes. He popped the glove compartment and leaned sideways to peer inside.
And, finally, he caught a break.
He extracted the small black cell phone from the glove compartment. The burner, just like Vitale had said.
He looked at the phone’s screen. No password on this one. It wasn’t even a smartphone. Just a basic mobile, capable of voice and text. Pay in advance and throw it away when you’re done. The best friend of the twenty-first century criminal.
The primitive interface was navigated using buttons instead of touch gestures. Leary found a list of recent numbers and was not surprised to see that this phone had only ever called, and received calls from, one phone number.
Leary called it. He listened to it ring once, twice, and then connect.
“This is Garrett.”
30
Reggie knelt in the darkness of a closet. He’d picked a room at random, but had noted the stairwell door first. He could see it in his mind right now, beckoning him. Every minute he waited, his odds of getting out of here sunk lower. He’d almost fallen off the God damn building getting to this floor, and now all he had to do was jog down the stairs and into the waiting arms of the authorities. But he didn’t. Garrett had Jessie, and he couldn’t just leave her here.
Why the hell not?
Because it wasn’t what his father would have done, for one thing. And because, well, he knew who Garrett worked for. And he couldn’t leave Jessie to them.
It had been a long day—maybe the second longest of his life—and as the hours had passed, he’d had plenty of time to think about who might be trying to get him. He had already narrowed the list to a few possibilities when Kurt Garrett, by declaring his intention to take Reggie alive, had narrowed the list to one.
Vitale.
He’d known that targeting the old man was probably a mistake. But he had rationalized his fears away. It wasn’t just the size of the potential score—although Vitale was by far the biggest whale he’d ever conned—it was ego. He’d always had too God damn big an ego.
He should never have done it. Men like Carlo Vitale didn’t slink away like other marks. They were into revenge. Stealing from the old asshole had been Reggie’s choice. As much as he cringed at the thought of what Vitale might do to him, he couldn’t let Jessie pay the price. Not when her only mistake had been trying to keep his worthless ass alive.
There was only one thing to do. He needed to give himself up to Garrett, in exchange for Jessie. He couldn’t guarantee that Garrett wouldn’t just kill her. Reggie knew that. But he could try. He owed it to her to try. And not just because she’d spent the last six hours trying to keep him safe. It was more than that. She’d brought him a tie that wasn’t a clip-on. She’d treated him like a human being.
He touched the tie now. Cinched around his thigh, the silk was heavy with blood. But the bleeding had slowed and—although it hurt like a bitch—he could stand.
And that’s what you gotta do, man. Stand. Walk on back to Deputy Douchebag and turn your ass over.
He braced his hand against the wall of the closet and dragged himself upright, wincing against the flare of agony in his thigh. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter anyway—whether he gave himself up, or they caught him, he was done either way. But he knew he was just conning himself, talking up a good lie like he always did. Because getting out of here wouldn’t be that hard.
The image of the stairwell flashed across his mind again.
He pushed the closet door open and almost spilled out. He caught himself against the door-jamb, surprised by a sudden sensation of light-headedness. How much blood had he lost? Maybe getting out of here wouldn’t have been all that easy after all. Even if it had been a real choice.
But it wasn’t. There was only one choice. So he took a deep breath, put one foot in front of the other, and limped forward to meet his fate.
31
Leary held Pendleton’s burner phone to his face, his fingers tightening painfully around the cheap plastic casing. The voice on the other end of the line, that of Kurt Garrett, the rogue deputy sheriff who now held Jessie’s life in his hands, momentarily paralyzed him. He stared out the windshield of the dead defense attorney’s BMW and said nothing. In the distance, the sound of sirens swelled as police responded to his call about the dead body at Vital Fitness.
“Is this important, Charles?” Garrett said. “Because I’m in the middle of something right now. In case you haven’t heard, things have kind of come down to the wire over here.”
“I heard,” Leary said.
Now it was Garrett who paused, speechless for a stretch of seconds. “Who is this?”
Leary knew he should end the call now and report to Chancey. Not only was the lieutenant running this operation, he was also a professional hostage negotiator. There was no question that Chancey should be the person talking to Garrett. Leary knew this, but he did not end the call.
“I’m Detective Mark Leary, Homicide, Philadelphia PD.”
“Put Charles on the line.”
“Charles is dead.”
Another pause. “You killed him?”
“No,” Leary said. “One of his clients punched him in the face. Apparently, Pendleton’s got a glass jaw.”
Garrett barked a laugh, but it sounded forced. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t take your word on that.”
“I hope
he paid you in advance.”
The tension that Leary could practically feel through the phone told him that Pendleton had not paid Garrett his fee in advance—not all of it anyway. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to make me angry right now?” The deputy’s voice was tight.
“I’m not trying to make you angry. I’m telling you that the situation has changed. The carrot you’ve been chasing all day is gone. Now you need to start worrying about the stick.”
“If that’s supposed to be clever wordplay, it’s pretty unimpressive. So why don’t you just say what you mean?”
Leary took a breath, aware that he was about to make a big gamble. If Pendleton had told Garrett the reason he wanted Reggie Tuck, then Leary’s next move would fail. But if Pendleton had withheld that information—and if he was smart, that’s exactly what he would have done—then Leary still had a chance. “I mean there’s no reward anymore. Pendleton’s dead. Even if you somehow managed to get Tuck out of the building, past the police, to the delivery location, there will be no one to meet you there. No one with your cash, anyway. And if you get caught, you’re looking at major charges. But if you leave Jessie Black, Reggie Tuck, and the rest of the innocent people in that building, and voluntarily surrender yourself and what’s left of your team to the police outside, there’s still an opportunity for some leniency.”
Garrett laughed again. “You know what would happen to me in prison, Leary? A courthouse sheriff’s deputy? There’s no such thing as leniency for me. One day inside would be capital punishment.”
Leary’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it. “What alternative do you have?”
The wail of sirens increased in volume as three squad cars swerved to a halt in front of Vital Fitness. None of the cops who emerged from the vehicles even glanced at the BMW before converging on the gym’s entrance. “Is that a siren?” Garrett said. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the crime scene where your boss died, along with his plan.” He leaned forward in the seat. “It’s over, Garrett. You’re out of options. Time to give up.”
“I have to say, Detective, I’m really disappointed.”
“Life is full of disappointments.”
“I really thought, after all that’s happened today, that you people would stop underestimating me. But obviously that’s not the case.”
There was something in Garrett’s voice that was almost familiar, and Leary felt a jolt of embarrassment at his own recent complaints of under-appreciation. “I’m not underestimating you,” he said. “I just think you’re an asshole.”
“When this is over, Detective, I want you to do me a favor. Tell them this is their own fault. They should have appreciated me more.” The line disconnected. Leary immediately called the number again, but there was no answer. Shit.
Garrett was gone.
32
Garrett ended the call. Leaning his butt against the conference table in the jury deliberation room, he ignored Jessie Black’s piercing stare and allowed himself a moment to think. Pendleton was dead, maybe. Even if the detective had been blowing smoke about that, the cop still had Pendleton’s burner phone, which meant that, alive or dead, Pendleton wasn’t going to be providing him any more support. Garrett wasn’t sure that was bad news. The lawyer had been useful during the early stages of his plan—essential, really—but at this point, Garrett no longer needed him. And Pendleton being out of the picture meant Pendleton forfeiting his cut. Not a bad outcome.
Assuming Pendleton hadn’t told the police too much information before his tragically young death.
No way to know. No sense worrying.
Detective Leary obviously hadn’t learned much, if he thought Garrett was nothing more than Pendleton’s hired hand.
“Bad news?” Black said. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was watching him with a look he was getting all too familiar with. It wasn’t the seething anger that worried him—it was the intelligence he could see behind the hate. A thoughtful and calculating mind that might be close to matching his own.
“Nothing that’s going to help you,” he said, giving her nothing and turning his gaze away from her hard stare. “Better hope Tuck comes back for you, like I said.”
“He’s too smart for that.”
“Then he’ll have your corpse on his conscience.”
“That’s your plan?” He didn’t care for the condescending way she spoke the last word, but he knew better than to be drawn into another argument about the merits of his plan. The less she knew about it, the better. “Relying on the conscience of a man convicted of multiple counts of fraud? Sounds like a long shot.”
This whole operation had been a long shot, but from the beginning he’d been confident he could pull it off. He was still confident. People underestimated Kurt Garrett at their own peril. Hadn’t he proved that, time and again, during his life? And wasn’t today the ultimate proof? This woman thought she had the upper hand because she’d gone to a fancy law school and had a pretty face, but she’d been out-maneuvered by him at every step since the moment she walked into the building this morning thinking her day would be about the trial of a loser shitbag named Tyrone Nash. Long shot implied gambling. It implied the necessity of luck. What he was doing wasn’t gambling. Luck played some part, sure—it always did—but his success today would ultimately be down to his own skill, preparation, and adaptability.
Smart as Jessie Black might be, she still couldn’t see that he was smarter. That pissed him off, but it was also his biggest advantage.
“Tuck does have a conscience,” he said, pleased by the calmness he maintained in his own voice. “It’s his fatal flaw.”
“Sounds like you know him.”
Garrett smiled at that. Still fishing for information, as if he were a fool who would give up anything that might help her. “Do you?”
The question seemed to take her aback. “I know he watches out for his own best interests, and isn’t opposed to betraying people who trust him.”
“Really?” Garrett said, sensing motion at the edge of his vision. Right on time.
“That’s harsh,” Reggie Tuck said from the doorway, “and here I was thinking I was the hero.”
“Reggie, what are you doing?” Jessie said.
“He’s proving my point,” Garrett said, “about his conscience, his fatal flaw that I knew I could count on.”
“And here I’ve gone through life thinking my fatal flaw was vanity,” Tuck said. “Guess I can stop worrying about that.”
“I agree,” Garrett said. He pulled his weight off the table and rose to his full height, reminding himself to enjoy this moment as he pointed one of his pistols at Tuck. “You’re worrying days are over.”
The scene in the jury deliberation room was just as Reggie had left it—crazy-ass deputy holding gun, angry-looking prosecutor facing him. It was as if no time had passed here while he’d spent what felt like hours hiding in the darkness. Reggie saw panic flash in Jessie’s eyes when she spotted him. He flapped his palms in what he hoped she would take as a calming gesture. He limped closer to her, ignoring both the pain in his leg and the ominous barrel of Garrett’s gun that turned to track his movement. When he reached her, he took one of her hands and squeezed it. “Don’t worry. I got this.” Using his heroic voice.
“You have a plan?” She looked at him skeptically.
Reggie felt his neck heat up. Garrett snorted a laugh. “I was going to ask the same question,” he said. “How about it, Tuck? You come here with a plan, or were you assuming you could get by on the same balls and bravado that powered you through your short-lived criminal career?”
Ten cutting comeback lines flashed through his mind. He didn’t use any of them. Instead, he frowned and lowered his gaze. Deputy Dipshit might be right about the length of his criminal career, but he was dead wrong about bravado. One of the keys to Reggie’s success had been making bad guys believe they had him beat. He knew the feeling of wounded pride, and he knew how to bury i
t and turn up his belly like a submissive dog. “Figured I’d come up with something in the heat of the moment,” he said, keeping his voice soft and meek.
Garrett’s smile widened, predatory as any small-time crook’s. “Can’t wait to see how that works out for you. By the way, how’s your leg?”
Reggie glanced down at the blood-soaked tie wrapped around the blood-soaked leg of his ruined suit pants. “Shitty.”
“I could shoot you in a few more places and still accomplish my objectives today. Do yourself a favor and try to keep that in mind if you start feeling some of that old Reggie Tuck friskiness, okay?”
“No friskiness. I’m here to cooperate. Let Jessie go, and you can take me wherever.”
Garrett laughed again. Reggie was really starting to hate the sound. “Well, see, you’re already getting things wrong. First of all, I’m not letting Jessie go. That would be stupid. Second, I’m not taking you anywhere. You’re taking me to Carlo Vitale’s money.”
Reggie didn’t respond right away. He figured Garrett expected him to be shocked, and he had no problem playing that role. He let his jaw drop and bugged his eyes out. After a breath, he said, “That’s what this is about?”
“That’s what this is about,” Garrett said.
“Carlo Vitale, the crime boss?” Jessie said. Reggie could feel her scrutiny as she studied his face, then saw the puzzle pieces click together behind her gaze. “Jesus, Reggie, you ripped off the mob?”
“We had a business transaction.”
“Don’t be modest!” Garrett crowed. “Tuck took Carlo for almost half a mil, and did it so smoothly Carlo never even realized he’d been screwed. His lawyer figured it out, but kept it to himself to save his own ass.”
“Not entirely to himself, apparently,” Jessie said. “He told you.”
Garrett nodded, his smile smug. “He asked me for help. Can you believe it? What can I say? I have a trustworthy face. Guess that’s one thing Tuck and I have in common.”
Jessie Black Legal Thrillers Box Set 1 Page 49
