Fireplay

by Suzanne Chazin

  “I’m sorry to call you at home, Georgia. But I have something I know you’ll want to hear.”

  Her heart leaped. “You’ve found the Barry Glickstein tape?”

  “Something even better.” Reese paused. “Look—don’t take this the wrong way, but the safest place to meet is my apartment in Manhattan. Do you think you might be able to come in?”

  “I’m headed over to the FBI right now,” said Georgia. “Are you in the vicinity?”

  “Sort of.” He gave her an address in the West Twenties.

  “All right. I’ll swing by first.”

  Nathan Reese’s Chelsea studio apartment was decidedly spartan: a bed, a large bookshelf, a couple of chests of drawers, a bike hanging in a corner and, of course, a computer. He had just collected his mail, and Georgia noticed that he had several overdue notices from credit card companies in a pile on his tiny kitchen table. He was much neater than Mac, but he appeared to be no less strapped.

  Reese noticed her looking at his bills. “I’m, uh…not normally so delinquent in my debts,” he said with some embarrassment.

  “Hey,” said Georgia. “It’s none of my business.”

  Reese nodded. “Can I get you a soda?”

  “Sure thing,” said Georgia. He pulled two diet Cokes out of the tiny refrigerator and searched for a glass. Georgia could see he was nervous. She wondered if he had many women to his apartment. “The can is fine,” she said.

  He swept the bills off the table and placed them in an even bigger stack of creditor’s letters Georgia hadn’t noticed before on the kitchen counter.

  Georgia eyeballed the stack. “I thought the FBI paid pretty well. I mean, you guys get a twenty-five percent cost of living adjustment just for working in New York.”

  “I guess there are some debts even an FBI salary can’t seem to get rid of.” Reese slapped the can of soda down on the table as if to close the conversation. “By the way, did that address I gave you on Paul Brophy ever pan out?”

  “It did,” said Georgia. “I spoke to him, but as soon as he figured out who I was, he shut down. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something no one’s telling me about Freezer—not my partner, Randy, and certainly not Paul Brophy. I’ve been trying to reach an old partner of Brophy’s—a guy named Jamie Sullivan. His name keeps coming up over and over. I called him, but he never returns my calls.”

  “Maybe he’s out of town,” said Reese. “Want me to check him out on any databases?”

  “No. That’s okay,” said Georgia. “You’ve got enough to do. He lives in Hell’s Kitchen. Sometime when I have time, I’ll just take a ride over there and speak to him in person.” Georgia took a sip of soda and leaned back in her chair. “So, what did you want to show me?”

  Reese walked over to a briefcase by the front door and extracted a small tape recorder. “The Glickstein tape, I’m sorry to say, is probably a goner,” he explained. “I think Krause had it destroyed. But you might find this an interesting substitute.” He placed the recorder on the table and pushed Play.

  …So a couple of firefighters died—so what? You think this is the first time an accusation like this has been leveled against me? This is Mike McLaughlin you’re talking to. Not some street hoodlum. Trust me on this. In a week or two, no one will remember their fuckin’ names. They’re just a couple of nobodies, anyway….

  Georgia stared at Reese with wide-eyed fascination. “Where did you get this?”

  “Never mind where I got it. I’m not supposed to have it. No one is. It’s not part of the evidence log. It’s a duplicate tape from an illegal wire I was asked to install.”

  “By whom?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Can anyone trace this to you?”

  “Only one person, and he’s as guilty of ordering the illegal wire as I am of installing it,” said Reese. “So I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. Still, if it came back to me, I’d have to deny it.”

  “I understand,” said Georgia. “Can I keep this copy?”

  “I figured you would. I’ll leave it to your judgment who you share it with in your department.”

  Georgia listened to the tape again. “You know, McLaughlin never actually admits on tape to killing those firefighters.”

  “Wouldn’t matter if he did,” said Reese. “The tape’s inadmissible in court anyway. There are sections missing, and you can’t divulge where you got it. That pretty much renders it useless as evidence.”

  “Then why are you sharing it with me?”

  “Because if all else fails, maybe it will help the FDNY jump-start an investigation on Freezer one day.”

  Georgia popped the tape out of the recorder and slipped it into her handbag. “I’m going to be working tonight, so I don’t want it on me. I’ll hide it in a desk drawer at work and retrieve it tonight when I go home.”

  Reese’s face clouded over. He knew what “working tonight” meant. “You’re going undercover with McLaughlin?”

  “I have to.”

  “Be careful, Georgia. Believe me, I know a thing or two about how ruthless he can be. That tape is all the ammunition I can give you.”

  Georgia spent the afternoon getting briefed on the basics of undercover work. Scott Nelson told her things she would’ve figured out through common sense—not to volunteer information and to always stay in character. He showed her what a J-bird body wire looks like and how it would be concealed. She was used to the older and more bulky NAGRA wires. He took her down to security and got a fake driver’s license made up with a different last name—Stevens—and a different address. He even had some credit cards issued in her new name.

  “Ooh, time for a shopping spree,” Georgia joked. But Nelson didn’t laugh. Apparently, Reese was the only Federal agent to be issued a sense of humor.

  In a special room downstairs, Georgia unholstered her weapon, emptied it of ammunition and handed over both for vouchering. This step terrified her most of all. Once she gave up her gun, she didn’t stand a chance against a man as powerful and cunning as McLaughlin.

  A female agent helped her attach a microphone and transmitter to the inside of a specially designed bra.

  “Won’t they frisk me?” Georgia asked Nelson after she was wired up.

  “They’re not likely to chance pissing Mike off by asking to feel inside his girlfriend’s bra.”

  Nelson and Georgia met up with Krause, who went over the details of the operation. Georgia would take a cab to McLaughlin’s house. From there, McLaughlin would drive them to the meeting in his Nissan Pathfinder. The FBI had installed a tracking device under the bumper. Krause and Nelson would follow in a separate car.

  “Don’t worry, Marshal,” Krause assured her. “Every word of conversation you have in that car or out of it will be broadcast to us. We can follow the car. We can follow you. McLaughlin knows that. You’re in no danger.”

  By the time the cab let Georgia off in front of Michael McLaughlin’s home, she felt sick to her stomach. She was sweating so much, she was certain she’d already shorted out the wires.

  McLaughlin buzzed her into the hall with the one-way mirror again, then opened the interior door. Georgia could barely bring herself to step inside. She froze by the doorway and stared up at the man. He was dressed in gray wool slacks and a striped, button-down shirt of pale gray and seafoam green. He was clean-shaven, and his tea-and-honey-colored hair had just been razor cut. He seemed amused by her hesitance. He pulled a cigarette from a pack in the pocket of his trousers and offered her one. She declined.

  “You’re gonna have to loosen up, love, or they’ll peg you as a cop from the get-go.” He allowed his eyes to travel slowly down her black blazer and white turtleneck sweater and frowned. “Then again, they might figure it out anyway.”

  Georgia felt her chest. McLaughlin grinned.

  “It’s not the wires in your bra, love. They’re fine. It’s just that…you dress like a cop.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”


  “Well…you know. Sort of frumpy. Tomboyish. No style.”

  “I have plenty of style.”

  He shrugged. “No need to get offended. I’m just saying you’ve got a nice figure. Why not show it off?”

  “This is what I came in. I’m afraid you’re going to have to live with it.”

  McLaughlin did a one-eighty around Georgia, eyeing her from head to toe. “You’re a size eight, maybe? Size eight petite?”

  Georgia hesitated. “So?”

  “I’ve got a closetful of designer clothes upstairs. My girlfriend’s. You’d look great in a Badgley Mischka chiffon blouse, some Marc Jacobs black hip-hugger jeans and a pair of Manolo Blahnik boots.”

  “You want me to borrow your girlfriend’s clothes?”

  “Why not? I bought ’em. She can’t take them home.” He winked at her. “Her husband’s likely to wonder where she got ’em.”

  “She’s married?”

  “Best kind of woman to have, I always say.” McLaughlin chuckled. “They never pester a man for commitment.”

  “Forget it, McLaughlin. I’m not changing.” A cell phone rang inside Georgia’s bag. She frowned. She’d had to give up her own cell phone along with her gun and the contents of her handbag for security purposes. This one belonged to the FBI. The only person who could be calling her was Krause. She picked up.

  “Marshal, Mike is right,” said Krause. At least the wires haven’t shorted out, thought Georgia. Krause apparently had heard their entire conversation. “Everything you say and do that’s different from what they expect will stand out. You don’t have to look like a streetwalker. But you don’t want to look like a cop, either.”

  McLaughlin seemed to guess the nature of the conversation. “Look, love,” he interrupted. “It’s no skin off my back how you dress. But we both want this meeting to go smoothly. It’ll succeed a lot better if you don’t fight me all the way.” His eyes traveled to her hips and a slight gleam came into his eyes. “Then again, maybe you won’t be able to fit into my girlfriend’s clothes anyway. She’s taller than you, with a little more on top and a little less across the hips.”

  “My hips are fine.”

  “Of course,” he said, then clucked his tongue. “Some people think big hips look good on a woman.”

  That did it. “Where do I change?”

  19

  Georgia had to admit, the clothes looked good. Sexy. Expensive. And unlike anything she’d ever worn before or would ever again.

  McLaughlin gave her a quick once-over as they stepped into his black Nissan Pathfinder.

  “Very nice. Very nice, indeed.” He nodded. “A beautiful woman should always wear beautiful clothes.”

  Georgia gave him a warning look, but she couldn’t hide the blush in her cheeks. Mike McLaughlin knew how to play a woman. She’d have to be very careful not to get taken in.

  He nosed the car onto the West Side Drive, heading north. He was a conservative driver, which surprised Georgia. He didn’t speed and he always signaled.

  “Can I ask where we’re heading?”

  “Fort Lee, New Jersey,” said McLaughlin. “I’m supposed to meet my contacts at a diner on the other side of the George Washington Bridge.”

  “Not in some dark bar somewhere?”

  “I don’t drink,” he said flatly.

  “Ever?”

  “I saw enough drinking to last a lifetime when I was a kid.” He shook his head. “It was not a pretty sight.”

  “You’re the only teetotaling Westie I’ve ever heard of.”

  “There are no Westies anymore. They’re all dead or in prison. Me? I don’t drink. I keep my head screwed on right, and here I am, out riding with a pretty young woman.” He winked at her and she pretended to ignore it. “You see? A rough life doesn’t always equal a rough mind.” He pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes out of his pants pocket. “May I? It’s the one vice I could never shake.”

  “If you wish.”

  He lit one and rolled down the window. “So your dad died in the line of duty, eh?”

  Georgia turned her face away from him and stared out the window. They were cruising up the West Side of Manhattan. Across the narrow stretch of Riverside Park, brownstones and apartment buildings sprouted above the bare branches of trees, already illuminated by streetlights.

  “I can tell you were very fond of him.”

  “I don’t want to talk about my father.”

  “C’mon, love. I’m just making conversation here.”

  “Please don’t call me that,” said Georgia.

  “Call you what?”

  “Love. I’m not your ‘love.’”

  “Figure of speech. I can’t exactly call you ‘Marshal’ when we’re undercover, now can I?”

  Georgia grinned in spite of herself. “Call me Georgia, okay?”

  “Okay, Georgia.” He took a hit off his cigarette. “You got a boyfriend, Georgia?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I told you about my girlfriend.”

  “You only tell me what you want to.”

  “Okay. So what do you want to know?”

  She gave him a sour look. “You know what I want to know.”

  “You want me to confess to the fire at Café Treize, is that it?” He laughed. “You cops—you’re all so one-track-minded. You know, the funny thing is, I get accused of doing things I never did. And the stuff I’ve done, nobody ever gets me on.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t set the fire at Café Treize?” McLaughlin winked at her. “See? That’s what I mean. A good con man would wonder what I hadn’t been nabbed on. You—you’re still beating a dead horse.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “You’re wrong, lass. You just didn’t hear the answer.” He flicked his cigarette butt out the window. “Besides, I love firefighters. And police, too. I gave a check for five hundred dollars to the Widows’ and Orphans’ Fund last year.”

  “All right, here’s a question for you,” said Georgia. “How come Paul Brophy assaulted you outside a Manhattan restaurant two years ago?”

  “Who?”

  “Paul Brophy. An ex-fire marshal. You never pressed charges.”

  “The gambler. Yeah, I remember him. He took a kickback on an arson case to label it accidental.”

  “He was fired for that, you know,” she reminded him. “No one covered it up.”

  “So I heard,” said McLaughlin. “In fact, your partner, Randy Carter, dimed him out.” He chuckled. “You know how the old-timers spell Carter, don’t you, lass? Take away the C, the E and the R, and all you’re left with is R-A-T.”

  He was getting to her. She’d sworn she wouldn’t let him do it, but he was doing it just the same. “You haven’t answered my question: why did Paul Brophy assault you?”

  “You’d have to ask him.”

  “I did. He wouldn’t talk. And his former partner, Jamie Sullivan, hasn’t returned my phone calls.”

  “Can you blame them? You’re the partner of a rat.”

  “Oh, that’s really insightful coming from a confidential informant out to save his own skin.”

  “Least I’m honest about it.” McLaughlin shrugged. “I don’t pretend it’s anything else.”

  They headed west across the George Washington Bridge. McLaughlin made several sharp turns until they were in the parking lot of a large silver diner. Highways crisscrossed all around them, and tall apartment buildings with balconies grew shadowy under darkening skies. A cell phone rang. Georgia realized it was his. He mumbled into the receiver, scribbled something on a piece of paper, then dialed his cell phone.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Georgia.

  “Change of plans. Happens all the time,” said McLaughlin. Then he spoke to Krause and relayed the information to him. The new meeting place was a construction site off the New Jersey Turnpike. It was in an area known as the Meadowlands, a bucolic name for a marsh filled with industrial runoff from the surrounding factories and
landfills. Georgia felt sick all over again. She’d been willing to go undercover because she’d assumed she’d be someplace public, surrounded by Federal agents who could help her out if things went wrong. Out there, at an empty construction site surrounded by marsh, Nelson and Krause wouldn’t even be able to find her, much less see her.

  McLaughlin seemed relaxed about the change. Relaxed about everything, in fact. He’s got something up his sleeve. She could feel it from the moment she stepped inside his house this afternoon and he convinced her to change clothes. She stared down at her high-heeled Manolo Blahnik boots. Then she looked across at his shoes. Crepe soles. With tie-up laces. Great for trampling about in the brush. With her boots, she didn’t stand a chance of keeping up with him.

  “You knew the Green Warriors weren’t going to hold the meeting in the diner, didn’t you?” she asked when he hung up with Krause.

  “Why would I know that? I told you, this stuff happens all the time.” He pulled the car out of the parking lot and onto an on-ramp for the Turnpike.

  “What’s your game? You’ve got one, I know it,” said Georgia.

  McLaughlin’s smile chilled her. Is he running a scam on me? she asked herself. Or is a scam the least of it?

  20

  It was a moonless night and very dark by the time McLaughlin turned the car into a dirt service road that wound through a thick section of marsh. There were no streetlights out here, only a ring of security lamps attached to a chain-link fence. Beyond the fence, Georgia could see an excavation site surrounded by heavy construction equipment. A trailer sat off to one side, half-buried in shadows. They were about a mile from the bright stadium lights of the Meadowlands sports complex, but between it and them there was only a vast, dark emptiness, covered over in tall grass that shot up like cornstalks. She activated her recorder and tested it, as she’d been instructed to do. Everything they said from this moment on would be part of the FBI’s investigation file.

  The entrance to the construction site was open. Georgia saw a padlock dangling from the gate, but it didn’t appear to have been cut.