The Killer Sex Game (A Frank Boff Mystery)

by Nathan Gottlieb

  That perked up Carl’s interest. “A senator?”

  “Yup.”

  “Do you have this hooker’s address book?”

  “I do. And I’ll email you a copy. Then, if you do move forward on this, I’ll give you the original as evidence to use in court later.”

  Nodding, Carl took a minute to absorb what Boff had told him. “Is this senator from Brooklyn?”

  “Yup again.”

  Pushing his egg cream aside, Carl took out a pad and pen and slid them over to Boff.

  “Write down what the judge said.”

  Boff scribbled on the pad a minute, handed it back, and waited for his friend to read what was there.

  Tapping a finger on the pad, Carl said, “How accurate is this?”

  “I have a near photographic memory. Those are basically the exact words the girl heard. And she also had a very good memory.”

  “This escort service, do you know the name of it?”

  “Uh huh. And who I believe owns it.”

  “Well, I’d really like to have that, too.”

  “First you get the tap. Then I’ll ID the escort service for you. We’ll take it one step at a time.”

  “I’m puzzled, Frank. What exactly is your interest in this? Doesn’t sound like you’re working for any defendant.”

  “I’m not. I was asked by a boxing trainer to look the murder of one of his fighters. One thing led to another, and I discovered the boxer and the hooker were both involved in the escort service. The people involved in the girl’s murder later tossed my apartment and hit my son over the head with a gun. They also tried to blow me up by wiring a bomb under my car. Which, thankfully I detected before starting my engine and got help to have it removed.”

  “So, this is personal for you, huh?”

  “That’s right. And I intend to find them and punish them.”

  “You mean bring them to justice.”

  “I said punish.”

  At this, Carl frowned. “Dammit, Frank! Work with my office. Don’t do anything on your own. At least promise me that.”

  When Boff said nothing, Carl let out a frustrated sigh. “You know, Frank, as much as everybody else in my office would love to see you go on trial for a felony charge, I’d rather it didn’t happen.”

  “I never break the law.”

  “That’s because you’re clever enough not to get caught when you do.” Polishing off his egg cream, Carl stood up to go and pointed at the front windows. “Those two thugs have been standing there since I got here. Do you know them?”

  “They’re Bruno Benvenuti’s men.”

  “Can I ask why two mobsters are guarding your mother’s store?”

  “Sure, Carl. I always welcome questions.”

  After waiting a few moments for an answer to his question, Carl said, “But you’re not going to answer, right?”

  Boff smiled. “It’s on a need-to-know basis. Sorry.”

  The assistant D.A. chuckled. “Frank, Frank. I know your mom takes numbers.”

  Boff looked stunned. “How the hell did you find that out?”

  “When I was a kid, my old man played five-six-six. Same numbers. Every day. At five bucks a pop. He had me bring his bet to your mom and dad.”

  Boff threw his hands up. “For chrissake, Carl! Why didn’t you tell me that back then?”

  “Your parents made me swear not to.”

  Terrific, he thought. In addition to Cullen and Bellucci, now an assistant D.A. knows my mother takes bets. “Carl, can I trust you not to share your knowledge about my mother’s little side job with your associates in the Bronx D.A.’s office?”

  “Sure, Frank. And I also won’t tell them about the unlicensed shotgun she keeps behind the counter.”

  “How the hell did you know that?”

  “A couple months back I was in the area, so I dropped in to see your mom and get an egg cream. When the shop was empty, she showed me the gun. She was proud of it. She said she’s pretty handy with it, too.”

  Carl put down a five dollar bill. Boff pushed it back.

  “I’ve got to pay, Frank. I’m not on the take.” As the assistant D.A. slid off his stool, he added, “Do me a favor, Frank. For your mother’s sake, get the damn gun licensed.”

  Chapter 50

  Although Emilio offered to pick Hazuki up at her apartment for their date that night, she followed Boff’s instructions and suggested it would be easier if she just took a cab downtown and met him at the bar in De Santos Restaurant on West 10th Street. Boff had selected that restaurant because there was a coffee bar almost directly across the street from which he and his team could observe and take photos.

  The date had been set for eight o’clock. Arriving a half hour early, Boff, Cullen, Wallachi, and Manny took seats near the front window of Jack’s Stir Brew and waited for Hazuki and Emilio to arrive.

  First to show was Emilio, ten minutes early. Manny snapped some shots as he walked into the restaurant. Hazuki arrived fashionably late at five minutes after eight.

  The minute Manny saw the hot outfit she was wearing, he made a slurping sound. “Ohhhh, man! Boff, your call girl looks delicious. Again.”

  To which Wallachi let out a weary sigh. “Just take the friggin’ pictures, Wally One-Eye. We don’t need the commentary.”

  “Gotcha, boss.” He snapped three shots of Hazuki heading toward the restaurant’s front door. “Two shots for Boff,” he muttered, “and one to tape to my bathroom mirror.”

  Earlier in the day, Boff had gone to a Spy Shops franchise on East 34th Street and bought Hazuki a cigarette pack with a hidden camera. He’d also purchased a wrist watch with a two-gigabyte digital video recorder, a wide angle lens, and an audio recorder that could hold up to nine hours of conversation. He noted that she was wearing the watch now. Without glancing around, she opened the restaurant door and walked in.

  “And let the games begin,” Wallachi said.

  “Actually,” Boff said, “the games began earlier today.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, without going into details, I made sure that Alicia lost the trust fund her father had set up for her.”

  Cullen thought about that a minute. Then he saw Boff’s line of strategy. “And now,” he said, “Alicia’s about to lose her boyfriend, too. Boff, what exactly do you hope to accomplish by doing all this?”

  “Bit by bit, I’m going to strip her of everything she owns. And then I’m going to play her.”

  “How?” Wallachi asked.

  “I’d rather not say right now.”

  Wallachi frowned. “You know, Frank, it’s not just Alicia you’re messing with. If Emilio’s involved with the service….”

  Boff nodded. “Yes, Pete, then things will get a bit trickier.” He tapped his forehead. “But I have a couple more ideas percolating.”

  Hazuki and Emilio were still inside the restaurant an hour later when Boff noticed that Manny was getting antsy. The three large cups of black coffee the crack op had already put away had him so wired that his right leg was bobbing up and down. Suddenly his leg banged into the table, forcing Wallachi to grab his own coffee cup to keep it from toppling over.

  “For chrissake!” Wallachi said. “Do you think you can stop riding your fucking bicycle?”

  “Bicycle?” The crack op looked puzzled. Then he got it. “Oh.” His leg stopped moving. “It gets like that when I’m nervous.”

  “What the hell are you nervous about?”

  “Sitting here doing nothing makes me nervous.”

  Boff could only shake his head. “You’re not doing nothing, numbnuts,” he said. “You’re on what’s called surveillance.”

  Cullen smiled. It was nice to see Boff rag on somebody besides him for a change.

  When Manny got up to go for a refill a few minutes later, Wallachi grabbed his arm. “Get decaf,” he ordered.

  “I hate decaf.”

  “Then buy bottled water or tea.”

  Frowning, the crack op sh
ook off his boss’s hand and headed for the counter.

  Lowering his voice, Boff said, “You know, Pete, Wally One-Eye is a lost cause.”

  Wallachi made a sour face. “Would it surprise you if I said the kid was his high school valedictorian?”

  “Yes, it would. But then, brains are not the same thing as street smarts.”

  Cullen joined in. “If he was so smart, then why’d he become a gym teacher?”

  “Well,” Wallachi replied, “he was a big-time jock in high school and got a football scholarship to Penn State. But Manny being Manny, he flunked out after his sophomore year because—and I know this will come as a great shock to you—Wally One-Eye was more interested in checking out the babes than the big jock was in looking at the books. After Penn State, he transferred to some small college in Jersey.”

  “I just don’t get what you see in the guy,” Boff said. “I mean, he’s more clueless than Danny.”

  Cullen spit out a laugh. “Thanks for that.”

  Wallachi glanced over at the counter and saw that Manny was second in line. “Here’s the skinny, Frank. And then let’s drop it, okay? As painful as it is to admit, Manny’s my brother-in-law. My wife’s his older sister.”

  “No shit? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Wallachi shrugged. “I was embarrassed.”

  Seeing the crack op return with a coffee, they dropped the conversation.

  “Okay, Pete,” he said, “I ordered shitty decaf. Happy now?”

  Before he could sit down, however, Wallachi grabbed the coffee out of his hands and sipped it. Nodding his approval, he handed it back.

  Manny frowned. “What? You don’t trust me?”

  “A good investigator doesn’t take chances,” Wallachi replied. “My primary concern with the coffee you’re consuming like tap water is that it’ll get you so wired you’ll do something stupid and compromise us.”

  With another sour look, the crack op sat down and kept his mouth shut.

  A half hour later, Boff decided they should wait the rest of the time in Wallachi’s car so they’d be ready to follow Emilio and Hazuki when they took off. Parking at a hydrant just down the street from the restaurant, they waited another half hour until Emilio and Hazuki finally left De Santo’s holding hands. As Emilio hailed a cab, Manny took several shots. When the taxi pulled away, Wallachi tailed it all the way uptown until it stopped in the middle of the street directly in front of Hazuki’s apartment building. Wallachi cut to a hydrant thirty feet away.

  As they watched, Emilio and Hazuki left the cab and headed for the front door.

  Manny poked Boff in the arm. “Hey, Boff,” he said, “Five bucks says Emilio goes up and gets laid.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” Boff replied.

  Emilio and Hazuki stopped at the apartment building’s front entrance, talking and smooching. Manny fired off several rapid shots, but then, to his chagrin, when Hazuki entered her building, the mobster’s son walked back to the taxi that was still waiting in the street.

  “Crap,” Manny said. He pulled out his wallet and handed Boff a five. “Lucky guess.”

  “It wasn’t a guess. I knew Emilio wouldn’t go up with her.”

  “How? You’re clairvoyant?”

  “No. Just someone who stays on top of things. First, Hazuki told me she wouldn’t invite him up. She didn’t want to seem too eager. Also, she has a roommate. Which would make things awkward.” Boff turned around and looked at Manny. “And even if she hadn’t told me, I would’ve known when they got out of the cab. Do you know why?”

  Manny nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. The friggin’ cab didn’t leave. Fuck! I shoulda noticed that.”

  “It’s all part of your education,” Wallachi said, more to taunt than educate. “Now close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Picture Emilio,” Wallachi said, “and tell me what color his shirt and slacks were.”

  Manny scrunched his face. The other men in the car could almost hear gears grinding in his head. “Uh…blue shirt and, uh…black pants?” He opened his eyes. “I get it right?”

  “Nope.” Wallachi put his car in gear and drove off. “Lavender shirt. Black pants.”

  “Well, at least I nailed the pants. Why’s it so important anyway to remember what he was wearing?”

  “Tell him, Frank.”

  Cullen replied instead. “It’s important that an investigator take photos not just with a camera, but in his head, too. If I wanted to, which I don’t, I could describe everything I saw tonight. Not just clothes, but what the restaurant looked like from outside. In detail. What buildings were nearby…and the license plate of the taxi, too. I also noted that someone opened the outside door to the fourth apartment building east of the restaurant without using a key.”

  Boff looked surprised. He didn’t think Cullen was capable of remembering details like that.

  But the crack op was not impressed. “Big deal,” he said. “What’s so important about some guy opening some building door without a key?”

  “Well, let’s say I was following Emilio tonight alone and on foot, and suddenly he changed direction and came towards me. I’d need to have an escape route so he wouldn’t get a good look at my face and recognize me the next time I tailed him. I could duck into that apartment building with the unlocked front door, pretend to be scanning the mail boxes, and wait until he went by.” He looked directly at Manny. “Everything you notice has the potential to be useful.”

  Then the boxer tapped Boff on the shoulder. “Tell me you’re not impressed.”

  “All elementary stuff,” Boff said. “Let’s see how well you perform when you’re actually on a tail.” Just then Boff’s phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, recognized the caller ID, and answered.

  “Hi Hazuki. How’d it go?”

  Very well again. The target couldn’t take his eyes off me.

  “What comes next?”

  Well, the target wants to see me again tomorrow night. I made an excuse why I couldn’t, but I told him the night after that I was free. So he’s going to take me to a Broadway show. If he asks me back to his place, I’ll go. But I won’t sleep with him. Just a little fooling around.

  “Are you stringing this out because it’s the best way to hook Emilio? Or just to take more of my hard-earned money?”

  Both. She giggled and hung up.

  Chapter 51

  Two nights later, when Emilio picked up Hazuki in a Town Car and headed for Broadway, Boff and his team were following. The Town Car let them off at the Winter Garden Theatre, where Mamma Mia! was playing. After getting out of the car, they headed arm-in-arm for the entrance to the theater. Manny shot several pictures.

  Wallachi turned to his crack op. “Get me the phone number of Telecharge.”

  Using his BlackBerry, Manny got the number and relayed it to Wallachi, who called on his iPhone.

  “Hi, I’m interested in Mamma Mia! … I’m not sure yet when I’ll be going, but I wanted to know the running time, including intermission … Two and a half hours with one fifteen-minute intermission. Thank you very much.”

  “Pete,” Boff said, “there’s no point in us hanging here all that time. Let’s get a bite to eat. There’s a good Italian family-style joint a few blocks south of here called Don Giovanni. Let’s head there.”

  Boff, Wallachi, and Manny split a large Romana pizza with chicken, onions, red peppers, and artichokes, while Cullen ordered a Mediterranean salad with tuna.

  “Frank,” Wallachi said, “what are you going to do with all these photos, anyway?”

  “Let me guess,” Cullen interjected. “He’s going to show them to Alicia.”

  Boff smiled. “Why do you think I’d do that?”

  “Because if Alicia had Mantilla killed for cheating on her, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think she’d do the same to Emilio.”

  Manny looked surprised. “You’re trying to get Emilio killed?”

>   Boff shook his head. “Danny has a vivid imagination.”

  After the show let out, Emilio grabbed a cab with Hazuki. Instead of heading uptown to her building, they went to his condo. Two hours later, they came back out. Standing on the stoop, they indulged in some lengthy kissing before Hazuki got in a Town Car.

  As the car drove off, Wallachi said, “Should I follow, Frank?”

  “No. Let’s head back.”

  ***

  The next day, eager to start his endgame scenario in motion, Boff called assistant D.A. Carl Baumgartner at his Brooklyn office.

  “Leave your office,” Boff directed, “and ring me back from a pay phone.”

  My phone isn’t tapped.

  “Maybe so, but I want to be absolutely sure we’re secure when we talk.”

  So I’ll use my cell.

  “Come on, Carl. You know cell phones are easier to tap than land lines. And don’t use the pay phones in your lobby, either. Someone might be able to overhear. Find a phone on the street.”

  Five minutes later, when Carl called back, Boff could hear traffic noise in the background.

  “Have you been able to get the tap on the judge?” he asked.

  I’m working on it.

  “Well, I’ve got a little info that might make it easier. You remember I mentioned that the hooker worked for an elite escort service?”

  Yes.

  “The name of the service is—”

  Wait! Let me take out a pad and pen. … Okay, shoot.

  “It’s called NY Club Cachet VIP. Its website is www.NYClubCachet.com.”

  Who’s the owner?

  “Technically, a shell corporation called ACM International. The same corporation also owns Giancarlo’s Restaurant near the courthouse. I’m pretty sure a gal who calls herself Alicia Celina is the owner of both the restaurant and the escort service. Or at least a partner. Her full name is Alicia Celina Mantilla. Her brother was Alberto Mantilla.”

  Wait, slow down. I can’t write as fast as you talk. … Okay. What else?

  “Her brother Alberto was killed by a car bomb recently. Without going into details now, Alicia Celina had a hand in Mantilla’s death. As well as the murder of a Cuban boxer named Rafael Oquendo, who was also connected to the escort service.”