“Give you a lift?” she asked.
“No, thanks, I’ll walk.”
“Get in,” growled Sullivan.
“Well, if Sully insists,” I said.
I climbed in the back like a perp without handcuffs and winced as pain stabbed through my wounded parts. Those Percocet could kick in anytime they pleased. “Going to Seventeenth and Second, driver,” I said.
“Your apartment’s a crime scene, dumb fuck,” said Sullivan. “We’re taking you to a hotel.”
“The Plaza? Thanks, Sully, that’d be great.”
“Try the Holiday Inn,” he said. “Twenty-sixth and Sixth.”
Detective Miller turned in her seat to face me. “The Lisko brothers were on watch lists for a reason,” she said. “They’re dangerous. Do you have any idea who could have hired them?”
“Were dangerous,” I said. “Past tense. And no. Isn’t that your job?”
The partners ignored me as we swept past a row of greens down Second Avenue. Sullivan turned on his blinker as we approached 17th Street.
“I thought . . .”
“We need to stop by your place to pick up your passport,” said Miller. “You’re not to leave the city, understood?”
“I’m a flight risk?”
“You’re an unstable man, witness to multiple murders, one by your own hand. Yes, you are a flight risk.”
“Don’t forget, I’m still on a job. I still haven’t found the girl.”
“You’re advised to stay at the hotel until our investigation concludes and you’re permitted to return home,” said Miller. “We’ll have officers downstairs in the lobby.”
“We’ll see where things take me,” I said.
I watched the back of Sullivan’s neck redden. His fat hands gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. He turned on 17th and pulled to a stop in front of the Hotel Seventeen next door to my place.
“Why can’t I just stay there?” I asked.
Sullivan turned off the ignition, rolled down his window, and lit a cigarette. Miller glanced back at me. “C’mon, Duck,” she said. “You’re allowed to stand in the doorway, but you are not to touch anything. Just tell me where to find your passport, and I’ll navigate your apartment without upsetting the crime scene.”
“Bedroom,” I said. “In the nightstand, next to the condoms. You mind grabbing me a change of clothes and my wallet too? Oh, and my phone and charger? Should be on the kitchen counter.”
She sighed and got out and I followed. Familiar nameless neighbors looked back at me with revulsion. I’d avoided mirrors and forgotten how I must appear, with both eyes bruised and a reset nose and a large bandage covering the bite out of my cheek. I wondered which one had called 911 first. I wondered if I was going to be evicted when I was finally allowed to move back in.
Miller nodded to a uniform standing watch and ducked under the yellow crime scene tape across my front stoop. Inside, my living room looked like a still from a horror movie set. The thick smell of death made my eyes tear. It’s a hard scent to describe, but once it hits your nostrils, the sense memory places it forever. I’d become fast accustomed to it. It reminds one of old Parmesan cheese, with a choking pungency. Dried puddles of blood were all over the floor. My coffee table had been crushed by the weight of Ivan’s falling bulk. The police outlines of Anna’s and Ivan’s dead bodies were traced in the floor. Miller slipped into a pair of latex shoe covers and moved carefully back to my bedroom. My passport was next to the condoms, as I’d described. She carried a pair of my jeans, a black sweatshirt, and my phone and wallet in her other hand.
On the way across town to the Chelsea Holiday Inn, she convinced Sullivan to let us stop at the vet on 19th and Park so I could check on my ailing hound.
“Thanks, Lea,” I said from the backseat. “Appreciate it.”
She stiffened at my use of her first name, but let it pass.
The attendant at the front desk had a lazy eye and a thick Queens accent. She took one look at me and knew whom I was there to see. “Come on back, sugar,” she said. “Your boy’s going to be okay.”
I found Elvis asleep in a crate with his midsection wrapped in white bandages. The vet, a stooped and kindly old guy named Coleman, explained his internal injuries and stressed how lucky he was to be alive. He and his attendant stood behind me as I leaned down and opened the crate and reached in to rub my hound. He whimpered in reply and picked up his head in thanks. The vet assured me that they’d keep him safe and on the mend until everything was sorted out.
As I closed the crate, the attendant looked down at Elvis and said, “Whoever did that to your boy ought to be shot.”
“Not to worry,” I said. “I shot him in the face.”
Chapter 30
My room at the Holiday Inn was bright and small and tacky, with a cheap orange headboard and matching orange side tables. The walls were an institutional beige, the curtains a styleless pattern of brown and blue and orange. It was a soulless room made for a suicide. Not for the first time, the notion had a certain appeal. But not for long.
I pulled the curtains, plugged in my phone. Then I turned off the lights and lay on the king-size bed without pulling back the covers. I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday’s lunch, and the Percocet fog was settling thick. I closed my eyes and let it swallow me up.
When I woke, the darkness felt like dead of night, but the clock on the nightstand read 9:14 p.m. I called the hospital with doom in my gut, inquired about the status of Cassandra Kimball. Out of surgery, I was told, visiting hours were over, but she was still on this side of life. I exhaled and thanked whatever or whoever it is that decides such things. Skilled doctors or higher powers or just random goddamn life luck . . . Didn’t care. I just looked forward to seeing her again.
I checked my messages, another mountain of voice mails from various media, desperate to talk to the city’s walking messenger of death. Roy Perry had sent fourteen texts since he’d learned of the “Massacre on 17th Street,” as the Post appeared to be calling it. There were messages from Margaret McKay, full of concern and sedatives, asking me to call her at the Rhinebeck number as soon as I was able. I pictured her searching the big house for signs of her daughter, tiptoeing into her girl’s frozen bedroom and pondering the lost, forgotten years since.
Of note, there were no messages from Charlie. I wondered if he’d spoken to Marks and how that conversation had ended. But most of all, I wondered who in this ugly affair had hired Anna and her brothers to look after me.
I climbed from bed and limped to the bathroom, avoiding mirrors as much as possible. I popped a few more Percs and took a scalding shower, absorbed the pain as I considered the various players in this madness. Coach Marks and his sniveling former assistant, John Kosta; Anna Lisko and her thug brothers; poor Lucy Townes, still reeling from her attempt and her abusive relationship with Marks; I considered Margaret McKay, the mother superior at the center of it all. And then there was the protective big brother, convinced that his old coach, his father figure, his mother’s lover, was screwing around with his sister. This was a man with the resources and the wherewithal to execute an airtight blackmail. And he would be a logical outlet for a damaged sister needing help with revenge.
When I was dry and dressed, I tried his cell, but it went straight to voice mail. I texted, asked when he’d like to meet and talk, tossed my phone on the mattress, and went to the small fridge beneath the television. Some mini-bar raiding was in order before any further steps could be contemplated. But when I opened its door all I found was an empty expanse of chilled white shelves. No bottles in this cheap room, nothing. Made for a suicide indeed.
Downstairs, an earnest young uniformed cop stood from a lobby chair as I walked from the elevator. He was blond and chubby, with a suspicious look in his watery blue eyes. I walked straight over. “I’m going to get a drink,” I told him.
“You’re not supposed to leave the hotel,” he said. “If you’d like a bite to eat or something to drink, t
here’s a restaurant right here.” He motioned to the back of the lobby where a sign advertised an awful looking trap called the Prime Café.
“Am I under arrest?” I asked.
“No, but . . .”
“Then let me explain something: If I stay up in that room, I will kill myself. You’ll find me hanging from the closet. If you try to prevent me from leaving this place, I will resist, with extreme force, and you’ll either have to arrest me then or kill me in the struggle, probably the latter. Or you are welcome to tag along. How does that sound?”
I didn’t wait for a reply, just walked out into a warm night and a crowded sidewalk full of blithe pedestrians enjoying the safe surfaces of a pleasant September evening. There was a stylish dark bar called the Black Door next to the hotel courtyard. I pushed inside and waved down a cute bartender. She recoiled at the sight of me. I glanced across at the high mirror above the bottles and forgave her. Not even the flattering flicker of the votive candles and the low-watt wall scones could save me. I was a mangled mess of black eyes and misshapen features, a figure not fit for public display. I ordered a double Bulleit and a bottle of Stella, drained both in less time than it took her to make change.
There was a light crowd of locals, a drunken group of after-workers long past happy hour. I heard the whispers, noticed the troubled glances cast my way. I was given a wide berth. I couldn’t imagine the vicious vibe I must have been giving off. The blonde on the bar stool next to me slid off and turned her back. When I called for refills, the bartender poured the whiskey from a long arm and a careful remove. The cop lingering outside the front door did not improve my game. I didn’t care. I was in foul spirits, devolving with each sip of the amber.
As the whiskey went to work, I reflected on my murderous lover Anna and her twin brothers. One dead by my hand, the other beaten close to it. They’d been hired to look after me, to give me some warnings, to slow my pace. The assignment had turned to something more after I won that round with the bat-wielding brother Denis on that Williamsburg sidewalk. But who had employed them to begin with? We are paid to perform a service, Anna had told me. Her cavernous loft apartment, with its sparse personal belongs, indicated that she was being paid well. Only one guy came to mind.
Charlie had seen Marks make a pass at his sister. He’d seen something that convinced him of his coach’s unseemly motives. He’d stood by as his mother lavished his family’s fortune upon him, buying him that apartment, falling for him and taking him in as a replacement father. He knew what Marks was capable of. Like everyone in his orbit, he’d heard the rumors, seen the way he was with the girls on his team. I considered the resentment that must have built, bubbling in him for years. Marks may have coached him to gold, but at some point Charlie must have turned on his old master. The man had invaded his family from all fronts. The pass at Madeline would be too much to abide. Then, let’s say his sister had approached her big rich brother and told him about Lucy. Demanded revenge. Charlie would act.
Had he hired Anna and her brothers to do his dirty work? Were they the inside muscle for Charlie’s systematic destruction of his coach’s sordid life? But then his sister disappeared. What had really happened between them when he saw her at the house in Rhinebeck? Something more than he was saying. I remembered the USB cable found discarded beneath her bedroom dresser. So Charlie had diverted his muscle in my direction, to keep an eye on me, to slow my search, but why? Did he know where she was?
I gulped at my whiskey, waved my empty glass in the bartender’s direction. I was growing more surly with every sip. I’d be cut off soon, asked with all delicate discretion to take my business elsewhere. I tried to be polite as I ordered more refills. Another double Bulleit, another Stella, please, thanks so much. Yes, I had a bit of an accident, my apologies for my rather fearsome appearance. I don’t mean to scare your customers. She served me, warily, and didn’t respond. I drained it down, got my Irish up.
I was going to see that fucker, and he was going to start explaining. And I didn’t want any cops trailing behind me. I pounded back my beer, fumbled for my wallet, waved my hand for the check. The bartender was quick to lay it out. I thought I felt the entire bar exhale at my pending departure. I’d rung up a hefty tab, quick. Seventy-five dollars in less than a half hour’s drinking. They may not have liked my presence, but they should appreciate that kind of business. I laid a hundred-dollar bill on the bar, for their trouble, and lurched off in search of the bathrooms and another form of egress.
In the back, past the men’s room, there was a private party room with another full bar. It was empty, aside from a young Mexican bar-back sweeping the floors. He was the first person to eye me with something like compassion.
“Salida?” I asked him.
He pointed toward the front door.
“No, back salida?” I asked again.
He stopped sweeping, gripped his broom for a moment. Then he pointed to the corner of the private room and stepped aside. I slammed through the back emergency exit and came out in a narrow alley. I turned left and stumbled west until I came to a sealed-off construction site a few doors down. I squeezed through the covered gates and raced past a crater in the earth a hundred feet wide. More progress ahead, more condos would rise up from this site in no time. I came out on West 27th, raced over to the corner of Seventh Avenue, and started waving. I got lucky. A lighted cab was just pulling through a green. It slid before me and I dove in, keeping my head low. Gave him the West Village address, didn’t hazard a look back until we crossed 14th Street. No sign of NYPD behind us.
I had the cab let me off at the corner of Bedford and Seventh and walked the short block down to Leroy. It occurred to me for the first time that Madeline lived right around the corner, just a few blocks up on Barrow. Charlie’s street was a short diagonal stretch of the Village with little foot traffic. I found 13 Leroy halfway down on the north side.
I was wrong about his house. Shouldering in alongside those classic Village homes, there are a few modern monstrosities, the ones with the sleek clean lines and tinted windows and a look-at-me pretension that now passed for “design.” Charlie lived in one of those. It was a wide former carriage house covered in bright ivy across the front. No stoop or parlor windows, only a modern cedar door and a matching one-car garage wedged between the ivy. Above it was two more floors of oversize double-glazed windows and a roof garden visible on top. I pressed his buzzer passing judgment, outrage rising.
Charlie answered the door with a grand, phony smile. He wore khakis, an untucked blue button-down rolled up past thick forearms. His wide feet were bare. His thinning blond hair was combed straight back, frozen in place with plenty of product. He extended a big hand.
“Duck, Jesus, what’s going on? I saw the news. You okay?”
“I look okay?” I asked.
“You look like shit,” he said.
I shouldered inside, almost retched at his offensive taste. He shut the door without taking his eyes off me. The inside was worse than the exterior. I saw a floating staircase and modern art and no crown molding in sight.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked. “Smells like you’ve already had a few.”
“You’re not checking your phone, are you? I called and texted.”
“It died,” he said. “Been charging. Sorry, man, what’s up?”
“Bullshit,” I said. “Finance tools like you check their phones every thirty seconds. Now why haven’t I heard from you?”
I could feel my heart hammering in my throat, adrenaline pumping hard enough to break through the whiskey. More than any hit of cocaine ever could.
“I’ve been wanting to talk,” he said.
That did it.
I stepped forward and shoved him hard in the chest. He staggered back a few steps, caught his balance against a banister. I kept coming, shoved him again, down onto the stairs, raised my fist.
“Duck! Wait!” he cried. “Wait!”
I took a step back, fist stayed cocked, every fiber
on fire, ready for him to fight back. “Start talking, motherfucker,” I said. “Start talking.”
He pushed himself up, wiped a strand of frosted hair back into place. He pulled at his shirt, tried to gather his pride. Charlie was a large man, powerfully built in mind and body. He wasn’t used to being pushed around. His ears grew hot as he considered his next move.
“What would you like to know?” he asked.
“Anna, her brothers, the blackmail,” I said. “That was you, behind it all.”
“I didn’t ask for that,” he pleaded. “Not what happened to you and your partner.”
“You fuck,” I said. I pushed him again. This time he was braced for it. He stiffened and absorbed my aggression, didn’t budge.
“I was behind the blackmail,” he said. “Okay? I admit that. Fucking Marks, the son of a bitch, he tried . . . He thought he could take anything he wanted. My mother, my money, my sister.” His voice went up a hysterical octave as he said this last word. That was the straw.
“And Anna, her brothers?” I asked.
“Working for me,” he said. “But I swear, I did not ask them to go that far. After what you did to their brother, they wouldn’t listen. I tried to call them off. Anna and Ivan, they saw red, they said they were going to kill you.”
“They failed,” I said.
“They underestimated you,” he said. “We all did.”
“Why send them my way at all, Charlie? I was looking for your fucking sister. Why didn’t you want me to find her?”
“Duck, there are things . . . If you’d just listen for a second, there are things I can explain.”
“Try,” I said.
As he sought the words, I heard the first faint thump. Then another, a little louder this time, coming from up the stairs. Charlie pretended not to hear it. His face fell for an instant. Then he turned and tried to lead me to the living room.
“Let me get you that drink,” he said. “I swear everything will make sense.”
Under Water Page 24
