“Why would I allow that, Roche? You’ve said nothing to convince me of your innocence, why should I believe you?”
Fuck, I had no idea what to give her. But there was no way I was walking out of this apartment without cuffs on my wrists or blood on the walls. I needed to be smart about this. What did she want more than me? Even more than the Vierling Killer?
Now that I thought about it, the only person she’d want more than me … was me.
“Give me the chance to prove my innocence, and I can find you the man who killed Masters,” I finished.
The room went dead silent. Greaves narrowed her eyes. She was interested, and she was angry.
“You’ll find me two criminals for the price of one?”
“You want to know who did it, and I think I can find them.” Don’t look at Allen, don’t crack, you got this. “I have some leads. You let me prove my innocence, and I’ll find you two killers.”
I knew Greaves was not a gambling woman, nor was she one to put personal issues before procedure. But she was human, she knew I could go where she couldn’t, and she wanted the man who’d killed Masters more than she wanted the Vierling Killer. She was silent for some time, weighing her options.
“And if you can’t find someone to take the fall for you?” she finally asked.
“Then take me in. I’ll be here in five days either way. You can cuff me and drag me away, seize my assets, I won’t care.” Time to roll the dice. “Even my car.”
That made her raise her eyebrow, intrigued. There was a risk that her lackeys might squeal on her for disobeying protocol and giving a man with my track record the chance to run. But the carrot I was dangling was too good to pass up. I knew it and she knew it. I wasn’t a gambler, either, but desperate times …
“Two days,” she said. “Midnight, December twenty-sixth.”
“Two days? Are you kidding me?”
“I want you here, and the metal man, in two days. I want it to see you get put away for overstepping your bounds. Unless you pull off a miracle, that is.”
“Are we done?”
She ordered the agents to pack up and leave. Before she reached the door, she came up within a few inches of me.
“Don’t try to run from the city, or hide, or kill me,” she said softly. “I will send the entire Plate after you if you do anything stupid. You have forty-eight hours. Make an effort to clean up your name, for once in your life. Oh, and have a merry Christmas.”
She left.
The moment the door closed, Allen grabbed its head and began to moan. It didn’t speak until we heard Greaves get into the elevator.
“Oh no, this is bad, this is very bad!”
“Relax, I have a plan.” I made my way to the kitchen and got to work boiling some water.
“How are you not panicking!” Allen asked, hysterical.
“I’ve dealt with worse, Al. We can do this. The timeline will just make us try that much harder.”
“We are out of leads! With both Vierlings being duds … wait, did yours have only one trigger?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think someone could have stolen the Vierling in France, smuggled it here, modified it, and used it to kill some mobsters?”
I put my hands on my hips. “If the France Vierling had been stolen, it would have been front-page news across Europe, and here, too.”
“Oh, then we’re screwed.” It was surprising to hear Allen use that kind of language. “We have no more leads, no more witnesses, no more anything! We are at a loss! And your promise to find Masters’s killer … Well, you know what I think about that!” Yeah, I’d had a feeling Allen had figured out who did that. “How do you hope to catch this Vierling Killer person?”
“Easy.” I watched the coffee drizzle down into my cup, then grabbed the mug to sip the hot liquid. Ah, perfect. “We wait.”
“For what?”
“For the killer to strike again.”
Allen shot up, almost flipping over my table in the process. “Elias, you’re insane! We need to find something, anything, before you get thrown in prison! I don’t want you dying behind bars for something you didn’t do! And why are you so relaxed?”
I sipped my coffee. Lord, I needed it. I was swapping out my alcoholism for a caffeine addiction. “Two reasons. One, you’re freaking out, and having had multiple partners, I know that when one of us freaks out, the other needs to keep their cool. I’m losing my mind right now, but if I panic, it’ll make things worse for both of us.”
Allen sat down, its eyes still darting around in a panic, but at least it was trying to control itself. It really was worried about me, wasn’t it? It hadn’t even noticed the present in my hands when I walked in.
“And two, the killer knows the noose is tightening. We just need to find them.”
“Okay. Suspects again,” Allen said, with forced composure. “Schafer?”
“Dangerous, resourceful, intelligent, good motive … but not stupid enough to do her own dirty work. You said her weapon was a dead end?”
“Never been used,” Allen confirmed.
“Cross that one off.”
“Simone?”
“Resourceful in a different way, easy access to a weapon — one that wasn’t used recently, but still. Personality doesn’t fit, though, no evidence that she was attacked, no motive.”
“Someone working for the Iron Hands?” Allen asked.
“Perfect motive, discreet, and the Eye has all the money in the world and a few hundred custom weapons at her disposal. But it’s too convenient.”
“The perpetrator’s blood at the last crime scene rules out the Rabbit.”
“True,” I said. “Plus, most suspicion for Mob activity falls on Maranzano, seeing as the Iron Hands have a complex identity. We’re missing something or someone.”
“Agreed.” Allen nodded.
“And there’s that mystery man I’ve been seeing all too often. Could he be working together with the Rabbit under the Eye?”
“If there is a third crime scene, he may show up again.”
“I’ll be ready,” I said. I finished the coffee and put the cup in the sink next to the other five. Jesus, I need to clean up my act. “So either we wait for one of the three to show their hand, or we find a fourth suspect whom we’ve overlooked.”
“Which will require waiting, as well,” Allen concluded.
“Stay here, get some rest, and we’ll deal with this in the morning.” If we survived that long. The Eye had probably bugged this place long ago. She might cut our throats in our sleep for disobeying her once more. I grabbed the present and started to head to my room. Tomorrow would probably be a better day to give it to Allen.
“Are you sure about this, Roche?”
I turned back. Allen was looking at me like I had all the answers. Funny thing was, lately I’d expected it to have them all. I was stuck between three places: the Mob wanting me dead, the Iron Hands wanting me to be someone that I’d never wanted to be, and the FBI wanting me behind bars for a crime I didn’t commit and for another they didn’t know that I’d done. Normally, I could have dealt with this using my Diamondback, but the last thing Allen needed was to see me come unhinged. It was suffocating, being in this position with my brain turned on. No blood, no screams, no gunpowder — just human stupidity run amok.
“No, Allen, I’m not.”
CHAPTER 18
“YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS. We’ll burn you alive for this!”
“Funny you should mention that.”
I lit a match, and he watched it like his life depended on it. It did, which was the funny part.
The smell of kerosene burned my nose, though it was probably worse for him, seeing as his clothes were soaked in it. Idiot should have known what I was going to do when I’d started spraying the stuff around.
The girls had been evacuated from the house, the three men upstairs were dead, and the basement was trashed. Automatic parts were strewn everywhere. For organized crimina
ls, they were very sloppy. All that was left was to put the nail in this coffin.
“You know what will happen,” he whispered. “The Eye isn’t one to take things lightly.”
“I’m aware. But neither am I.”
I flicked the match out of my fingers and made my way to the stairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him burst into flames. He kept screaming long after I had locked the front door after me. The building would take some time to burn. By the time anyone got here, the Auto parts would be slag and he would be bones.
It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. I was just glad that this time, I’d been able to kill two birds with one stone.
CHAPTER 19
ONCE AGAIN, I WAS BACK IN THE PAST, back in the nightmare of that fateful day. This time, the dream started with me approaching the building. Little West 12th and Washington, the place from which the Morello Mob ran nearly everything. Paddy threw me a lever-action from the car, and the rest of the cruisers unloaded, cops approaching the front door. We were doing what the 5th was known for: replacing warrants with bullets.
The two Mob guards at the front of the warehouse were down seconds after we pulled up. Paddy kicked open the door and made the first push inside, bullets flying toward us as the platoon of officers entered after him. I was beside the door, trying to calm myself, knowing what would happen once I went in there.
The last of the officers filed in, and then I entered. I bumped into someone coming out the door and nearly fell on my ass. It wasn’t an officer or a Bruno — Simone was standing there in her green dress, blocking my way.
“You’re not as dark and brooding as I thought you were.”
I pushed her out of the way. Entering the building, I used the shotgun as it was intended, taking out the guards above me on the warehouse catwalks. The main floor was clear, and we ascended to the upper offices.
Simone was at the top of the stairs, the other cops walking through her, but when I tried to get by she was solid as a tree.
“You’re a man of violence, Roche, but you aren’t the kind of man to glorify it.”
“Get out of my fucking head!”
I fired a shell at her, but she vanished like smoke. Nothing in my way now.
I was outside Morello’s office. I dropped my lever-action and kicked the door open, pulling out my Diamondback and pointing it at him. I didn’t give him the chance to push out his usual spiel and quickly put a bullet in his shoulder. He slumped down behind the desk. I walked around it, looking for him, but bumped into Simone again.
“You kill because you have to, right?”
“Shut up!”
I looked down at Morello, but someone pushed me away. When I looked back up, it wasn’t Simone standing there anymore.
It was me.
It was strange, looking at myself. Surreal. He — I — spoke again.
“You only kill the way you do because you have to, right?”
I pulled back the hammer and pointed the Diamondback at Morello, still looking at myself. Any moment now the dead Mob boss would morph into Allen or James or Sinclair or someone else beyond the barrel. I couldn’t care less anymore.
“You don’t understand,” I said to myself.
“If I don’t understand, who will?”
He was right. I was right. It seemed everyone besides me, even my own head, was right.
“Do you really think keeping her in power saves lives? Or is that just what you tell yourself?”
“You think every problem can be beaten to death and buried.”
“At least James isn’t around to see this.”
I put the barrel to my own head. Let’s see what happened this time.
“You can’t change what happened. One day you need to own up to it.”
“Fuck off, me.”
The gunshot sounded very similar to Allen’s voice, and my eyes snapped open, brought back to the waking world unexpectedly. Allen was standing over me in an uncomfortably close proximity.
“Yes?” I croaked.
“I would say that I have good news, but it would be in poor taste.”
I shoved myself upright. I was wearing nothing but my drawers and an undershirt, nothing close to the picture of the perfect male body.
“Another one?” I asked.
“Let’s hope the third time is the charm.”
I looked at my clock. Ten in the morning, Christmas Eve. Well, I’d woken up, but I was still stuck in this mess. Time to get myself and Allen out of it.
“Then get out of my room and let me change.”
“Of course.”
It wasn’t pretty. A cozy two-floor building in Hell’s Kitchen had been reduced to little more than ashes. The fire engine was staffed by a handful of men and women in purely supervisory roles; lightly dressed Blue-eyes wielded the firehoses and axes. The machines scoured the area, making sure embers didn’t surge into flames once again. Outside the perimeter of firefighters were patrol cars and cops comforting hysterical women and bruised men who said they’d been forced out of the building by a gunman in black.
I had expected him to strike again soon, but not this quickly.
This was the 7th’s territory, which meant the crazy Russian Viessman was on scene, keeping an eye on everything and everyone. His long silver hair was easy to spot against the backdrop of black concrete. Bastard had been on scene for all three of the crimes. I might have suspected him if I hadn’t known him. And if I’d even suggested it, I wouldn’t have left here alive.
Allen and I made our way over to him. “What’s the situation, Yev?”
The commissioner kept silent, while the darkskinned officer beside him responded. “Reports of a fire were called in around eight this morning. The fire department came by to get it under control and called us two hours later after checking out the immediate rubble. There is evidence to suggest this was an underground brothel, given the beds, unburnt ledgers, and the presence of, well, women and paying customers, who have already given statements.”
“Who does it belong to?” I asked.
“Maranzano, no doubt. No other Mob deals in sex and drugs like they do. But we did find something else in the basement, if you’d care to follow me.”
We did as he said, Viessman leading us into the wreckage of the fire. The floorboards were melted, and the smell was assaulting to the senses. I had to breathe through Simone’s handkerchief to keep myself from passing out. Allen didn’t take too kindly to the scent, either.
The basement door had burned away, leaving nothing but the hinges on the frame to indicate a separation between it and the main landing. The blackened concrete stairs were covered in hoses and tarps, and several Blue-eyes were still down here, making sure to blast any embers with water. Besides the molten wood and plastic, a slag of metal coated the floor. Some discernable shapes popped out from the sea of black and silver. Before us, in the centre of the room, was a pile of bones and half-melted flesh.
I gagged. “Who the hell is this?”
“We believe it is Joey Rossi, one of Maranzano’s business partners in West Manhattan.” Viessman’s officer continued, “This place was not only part of a sex trafficking ring, but also the base of a smuggling operation onto the mainland. Most of the men here were paying customers, and they were beaten for their tardiness in leaving the building. Three men who worked under Rossi were shot, bringing the total body count to four. The bullets used were —”
“Were they 8x50 Lebel?” Allen interrupted.
“Yes.” The officer looked surprised, and Viessman grumbled to himself. “How did you know?”
My turn to speak. “This is our man. The one at the Edison and in the Upper East Side. No doubt you heard about Shen, Yev?” The commissioner grunted in affirmation. “This was the Vierling Killer.”
“Vierling?” the officer asked, but we ignored him.
“The problem now is that this building is little more than a fireplace. No evidence will have survived that fire. Even if he did get sloppy, he’s
covered his tracks.”
“But the way they set the fire could tell as much as what the fire burned,” Allen said.
“So, he used kerosene, pretty easy to get, probably stockpiled here since this was an Automatic smuggling safe house. It doesn’t take a genius to light fires, but it did take someone with considerable speed and strength to get through all those men and kill the guards. What did the men who were beaten say?”
The officer pulled out a notepad. “Um … someone in dark, baggy clothes, who moved quick, hit hard, even without a gun in his hands. One said he saw the assailant take on three guys at the same time, kicked the shit out of all of them.”
“Military training, just like you said, Al,” I commented. “Even if one of those two Vierling rifles was used, neither Simone nor Schafer has that sort of experience to fight hand-to-hand.”
Viessman grumbled, “Nyet.”
His officer spoke. “The precincts are working together to get to the bottom of this. Apparently, Elise Schafer has a record of being trained by military personnel, though for what purpose, we’re not sure.”
“And Simone Morane?” I asked, snapping Allen to attention.
“Her father is a general. If he’d wanted those records gone, he could have ordered it with the snap of his fingers,” the officer said. “We did some digging on everyone, including you.”
“And am I innocent?” I asked.
“Meh,” Viessman said.
“But these are all hunches,” I grumbled, rubbing the back of my neck. My teeth still hurt from yesterday. “I was really hoping for some actual evidence, but … Shit, we’re back to where we were.” I pulled out a dart and lit it. The machines in the basement with us gave me the stink-eye, but I ignored them. Wasn’t like they could do anything. “I don’t got much choice now. I’m going to go see her.”
“I don’t think that’s the wisest move, Elias,” Allen began. Viessman and his officer gave us space. “Like you said, she doesn’t want you to investigate this further. If she is as dangerous as you say, I can only imagine the consequences she might inflict.”
Midnight Page 20
