Valencia handed Billy the flashlight. He took his jacket off, stepped to the hole and then put his head over it, then pulled back, like a gun-fighter looking around a corner. He then leaned over and shined his light into it. Convinced it was clear, he lowered himself in. Valencia moved closer and watched him. There was an iron ladder attached to the wall of the tunnel.
Valencia then went to examine the trash can. The New York City Department of Sanitation logo seemed to mock her. She reached down and touched the bottom of the can. It looked as if it had actually been fixed to the path with cement. A false bottom had been attached to the can with screws. It was either a very smart job or she was an idiot.
She stepped back to the hole. “What is it?” she called down.
“It’s a sewer,” Billy answered. “A sewer,” he repeated. “You’re gonna wanna see this, though.”
Valencia stepped to the hole, looked down, and stretched her foot to the first rung of the ladder. Billy lit her way from below. When she reached the bottom of the ladder, she had to hop about four feet down. Billy offered his hand, and she accepted it. When she was down, he shined the light on the gym bag, which sagged empty in a puddle. The two small GPS devices they’d placed in the bag sat next to it on some dry concrete.
Billy then directed her attention to one of the walls. A crude devil with a tail and a huge erect phallus had been spray-painted in white. He swung his light for Milton, who was lowering himself down.
Valencia stared and blinked at the dark black space where the painted devil had been.
3
A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
The sewer—from the point where the money was dropped—passed directly below the Coney Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, continued east, and finally let out onto the muddy beach of the Shell Bank Creek. The Russians hadn’t dug the hole, or placed the trash can over it; it had been there for years. In fact, many of the teenage residents of the Kings Bay Houses knew about it.
Moishe Groysman had been waiting in the sewer underneath the trash can. As soon as he took possession of the bag, he began removing the money straps, fanning through each stack, and searching for GPS devices and dye packs. One by one, he searched, re-banded, and placed each stack into the bag he’d brought with him. Since there were seventy-five stacks, it took him a little more than twenty minutes to finish the job. Yuri had assured him he’d have time to do this, and indeed he did.
From the drop point Moishe carried the money a third of a mile to where the sewer let out at the creek. The round door at the end of the tunnel was barred and locked, but the bars on top had been cut, leaving a space of about three feet by two feet. When he got there, Moishe took a moment and watched from behind the bars. Then he pushed the money over the top, placed a piece of cardboard over the bars, and climbed through the hole.
He had a cell phone signal now; he stayed in the shadows and checked the text messages on his prepaid. Yuri hadn’t sent any updates. Apparently their victims still had no idea what had happened. It almost made him want to laugh, but he was too nervous for that. He took the cardboard down and set it on the ground and watched the area around him. There were fishing boats in the creek, but no other signs of movement. He looked at his watch: thirty-two minutes had passed since the drop.
A stolen delivery scooter sat waiting in a parking lot adjacent to the tunnel. He walked to it now and began securing the bag to the scooter’s back rack with two bungee cords. He was amped up and everything he did stood out with unusual clarity. At one point, while he was working, he heard the distant sounds of sirens—which made him pause until he realized they were coming from a different neighborhood.
Instead of exiting directly onto Knapp Street, he got on the bike and headed deeper into the dirt parking lot, which eventually became a dirt alley that skirted past the tunnel in the direction of the fishing boats. He had to hop off at one point and push the scooter through some sand, but he finally emerged onto Knapp Street just south of Avenue Z. From there, he turned his headlight on and headed south at a reasonable speed.
He took Emmons until it turned into Neptune Avenue in Brighton Beach. There were people on the streets here, which helped Moishe relax. He parked the bike a few blocks from Ossip’s Locksmith Shop, untied his load, and walked the rest of the way carrying the bag of money over his shoulder.
When he arrived at the locksmith shop, he reached through the metal gate and knocked on the glass door behind it. Ten seconds later the door opened, and Ossip—a Rabinowitz family friend—opened the gate and ushered him into the shop. It was dark inside and smelled like cigarettes.
“I had tea for dinner—you know what that means?” asked Ossip. Moishe didn’t know, and he didn’t say anything, he just followed the older man—who was flipping lights on as they went—to the back of the shop. Ossip must’ve been seventy years old. He was squat, sturdy, and had a big belly. The flesh under his eyes sagged, and the eyes themselves seemed red.
He pointed toward a safe in the corner, which sat open and ready. “He said he’d pay tonight,” said Ossip. “That’s between him and me, I know, but I think we would both prefer to get it out of the way.”
“Don’t worry about it, uncle,” said Moishe, making a face as though he sympathized, but motioning with both hands that he was not to talk about such things.
Ossip poured two glasses of vodka, told Moishe he needed to calm down, and then took the bag from him and set it on a small card table. The older man then counted each stack out loud, setting the stacks down in neat rows as he went. “What kind of shit is this?” he asked, turning toward Moishe when he finished. “You know what this is? More money, more problems. That’s not bullshit! I get it, we have to live, we have to eat, but this is too much money for one night’s work.”
His eyes shifted over Moishe’s face like a man with some kind of brain condition.
Moishe stepped to the table, pulled four of the stacks from the pile. “For the bank,” he said, tossing one of the stacks to Ossip. He then tucked the other three into the front of his waistband, pulled the ties of his sweatpants tight, and tied them. “Gangster paradise,” he said in English. The two men regarded each other for a few seconds.
“Pour us another,” said Moishe. After they drank, they put the rest of the money back into the bag and set it in Ossip’s safe.
“Seventy-five minus four,” said Ossip, holding up four fingers. “Seventy-one.” He pointed at Moishe, as if to say, You’re my witness, and then walked him back to the front door.
From there Moishe took a black car to the Roxy Club, a few blocks away under the train tracks. The doorman, a huge Russian called Cyprus—a name he’d earned in Chechnya—greeted Moishe with a handshake, pulled him in for a half hug, and whispered in his ear, “Two new girls, one of them is a redhead.”
He then motioned for Moishe to go in. Two other bouncers waited inside. They both shook his hand. A cashier sitting near the next door blew him a kiss when he walked past.
The club itself wasn’t crowded. Moishe felt the girl onstage notice him when he walked in. The whole energy of the room shifted. Keeping his left hand on the money at his waist, he walked to their normal table, shaking hands with an associate on his way. Then he sat down and began waiting for the Rabinowitz brothers to show up. They were going to get extremely drunk tonight.
Sitting in her home office, finishing a bottle of Chablis, Elizabeth Carlyle’s patience was wearing thin. In an effort to stop thinking about what was happening in Brooklyn, she’d reviewed over a thousand pages of discovery for one of her other cases, done a week’s worth of online shopping, and eaten her dinner at her desk. Her eyes went from the clock on her computer back to her phone. She checked the little button on the side: the ringer was still on.
A guilty feeling began loosening in her stomach; she felt like she’d done something horribly wrong. Her eyes went back to the computer, and she clicked on a Valentino dress, zoomed in on it, and became convinced it would make her look ridiculous, an old lady tr
ying to look young. She hit the back button on her browser and continued scrolling through all the dresses. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Finally, at 11:46 p.m., Valencia called.
“What happened?” Elizabeth asked.
“They’re better than we imagined.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Elizabeth, aware of the slight drunken slur in her voice.
“They managed to collect without showing themselves.”
Elizabeth closed her computer. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“It’s too complicated for the phone,” said Valencia.
Elizabeth tried to understand what she was hearing.
Valencia continued, “We’ll identify them by the end of the day tomorrow. It’s easy from here. You have my personal guarantee on that.”
Elizabeth rubbed her eyes. What is this? she thought. A mix between a yawn and a silent cry stretched her mouth. She forced her mouth shut, then said, “I swear to God.”
“I’ll update you first thing in the morning,” said Valencia.
Elizabeth found herself saying goodbye, hanging up, and ending the call. A rush of unasked questions flowed through her mind: First and foremost, what happened? What the hell had happened? What was she possibly going to tell the partners tomorrow? She’d given away three-quarters of a million dollars, with nothing to show for it. She would have to resign.
She looked at her cell phone; no point in calling back. She’d only get deflections. Nothing was going to happen tonight. She left her office and walked downstairs to the kitchen. The place looked sterile, lifeless. The refrigerator hummed, and she pulled it open.
Inside, she pushed things around drunkenly until she found a rotisserie chicken. She pulled that out and began tearing meat off the breast and putting it into her mouth. She tore a wing off, chewed it, crunched the end of the bones. She ate more meat from the other breast. Then she put the plastic lid back on, put the chicken back in the refrigerator, and moved a bottle of mayonnaise to hide the mess she’d made.
In the freezer she found her husband’s unopened ice cream; she put it in the microwave and heated it for thirty seconds. She ate the entire thing standing and staring into the dark dining room. When she finished, she put the empty container and the spoon into the sink and washed her hands and rinsed her mouth and spit into the drain.
From the kitchen, she walked back up the stairs, touching the wall at one point and leaving a wet handprint. She headed down the hallway to her bedroom. She pulled off her clothes, dropped them on the floor, then flopped onto the bed. Her husband sighed and shifted away. She lay there for a moment, feeling the bed spin.
Her mind shuffled through a series of trifling thoughts: she had to call her tax man. Bob, a partner at the firm, was growing increasingly arrogant. She got up on her elbow and looked at her husband. His back was to her. Then clumsily, she shifted over to him and hugged him from behind and propped herself up on her elbow and began rubbing her groin against his hip. He turned, scooted still farther away, and leaned up like he’d been startled awake.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked.
Danny Tsui’s head was on his pillow, his eyes were closed, and his mind was just beginning to shift from nagging thoughts to a wordless dream, when his phone buzzed and chimed. He picked it up off his nightstand. Valencia Walker, 1:12 a.m.
“Are you sleeping?” she asked, when he answered.
“No, boss.”
“Do you have your computer open?”
He pushed himself up. “Yeah,” he said, opening it.
“I need you to find the owner’s name,” Valencia said, sounding strangely calm. “You have all the information on the place, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Danny. He clicked on an email draft where he was keeping notes on this project. He read aloud to her: “‘American iPhone Repair at 29 West Forty-Seventh Street, third floor, office eighteen.’”
“Did he give you a description of the guy?”
Danny scrolled down, read from his notes: “‘Boss—thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old. Jewish, pale skinned, five feet ten inches, one hundred ninety pounds, bald-headed, brown on sides, wears a yarmulke, glasses. American, New York accent, no scar on face, no tattoos visible, soft lip’—I don’t know what he means by that—’walk normal, no limp, no wedding ring.’
“He said, ‘If he looks like a celebrity that would be the actor who plays the, um, plays the lawyer on The Wire, bald guy, lawyer for Barksdale, but less handsome.’ I have to look that one up, boss.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Valencia finally asked, “So what do we have so far?”
“No UCC filings on American iPhone in Manhattan at that address. New York Department of State doesn’t have anything, either. Names on all American iPhone variations in the city record sound more Chinese or Indian. I don’t think he registered the business under that name, maybe a different name, but the address doesn’t pop up, either. I checked the civil court records in Manhattan, no hits for that business name. There are some for American Phone Repair, but a different address.
“Building manager called me back last night and said he’s not on site, but the rent is paid by wire transfer every month. Wouldn’t tell me the name on the account, he’s nice, but he said they need a subpoena for that. Says they have a super named, Javier, who I’ve left two messages for.”
“Can you find the guy’s name by the morning?” asked Valencia.
Danny stared at his computer screen for a moment, licked his lip. “Yeah, boss, if data exists online, I’ll find it for you.”
“Do it by nine a.m., and I’ll give you a ten-thousand-dollar bonus,” said Valencia.
“Boss, you don’t need to do that—this is my normal job,” said Danny, pushing the blanket off, and swinging his legs off the bed.
“It will be my pleasure,” said Valencia.
They ended the call.
Danny lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. His parents, who lived in Queens, were proud of the money he made. He told them he did data management for a law firm. He hadn’t gone to college. He was introduced to Valencia by another lawyer he had worked for. He’d been with her for two years.
In the bathroom he urinated. He then washed his hands and splashed water on his face. From there, he went to his kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out two energy drinks. He went back to his bed, picked up his laptop, carried it to his couch, turned on the television, changed the station to ESPN, and began searching. He was a talented hacker, but this job wouldn’t involve any hacking.
It was a manual labor job that would involve searching every corner of the web until he found a trail that led back to his man. He had access to Valencia’s private investigator databases, and he began there. He opened two of those and ran simple business searches. He’d already done this, but he did it more thoroughly now.
He ran searches on 29 West Forty-Seventh and scrolled through all the records looking for anything that caught his eye. Meanwhile, other tabs popped open on his browser, and he began running down various rabbit holes. He skimmed message boards about iPhone repairs; searched articles that mentioned 29 West Forty-Seventh; looked at other businesses in the building. He searched Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
On LinkedIn he searched for anyone who had worked at American iPhone. There were no hits. He then searched for all cell phone technicians in New York. There were 816 hits. He began clicking through those, and eventually came across someone named David Weiner, who had listed “American Phone” on his resume. It wasn’t quite right, but it was something. He went back to Facebook and searched through all the David Weiners in New York until he found the same person.
From there, he went through all of David’s friends, looking for anyone who matched his target’s physical description: thirty-five to forty-five, bald, white. David Weiner had eighteen friends who matched that description. About half of those eighteen friend
s’ accounts were set to private. He created a table and put each of the names in their own box.
He began searching the databases and social media for all of those individual friends, going through each one until he could find some way to rule them out. He’d jump back to the database and run basic searches on family members, then he’d skip back to Facebook and look through the family members’ photos for any hints.
Eventually, after a few hours of pinging around the web this way, he came across an Instagram account of a guy who was friends with David Weiner, someone named Michael Moskowitz—Instagram handle: PsychoboyMosko212. Among his photos was one that caught Danny’s eye: A bald man in a club, holding up five cell phones like a hand of cards. The caption read Cell phone KingsNYC Nizzzzzz.
Danny cracked open his third Red Bull and then looked through the twelve people who had liked that picture; one of them appeared to be the same bald man who was in the picture. That person had an Instagram account called QueenzGodF. The account was set to private.
Danny googled: “QueenzGodF” and found a message board where QueenzGodF had weighed in on a debate about whether Nas was the best rapper from New York. Danny then jumped back to the databases and ran an email search for [email protected]. There were no hits. He tried [email protected] and found a hit. The email address had been associated with an individual named Avram Lessing, date of birth 12/3/74.
Danny considered sending a phishing attack to the Hotmail account from a spoofed Instagram; he’d try to get him to log into the fake site and capture his password. But he didn’t think Avi would fall for that, and he didn’t want to wait to find out.
He sat there for a moment and then something clicked in his mind. He went back to David Weiner’s Facebook page and searched through his friends for people named Avram. There was a hit for an Avi Doncic. The profile picture showed the basketball player Luka Dončić.
Clean Hands Page 13
