Текст книги "Among thieves"

Автор книги: John Clarkson

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

47

Milstein and Walter Pearce were the only occupants in the Summit offices at 7:10 a.m. on a Wednesday morning.

They sat in Milstein’s office, a surprisingly small space, situated in the southeast corner of the twenty-eighth floor. The building at that height was oddly shaped, so that Milstein’s office didn’t occupy a full corner, but rather a section of a triangle. Milstein liked the shape of his office because with him sitting behind his desk, anyone else in his office was relegated to the cramped and disorienting space on the other side of his desk.

Although it was a workday, Milstein wore casual weekend clothes. Brown corduroy pants, open-collar blue button-down shirt, a tan V-neck cashmere sweater, all of it about a size too big for his small frame.

Pearce sat uncomfortably at the side of Milstein’s desk. His rumpled suit, white shirt, and blue-striped tie looked like he had been wearing them all day.

A large Styrofoam cup of coffee from the office kitchen sat on the floor next to his size fifteen shoes. He needed it. His frustration, anger, and Milstein’s insulting phone call had kept him from sleeping soundly. He’d finally gotten out of bed at around four and stubbornly continued to work on finding James Beck.

He used a lawyer friend’s subscription to LexisNexis and kept pounding away at legal and public records that had any connection to Phineas P. Dunleavy, his enmity at the lawyer’s dirty trick fueling him. He tracked through one paper trail after another until he found the name of a James Beck listed as a managing partner buried in closing documents on one of the properties Dunleavy’s law firm had acquired. Bingo. Pearce knew he would have to take a quick drive to the building to verify that Beck actually lived at that address, but his gut told him he had succeeded in finding out where James Beck lived.

He sat waiting for the right moment to let Milstein know the information he had uncovered, which would be the moment when Milstein lodged his next complaint. Told him how incompetent he was, or threatened him.

Milstein shifted in his seat. Working himself up to something.

“So, Walter, I asked you up here so I could tell you face-to-face.”

Instead of waiting for it silently, Walter pushed it.

“Tell me what, Mr. Milstein? How disappointed you are in me?”

Walter’s directness surprised Milstein. “Well … “

“Well, what?” pressed Walter.

“Well, uh, yes, actually. It’s been days since I asked you to find out about those men and you seem to be completely stuck.”

Walter interrupted Milstein. “It’s been about thirty hours since we walked out of Central Park and you told me to find those men, Mr. Milstein.”

“What? Oh, well, it certainly seems longer. You know, I hired you mainly as my driver and to watch out for me. But the reason you got the job was because you were a cop. A detective. Someone who could find things out for me if I needed it. I’m overpaying you as a driver, Walter.”

“And way underpaying me as an investigator, Mr. Milstein. Although I’m sure you figure to get the best end of it however it works out.”

Milstein squinted at Walter Pearce. This wasn’t going as he expected. He started to respond, but Walter held up his hand to stop him.

“The fact is, Mr. Milstein, this fellow Beck and his associates have gone to a lot of trouble not to be found.”

“I don’t like excuses.”

“Not an excuse. Just a fact. But I’ve been working on this nonstop and I’ve succeeded. I identified the one who held me at gunpoint in the park. I identified Beck. And now I know where we can find Beck. I doubt anybody else could have cracked this sooner than I have.”

“You cracked it?”

“Don’t look so surprised.”

“You’re sure?”

“Ninety-nine percent. I just have to drive out to the location and verify it.”

Milstein sat motionless. Walter watched him go through a calculation. And then it hit Walter. Milstein had called him up to his office not to complain, but to fire him. Son of a bitch.

“Well, that’s good news, Walter. I’m glad to hear it.”

Goddamn this fucking Milstein. Walter had to force himself to stay in his chair. This little snake, cocksucker, just sitting there waiting to drop the hammer. He was tempted to get up and leave. No, no way. He’d put in too much work. Better to play this right, cash in, then walk out on this fucking asshole when it suited him.

“I would hope so,” Walter said. “Like I said, over thirty hours pretty much nonstop. Cashing in a lot of favors people owe me.”

“I see.”

Walter asked, “So, do you have an idea how you want to use this information?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. That’s why it was so frustrating not to have what I need.”

“What’s your plan?”

“I’ve been talking to someone at my law firm. A man I trust. A man with connections to the NYPD.”

“So you want to call in the police?”

Milstein leaned back. He had no intention of explaining his thinking to Walter Pearce. He had decided not to leave this up to Markov. A murder investigation into Olivia Sanchez or James Beck would surely implicate him. He had to get it on record that he had done the right thing. Reported his part of it to the proper authorities. And if the police took Beck out of the picture, Markov would thank him in the end.

“Yes,” he answered. “I think that’s the best course of action now. Especially since you have solid information we can give them.”

Walter shrugged. “All right.”

Milstein tipped forward, put his elbows on the desk, assuming the role of a decisive C-suite executive.

“Here’s what I want to do, Walter. I’ve spoken to a contact at my law firm. He knows a high-level police official that he says can help us. We’ve got solid information on who assaulted me. It was assault, right?”

“You said the man threatened you. And tried to extort money from you. That’s felony assault.”

“Yes.”

“A known felon pulled a gun on me. That’s a ticket back to prison right there. You have plenty to bust these guys on. Plus, when the cops hit them, I’ll bet a dollar to a donut they’ll find weapons and probably more.”

“Exactly. And all we have to do is give my contact at NYPD the information, and he’ll take it from there.”

“And how much juice does your contact have?”

Milstein shuffled folders and papers on his desk and uncovered a legal pad. “He’s a bureau chief.”

“Do you know which bureau?”

Milstein looked at his notes. “Patrol.”

Walter nodded, relieved. Milstein had no idea how the NYPD was organized. There were dozens of senior police officials in divisions that wouldn’t be able to do much for them. But someone high up in Patrol, that would work.

“Okay,” Walter said. “He’ll have to run it through borough command in Brooklyn, but that shouldn’t be a problem if he wants to help us.”

“Good. Good. So I’ll arrange a meeting with him. Today.”

“If you can.”

“Oh, trust me. I can make this happen.”

Walter looked at his watch. It was an old digital Casio that showed the time and date. “What is it, not even eight? Still early in the day. I’d say the sooner I meet with him, the better.”

“I’ll set it up. How soon do you think they can arrest these men and put them away?”

“Well, if I talk to your bureau chief today and he kicks it into gear, late tonight, early Friday morning sometime. But you have to file a complaint, and get a court to issue an arrest warrant.”

“Don’t worry about that. My lawyer said he can get that done in a matter of hours.”

“Good. You want me to drive out to the location, verify that Beck is there?”

“No. We don’t have time for that. As soon as I get the warrants I want you to meet with this bureau chief.”

“What’s his name?”

Milstein looked at a legal pad near his phone. “Waldron. I want the cops to take over now.”

Walter figured he’d teed up Milstein just enough.

“Well, that’s all fine, Mr. Milstein, but you and I have to come to an agreement.”

Milstein’s brow creased. It took him a nanosecond to know that Walter was about to put the squeeze on him.

“What do you mean?”

Walter laid his big arm on Milstein’s desk and leaned toward. “Let’s not bullshit each other. You were about to drop the hammer on me, Mr. Milstein. You’ve never brought me up here before. You were about to fire me.”

Milstein frowned. He had underestimated Walter Pearce. He’d grown accustomed to seeing him as a big slow plodder. He’d made a mistake. Walter might be a lummox physically, but there was nothing slow about his brain.

“Is that what you think?”

“Yes.”

Milstein narrowed his eyes. If Walter was going to walk, he would have already done it. So now it was just a matter of negotiating.

“I see.”

“Apparently there’s not a lot of job security around here.”

Milstein settled into his negotiating stance.

“You have an employee contract with us, don’t you?”

“And it says I can be let go with two weeks’ notice. And vice versa.”

Milstein nodded. Might as well get right to it.

“So what are you saying here, Walter? You saying you’re not going to give me the information I need until we come to some sort of agreement? The information that I paid you to get. The information obtained while you were drawing a salary from me.”

Walter didn’t hesitate. “That’s what I’m saying.”

Milstein said, “Are you looking to get sued for breach of contract, Walter?”

“Sure, why not.” Walter laughed. “Sue me. That’ll get you what you need.”

Milstein let out a slow breath. “All right, Walter, before this gets any more acrimonious, tell me what you want.”

“Everything I can get,” he replied.

“Oh come on, Walter. Don’t play the tough guy asshole. It doesn’t suit you.”

“I always heard, whoever says the first number is the loser.”

“Not when the first number is the last and final number. You really want to play this game with me?”

Now Walter leaned back.

“All right. Here’s where I stand. First, I’ve got information that cost me a lot. A lot of time and wear and tear. But it also cost me putting myself at risk. Getting information out of NYPD databases is a risk I don’t need in my life. I get caught at that, I could lose my PI license. Maybe even my pension.

“As far as getting a high-up bureau chief to help you, you might like it, but I don’t. The minute he sees what I have, he’ll suspect I tapped into inside information. Maybe this chief won’t have any cause or chance to do anything to me about that. Maybe he will. Bottom line, it doesn’t help me.”

“So then I’ll meet with him,” said Milstein.

“We both know that’s ridiculous. You won’t know where to start. You won’t know if he’s just bullshitting you. And he’ll know you didn’t do the legwork. Which means he won’t trust you, and he’ll do nothing for you. Certainly not until he vets everything you tell him, and you want this taken care of now.

“Lastly, you were sitting here ready to dump me if I hadn’t come up with the information you wanted on Beck.” Walter raised his hands. “Hey, that’s your prerogative, but I end up with nothing after a lot of sweat and putting myself on the line for you. How is that fair?”

Milstein started to speak, but Walter cut him off.

“On the plus side, except for your idea that I should be at your beck and call 24/7, you gave me a cushy job for about eighteen months, and fairly decent pay.”

“Are you done?”

“No. Here’s how I see it.” Walter lifted his big hands palms up, weighing each option. “On one hand, I walk out of here, you get nothing about Beck, and I get nothing from you. Clearly, you wouldn’t even pay me the lousy two weeks’ severance. But I’m free and clear, and that would mitigate the risk that anybody in the department finds out that I dipped into classified information.

“On the other hand, I give you the information on Beck, you thank me, and wait for the right time to fire me. Either way, I’m screwed.”

Milstein nodded. “Now are you done?”

“Last point, I’ve demonstrated to you that I’m not a dumb fuck that can be exploited, which ultimately makes me a much more valuable guy to have around.”

“So again, what do you want?”

“Again, what are you offering?”

Milstein could see Walter had maneuvered him into making the deal so he got to it.

“Okay, fair enough. How about this. I give you a fifty-percent increase in salary. Your contract goes until April, if I remember right.”

“End of April.”

“Right. End of April. I’ll make the increase start first of April, and guarantee to renew your contract for another year, at the increase. It’s a very good deal, Walter.”

“It is. I appreciate it. But I also want a twenty-thousand-dollar bonus for this year’s work. That’s chicken feed for a year-end bonus around here. And just so you don’t get second thoughts, you guarantee if you fire me, for any reason, you have to pay off the balance of the new contract.”

“You realize I’m losing my biggest client.”

“Hey, that’s the whole point here. This information on Beck will go a long way toward showing your client that you’re taking care of him. You tell me, is that worth twenty grand or not?”

Milstein needed Beck out of the picture. And he had to at least try to keep Markov from leaving Summit. Or give him a reason to come back.

“Fifteen thousand, plus the increase in salary and guaranteed contract extension, and we have a deal. But only on the condition I keep this client. If he goes, the firm will either close or cut staff drastically.”

Walter shook his head. “No deal. That leaves me taking all the risk.”

Milstein pushed. “Well I can’t take all the risk either, Walter.”

Walter paused. “Okay, here it is. I get the bump in salary. If the firm goes south, I get three months’ severance, plus the twenty-thousand signing bonus, and you cover two grand in expenses today, which you owe me anyhow.”

“Walter, come on, you have to do better than that.”

After a pause, Walter said, “Shit. Final offer, or I walk. I’m already tired of this. I’ll agree to the fifteen bonus, in my next salary check. You pay me the two grand in expenses today. And you start my salary increase today. Not at the end of the month.”

Milstein immediately did the math in his head. He wondered if Walter had actually figured it out. Starting the salary increase two weeks earlier just about met him halfway on the fifteen versus twenty thousand. Milstein made a note to watch Walter Pearce much more carefully.

He put his hand out. “Okay, we have a deal.”

They shook.

“I’ll get this set up for you as soon as I can. Be ready to meet this fellow at police headquarters.”

“And my check for the two grand? Unless you want to give me cash.”

Milstein frowned and pulled out a desk ledger checkbook from his top drawer and wrote Walter a check against the firm’s petty cash account.

48

Beck took the back stairs down to the ground floor, past where he knew Ciro Baldassare and Joey B were on watch, through Manny’s kitchen, stepping out into the downstairs bar shortly before 8 a.m.

Manny Guzman sat at a table near the front door with his 12-gauge Winchester Model 1300 shotgun. Demarco stood behind the bar in his usual spot. An assault shotgun had been placed within reach on top of the back bar cabinet. An AA-12 loaded with a 20-round drum box filled with 12-gauge shot.

“Morning,” said Beck. “I’m going downstairs.”

Without saying any more, Beck went through a door near the front of the bar and walked down a flight of wooden steps to the basement under his building. He turned on overhead bare lightbulbs as he walked through the musty space, making his way past the detritus that had accumulated over the decades: old radiators, shelving, boxes of junk, half-filled cans of old paint, rotting documents that nobody would ever bother to look at, old restaurant dishes and cookware. He went past the boiler room and continued on to almost the back wall.

On his left, a nine-foot set of metal shelves was set against the north wall. The shelves were crammed with more junk.

Beck braced himself and carefully pivoted the shelves away from the wall. A close look at the wall showed that part of it wasn’t completely solid. Beck worked his fingers into two small indentations, and gently but firmly pulled back a four-foot-square slab of plywood, plastered over so it looked like the rest of the wall. He slid the plywood to his right, just enough so that he could step into the opening and enter a passageway about five feet long connecting Beck’s building with the building next door. Bending low, Beck made his way into another basement, much newer and about four times the size of his. The area was clean and empty except for machinery in the far-west corner, and a free-standing one-man prison cell in the east corner.

The machinery consisted of a long steel table under a rotary saw. The powerful saw had been mounted on an aluminum frame so it could slide back and forth over the table. Just past the table sat a large industrial-strength meat grinder. The machine could grind a hundred pounds of meat and bone into paste in about five minutes.

All the equipment could be seen by whoever occupied the prison cell. The entire basement was dimly lit by sparsely spaced fluorescent lights that stayed on 24/7.

Upstairs was a warehouse, empty except for the first floor where a garden equipment business stored mostly stone and gravel. Beck had a twenty-year net lease on the building.

Ahmet Sukol sat on an iron bench that was chained to the bars of the cell. The temperature in the basement hovered around a perpetual fifty-five degrees. Not cold enough to freeze somebody, but cold enough to make any extended stay nearly unbearable. Over the course of days or weeks, without winter clothing and enough food needed to maintain a body temperature of 98.6 degrees, a person would gradually die of hypothermia.

Sukol wore his winter coat, a knit cap, and gloves.

Beck’s men had given him only water and one cold cheese sandwich.

Beck checked his watch. The man had only been in the cell about nine hours, but Beck knew that it probably felt more like fifteen or twenty.

He approached the cell, stopping about five feet from the iron bars. He looked at what he assumed was another Bosnian Serb. The man stared back at him.

Beck didn’t utter a word. Neither did the Bosnian. That told Beck this wasn’t the first time the man had been imprisoned. Beck preferred that the man had done time. Especially if he had ever been placed in solitary confinement. It didn’t much matter where or what type of cell. The horror of solitary derived from two things: no contact with the outside world, and no way to tell time.

If his prisoner had been in solitary before, the prospect of suffering it again would terrify him. Solitary confinement was one of the worst tortures ever conceived.

But that required this Bosnian tough guy to truly believe that it was happening to him. Suddenly. Out of nowhere.

Beck waited a few more moments to see if the man would ask him a question, curse him, yell at him, plead with him. Nothing.

Shit, thought Beck. He doesn’t believe it.

Beck put it aside. He concentrated on looking at the man in the cell as someone who had been part of a force gathered to kill, or maim him. Or do that to his friends. Beck pictured the man attacking him. Shooting him. Or striking with a knife or bat. He worked at connecting the man in the cage with pain that could have ended his life. Or the lives of the others.

Beck stared at Sukol and imagined the Bosnian kicking him in the face. Breaking his teeth. Maybe stomping out an eye. He thought about fists and feet slamming into his back, ribs, head. Beck thought about the pain. About the number of agonizing days he might have suffered. About the certainty of permanent damage.

The hate welled up. The mercy leached out. And the Bosnian saw it happen right before him. He saw Beck’s face. He was ready to believe it now.

It seemed that the man was about to say something, but right at that moment Beck turned and walked back toward the opening in the far wall, his footsteps echoing off the concrete floor, filling the cold, forlorn, unidentifiable space behind him with the sound of his retreating steps. Empty save for the dim lights and the meat-grinding equipment.

When Beck reached the opening in the wall, he stopped to place four fingers over four light switches. With one move, he flipped all of them down.

The fluorescent ceiling fixtures all went off, plunging the entire space into darkness so deep and profound that he knew Gregor’s man would not be able to see his hand in front of his face.

As he ducked into the opening Beck heard the man cry out, “Wait. Stop.”

Beck grimaced. Nope. No stopping now.