Black Water Transit (12 page)

“So you end up with how many?”

“We have five possibles in Manhattan. This Pike guy, he has one registered in Manhattan, but he lives in Annapolis.”

“Why does that kick out for you?”

“Tell him, Casey.”

“You tell me.”

Nicky sat back, looked at the two of them.

“You know, why don’t the two of you just fuck off somewhere, let
me
go talk to Earl Pike?”

Jimmy Rock started to say something. Casey cut in.

“We were wheel-spinning. I cross-referenced the possibles with credit card purchases made yesterday.”

Jimmy Rock was staring at her.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“You’re not the only cop in town with sources.”

“And what did you get?”

At least they were talking to each other now. It improved the atmosphere slightly. Now it was merely suffocating.

“Two of the Benz owners used credit cards to buy gas in midstate New York yesterday. One purchased twenty-seven gallons at an Exxon station in Lake Placid.”

“Too far north,” said Jimmy Rock.

“Why?” Casey asked, her throat working, angry at his casual dismissal of her evidence.

“Just is. And the other?”

“Earl Pike. He used a Chase credit card to buy gas at a town called Castleton, just outside Albany.”

“So?”

“So we called the service station,” said Nicky. “The guy remembered the car.”

“Why?”

“It had a broken headlight. Driver’s side. The gas guy noticed it because the car was in mint condition. It looked recent.”

Jimmy Rock was quiet for a long time.

“Nice,” he said after a while, looking at Casey. “Very nice.”

“Thank you,” she said, and gave him a smile sharp enough to open a vein. “Now what?”

“Now?” said Jimmy Rock. “I’ll go look at the car. You two go have a little chat with Earl V. Pike.”

By eight in the evening, Jack had been home for one hour and had already worked his way through two bottles of Beaujolais. It wasn’t a typical thing with him. He had come in through the front door, setting his Hermès briefcase—which actually was a gift from Frank Torinetti himself—onto the front-hall table, and headed straight down to the cellar, where he snagged two bottles of Beringer. By eight-fifteen he was pacing like a man with a sore tooth through the darkened rooms of his granite-walled townhouse in Rensselaer.

In the greenhouse dining room, on a broad, polished mahogany table, a single place setting of cold cuts and
cheese was sitting relatively untouched since his housekeeper had put it out for him at seven, along with a chilled bottle of sauvignon blanc.

He hadn’t touched any of it personally, but the stray cat who had gradually become a fixture around the place had tucked into the breast of chicken as soon as he figured out Jack wasn’t going to eat any of it. Jack had named him Smoke, because he came and went like smoke, a gray-and-white six-toed stray with yellow eyes who weighed in around twenty pounds. He had been haunting the edges of Jack’s property for about two months, ragged and matted and covered with burrs. One eye was closed and puffed out, and he was limping badly, but Jack could get no closer to the animal than ten feet before the beast would flatten out and let out a high-pressure hiss like a blown tire.

It had taken Jack weeks to get him to eat from a plate on the back steps, and although the cat had gotten used to being inside, he was a long way from tame. Jack liked him because he was a cranky loner who reminded him of himself, although he had lately come to the conclusion that Smoke was about the stupidest cat in the eastern United States. But he was company, about all Jack could stand.

Jack was listening to a soundtrack of the music from
Chinatown
. The trumpet solos followed him as he walked from room to room, along with the tinny cross talk on the marine radio set he kept in his office in the rear of the main floor, a wood-paneled den overlooking a narrow ravine where a stand of willows hid a tiny river. The marine radio system allowed him to monitor the movement of his container barges and his two freighters up and down the Hudson. The volume was on high, loud enough to carry through the main-floor rooms.

So far, all he had heard was the usual marine traffic
conversations. Now and then he could hear the familiar husky growl of Dinsdale Kerr, the captain of the
Agawa Canyon
. Kerr was one of his best people, a sixty-two-year-old salt, Scots-Irish in background, completely without humor, as steady as a tombstone.

Jack had filled his captain in on the details of an operation they were now calling Red Hook around the Albany ATF offices. Kerr had listened in silence, his flushed and weathered face closing up like a fist as he took in the details. When Jack was through, Kerr had blown out a sigh through his trim gray mustache and said only one word: “Foolishness.”

Around about now, Jack was inclined to agree with the man. He had the cordless phone in the pocket of his jeans, waiting for a call from Luther Campbell as soon as the Red Hook thing was over, but he half expected to hear nothing at all from any of them. He had been pushed right out of the loop from the moment he ended his talk with Earl Pike.

All he could gather from a hurried phone conversation with Luther was that Greco was running the sting in cooperation with the ATF and the New York Port Authority Police, that the entire Red Hook Container Yard in Brooklyn had been placed under twenty-four-hour surveillance as soon as Pike had called Jack, and that the operation would begin as soon as Pike or someone representing him called at the riverside terminal to collect the container.

Greco had referred to the final stages as a “takedown,” which sounded as energetic as hell. Although the woman was a mystery to him, and what he did know he didn’t like, it was obvious that she was having a fine time running the show and was already figuring out how to play it to the press gallery when it was all over.

Jack was in the middle of his fourth circuit through the living room and into the dining room and on his way
back to the office to stare out the window again when the cordless phone in his back pocket chirped and he jumped a foot and a half into the air. There was a bark in his voice when he keyed the talk button.

“Vermillion.”

“Hey, Jack. How you doing?”

“Frank?”

“Yeah. You mind my phoning? I was thinking about you, thought I’d give you a buzz.”

“I thought you were in Italy—Venice. You and Claire.”

“Nah. Place is fulla tourists. What’s it that Yogi Berra said? Nobody goes there no more. It’s too crowded. And Tuscany looks like Penn Central. Nips and slopes with their fucking Nikons. Some dinks wrote a book about the place, now it sucks. Never go there.”

Frank’s voice was a whisky growl. Jack could hear music in the background, a jazzy piano number, and people talking.

“How’s Claire?”

“Good … she’s good. Great. Look, Jack. You busy?”

Jack was thinking about Creek’s warning. Any contact with Frank Torinetti could screw up his deal with Galitzine Sheng and Munro. And tonight was no night to be away from the phone.

“You mean now?”

“Yeah. I mean now. I was wondering, maybe you’d come by, see the place since we done it over. We got a few people here, friends of yours. Plus Claire’s got a brand-new kitchen put in.”

“Again?”

“Again,” he said, laughing. “So I was thinking, maybe I’d send Carmine over for you. I got a new car. A Viper. It’s a pistol. Ask nice, you can drive it back here.”

“Frank, this is a bad time for me. I got a thing going on.”

“Give me an hour, Jack. It’s been months since I seen you. Claire’s been asking about you, too. Come on over. You have a drink, coupla canna-pees. Maybe a bowl of
vongole
. Then you go home.”

“I’m expecting a call. It’s pretty important.”

“So? Forward your home number to your cell phone.”

“Frank, I wish I could.…”

“Jack, you’re coming. I already sent Carmine. He’ll be there in a coupla minutes. See you inna bit, hah? You take care,
paisano
.”

“Frank—”

The line was dead. Four minutes later the doorbell rang. Jack opened it. Carmine DaJulia was standing there, grinning at him, a wall-sized Calabrese
luparo
with a smooth tanned face and a bald head and cold black small-caliber eyes, wearing a gray silk Zegna suit over a purple T-shirt. Parked in Jack’s circular drive was a sleek purple Viper. Under the porch light it glowed like a neon sign. The engine was still running, a muted rumbling like boulders rolling around under the ground. Carmine’s smile had always reminded Jack of broken china. His teeth were too small for his head, and slightly pointed. He was smiling like that now.

“Jack, how you doing?”

“Carmine, did you dress to match the car?”

He looked down at his T-shirt, laughed.

“Yeah. I like things to be neat. How you been?”

“Good, Carmine. You want to come in?”

Carmine shook his head.

“Frank says you can drive the beast.”

“Carmine, you’re gonna have to tell—”

“You tell him yourself. He’s feeling pretty bad tonight. He needs a lift. The chemo’s kicking hell out of him. Claire’s no fucking use. He sent me to get you. I
gotta bring you back. You don’t come, you’ll hurt his feelings. You be a friend now, hah?”

Carmine was still smiling. Jack decided to keep him that way.

Pike was standing at a plate-glass window looking out across the midtown skyline at the cold-chisel roof of the Citicorp building, waiting for the doorbell to ring. The summit looked like the tip of an iceberg, and a plane of hard light shone up from the northern edge, cutting a cold white slice out of the rainy midtown sky. Pike found the building a pleasure to look at, as simple and elegant and perfectly formed to its purpose as the very best kind of weapon.

He had a glass of bourbon and soda, the weight of the heavy crystal pleasing and solid. Music was coming from the radio, a lilting fugue by Bach. He was barefoot, wearing jeans and a soft plaid shirt in tones of red and blue. The knuckles of his right hand were heavily bandaged and wrapped in a Tensor strip. He could feel the rawness under the bandages, the skin healing and tightening. He flexed his fingers and looked out the window again, this time at his own image in the window. His reflection in the plate glass was shadowed and his face hidden. The narrow angular room behind his reflection was lit by a single lamp standing next to a low green leather sofa and a pair of green leather armchairs. Through an open door, a large king-sized bed could be seen. Pike
had his gear laid out on top of the emerald-green satin spread, a Star Lite night-vision scope, his Smith, and four extra magazines. A large brushed-steel case about four feet high stood in the corner of the room, next to the night table. Although it showed signs of wear, the locked case was solid and secure, and the .50-caliber sniper rifle it contained was as perfectly suited to its purpose as the Citicorp tower.

He had asked for his usual room next to the elevator, so when he heard the car gliding to a stop at his floor, he sipped once at the bourbon and then padded across the sage-colored carpet and quietly closed the door to the bedroom. A minute later the bell chimed twice, a perfect G sharp, and Pike pulled open the door.

Two obvious cops were standing in the doorway, a black female in her late twenties, well-made and fit-looking in a forest-green suit and tan leather shoes. Pike noticed her eyes and decided she had Chinese or Vietnamese blood in her background. The man with her, wearing a black leather jacket and jeans, was six feet or better and had a slightly deviated nose. Although he was good-looking in an Italian way, the tiny network of scars around his eyes suggested a fighter. So did his frame, wide at the shoulders and tapering down like a blade. Under the white tee was a shelf of pectoral muscle, and his hands were knotted, the knuckles slightly swollen from working a rhythm bag. Definitely an amateur fighter. Class him as a light heavyweight. He looked quick and nimble. There was real intelligence in his eyes. It would be interesting to try him out. One thing was clear. He was not the blue-eyed Irish cop that Mercedes Gonsalva had carefully described to him a few minutes ago. So there were three, at least, and this was obviously not a simple traffic inquiry. Both cops were reacting to Pike’s build, which amused him.

He smiled and stepped back from the door.

“Officers. Come in. Can I get you a drink?”

The woman came in first, and Pike realized she was in charge. She pulled out a badge case and showed him her shield.

“I’m afraid we’re on duty, Mr. Pike. I’m Officer Spandau, and this is Officer Cicero. We appreciate your taking the time to talk to us. It won’t take a minute.”

Pike nodded, walked away, sat down on the green leather couch, and put his arms out across the back. He sipped at his bourbon while the two cops sat down in the chairs. The woman was humming with suppressed intensity, and the man, Cicero, was working hard at a casual indifference to the hugely expensive suite and the view of the midtown skyline. Although it was raining, the clouds were shredding on the peaks and towers and the sunset out of Jersey was glittering on the westward glass. It was a magnificent scene, and Pike approved of the man’s evident enjoyment.

“Hell of a view,” he said to Cicero. The man grinned back and nodded.

“Center of the earth, New York,” he said in a Brooklyn accent. “Mind my asking, Mr. Pike, what happened to your hand there?”

Pike held it up and turned it in the light from the lamp beside him.

“Flat tire. On the Taconic. Changed it myself, and the wrench slipped. Took off a lot of skin. Hurts like hell. Serves me right. I should have called AAA.”

“When was this, sir?” asked the woman, her face blank and mildly interested.

“Yesterday.”

“You were upstate yesterday?”