Fanatics (6 page)

“And what did you do?”

“The old lady was screaming, ‘She took my money, she took my money!' So I got her money back for her, sir.”

The judge shook her head but said nothing as she motioned to defense counsel to continue his questioning of the police officers.

“And Officer Dente,” Golden Bobby said, “is that when you arrived?”

“Yes,” said Officer Dente.

“And what did you do?”

“I saw this knife in the attacker's hand. I saw that poor old lady in a wheelchair and this white stuff all over her, like she got sprayed with something in the attack. So right away, I was on her attacker like a ton of bricks.”

“A ton of bricks,” said Golden Bobby. “An accurate, if unfortunate, image, Officer Dente, since you're even taller, if not quite as round as I am. Ms. Agron is, what, maybe five foot three, five four. And what did she do, when she got hit by a ton of bricks?”

“She threw up her hands. She called me a bully. And when she threw up her hands, the knife and stuff went flying, and she hit the bag with our lunch, and she got the food all over us, me and my partner. Rice, chicken, everything. We had to get our uniforms dry-cleaned.”

Golden Bobby smiled sympathetically. “Not cheap, dry cleaning, not these days. And what did you pay Madame Chang for that lunch? Exactly how large a bill did you hand over to her?”

Officer Dente paused, and his eyes scanned the ceiling as though the answer might lie up there somewhere. “I don't recall,” he finally said. “Not exactly.”

“Madame Chang isn't here,” Golden Bobby said. “But if we ever do get to trial—which I trust we won't—Madame Chang will be called. I've spoken with her. She observed, albeit from a distance, much of what happened. Now, do you remember what size bill you gave her? The exact amount, Officer Dente? We're down on our knees, begging you, please, Officer Dente, because she remembers.”

Officer Dente scanned the ceiling again. Then: “A dollar. I think…I gave her a dollar.”

“For all that food?”

“I think maybe she still owed us some change from the last time. So I guess that's all she asked for.”

“I see. And what happened to Ms. Agron? Say, after the ton of bricks and so forth.”

“We escorted her to the squad car.”

“Patrolman Magee, were you at the wheel again?”

“Always, sir, that's my spot.”

Golden Bobby nodded as if in approval. “And Officer Dente?”

“He was in back, sir, with the prisoner.”

“Any problems back there?”

“She was crying a lot, sir, the prisoner was. Making a real racket.”

“What did you do?”

“My job, sir. I kept on driving.”

“And Officer Dente?”

“He was trying to get the handcuffs on her.”

“Did you say anything?”

The police officer didn't answer.

“C'mon,” Golden Bobby said. “Silence is no answer here. And it wasn't back then. You're doing yourself no favors now.”

“Yeah, well, I said, ‘Tony, lay off her. Tony, she don't need no cuffs.' ”

“Why not?”

Patrolman Magee looked surprised by this question. “You can see she's just half his size, sir. And she wasn't putting up no fight. Just bawling her eyes out.”

“That's it? And you didn't say anything else? C'mon, no margin here in silence now, not for you.”

Magee stayed mute for a moment. Then: “I said, ‘Tony, lay off.' ”

“Lay off?”

Mute, again.

Exasperated, Golden Bobby said, “Lookit, we can't let silence pass for an answer here. It's unacceptable. Otherwise this goes to trial, where you're under oath and this is getting lots more attention. Not many get a chance like you're getting here and for good reason. We can make it all go away now, but only if you speak up.”

“I said…‘Tony, stop hitting her, okay?' ”

Golden Bobby turned to face the prosecutor. “Would the assistant district attorney care to question the arresting officers now? Or can the charges be withdrawn at once?”

Although voicing his request gently, almost humbly, Golden Bobby radiated immense self-confidence and an intense interest in ADA Uusha Chandra Roy's reply.

Judge Lydia Compton shook her head. “That's it, I can't see a case here. Not against the accused anyway.”

ADA Uusha Chandra Roy stood erect and replied firmly, “The charges are withdrawn, and the People request leave to preserve a right of reconsideration should further facts materialize.”

Judge Lydia Compton glanced at Robert J. Keating, Esq. Golden Bobby shrugged.
Why not
…be gracious about it, let a young assistant district attorney save face, no margin in rubbing her nose in a mess the cops made. It wasn't her fault, and there was precious little likelihood they'd be seeing this case again anyway. The assistant district attorney's request was pro forma, as was the judge's response.

“Request granted.”

What total bullshit,
Flo Ott thought, what an unnecessary, pathetic performance by two worthless cops, who were a disgrace to the uniform, a blight on the force. But it happened too often, and Flo knew it well: the baboon Magee and bullyboy Dente weren't unique, and Flo Ott was nobody's fool. Still, she felt grateful for the small consolation that these two clowns were unlikely ever to make it beyond patrolman grade, and certainly never up into an elite unit like homicide, not without a political sponsor at least as dumb as they were. Flo hoped she'd never have to see them again, but, as it would develop within days and, to her great shock, her hope proved futile.

2:57 P.M.

Outside in the corridor, Golden Bobby placed his ring-heavy hand on Flo's shoulder.

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” he said. “In front of you, they couldn't snow-job. They won't drag this clinker out again.” Golden Bobby looked thoughtfully at his client, Annie Agron, who was struggling to keep back the tears while holding tightly on to Betty Fitzgerald's hand. “Someday,” Golden Bobby said, “maybe not soon, but someday we'll all look back on this absurdity and enjoy a good laugh.”

Rising on tiptoes, Annie Agron kissed Golden Bobby's cheek. “I can't even describe,” she said, “what it's like to have an angel sweep down and hold your hand and tell you, ‘I'm not letting go until you're safe.' That's you, you're an angel. Thank you.”

As far as Flo Ott could see, the ridiculous case was now closed, just another bad memory.

3:04 P.M.

Flo left her relieved tenants and Golden Bobby in the courthouse hall and walked back to her office, her thoughts fixated again on an absurdity that possessed no possibility of laughter at any time.

When it came to assassinations, Flo Ott was unable to detect even a scintilla of humor. To the censoring mechanism in her investigator's brain, not a trace, not a hint, not a moment's comic relief could be wrung from the horrors of fanaticism. In her mind—the mind that now had to meld with the minds of snakes—Flo returned to considering what an assassin had to do to murder a senator-elect.

And to escape, and to remain forever free.

What was the precise step-by-step approach to killing a man, whose only protection for the next eight weeks would never be more than a few city cops.

Flo Ott's conclusion was, again, that for these professional fanatics, assassination and escape weren't impossible, and not as hard as her job to prevent the nightmare from ever happening.

3:22 P.M.

Over a second cup of coffee, Flo Ott was reading the online
New York Times.

No mention yet about threats to Senator-elect Cecil King's life. The lid was still on that one. At the other end of the scale, Owen Smith/Ballz Busta received a lead piece on the front page and more in the
regional
section.

The
Post
's online front page blared, “
Ballz Busta Skull Busted
.”

Flo drummed her fingers on the desk. She examined her coffee mug with a Marine Corps insignia and a chip in the rim and a brown crack down to the handle. The mug had been around for almost the duration of her marriage to USMC Captain (Retired) Eddie Ott, the wounded and paralyzed veteran confined to a hospital bed out in a Sheepshead Bay nursing home for the rest of his life, the husband she visited and fed and joked with every day she possibly could.

At five o'clock, Flo was due at Cecil King's office to detail security planning for the next eight weeks.

Frank Murphy called. “His family, Flo, they're totally upset. They're blaming the city for too little protection.”

“I'm on my way to Cecil's soon. With something like a plan.”

“No, no. The rap guy's family. You'll talk to them? It's better you do it, Flo, they need a woman's touch. I'll catch you later at Cecil's.”

3:56 P.M.

The Owen Smith family residence was a brownstone house on Montgomery Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a few steps from Prospect Park West and the forsythia hedges and autumnal trees inside the park.

The Smith townhouse, at four stories, six bedrooms, six baths, a finished basement, custom recording studio, and servants' quarters, was anybody's idea of a mansion. And all the nineteenth-century details were intact. Only the stoop looked new, or at least one side of it did. Years before, a drunk driver had careened around the corner, smacked into the stone stoop and sheared off a wall. The replacement never matched the brownstone shade of the other wall, one side dark, the other light. For decades, the mansion had belonged to a local politician, an Irishman and his large brood.

Flo Ott mounted the stoop and rang the bell to the Smith family home, fifteen blocks and a world away from Celestina Belle's white-on-white luxury loft in the factory on Twelfth Street. But only a few blocks from Cecil King's apartment, a discomfiting reminder of where Flo would much prefer to be on guard to prevent a killing.

The front door to the brownstone townhouse opened, and there stood a tall man nearly as round as he was high, his head shaven, his eyes amused, African Buddha Robert J. Keating, Esq., his
profundo
voice more
basso
than ever.

“Lieutenant Ott, we've been expecting someone, and I'm so glad it's you.”

“Bobby, you're ubiquitous.”

“Well, I'm Mrs. Smith's lawyer, too. So won't you step into the parlor? She'll be right down. As will her mother, Mrs. Delucia. This is a tragic moment for the entire Smith family.”

Golden Bobby, in keeping with the mournful occasion, did not reveal his sparkling smile this time.

The parlor was off the main hall, a cozy room of polished woodwork and beveled glass, chintz upholstery, and a large oriental carpet. Several crystal vases held sprays of fresh lilies. The room had the air of a high-end funeral parlor.

A moment later, the widow, Christine Smith, entered the parlor, her mother at her heels. The widow, a trim, self-confident-looking woman, was wearing a black shantung silk blouse over well-tailored black cashmere slacks. Her mother, who more closely matched Golden Bobby's size, though dressed similarly to her daughter, was an overstuffed, dusty woman with the scrappy features of an ex-prizefighter and a faint mustache, her eyes grown sluggish with age even while continually disapproving. The focus for her disapproval shifted from place to place, always returning, unsurprisingly, to eye the detective rather strongly.

Flo approached the widow, who graciously extended a slim hand, her fingers as long and graceful as a classical pianist's, which, Flo learned, she had once been. A Bach score lay open on a grand piano in the adjoining music room.

“My condolences,” Flo said. “And I apologize for intruding.” Formal phrases she'd used far too often before, phrases that never lost their power and meaning for her.

She and the widow sat together on the couch. Golden Bobby and the deceased's mother-in-law positioned themselves in opposite armchairs, the witch-eyed older woman exuding an air of glum command. The room grew still to the point of etherized.

“It's so cold out there,” Flo said. “Winter could come early this year.”

“Winter kills,” Mother-in-Law said, her voice without preface, the voice of judgment day. “We're going back down to the islands for the holidays. We got a place on Mustique. I'm from Trinidad. And I never could take winters up here, not at all.” She issued her declarations in a melodic lilt from the islands turned unseasonably sour.

“We're leaving right after the funeral,” the widow said. Unlike her mother, her tones were all New York money, recently acquired perhaps, but confidently enunciated.

Flo had the feeling both women hadn't yet fully realized the enormity of the great change that just occurred in their lives. Or perhaps they felt the change wouldn't be so great, or unwelcome, after all. One had lost a philandering husband, the other relieved of a scandalous but rich son-in-law. All that was left was the Brooklyn mansion they lived in, and the winter retreat on Mustique, and the summer spread in the Hamptons, and perhaps a luxury loft condo fifteen blocks away. All this in addition to somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred million in cash, securities, and assorted business investments. Their lawyer, Golden Bobby, would know the exact dollar details of the victim's estate.

Flo said, “What sort of relationship did you and your husband have?”

Christine Smith looked at the detective in amazement, as if she'd been expecting all along that a homicide detective lieutenant would drop by only to discuss harsh climate, winter getaways, a sun-kissed Caribbean.

“An excellent relationship,” the widow said. “We've been married since I graduated Juilliard and Owen graduated Pace business school. He was a highly educated man, he had an MBA and could've been a CPA. But he wanted to really be somebody special. Which he is…or was. We have three lovely, very bright children, and on their own the children helped us keep our marriage together. All three children go to Saint Ann's Academy, one of the best schools in the country. Owen was as proud of them as I am.”

“And were you and Mr. Smith still happy together?”

“Over time, you get used to each other.” A sage judgment, and the deceased's mother-in-law momentarily lost her look of disapproval and nodded appreciatively. “Over time,” the widow said, “you adapt and you learn to overlook each other's faults. An eternally happy marriage? Really, Lieutenant, do you truly believe in such a thing? Ours was trouble-free, at least I can say that much. A lot better than some marriages. Just look at our new president and hers. And even they made something out of it. Well, so did we. Our marriage was trouble-free, up until this happened. Neither of us ever even considered divorce.”

“Were you well informed about your husband's business affairs?”

Golden Bobby sat upright at this question.

“Barely,” the widow said calmly. “And I've no regrets about that either. I never interfered in my husband's business affairs.”

“Did you share the same tastes in music?”

Christine Smith allowed herself a small smile. “Lieutenant, nobody ever got especially rich playing Bach. Not even Johann Sebastian. Owen worked very hard, he was up all hours with his business, year after year. He gave us a very good life. We've no complaints. Except one. He's gone from us.”

“Did you get to meet many of your husband's business associates?”

The widow looked over at Golden Bobby, who nodded, as if to say,
It's okay, you can answer this one, too.

“I met more people than I can remember,” she said. “But I'm not much of a night owl. I didn't go clubbing, and that was an important part of my husband's business. Beside the record and clothing companies, he owned interests in some clubs, too. I have my own friends and I have our children. I'm active in the school parents' association. And in our church, of course.”

“And what church is that?”

“Ethical Culture. It's the closest church to here, almost right around the corner, across from the park side.”

In other words, Ballz Busta kept his wife and children and mother-in-law on another planet, several light-years removed from the moneymaking machines and the bimbos, the posses and guns, the leather-thonged man on the neon cross, and the bikini-clad babes down on all fours. And the Bible with a gun in it? Flo had to wonder what kind of weapons he kept in the same home where he housed his family.

Flo said, “I know how hard it is for you now, Mrs. Smith. But have you had a chance to think about any enemies he might have had, anyone who might've hated him so much that—”

“Someone crazy,” she said. For the first time, Christine Smith's eyes flashed anger. “You got to be crazy to kill a man with Owen's power. And I don't know any madmen.”

“Did he receive any threats? Was he ever attacked?”

“Owen didn't provoke people. Owen was a generous man. He complimented competitors, he didn't have to put them down. He knew his own worth, he was a confident man. There was room for everybody with talent, he always said that.”

The dead man's mother-in-law intervened. “Would you like some coffee, Lieutenant?” She rang a small silver bell on an end table. A maid appeared, in a black dress and white apron. “Juanita,” the mother-in-law said, “coffee, please, and some of those fresh butter cookies.”

Flo waited with the next question, until Juanita the Filipina maid served the coffee and fresh butter cookies.

“Mrs. Smith, did you know about your husband's relationships with other women?”

Christine Smith held Flo's gaze and replied without hesitation. “Do I look like a dummy? I'm nobody's fool. And of course I've known about that particular woman, too…she's living only steps from where he was killed. But as I think I've indicated, we had a deep understanding, Owen and I.”

“Have you ever met Celestina Lo Belle?”

“There was no reason to. He had a taste for women like that. It was entirely his business. And I imagine she's that kind.”

“And do you have any men friends?”

“Wait a second,” Golden Bobby said. “That's irrelevant.”

Flo shook her head. “Bobby, we're not in court. And you know what I'm driving at.”

“But
I
don't,” Mrs. Smith said. “And I don't think that question has anything to do with—”

“I do. Or I wouldn't have asked.”

“You think I had a man on the side, Lieutenant? Someone who was jealous of Owen? Absurd. Bobby, do we have to continue like this?”

Golden Bobby looked at Flo and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Okay,” Flo said. “I guess we can say that's it for today. You've all been very cooperative, thank you. But of course I may have to return. And that's just the way it is, as your lawyer can tell you. We'll learn more and there'll be more questions. And that's our job here. To identify and arrest your husband's killer.”