Fourth Victim (18 page)

G
igi’s apartment still had the tornado decor it had the night she found Serpe unconscious on her floor. They had been back once to get her some more clothes and her toiletries, but they hadn’t bothered to stay and clean up. Now, as Gigi searched through the mess in her bedroom trying to find the key to the storage unit, Joe straightened things up a little in the dinette and living room. He might just as well have tried to glue an eggshell back together. The place was hopeless.

He laughed when he came upon a stash of erotic magazines, many of which he had copies of at home. It was a reminder to him that the week he had spent playing house with Gigi was just that, playing. He didn’t doubt that once the circumstances that had brought them together evaporated, they would go back to their old lives. At their core, he knew, people were who they were. No one changes anybody. And for the first time in a while, he found himself thinking about where Marla had gone.

He put the magazines down and put things in stacks and piles as best he could. It was amazing, he thought, how much crap Gigi had managed to cram into such a small place. He flipped the couch right-side up and put the shredded cushions back in place. Didn’t do much good. He did the same with the chairs, but it was a waste of time. Gigi was going to have to spend some of her newfound money at Ikea in Hicksville.

“Joe, Joe, come in here,” Gigi called. “Hurry up!”

He didn’t like the sound of her voice, but unless someone was hiding behind the baseboard, he didn’t think there was reason to draw his gun. She handed him a bundled up garbage bag as he stepped into her bedroom.

“Christ, Gigi, I thought there was something wrong. If all you needed—”

“That’s the bag.”

“What bag?”

“The bag,” she repeated.
“The
bag.”

“Maybe I’m missing something here.”

“Remember, I told you that inside the storage unit I only found a big garbage bag with—”

“—the two bags of money inside. Okay, but so what?”

“Jesus Christ, Joe, for a fucking cop, you’re a little thick. You were right this morning, but you had the wrong bags. Feel it. Feel the bag.”

He squeezed the bundled bag, moving it around in his hands. It didn’t take more than few second before he felt the square edges. He unfurled the bag and turned it inside out. There, duct-taped to the bottom of the green plastic bag was a manila envelope with Gigi’s name written across it in black marker.

“That’s Rusty’s handwritting,” Gigi said, her hands shaking.

As carefully as he could, Serpe peeled the plastic away from the tape until he was holding only the envelope. There was a strip of the same gray tape across the flap.

“You got a sharp knife around here?” Joe asked.

“I’ll get one. Might take me a minute under all the piles of crap.”

As he listened to Gigi rummaging through her kitchen draws, he felt the envelope, held it up to the light. He knew it was stupid, that he’d have his answer soon enough. Then he realized that he had transferred the knife he carried with him when he was on the truck from his work clothes to the pants he was wearing. He reached around into his back pocket, removed the knife, snapped it open with a flick of his wrist—a skill he’d perfected on the streets of Brooklyn a long time ago—and slit open the envelope with one clean cut.

Inside the envelope was a second envelope; white, standard letter-sized. Serpe could feel the negatives through the paper.
Negatives!
Joe smiled sadly.
Who used film anymore?
Had the Marsden kid’s camera been digital, he thought, a lot of dead men and a woman—some innocent, some not—might still be alive. If it had been a digital camera, the images of Burgess tossing the kid would have been up on the internet fifteen minutes after they were taken and on the cover of every major newspaper the following day. No secrets. No blackmail. No need to kill the blackmailer.

He snapped the knife shut, slipping it back into his pants, and stuffed the white envelope into his coat pocket. As he was about to take a look at the pictures themselves, Joe became accutely aware of the silence. He could no longer hear Gigi searching through the rubble. If something was wrong out there, it was probably too late to stop it. It wasn’t to late to reach beneath his coat and pull out his gun, but it might just as well have been.

“Gigi,” he called.

“Yeah. I’m coming.”

Her answer did anything but reassure him. Joe heard the cracks in her voice, big cracks. Before he could take a step, there was another voice.

“Drop the fucking gun and kick it over here,” McCauly said, a self-satisfied smile on his cheery red face. He had his right forearm tight around Gigi’s neck and his left hand held a snub-nosed .38 to her temple. Gigi strained hard against his arm and shook her head no. Joe Serpe took her advice.

“I don’t think so, Finn,” he said, waving his Glock. “I drop this, I’m dead.”

“You don’t, she’s dead.”

“That’s her problem … and yours.”

Suddenly, McCauly’s smile didn’t seem so self-assured. “Mine? How you figure?”

“Because the second you squeeze that trigger,” Serpe said, racking his weapon, “I’m gonna put a hole in your head where your right eye used to be. Then you’ll be dead and these will still be mine anyway.”

“But they ain’t no use to you.”

“You tell me about them and maybe we can talk. Maybe we can be partners.”

“Why, so you can fuck me outta what I got comin’ like this bitch’s fucking brother?” McCauly tightened his grip around Gigi’s throat and she was gasping for air. As she gasped, he moved the barrel of the gun into her mouth. She’d been pretty stoic until that point, now the panic in her eyes was profound.

Serpe lowered his weapon. “Calm down, Finn. I know you’re not kidding, but neither am I. Talk to me.”

“Rusty played me for two years. He threw me maybe thirty, forty thousand bucks, but I know he had the big money. He goes up to that roof and gets rich. Me, all I get is table scraps. We were supposed to split the money and if anything happened to him, I was supposed to get the pictures.”

“Pictures of what, Reverend Burgess pushing the DeFrees kid off the roof?”

McCauly started laughing. “You’re a dumbass, Serpe. You know that? What do you think, that Monaco caught the most powerful nigger in the city throwing some little pissant nigger off a roof? How fucking stupid is that? The guy is cold-hearted enough to do it, no doubt, but he ain’t stupid like you.”

“Then who’d Rusty catch up there?”

“Burgess’ son, Khouri.”

“I don’t under—”

“I know you don’t understand, fucko,” Finn said, shaking his head and easing his grip on Gigi. “Burgess was doing this outreach thing in the projects, taking some kids who’d been in trouble with the law and making his own little Guardian Angels out of them. He was gonna show us that the projects didn’t need cops and that the niggers could do for themselves. Problem was, he put his asshole son Khouri in charge of the troops at the Nellie Bly Houses. Let’s just say that Khouri had his own kinda problems with anger management and was getting impatient with one of his new recruits.”

“Bogarde DeFrees.”

“Bogarde DeFrees,” McCauly repeated. “Seems Bogarde was smoking a little reefer in the accessway to the roof instead of patrolling the upper floors of Building Four like he was supposed to. Khouri Burgess took exception to his boy’s misbehaving and explained as much with a right cross. DeFrees pulled a blade. Burgess pulled a gun and it was off to the races from there. Rusty said that Khouri Burgess just like grabbed the little nigger and tossed him off the roof. Just like that. Like he was throwing away a balled up napkin or something.”

“That’s cold.”

“Yeah, but he pissed his pants when Rusty cuffed him. When he told Monaco that he was James Burgess’ son and begged him to let him get his daddy on his cell phone, Rusty saw an opportunity. Rusty was smart that way. The Rev parted with twenty grand that day and promised much more. Only he tried to fuck us once the investigation began and Rusty was taking the heat. He started a big protest that night saying that Rusty was guilty and the cops were gonna cover it up like they always did. He figured he had us by the balls because his kid wasn’t in custody anymore and we’d fucked with the evidence. What he didn’t know was that Rusty had seen the kid on the other roof taking pictures of the murder in progress.”

“Who killed Edgerin Marsden?” Joe asked.

“Carter Blaylock, a gangsta snitch who we threatened to expose to his boys if he didn’t do us this favor. We didn’t have to ask him twice. He walked right up to Marsden and popped him. Stupid nigger. We gave him up anyway.”

“No witnesses.”

“No witnesses. His boys did a lot worse to him than throwing his ass off a roof.”

“And Burgess?”

“Rusty said the Rev almost fuckin’ died when he showed him the pictures. Gave him a full set of copies and told him to keep them for his album. But Burgess recovered pretty quick. Said he’d pay Rusty off, but that he couldn’t risk big chunks of money out of his businesses and charities. So over the last four years, Rusty and me, we had a little supplemental income. Too bad Rusty supplemented himself better than me.”

“Did Burgess ever try to buy the pictures back?”

“Nah. He knew better. Knew Rusty’d always keep the negatives for insurance.”

“You killed Stanfill then.”

“That was stupid,” McCauly confessed, shaking his head. “I thought he knew about the pictures and kept them for himself. Instead Rusty lied to me and stashed them away for this bitch.”

“And you came here looking for the pictures,” Joe said. “That’s when you sapped me.”

“Yeah.”

“Why not kill me?”

“I guess maybe I shoulda, but there were already too many investigations going on with Rusty’s murder and you sniffing around. Then there was Stanfill. If you went down too …”

“But—”

“Enough,” Finn said. “Gimme the fucking envelope.” He tightened his grip again and was lifting Gigi up off her feet. Her face was turning all colors as she kicked her feet wildly. She was struggling to breathe, the fear and pleading in her eyes was impossible to ignore.

“Alright, okay,” Serpe said, his posture indicating surrender. “I’ll put the gun down, but the second I do, you let her go.”

McCauly squeezed harder. “I’m not in the mood for bargains.” Gigi’s eyes rolled up in her head and she was going limp.

Serpe tossed the gun, but kept the pictures.

“That’s better,” Finn said and let go of Gigi. She collapsed on the floor in a heap. It was difficult for Serpe to see if she was still breathing. “Now the photos. Flip ‘em over here.”

Joe flung the envelope at Finnbar McCauly’s head to obscure the fat man’s vision. Serpe charged at him. McCauly got off a shot, but it was high of the mark as Serpe came at him low. Joe dodged Gigi’s limp body, digging his left shoulder into McCauly’s gut. Finn’s belly wasn’t as soft as it looked, but Joe still managed to knock the cop backwards. Backwards was good, just not good enough. McCauly didn’t go down and he still had the .38 firm in his hand. He brought the gun down on Serpe’s back, just missing his right kidney. Joe understood the next thing to hit his back was probably going to be a bullet, so he threw a fierce uppercut into McCauly’s groin. That took the wind out of Finn’s sails, but instead of tumbling backwards, he sprawled on top of Serpe.

Joe struggled to get out from under McCauly’s dead weight. Finn was making wounded animal noises; a mixture of barking coughs and furious growls. He was no weakling and he grabbed a fist full of Serpe’s coat even as he fought to catch his breath and to not puke up his lunch. Serpe considered trying to find the hand that held the .38 or to find his own discarded gun, but thought it better just to get to his feet. Finally, he pulled himself out of McCauly’s grasp and up. A little too easily, he thought. That meant McCauly was regaining control and was also struggling to get up himself.

He turned and swung his right leg at McCauly’s head. The fat man, who had gotten to his hands and knees, tucked his head and threw out his left arm to block the kick. Joe’s ankle smacked hard into Finn’s forearm with a sharp crack that reverberated back up Serpe’s leg. Finn groaned, but raised his .38. Joe ran for the front door. That’s when his ears filled with fluid and the world shifted into a low grinding gear. He couldn’t hear anything but his own exaggerated breaths and disconnected sounds that didn’t seem to make any sense.

Joe pumped his legs as he made it through the bedroom door into the kitchenette, but the bottoms of his shoes seemed velcro-ed to the linoleum. He turned back to see McCauly scrambling to his feet, coming through the door behind him, the .38 in one hand, the envelope with the photos in the other. There was a burst of fire out of the tip of the .38, smoke, a roar. Something hot whistled past Serpe’s chin. The world shifted gears again and it lurched forward. He whipped his head around and he lost his balance, falling forward. On the way down he saw a silhouetted figure standing in the doorway. Something hard and sharp smashed into the side of Serpe’s head. The sun exploded behind his eyes and then slipped into darkness. In the darkness, Joe thought he heard voices and a more steady roar. Then he heard nothing at all.

He didn’t know how long he’d been out. He heard distant sirens and guessed it hadn’t been that long. When he opened his eyes, the sun reprised its earlier explosion, only this time there was a side order of pain with the flash. As his eyes refocused, he saw the apartment was nearly as dark as his forced nap had been. Slowly, he got to his hands and knees. He was a bit nauseous, but it wasn’t too bad. This getting knocked unconscious and waking up on Gigi’s floor, he thought, was getting to be a bad habit. He smiled at that. It was going to be his last smile for the night.

Serpe found a wall and let his fingers crawl on it till they found a light switch. No interior lights went on. And he remembered that all the lamps had been smashed up by McCauly when he came looking for the pictures the first time. But the outdoor entrance fixture came on, throwing just enough ambient light inside the basement apartment for Serpe to see he’d been the lucky one.