Gnosis (39 page)

He had never been weak, nor was he a whiner. Whatever happens, happens. He had always understood and accepted this. And regardless of the outcome, you deal with it like a man. Like a
mensch
, the great Meyer Lansky used to say. Lansky also said life comes at you like a Major League fastball. Sometimes you make good contact and bang out a hit. Other times it sails past and you strikeout. You don’t gloat when you succeed, you don’t cry when you fail. With either outcome you move on.

Richards saw himself as a man with a violent past and a man with no past. Such a dichotomy made him prey on two fronts—those who knew and those, like Dantzler, who sought to know. Falling victim to one meant death, the other meant prison. Neither option was acceptable.

Fully aware that the day might arrive when he would find himself in someone’s cross hairs, he had long ago mapped out an escape plan. First, he had to put together a large amount of cash; any escape plan required sufficient funds. He had the money, more than enough, in fact, to get safely out of the country. To elude the predators who aimed to bring him down. With this much cash, he had plenty of options to choose from. Perhaps he would go to Costa Rica or Mexico and buy a small house or villa. Some place warm, close to the ocean.

Second, he would have to destroy the bar, a most regrettable but necessary requirement. He couldn’t risk leaving anything behind, not a single note, not an inventory entry, not a trace or shred of anything the authorities could use as evidence against him. Or as a method of locating him. Everything had to vanish completely.

So, in 1986, he paid an old acquaintance, a legendary New Jersey arsonist, to hotwire the entire building. All Richards had to do was flip a single switch, leave the premises, and fifteen minutes later the bar would be swallowed up in flames. Within a matter of minutes, seconds really, the structure—and in all probability much of Meadowthorpe Shopping Center—would be reduced to a pile of ashes.

Third, he had purchased a stolen VW Jetta he kept parked in a small garage behind the bar. If the occasion arose when he needed to make a quick departure, the Jetta would be his getaway vehicle. No one knew the car was in the garage, which he always kept locked. And if the cops did discover the car at some later point, they would have no way of knowing it belonged to him.

If Dantzler had ordered round-the-clock surveillance on him, the cops would be focused on the Black Lexus parked out front. As long as the car was there, the cops would assume he was spending the night in the upstairs apartment. Meanwhile, he would wait a couple of hours, giving the cops enough time to become tired, sleepy, and less alert, and then he would slip out through the back entrance, get into the Jetta, and quietly drive away.

His destination would be Mason-Headley Road on the other side of town. There, buried beneath overhanging trees and concealed behind high rows of bushes, virtually hidden from view, sat a small white cottage. The structure, less than a thousand square feet total, consisted of one bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and den. It was as unassuming as a house could be. But its location, invisibility, and isolation more than made up for its lack of size and space. A person could drive down Mason-Headley a hundred times and never notice the cottage was there. To see the cottage, the driver had to practically be looking for it.

Isolation was the key; that was the primary reason Richards purchased the cottage in the first place. Being the last house in a long stretch of houses was another selling point. To the left of the cottage was a narrow country road leading to God knows where. To the right, almost three-hundred yards away, sat a much larger house, blocked from view by a wall of oak trees. The distance and trees provided a barrier between him and overly friendly neighbors who might feel compelled to act neighborly. This wasn’t likely to happen. Only on rare occasions did those neighbors—or anyone for that matter—ever see him at the cottage.

No living human being was aware that Johnny Richards owned this cottage. Even his beloved wife Maggie hadn’t known. It was the one secret he kept from her, the one thing about him she didn’t know. The late Colt Rogers was the sole person possessing this knowledge, and that was only because he helped facilitate the deal. Nothing connected Richards to the cottage. The paperwork, the tax records, the deed, all listed the owner as Saul Bergman, a forty-three-year-old independent jewelry dealer from Brooklyn. However, those records failed to show one crucial fact: Bergman was no longer around to fence his stolen gems, having been killed by Richards in the early ’70s.

Bergman, a degenerate gambler, owed a huge sum of money to a certain powerful individual, a man disinclined to tolerate an unlucky bum who couldn’t pay his debt. When sternly reminded of his obligation, Bergman made the mistake of saying if anyone harmed him or threatened to harm him in any manner, he would go straight to the authorities. He boasted that he had his share of friends in high places, and that he wouldn’t hesitate to contact them if necessary. Fatal mistake on Saul’s part.

One day later, Richards put a bullet in Bergman’s head. He then took the body to a construction site, where Bergman was laid to rest beneath two tons of freshly poured cement. Before dumping the body into the pit, Richards took Bergman’s driver’s license and Social Security card on the off-chance that at some later time they might come in handy. And they had. Here, in Lexington, when it came time to buy the cottage. With Colt Rogers shepherding the paperwork, Richards was able to purchase the cottage without anyone knowing he was the true owner. From all perspectives, legal or otherwise, the property belonged to Saul Bergman. And so long as Richards paid the taxes, no one would be the wiser.

Richards grabbed the duffel bag, turned off all lights, and went down into the bar. He walked to the front door and looked out at the parking lot. Empty, except for his Lexus. That didn’t mean the cops weren’t watching; they could be anywhere. But he doubted they were. At this point, it was his belief that the cops saw him as
a
suspect, not
the
suspect. He was all but certain Eli hadn’t given him up; nor did he believe Dantzler had uncovered enough solid evidence to make him the primary target of the investigation. Still, he wasn’t about to take unnecessary chances.

He wouldn’t torch the bar—not tonight, anyway—but he would drive the Jetta to his place off Mason-Headley. There, he would make a phone call to an old friend in Las Vegas and schedule a time for him to send his private plane to Lexington. Any phone call was, he knew, extremely dangerous, regardless of how much he trusted the person receiving the call. Friends don’t always remain friends. But he had no choice. It was his only safe way out.

Once those details were worked out, he would return to running the bar as usual. He would offer no hint that he was aware of being in Dantzler’s crosshairs, or that he was, in fact, one step ahead of the detective. When the arrival time for the plane was set, when he was assured of safe passage, he would flip the switch, thus reducing the bar and the shopping center to a pile of ashes in a matter of seconds.

And then he would vanish forever.

By mid-morning the rain was a distant, soggy memory. The sun was steadily climbing in the heavens, its rays pouring down like heated honey. By the middle of the afternoon, the temperature would be in the 90s. A scorcher by any standards.

Dantzler still hadn’t heard from Lisa Kennedy or anyone else at the Justice Department, so he decided to swing by the hospital and see how Scott was doing. Having not visited Scott for three days, he felt guilty for being negligent. There had been daily updates from Milt and Captain Bird, but getting second-hand reports didn’t absolve him of his neglect. As Scott’s immediate superior, Dantzler should have checked in at least once a day.

Dantzler knocked on the door, opened it, and peeked in. Scott was sitting up in the bed, talking to two young women. The room looked like it had been decorated for a kid’s birthday party. Balloons hugged the ceiling like a multi-colored rainbow, heart-shaped balloons with “Get Well Soon” written on them were tied to both ends of the bed, and a giant teddy bear rested comfortably in a chair beneath the window. What must have been seventy five cards of all shapes, sizes, and colors stood like a legion of onlookers strategically placed around the room.

Seeing Dantzler, Scott’s face broke into a huge grin. “Hey, Detective Dantzler, how’s it going?” Scott said, waving his boss in.

“Everything is cool. The better question is, how are you doing, Scott?”

“Being released tomorrow. So I’m feeling good.”

“That’s terrific news.”

“Finally get some good food. Can’t wait for Mom’s cooking.”

“Tired of Jell-O, right?”

“Right.”

The woman closest to Scott punched him on his good shoulder. “What are we? Invisible?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Scott said. “Detective Dantzler, this is my sister, Amy. And my girlfriend, Molly.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Dantzler said, nodding at the two women. He looked at Molly, then at Scott. “Didn’t know you had a girlfriend, Scott. Good for you. But I have to tell you, she’s way out of your league.”

“Don’t I know it,” Scott said, taking Molly’s hand. “I’m gonna try to hang onto her, even if she is too good for me.”

“You’d better keep her, loser brother,” Amy said, adding, “because you’ll never find another one like her.”

Following Amy’s pronouncement, no one seemed to know what to say next. Molly blushed, Amy appeared to be either annoyed or amused—Dantzler couldn’t decide—and Scott had the look of a man who had uttered something he now wished he’d kept to himself. Dantzler wanted to laugh but found the strength to restrain himself. He didn’t want to embarrass Scott or the women, nor did he want to exacerbate what had obviously become an awkward moment.

Finally, Scott broke the silence, saying, “What about Eric? How is he holding up?”

“Eric’s good,” Dantzler answered. “You needn’t worry about him.”

“He saved my life, didn’t he?”

“Eric and Milt get the credit. They’re your guardian angels.”

Scott worked his right hand beneath the cast on his left shoulder and began digging at an itch, grimacing slightly as he did. “Will I still have my job when I get healthy?”

“You mean, will you still be on the force?”

“No. Will I remain on the Homicide unit?”

“Is that what you want?”

“More than anything. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then, sure, you stay with us. But that’s not something you need to worry about right now. You need to concentrate on getting well.”

“I was just thinking, getting shot, well, you know . . . it might mark me as a loser, a failure.”

“You were wounded in the line of duty, Scott. You were doing your job. People in our business get shot sometimes. Unfortunately, that possibility goes with the territory. Thank God, you survived. You came through it okay. When you get healthy enough to come back, you’ll work the desk until the doctors clear you for field duty. Once they do, you’ll be back out with us, trying to put the bad guys away.”

Scott nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Just be forewarned, Scott,” Dantzler said, moving toward the door. “Having been wounded is not going to shield you against the slings and arrows Milt will toss your way. Knowing him, he’ll probably ride you even harder.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Scott said, grinning.

*****

Dantzler went from the hospital to the Tennis Center, spending an hour working out on the treadmill, and another hour helping Alice Crawford perfect her serve. It was, he knew, a hopeless cause. But Alice had convinced herself that at age forty-one, with Dantzler’s help, she could be the next Martina Navratilova. He didn’t have the heart to tell her tennis really wasn’t her game.

After concluding his futile efforts with Alice, he showered, dressed, and went to Rafferty’s, where he had soup and a salad. Then he headed straight to the office for a one o’clock meeting with Captain Bird. Dantzler had requested the meeting for the purpose of bringing Bird up to date on the case, what he wanted to do, and how best to go about doing it. However, when Dantzler arrived at the office, he was informed that Captain Bird had been summoned to a meeting with Mayor Elizabeth Anderson. Dantzler was only too happy to have escaped an invitation to that little
tete a tete
. The mayor was one tough, no-nonsense go-getter. A pit bull in a skirt was the closest analogy Dantzler could come up with. Having a sit-down with her, especially one she requested, was rarely a pleasant experience.