Last Chance for Glory (40 page)

“Charlie,” he told the proprietor, Charles Baumann, “if you don’t have what I want in stock, you’ve got three hours to get it.”

“In three hours I’ll be closed, Blake. It’s Saturday and I got things to do.” Baumann’s sour expression never changed. His watery brown eyes were squeezed down into a permanent squint, a reaction perhaps to the cigarette smoke curling up from the corner of his mouth. Or to forty years in the sleaze business.

“You’re lookin’ at fifteen grand here. Easy.” Blake noted the spark of interest, pressed on. “There’s no tomorrow on this, Charlie. You can’t do it today, I’ll get the hardware from somebody else.” It was the same threat he’d used on Vinnie Cappolino.

“What you want, it’s legal?”

“Catalog material.”

Baumann nodded, lit another cigarette. “How you gonna pay, Blake? Bein’ as the only bulge on your body is comin’ from the automatic you got tucked behind your belt.”

“Plastic.”

“Your
plastic?”

Blake took out his wallet, dumped three credit cards on the glass counter top. “Look for yourself.”

Baumann did exactly that, holding them, one at a time, under a small, powerful magnifying glass. When he was satisfied, he set the cards down, squinted at Blake for a moment.

“Okay,” he finally said, “whatta ya need?”

Blake ticked off the items one at a time, watched Charlie Baumann write them down, watched him nod his head. Was he counting inventory or dollars? Blake couldn’t make up his mind.

“I got everything you need out in the Jersey City store,” Baumann said when the list was complete. “Take about an hour to get it here. But the video transmitter you want isn’t gonna happen—long range is for cops only. I could supply you a system goes out about five hundred feet. More than that, you gotta go elsewhere.”

“You couldn’t make an exception? Being as I’m an old and valued customer.” Blake tried on his sweetest smile.

“Forget about it.” Baumann shook his head, folded the list, stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “Not for plastic, Marty. When you pay with plastic, you gotta go by the book. Plastic don’t allow for denial.”

Out on the street, Blake found a pay phone, called the
New York Post,
and asked for Herbert Coen, the reporter who’s byline appeared above the “Whacked in Whitestone” story. He was put through to the city room where he repeated his request.

“Coen’s on the toilet.”

“I’ll hold.”

“Suit yourself, pal.”

Five long minutes later, a sharp voice announced, “Coen.”

“You the Coen who wrote the story on the two Whitestone cops?”

“The one and only.”

“Well, you got it all wrong, buddy. The cops fed you a bullshit story about drugs and you wrote it down like you were taking dictation.”

“What’d you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.”

Blake absorbed the ensuing silence, refused to break it. Coen was thinking it over, wondering if the story justified enduring Blake’s attitude. That was just fine. Coen wouldn’t take the bait unless he was hungry.

“Why don’t you tell me what really happened?”

“Not over the phone.”

“Gimme a break, pal. I got better things to do than jump through your hoops.”

Time to throw the poor doggie a bone. Time to set the hook.

“It’s about murder and blackmail, Coen. About documents and a tape recording. You remember the judge who committed suicide a few days ago?”

“John McGuire?”

“He’s right in the middle.”

Coen drew a deep breath. “Where do you want to meet?”

“There’s a diner, the Pioneer, on the West Side Highway below the tunnel. Half an hour.”

“Look, I’m in the middle of …”

Blake hung up, found his car, and headed downtown. He took the long way, tracing the eastern edge of Manhattan to the Battery, then curling back up what was left of the old West Side Highway. As he drove, he tried to concentrate on his successes—his deals with Cappolino and Baumann, his appointment with Coen—and not on the gamble he’d taken. If he had more time, he’d be going about it differently. He didn’t and that was that.

Inside the Pioneer, Blake took a table and ordered coffee and a hamburger. He was on his second cup when Herbert Coen walked through the door. Short and wiry, the reporter’s long, narrow face was saved from comparison with a rat’s by the sharp intelligence in his eyes. Blake, as he waved Coen over, decided that he looked like a hungry weasel.

Coen slid into the booth opposite Blake. “You got a lotta balls here, pal,” he announced. “This better be good.” A waitress appeared with a menu. Coen ordered coffee and waved her away.

“It’s better than your freakiest wet dream.” Blake emptied the contents of a manila envelope—the one he’d planned to mail to his uncle—onto the table. He picked up the cover letter, handed it to Coen, waited until the reporter finished reading, then passed over the rest of the paperwork. “These are records of incorporation and dissolution for Landsman Properties. You’ll note that Alan Green, father of Manhattan Borough President Edward Green, is Landsman’s sole shareholder. The deeds show Landsman’s purchase and resale of the Long Island City property to Johan Tillson, husband of Sondra Tillson. I don’t have time to play the tape, but I guarantee that it’s
not
ambiguous.”

Blake sat back, took a bite of his hamburger, followed it with the dregs in the bottom of his coffee cup. He was enjoying his own confidence as well as the dramatics. Coen was drooling like a dog over a slice of roast beef, but that didn’t mean his publisher would actually print the story—there was no way of knowing how far or how deep Harrah could reach. Still, it was as good as he was going to get. It was what he’d set out to do. “You wouldn’t consider telling me your name?”

“Marty Blake.”

“And your interest here?”

Blake sighed, took another bite of his hamburger. “Hope you don’t mind,” he mumbled. “I haven’t eaten all day.”

Coen nodded. “Okay, so it’s none of my business.”

“Plus, I don’t have the time to get into it.” Blake swallowed. “Sometime soon, probably within twenty-four hours, I’m gonna have a lot more paperwork. If you’re interested.”

“I’m interested.”

“That’s good, because eventually I’ll be sending the package you’re holding to other reporters. What you’ve got, Coen, is a head start. It wouldn’t pay for you to sit on your lead.”

“Any more advice?”

Blake shook his head. “I need a drop for the rest of the material. Not the
Post.”

Coen scribbled his address on the back of a business card. “I’ll try to have somebody there for the next couple of days, but you can always leave a package with the doorman.” He stared at Blake for a moment, then came to a decision. “Look, this story could mean a lot to me.”

“Yeah, it’s a definite career maker. There’s a book in it, too.”

“But the people you name here … face it, if I go in half-assed, I’ll end up writing a gossip column in Chickenfart, Iowa. There’s no way I can take the story to my editor until I document the facts.”

Blake pictured Kosinski in his hospital bed, wondered if he could wait until Coen finished checking, decided that it didn’t matter because it wasn’t going to come to that. Coen, if he came through, would play the role of historian.

“The deeds, the corporate stuff—it’s all public record. As for the tape … well, you might want to play it for the widow McGuire. See if she likes the sound of her own voice.”

Blake took his time getting back uptown, working his way north on Hudson Street, then east on Houston to First Avenue, then back north again. His route took him directly past Bellevue Hospital and he stopped for a moment to stare at the grimy brick, the dirty windows. The life of the hospital was in full gear, people going in and coming out, nurses and the odd intern waiting patiently for the hot-dog vendor, relatives double-parked while other relatives visited. A short Latino woman tended a cart packed with small bouquets of white and pink carnations. There were no roses, no orchids, no birds of paradise. Bellevue was a municipal hospital; those who could afford the exotic took their business elsewhere.

“Awright, let’s move it.” A black security guard, looking thoroughly bored, made his way along the line of cars. “There’s no parking here. Let’s move it.”

Nobody moved it, nobody turned to look at him. He had no authority, not even the authority of a summons book, and he knew it. After a few minutes, he turned his back, tossed a belated “motherfucker” over his shoulder and walked back down the ramp leading to the front doors.

Blake felt a sudden urge to follow, to find his way to the prison ward, to pull Kosinski out of the bed, carry him to safety. He saw the idea as childish, the wish of a toddler who still believes in magic, yet still went so far as to open the car door. He was halfway out when Tommy Brannigan stepped onto the sidewalk.

Blake’s first impulse was to flee—not from Brannigan, but from all the nightmare possibilities suggested by his sudden appearance—and he might have done it if the cop hadn’t spotted him. If the cop hadn’t smiled.

“Hey, Blake, you come to visit your girlfriend?”

Despite the grin (and even from a distance), Brannigan’s gaze was narrowed and calculating. Blake walked toward that look as if drawn by a magnet. He stopped three feet away from the cop, stood there without saying a word.

“Too bad about Kosinski. Guess it wasn’t his day. He expired.”

Brannigan’s smirk widened as his hand edged toward the zipper on his windbreaker. Blake returned the smile, let him slide the zipper down, let his hand reach inside before slamming a fist into the cop’s solar plexus. Brannigan grunted once and doubled over.

“Guess it’s not your day, either.”

Blake yanked the automatic out of his belt and slammed it into Brannigan’s face. The sound of it—the crunch of bone, the cry of pain—pleased him immensely, pleased him so much that he did it again and again and again.

B
Y THE TIME MARTY
Blake arrived at the St. Albans home of Assistant District Attorney Marcus Fletcher, his thoughts were sliding back and forth like Max Steinberg’s wig on a bad day in court. Attacking Brannigan made him subject to ordinary arrest for the first time. It transformed Harrah’s pack of bent cops into that cop army he’d been fearing all along. Harrah had reached into a New York State prison for Billy Sowell, into a hospital prison ward for Bell Kosinski. There was no reason to believe a New York City jail—the Tombs or Rikers Island—would present him with any problems.

On the other hand, having Blake arrested for assaulting Tommy Brannigan would carry a serious potential for negative consequences. There’d be no way for Harrah to know which cop would do the arresting. Which of them would hear and record Blake’s confession. Or that Blake, accompanied by a lawyer and a media representative, wouldn’t stroll into the nearest precinct and surrender. If he demanded protection, claimed his life was in danger, he might succeed in putting himself entirely out of Samuel Harrah’s reach.

But if he played that card, the correction officers would put him in protective custody which amounted to little more than solitary confinement. Blake had no trouble imagining himself alone in a six-by-eight prison cell, imagining a Samuel Harrah willing to do almost anything to prevent a trial, almost anything to get revenge. If Marty Blake was found hanging from the bars one morning, who’d step up to say it couldn’t have been suicide? Max Steinberg? Joanna Bardo?

What he’d finally decided, somewhere between picking up the hardware at the Surveillance Shop, ditching the Nissan in favor of a Chevrolet Caprice in Long Island City, and returning to his motel room to pick up several copies of the material he’d given to Herbert Coen, was that if he couldn’t control his thoughts, he’d have to work on his actual behavior. And the best way to do that (without second-guessing every move he made) was to stick with his original agenda.

Blake pulled the car to the curb, flipped the key, listened to the engine cough for a moment before shutting down. The tall black man pushing the lawn mower across the grass didn’t look up. Maybe he couldn’t hear the Chevy over the din of the lawn mower’s engine. Or maybe he just liked to mind his own business. Either way, Blake didn’t get a good look at the man’s face until he reached the end of his property and turned around.

Blake’s first impression was of unyielding strength. The widely spaced eyes, the short, broad nose, the full mouth, sharp jaw, and high, protruding cheekbones fairly screamed determination. But something in the set expression, as if at a specific point in the distant past the man had arranged his features and decided to hold them together by sheer force of will, put Blake off.

At that moment, as if reading Blake’s thoughts, the man looked up at the Caprice. Their eyes locked for a moment, long enough for each to know they had business with the other. Then Blake, a manila envelope tucked beneath his arm, stepped out of the car and walked across the lawn.

“Are you Marcus Fletcher?” He stopped several feet away, kept his voice quiet, respectful, considerate.

“I am.”

“My name is Marty Blake. I’m sorry to bother you at home on a Saturday, but it can’t be helped.” He paused, expecting a response, was rewarded with the same stony expression. “I have some information you need to see.”

“Wait.”

Fletcher continued to scrutinize Blake. He took his time about it, as though he had enough information to make an informed judgment. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to bring this inside.” He turned, started to walk, tossed a last comment over his shoulder. “I know who you are.”

Blake started to follow, stopped abruptly. “Hold it.” He waited for Fletcher to turn around. “You spoke to my uncle, that’s obvious enough. Who else did you speak to? Who’s in the house?”

“My wife is in the house, my wife and my two sons.” Fletcher tried for a smile, failed, let his mouth drop back to its original set. “It’s not a trap, Mister Blake. If you can prove your allegations, I believe you’ll find me a valuable ally.”

“Afraid not.” Blake, his hand beneath his shirt, began to back up. “Your part in this farce is very minor. In fact, you don’t even come into it until after the big climax. So, what I’m gonna do is leave you on the cutting-room floor. Have a nice day.”