Last Chance for Glory (43 page)

Blake was tempted to unload the van immediately, but he knew it would take several trips and there was no good reason for a man in a Hawaiian shirt to be carrying boxes into a travel agency at two o’clock on a Sunday morning. The risk was not only unacceptable, it was easily avoided. On the other hand, the risk of someone stealing the van while he slept in Samuel Harrah’s office was equally unacceptable and the only sure way to avoid it was to sleep on the Aerostar’s backseat with his automatic for a pillow. From where Blake sat (Queens, New York, being the car theft capital of the United States), he didn’t have any choice.

As it turned out, he fell asleep within minutes, waking several hours later to the glare of the sun. For the first few seconds he was disoriented. The rush of the occasional car reminded him of ocean surf, the sunlight streaming through the windshield of waking after a nap on the beach. Then he noticed the shotgun lying on the floor.

He sat up in the van, rubbed his eyes, tried to remember his dreams. They’d all been there—the good guys, the victims, the bad guys, the cowards—but he couldn’t put them into context. He glanced into the rearview mirror and shuddered. His hair stood out at odd angles; his blue eyes were lost in dark circles, the stubble on his cheeks and jowls seemed to age him twenty years.

I’m not the same person, he decided as he climbed into the front seat and started the van. Not the jerk with eight suits in his closet and a low-end Rolex strapped to his wrist. And no matter what happens today, I can’t go back to it. I’ve got to go forward. Of course, forward doesn’t have a lot of meaning right now. A toilet has meaning. Coffee has meaning. But for right now, forward is a position on a hockey team.

He found a diner several blocks away, ignored the cashier’s disgusted look, a look echoed in the faces of several waitresses, and made his way to the men’s room. Ten minutes later, as groomed as he was going to get without benefit of shower and razor, he took a seat at the counter and ordered breakfast. The waitress, reassured, perhaps, by his thoroughly soaked, thoroughly flattened hair, clucked sympathetically as she filled his coffee cup.

“Been traveling all night, honey?” she asked.

Blake looked at her for the first time. Middle-aged and bony, her narrow mouth fattened with a layer of pink lipstick, she seemed perfectly at home, like the polished coffee urns or the sizzling grill.

“Working,” he answered. “You got a newspaper back there?”

“Daily News.
What section you want?”

“Section?”

“It’s Sunday, remember? Newspapers come in sections on Sunday.”

“Right. Let me have the main section. It’s too early for the comics.”

He found the story on page twenty-eight, took its position in the scheme of things to mean that “Whacked in Whitestone” was fast becoming yesterday’s news. Still, Harrah hadn’t placed any bets on a fickle public. According to the
Daily News,
Internal Affairs was reviewing Bell Kosinski’s caseload for the three-year period prior to his retirement, looking for a “pattern of corruption.” This after a “substantial quantity of cocaine” had been found in his apartment. There was no mention of Kosinski’s death, but that, in itself, wasn’t surprising. The first edition of the
News
went to print in the early evening, especially the Sunday edition.

Blake closed his eyes, tried to picture Bell Kosinski sucking on the business end of a crack pipe. The effort was wasted, but, then, Kosinski wasn’t really the point. Unless Samuel Harrah was afraid of ghosts, the real target was Marty Blake. By discrediting Kosinski, Harrah also tarred Kosinski’s still-living, still-dangerous partner. As a coke dealer’s confederate, Blake would have less credibility than a New York politician. Which was less than none.

Though he hadn’t bothered to check, Blake would have bet his computer that Harrah numbered journalists and cops among his victims, that he could plant either dope or propaganda whenever and wherever he wished. Information was his strength; it was also his weakness. Blake had no intention of copying Harrah’s client files. He didn’t have to because they were already in the computer’s hard drive. All Blake had to do was remove the hard drive and have it delivered to Marcus Fletcher along with the blackmail files and a videotape of the games to come.

“Rise ’n shine, honey. Breakfast’s ready.”

Blake sat up, made room for a platter of bacon, eggs, home fries, and toast. He muttered a thank you, then picked up his fork and began to eat. After a few bites, he decided that all his food tasted the same. Or that it had no taste, just consistency. The bacon was chewy, the eggs soft, the home fries crunchy.

Nevertheless, Blake continued to eat—shoveling food into his mouth, chewing thoroughly, washing the mouthfuls down with coffee as he ran through his agenda, step by step. There were two basic elements to Blake’s strategy: three pinhole video cameras, connected to transmitters by cable, broadcasting to receivers and recorders (and Vinnie Cappolino) in the van; two cartons of the blackmail files, the originals and a copy run on Harrah’s Xerox, along with the computer’s hard drive, also in the van. He’d set up the cameras first, one in a window overlooking the sidewalk, another at the top of the stairs, the third behind him in the office. Harrah would expect some kind of surveillance, but the cameras were no bigger than a pack of cigarettes and even if they were noticed, there wasn’t very much Harrah could do about it. Not until after he dealt with Blake.

Once the cameras were positioned, the receivers and transmitters tested, the files copied, and the van moved to the other side of the highway, he’d have time to worry about himself. Because he was going to have to concede the first move to Samuel Harrah and he knew it. If he’d wanted to slaughter the man, he could have gone to his home and done it without spending fifteen big ones on electronics.

Of course, there was always a chance that Harrah would try to negotiate a deal, but it wasn’t the kind of chance Blake intended to take. The far more likely possibility was that Samuel Harrah (or whoever he sent in his place) would simply gun Marty Blake down, then claim self-defense in the course of an arrest. Or dump what was left of him in the conveniently close Atlantic Ocean and pretend he never existed.

Blake had no desire to go for that final swim, but he understood that reducing his execution from a probability to a possibility was the best he could hope for. A kevlar vest would help, as would placing the desk against the far wall and using it as a shield. But the centerpiece of his survival strategy was a trio of strobe lights set between the desk and the door, then wired to a toggle switch. Harrah would get the first move; Marty Blake would get the second; Vinnie Cappolino would record the sequence. That was all there was to it.

“Anything else I can get you, honey?”

Blake shook his head, wondered if the woman ever completed a sentence without adding the word “honey.” Maybe she used it to punctuate every thought, the way a heavy-footed rock drummer used a bass drum.

He paid the check, made his way to the van, glanced at his watch. It was eight o’clock, time to go to work. He drove back to Paradise Travel, dragged the equipment upstairs, through the closet, into South Queens Financial. The labor soothed him, as it always had in the past; the tools, the equipment, the lights, and the cable grounded him in the solid world of cause and effect. Every action yielded measurable results: a hole was actually drilled, a screw actually set, a monitor revealed the actual street below.

Four hours later, he was in the back of the van wiring up the receivers, monitors, and VCRs. The van itself was parked between two cars on the other side of Conduit Avenue, approximately three hundred feet from South Queens Financial. If Harrah anticipated some kind of surveillance (as he was almost certain to do), he might choose to inspect any closed vehicle near the office. But he couldn’t very well search every van or truck within a hundred yard radius of the building. Not if he wanted to stay within the time frame Blake intended to establish.

Blake flipped on the three receivers, watched the monitors light up, saw an empty stairwell, an empty office, a deserted sidewalk. He tested the VCRs, listened to the tape spin for a minute. The cadmium-nickel batteries would operate the system for six hours, more than enough time. After all, Harrah would be waiting (or, at least,
hoping)
for Blake to call, to re-establish contact. Even with Kosinski dead, it was a possibility that couldn’t be ignored.

It was just after one o’clock when Blake left the van. He walked back to 150th Street, then across the parkway to a pay phone and dialed Vinnie Cappolino’s home phone number.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me, Vinnie. Blake.”

“You ready for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Where ya callin’ from?”

“I’m not callin’ from Harrah’s office, if that what you’re thinking.”

“Mrs.
Harrah’s office. Don’t be a sexist, Marty.”

“Vinnie, when you’re right, you’re right. Tell me, do you think Harrah might have his wife hit? Eliminate the essential link?”

“For you, that ain’t a problem. Bein’ as Uncle Sam’s gonna definitely eliminate
you
first.”

“True enough. Look, the van’s parked on North Conduit Avenue, directly across from South Queens Financial, and the key’s behind the outside rear tire. I want you to stay sharp, Vinnie. You’ve gotta start recording as they’re walking up to the building.”

“Hey, Marty, I’ve done this before, remember? How long you figure it’s gonna take?”

“A couple of hours, tops. You’ll know when to leave.”

“You want me to call an ambulance before I go, get somebody over there? Linda made Walter and me buy cellular phones, so it wouldn’t be any trouble.”

Blake smiled. “That might be nice. Look, you’ll find two cartons in the back of the van when you get there. The one with the hard drive goes to Fletcher. The other package goes to the reporter, Coen. You wanna give me the number of that cellular phone?”

“No. You wanna give me Harrah’s?”

“555-9844.”

“Anything else?”

“Just stay alert. If you don’t start those VCRs, I’ve got exactly nothing.”

“Don’t worry about my end, Marty. I wouldn’t miss this for next week’s lottery number. You have a good day.”

Back in Harrah’s office, Blake picked up the phone, dialed the chief’s home number, listened to the phone ring several times before a woman answered.

“Hello?”

“Samuel Harrah, please. Tell him it’s Marty Blake.”

“Oh, Mr. Blake. Sam’s been expecting you to call. He’s at the office. Do you have the number?”

“Yeah.” Blake started to hang up, felt his anger rise to the surface, his fingers tighten down on the receiver. “By the way, am I speaking to Margaret Harrah?”

“Yes, you are.” Her voice was bright, cheery, every bit the helpful housewife.

“Do you know why I’m calling your husband?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.”

Blake hesitated, told himself to let the suspense build, that timing is the key to good comedy. “You’ve been a bad girl, Maggie. A bad,
bad
girl.”

“I don’t know …”

“Yes, you do. Never kid a kidder, Maggie. By the way, do you have any idea what happens to an elderly white woman in a New York State prison? Well, your name wouldn’t be Margaret any more. At Bedford Hills, your first, last, and only name would be Bitch. As in, ‘Get over here,
Bitch.
Make my bunk, Bitch; wash my socks, Bitch; eat my pussy, Bitch.’ Unless, of course, you’ve got somebody on the outside to send you money so you can pay off the baddest dyke in your cell block. But that’s gonna be a problem, too, Maggie, cause the only way you’re gonna be able to reach those two investment counselor kids of yours is to write ’em care of Sing-Sing.”

“This is atrocious.”

“So is blackmail. Not to mention premeditated murder. Look, get your husband on the phone, Maggie. Tell him I’ll be calling in a few minutes and I don’t wanna speak to his flunky. If he doesn’t talk to me personally, we don’t communicate at all.”

Blake spun away from the desk. He walked over to the closest window, peeked around the shade at the street below. The Belt Parkway was jammed with New Yorkers making their way out to the beaches of Rockaway and Long Island. The cars gleamed in the afternoon sun, but the folks inside looked, to Blake, like they’d rather be somewhere else, anywhere else. They’d gotten up late, waited too long to get started. Now the day was ruined.

Five minutes later, he was on the phone with Sergeant Bennetti of NYPD Intelligence, asking to speak with Chief Samuel Harrah.

“Who wants him?”

“Marty Blake.” Might as well get it on the record.

“You wanna tell me what it’s about? The Chief’s in the toilet.”

As Blake searched for the perfect rejoinder, he suddenly realized that Bennetti was delaying for a reason. Naturally, Harrah would want the call traced. By this time, they’d have to know he wasn’t coming back to his apartment.

“You don’t wanna know what I want, Bennetti. Not unless you’re Harrah’s priest.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It means your boss is an extortionist.”

“That bad, eh? Let me be the first to admit that you floored me with the information. I’m lucky I didn’t break my neck when I fell off the chair.”

Blake looked down at his watch. A full minute, plenty of time for a trace. “Fifteen seconds, Sergeant,” he said. “If I’m not speaking to your boss in fifteen seconds, I hang up.”

“Oh, look, I see the Chief goin’ into his office. Lucky for me, huh?”

Harrah’s voice, when he came on a few seconds later, was oily smooth, as if he was trying to contain his heartiest chuckle. “You’ve got a devil of a nerve, Marty. Saying what you did to poor Margaret.”

“In that case, we’re even up, Sammy. If you remember, I told Grogan that I wanted my partner left alone, but you had him killed anyway. That was fairly cheeky.”

Harrah cleared his throat. “Bela Kosinski is not dead. He’s alive and well in Bellevue Hospital. I swear it.”

“Really? Did Brannigan tell you to say that?”

“Look, Marty, I know about your confrontation with …”