Midnight Club (24 page)

84

Alexandre St.-Germain; New York

ALEXANDRE ST.-GERMAIN RODE
through the city in grave silence that morning. He was pondering recent actions he had undertaken: a temporary end to respectability; a clear defiance of the Club’s new rules and its stated desire for invisibility.

Stefanovitch had been tracking him for too long. Somehow the detective had escaped death once; he’d wound up in a wheelchair. The stubborn policeman kept coming anyway.

He had publicly insulted and goaded St.-Germain. He was responsible for a freighterload of heroin’s being confiscated; for the intolerable RICO harassments; for other serious embarrassments during the past weeks.

St.-Germain had encountered diligent policemen before. Sometimes they were driven by some mysterious need for revenge; sometimes by the strictest morality. But in Stefanovitch’s case, it seemed even more than that.

St.-Germain had asked Jimmy Burke to investigate the Homicide lieutenant. Burke had copied records from Police Plaza. The files mechanically reported on Stefanovitch’s past and present. He had been a navy officer, decorated twice in the Middle East. He had entered the N.Y.P.D. in ‘seventy-six, and quickly established himself as a fast-track performer. He was tireless; he appeared to be honest; he was liked and respected by the powers at the top. Even confined to a wheel-chair, he was viewed as a key performer in the police department. Stefanovitch was still a rising star.

Two things were clear from the file: Stefanovitch was bright for a policeman; and Stefanovitch was relentless in his duty. In a way, he was a very old-fashioned police officer, almost an anachronism. He seemed to have an obsessive preoccupation with right and wrong; he had a moral code and work ethic left over from another era.

There was really no choice for St. Germain.

The street law had to resume.

85

Sarah and Sam McGinniss; East Sixty-sixth Street

THERE WAS STILL
a small island of serenity for Sarah; a thread of sanity remaining in her life.

Sam stood underneath the formal forest green canopy of their apartment building, talking to his best friend, Austin, another seven-year-old from the neighborhood. Sarah was posted off to one side. They were early for school, which was just around the corner on Park Avenue.

It was a nice way to spend a few extra minutes—Sam yakking about baseball and transformers to Austin; Sarah renewing some casual, New-York-apartment-style relationships with the other tenants. Watching Sam, Sarah felt as if the life she’d been leading lately was completely unreal.

“I think we’d better scoot,” she finally called over to Sam.

He said good-bye to his friend, suggesting they have a hard ball catch out in the back alley after school. The superintendent usually let them play there—unless he was working on the water pipes, which he seemed to paint or scrape down every other week.

Sarah and Sam headed east on Sixty-sixth Street, toward Park. She watched Sam out of the corner of her eye.

He was like a curious little bird sometimes, idly pecking around the home nest. He knew nearly every square inch of the block, in fact. He would comment on the appearance of a new neighborhood face, or somebody’s pet, even on the blossoms of the dogwood trees fenced along the sidewalk.

This morning, he was a little quiet, and Sarah thought she knew why. She was spending too much time on the investigation and on her book. Sam wouldn’t come out and say it, but he was feeling neglected.

“Are you okay? Tell your old mom the truth,” she finally said about midway down the block.

“I’m okay. I’m fine.”

Sarah draped her arm over Sam’s shoulder.

“Hey, guess what? I don’t believe you. You lie, small white man.”

Sam began to laugh. She could usually make him smile.

Sarah figured that maybe if she joked a little with him, Sam might come out of his funk.

“Hey. Have I told you how happy I am that you’re back? I can’t remember. Did I tell you that, Sam?”

Sam laughed again. “Only about a hundred times, Mom.”

“How many out of the hundred did you believe me? About one?”

Sam continued to smile at her joke. That was one of their things together: they could laugh about almost anything.

“How about if we go out to the beach on Saturday? I promise not to work. I’ll make Belgian waffles with fresh strawberries. Then some swimming. Wiffle ball, of course. Chinese fighter kite flying. Couple of our favorite movies on the VCR. And that’s just the morning.”

Sam took Sarah’s hand as they walked.

“What about Stef? Will he come with us to the beach?”

Sarah hadn’t expected the question, though she wasn’t completely surprised. “Do you want Stef to come?” she asked.

“Yeah, he’s funny. We’re friends.”

“Well, that’s good. I’d like him to come, too.”

Still holding hands, Sarah and Sam turned the corner onto Park Avenue. Traffic on Park was the usual bumper-to-bumper variety, for the morning rush to glory.

The sidewalk was hopelessly crowded and seemed almost frantic. Men in light-color summer suits; determined-looking women in expensive business suits and dresses, half of them wearing running shoes.

One man in a lightweight tan suit looked particularly lost and perplexed at the corner of Sixty-sixth. New York could be a Twilight Zone horror story for its visitors. He turned to Sarah as she and Sam passed.

“Third Avenue?… Excuse me, do you know which way that is? I got turned around, I guess.”

Sarah began to point east across Park Avenue when she was struck by the flat of the man’s hand.

The unexpected blow against her chest was paralyzing. She was knocked to the ground, flat on her back.

Sarah suddenly had no air in her lungs. She couldn’t get her breath, couldn’t call out for help. A terrible pain shot up her spine.

The man in the tan suit lifted Sam off the sidewalk…
It was as if he were hugging Sam.

The boy didn’t know what to do to get away from the stranger. He tried to fight, but he didn’t have the strength to break the man’s grip.

“Upsy-daisy now.”

The man said it loudly enough to be heard by the other pedestrians.

“Here we go, big fella, in the car with your dad. Off we go. We’re off to the races.”

The man was laughing. He was playfully tickling Sam…
so that Sam couldn’t cry out.
The man had a German accent. Who was he? What was happening?

Sarah still couldn’t get her breath. She couldn’t scream for help. Oh God, no more…

It
looked
as if Sam were squirming because he was being tickled by the man… the man who was
playing
at being his father.

Sarah gasped out loud. She still couldn’t scream, couldn’t get her voice back.

She had never felt so powerless, except in dreams, terrifying nightmares about losing Sam.

Sam was being lifted into a waiting black sedan. That was all she could distinguish from her view on the ground. Maybe it was a BMW? An Audi? She couldn’t tell… The German voice? The accent?

The car slowly pulled away, disappearing into a cortege of heavy eastbound traffic.

Still terribly dazed, Sarah tried to push herself up from the sidewalk.

People gathered around her, trying to help, not understanding what had just happened.

Her vision was badly blurred. The close-up faces all merged into one.

Finally, Sarah screamed out loud on Park Avenue. Unbelievable words came from her mouth in the middle of all the people heading for work.

“Please help me! Somebody please help! They took my little boy!”

86

John Stefanovitch; East Sixty-sixth Street

SARAH WAITED IN
her apartment for the police, but she was waiting mostly for Stefanovitch. She couldn’t stop herself from sobbing.

For the hundredth time, she went to the picture windows in the living room and gazed in futility onto Sixty-sixth Street. She was numb, and numbness was the only thing that saved her.

She was trying to imagine that there had been some terrible mistake with Sam and the man on Park Avenue, but she knew better.

The doorbell rang. The police had arrived.

There was still no patrol car out on Sixty-sixth Street. The detective and patrolman had walked over from the local precinct house. The detective held a black leather pad and a pen in hand. He looked as if he were ready to give out a traffic ticket. It wasn’t the most compassionate way to greet someone after a kidnapping.

“Your little boy is missing from school?” asked the detective. “I’m Detective Cirelli,” he added.

“He isn’t missing from school. He was kidnapped off the street. I was there. We always walk to his school together.” The words suddenly poured out from Sarah. “A man in a beige suit took Sam in a black car. I think it was a BMW. He knocked me down.” She was crying again. She couldn’t help it.

The detective stiffened. He was overweight, with a florid face. He almost looked angry at her for being in tears.

“Could it be that you let your boy walk to school by himself this morning? That’s what often happens.”

Sarah was thrown even further into shock. She was used to working with intelligent policemen: she’d forgotten about the other kind. She overcame the urge to hit this man, to scream at him, to break down completely.

“No, of course not. Detective Cirelli, this is unbelievably hard for me. Why are you making it harder? I was with Sam. I was with my son when it happened.”

“All right, Mrs. McGinniss. Try to relax, please. Could we have a description of your boy? It is a boy, you said?”

“Yes, he’s seven years old. He weighs a little under fifty pounds. I’m not sure how tall Sam is right now. He has brown hair, not very long. His father just had his hair cut.”

“Is the boy’s father here?” Detective Cirelli asked.

“No. We’re divorced.”

“Could the father be responsible for taking the boy? What I mean is, were there any custody problems recently?”

The front doorbell rang again. This time it was Stef. He came inside and Sarah hugged him fiercely. Stefanovitch didn’t need to hear about what had happened. He knew already. He understood completely… The street law.

After the detective and patrolman from the Nineteenth Precinct left, Stefanovitch and Sarah held one another in the living room.

Finally, he swallowed hard and said, “Everything that we can do right now is being done. That’s the truth, Sarah.”

“Stef, what if we turned it all off?” She spoke the words softly, very tentatively. He sensed that she already knew the answer.

“We could try, but I don’t think it would make any difference to St.-Germain and his people. We broke the street law. We have to think of some other way to get Sam back. And we will, Sarah. We’ll find Sam. We’ll do whatever we have to do.”

87

Alexandre St.-Germain; The Hunts Point Market

AT THE INTERSECTION
of Randall Avenue and Halleck Street, in the Bronx, the road dead-ends at a vast two-story shed that is the New York City Terminal Market at Hunts Point.

The buildings themselves are in the shape of a fork, with four separate tines; each has approximately sixty stores. Inside are truck docks, loading platforms, display areas, and private offices for the owners. Produce and meat trucks enter the building complex at a toll plaza in the late evening, usually between eleven and one
A.M.
The peak of activity is between three and five
A.M.
, with buyers driving through the market, parking and shopping at their preferred stores. As a rudimentary security system, I.D. is required by the city’s Department of Ports and Terminals, but the I.D. is available to anyone.

On July 24, Alexandre St.-Germain’s dark blue Mercedes limousine silently moved down the tightly packed corridor of storefronts and loading docks that marked the beginning of the market. Inside the car, the Grave Dancer was as emotional as he allowed himself to become.

It was three fifty-five in the morning. The stores had already been open for hours.

The glistening limousine didn’t seem out of place among the dilapidated storefronts and tractor trailers. Several wealthy store owners, and obsessive Manhattan restaurateurs, came to the marketplace in their expensive cars.

Alexandre St.-Germain saw the dark brown sedan before his limousine reached the meeting place. He knew that it contained part of the hit team from Atlantic City, the European mercenaries.

As the limousine approached, the sedan’s front and back doors swung open.

A few seconds later, the first of three men climbed inside the limousine. The men wore open-necked shirts but also sports jackets, and in one case, in spite of the summer heat, a light brown leather car coat.

“Hello,
signore. Piacere di verderla.
How are you this fine morning in New York?”

The first man spoke to Alexandre St.-Germain in confident but also respectful tones. The man was Sicilian. He had a strong jutting jaw that seemed to restrict his ability to smile. His skin had a greenish brown hue. His name was Salvatore Crisci, but he was known throughout Europe as
Cacciatore,
the Hunter.

Cacciatore was a killer whom Alexandre St.-Germain had used several times in Europe. He had never been inside the United States before the affair in Atlantic City. Cacciatore had no use for Americans, though he had nothing against American money.

The second man who entered the limousine was a German; his name was Franz Engelhardt. He had planned and executed more than twenty assassination-bombings throughout Europe. Years before, his preferred killing tool had been a handmade stiletto, with a nine-inch blade. In Rome he had gotten the nickname
Arrotino
, the Knife Grinder. It was Engelhardt who had abducted Sam McGinniss on Park Avenue.

The third member of the group was Jimmy Burke, the New York police detective who had met St.-Germain in Vietnam.

The two Europeans and Burke were powerful-looking men. Although their faces were hardened, it was obvious that they feared Alexandre St.-Germain. They avoided unnecessary contact with the unforgiving eyes. They were here to report, but also to listen.

“We’ve followed Stefanovitch and Parker for the past few days,” Cacciatore said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. He appeared to be a homosexual, with a flair for the extravagant. His hair was orange-red, piled in a high pompadour. His pants were extremely tight, and he wore makeup. The conscious effort toward extremes helped to create this false impression. The impersonation served as a useful distraction in the underworld.

Cacciatore used both hands when he spoke. “I bought a pack of cigarettes. I was standing right next to Stefanovitch in a small store on Eighty-fourth Street. I could have taken him then. You told us to wait. Parker is staying with a girlfriend. A model on the East Side.”

Alexandre St.-Germain looked away, into the bustling, early morning marketplace. His anger was more in control. Actually, he felt comfortable in the workingman’s environment. The smell of fruits and cheeses reminded him of his youth, of early mornings on the streets of Marseilles.

He considered the fate of Stefanovitch. Others in the Club wanted him to ignore the policeman. To be patient… But he couldn’t wait and be patient any longer. Stefanovitch had to be dealt with. The policeman was determined, and he was resourceful. One day he might get lucky.

“Do it now. I don’t care what the rest of the Midnight Club says about this. I don’t care about their Harvard Club rules.
Do it now!
”