Midnight Club (25 page)

88

John Stefanovitch and Sarah McGinniss;
East Sixty-sixth Street

SARAH AND STEFANOVITCH
had been awake during the longest and worst night of Sarah’s life. She had never been more aware of the sounds in her apartment. Sarah glanced at her wristwatch and saw it was twenty past four. She would have guessed five or five-thirty. The passage of time was leaden.

A detective from the local precinct was stationed in the apartment for the night. He waited by the upstairs telephone.

The last call had been before midnight. It had been Roger, finally reaching her from California. She’d tried a dozen times to get through to him. His call was highly emotional and concerned, but it was also filled with recriminations regarding Sarah’s move to New York, where “things like this happen.”

At seven-thirty in the morning, Annie Leigh, the housekeeper, arrived. Annie was a generally helpful and loving woman from St. Martin. She had been with Sarah and Sam since they’d moved to New York, almost two years ago. Annie Leigh loved Sam as if he were her own little boy. She needed to be comforted and consoled by Sarah, and Sarah almost broke down under the additional burden.

Later in the morning, Stefanovitch tried to eat something. He sat at the kitchen table, listlessly picking at bakery rolls and sipping black coffee. The telephone still hadn’t rung. The kitchen, the whole apartment, felt unnaturally quiet, almost as if he had never been there before.

“It’s so unreal, Stef. So bad. I can’t believe this has happened. Why wasn’t I more careful? I should have known this could happen.” Sarah couldn’t eat.

“Stop. You couldn’t have known.” Stefanovitch reached across the table and held her hand. He wanted to help her, but there didn’t seem to be any way. Everything possible was being done. He had already seen to that.

“Soon we’ll hear from the police about the canvassing they did in the neighborhood yesterday. There might be something to help us. Somewhere to start us at least.”

Stefanovitch had requested that the precinct canvass reports be delivered to Sarah’s apartment as soon as they were tabbed. At ten o’clock, the copies finally arrived via Detective Cirelli. Included was a crime-scene sketch drawn from what Sarah remembered, plus the few details other witnesses had supplied. Detective Cirelli was his usual obliging self.

There was also a sketch of the perpetrator, as he had been described: a white male, in his middle to late thirties. Clean-cut, in a beige summer business suit.

He looked like any of a thousand businessmen who walked down Park Avenue every morning. Sarah had thought that he could be German, so they were working with Immigration to check recent visitors from that country.

To pass time, Sarah and Stefanovitch read all the verbatims from pedestrians who’d been on either Park Avenue or Sixty-sixth Street at the time of the abduction. Several had noticed the man carrying “his little boy,” and “playing with him,” “taking him over to their car.”

Not one of the witnesses had understood that he or she was actually watching a kidnapping. At the end of every statement were the capitalized letters NR, meaning “negative results.”

That was all they’d gotten for the past twenty days.
Negative results
on the initial investigation of the shooting at Allure;
negative results
on the massacre at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City. Now this. Alexandre St.-Germain always seemed to have the upper hand. Somehow, he was always in control.

Throughout the rest of the morning and early afternoon, the horror grew for Sarah…

At noon, Sam would have come home from school…By twelve-fifteen, he and Sarah would be eating lunch she prepared when she broke from her writing, but today there was no Sam. The silence, the emptiness in the apartment were palpable and unbearable.

Sarah finally wandered back to Sam’s bedroom. Stefanovitch went with her. She understood it was the worst thing to do. She began to sob once again, folding her arms over her eyes. She’d never been so completely out of control, or felt so empty.

Goose bumps swelled over her arms and legs. Sam’s belongings, his ball glove, a taped hockey stick, his neatly folded clothes, were all around the cheery room. A favorite childhood book,
Harold and the Purple Crayon,
was propped on the windowsill. His things seemed to be accusing her. She had never thought of herself as the hysterical type, but she’d never lost her son before either.

“We’ll get Sam back,” Stefanovitch whispered. But he wasn’t sure anymore.

He was finally beginning to completely understand Alexandre St.-Germain. He understood that as intelligent as he’d thought St.-Germain was, he had seriously underestimated him. St.-Germain was thorough. He would do anything to win—commit any crime, order any murder, any unthinkable act. That was the pattern, in fact: unthinkable acts. Obscenity on obscenity. The Grave Dancer was a psychopathic killer. He had no concept of right or wrong; no conscience; no morals; and there was no legal way to stop him.

Alexandre St.-Germain had beaten them again and again. The Grave Dancer had won everything that was worth winning.

Men like him completely controlled the world now.

The crumb-bums.

89

Isiah Parker; East Seventy-fourth Street

ISIAH PARKER HAD
the sense that he’d been followed for the past few days. He hadn’t actually seen any of the trackers, but he’d felt their presence several times.

Late that night, he wandered around his old neighborhood in Harlem. Starting at 119th Street, he headed west across Morningside Park, which was alive with crack and other secretive drug deals. Teenage dealers were now using electronic pagers to signal one another. A dozen crack houses lined a single block.

He continued down Broadway toward Ninety-sixth, into the so-called gentrified neighborhoods, what the young whites were beginning to call Sohar, which stood for “southern Harlem.”

Occasionally, people waved to Parker as he passed. He was known to be a cop, but he and his brother, Marcus, had been part of the neighborhood for so long, even that didn’t matter.

Isiah Parker smiled at some of the familiar neighborhood faces. For others, he was cool and expressionless. He knew how to play the hometown crowds. He and Marcus had always known how to play the Harlem street audience.

He had a flat, cold feeling inside, brought on by the realization that he couldn’t hide like this for much longer. A numbness edged into his body. He would have welcomed the rage that had driven him for the last several months but the knifing anger wouldn’t come. He had to get it back—one more time at least.

All the best plans—the constant surveillance cars, the other forms of harassment—were just more police games to Alexandre St.-Germain. St.-Germain had seen the eye of combat before. He had survived gang wars in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, and Macao. He was always protected; a step, several steps ahead of everyone else, including the police.

Isiah Parker ducked inside a neighborhood coffee shop on 106th Street, across a wide stretch of Broadway from the Olympia Theatre. He sat at the counter with a brimming cup of bitter black coffee, and a stale sugar doughnut. He watched the street, but saw nothing to alarm him.

The coffee shops are all going to the Orientals lately, he thought. New York considered the Chinese and Koreans “good little workers,” but they made shit coffee. There wasn’t much left for black people.

Neither of the two young Korean counter boys said boo to him. They probably looked down on black people, too. Parker left them a tip anyway, and he went back out on the street.

Something was bound to happen soon. Something was definitely going down. It had begun with the kidnapping of Sarah McGinniss’s son. Also, the late-night phone call to Stefanovitch. Thinking about the incidents, he had an image of somebody walking up and shooting him in the back. It almost seemed inevitable now.

He didn’t want to take any chances that someone might be following. He played subway games from 103rd Street down to West Seventy-second and Broadway.

He was the last one on a crowded, buzzing subway car. Then he would suddenly jump off at a stop. He’d get back on just before the electric doors closed.

He was finally pretty sure he wasn’t being followed. At the corner of Seventy-second Street and Broadway, he took a Checker cab crosstown, to the East Side.

He made the cab stop inside Central Park. He got out and walked the rest of the way.

Nobody was following. Or they were so brilliant, so good at this, that it didn’t much matter.

At eleven-thirty, he rang a tarnished gold doorbell inside the dreary, semidarkened foyer of an East Side brownstone. Parker rang the bell a second time. There was no working intercom in the grim foyer, just the rusted shell of one.

By midnight, Parker was in bed with a model named Tanya Richardson.

Tanya was a girl he’d been seeing on and off for the past few months. He felt safe in the East Side apartment. Almost no one knew about him and Tanya. The few who did, Parker knew he could trust…

90

AT ONE-THIRTY
in the morning, Parker lay awake in bed thinking about everything that still had to be done to get at St.-Germain. He was feeling paranoid and jumpy in spite of the late hour. Finally, he decided to take a walk. One last check around. Then maybe he could sleep.

As quietly as he could, he rose from the bed. It was a Byzantine, frilly affair with pipes and sideboards painted white and gold. Springs creaked, but Tanya didn’t stir. He kissed her long neck, her flowing brown hair. Then he left.

Outside the apartment, harsh streetlights were glinting off all kinds of surfaces, shining up brightly into his eyes. The glare temporarily blinded him.

He started to walk down Second Avenue, the old favorite singles scene, the great White Way, still crowded this late at night.

Parker rounded the corner onto Seventy-fourth Street. He continued only a few steps.

Crouching slightly, he stared through the windows of cars parked up and down the side street. His eyes were still adjusting to the lights.

Finally, he saw what he had been looking for, but hoping not to find. Noisy alarms sounded through his body.

Two men were sitting in Goodfellow’s, a popular restaurant and bar on Second Avenue. Parker watched them for at least sixty seconds, just to make sure.

He was sure. He’d noticed the one with red hair earlier that day. They were following him.

They hadn’t seen him approach on Second Avenue. They were too busy watching the brownstone where he and his girlfriend were supposed to be sleeping. They were clearly watching the brownstone. The Grave Dancer had his trackers, too.

Isiah Parker crossed Seventy-fourth Street. He walked among a few couples, out for a night of grazing in the neighborhood bars and restaurants. Except he was moving faster than the others.

He ducked inside Goodfellow’s, his gold detective’s shield out and ready.

He said, “I’m a police officer. You stay right here, all right? Don’t let anybody else in.
Capisce?
” He spoke quietly but firmly to the blond Irish bouncer-maître d’ stationed at the front door.

“Yeah, yeah. All right, man. Sure.”

He could make out the heads and shoulders of the two hit men. They were positioned at the rear of the tinted Plexiglas bubble attached to one side of the bar, nearest to Tanya’s apartment. The trackers.

Both men wore dark, European-style sports jackets. Parker was sure they carried concealed weapons underneath.

The heavyset bouncer at the door hadn’t moved. He was obviously smarter than he looked. Patrons of the East Side restaurant were crouched over their greasy burgers, their shell steaks, and wilting house salads. An air conditioner dribbled water onto the red tile floor.

As he peered around a white stucco pillar, Parker bent down suddenly. He took a .22 revolver out of a holster strapped tightly to his right leg.

Right then, the killer called the Hunter saw him.

The gunman’s right hand disappeared into his jacket. He was fast and smooth for such a large man. The very affected orange-red pompadour made most policemen underestimate his fighting skills.

The other hit man seemed to work in slow motion by comparison. He was moving, though, going for the kill out of synch with his partner.

Isiah Parker fired at Cacciatore first.

Cacciatore was hit and he crashed back through the restaurant window. His expensive black boots were suddenly up on the dining table. His body hung out through shattered glass onto Seventy-fourth Street. He was like a diver frozen in midair.

Parker’s gun flashed again.

The second assassin suddenly dropped his weapon, which clattered loudly. Then he fell awkwardly to the tile floor.

Parker had been grazed by the gunman’s first shot. His left cheek was burning. Customers in the restaurant were screaming, trying to get out onto Second Avenue, away from the sudden explosions of gunfire.

“I’m a police officer,” Parker said to anyone within hearing distance. “It’s all over! Everything’s all right. Everything’s all right now.”

It wasn’t all right, though, Isiah Parker knew.

Alexandre St.-Germain was coming after them. For some reason, he had waited—but now he was coming hard.

91

John Stefanovitch and Sarah McGinniss;
East Sixty-sixth Street

“GOOD EVENING, MRS.
McGinniss. Evening to you, sir.”

“Hello, Mr. Sullivan,” Sarah said to the doorman posted inside the foyer of her building. Mr. Sullivan had once told Sarah he’d worked at the building for more than fifty-five years. He considered the tenants to be his immediate family, though some were more family than others.

“Excuse me for asking, but is there word? Might there be anything about Sam that you can tell us?”

The obvious concern in the elderly doorman’s voice brought back so many painful images for Sarah. How many times had she and Sam stopped to talk with Mr. Sullivan before heading up to their apartment on evenings just like this?

Partly because Sam’s father didn’t live in the building, and partly because Sam was so outgoing and friendly, the doormen had adopted him as their own. They had adopted Sarah as well. It was a prototypical New York family situation.

“No, there’s nothing yet,” Sarah said. “As soon as there’s anything, I’ll tell you first thing, Mr. Sullivan.”

The ancient doorman revealed the most gloriously white set of teeth, complementing his full head of white hair. “Well, you folks try to have a peaceful evening, under the circumstances. I’ll say a prayer tonight.”

“Nice old man,” Stefanovitch found himself whispering as they continued through the marble front hall toward the elevator bank. He wanted to keep Sarah’s mind off Sam, if he possibly could. She needed sleep, or soon she wouldn’t be any good to anyone. For the first time since he had known her, she looked terrible. All the pain and exhaustion showed on her face.

“My neighborhood up in Yorkville is filled with doormen who work in midtown,” he said. “Families pass these jobs down from generation to generation. Manhattan doorman jobs have been known to appear in wills.”

Sarah finally had to smile. “You love any kind of street gossip, don’t you? You’re a closet sociologist, you know.”

“Park Avenue is a street, too,” Stefanovitch said and winked at her. “I’m getting into this Park Avenue life-style a little. I’d love to hear the real dirt from this street.”

Up on Sarah’s floor, they stopped to kiss in the deserted hallway. Sarah tenderly held his face in both her hands. Maybe she was fooling herself, but some of the sadness seemed to have left his eyes.

There was something about those brown eyes, windows to the real John Stefanovitch…

It struck her, suddenly, how sad it would be if they never got to find out any more about one another. If their story had to end right at its beginning.

That was a possibility, wasn’t it? They had broken the street law. They had gone after Alexandre St.-Germain and the Midnight Club.

Stefanovitch sensed that he was blushing as they held one another in the hallway. He felt vulnerable lately, completely at Sarah’s mercy.

Finally, they pulled apart. Sarah clumsily tried to find the house key, groping inside her purse.

“You’re the writer. Say something clever to break the silence,” Stefanovitch said.

“I can’t find my damn key.”

The two of them laughed as they entered her apartment. The laughter was a relief, because it came so infrequently lately. The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind them.

Locks clicked tightly into place.

The digital clock radio inside Sarah’s bedroom went out at three-seventeen in the morning.

The almost imperceptible electric hum inside the apartment suddenly stopped. The buzz from the refrigerator and the illuminated face of an old “Pepsi Cola Hits the Spot” wall clock in the kitchen disappeared.

Sarah stirred slightly. She rolled toward Stefanovitch, but she didn’t wake up.

The building’s electricity had gone off.

Downstairs in the lobby, the night doormen cursed the building’s prehistoric wiring. Their usual night of card games, paperback book reading, and paid catnaps was going to be ruined.

The fire exit stairway leading to all floors, the roof, and the basement was illuminated in a widening arc from a powerful flash lamp. The fifth-floor hallway eventually appeared in the jouncing lamp’s bright light. Then the imposing dark wood door to Sarah McGinniss’s apartment was revealed in the narrowing cone of light.

Low rumbling voices could be heard in the hallway. Three dark figures stood huddled together behind the search lamp.

More words were spoken softly. A ring holding several skeleton keys was produced. One after the other, the keys were inserted and tested in the Medeco lock.

One of the passkeys began to turn slowly in the lock…