Nice Place for a Murder (24 page)

We sat there struggling for breath, watching the old Dodge race down the expressway, getting farther ahead of us every second. “Wasn’t a bad plan, really,” Wally said. “Could have used some fine tuning, was all.”  He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the burnt rubber.

I could feel the angina tightening me up, and I rubbed my chest to make it go away. Didn’t work. Never did. “Sosenko is not an easy man to catch,” I said.

“I noticed that,” said Wally.

“You still up for this?”  I asked him.

“You couldn’t possibly stop me, compadre,” he said, gunning the engine and pulling back onto the expressway. There were metallic clattering noises coming from the rear of the truck. “Doesn’t sound too good for my truck back there, does it?”

“I’ll pay for the damage,” I told him.

“Yes you will.” Wally floored the accelerator. We were into it again, except now Sosenko was a half mile in front of us, weaving his way ahead. “I see him. He’s up there,” Wally said, moving his head from side to side, trying somehow to get a better look down the road. “I’ll catch him.”

“That would be good,” I said.

It was darker now. The clouds had moved directly overhead, casting a grim shadow over the road and draining the fall colors from the landscape around us. Then the rain came, suddenly, and with an immediate downpour, a torrent that soaked everything as though a gigantic bucket of water had been heaved at us. Wally turned the windshield wipers on high, but even that wasn’t enough to provide a clear view of the highway as the rain beat down. All around us, cars were forced to lower their speed, and we had no choice but to do the same.

In frustration, Wally hammered the steering wheel with his fists. “How we going to catch him now?”

“He’s had to slow down, too,” I said. “Do what you can. It’s a long way to the city.”

“Some kind of chase this is,” Wally said. “Everybody walking.”

I took my cell phone from my jacket. “I have to give Brody a heads-up,” I said.

“One of the suits at Julian?” Wally said. “Why? You think he’s the one Sosenko’s looking to whack?”

“Whack? Did you actually say whack?”

“Yes, whack.” He glanced over at me. “What? They say it in the movies all the time.” Then, “You making fun of me?”

“I wouldn’t,” I said. “It’s such a cheap shot. But yeah, I think Sosenko may be looking to whack Brody.” I called Julian Communications on the cell phone, but when I got Brody’s office, they told me he was in a meeting. I said to tell him I was on my way, and not to leave his office. “Got to get Sosenko before he gets to Brody,” I told Wally as I tucked the cell phone back into my jacket.

“Why is Sosenko after this Brody?” Wally asked. He was straining forward over the wheel, trying to get a better look at the road through the downpour.

“It’s a murder for hire. Sosenko flashing all that money around.”

“So who’s hired him?”

“Best guess?” I said. “I think Ingo Julian. I think Sosenko was on Shelter Island last night, and Ingo met him somewhere. I mean, look how it all sorted out. We know Sosenko was in the area, prowling around out there. Empire Security has two muscle-guys stationed on Shelter just to protect Lisa Harper and Ingo from Sosenko. So what does Ingo do? He slips away from the security guys and disappears for awhile. Alright, I know he’s supposed to be fearless, but he’s not stupid. I think he knows he doesn’t have anything to fear from Sosenko. Sosenko is his man now, bought and paid for.”

“I don’t get it,” Wally said. “Wasn’t Sosenko after Ingo Julian when he shot up the Shelter Island Ferry? And didn’t he drown that other guy, that Newalis, by mistake? Thought the guy was Julian out there in the water? Isn’t that what you told me?”

“And I was right, too, I think. My take on it is Sosenko had been hired to kill Ingo, and screwed it up, not once but twice. Ingo got tired of being the target, and bought off Sosenko, paid him to turn against the guy who’d hired him in the first place.” I gave Wally my most charming smile. “To whack him.”

“Wait a minute,” Wally said. “How does Ingo buy off a guy who’s trying to kill him? How does he contact Sosenko, put an ad in the paper?”

“Don’t know yet,” I said.

“Here’s another one for you,” Wally said. “Why did Brody want to see Julian muerto, anyway?”

“I’m still working on that, too,” I said. “But I think it goes back a long way, back to the plane crash. Something happened between Ingo and Brody right after the accident. It drew them together. They were inseparable for years. Then they had a falling out. Nobody seems to know why. Or they’re not saying, anyway.”

“Why do you think?”

“Not sure,” I said. “But is it a coincidence it happened just when the company is about to go public? Could be six hundred million dollars in play here.”

“It’s a money thing, is what you’re saying?”

“Isn’t it always?”

The traffic was thicker as we grew closer to New York. The rain continued, and the clouds grew even blacker. It was as if nighttime was approaching, even though it wasn’t yet noon. It was impossible to move ahead of the other cars. Just stay in line and try to break away somewhere ahead. I took the smallest measure of comfort in the possibility that Sosenko was up there having the same problems we were. I could only hope if we weren’t gaining on him, at least we weren’t slipping farther behind, either. Couldn’t bear letting him trounce me yet again.

“I think I see him,” Wally said. “Isn’t that him? Look behind the white truck.”

“Where?”

“There. There,” he said, pointing ahead with a sweep of his hand that could indicate any of a dozen vehicles. “It is.”

I looked, but to me it was all a dark gray, liquid blur, appearing briefly behind the wiper blades, only to be washed away again by the rain. “I can’t see,” I said. “How can you be sure?”

“Because I’m young and strong and have the sharp eyes of a hawk,” Wally said. “It’s him. How many rotting trucks like that you think there are on this highway?”

“Stay with him,” I said. “Can you get closer? We’ll be into the tunnel in a minute.”

Wally tried to inch up, pushing across aggressively into other lanes, as we approached the entrance to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. His perseverance didn’t go down well with other drivers. Most refused to give way, and at least two flipped him the ultimate reflection of disrespect: the middle finger salute New Yorkers love so dearly. But Wally wouldn’t be denied. Doggedly, he insinuated us into one lane, then another, moving up one car length at a time. Now I saw Sosenko’s truck, perhaps  eight cars ahead, one lane to our right. And through the rain I could barely make out the openings of the tunnel less than a half mile away.

The red tail lights of the cars in front of us began to flash as drivers applied their brakes. The traffic was coming to a halt.

Wally was forced to stop. I could see Sosenko stopped, too, only a hundred feet ahead. “Shit, that’s him right up there,” Wally said. “Maybe we go grab him up while he’s stuck in traffic.”

“Let’s do it,” I said. Holding the gun low, I opened my door and stepped out into the downpour. Wally got out the other side, leaving the motor on. We ran through the water toward the rusty truck, but before we’d covered half the distance, the traffic started up toward the tunnel entrance, and Sosenko was on the move again.

We had no choice but to turn and hurry back to Wally’s truck. We were both soaked, and horns behind us were blaring, as we climbed back in and took off into the tunnel. “Don’t the good guys ever get a break?” Wally said, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

The short delay had cost us more distance between us and Sosenko. He was up there ahead somewhere in this long tunnel under the East River, but we’d lost sight of him. And when we finally emerged onto Thirty-Fifth Street in Manhattan, Hick Sosenko and his decaying truck were nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER XXVII

The rain had ended while we were making our way through the tunnel, and now the air was washed clean for the moment, even at this tunnel exit customarily fouled with a haze of exhaust. I opened my window, hoping some fresh air might somehow steady my heartbeat and dilate my arteries. It was yet another angina therapy that never worked, but at least gave me the sense that I wasn’t just sitting there waiting while my heart decided whether to carry on or sputter to a halt.

“What now, muchacho?” Wally said as he drove onto Thirty-Fifth Street. “Any idea where he went?”

“Happens I do.” Long pause, breathing deeply, willing my blood pressure to drop, trying to stabilize, refusing to clutch at my chest even though I wanted to. “Turn right on Third Avenue. He’s gone uptown.”

“Good,” Wally said. “Then he’s somewhere between Thirty-Fifth and the Canadian border.”

“Just to Forty-Ninth, at Park,” I said. “Brody told me once that Sosenko had stalked him. I don’t think that ever happened. But Sosenko knows his way to Julian Communications.  I saw him there. Chased him around the building, down Park, all over.”

“Chased? You? Wish I’d seen it,” Wally said. He turned onto Third Avenue and headed north. “So what are you telling me, it was Brody hired Sosenko in the beginning? To whack Ingo Julian?”

“Makes sense to me.” Forcing a grin I hoped was enigmatic, plus a chuckle for emphasis.

“What’s funny?” he said.

“It amuses me when you say whack.”

“Sosenko’s on his way to the Julian company, you think? Would he try to assassinate Brody in the guy’s office, just like that? He knows we’re right behind him.”

“Sosenko did a one-man assault on a ferry, for chrissakes, murdered Hector Alzarez while a whole boat-load of people watched him. Beyond ballsy, right? Don’t forget, after he’d drowned Newalis at Ingo’s place, he actually turned his boat around and came back to watch. Couldn’t stay away, quirky bastard.”

“Tough guy, right?” Wally said. “Do something just to prove he can get away with it.”

“I’m just saying, the basic rules don’t apply to Hick Sosenko. Taking chances doesn’t bother him. He was born without a risk gene.”

“But Empire’s got an armed guard there, no? At the Julian offices?”

“That’s no guarantee,” I said. “Remember the ferry. We were both there, and I had a gun. Hector still got popped right in front of us. Somebody really wants you dead, it’s hard to keep you alive.”

“I’ll write that down,” Wally said. “For when I take my exam.”

“Turn here. Park in one of the garages down the block. And look for his truck. He has to put it someplace. Maybe we’ll get lucky. My little voice of intuition is speaking to me again.”

He took a left and we moved slowly down Forty-Ninth, looking into the parking garages. We saw no rusty truck. Wally sighed. “Sometimes your little voice is full of mierda.”

“Happens sometime,” I told him. “Pull in and park. Let’s get to Brody’s office.”

When we stepped off the elevator onto the thirty-sixth floor, there was a reassuring sense that everything was as it should be. The sounds of carefully modulated voices, and telephones chosen for their non-threatening ring, were hushed by an acre of deep carpeting that soaked up noises before they might offend. The air smelled subtly of freshly laundered clothing and expensive cologne. The young woman behind the marble reception desk was so downright gorgeous and immaculately groomed, you felt blessed if she so much as smiled at you. It was an environment designed to project flawless taste, civilized people, and a considerable investment of money.

It wasn’t wasted on Wally. “Look at this fucking place,” he said, just loud enough to make me wish for an instant that I’d come alone. “I’m going to re-do my office at the marina just like this. What do you think if would take for that blonde to come to work for me?”

“A miracle,” I said.

The Empire plainclothes guy was there, a bald, stocky man in his fifties who looked as though he’d handled his share of hostile people. He stood quietly where he could see the bank of elevators and the door to the stairwell. There were no other ways to get onto the thirty-sixth floor. Or off.  I told him who we were and what we were doing there. He nodded, but his look told me he knew already. Then we went to see Arthur Brody in that vast, spare office of his.

Brody stood when we entered, walking around his desk to us. “May I have the pleasure of meeting your friend?” he said, his voice polite but wary. He looked at me but held his hand out to Wally.

“I’m assisting Ben on this case,” Wally said before I could stop him. He shook Brody’s hand. “My name is Prager. Wally.”

“Prager Wally?” said Brody.

“Wally Prager, actually,” I put in before Wally could confuse the issue any further. “He’s a close friend who’s helping. In an unofficial way. The situation is getting sticky, and I thought backup would be wise.”

“If you say so.” Brody’s suit today was banker’s gray, with the merest suggestion of pinstriping. White spread-collar shirt with discrete gold links adorning the French cuffs. Solid blue tie. And the inevitable plain-toed black shoes buffed to an impossible shine. Perfect.

“Sosenko is in New York,” I said. “We chased him on the Long Island Expressway.”