The Equalizer (72 page)

“I thought I'd be fighting my way through a phalanx of cops,” Granny said. “You walk into the ER just after midnight with your face all cut up and how many gunshot wounds?”

“Three,” McCall said. “The one on my left arm was really a deep graze, cut a groove along the bicipital aponeurosis. The one in the right shoulder went through. Not much damage. They dug the bullet out of my right leg. I got out of the OR about an hour ago. They wanted to move me upstairs to a room, but I checked myself out. I left my jacket down here and I wanted to thank Dr. Benneit's son.”

“So the ER doc who treated you is so used to seeing victims of multiple gunshot wounds in this area, he didn't feel the need to call the police?”

“He's the son of an acquaintance of mine. Also a doctor. Treats patients in the subterranean tunnels below the city. He'd already alerted his son I might be coming in for treatment. If I was still alive.”

Granny shook his head. “You can always surprise me, McCall. I hear the body count in City Hall station was eleven. Same ones we faced at Grand Central?”

“Some of them.”

“The cops think it was a rival Chechen gang or maybe even the Russian Mafia who took them out. I understand one of the dead bad guys lying on the tracks was Alexei Berezovsky. Control will probably take the credit for that. He'll say he turned you around and you came back in from the cold and took Berezovsky out for The Company.”

“He can say whatever he wants.”

McCall picked up his jacket and shrugged it on. Granny knew better than to offer to help.

“
Did
he bring you in for one last mission?” Granny asked.

“No.”

“That's good. I like thinking of you roaming the city looking for windmills to tilt at. Where are you going now?”

“Home.”

“Any more Chechens waiting for you there?”

“They don't know where I live.”

“But you can't be sure of that.”

“No, I can't.”

“I'll drive you.”

Granny put an arm around McCall's shoulders and they walked together through the somnambulant ER.

“I heard a murmur about hostages in the City Hall station,” Granny said. “One of them was your son.”

“All safe.”

“Maybe your ex-wife will forgive you now for past sins.”

“I doubt it,” McCall said.

Granny had a 1966 black Ford Mustang convertible at the curb. It was in mint condition. It had a police sign on the windshield as it was illegally parked beside a fire hydrant. McCall slid gingerly into the passenger seat. Granny jumped behind the wheel, tossed the
POLICE ACTIVITY
sign into the back, and pulled away.

He drove straight to Crosby Street. McCall didn't ask how he knew his address. They went up to the third floor together.

“Wait here,” Granny said.

McCall didn't argue and handed him the apartment key.

Granny went in and came back out again within twenty seconds.

“Clear.”

He put an arm around McCall's shoulders to support him into the apartment. The living room was exactly as McCall had left it. He glanced through the archway into the kitchen. Everything was in its place, what there was of it. Granny helped him into the bedroom. McCall sat down on the bed. Granny looked around the austere room, no pictures on the walls, no books on the bedside tables, no ornaments of any kind.

“Cosy.”

He walked over to the dresser where the two photos still sat against the wall of Serena Johanssen and Elena Petrov. He nodded and smiled a little sadly and glanced at his watch.

“I gotta go.”

“Thanks for coming to get me, Granny.”

“Not a problem. You need me, McCall, you know where to find me.”

Granny moved to the doorway to the living room.

“The girl you sent to keep an eye on me in Prague?” McCall said. “Did you know her name, Andel, means ‘angel' in Czech?”

Granny turned back. He took off his square-cut glasses and polished them on a handkerchief. His bright blue eyes regarded McCall frankly.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Granny put the glasses back on and left.

McCall thought he was telling the truth.

He hoped so.

*   *   *

McCall slept for two hours, then Jimmy picked him up. He dropped him outside the Chase Bank on Madison Avenue, popped the trunk, and handed him the Adidas sports bag. McCall walked into the bank. Bill Littman personally showed him down to the vault room, then left him alone. McCall transferred the M16, the tear gas gun, and more tear gas cartridges from the Adidas bag back into the safe-deposit box. He put the $250,000 back into their envelopes and rang the bell. Littman came back down and they both used keys to return the safe-deposit box to its slot.

Littman smiled at McCall with secret knowledge.

When McCall walked out of the bank Jimmy was still waiting for him, double-parked with the engine running.

“Want a lift somewhere?”

“No, I'm going to take a stroll through the park.”

“How's the right leg?”

“I can walk on it.”

“Sarah says come to dinner one night. You're alone here in New York. She makes an awesome lasagne.”

“I'll have to pass, but thank her.”

“You can't isolate yourself forever, McCall. You reached out to me. To Mickey. You have friends, whether you like it or not.”

Jimmy got into the Lexus and drove away.

McCall walked up Seventy-seventh Street, over Fifth Avenue and up to Central Park. His right leg hurt, but not too badly. He walked across the park to Strawberry Fields just beyond the Seventy-second Street entrance. He sat on a bench to wait for her near the Imagine Mosaic built in honor of John Lennon, adorned with flowers donated from a hundred and twenty countries. He could see the imposing Dakota building from where he sat.

Katia entered the park and spotted him immediately. She was wearing a dark blue trench coat over jeans and a black pullover. As she got closer McCall could see her left eye had opened and the swelling around it had gone down a little. She'd put on makeup to cover the bruises on her face. Her lip was still split, but not bleeding.

She sat down on the bench beside McCall and looked over at the John Lennon Memorial.

“I didn't know there was a tribute to him here.”

“I guess this was his favorite area in the park, he and his wife.”

There was silence between them for long moments.

“I keep expecting the police to come knocking on my door,” she said.

“They won't. They don't know what happened at City Hall station except there was a firefight and eleven men were killed. They don't know about the hostages and they're not going to find out. My ex-wife works for the district attorney's office, but I guarantee you she won't be having a heart-to-heart talk with her boss. Berezovsky made it personal. She'll keep it that way. The police will investigate, but they'll hit a dead end.”

“Your friend Jimmy asked me to give this back to you.”

She opened her purse and started to take out the Sig Sauer P238 with the Rosewood motif. McCall stopped her.

“You keep it. Home protection. I'll get you a permit. Where'd you learn how to shoot?”

“My father taught me at our farm in Shali. I was six years old. He said you cannot pick up a gun unless you know how to aim and hit what you're firing at. Of course, then it was pieces of wood balanced on the top of our fence in the backyard.”

“He was right,” McCall said, his mind momentarily going somewhere else. “Rossovkaya is your family name?”

“Yes.”

Katia closed her purse over the Sig Sauer pistol. She had still not looked at him. But now she reached out a hand and he took it tightly.

“I shot the father of my only child in the back,” she said softly.

“I wouldn't be sitting here if you hadn't.”

“I loved him once. I was very young and impressionable. A country girl. I got pregnant with Natalya right away. He was very caring at first. But I knew. Even then, I could sense the darkness in him. He kept the business side of things away from me. But I watched that darkness overtake him.”

“No,” McCall said. “It was always there. You just realized it more as time went on. When did he start beating you?”

“When Natalya was two. He was careful not to mark me too badly. He wanted to show me off at his art exhibitions and charity functions. He was always sorry for hitting me. Asked me to forgive him. I told him I did, but it wasn't the truth. I grew to hate him the more I feared him.”

McCall had nothing to say to that.

Katia got to her feet.

“May we walk?”

“Of course.”

McCall stood and they walked toward Cherry Hill. He looked off to where the chess tables were located near the baseball diamond. He imagined Granny sitting at one of them, playing chess with strangers, winning game after game with little effort and no satisfaction. Killing time before Control sent him out on another mission. Or someone else did. Seemed like a lonely life.

But Granny had found what worked for him.

Maybe McCall had, too.

Katia took his hand again.

“Your son is fine?”

“I'm not sure. I'm going to find out. He'll deal with what happened in his own way. I don't know what that is. I don't know him well enough.”

“Will you see him again?”

“He doesn't want to see me.”

“But you came to rescue him.”

“A little late.”

“And your ex-wife? How does she feel about you?”

“She wants me to stay as far away from her and my son as possible. Your husband said men like us can't have families. That it's too dangerous. He was right.”

Katia stopped and finally smiled at him.

“You seem to have adopted a new family. Natalya adores you. And not just because you saved
her
life. Twice.”

“She's a very special girl.”

“She's talking a little more now. Not just to me. To other people.”

“That's good.”

“You did that for her. You changed our lives.”

McCall said nothing.

Katia let go of his hand and moved closer to him, not quite into his arms.

“You really want nothing from me?” she asked him.

“I want you to be safe and happy.”

“Could that be with you?”

“Probably not.”

She nodded and kissed him gently on the lips.

“Don't be a stranger,” she said.

“If you need me, you have my number to call.”

Katia turned and walked back toward the Seventy-second Street entrance to the park. McCall watched her go. Automatically he looked on either side of her. No enforcers from Dolls. No enemies that he could see.

Maybe she was going to be all right now.

He watched her until she disappeared out onto Seventy-second Street.

*   *   *

But he wasn't the only person watching.

 

CHAPTER 50

McCall waited in the outdoor pavilion of the glass monoliths. Office workers were streaming outside to take their lunch hour, some of them making a beeline right to the Earl of Sandwich shop on the corner. McCall was looking at the glass doors to the 221 building. Karen Armstrong came through them, carrying her faux Louis Vuitton handbag with the intricately embroidered sequins on it filled with everything a young woman needs to travel a hundred yards.

Including a Smith & Wesson SP9 VE handgun with a 10
+
1 capacity.

When she saw McCall her face lit up. She jogged over to him.

“Hey, Bobby! Where have you been? I haven't seen you at Bentleys in days!”

“I had to go out of town.”

He fell into step beside her.

“I need to talk to you before you grab your lunch.”

The white tables were already getting full, so she veered off to one of the ledges of flowers and sat down on it. McCall stood. She put her Louis Vuitton bag beside her.

“What's up?”

“Are you still carrying that old Smith and Wesson pistol?”

She was startled. “How did you know about that?”

“I saw it in your bag at Bentleys.”

“You bet I'm still carrying it. If that creep Carlson comes near me again, I'm going to blow his head off.”

“He won't be stalking you anymore. He went to Washington, D.C., and raped two young women in a remote parkland spot. Students from AU. He had the city terrorized before his next victim stabbed him to death.”

Karen was shaken by the news, but put on a brave front.

“Wow. Good for her! Self-defense.”

“Kind of,” McCall said; she was unaware of the irony. “But there are more Jeff Carlsons out there. If you pull a gun on an assailant and don't know how to use it, he'll take it away from you and kill you.”

“I know what I'm doing!” she said defensively.

“No, you don't. But I can take you to a firing range and teach you how to shoot.”

“And what's in it for you?”

He could see she regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. “I know you're not just coming on to me. You could have done that a hundred times in Bentleys.” She jumped down off the low ledge. “I can take care of myself, Bobby.”

She picked up her Louis Vuitton bag and started to move past him.

McCall said, “When you have that gun in your bedroom, don't leave it lying out on the bedside table. Where a stalker can pick it up, take out the clip, shake out the bullets, put it back in, and you're none the wiser.”

She stopped dead in her tracks. Slowly she turned to face him.

“You were in my apartment?”

“
He
was. You were in the shower. He emptied your gun. If you haven't checked the clip since then, which you probably haven't, you'll find it's empty. He could have used it on you, but he liked his own MO. He was carrying a Japanese kitchen knife. He stood in your bathroom doorway and watched you. You were defenseless.”