The Equalizer (77 page)

The anchor's voice continued, “John Forrester, the victim's husband, a prominent attorney here in the city, has been arrested for her murder.”

Kostmayer followed his gaze.

“People you know?”

McCall shook his head.

“No.”

Kostmayer finished his second Gladstone cocktail and stood up. He took out some twenties and McCall started to protest. Kostmayer held up a hand to stop him.

“There's a great story about Rodgers and Hammerstein in London in rehearsals for
South Pacific,
or one of their musicals,” he said. “They walked through Berkeley Square on their way to lunch in some swank restaurant in Mayfair. They passed this Rolls-Royce dealer and there were two identical white Rolls-Royces in the window. A couple of hours later, as they strolled back through the square, they went into the showroom for a better took. They decided to buy the two Rolls. Hammerstein reached into his pocket for his checkbook, but Rodgers said, ‘No, no, let me get these. You got lunch.' I'll get the drinks, McCall. You got Kirov and Berezovsky.”

McCall just smiled and acquiesced.

So Kostmayer suspected the truth.

“Let me know how your vacation trip turns out,” McCall said.

“Too bad you can't come along.”

“Granny will have a plan.”

Kostmayer held out his hand. “Well, if you ever need a whacko to stick his fingers in a fan…”

McCall shook Kostmayer's hand.

“I'll call you.”

Kostmayer disappeared down the stairs to the street. McCall looked back at the television screen.

The news anchor had moved on to another story, about local corruption, Susan Forrester's violent death old news now.

McCall sat alone and finished his Glenfiddich 21.

 

CHAPTER 53

McCall unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped into darkness and waited and listened this time. No sound of intruders. He turned on the Tiffany lamp in the living room. Daudov's body was gone. There was no sign of a struggle except for the dent in the hardwood floor. No blood anywhere. He walked into the kitchen. The knives were back in the cutting board on the counter and in the drawers, as were the big scissors and the carving set.

He walked back into the living room and poured himself a generous measure of the Louis Royer Force 53 VSOP cognac. He noted Daudov's Taurus 740 pistol was no longer on the bookshelf. He sat down on the couch, took a swallow of the cognac, then lifted the Peacemaker Colt out of its redwood box on the coffee table. He turned it over in his hands. The etching along one side of the barrel was reflected in the Tiffany light.

Be not afraid of any man, no matter what his size; when danger threatens, call on me, and I will equalize
.

He dragged over the yellow notepad and thought about what the ad should say. Something simple. People who were frightened, who had nowhere to turn, didn't want to read a disclaimer. If they wanted that, they could call the cops.

Well, Ms. Armstrong, there's nothing we can do. If this young man rapes you, let us know.

Your employer is not compelling you into prostitution, Ms. Rossovkaya. If you choose to go upstairs with a dance partner, it's consensual.

I'm sorry, Mr. Rabinovich, but do you have any proof that these young men are extorting money from you?

I'm sorry, Mrs. Forrester, you can file a domestic complaint, but we have no evidence your husband is dangerous.

McCall wrote on the page of yellow notepaper:

Got a problem?

Odds against you?

Call the Equalizer.

He put his cell phone number after it. He opened up his laptop and got onto the Internet. He put the ad onto Craigslist and into the classified section of the
New York Times
.

Then he put on a CD of the Beatles
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
, listened to Lennon and McCartney sing “With a Little Help from My Friends,” and drank the Louis Royer Force 53 cognac down.

*   *   *

It was early afternoon of the next day when McCall walked into the lobby of the Liberty Belle Hotel. This time it was bustling. McCall had never been there during the day. Maybe the old girl
was
starting to get the overflow from the Plaza again. There were two very attractive young women behind the reception counter, both in gray slacks and blue blazers with silver rectangular badges that said their names below the words
LIBERTY BELLE HOTEL.
One of them, Chloe, McCall remembered from the night of the shootings. Sam Kinney was also behind the counter, handing a printout to a couple who looked like they'd just come off the tennis courts at the U.S. Open. Although, age wise, they'd have been watching McEnroe and Connors. Sam's right eye had a patch over it. Otherwise he didn't look too bad for the ordeal he'd been through. He shuffled over to the cubblyholes, grabbed some mail, and handed it to a gorgeous young woman who passed by the reception counter in a running outfit on her way to the street. The cubbyholes also looked the same. McCall knew some of them had to have been replaced. Also the reception counter had been patched up. Bullet holes made guests a little queasy. He glanced at the Indian carpet as he crossed the lobby. All of the blood had been steam-cleaned out of it. All evidence of the gunfight had been removed. There was a faint smell of fresh paint.

McCall reached the counter as Sam turned back to welcome a new guest, a woman in her fifties, well-groomed and a little impatient.

“Take this for me, will you, Chloe?” Sam asked.

Chloe moved over to take Sam's place. “Sure, Sam. Glad to see you back. You look wonderful.”

She smiled at the woman and looked up her reservation while Sam motioned to McCall to go to the end of the counter.

“They love me,” Sam said. “What do you want, McCall?”

“Must be your sunny personality,” McCall said. “You are looking pretty good for an old spook who got shot up.”

“I got moved to a private hospital. Control took care of everything. I guess he didn't forget about me.”

“I'm glad to hear that.”

“Any more dead-eyed Chechens going to come into my lobby looking for you?”

“Not that I'm aware of.”

“You'll piss somebody off soon. I saw your ad on the Internet last night. ‘The Equalizer.' I recognized the phone number.”

“What do you think?”

“I like it.”

The edge had gone from Sam's voice. McCall knew it had only been there for show—for old time's sake.

“You got a new girlfriend you need to stash away somewhere discreet?”

“The only girl worth stashing somewhere is in Prague.”

“She get out okay? You know, your hooker?”

“Her name is Margaret. Kostmayer put her on a Greyhound bus back home.”

“Where's that?”

“Norman Rockwell Mid-America.”

“You don't make social calls, McCall. Why are you here?”

“My apartment has been compromised. I need to move out.”

“I've got a nice suite on the seventeenth floor. Great view of the city. No charge.”

“I'll pay for the suite, Sam.”

“All right. Fifty bucks a night and that doesn't include room service.”

McCall smiled. “Fair enough.”

Sam leaned in a little closer, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper.

“That intel I gave you in the hospital room? From that lowlife Chechen killer. Did it come to anything?”

“I'd say it saved the life of the secretary of state. Maybe even the President of the United States.”

Sam whistled. “So maybe we make a good team?”

“I get by with a little help from my friends.”

“I've got a cousin with a moving business in Queens. Him and his two sons. Give me your address and the keys to your building and your apartment. What number is it?”

“Three.”

McCall took the keys off a ring and handed them to Sam. He wrote the address down on the back of one of Sam's Liberty Belle Hotel cards.

“Tell them to be careful with the sculpture. It's Kostmayer's favorite.”

Sam put the card into his breast pocket and looked behind McCall.

“It'll happen today. You already got your first visitor.”

McCall turned from the reception counter.

Control stood in the lobby. He was impeccably dressed, as always, wearing his camel-hair overcoat. McCall could swear he could smell his pungent lime cologne from the reception counter. Control nodded at him. McCall turned back to Sam.

“No one has to know I'm coming to live with you.”

“You think I'd tell anyone? There goes the neighborhood.” Sam leaned in again. “Don't let him talk you into coming back. Remember your ad.”

McCall moved over to Control and the two of them walked out of the lobby.

There was a black Lincoln town car waiting outside the Liberty Belle Hotel with the engine running. A young Company agent McCall had never seen before stood at the vehicle, holding the back door open.

“Get in,” Control said to McCall. “There's something I want to show you.”

McCall slid into the back of the Lincoln. Control sat in beside him and the agent eased the town car into the traffic. Control didn't say another word as they drove north out of New York, through Yonkers and White Plains. McCall thought about how Control knew where to find him. He probably had agents staking out Bentleys, Dolls nightclub, and the Liberty Belle Hotel. It didn't matter. McCall was back on the grid now, whether he liked it or not.

They drove about thirty miles through some beautiful countryside and turned onto Albany Post Road. McCall saw a church up on the right. They passed a sign that said
OLD DUTCH CHURCH OF SLEEPY HOLLOW—1685—GO IN PEACE—SERVE THE LORD.
They pulled onto the church grounds. McCall and Control got out of the car. The village of Sleepy Hollow was a few miles away, immortalized in Washington Irving's “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” McCall looked up at the beautiful old church. It had two-foot-thick fieldstone brick walls, a Flemish-style gambrel roof, the lower segments flaring outward like a bell. There was an octagonal wooden open belfry. Control looked up at it.

“The belfry contains the original bell. On it is an engraved verse: ‘
Si Deus Nobis, Quis Contras Pas
.'” McCall looked at him. “‘If God be for us, who can be against us?'”

“It's a beautiful church,” McCall said. “Long drive to appreciate it.”

“It's not the church we've come to see.”

They walked into the Old Dutch Church burying grounds. McCall glanced at the dates on the tombstones.

“Going back to the sixteen hundreds.”

“There are a lot of Revolutionary soldiers buried here.”

“What about Washington Irving?”

“He's buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery just over there. It's separate from the Old Dutch Church. Don't worry. The headless horseman only rides through here at night.”

“That's a relief.”

Control stopped at one of the headstones. It was a small plot beside a beautiful oak tree. It read
ELENA PETROV, 1981–2014
. Nothing more. McCall stared down at it.

“Why here?” he asked.

“It was in her will. When she was a very little girl, her mother used to read her Washington Irving's short story ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.' It was her favorite. She once told me she used it to help her learn English. She visited the Old Dutch Church many times. She said she found peace here.”

“I never knew that.”

“I guess there's always things about the people we love we never find out. I thought you might want to know where she was buried. Come and visit her from time to time.” He took a photo from an inside pocket of his coat and handed it to McCall. “Elena carried this picture with her. It was in her hotel room in Moscow.”

McCall looked down at himself and Elena on the deck of the sailboat, wineglasses in hand, the sun sinking into the water behind them in a blaze of bloodred glory. He put the picture into his pocket.

“Take a walk with me,” Control said.

They got back into the car. The young agent drove them through the small village of Sleepy Hollow, into Kingsland Point Park to the edge of the Hudson River. McCall and Control got out and walked along the river's bank. McCall looked ahead at the impressive Tarrytown Lighthouse in the distance, just below the Tappan Zee Bridge. Control's hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his camel-hair coat.

“It was too bad about Chase Granger,” he said. “He was a little green, a little eager, but I liked him.”

“That's on me,” McCall said.

Control nodded.

More silence between them.

“There was an assassination attempt at the Summit Meeting in Prague. Somehow the shooter got inside our perimeter. He had a sniper's rifle assembled with a nightscope on it. On his cell phone was a picture of the secretary of state. The president put in an eleventh-hour appearance at the Summit. He might have been a target of opportunity. The assassin's name was Jovan Durković. A Serbian. He also was known by the code name Diablo. He was considered the best assassin in Europe. He was a phantom. No one had ever got close enough to ID him. We found him beaten and stabbed to death on a hillside a mile above the main chateau building. You wouldn't know anything about that?”

“No.”

“There was also a picture of Elena Petrov on his phone. He killed her in that Disaster Park outside Moscow. I take full responsibility for her death.”

“You were her Control. The mission went badly. It happens.”

“Not to me.”

“It will if you go out into the field more often. You couldn't have stopped a man like Durković.”

“
You
would have,” Control said quietly.