The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set (120 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

8:19 p.m.

Marty pocketed the phone, turned on the hall light and took the stairs to the second floor.
 
He looked right and saw the door to Peter Schwartz’s bedroom hanging off its hinges like a broken jaw.
 
Splinters of wood led into and out of the room in concentric half-circles, as though scattered there not by force, but by a careful hand.
 

Unmoving, he stood just outside the room looking in.
 

Shafts of yellow light touched down from the opposite window, the bright shards of a wall mirror glinted like a splintered, frozen pond in the center of the embroidered rug, the smell of death, even here.
 
He reached inside for the light switch and turned it on.

Tried to turn it on.
 

He flipped the switch up and down but nothing happened.
 
No light would shine.

He listened, heard only the air conditioner, the gentle rippling of a curtain he couldn’t see, and removed the penlight from his pocket.
 
He swept the room with the waning amber light and spotted a lamp on the side table next to the window.
 
He went to it and turned it on.

Two bureaus, both with their drawers stuck out like dry wide tongues, were along the wall in front of him.
 
Each had been emptied for inspection, their contents stuffed back haphazardly.
 
The large, unmade bed was beside him, its high pale posts stretching to the ceiling, cream-colored sheets crumpled, pillow cases missing.
 
The door leading to the adjoining bathroom was open.
 
The closet was beside it, its double set of doors shut tight.

Marty went to it, swung open the doors.

Two rows of suits and shirts and folded pants on wooden hangers lined the top and bottom bars.
 
Marty pushed the upper rack of clothes aside.
 
In the sudden rush of air, he smelled the faint, unmistakable scent of leather and rubber—and knew.
 
He parted the lower set of suits and glimpsed a waist-high door painted red against the dark wall.
 
He cleared an area large enough to walk through and turned the black handle.
 
He pushed.
 

On the street, a car alarm began to scream.

Startled, he glanced over his shoulder, toward the window and listened to the bleating.
 
It was coming from one of the cars parked curbside and he cursed it.
 
Schwartz’s neighbors would be looking out, noting the lighted window, filing it away unknowingly.
 

He needed to leave, but not before learning what Maggie Cain already knew.
 
He ducked his head and slipped under the lower bar.
 
The door gave easily.
 
A light flashed on automatically, surprising him to the point that he drew his gun.
 
The room was narrow and deep, floor painted black, air heavy and still.
 

Marty holstered his gun and stood.

Along the pegboard to his left were leather head masks with zippered mouths, full rubber body suits, heavy metal chains and gleaming handcuffs, a coiled noose, a birch switch, nipple clamps, feathers, dildos, knives.
 
In another investigation, he’d seen something like this before.
 
But then, Marty had never seen knives displayed for sexual pleasure, and now he could only guess what Peter Schwartz had done with them.
 
Or what they had done to him.

He stepped deeper into the room, which opened to become surprisingly large and well appointed.

On the wall to his right were file cabinets, a desk with a computer, a telephone and an answering machine.
 
Toward the back was an entertainment center, complete with a massive, flat-screen television, a DVD player, camcorder and stacks of DVDs, each listed in descending order by month and year.
 
Marty scanned the dates, which began in the fall of 2001, and noted with interest that there was no DVD for November 2007.
 
The final DVD was for July, just a month ago.

Marty grabbed it, went to the television, turned it on, popped the DVD into the player, found the remote and hit PLAY.

The screen brightened to a lighter shade of gray and suddenly he was looking at a row of well-fed white men with soft arms and softer stomachs sitting naked on a long wooden bench, their faces concealed with leather hoods.
 

Above them, a single bare light bulb swung from a black cord, casting shadows, throwing light.
 
The camera panned left and Marty saw the object of their desire—in a large metal cage, a woman was lying naked on a gleaming metal necropsy table.
 
She was young, fit, attractive.
 
Cocooning her in duct tape was an older, powerfully built man, his dark hairy arms rolling her over and over, hoisting up her ass, shooting the tape through and around, pulling it tight.
 
The woman’s lips moved and her head lolled sluggishly.
 
She raised her head and seemed to scream, but there was no sound on this disc, only silence.
 

Marty clenched his jaw as the camera swung left.
 

The space was huge, open, industrial.
 
Black walls, floor, ceiling.
 
No windows.
 
Smoke in the air.
 
Strobe lights strummed at the rear of the room, briefly catching the jerky movement of other bodies, all wearing the same leather hoods, all naked and dancing.
 
He thought of Judge Wood, of her naked friends and their dark car, and wondered where they were in this crowd.

The camera panned, stopped and zoomed in on the several people sitting across the room at the makeshift bar.
 
And finally Marty saw faces.
 
He leaned forward and saw
faces
.
  
The leather hoods had come off and people were sitting on wide wooden stools.
 
The bartender wore a black rubber apron and nothing else.
 
He swung his hips and cracked open beers.
 
He laughed while he served them.
 

Marty was startled to find that he knew the man, had seen his face time and again on television and in the press.
 
He was Jackie Diamond, the well-known, right-wing, bible-waving, oil-rich, big-nosed senator from Arkansas.
 
He was worth millions, hundreds of millions, and here he was wearing black rubber and serving canned beer to a group of naked men and women probably just as wealthy and as powerful.

The camera panned up and Marty glimpsed the image of a bull painted money-green on the wall above the bar.
 
He pushed pause and the image froze.
 
The bull was enormous and towering.
 
It leaned over Diamond’s shoulder with bulging eyes and flaring nostrils, as though it would tear him apart if given the chance.
 
A gold hoop shot clean through its snout.
 
The rack of spotlights nailed to the ceiling illuminated it in a half-moon.
 
The head was an exact replica of the tattoo he’d seen on Wood.

Marty turned off the television, ejected the disc and put it back in the stack.
 
His hands were trembling.
 
He was beginning to see all of it now.
 
This club wasn’t just New York, it was nationwide and he was right in the middle of it.
 

He and Maggie Cain.

The car alarm stopped.
 
Marty checked his watch, went to the file cabinets and pulled open the drawers.
 
Empty.
 
He turned on the computer and looked for files.
 
None.
 
They had been purged, the hard disk cleared and reformatted, which wasn’t a problem because the information was still ghosted there, assuming the person didn’t fully wipe it.
 

He opened the desk drawer and found empty folders, pens, pencils, a stack of printing paper, the usual.
 
But what, if anything, had been in those folders?
 
And why leave behind the DVDs?
 
He checked himself.
 
Why leave behind every DVD save for the one marked November 2007?
 
It was no coincidence the disc was missing—November 5, 2007 had been scrawled in blood above Wood’s bed.
 
He knew what was on it—more of what he’d just seen on the July DVD.
 
Whoever took it obviously was on it.
 
They didn’t want to be seen.

Was it Maggie Cain?
 
She’d just been here.
 
But not long ago, so had the person who killed Schwartz.
 
So who took it?

He checked his watch.
 
Forty minutes had passed and still she wasn’t here, and yet she said she was only three blocks away.
 
He couldn’t wait for her.
 
He’d already been here too long.
 
He turned off the lights, slipped through the small door that was in Schwartz’s closet and stood in his bedroom.

And when he did, he was forced to rear back.
 

Facing him were two people—a man and a woman.
 

Marty went for his gun but the woman moved forward with such speed, he couldn’t get to it in time.
 
She wrenched his arm behind his back and the man came forward.
 
He removed the gun from Marty’s holster, patted him down and nodded once at the woman, who released Marty and said, “We will kill you if you move.”

She had an accent.
 
Spanish?
 
He looked at the man.
 
Italian?
 
“Who are you?”

The man cocked his head.
 
“Mr. Spellman, we’re the end of your life.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

8:37 p.m.

For Spocatti, Spellman was just the beginning of a long night.
 

He appraised the man standing in front of him and could sense him trying to calculate a way out of the situation.
 
Spellman was solid and well-built, and Spocatti sensed he probably was quick on his feet.
 
But right now, without his gun, he was powerless.
 
“Sit over there.”

“Which chair?”

“The chintz,” Spocatti said.
 
“You couldn’t pull off the Stickley.”

He watched Spellman cross to the chair and sit down.
 

“Before I kill you, you’re going to answer some questions.”

“Before you kill me, I’m answering nothing.”

“Not quite.”
 
He looked at Carmen, who was standing beside him, her hands on her hips.
 
“Make the call.”

She withdrew her cell and Spocatti watched Spellman lean forward as she dialed.
 
She put the phone on speaker and they listened to the ring.
 
And then Spellman’s daughter, Katie, answered the phone.

“Hello?”

Spocatti drew his gun, pointed it at Spellman’s head and put a finger to his lips.
 
“Is this Katie?”

“Who’s this?”