The Newsmakers (30 page)

He takes another snort, Dave and Fred follow. “Hey, cheer up, baby boys, Daddy's got this one. Everything is under control. Now let's have some fun!” Nylan goes over to a console on the wall and presses a button. Bruno Mars comes on the speakers and Nylan does a little dance. It's a tingly New York night—

And here come the girls. Down on the dock, three of them, long-legged, young and beautiful with long hair and short skirts and smooth skin and perfect bodies. One black, one Asian, one blonde—just what Nylan ordered. And Nylan owns them. He
owns
them. And he loves owning them. Fred arranged it, he's good at things like that. Fred has contacts, contacts that reach right down, right down into the sweet underbelly of pleasure and pain—and pull out . . . beautiful girls like these.

And now they're boarding and now they're in the main cabin and now they're snorting and sipping and now Nylan takes the blonde's hand and leads her down, down into his suite and locks the door behind them and takes her beautiful, perfect face in his hands.

“I'm so happy to see you . . .,” he purrs. He leans in and kisses her oh-so-gently on her lovely lips. “. . . Erica.” And then he hauls back and slaps her hard, really hard, and tears fill her eyes and a little trail of blood trickles down from the corner of her mouth. She's a good girl. And the suite is soundproofed. No one will hear her screams.

CHAPTER 69

ERICA DRESSES WAY DOWN, WITH
her unflattering floppy hat and large sunglasses in place, and walks across town to Lexington Avenue, where she ducks into the subway and catches the 4 train to its northern terminus in the Bronx—Woodlawn. As with Flushing and its Koreans, and Brighton Beach and its Russians, she finds herself in an insular ethnic enclave. The main shopping street, Katonah Avenue, is lined with pubs—Mulligan's, Behan's, Coachman's Inn—that offer “rashers and Guinness.” A grocery store window displays pickled beetroot and “bread flown in from Dublin.” There are shamrocks everywhere, and a large mural painted on the side of a building features fiddlers and football players. Above the stores are small apartment buildings, and the side streets are lined with a mix of single-family houses and more small apartment houses. The faces Erica passes are, with rare exceptions, white and on the ruddy side.

Celtic Home Realty is a small, nondescript storefront. Erica walks in and a little bell rings. There are two desks, several filing cabinets, and a small seating area. A large map of Ireland is on one wall and a map of Woodlawn on another. A woman of around fifty—short, chunky, sour-faced, her hair dyed a garish red and styled into a series
of tight undulating waves—is on the phone exchanging unpleasantries. When she sees Erica, she quickly ends the call and stands.

“You must be Erica Sparks.”

“And you're Fiona Connor.”

They shake hands. Fiona has a handshake like a prizefighter, and under her smile Erica sees a set jaw and shrewd little eyes.

“I did a little poking around, and now I know who you are,” Fiona says, folding her arms over her chest. She's dropped the thick-as-marmalade brogue.

“I hope you won't hold it against me.”

“Hardly. We Irish love the green—and it sounds like you've got plenty.” She laughs mirthlessly. “So, have a seat and tell me what you're looking for.”

“I'm suddenly making a fair amount of money, and my financial adviser says I should consider investing in real estate. He advised a stable neighborhood and something multiunit.”

“Well, you've come to the right place. Woodlawn is as solid as you can get. Very few properties come up for public sale. We prefer to do things by word of mouth—it helps to preserve the . . .
character
of the neighborhood. Otherwise we'd be overrun
.
”

A young man walks into the office from the street. He's skinny and jittery—his whole body seems to be quivering. Gray skin, greasy hair, desperate sunken eyes: Erica doesn't need a blood test to spot a junkie. Fiona's mouth turns down in annoyance.

“Hey, Ma.”

“Can't you see I'm with a customer?” She turns and gives Erica an oily smile. “This is my boy, Desmond.”

Desmond's darting eyes look over at Erica. “Hey there,” he says. “Listen, Ma, some creep sideswiped my side mirror. I need two hundred bucks for the repair.” His eyes are glassy with need.

Fiona shakes her head, and her tight little mouth gets tighter still. Clearly she's been through this scene a hundred times before. If Erica wasn't there, who knows how she would react. But she wants Desmond
to disappear, so she opens her purse, withdraws two bank-fresh hundreds, and hands them to him.

“Hey, thanks, Ma, I'll pay you back as soon as I get my paycheck. I swear it, I will.”

“I think a job comes before a paycheck.”

“You're the best, Ma.” He lurches toward her and kisses her cheek. Then he turns and rushes out of the office.

Fiona looks after him in anger and disgust, then turns all business. “The building is eight units, the rent roll is 12K a month, the price is $750,000. Good return on investment, especially if you're paying cash money. Would you like to go take a look at the property?”

They leave the office and set out along Katonah Avenue. Fiona has a peculiar heavy step, slightly bowlegged, almost a tromp. She nods to several people they pass, but Erica notices that the returned greetings are far from effusive. In fact, some people seem to shrink from her. They reach a handsome four-story redbrick building. Fiona unlocks the front door—the small lobby is freshly painted.

“All the apartments are identical one-bedrooms, two apartments a floor, no elevator. Good for the legs. There's one vacant unit. Follow me.”

They climb to the second floor. The unit is also freshly painted, light and spacious, with a galley kitchen and original black-and-white tile bath.

“This place would easily rent for eighteen hundred a month. I'll find you a
nice
tenant. Whenever you have a vacancy, you come to me. I fill it.”

Erica looks at her, incredulous. Fiona shrugs. “That's how we do business around here. Like I said, we have to protect the character of the neighborhood.”

“Funny, Leonid Gorev didn't mention anything about you finding the tenants.”

Fiona's head jerks—she quickly catches herself, but now there's a feral look in her eyes. “Leonid Gorev? Never heard the name before in my life.”

“That's funny, he referred me to you. He said that the two of you do business together.”

Fiona purses her mouth, turns and runs her fingertip along a windowsill and then turns it over, checking for dirt. “I do business with a lot of people.”

“Do you?”

Fiona sucks on her teeth with exaggerated nonchalance. “I'm from Belfast. I left because of the Troubles. I don't like trouble.”

“Who does?”

“Some people make trouble for themselves.”

“That's true. They put themselves in the middle of things. And then they get squeezed from both sides. Just as an example, someone could have . . . oh, I don't know . . . Leonid Gorev on one side. And on the other side . . .”

“You interested in the building or not?”

“I need a little more information.”

“You're the curious type, aren't you?”

Erica looks at Fiona's hard-set, shrewd little face. She's not going to get anything more out of her today. “Let me think about it. Thanks for your time.” She crosses to the front door. “I'll show myself out.”

CHAPTER 70

FOR THE REST OF THE
day, Erica fights her frustration. She feels like she's so close, but with a murder investigation
close
doesn't cut it. She has another lousy night, tossing in bed, edgy and fearful, filled with dark thoughts, and in the morning she feels aggravated, thwarted, fidgety, out of sorts—as if a way forward is tantalizingly close, in front of her but just out of her grasp. She sits up in bed and replays her time with Fiona. Her mind keeps going back to Desmond. If she could get to him at the right time—aka when he needs a fix—she might be able to buy a little information pretty cheap. Or maybe Samuels could apply a little pressure on him—after all, heroin possession is a felony.

Erica skips her morning Tae Kwon Do. She just can't focus, and she can't eat either—she's too keyed up. An appetite seems like some distant luxury. She flips on the local news. The anchor reports on a large hurricane forming in the south Atlantic and heading northwest toward Florida, and then says, “Now let's go to reporter Gabriella Garcia in the Woodlawn neighborhood of the Bronx, where a well-known local businesswoman was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident last night.”

The screen cuts to Garcia: “I'm standing on the corner of Katonah Avenue and East 237th Street where, at just after eleven o'clock last
night, Fiona Connor was walking her Rottweiler when a car ran a red light and struck her. The vehicle did not stop. Connor, fifty-seven, was pronounced dead at the scene. The lone eyewitness, an eighty-two-year-old male, is reported to be in shock and unable to recall any details about the accident.”

Accident? I don't think so.

Erica switches off the set. She fights to contain the fear that floods over her. Another dead body. Another hit. Another killing. But under the fear, she senses an opening. Her hands shake slightly as she calls Fiona's office.

A woman's voice answers, “Celtic Home.”

“This is Erica Sparks, I was a client of Fiona's. I'm so sorry about her death.”

“It sucks. This is her niece, Maureen Scarpetti. Yeah, I married an Italian. Almost got kicked out of the family. Oh, there's another call coming in. It's crazy around here.”

“Can you tell me where the funeral will be? I'd like to pay my respects.”

“She's being waked tomorrow, starting at two at her house, 421 East 232nd Street.”

For the rest of the day and the next morning, Erica keeps her blinders on, head down, goes through the motions. She shows up at the office, tries to get some work done on her show, but she can't focus. Finally it's time to head up to Woodlawn—she calls Uber. She wants to arrive early at the wake so she can clock who comes and goes—she doubts the person she's looking for will show up, but there's no substitute for eyes and ears on the ground.

Fiona's house is redbrick, looks like it was built in the 1930s, with a wide front porch. Erica gets out of the car. It's a few minutes after two and already the place is jammed, people spilling out onto the porch, most of them with drinks in their hands. There's lots of loud laughter, the kind you hear when people who've known each other forever are dragging up the greatest hits from the glory days. Erica is dressed
casually, wearing just a touch of makeup, but as she heads up the walk, she notices stares of recognition. Someone on the porch calls her name, but she pretends not to hear and goes into the house.

To the right of the foyer is the dining room, the immense table covered with scores of mismatched casseroles and dishes. There's a bar set up in one corner—it's a popular spot. To the left is the parlor—with Fiona's open coffin at the far end. Except for the ghoulish, somewhat surreal fact that there's a heavily made up, perfectly coiffed corpse in the room, the wake feels like a drunken bash. Erica makes her way through the crush toward the coffin, hearing snippets of conversation:

“Ding-dong, the witch is dead.”

“What she put up with . . . that boy.”

“Is Diaz here yet? He's going to miss her, for sure.”

“I hear she has millions stashed away in the Caymans.”

“Eddie Spellman never comes back to the old neighborhood.”

“I hope Saint Peter takes bribes.”

Erica wonders who Diaz is and why he's going to miss Fiona. She reaches the coffin. The embalmers have done their best, but she still looks many miles from “at peace.” Desmond is standing next to the coffin, swimming in a cheap suit, greeting mourners. His eyes are lidded—the man is definitely high—but he seems pretty broken up.

“I'm sorry about your mother,” Erica says.

“The world won't see the likes of her again.” He starts to cry—and it starts to feel like a performance.

Erica feels intrusive but can't let that stop her. “Listen, Desmond, do you think we could talk at some point?”

He nods his head. “The funeral's tomorrow. I'm flying to Vegas two days after that. It was Mom's favorite place.”

“How long will you be out there?”

“Week or two. I'm staying at the Bellagio.” He can't contain a tiny smirk—someone just came into some money.

There's a murmur in the room, and Erica turns. A middle-aged Hispanic man, an aide on either side of him, is making his way through
the throng. He's working the room, shaking hands, touching arms, leaning in to listen.

“Who's that?” Erica asks a woman standing next to her.

“That's Assemblyman Ruben Diaz. Fiona was involved in local politics. She knew how to deliver votes. Among other things.”

Diaz reaches the coffin and looks down at Fiona's dead body with exaggerated sympathy. Then he turns and hugs Desmond. “I'm so sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks, Ruben. It's rough.”

“You need anything. Ever. You call me.”

“Thanks, man.”

Then Diaz notices Erica. “Wait a second . . . It's Erica Sparks!” He beams and holds out his hand. “What a pleasure to meet you.” Diaz is nice looking, expansive, charming, with cunning eyes. “Did you know Fiona?”

“She showed me a building.”

“Erica Sparks wants to buy a building in my district? I'm honored.”

“We were also in preliminary discussions on another matter,” Erica says.

“Oh?” Diaz's voice grows wary. “And what might that be?”