“A grudge? No, Detective,” the mayor said. “A grudge you take to the union. This guy is a madman, and his mission is to single-handedly put New York City out of the film business.” He turned to his deputy mayor. “Where do you net out on this shitstorm, Irwin?”
Diamond was much older than his boss. In fact, he was the oldest of all the mayor’s advisers. Those who knew him said he was also the wisest. And those who saw him in action said the calmest.
“Actually, Stan,” Diamond said, “I think Detective MacDonald is right. Whoever is doing this does have a grudge. If you don’t like the word ‘grudge,’ call it a ‘major hard-on.’ But he’s not angry at New York. He’s fed up with the entire fakakta Hollywood system. And there’s nobody he can bitch to because nobody did anything wrong to him. All they did was ignore him. Reject him. And now he’s getting revenge.”
Heads nodded. It made sense.
The commissioner jumped in. “Irwin is right, sir. This guy is a loser who’s been chewed up and spit out by the whole ugly LA film business. He’s only using New York as his venue because we happened to conveniently gather a lot of primo targets in a small space in a short time. But this is all about Hollywood.”
The mayor pressed his fingertips to his temples and weighed the input. “So our position with the press is that a madman followed these Hollywood people to New York? What’s that supposed to mean? It’s not our fault? It won’t fly, Ben. People got killed on our watch.”
The commissioner didn’t respond. Diamond held up his hand. “Stan, people die in hospitals all the time. Is that the hospital’s fault? Would they have survived if they stayed at home?”
“Don’t get all Talmudic on me, Irwin,” the mayor said. “No matter how you serve it up, NYPD is going to get skewered in the press—especially by the LA Times and all those Hollywood rags. Don’t quote me, but the best thing that can happen is this lunatic follows them back to California, offs a few more of them, and by next week this time the LA cops are taking the heat.”
“That’s not going to happen, sir.” It was Kylie.
“You’re saying he’s not going to bother following them back to LA?” the mayor said. “Why? Because he only likes killing people in New York?”
“No, sir,” Kylie said. “He’s not going to LA because we’re going to catch him before he ever leaves town.”
And just like that, my new partner, on her first day on the job, promised the mayor of New York that in less than seventy-two hours, we would track down and capture the worst serial killer to terrorize this city since the Son of Sam.
Irwin Diamond laughed warmly and gave Kylie a thumbs-up. “Talk about balls the size of Brooklyn,” he said.
Chapter 29
FIRST THEY WATCHED the video, ate the pizza, and drank the champagne. All of it. Then they made love—gentle, sweet, innocent—more like teenagers exploring the mysteries of sex than a pair of cold-blooded serial killers.
When it was over, they lay naked in each other’s arms and played their favorite game. Acting out the worst cliché-ridden movie scenes they could invent.
“Oh, Professor Cunningham,” Lexi said in her thickest southern drawl. “Ours is a forbidden love. Whatever shall we do if we get caught?”
“We shan’t get caught, my Fair One,” Gabriel said with mock British earnestness. “Unless…”
“Unless what, my darling?” Lexi pleaded. “Unless what?”
“Unless I’m dumb enough to give you an A in Eighteenth-century Lit. People see that—they’ll figure the old prof must be shagging young Pamela Ward.”
They laughed their asses off, filled their champagne glasses with beer, unmuted the TV, and surfed the news channels.
“Holy shit,” Gabriel said. “CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, CNN—it’s all us all the time. Let’s see if we’re on ESPN.”
“Wait, wait, the mayor is coming on,” Lexi said.
They were tuned to ABC Eyewitness News, and the director cut away from the anchor to a shot of the mayor standing at a podium in front of the NYPD command post. The police commissioner stood to his right.
“Who’s that behind them?” Lexi said.
“Those are the two cops from Silvercup. He’s Detective Jordan and she’s Detective MacDonald. They’re the ones who ignored me. I don’t know the black chick in the uniform. I think she could be one of their bosses.”
“Detective MacDonald looks like she’s kind of a bitch, but Detective Jordan, he’s kind of cute,” Lexi said.
“Shh,” he said. “You wanna hear the mayor or not?”
“A vicious and violent crime was committed on the streets of our city tonight,” the mayor said, “and our hearts go out to Brad Schuck’s family and fans. Mr. Schuck is in a coma at the Burn Center of New York Hospital, and I have no further news on his condition other than that it is critical.”
“Mr. Mayor!” a reporter shouted.
“Let me finish,” the mayor snapped. “NYPD has mounted its most elite task force to track down the person or persons responsible for this hideous crime, and we in New York are saddened not only by the injuries inflicted on Mr. Schuck, but because this has marred what should have been a celebratory event tonight here at Radio City, where New York has opened its heart and its doors to the Hollywood filmmaking industry.”
“What a crock of shit,” Gabe said.
“Let me assure our colleagues from Los Angeles,” the mayor continued, “that while this may well be a hate crime targeted at the Hollywood community, it happened here on our watch, and the city of New York and the NYPD will not rest until the perpetrators are brought to justice. Thank you.”
He started to walk off camera.
“Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor!” a chorus of reporters called out.
“Now is not the time for questions,” the mayor said.
“Is this connected to this afternoon’s shooting of Ian Stewart and the sudden suspicious death of producer Sid Roth this morning?”
The mayor stopped in his tracks, said something in private to the police commissioner, and returned to the podium. “NYPD is in the middle of a criminal investigation. We can’t elaborate on what we’ve learned so far, and we can’t speculate about whether any of the incidents you cited are in any way connected to the brutal attack on Mr. Schuck. But the commissioner has assured me that the department is working around the clock to prevent any further violence and to bring about a swift conclusion to this tragedy. Right now, I think that instead of speculating, we all should pray for Brad Schuck to recover from this horrible ordeal. No more questions. Thank you and good night.”
This time, the mayor walked off and the entourage followed.
The station cut back to the anchorman, and Lexi muted the TV. “Shall we pray for Brad Schuck to recover from this horrible ordeal?” she said.
“I don’t pray when I’m naked,” Gabe said, rolling over on his back.
She straddled him, lowering herself gradually, and moaned as she felt him slide inside of her.
He thrust his pelvis upward, and she arched her back. The pace was slow at first, unhurried, but as they moved in perfect rhythm together, the passion built. She cried out his name, and he reached around and dug his fingers into her buttocks.
They were both seconds away from an explosive climax when the phone rang.
It jolted him to the core.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” she said.
But he did stop.
The phone rang again.
It was after midnight. Nobody called them this late. The agency called when they had a job for him as an extra, but never after five or six in the evening.
The phone rang a third time, and he picked it up.
“Hello, who’s this?”
“This is a fan of yours,” the voice on the other end said. “I just watched the mayor’s press conference. Congratulations.”
“Congratulations on what?”
“Come on, Gabe. I know you’re behind all this.”
He sat up, the passion
completely gone. Lexi flopped off of him and sat cross-legged on the bed trying to figure out what was happening.
“Behind all what?” he said.
“Cut the shit,” the caller said. “If Roth and Ian Stewart didn’t tip me off, the Molotov cocktail sure did.”
The Chameleon could feel his chest constricting and panic welling up in his throat.
This was not in the script.
BOOK TWO
MAJOR REWRITE
Chapter 30
THE CHAMELEON CLOSED his eyes and tried to home in on the voice on the other end of the phone.
“Who is this?” he said.
A raspy laugh. “An old war buddy.”
“This is a new number. None of my old crowd has it.”
“We got friends in common, Gabriel. Some of them still work at Silvercup. Your name was on the call sheet for the Ian Stewart movie today. I guess you saw that terrible tragedy unfold before your very eyes.” Another laugh, even raspier.
The neurons in The Chameleon’s brain were going off like a string of cheap Chinese firecrackers, and one of them zeroed in on the grating laugh. “Mickey?” The Chameleon said. “Is that you?”
“I’m happy to say it is, but you, on the other hand, don’t sound too overjoyed to hear from me.”
“Mick,” The Chameleon said. “It’s after midnight. My girlfriend and I were just—”
“Just what? Watching TV? Catching up on the news of the day?”
“We were asleep. What do you want?”
“Nothing we can talk about over the phone,” Mickey said.
“Last I heard you were on an extended vacation up in the Adirondacks. It’s six hours away, but if you tell me when visiting hours are, maybe I can take a run up there.”
“They gave me time off for being a model vacationer. I got back into town last week. Remember where my old loft was?”
“Yeah. Long Island City. Skillman Avenue. The scenic part.”
Another annoying laugh. “Scenic. I like that. Why don’t you come over and we can sit on the veranda, have coffee, and watch the sun rise over the freight yard.”
“Screw the sunrise, Mickey,” The Chameleon said. “I’ll be there in an hour.”
He hung up and started getting dressed.
Lexi didn’t move from the bed. “What was that all about?” she asked.
“Production snag. It goes with the territory.”
“Bullshit,” she barked. “Listen—if you don’t want me to show up on location at Radio City and watch the pyrotechnics, fine. I can live with that. But if you’d rather go to Long Island City in the middle of the night than fuck, you damn well better tell me why. I’m not the girl at the popcorn counter anymore, Gabe. We’re either in this together, or you’re in it by yourself.”
He sat down on the bed. “Sorry, Lex. You’re a worrier, and I was trying to spare you.”
“Don’t. Don’t ever. Now tell me what’s going on?”
“Did I ever tell you about Mickey Peltz?”
“No.”
“He was one of the best special effects guys in the business—especially with explosives. He was good at blowing things up, but he cut corners so he could siphon off some of the production budget and put it in his pocket. One day he’s working on a bank heist movie and they needed to blow up an armored car. Mickey was in charge of the blast, and he decided to buy some bargain-basement crap that was cheap and volatile instead of expensive and stable. A bomb went off prematurely, a stuntman lost an arm, and Mickey pulled four years at the Adirondack Correctional Facility up in Ray Brook.”
“And?”
“And it looks like he got out early, saw the Molotov on TV, and knew it was me.”
“How is that possible?”
“The one I tossed was wickless,” The Chameleon said. “Only a handful of guys in the business do it that way. It was one of Mickey’s signature effects. He taught me how to make it, and I guess he put two and two together.”
“So what does he want from you?” Lexi said. “A screen credit?”
“My guess? He wants a few bucks, and he’ll promise to keep his theories to himself.”
“Blackmail.”
“He didn’t use that word, but that’s where my brain went.”
“And it won’t just be a few bucks, will it?” she said.
“Blackmailers have delusions, so I guess his starting price will be somewhere between ridiculous and out of his fucking mind.”
“I have one more question,” Lexi said.
“And I already have the answer. No, you can’t go. But you knew that before you even asked.”
She hopped off the bed and wrapped her arms around him. She was still naked. The fading scent of their lovemaking still hung in the air. He draped his arms over her shoulders and pressed her close.
“You’re a glass-half-empty person,” she said. “I’m a glass-half-full.”
“Understatement,” he said, planting a kiss on the back of her neck. “You’re a glass-overflowing person. What’s your point?”
“This is the best thing that could have happened to us,” she said. “Your little trip to Mickey’s loft could be an incredible scene. It’s another twist. Even we didn’t expect it, and we wrote the script.”
As soon as she said it, he knew she was right.
“This is why I love you,” he said. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it right away, but you nailed it. Let’s go write the scene.”
“You and me?” she said.
“Who else would I write it with?” he said, pressing her to his chest and kissing her hair, her nose, her lips. “We’re a team, aren’t we?”
Chapter 31
WE FINALLY HAD something solid to go on. Photos of our killer. We sent Ellen Dobrin and Jason Garza, two bilingual detectives, out to the Bronx to wake up Rafe, the waiter from the Regency Hotel.
They showed him the picture of the fake E! channel cameraman and asked if it reminded him at all of the busboy from that morning.
“This is an old white guy,” Rafe said. “I told them other cops that the busboy was a young Latino.”
“Yes, sir,” Dobrin said. “But imagine that this is a disguise. Let’s say the white hair is a wig. Now imagine that the busboy was also wearing a disguise. Do you see any similarities between the two of them—you know, like height, build, bone structure?”
Rafe took another look at the photo. “They’s both dudes,” he said, hoping to be helpful.
Dobrin sent me a text. We got nada. Nuance no es Rafe’s strong suit.
Then Matt Smith, our techie, put the bomber’s picture through facial recognition software. Even with a disguise, it’s not easy for a person to change the distance between his eyes, the depth of his sockets, the shape of his cheekbones, or eighty other distinct facial landmarks.
We collected headshots of every extra and every crew member on the set of Ian Stewart’s movie. We also had a second batch of pictures of random people lifted off the Internet that we used as a control group. The software then uses some magic algorithm and compares each face to our perp.
“If this were the third act of CSI: Miami, the computer would spit out the one guy who’s a match,” Kylie said.
But real police work is nothing like TV. The computer picked out twenty-three possibles. Eleven extras, including two women, three crew members, and nine from the control group, including Leonardo DiCaprio.
“This whole facial recognition thing isn’t nearly as foolproof as people might think,” Smith said.
“Even so,” Kylie said, “let’s go pay Leo a visit and see if he has an alibi.”
I finally got to sleep at 2:00.
At 4:15, my cell phone rang. I hit the light and looked at the caller ID. It was Kylie.
“This better be good, K-Mac,” I said.
“This isn’t K-Mac,” the voice on the other end said. “It’s Spence. I guess with a name like Spence Harrington, I can’t have a cool street name like K-Mac. Maybe Spennington.”
“Is Kylie okay?” I said.
“Yeah, she’s exhausted and I hated to wake her. Me, I’m a night owl. This is when I do my best thinking. I found your number in her cell, so I figured I’d give you a ring while it’s still fresh in my mind. Maybe kick it around. Just you and me, guy to guy.”
I was half-awake now, but I still had no idea what he was talking about. “Okay, what is it?” I said.
“You know I’m not a cop, right?”
I grunted in the affirmative.
“But I make a damn good living producing cop shows on TV,” he said, “and I have an idea I want to bounce off you.”
“An idea for a TV show?”
“God, no, Zach. About these murders. You should have invited me into that powwow with the mayor. I might have come up with it earlier, but I was outside with the rest of the civilians.”
“Spence, I’m sorry you had to stay outside, but—”
“Don’t worry about it. Kylie explained. Anyway, you want to hear my theory?”
Did I have a choice?
“Sure,” I said.
“Now, I’m just pitching,” he said, “but listen to this. New York is trying to attract LA production money. They invite all these Hollywood wheeler-dealers to fly in, and suddenly they’re being bumped off. Who benefits from these murders?”
I was working on two hours sleep. Even if there were an intelligent answer, I wouldn’t have come up with it.
“I give up, Spence. Who benefits?”
“The City of Angels. Los freakin’ Angeles, California.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” I said.
“Making movies and TV shows is LA’s bread and butter,” he said. “They don’t want to lose a crumb of it to New York, so they’re trying to prove that New York is not a safe town for moviemakers. And listen to this—it’s working already. Shelley Trager is having a blowout party on his yacht Wednesday. It’s the premiere screening of my new TV show, and let me tell you it’s the must-have invite of the whole week. As of tonight, six people canceled. They said they had to fly back to LA. They’re full of shit. They’re afraid of New York, and they’re running back home to Mama. I know it sounds far-fetched, but all great plots have these kinds of quirky hooks to them. Look at Lost—it was off-the-wall crazy, but it ran six seasons. Like I said, I’m just tossing out an idea here. What do you think?”