Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell was on the march again, striding back toward her desk, framed by the big window, the white skyscraper against the blue sky. “While you were gone, Isaiah Medina moved away.”
“The pimp? Moved . . . ?”
“From Yonkers to the bottom of the East River—that’s my guess. It’s Dominic Abend—the BLK—taking over the brothels all the way up to Westchester. And we’ve had high-level drug dealers disappearing for six months. Abend’s moving in there too. And yesterday I got a call from the U.S. Attorney’s office. Someone is investing heavily in the next city election.”
“I know all this, Rebec—”
“All invisible. All untraceable. All untouchable. This son of a bitch is spreading through the city like a virus. And the one time he shows himself—the one time! Stalled? Come on, Zach! Look at this.”
She had snapped a drawer open, snatched a page out of it. Was marching around to the front of the desk, thrusting the paper at him.
“I told you we were monitoring Goulart’s computer, right? This came in last night. Another Paz shell company. A storage unit in the Bronx. Did your partner happen to mention this to you?”
Zach took the paper silently. Goulart hadn’t mentioned it.
“What do you think he was waiting for?” said Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell as his eyes ran down the page. “Maybe he wants to make sure someone else gets there before we do.”
Zach’s anger was the stony—not the fiery—kind. His face could’ve been on Mount Rushmore as he rode the elevator downstairs. He was right back in the thick of it. All that nastiness between the Director and Goulart. Hell, if she had something on Broadway Joe, why didn’t she just bust him? And why hadn’t Goulart told him about the damned storage unit in the Bronx?
He had just reached his desk, when Goulart—returning from the coffee machine to the desk across from him—said “I got something.”
Zach dropped sullenly into his chair. Goulart plunked a butt cheek on the edge of the gunmetal and perched just above him, sipping from one of the mugs they’d stolen from NYPD.
“I think I’ve found another Paz shell company, another storage place,” Goulart said. “A unit in the Bronx this time.”
His jaw set, Zach lifted a chin to his partner. “When’d you find out about this?”
“Last night, but I just now confirmed it was Paz behind it. What?” Goulart added, seeing the look on Zach’s face.
But Zach just shook his head. He hated having Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell’s suspicions stuck in his brain like a bad song. “We better get up there before it gets cleaned out like the warehouse.”
“I sent a black-and-white over to stand guard.”
Goulart made as if to savor his coffee, but Zach got to his feet. “Let’s just go,” he said.
The whole time Zach was piloting the Crown Vic up the eastern edge of Manhattan, he was brooding on the business, thinking, well, what if they got to the Bronx and the storage unit had been cleaned out—what then?—was he supposed to assume Goulart had given Dominic Abend a heads-up, a head start? And Goulart, meanwhile, riding shotgun, was oddly quiet, oddly missing out on the opportunity to go into one of his anti-female or anti-black or anti-somebody rants.
Then Zach felt his partner’s eyes on him and Goulart suddenly said, “Listen, partner. Who’s Margo Heatherton?”
The usual four-letter words flashed through Zach’s mind, but he managed to keep his face impassive. He said, “A woman I know. A writer. She was writing a book. I helped her with the research.”
“Uh-huh,” said Goulart—which was as much as to say And you were boning her, right?
“Why? She get in touch with you?”
“She said she’d been calling your cell, but kept getting the message that you were away,” Goulart said. Zach had been hoping this wasn’t true, but he’d figured it was. There had been a lot of calls on his cell when he came out of his weeklong fever, a lot of them were blocked numbers, no messages. He had hoped they weren’t from Margo, but he knew the truth deep down. “She said she was worried about you,” Goulart went on. “You devil, you.”
Zach gave a puff of air, a sound of dismissal. He knew Goulart wouldn’t buy it, the dismissal, but what could he do? He felt a cold sweat breaking out on his scalp and could only hope it didn’t show.
“Listen,” Goulart said again. “I’m not saying anything, right?”
“There’s nothing to say. For Christ’s sake.”
“Right. That’s why I’m not saying anything. But I’m just saying: with the texts and the phone calls and I’m-worried-about-you . . . if there is something, if you got yourself in a situation here. . . .”
“I thought you weren’t saying anything.”
“I’m just saying I’m gonna keep your six, that’s all. I mean, I know what Grace and the kids mean to you. And I know from personal experience that getting a divorce is like having a spiked baseball bat shoved up your ass.”
“What the hell, Broadway? I just helped the girl with some research. I don’t think Grace’ll divorce me for that.”
“I. Will. Keep. Your. Six,” said Goulart, emphasizing each word. “That’s all. Message delivered. I will keep your six because that’s what partners do. Verstanzee? I’m there for you. You’re there for me. That’s how it works.”
“You finished?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Good. There’s no problem. I just helped her with some research.”
“Excellent. Glad to hear it. Truly. Joy throughout the land.”
Zach made a show of shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Then he drove on in silence. But he hadn’t let it go, not by a long shot. Goulart might have just been being nosy—friendly—the usual partner stuff. Still, as they crossed the bridge above the steely Hell Gate water, Zach was wondering what else he might have intended by it all, by all that you-got-my-back-I-got-yours crap. Could it have been blackmail? If you expose my corruption, I’ll expose your affair? Or was it just a pointed reminder of where Zach’s loyalties lay? As in: I watch your back with Margo, you watch mine with Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell. Either way, Zach didn’t like it, didn’t like being pressured, didn’t like being in a position to give a damn. He resolved again to get straight on this, to confront Margo face to face, have it out with her, and take the consequences either way. Bad as that might be, it would be better than this, better than compromising his integrity to keep the secret, better than living a lie. What a tangled damned web we weave. . . .
When he thought enough time had passed, when he thought Goulart wouldn’t make anything of it, he ran a hand up through his hair, pretending it was a casual gesture, but really wiping away the last of his cold worry-sweat. He was pretty sure Goulart knew exactly what he was doing, but he went through the elaborate pretense anyway.
There was a uniform waiting for them at the storage facility, sure enough. Sitting bored in his cruiser outside the white brick building on a shabby warehouse block in the shadow of the Cross Bronx Expressway. He was visibly relieved when Goulart waved him on his way. The kid was tired of riding his backside and eager to get back on patrol. Shoulder to shoulder, Zach and Goulart continued on into the building.
A burly red-headed tough guy named Chaim ran the place. Friendly but businesslike, used to cops. He led them from the front office into a concrete bunker, past rows of metal roll-up doors. He unlocked the padlock on number seventeen, and up the door rumbled. He stepped aside to let Zach and Goulart have a look inside.
Ransacked, but not emptied. Boxes of jewels and electronics were spilled all over the concrete floor of the little bay. No two boxes had been left stacked against the corrugated metal walls.
Zach thought: Shit. His stomach soured. He had been hoping the place would be untouched, clearing Goulart of any suspicion that he had tipped Abend off, given the gangster time to search the place before the law arrived. He was thinking . . . and then he stopped thinking. His breathing slowed. His eyes narrowed.
“We’re gonna need
security cam video and records of who used the access code,” said Goulart behind him. “You got a man on-site?”
“Me,” said Chaim.
“But you didn’t see anything suspicious.”
The guy hoisted both heavy shoulders high. “Nah. Nothing.”
Goulart was about to say something else, but he stopped himself when he saw what was going on with Zach. The Cowboy had gone into his legendary hyper-focus mode again. He was standing very still, scanning the trashed unit with that squinty gunfighter gaze that made the crow’s feet bunch at the corners of his eyes.
“Look, I don’t keep a record of every—” the storage guy, Chaim, started to say—but Goulart silenced him with a raised hand. He waited.
“The warehouse was cleaned out, right?” Zach murmured slowly after another moment. “The other place Paz had. The place you found when I was in the hospital?”
“Yeah,” said Goulart. “It was emptied.”
“Like someone ripped it off, maybe.”
Goulart shrugged. “Could be.”
“Like someone—one of Paz’s crew, maybe—heard the boss was dead and . . .”
“. . . figured it was bargain days—why not? Could be.”
“Because this place . . .” said Zach. “This place was tossed. Searched.”
Now Goulart understood. “Right. Because Abend is looking for something specific. He’s not some garden-variety nitwit, hamburgering warehouses.”
Zach was working his rubber gloves on now. He crouched down amidst the strewn treasure. He lifted a dented loving cup out of a tangle of emerald and pearl necklaces. Held it up in Goulart’s direction.
“You remember that series of mansion burglaries out on Long Island?”
“Yeah, I remember reading about it, sure. Bunch of them. Last one maybe . . . what? Couple weeks ago?”
“East Beach Yacht Club,” Zach said, gesturing with the cup.
“Lot of gangster summer homes on the Guyland,” said Goulart. “Wide-open spaces. Nice and private.”
As Zach stood up, he let the loving cup fall from his gloved fingers. It dropped into a pile of jewelry, making the gems rattle. He moved out of the bay toward where Goulart was standing at the edge of the entrance.
“Let’s say Abend’s got a place out there . . .”
“. . . and he got ripped off in the burglaries,” said Goulart.
“Maybe intentional, maybe just an accident. Either way, they took something—something private or even secret—something he valued. . . .”
“And they fenced it with Paz.”
Zach turned his head back toward the storage bay. Considered the mess in there. He drew in a deep breath of the warm, stale air. Faint images and sensations came to him like distant music. Sea breezes. Potpourris. Children squabbling. And something else, something closer, more recent, more real. A dark, hot, male aroma. Rage.
“Whatever it is, I don’t think he found it here,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“I just don’t think so.” He could not account for his sense of the atmosphere. “Call it a hunch.”
As Zach drove the Crown Vic back to Manhattan, he said, “I’m thinking you should rustle up the Guyland inventories, find out what was reported stolen where. Then we go out there and canvass the homeowners, see if any of them happen to be a cue-balled German gangster.”
“And you, meanwhile?”
“Thought I’d go chat with—”
“Don’t tell me,” said Goulart. “With Fatboy Mooch.”
“If anyone knows who pulled those mansion heists, he will.”
“He will. But that is one evil Negro. You think he’ll talk to you?”
“I have a feeling he will, yes.”
“You sure you don’t want me to come along and be the bad cop.”
“Well, you are a bad cop. But he won’t meet up with you around. Somehow he’s got this idea you’re a racist.”
“Moi? Why? Because I call an evil Negro an evil Negro?”
“It’s your tone,” said Zach. “I don’t think folks say Negro anymore.”
“No fooling? Do they still say evil?”
Zach laughed. The first time today. It was hard not to laugh when Goulart got started on this crap.
“You’re laughing,” Goulart said, delighted with himself, happy to get back to their old rapport. “I’m a dying breed, right?”
“You are. The Loud-Mouthed White Male Asshole.”
“We were overhunted. Now we’re practically extinct.”
Zach laughed again. He wished the damn storage unit hadn’t been ransacked.
“You’ll miss us once we’re gone,” said Goulart. “Mark my words. The truth dies with us, my friend.”
Abend could’ve tracked the unit down the same way they did, Zach thought. He just might’ve gotten there first, that’s all. There was no evidence of a tip-off from Goulart.
But still. He wished it hadn’t been ransacked.
11
INVISIBLE WAR
Funny thing about Fatboy Mooch: you never saw him indoors. Zach never had, anyway. He always met with him on street corners—in cafés—in parks. Today it was in one of those little pocket arcades with the waterfalls: the butter-bellied thug liked to meet in such venues, to sit at one of the tables amidst the white folks and honey locust trees and nibble delicately on a croissant from the snack bar while he talked pure wickedness. Zach wondered if this was some form of ironic street theater or something like that. Or maybe the point was just that the Mooch wasn’t hiding, wasn’t scuttling around to protect his rep. Dealing with law dogs was part of doing business in this city, so why not do it in the open? Or maybe the Mooch was just claustrophobic, who could say?
“Do you even have a place to live?” Zach asked him.
“The foxes have they holes,” said Fatboy Mooch, “and the birds of the air have they nests, but Fatboy Mooch got nowhere to lay his head.”
“That’s a sad story.”
“You wanna see sad? I’ll show you sad. Come with me, Agent.”
Fatboy Mooch was fat all right, but he was big and carried his lard spread collar-to-jockstrap so he was shaped more like a bomb than a beachball. He favored T-shirts with slogans on them like KILLER, or a picture of a .38 with the caption WELCOME TO NEW YORK. Which was more or less truth in advertising because, despite his imitation-civilized raconteur veneer, there were all sorts of stories about what he’d done to guys with his bare hands. Most of the stories ended up with the Mooch’s enemies liquefied and hard men losing their lunches left and right at the sight of what remained.
“You know this corner? You see this corner?” he asked Zach after a while.
They’d been strolling west and north together, talking baseball and the weather. Fatboy had been laying down a running commentary on the Yankees’ chances in the postseason, with glosses on Houston’s crap-ass pitching to try to get under the Texan’s skin. But they stopped now, on the northeast corner, looking to the northwest, and Zach took in the panorama with a cop’s eyes: the school playground down the block to his left, the rundown brownstones directly across from him, the empty lot, the scaffolding in front of the grocer’s shop. He could guess at the location of the dead drop where the drugs would be hidden. He could guess where the corner boys would have been stationed—dealer there, steerer there, runner there—if there had been corner boys, which there were not.
“I see it,” said Zach.
“You know whose corner this is?” Fatboy asked him.
“I’m a federale, Mooch. Which dirtbag is poisoning children where—that’s local stuff. Not my beat.”
“You see it, though. You see it with that inward eye that is the bliss of solitude.”
Zach nodded. “It’s your corner, sure.”
“It is my corner, Agent.”
“But where’s your corner boys?”
“Where indeed? Pretty soon, those third graders gonna be let out for recess, where they gonna get their re-up at?”
br /> “Goddamned city. Nothing runs right.”
“You know where I think my corner boys is at?”
Zach drew his gaze slowly off the scenery and turned to show his baby blues to Fatboy. The two men were about the same height—Mooch maybe half an inch taller—so it was a direct hit, stare to stare. Zach wanted the gangster-man to read him: he knew all this—everything the Mooch was about to say—he’d guessed it, anyway—or seen it with that inward eye that is . . . whatever Fatboy said it was—that’s why he was here in the first place.
“I think they be at that land from which no traveler returns,” said Fatboy, straight at him.
“You think your corner boys are dead.”
“That’s my deduction. You know how I deduces that? I deduces it because one of them—a young brother go by the name STD—he wear a ring on his finger with a gold skull on it, have some diamonds for the eyes, you know. And that very ring was still on his finger when his hand showed up in a paper bag at my park bench where I eat my morning burrito.”
“Does sound like a clue.”
“The bad man uses a sword, I heard.”
“He does.”
“Put me off my damned breakfast.”
“You shouldn’t eat that crap anyway. It’ll turn your heart to stone—although maybe that warning comes a bit too late.”
“They an invisible war going on out here, Detective. I’m getting that you already know that, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“We ain’t fighting against flesh and blood no more. We’re fighting against principalities. And powers. Against spiritual forces in the heavenly places. This is a battle between good and evil going on, Agent Adams.”
“Which one are you?” Zach couldn’t help asking.
“Me? Why, I bring the gift of laughter to a sorrowful world!” Fatboy Mooch protested, as if his feelings had been hurt. “No one has to give me money to get they self high. Reality is free. Ask yourself who deals out that shit. I’m a better man than God, when you come to think about it. I make you feel better than He does, anyway.”