“Why bother? Fifty bucks says they never heard of Dr. Jason Wood.”
“I wouldn’t bet fifty cents on it,” Benzetti said. “But you might as well go through the motions.”
They got back in the car, and Rice called the hospital. Two minutes later he hung up. “Never heard of him,” he said. “Now what do we do?”
Benzetti didn’t answer. He was too busy mind-humping a tall, leggy blonde who was walking down Third Avenue. “Take a look at that,” he said.
“Dream on, Beans. If that woman ever saw you with your shoes off, she’d laugh herself into a coma.”
They watched as the woman walked toward the car.
Benzetti rolled down his window.
“What are you doing?” Rice said.
“She’s great from the front. I want to get a good look at her ass as she walks past.”
But the woman didn’t walk past. She stopped, reached inside the window, grabbed Benzetti’s tie, and yanked hard, smacking his head against the car door.
“You’re Chukov’s Boys in Blue, right?” she said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Chapter 32
Benzetti yowled in pain. He fumbled for his gun, but before he could get it, there was a muzzle of a Glock pistol in his mouth.
Rice went for his gun.
“Unless his head is made of Kevlar, the bullet will go right through him,” the blonde said. “Then right through you. One shot. Two dead cops.”
Rice froze. “Is Chukov giving you a bonus if you kill us both with one bullet?”
“Kill you? The thought never crossed my mind.” She smiled, beautiful and evil at the same time. “Chukov hired me to work with you. I’m Marta, your new best friend.”
“If I were you, I’d work on my first-impression skills. If we’re friends, why is that gun in my partner’s mouth?”
“Because he was drooling over me like a dog in a meat market. I wasn’t hired to give your greaseball partner a hard-on.” She jiggled the gun in Benzetti’s mouth. “You got that, Romeo?”
He grunted a yes.
Marta slid the gun from his lips, but kept it pointed at him. “Nice to meet you,” she said.
“Yeah, a real joy,” Benzetti said, rubbing his head where it had smashed into the top of the car door.
“What have you got on this guy who walked off with Chukov’s diamonds?”
“Nobody we talked to at Grand Central recognized him,” Rice said. “A rookie beat cop saw him bending over Zelvas’s body, but the kid conned him into thinking he was a doctor. As soon as the cop got distracted, Bagboy split for the exit and hopped a cab. The last person to see him was the cabbie who dropped him at St. Vincent’s Hospital.”
“But he’s not a doctor, so how does that help us find him?” Marta said.
“The guy just stumbled on a fortune in diamonds,” Benzetti said. “Where’s the first place he’d want to go? Home. He wouldn’t give the cabbie his real address, so he plays out the doctor ruse and asks to be taken to a hospital in his neighborhood. St. Vincent’s is on West Twelfth Street, which means it’s a good bet he lives within a five-to-ten-block radius.”
“That’s a big territory,” Marta said.
“Give me a break,” Benzetti said. “I just eliminated four boroughs and most of Manhattan.”
“What if he got to St. Vincent’s and caught another cab?” Marta said. “What if he jumped on the subway to Brooklyn?”
“Look, I’m a cop. I can’t handle all the what-ifs. I follow the leads I got, and if I run into a dead end, I try something else. It’s called leg work.”
“Leg work takes time, which is something you two useless losers don’t have. So you better come up with something smarter than standing on the corner of West Twelfth Street with your hands in your pockets, waiting for some guy to walk by with a bag full of diamonds.”
She wagged the gun in his face. “Do I have to add or else?”
“We get the point,” Benzetti said. “We’ll find the diamonds.”
“I doubt it,” Marta said. “But if you do…every last one of them goes back to Chukov. Got it?”
“Got it,” Benzetti said.
“I’ll have my eye on you two, so be careful, boys. This is your last warning.”
She put the gun in her shoulder bag and headed down the street without a care in the world, window-shopping of all things.
Chapter 33
“She’s right,” Rice said. “We don’t have a lot of time left to find those diamonds. First Chukov warns us, now she does.”
“So, what are you suggesting? Give me a plan.”
“We go public. Get the surveillance shot of Bagboy out to the press.”
“Are you crazy?” Benzetti said. “This isn’t even our case. The bombing at Grand Central belongs to Homeland Security. We’re trying to find a bag of blood diamonds stolen from ruthless killers, and we’re trying to do it on the down low. If we go public, we’ll have Feds all over us.”
“I understand that. So we go to the press and we don’t say anything about Grand Central. We’re just two cops looking for a suspect. We can say he’s wanted in connection with whatever we want. We can say he’s a person of interest in an ongoing murder or robbery investigation. Doesn’t matter. But we don’t give the TIPS phone number. We just give out our direct lines and we handle the incoming. What do you say?”
Benzetti nodded. “Let me think about it.”
Rice exploded. “How about putting a gun in your mouth while you’re thinking? Damn it, Nick, that blond bitch was even crazier than Chukov. She said she’s keeping an eye on us, and from the way she got the jump on us, I believe her. I don’t care about walking away with a fistful of diamonds. I got two kids. I want to walk away with my life.”
“Okay,” Benzetti said. “We’ll go public. I know a guy who works over at New York One. It’s not CNN, but they do twenty-four-hour, ’round-the-clock news—and it’s all local. We’ll tell them they have an exclusive for a day. They’ll flash this poor bastard’s picture and our phone numbers every six minutes until we find him and kill him.”
Chapter 34
“Is Katherine one in a couple hundred million or what?” I asked. “Can you even begin to think of another woman who would meet me for lunch and then a few hours later drop everything and jump on a plane to Paris?”
No answer.
“Okay, okay, maybe a lot of women would drop everything to go to Paris. But name one besides Katherine who would go with me.”
No answer.
“What’s the matter?” I said. “Cat got your tongue?”
At that point, my somewhat bored audience finally responded with a loud meow.
We were in the apartment. Just me and Hopper. He was licking himself and I was packing. I was so hyped that I needed to talk, and I must have been interesting, because he seemed willing to lick, listen, and watch me pack.
“According to my father, there are two ways to pack,” I explained to the cat. “The Marine way and the wrong way. First rule: travel light. Unless you’re flying to the moon, you can buy anything you didn’t bring. If you know what you’re doing, you can go around the world with one bag.”
My one bag was a well-traveled Red Oxx Sky Train, the world’s most efficient carry-on. I opened it up and then started bundle-wrapping. It’s an old military trick that saves space and avoids creases. It’s also a great way to hide things in plain sight.
You lay your clothes out flat, one on top of the other, biggest stuff on the bottom. At the top of the pile, you put a central core object. Mine is always an organizer pouch filled with socks and underwear. Then you carefully fold your clothes over the core, one by one, until you have a compact little bundle. Once you master the technique, you’ll never pack any other way.
I had done it hundreds of times, but this time, my central core was the medical bag and my socks filled with diamonds.
“I know it’s risky, smuggling these into a foreign country,” I told Hopper. “If I get caug
ht by French customs, I could wind up in jail. Even worse, if anyone finds out I’m the guy who has Mr. Zelvas’s diamonds, I could wind up dead. If that happens, Hopper, my neutered little friend, you’ll have to stay at the cat sitters’ forever. But it’s worth the risk. If I can sell these, I’ll be in fat city. Even if I get half of the thirteen million they’re supposed to be worth, I’ll still be pretty much set for life.”
I got another meow.
“You’re right. We’ll be set for life. You, me, Katherine, and maybe a couple of rug rats. Don’t get excited, I’m not talking about actual rodents, I mean—”
The doorbell rang, and I checked the monitor.
“It’s Katherine,” I told Hopper. I zipped up the Sky Train and buzzed her in.
She came bounding up the stairs, wearing jeans, a navy sweater, and a New York Yankees baseball cap.
“This is all I brought,” she said, dropping a soft-sided canvas carry-on bag to the floor.
“Boy, when I said travel light, you really took me seriously,” I said.
“Everything is washable,” she said. “Plus, I’m hoping you rented one of those Paris hotel rooms where clothing is optional.”
I turned to the cat. “What did I tell you? She’s one in a million.”
I wrapped my arms around Katherine’s slim waist and pulled her close. Her breath was warm and sweet. Her lips were soft and seductive.
This was joy. This was all I ever needed. I had my art, I had the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, and if things went according to my makeshift plan, I was about to have all the money I’d ever need.
Nothing could stop me now.
Chapter 35
“His name is Bannon,” Gravois said. “Matthew Bannon.”
Marta didn’t have to write it down. It was seared in her mind. “What took you so long, Etienne?” she said. “Please don’t tell me you decided to meet your wife for dinner after all.”
“No, no, I didn’t meet my wife.”
“If I find out you did, I’ll kill her and make you watch.”
“I swear I went straight back to the office, but my boss was still there. He knew it was my wife’s birthday and wanted to know why I came back. I told him we had a fight. Then I had to wait for him to go home.”
“Why?”
“He hovers,” Gravois said. “What was I supposed to do? Tell him I came back to break into confidential police files and download data for some assassin’s next target?”
Marta lit a cigarette. She was, as always, in a no-smoking hotel room. They were always so much cleaner than the rooms that allowed smoking. Most smokers were pigs. Not her.
She inhaled deeply and watched the smoke billow into the air slowly. She took a second drag so that Gravois could suffer in silence for at least a minute.
“All right,” she finally said, “I’ll take your word for it. Now tell me about this Matthew Bannon.”
“He’s not in the criminal database,” Gravois said. “I picked him up through his military records. He’s an American, served in the Marines.”
“Combat-trained?”
“Very. He did a tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.”
“Where is he now?”
“New York. He’s a student.”
“A student?” Marta said. “How old is he?”
“Thirty. He’s a master’s candidate in Fine Arts at Parsons in Manhattan.”
“A combat-trained Marine studying Fine Arts? He sounds conflicted.”
“There was nothing in his military records about psychological problems,” Etienne said.
“Relax, Etienne. I was only making a joke.”
“Oh,” the Frenchman said, laughing. “Yes. Very funny.”
“Where can I find Mr. Bannon?”
“His apartment is on Perry Street,” he said, and gave her the number. “Parsons is a few blocks away on West Thirteenth.”
Marta smiled. And St. Vincent’s Hospital is on West Twelfth. Maybe that dumb cop wasn’t so dumb after all.
“I can e-mail you a complete dossier with his address, phone number, military records, and his school transcript,” Etienne said.
“All that’s missing is his obituary,” Marta said.
Etienne laughed loud and hard.
“I wasn’t joking,” Marta said.
“I’m sorry. The German sense of humor is so different from the French.”
“Yes,” Marta said. “We’re not funny.”
Etienne held his breath, trying to guess whether to laugh or not. “It’s late, Marta,” he said. “Do you need anything else?”
“Not tonight. Why don’t you go home and wish your wife a happy birthday,” she said.
“Merci.”
“And many more,” Marta added. “But that, of course, will be entirely up to you.”
She hung up the phone.
Chapter 36
Marta had a rule when on a job: Never leave an impression that can’t be forgotten, controlled, or erased. Part of that meant never taking a taxi to a contract killing. Cab drivers remembered too much. She walked from the hotel to Times Square, then blended into the evening rush hour and caught the downtown number 1 train to Sheridan Square.
Once out of the rush-hour mob, she had to watch her movements. Her determined stride turned into a casual saunter. She strolled along Christopher Street, gawking at store windows, looking more like a sightseer than a murderer on a mission. She headed north on Bleecker, where the street was wider and the stores and restaurants not nearly as funky.
At the corner of Bleecker and Perry, she stopped to look in the window of Ralph Lauren, checking the glass’s reflection for tails. Those moron cops might follow her, looking for payback. But she was clear, so she headed west on Perry, a tree-lined residential street dotted with classic West Village brownstones and town houses.
She walked slowly past Matthew Bannon’s building, then doubled back and walked past it again. Five stories. Bannon’s apartment was on the top floor. Compared with some of the other buildings, this one looked secure. But she’d faced tougher.
She climbed the six steps and tried the front door. Open. She stepped into the vestibule, where the security kicked up a notch—a closed-circuit camera and a heavy brass plate protecting the inner door from being jimmied.
The doorbells were clearly labeled. She pressed apartment 5, BANNON.
There was no answer, but then the inner door was opened.
A man came through, African American, early thirties, about six foot six, with a thick bull neck and a square head that was shaved clean. He barely looked at her, just pulled the inner door shut and quickly left the building.
She rang Bannon’s bell a second time. Still no answer. She rang all the bells. Someone would buzz her in and she’d wait for Bannon in his apartment.
She held the thumb latch on the inner door and waited for the buzzer. Through the glass, she could see the door to apartment 1 open. A man stepped out—blond buzz cut, baby blue eyes, wearing faded jeans and a gray muscle shirt that left no room for the imagination.
He smiled and opened the front door.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
A gentleman, Marta decided. And from what she knew of American accents, his was not from New York. He was from one of the southern states. Alabama, or maybe Mississippi.
“I’m looking for Matthew Bannon,” she said.
“He’s not here,” the southern gentleman said. “But surely you must have figured that out when he didn’t answer the second time you rang. Now, are you gonna keep ringing all the bells till you find someone dumb enough to let you in? Because we don’t rent to stupid people. So, take a hike, Blondie.”
Marta’s Bottega Veneta bag was hanging from her shoulder. She pressed it to her side with her upper arm until she could feel the Glock against her ribs.
Her face remained icy calm. “I’m one of his teachers at Parsons,” she said. “Can you tell me where to find him? I have his final paper. I wanted to give him
his grade.”
The man from apartment 1 relaxed a little. “Oh, so you’re an art teacher.”
Marta gave him her most seductive smile. She had been on the cover of German Vogue four times. This guy would be easy. “Yes,” she said. “I’m Professor Mueller.”
“So, then, Professor,” he said, still filling the doorway, “how do you feel the Dadaist movement affected the growth of postmodernism in twentieth-century America?”
“Fuck you,” Marta snapped.
“Yeah,” he said, “that’s pretty much how I feel about Dada. But I’m a big fan of those dogs playing poker. Now, get out of here.”
Marta hated quick hits. This one wasn’t researched, wasn’t planned, but the Russians were in a hurry to find Bannon. If she was going to be waiting for him in his apartment when he got home, she’d have to kill the asshole blocking the door.
She ran through the scenario in her head. Turn toward the outer door, take the gun from my bag, spin around, shoot him between the eyes, drag his body inside, clean up, go up to the fifth floor, and wait for Bannon. The guy in the muscle shirt would be collateral damage. Tough luck, pal. You asked for it.
She turned to the front door, one hand on the clasp of her black bag. And then she saw him.
The first guy, the one with the shaved head, who looked like he was in a hurry to go someplace, hadn’t gone anywhere. He was standing outside sucking on a cigarette.
She removed her hand from the leather bag. Killing one person was manageable. Killing two was messy. Too messy for Marta.
She opened the front door, and the black guy with the cigarette grunted a polite but detached New York hello. The white guy followed her out of the building and stood at the top of the front steps.
“Happy trails, Professor,” he said.
She walked down the steps and onto Perry Street.
She’d be back. To kill Matthew Bannon and the redneck bastard from apartment 1.
Chapter 37
Getting through airport security at JFK turned out to be a snap. For me. I breezed through with my multimillion-dollar carry-on.