Dead Red (17 page)

“What?”

“It’s a baseball term. It means—”

“I know what it means. A hitter’s waiting on a fastball and then he crushes it. What does that have to do with this?”

“Some of the snipers I knew over there, they’d sit around talking about shots they’d taken. That day, last week, whatever. Sometimes I think they made shit up just to top each other, y’know? Some shots were more difficult than others. The easy ones—the ones where their intel told them exactly where and when to be?—they’d call it ‘sitting dead red.’”

From the Middle East to Williamsburg.

“You mean the shooter was waiting for Ricky?”

“That’s one way of thinking. Or he found him and had time to set up a kill short.”

I shook my head, contemplating what he was saying. “What about the other shots?” I answered my own question. “A second shooter.” I remembered that possibility coming up at the hospital.

“Taxi was completely shot up you said, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Shooter Number Two was in motion.”

I watched as Jimmy came down as gracefully as he had climbed up. There was a time I could do that. When he was standing next to me, I said, “They found a body over in the park the other night.” I pointed north two blocks. “Older kid on a bike, automatic weapon was found.”

“Shock and Awe.”

“Huh?”

“First shooter,” Jimmy said. “He gets the job done. One shot—there’s your shock. Second shooter, his job is to make a lot of noise, confuse the situation.”

“Awe.” I waited five seconds. “Goddamn it!” I yelled.

“Some people might say God was looking out for you, Ray,” Jimmy said. “The shooter coulda chose the sidewalk to do his banging instead of the street. If he had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Some people can go fuck themselves.” My head began to spin, and I felt myself starting to hyperventilate. I grabbed the scaffolding for balance and felt Jimmy’s hand on my shoulder. Then I threw up.
Fucking beautiful.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked, taking his hand off me.

I watched the sidewalk swim and nodded. “I’m good.”

It took about a minute to put some truth into that statement. I straightened myself up and slowly shook my head.

“Doctor said I shouldn’t drink for a few days. Got a mild concussion.”

“Doctors say a lot of things. Do you know if they got the ballistics back on Ricky’s shooting?”

“I have no idea. They don’t keep me in the loop anymore, Jimmy.”

“But you know someone who
would
know. Someone you could call and get whatever info you wanted.”

“My Uncle Ray,” I said, catching on. “But why do you—”

“If we’re right about the way the shooting went down, there’ll be two different guns involved.”

I pulled my cell out, found the contact info for my uncle, and pressed the screen. It took three rings before he picked up.

“Nephew,” he said. “How’s the head?”

“I’m good. Thanks.” He was not going to be happy about the reason for my call. “Gotta quick question I was hoping you could answer.”

“Make it a
real
quick one. I’m about to step into a meeting.”

I went straight for it. “They get the ballistics back on Ricky Torres?”

Silence. Then, “Why would you want to know that, Raymond?”

“I’m over here at the scene. With a friend of Ricky’s, Jimmy Kisparadis. Jimmy Key. He was in the Middle East with Ricky, and he’s got a theory about the shooting.”

“How nice for you both,” Uncle Ray said. “You got thirty seconds to share this theory with me, Raymond.”

I did. Uncle Ray remained quiet. I knew the face he was making: part anger, part contemplation. I’d seen it enough times from him in person.

“Shit,” he finally said. “I gotta step into the meeting. Afterward, I’ll check in with the lead on the case. You remember Detective Royce, right?”

I ignored that dig. “Can you call me and let me know?” Now I was really pushing it.

“Seems like we need to have a little talk anyway. This guy, why’s he involved with this?”

“Like I said, he was over in the Middle East with Ricky and stayed friends with him back here. We got to talking and—”

“You both just ended up at the crime scene.”

“Something like that, yeah.”

More silence. “It’s a good theory, Raymond. Tell your new buddy I said so. You can also tell him to keep his nose out of an active investigation. Do I need to say that goes double for you?”

“No. Thank you.”

“Go home now and rest your head.” He hung up.

I turned to Jimmy. “He’ll look into it. Said it was a workable theory, but didn’t like that it came from me. I mean you.”

Jimmy shrugged. “As long as he’s taking it seriously, I don’t care.”

“Me, either.” I was lying. I was in for a good, old-fashioned butt chewing sometime in the near future.

We walked across the street and stopped in front of the new condos. I looked up at the blue tower and could just imagine the views from way on high. When my thoughts came back to Earth, another one hit me.

“Let’s check out the inside,” I said.

“Why?” Jimmy asked.

“Humor me for a minute. Your present gig come with a badge?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Good. Come on.”

We stepped over to the entrance and were greeted by a uniformed doorman, who came out from behind a desk that looked designed to take heavy fire.

“Help you, gentlemen?” he asked.

I nodded at Jimmy to flash his badge. He did. “Sales office open?”

“Yes, sir. Is there a problem?”

“Can you direct us to the sales office, please.”

“I’ll do better than that,” he said, and went back behind the desk. “I’ll call the sales manager down. That okay?”

“That’ll be fine.”

The guy picked up the phone, said something I couldn’t hear, and then hung up. He gave Ricky and me a big smile. “One minute, sirs.”

Sixty seconds later, a well-groomed man in what had to be a very expensive suit appeared from behind the marbled wall. He stepped over to us, checked out our clothing—short-sleeved shirts, shorts, and sneakers; apparently not what he expected two cops to wear—and offered us his hand.

“Officers,” he said. “Alberto Diaz, Sales Manager. How may I help you?”

Seeing that this was my play, Jimmy stayed quiet. I took a few seconds to make sure what I wanted to say came out sounding like a cop.

“You’re aware,” I started, “of the shooting that happened the other night?”

“How could I not be?” Diaz said. “But I already spoke with a detective on Saturday. I don’t believe I have anything worthwhile to add.”

“There’s been a new development. We have reason to believe that the victim—Mr. Torres—was interested in purchasing an apartment here.”

“No one mentioned that to me,” Diaz said defensively.

“Like I said, Mr. Diaz. It’s a recent development. Is there any way you can check and see if Mr. Torres had applied?”

He considered that. “He was a police officer, I was told.”

“Yes.”

He chose his next words carefully. “No offense, but we don’t get many police officers filling out applications here.”

“Nor schoolteachers or firemen I guess either, huh?”

“No.” He gave a small uncomfortable laugh. “I’m afraid not.”

“Would you mind checking for us anyway? I know it sounds unlikely, but we’d like to rule it out. Should we go up to your office?”

“No need.” He pulled a phone out of his jacket. His was better than mine. “Torres, right?”

“
Richard
Torres.”

Diaz worked his keyboard as Jimmy and I gave each other a look. Mine was one of those it’s-worth-a-try looks. Jimmy’s was more of the what-the-fuck variety. After a half minute, Diaz grunted, “Huh.”

“You find something?” I asked.

“I did. A Mr. Richard Torres filled out a preliminary application a few weeks ago for a two-bedroom apartment.” He moved his nimble thumbs across the keyboard again and said, “That’s a nine-hundred-thousand-dollar apartment.” Diaz gave us both a look, then touched the screen again and scrolled down. “Says here he was inquiring about the total monthly cost after putting down twenty percent.”

Twenty percent?

“That’s a hundred and eighty thousand dollars,” I said out loud.

Jimmy let out a low whistle as Alberto Diaz checked his screen again.

Was this what Ricky T wanted to show me? And what did the girl in the photograph have to do with this, if anything? I heard Ricky’s voice in my head again.

“I made a mistake, Ray.”

What the hell kind of mistake involves a beautiful girl and an apartment that Ricky T should have no way of affording? The only possibilities I could come up with right away were not good ones. Guys like Ricky don’t just happen to have twenty percent of nine hundred thousand bucks at their disposal. I remembered the piece of mail his brother had shown us. How Ricky was eligible for a three quarters of a million-dollar loan.

It was starting to come together why he was suddenly in a big hurry to return to the force. He needed to get back to work—real work—if he were even considering a place like this.

“Is that all, officers?” Diaz asked. “I have a client I need to get back to.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s all for now. Do you have a card, Mr. Diaz?”

He pulled one out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. “I’m here Monday through Friday. Weekends by appointment.”

“Thanks. We’ll be in touch.”

He didn’t look too thrilled at that possibility. I watched him walk away and Jimmy looked at me. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t.” I waved to the guy behind the desk. He was on the phone and waved back. We exited the building. “It just didn’t make any sense why Ricky would drive all the way over here to tell me whatever it was he wanted to tell me.”

“You saying it makes sense now?”

“Not yet. It brings up a lot of questions. But there’s one that’s really starting to burn me.”

“What’s that?”

“How did the shooter know when and where to find Ricky T?”

Chapter 15

IT TOOK LESS THAN TEN MINUTES to walk back to Teddy’s. I had made a phone call along the way and was not surprised to see Edgar already sitting at the bar. He had his laptop with him, and he was drinking Bass Ale with tomato juice. I made the standard introductions, and Edgar did not disappoint.

“Like the Yankee pitcher?” he asked as Jimmy and I grabbed stools on both sides of Edgar.

“I’ll explain later,” I said.

Sammi the bartender came over with two pints of Brooklyn Pilsner. The look on her face made it quite clear it was Jimmy she remembered, not me. I wasn’t even sure I registered on her radar. While she and Jimmy flirted, I turned to Edgar.

“Thanks for showing up, Edgar. You got here pretty quick.”

“I was just getting off when you called.” He giggled at the unintended sexual association. He did that a lot. “Anyway, what d’ya need to know?”

“GPS,” I said.

“Global Positioning System,” he answered. “I thought we’d been through all this, Raymond. You need another lesson on how it works?”

“I know how it works, Edgar. What I want to know is how taxis use them.”

“Ahh.” He took a sip of his ale. “They pretty much all use them now. All the fleets, anyway. If you own and operate your own cab, you probably don’t need it as much. It’s how the owners keep an eye—so to speak—on their drivers. Make sure they’re not making unrecorded stops, taking fares and not turning on the meter, shit like that.”

“Who monitors the system?”

“In real time? Whoever’s back at the station or the depot, whatever they call ’em. But its real application is to check the driver’s record of his shift against the GPS. If they don’t match, your driver might soon be looking for a new job.”

“So, the company knows where the driver is at all times?”

“In theory, yeah,” Edgar said. “But whoever’s back at the office, or the garage, isn’t usually checking the system in real time. That’s more for the car service guys who need to know who’s closest to the airport to pick up a fare or someone who needs a pickup from home. Saves time and money. The taxicabs? They just pick up hails. There’s no need to keep an eye on the system except for the occasional check-in.”

“Like when a cabby’s going on break?”

“Or filling up, or heading out of the city. Yeah.”

Ricky was on a break when he picked me up Saturday morning.
Did he call it in? Did someone back at the shop know where he was?

“Can someone hack into a cab’s GPS?”

“
Hack?
” Edgar said. “Good one, Ray.”

“Edgar?”

“I’ve told you this before, Ray. Anything that goes out over the Internet or uploads to a satellite can be hacked. Would take someone with something
approaching
my kind of skills and equipment to do it, but yeah, it’s real doable. Why?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to share that with Edgar yet, so I let the question hang in the air. But halfway through his next sip it came to him. He swallowed hard.

“You think someone was tracking your friend the other night,” he said.

“I’m not there yet. I’m not anywhere. I’m just considering the possibility.”

“The possibility of what?” Jimmy joined the conversation as his new admirer remembered she had customers at the other end of the bar.

“Edgar’s my … techie friend.” I patted Edgar on the knee. “Explain.”

He did. Jimmy listened intently and didn’t ask questions. I assumed with his security experience, he knew a lot of what Edgar was talking about already. When Edgar finished, Jimmy nodded and gave a small smile.

“What is it you do, man?” he asked, obviously impressed with Edgar.

“Communications for the Transit Authority.”

Jimmy smiled and said, “He’s the one who should be working for The Whack, Ray, not you.”

Edgar gave me a strange look. “What’s that mean, Ray?”

I told him how I was picking up some extra cash, basically by running a few interviews for Jack’s PI enterprise. He was not happy with me.

“The guy’s an … asshole, Ray.” He looked at Jimmy. “Excuse me.”

“That’s okay, man. I’ve heard pretty much the same about the man.”