Black Water Transit (15 page)

“Five-one-one to five-zero-zero, K?”

“
Five-one-one?
”

“Vince, that you?”

“
It is. Where are you?
”

“UN Plaza. Where are Dexie and Carlo?”

“
Having dinner down in the Battery.
”

“Can we get them up here?”

“
Sure. What’s up?
”

“We’re on that thing with the state cop. We may have something here. We can use another car.”

“
You got it. I’ll call them now. How’s the traffic?
”

“Easing up. Can you ask them to come in fast?”

“
Ten-four.
”

Casey had been trying to read the papers on Jimmy Rock’s lap. He saw this, held the sheaf up, fanning the pages.

“Pike’s phone calls. Every call he’s made since he checked in two weeks back.”

“How the hell did you get that?” asked Casey, impressed. Jimmy Rock indicated the woman sitting behind the concierge desk inside the tower lobby.

“Mercedes Gonsalva.”

“Her name is Mercedes?”

“Yeah. Coincidence, hah? Anyway, she senses my power.”

“Your power?”

“Also, I begged. Anyway, I got the sheet.”

Nicky had watched this interchange, puzzled. “But his car’s clean. He’s not the guy.”

“He mojoed the car somehow,” said Casey before Jimmy Rock could speak. “He’s your guy, Nicky. I feel it.”

“Much as I hate to agree with Whitney Houston here, I think she’s right. I think this Pike guy is your man. You tell me yourself, Nicky. How’d he strike you?”

Nicky shrugged. He wasn’t about to admit the guy scared him. But Jimmy Rock had Nicky’s frequency pegged.

“He’s a bug, a psycho, a stone-cold killer. A cockroach. A bug, like I said. That’s what I’m getting from you both.”

Casey spoke up in spite of herself.

“He’s not a bug. There’s more to him than that. He’s like a guy who used to believe in something and then got disappointed or something. He hits you as a guy who
has a lot of anger, but has it all tamped down real tight. Tonight, when we showed up, it was like he was … enjoying the whole thing. We never rattled his cage at all.”

Jimmy Rock took in the speech with a nod, said nothing to her, looked into the middle distance while he tapped a finger on the steering column. Finally he spoke to Nicky directly.

“Nicky, this is your beef. But this is my show. My advice, how about we just hang off his left shoulder for a while, see what happens? We stir up his life a little and see what floats to the top of the pond. That work for you?”

Nicky nodded, privately convinced it would be a total waste of time. If Pike was the guy, they had dick on him. If he wasn’t, it would become obvious pretty soon. He’d ride it out for a while, give this cocky DT a chance to screw up, and then he’d tell him to go fuck himself.

Jimmy Rock tossed the pages into the backseat.

“You read these numbers off, Spandau. Nicky, you watch the doors there. I’ll do the thinking. That’s what I’m good at.”

Casey had a cheek muscle working but she said nothing and reached over the front seat into the glove compartment, pulled out the NYPD crisscross directory, flicked on her mini Maglite, and went down the list one by one, reading off the results while Nicky watched the hotel doors and Jimmy Rock listened very hard to what Casey was saying.

“Here’s one … 973-343-6000 … an unlisted Newark number. Called this guy around six. Ben Guardello?”

“He’s a gunsmith. Benny Boom-Bang, they call him. Handgun specialist. Does porting and polishing for private clubs. Gas vents. Extensions. Sound suppressors. Pachmyr grips. Laser sights. All legit, as far as we can prove. That’s very interesting. What’s next?”

Casey worked her way down the page, checking each
number off and flipping through the pages of the crisscross directory. Jimmy Rock would nod or shake his head, mostly say nothing.

They both listened to Casey read and Jimmy Rock briefly wondered if Casey had family here. Probably a pack of tight-ass phony Islamic nut bars. All the little boys strapped on those stupid bow ties. Sipped Turkish tea, listened to the Revereeno slag the Jews.

“518-664-7878. An upstate number. Called the place once, this afternoon, at twenty minutes after three. Number comes back as Black Water Transit up in Troy. Mean anything to you?”

“What were you saying there?” said Jimmy Rock.

Casey started to go back up the list.

Jimmy Rock shook his head.

“No, that Troy number. The last one.”

“518-664-7878 … Black Water Transit Systems.”

Jimmy Rock considered it for a moment, shook his head.

“Any other reference to Black Water Transit in the list?”

Casey scanned the page.

“Yeah. He called … no, that’s a Brooklyn number.”

“What is it?”

“718-555-2391 … but it says Black Water Transit. I see, they have a branch in Red Hook.”

“What. The container docks there?”

“Yeah. He called the Red Hook location at four-seventeen today. A six-minute call. Then again …”

“The Red Hook number for Black Water?”

“Yeah. He called them again just before we got to his room. Does the name Black Water Transit Systems mean anything to you?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. I’ve never seen the name on any of our intel sheets. What else is there?”

Casey and Jimmy Rock worked their way through
the rest of the numbers. It took about a half hour, and when they were finished they were no better off. None of the numbers were crime-related or suggested anything hinky about Earl Pike or his associates. When they got to the bottom of the list, Jimmy Rock sighed.

“Okay. Nothing else to do but wait until Dexie gets here.”

“And where’s he?” asked Nicky.

“He’ll be here,” said Jimmy Rock. “He’s coming. We wait.”

Which they did, most of it in a strained silence, everybody thinking something different about Earl Pike. All around them midtown churned and pumped away like a neon circus wagon. Diplomats from the UN sauntered into the lobby surrounded by a phalanx of security people, floating on clouds of self-esteem. An FBI unit in a black Jimmy parked outside the hotel and the driver glared across at them for fifteen minutes. Jimmy Rock stared back for fifteen minutes and eleven seconds. A guy in a three-piece suit made out of green garbage bags pushed a shopping cart filled with running shoes eastward down the street. He was barefoot and wore his hair in two stiff yellow braids like Pippi Longstocking. The garbage-bag suit was very well cut. If he’d done it himself, he was good. A light rain came and went, salting the windows of the 511 unit with tiny glittering diamonds.

Jimmy listened to a swing station play a Voodoo Daddy CD all the way through, keeping time by drumming lightly on the steering wheel. Casey thought about calling her mother and put it off again. Nicky tried to imagine how he would have done with the guy who beat the male vic—Donald Albert Condotti—to death in that clearing. Wondered if it was Earl V. Pike. Wondered if he’d have done better against Pike. Better, he decided, finally. At least he’d have lived.

Fifteen minutes later, across the street, a white Lincoln Continental pulled up to the doors of the UN Plaza. It stopped and a hotel bellman climbed out, holding a parking stub and some keys. He handed them to a big man in an olive-drab jacket and blue jeans, who seemed to materialize out of the dark.

The man was wearing a woolen watch cap. His back was turned to the street. He got into the car and rolled up the window. It was heavily tinted, so the rising line of the window was blocking their view of the driver. Nicky, who had been watching the door of the hotel so hard his eyes were burning, leaned forward over the dash.

“That’s him. That’s Pike.”

Now the man was in the car. It rocked as the guy gunned the engine a couple of times, then jerked as he put it in gear and started to move off, going east. As the car made a left turn and went northbound on First Avenue, Casey wrote down the marker.

“You’re right, Nicky,” said Jimmy Rock. “That’s his car.”

Seconds later they were accelerating out of the loading lane. They missed the light change at First and had to sit through the cycle. Casey asked Jimmy Rock a question. She asked it twice.

“I said, are we gonna wait for the backup?”

“When I want tactical advice from you, Spandau, I’ll make a point of asking for it. Otherwise do me a favor and zip it, hah?”

Casey started to form a phrase, thought it over, said nothing. Two can play. Nicky just cranked his seat belt tight and braced himself on the front of the dashboard.

The light changed and Jimmy Rock floored it, the Crown Victoria squealing as they pulled out into First. The traffic was light now, mostly cabs and delivery vans, some limos, a few private cars. The wind had picked up, blowing faster, stirring the drifting rain and sending it
in little whirlwinds and eddies into the midtown skyline. They watched as the white Lincoln cleared the crest of the hill at Fiftieth, its brake lights flickering as the driver dodged a jaywalker. Then it dropped down out of sight.

He lifted the handset off the hook and thumbed the button.

“Five-one-one to five-zero-zero, K?”

Silence … then a click.

“
Five-zero-zero. Who’s this?
”

“Jimmy Rock. That you, Vince?”

“
Hey, Jimmy
. Che cosa
?
”

“Boss, we’re on that thing with the state guy. We have a good suspect here and I’d like to play him for a while. We’re northbound on First, need a tag, both ways. What’s the tag, Spandau?”

“Robert Victor Robert eight eight eight.”

Jimmy Rock repeated it into the handset. They were coming up on Fifty-first now, and the white Lincoln was about fifty yards up, moving pretty fast.

“
Wait one, Jimmy. Did you get a look at his Benz?
”

“Yeah. Spandau and the state guy did. It’s been dry-cleaned.”

“
New paint?
”

“No. Something else. I figure he switched registrations somehow. Can you ask citywide auto to double-check the DMV records for Pike’s Mercedes-Benz? Maybe something will show up.”

“
I will. If he’s that good, he’ll have friends. You seen any countersurveillance?
”

“None, Vince. He’s alone. I really think we got something going here, and I don’t wanna lose this mutt.”

“
I hear that. I’ll do the marker and get back to
—”

“Vince, where the hell is Dexie now? It’s been twenty-five minutes since we called them in. We need them now!”

“
Five-zero-nine, you on the air?
”

“
Five-zero-nine, we’re here, boss.
”

Casey recognized the voice of Dexter Zarnas, the sergeant she had met very briefly when she got into the Jay Rats HQ the night before. It seemed a year ago right now.

“Dexie, this is Jimmy Rock. Where the hell you been?”

“
Stuck behind a broke-down garbage truck on Lafayette. We got clear a coupla minutes ago. We’re on the FDR at Thirty-fourth right now.
”

“Can you eighty-five us at Second and Fifty-eighth, by the upper level for the Queensboro Bridge? We’re on a white Lincoln, tag number Robert Victor Robert triple eight. We’ll be on five for this run. Switching now, K?”

“
Switching to five, K. Done, Jimmy.
”

They let the Lincoln get about a half-block lead on them. The car was holding steady northbound, working through light midtown traffic. Casey was straining her eyes to follow the car. Nicky was thinking that this was a lot of energy to be putting into the wrong guy, but he was just a ride-along in New York. It wasn’t his play.

Jimmy Rock flicked the frequency selector over to channel five and put the handset down. He glanced into the back at Casey.

“Spandau, how much sleep you had today?”

“None. I’m okay.”

“Nicky, you on your game, kid?”

“I’m fine” was all he had to say.

The car was moving north under street lamps. Yellow light from the lamps flashed across Jimmy Rock’s face as he spoke.

“Are you, Nicky? On your game?”

Nicky had been around this cop long enough to recognize a hidden agenda when he heard one.

“I said I’m on my game, Jimmy. Why?”

Jimmy Rock stopped the car on the north side of East Fifty-third, reached across Nicky, and popped open his door. Nicky looked at him hard, but Jimmy Rock held up a hand.

“You really wanna nail this perp?”

“If he’s the guy, yeah.”

“You were telling me his hand is all wrapped up?”

“Yeah. His right hand. Big Tensor bandage. Looked serious.”

“He’s out of his room, right?”

Nicky got it in an instant.

“Hell no. I toss his place now, no warrant, whatever we get does us no good at all. Kills the case. We get beefed for no-knock-no-warrant. Not happening.”

“Look, kid. It’s fuck-the-rules time. The Benz connection is shot to shit. You got dick. This bug, he beats the life out of your vic, then he guts him with a branch, he screws around with the female, no semen, no marks, but on the male vic, Nicky, on him he leaves his own blood. Had to have. Only thing you got, kid. Be a cop. Let the DA worry about where you got the fucking bandages. You do it right, we’ll say we saw him throw the bandages in a garbage can right on the street. What’s he gonna do about it, we stick together? Fuck him.”

Nicky hesitated another full second.

Casey got twitchy.

“Make a decision! We’re losing him. Nicky, just go!”

That settled it. Nicky bailed at a quick walk. Casey got into the passenger seat and watched his back as he went south on First. Jimmy Rock was accelerating north, paying zero attention to her.

“What if he gets caught?”

“He’s state. He’s JAFO. And he’s not one of ours.”

“What the hell is a JAFO?”

“Just another fucking observer.”

“He’s a cop.”

“Not one of mine. And neither are you. So shut the fuck up.”