Point Doom (16 page)

Archer grinned. “They’ve got me and Afrika sweeping the floor and sorting through cold cases at our desks these days, but I’ll do what I can.”

“You’d better know this about me, Detective Archer: I’m not concerned with indictments and court trials. I’m not interested in bringing anyone in. Those things are your department. You and Afrika. You didn’t dig far enough into my jacket. Here’s the bottom line on me: I don’t quit. I don’t give up and the only way I’ll be stopped is when I’m dead. That’s how I roll. I’ll get Sydnye. And if Swan’s involved, I’ll get him too.”

“Wake up, tough guy! You’re chopped chum for Swan’s attorneys and the people over at his fortress. There’s too much money on the table and too much power involved. If Swan finds out you’re on his kid, he’s got an army on his side.”

“Like I said, I don’t care who gets hurt. I don’t interview witnesses and I don’t collect evidence. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the justice system and I can’t be stopped. I won’t quit until Sydnye’s dead or I’m dead. Just look at it like this: You’ve got someone on your side willing to do a little community service for the city of Santa Monica.”

Archer shook his head. “That’s the wrong road. Just help me and let us do our job.”

“How about this: I’ll do what I do and you do what you do.”

Archer opened the car door. “You’re nuts. You’ve got no idea what you’re up against. You’d better call my number before Swan’s kid or Swan himself calls yours. And like I said, ditch this car. It’s hot now.”

“Thanks for the advice. I’ll deal with it.”

Pulling out of the parking lot, I could feel my head begin to pound. I was in for a long night.

TWENTY-ONE

I
’d been on Gusarov for three days. My boss at Priority Investigations LLC, was Ray Alvarez, who everybody called Two-Tone. Ray got his nickname because of the large burn mark that covered the right side of his face and the thick, pink scar it had caused.

Two-Tone had authorized only a couple of days on the surveillance and had flatly told me that morning, “It’s a dead end, JD. You got nothin’. Get off the Russian and go with the girl’s aunt on Staten Island. Work that. Stay with that.”

I didn’t agree and decided to keep going on my own. Two-Tone was always worried about overruns on client costs and that shit. I liked Gusarov on this and I wanted to stay with him until it burned out or I had my bingo.

The night before, I’d changed rental cars again in Midtown. Then, the next morning, Gusarov had began altering his established pattern. From the plumbing store on Eleventh Avenue at 7:54
A.M.
, instead of his normal route of stops, he’d driven to an apartment building in Queens and then to a private house in Sheepshead Bay. Two hours on the road.

Unlike in the previous two days, Gusarov had done no business at either of the first two locations and had never opened the back of his van. Each stop had lasted less than half an hour. I could feel my guy beginning to make moves.

At Sheepshead Bay I called Two-Tone again. “Something’s up, goddamnit! This guy is rolling,” I said. “He’s not plumbing today, for chrissake. Plumbing repair contractors plumb. This guy hasn’t plumbed anything. He’s doing another kind of plumbing. I’d bet on it. I can feel it.”

Two-Tone had known for some time that I was a serious drinker but he didn’t know yet that it had deteriorated into a 24/7 jones. He wasn’t aware that I was getting up at least twice every night to fill a water glass with whiskey, down it, then go back to sleep. But my boss did know that my judgment had recently been confused by my moods and over-amped emotions. I knew that he’d stopped trusting me.

My boss was immediately pissed. “I told you to dump the Ruskie, goddamnit! The client won’t authorize any more time on this. Last warning: Get back here. You’re off the clock as of now!” Then he’d hung up.

I was parked around the corner on the street; the second car in a line of five, next to a row of houses. I only had a partial view of the old beach house, two houses in, down the block at a right angle.

I checked my watch. I’d been here twelve minutes.

Killing time, I changed hats again on the front seat, added several ounces to my cardboard coffee cup from the bottle in my inside coat pocket, then got out to put on my tan raincoat.

I was about to get back into the car when, fifty yards away, Gusarov came out the front door and stopped. He took his time looking up and down the street.

I moved behind my car and pretended I was walking a dog on the narrow grass patch between the street and the curb. I clapped my hands and yelled, “Goo boy! That’s my boy! Here ya go, boy!”

Gusarov bought the act and began walking the other way down the street toward his truck.

A minute later, I was behind the wheel and ready for him to make a move.

Instead of pulling away, the Russian was now backing his van down the block to the house’s driveway. He made a wide turn, then reversed up the driveway toward the side entrance of the house.

I waited.

Five minutes went by.

I had no direct line of vision but when I heard what sounded like the van’s rear doors slamming closed and then a motor starting, I knew we were back on. My guy was moving.

Twenty-five minutes later the Russian had driven to the Grand Central Parkway, then taken the turn toward Manhattan.

Half an hour after that, instead of using the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge via Stewart Street, which is the cheaper and faster route to midtown, the van continued heading for the Triborough Bridge, then crossed into the Bronx exit lane.

I called Two-Tone again. He answered on the first ring. “I told you,” I said. “He picked up something in Sheepshead Bay. Maybe people. Maybe kids. He’s on his way to the Bronx. He hasn’t been to the Bronx before. I’m thinkin’ he’s hot now!”

“Okay, fuck it,” Two-Tone hissed. ”In for a penny, in for a pound. Stay on him. But call me, goddamnit.”

Ten minutes later the van turned off the Grand Councourse at 149th Street, then headed east.

At Third Avenue Gusarov turned left, then pulled to the side under the El.

I slowed as I drove past the van and made the next right turn. I’d seen Gusarov talking on his cell.

Five minutes later the van had moved to a parking space near the front of one of the tenement buildings.

I could feel it. This was a drop—or a pick-up!

Standing outside my tan Dodge sedan, after changing hats again and tossing my coat into the backseat, I looked down the street to the front of the building, fifty yards away. I saw something. Gusarov had a passenger or passengers.

The sidewalk was narrow and the distance between the open van door and the side of the building wasn’t more than a few feet, but I could make out colors—at least two different colors—of people being hustled inside. And someone else, a second man I’d only caught a glimpse of, was holding the building’s door open.

Then I saw the van’s rear doors slammed shut and Gusarov walked to his driver’s door, then clicked his remote to lock it.

I hit my cell and called Two-Tone. “Okay, we’re hot,” I whispered. “I think Gusarov has two pieces, maybe three. I’m north of One-Forty-Ninth on Third Avenue. Three buildings in from the corner on the east side. I couldn’t make out if he’s got boys or girls but they just went inside the entrance to the building. There’s a second man too. He was at the door, holding it open. I saw him for half a second. Better get me some backup. I’m thinking we can make our move here.”

“I got no one, JD,” Two-Tone snarled. “Iggy’s on Fifty-Seventh Street watching the gallery and the kid’s at the dentist until after two o’clock. Look, I’ll come myself! I’ll take a cab and be there in forty-five minutes—if I’m lucky.”

“Okay. I’ll go in and sniff it out. Like before. But I won’t make any moves until you get here. Just get here!”

“Hold back!” Two-Tone barked. “Do the drill. Just wait for me. Do not go in there alone, Fiorella.”

“He’s got kids in there. I know it. The son of a bitch has kids.”

“I said hold tight! I’m on my way.”

“Just get here,” I said. Then I hung up.

The building was a four-floor walk-up, easily a hundred and fifty years old. I pulled the Dodge into the red zone a hundred feet off on the corner, a safe distance down the block from the main entrance—but closer.

Shielded behind my car’s open driver’s door, I pulled my Charter Arms .44 from the rear of my belt and slid it into my right front pants pocket. Then I dipped my head inside and took a long pull from the pint of Ten High in my coat pocket.

After that I went to the trunk of the Dodge and pulled out one of the two decoy outfits I had with me—a white jumpsuit with a matching hard hat. The arced red lettering across the back of the jumpsuit read,
INSTANT EXTERMINATIONS
. The phone number below it was a dummy and went directly to a dead line.

I slipped the jumpsuit on, put on the hard hat, then picked up the clipboard that came with the getup. A fake work order form was anchored beneath the spring clip.

Back by the driver’s side of the Dodge, reaching in, I clicked the car’s hazard lights on, then locked the door and walked toward the building.

There was an aging sign taped above a panel of the building’s entrance buzzers that read,
OUT-ODER
.

It took me less than a minute to pick the front-door lock with my picks and my two-ounce spray bottle of WD-40.

Once inside, I left the door ajar, making sure the lock’s latch did not engage.

Then I began checking the first floor for sounds. There was a TV playing in the front apartment. A corkboard and dangling pen were attached to the door for messages. It had to be the super’s place. I kept going.

Working my way down the hall slowly, I went from one door to the next. There were no sounds or red flags in the second, third, or fourth units.

Then I climbed the stairs to the second landing. As I reached two, the smell of piss was overwhelming, as if this was someone’s personal spot to take a leak twice a day. I kept going, telling myself that I’d just find the right door, then back off and wait for Two-Tone to catch up.

I took even more time on two, listening for almost half a minute at each door.

There was only one fixtureless bulb at the other end of the dark hall. The hallway floor itself was composed of ancient half-inch tile squares laid in swirling patterns, and my thick rubber cop shoes were soundless against them.

Halfway up the hallway I heard voices as I neared no. 209—the first live voices I’d heard in the building.

I listened for a full minute. Two men were speaking in raised voices. It sounded like Russian. But I could hear no children’s voices.

Satisfied that 209 might be the right apartment, I padded to the end of the hall, slid the casement window open, and leaned to my right, looking for the fire escape. I’d failed to notice it was on the street side of the building. The front window of 209 would face it.

I looked at my watch. I’d hung up from Two-Tone fourteen minutes before. He was still at least twenty minutes away.

I climbed the interior stairs to the roof, then exited on the wide, tar-coated surface.

I crossed to where I saw the top of the fire escape and began to descend on the heavy metal stairs. As I did this, the frame clanged against the building’s brick surface. Too much noise. Way too much.

I soon found that by pushing myself against the exterior wall while holding the metal handrail with the other hand, I was able to prevent the steel-framed railing and stairs from making contact with the brick.

I took my time. I wasn’t worried about the pedestrian traffic below and someone seeing me. New Yorkers seldom look up and if they did they’d see a guy in a white workman’s uniform, then ignore it.

When I got to three, I stopped for a full two minutes, sat down on a metal stair step, and studied my surroundings while waiting for any signs that I’d been discovered.

Now I slowed my descent rate even more, heading toward two, taking a long time between each metal step.

When I was half a dozen steps from the bottom metal platform, I removed my .44 from the pocket beneath my top layer of clothing and tucked it into the wide, chest-high front folding flap pocket of my overalls. I then set my white hard hat on the stair above.

I decided to play it safe and descend the steps upside down, reversing my body, hooking my feet on a step rung several above me and stretching my torso in a downward angle against the metal stairs so that the top of my head would be even with the top of 209’s front window.

There were ancient venetian blinds on the window. They were cracked slightly and I was able to see in.

The room I was looking into was the living room. I could see three one-person cots against one wall. The setup was like a barracks and not like a home.

On the last cot’s sheetless mattress, farthest from the window I was looking through, was a girl. She was naked from the waist down and wearing a sort of pink nightshirt that ended at her midsection; a quiet, unsmiling little girl, no more than ten or eleven years old. She sat without talking, nodding her head while someone, probably Gusarov or his buddy, out of my line of vision, was apparently talking to her.

A couple of minutes later another man came into view. He stood beside the bed, obstructing my view of the girl.

Then another girl entered my line of vision. She was wearing a long, faded blue T-shirt and appeared to be about the same age as the first girl. She was blonde. Both of the kids were blondes.

The second girl sat down on one of the two remaining cots, then drew the blanket up and around her, to above her chest.

Having seen enough, I pulled my body back up the metal stairs, put my hard hat back on, then made my way up the fire escape stairs to three.

I needed a plan. Two-Tone was on his way and his presence would even the odds. But we’d still have to have a plan—a way in. A distraction.

Looking across Third Avenue, past the El, I surveyed the storefronts and spotted one that advertised takeout:
FUEGO’S PIZZA. WE DELIVER.
The 718 phone number was larger than the painted-on name on the orange banner. The store’s faded fabric sign covered the original store sign and stretched the width of the facade.

I had used food delivery before as a way in. I didn’t like it. One time it had worked and one time it had backfired, and Iggy, my sometimes partner, had narrowly missed being hit by a blast from a sawed-off 12-gauge. The takedown had been set for an absurd drug deal where the buyer and the supplier had both gone to the meet to rip each other off. No one was shot or fatally hurt but the would-be buyer had had his feet crushed when the seller and his boys made their point by dropping a fifty-pound vise on each of the guy’s shoe tops as he sat strapped to a chair. The food-delivery ruse had come too late and only a swing of the metal door Iggy was closing had saved him from a sure trip to the boneyard.

I quietly made my way back up the fire escape to the roof. Once on the flat surface I pulled out my cell and punched in the pizza store’s phone number. I ordered a cheese and pepperoni, gave the address, and asked how long. “Twenty minutes,” the kid on the other end said.

“Make it twenty-five minutes. No sooner,” I said. “I gotta pick up cigarettes at the candy store. Oh, and look, the downstairs buzzers don’t work. Just push the door. It’s open.”

“I know your building. Who’s this? You’re not Vladdy? Two-oh-nine, right?”

“Right, he told me to call,” I said, vamping now but hoping to be read as convincing. “How much?”

“Seventeen-oh-seven, with tax. Vladdy always gives me a twenty.”

“You’ll get your twenty. Just bring the goddam pizza in twenty-five minutes,” I said. “No sooner. Okay?”

“Sure. Okay.” Then there was a pause. “And what about extra napkins for the kids? Vladdy always wants extra napkins.”