The Defense: A Novel (26 page)

My heart sank, nothing was going my way. I just wanted to know she was still alive.

“She must be in one of the bedrooms. There’s a rifle there. Why would they have heavy artillery in an apartment? Amy told you a woman was looking after her, Elanya. That has to be the chick with the knife,” said Anthony.

I stood and nodded in agreement. This had to be the place. I was so close to getting her back. I just wanted it to be over, then I could hold her and lock her up in a safe so that nobody else could ever take her again.

“Frankie, it’s the Lizard. You see anything else in the apartment? We could use a little help with the door. You don’t see a note pinned anywhere with a code?”

“Lemme look.”

We looked at each other silently.

“No, nothin’ pinned up.”

“What else can you see, Frankie?” I asked.

“Pictures on the wall—some kind of modern art. Not really my taste. The furniture looks modern, too, kind of uncomfortable-lookin’, leather, white. There’s a stack of pizza boxes on the kitchen table—looks like the broad ain’t the cookin’ type. TV is on…”

“What’s the name on the boxes? Can you make it out?” I said.

“Sure. It’s Big Joe’s Pizza. They ain’t far from here. I hear they do a good slice.”

“Are all the boxes from Big Joe’s?” I asked.

“Yeah, ’bout six of ’em.”

“They must be ordering out,” I said.

I took out my phone and said, “Frankie, can you make out the number for Big Joe’s?”

I dialed as Frankie called out the telephone number. They picked up after the third ring.

“Big Joe’s Pizza, can I take your order?”

“Hi. I need a delivery to the penthouse in Severn Towers, my usual. But look, I need it in a half hour this time. You guys were late yesterday.”

“Sorry about that. Who’s calling?”

“It’s Elanya’s boyfriend. I think your guy forgot the code or something on the last delivery. I had to go down in the elevator in my shorts to let him in. I’ll let it go this once, but just read me out the code you’re giving your delivery guy. I’m not running down in my bare ass this time.”

“I’m real sorry, sir. Please tell Elanya we won’t let it happen again. I’m just checking your details here … Okay, we’ve got 4789 here. Is that right?”

“That’s it. Thanks, man.”

“That’ll be thirty-nine fifty, sir. Be with you in twenty minutes.”

“Don’t rush it, kid,” I said and hung up.

The Lizard smiled, slapped a fresh magazine into a Glock, stuffed the handgun into his pants, and slung the automatic rifle over his shoulder.

“The Lizard likes you, Mr. Flynn,” said the Lizard.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Anthony patted me on the back. “Eddie, you’re not coming. You don’t have time. Tao’s waiting around the corner.”

“I’ve got time—”

The Lizard interrupted. “Even if you do have time, there’s no guarantee your daughter is up there. If she’s not there and you don’t make it back … we’ve blown it and they’ll kill her. Besides, the Lizard don’t need you, Eddie. If you see her in the apartment and make a move, you might get caught in the crossfire. Or worse, Amy might get shot. Don’t worry. If she’s there, we’ll take her back to Jimmy’s.”

He held out a hand. I took it. He was right. I had to let them do this alone. There was too much risk; I had to go back.

“Don’t let anything happen to her. Get Jimmy to text me when you’ve got her.”

Turning, I punched the panel of the blue van and ran out of the lot toward Tao.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Tao pulled up in Wong’s loading bay. Jimmy kicked off the wall, flicked away his cigarette, and checked his cell phone.

“Nothin’ yet,” he said.

Six minutes left.

“Text me when you know. I’ve got to go meet them.”

“They’ll get her back, Eddie. I’m sure of it. I’ll text you; then you run, and we’ll take care of you.”

My shoulders sagged. I closed my eyes and shook my head. “It’s not as simple as that, Jimmy.”

“Why not? We get Amy. You get the hell out of there and call the cops. What’s complicated?”

“No. I still can’t trust the cops or the FBI or anyone else but you and Harry. And besides, I’ve no proof of anything at the moment. Even if I found a straight cop or a straight fed, they wouldn’t believe me. I’ve got to finish this.”

“Why? If you want to finish it, we can open up the Lizard’s rifle on the limo as soon as it turns the corner. They won’t stand a chance.”

“True, but that’s only a few of them, and we would be doing that in full view of the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, and whoever else you got parked outside your door. And if Amy isn’t in that apartment, then we may never find her. I can’t risk it. Besides, I don’t have the full picture yet. I’m not really sure what they have planned, but I know that everyone in that court building is at risk, including Harry. Think about it; the two vans parked in the courthouse basement, the suitcase Gregor put in the van, the fake detonator I lifted from Arturas, the inside man in courthouse security—something’s going down and I have to figure it out. Tony G will bring me Mario’s photographs this morning; that’s a start. I’ll figure it out somehow. I have to. The Russians know where I live. They know where my family lives. They know what school my daughter goes to. They know everything about me.”

The story Arturas told me about tracking down a former Soviet in Brazil played over and over again in my mind.

“Jimmy, these guys can reach me anywhere. If I run—they find me and they kill my family. You know as well as I do that I can’t run. I have to finish it.”

For a second I was sitting with my dad on the tall stools in the back of McGonagall’s Bar, where we had made our little agreement.

“So, this is the deal. I teach you my tricks; you learn how to handle yourself right. I know you’re gonna try to use one of the scams for real someday. Remember what I told you—you get in a tight spot, keep it together. If that doesn’t work, you run, like I told you. If you can’t run—you fight and you put your man down, hard.”

My father’s Saint Christopher medal felt heavy around my neck. It was the only personal item that he’d brought with him from Dublin when he first came to the States. I knew what he would do. He would fight—he would do whatever it took to protect his family. This wasn’t about revenge. It was about survival. If I didn’t finish this, Amy would never be safe again.

“Eddie, don’t do it. There has to be another way,” said Jimmy.

Two minutes of my hour left and I began bouncing on the soles of my feet, ready to take off.

“I’ve been over this in my head a thousand times. There’s no other way. I’m going to find out what’s going on and then, if I have enough, I’ll take it to the feds. People who double-cross the Russian mob don’t walk away. Unless I put them down permanently, all I’ve done is put a price on my head and made sure every high-ticket hit man in the world will be looking for me and my family for the rest of our lives. Either I finish it or it finishes me. Text me as soon as you have her. Give her this.”

Handing my engraved pen to Jimmy, I said, “Tell her she asked her mom to buy it for me for Father’s Day. I don’t want her worrying about your men; I want her to know that she’s with family, that I sent you guys to get her.”

“Sure thing, bub,” said Jimmy.

I turned and sprinted for the restaurant, my shoes slipping on the asphalt, my breath almost gone through stress and fatigue. The pain in my back and neck felt like it had melted into lead, weighing me down, making me slow. I pushed the pain aside. If I didn’t make it back to the restaurant in time, Arturas would call Elanya. If she didn’t answer, he would go looking for her. I needed an edge. I needed the Bratva to believe they still held all the cards. Tearing around the corner at full speed, I pumped my arms and prayed that I would make it in time.

I pulled up fast, just as a PD patrol car sped past me, sirens blaring.

A white limo came into view.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The rear passenger door opened, and I folded myself into the dark leather.

“Where did you come from?” said Arturas.

It took me some time to catch my breath before I could answer.

“Around back. I had to move quickly and do a circuit of the block to make sure I wasn’t tailed. I’m clean, but I had to make sure—even the feds aren’t stupid enough to fall for two distractions in one day. I know it was a lot of money, but it was worth it. Tony Geraldo is our man now, and you guys just bought a lot of grace from the Italians.”

“I hope so,” said Arturas.

“So do I,” said Volchek.

I hadn’t realized he was in the dark limo. They must’ve picked him up while they were waiting for me. If I’d known Volchek was in the car, I might have thought twice about Jimmy’s idea of breaking out the heavy artillery.

“Don’t worry. The prosecutor is about to have the day from hell,” I said.

And so are you, Olek,
I thought.

“Put this on. This should be a better fit,” said Arturas, handing me a white shirt still in its packaging. Even the knot in my tie felt wet through with sweat. I changed in the limo. The fresh shirt felt good, and this time the collar was a good fit. Arturas gave me another tie, blue this time, and an electric razor. The detailed thought that he had put into this plan continued to surprise me; he didn’t want me going into court looking like a guy who’d slept in his clothes.

The conversation dried up, for which I was thankful. I put my head back and closed my eyes, but no sleep came; my brain worked overtime. From the first moment I’d met Arturas, I’d sensed he was a killer, but a very different killer from Volchek. While Arturas seemed methodical and cold-blooded, Volchek indulged his passion for suffering. In my time as a con man and a lawyer, I’d met both types before. The men like Arturas were few and far between. Men like Volchek were more common. When I thought about it, Volchek had a lot in common with Ted Berkley—the man who finished my legal career almost a year ago.

Berkley tried to grab seventeen-year-old Hanna Tublowski as she got off the subway late one evening. Before she got to the exit, she felt strong arms grab her around her waist, lift her, and carry her toward the cold, black tunnel. There were no commuters at her stop at that time of night. The man who grabbed her timed it so that he made the grab while she was midpoint between security camera views. When she tried to scream, he put his hand over her mouth and whispered that if she made a sound, he would kill her.

A homeless man heard her cry out and he raised the alarm. The attacker fled. Subway cops arrived and managed to calm the young woman. They had found a monthly subway ticket on the ground, in the area where she had been grabbed. One cop bagged the card out of routine more than any genuine insight. It turned out the subway had been cleaned ten minutes beforehand. That meant the card was more than likely from the attacker. The subway pass had been bought on a credit card—Ted Berkley’s card. I picked up Berkley in night court as he didn’t have a criminal lawyer, and I even managed to get him bail.

At the trial, it was the card and the girl’s evidence that she recognized Berkley in a lineup that formed the basis of the prosecution’s case. NYPD raided Berkley’s office, his apartment, and his summer house and had found nothing. Ted Berkley was in his early thirties, rich, had a great-looking girlfriend and a house in the Hamptons. Not your typical kidnapper. As a client, he couldn’t have been better; he was polite, paid his retainer in full, and trusted me to save him. I thought, like him, that the girl just got it wrong, mistaken identity. Berkley said he lost his wallet, which included the subway card, about twenty-four hours before the attack happened.

Hanna Tublowski was a music student who had been taking the subway home from a recital. A talented cellist, she had been working toward a scholarship. She had long brown hair, pale skin, and as she sat in the witness box at trial, I saw her fear. Appearing as a witness in any trial is scary, and there is no more nerve-racking a situation than a young woman facing her attacker in court.

Deciding to remain seated, and therefore less threatening when I cross-examined Hanna, I cleared my throat and gave her a reassuring smile before I asked my first question. Just before I opened my mouth, Berkley had whispered to me, “Destroy the bitch.” In all our meetings leading up to trial, he had never spoken like this before or shown any hostility toward the victim.

Ignoring him, I decided instead to take a different approach. The jury had liked the girl. I risked everything if I went in aggressively. Instead I approached it like a father, teasing out her answers and quietly, but maturely, displaying the inconsistencies in her evidence in order to show that she wasn’t a liar; instead she was the victim of an attack but she had mistakenly and understandably confused her real attacker with my client.

Give the people what they want.

Juries like empathizing with victims. This way—my way—they got to empathize with her and with the nice young man in the Brooks Brothers suit whom I represented.

When I had finished cross-examining her, even though I’d gone softly, Hanna cried and looked desperately at the jury. I had felt like shit, and as I turned to my client, I saw the look on Berkley’s face was one of disgust and something else. At that moment I took it to be nerves or fear. But when I looked more closely, I could see the true nature of that feeling—excitement. Seeing a seventeen-year-old describe the all-consuming panic of being grabbed and hauled away toward the dark had produced profound excitement in Ted Berkley. The jury were sent away to consider their verdict. After I saw Berkley’s reaction to Hanna, I knew Berkley was guilty. In the months afterward, as I plowed through the bars of Manhattan, drunk, I’d told myself that there was nothing I could have done before the verdict came in.

The jury unanimously acquitted Berkley. Hanna, although a victim, had not properly identified her attacker.

An hour after the verdict, the IO called me and told me that Hanna had gone missing and would Berkley consent to another property search. He agreed. They found no trace of Hanna.