The Equalizer (32 page)

“Thanks. Sorry about that. The boss is on our ass about IDs in here. Seems some guy got into an accident two nights ago after he'd been drinking beer at Bentleys. Wasn't seventeen yet.”

That seemed to relax the table. Karen smiled at him.

“No problem, Bobby.”

“You get to go home to see your folks this weekend?” McCall asked, as if casually.

“Yes! We did the whole big barbecue thing. Played flag football on the front lawn.”

Very Norman Rockwell,
McCall thought. Like the patchwork squares that Candy Annie had sewn together for the bright quilt on her narrow bed below the New York streets.

That's where Karen got the gun
, McCall thought.
Probably her dad's
.

“You ever see that creep again?” he asked her. “The one you thought was stalking you?”

“He
is
stalking me!” Karen flared. “His name's Jeff Carlson. He was at S.O.B.'s last night!” Off McCall's look: “Style On Beat, it's a nightclub on Varick. Don't you ever get out, Bobby?”

“I play bingo once a month,” McCall said. “You sure it was him?”

“Oh, yeah, I've been looking out for him. I took his picture with my iPhone.”

“Let me see it,” McCall said.

Karen looked a little startled.

“In case he walks into Bentleys, I want to know what he looks like.”

Karen nodded. Good idea. She fished her phone out of her pocket, scrolled through enough photos to fill an FBI database, found the one she wanted, and handed her cell phone to McCall. He pretended to drop it, muttered “Sorry,” and picked it up. As he did so, his fingers flew over the silver keys on her cell. Then he straightened and looked at Carlson's image on the LED screen. The picture was a little rushed, taken in the Style On Beat club, just off the dance floor, but Carlson's face was in focus. McCall nodded and handed Karen's cell phone back to her. She showed the picture to the rest of the eager group, who passed the iPhone around almost in awe. A real-life stalker. Wow.

McCall moved away with the empty tray back to the bar.

Kostmayer was waiting for him on the last stool beside the server's station. Amanda was putting cocktails that Laddie had just set out onto her tray. She looked Kostmayer over, liked what she saw, gave him a shy smile. She moved away with the loaded tray.

“Got a number for her?” Kostmayer asked.

“Big trouble,” McCall said. “Katia and Natalya?”

“Living the American dream at an apartment in the Dakota. Katia is certain there are emotional strings attached. I told her there weren't. Try not to make a liar out of me.”

McCall ignored that. “What about Danil Gershon?”

“He didn't go to the safe house. I waited for two hours, then I went to Dolls nightclub and looked around, but I didn't see him.”

“He wouldn't have gone back there.”

McCall glanced around, but no one in the noisy restaurant was paying any attention to them. The news broadcast was over. There were games playing on four of the TV screens around the bar, Yankees against the Orioles, Phillies and Red Sox, a Canadian hockey game, Canucks versus the Habs, and a hushed golf tournament.

“You sure about that?” Kostmayer said.

“Kirov sent a termination squad of ten men,” McCall said. “Gershon wouldn't walk right back into the lion's den.”

“Sure he would. McCall wannabe.”

At that moment Control walked into Bentleys.

McCall saw him reflected in the big mirror behind the bar. He walked past Sherry at the hostess desk up to the bar, showing Kostmayer no recognition whatsoever.

“We need to talk,” he said to McCall.

Laddie loaded up two more server's trays with cocktails and Coronas.

“Can you give me an hour?” McCall asked him.

It looked for a moment as if the young bartender was ticked off—it was very busy. But he looked at Control, felt the palpable tension between the two men, and nodded.

“Sure, Bobby. I'll pull Amanda off the floor. No problem.”

“Thanks.”

McCall didn't look at Control as he took off his black Bentleys apron, tossed it to one side, and walked to the front door. Control followed him. Kostmayer noted the young bartender watching them leave.

“Old boss,” Kostmayer murmured. “Bobby left his last employment a little abruptly. They've got a lot to talk about.”

 

CHAPTER 23

He sat in the lavish office that had been put at his disposal for the grand opening. It was all steel and chrome with a glass-topped desk and pieces of modernistic sculptures, white explosions of tendrils like flowering alien plants that reached up to the tiny light sockets recessed into the ceiling. There were multicolored cubes decorating stark white shelves and chairs that looked like NASA had designed them. None of it was to this man's exquisite taste, but that was fine. He would only be here for the weekend. He sat in an office chair, which was a padded bigger version of the white ones, not that it was any more comfortable. He was dressed in a tuxedo with a red bow tie. He looked elegant and relaxed. He had kept the office door ajar, because he wanted to hear the dance music drifting up from the main floor of the club. It pounded to a primal beat, some incomprehensible rap lyric. Leonardo was in Singapore shooting a movie, and had agreed to come to the opening night of the latest Dolls nightclub. The star was dressed in a white tux, right out of
Gatsby
. He had managed to get through the phalanx of reporters and photographers and had run into, quite by chance, his costar from
Titanic
. They had embraced and kissed and then did an impromptu turn together on the dance floor. The media had gone crazy. It was the best publicity the man could ever have hoped for. Now if one of the supermodels who had been desperately trying to get Leo's autograph could have a wardrobe malfunction, let one of those big, ripe breasts pop out for the cameras, he'd be on YouTube.

He stared at the LED screen on his Mac. On it Borislav Kirov's image was as clear as if he'd been sitting across the desk. The man listened without moving, with no flicker of expression crossing his face. He was good at disguising his emotions. Kirov finished his Skype report. It was as if he'd run out of steam. He was careful, patient, and ruthless. And not accustomed to setbacks. He had not liked giving the intel he had just provided.

Particularly about Katia and Natalya.

Alexei Berezovsky appreciated Kirov's honestly and frankness.

But inside he was seething.

“Natalya was not hurt or touched?” he asked.

In his own office, with its antiques and shadows, in direct contrast with what he could see of Berezovsky's office at the Dolls nightclub in Singapore, Kirov felt short of breath. He did not want to start hyperventilating, not in front of his boss. Any sign of weakness was a death sentence with this man. Kirov made certain his voice was strong and impartial.

“No.”

“Where is she now?”

“Returned to her mother.”

“They are at their home?”

“As far as I know. Natalya went to school today.”

“But she has not spoken a word to anyone since that vicious mugging on a New York street?”

“No.”

“Katia will come to work at the club tonight?”

“If she doesn't, I'll bring her here myself.”

“Let her come in her own time. She will. There is nowhere else for her to work and be paid enough money to live in Manhattan. As to the stranger who rescued Natalya from the arms of your enforcers…”

Kirov squirmed inside, but did not interrupt.

“You are certain he is not a police officer or a federal agent?”

“He's just some private citizen who took it upon himself to be a hero.”

“That he accomplished this daring rescue, without loss of life or real injury, either says a great deal about his skills, or a great deal about the ineptitude of your enforcers. Did you, at least, get this stouthearted fellow's name?”

“Bobby Maclain. He's a bartender at a restaurant called Bentleys on West Broadway.”

Berezovsky did not bother to disguise the contempt in his voice. “A
bartender
rescued your kidnap victim?”

“He took my men by surprise,” Kirov said. “They weren't expecting any kind of a rescue effort.”

“Does this urban vigilante have a relationship with Katia?”

“He says he doesn't. He says he's not even a friend. Merely an acquaintance.”

Berezovsky was quiet for a moment. “And demanding that Katia partake in … your business there … was Bakar Daudov's initiative?”

“Yes.”

“He overstepped his authority.”

“He's
your
man,” Kirov pointed out. “He's a law unto himself.”

“No, he answers to me,” Berezovsky said, his voice softer.

“Do you want me to kill him?”

Kirov asked the question with a certain bored nonchalance, but he knew that Berezovsky could see right through it. Bakar Daudov would be a very difficult man to kill.

“I will deal with him,” Berezovsky said. “What about the other matter?”

“Danil Gershon is dead. The victim of a hit-and-run accident. There were no witnesses and the police have no leads. Gershon discovered nothing in his time here at the club. He was strictly a low-level enforcer. He hadn't risen through the ranks to be in a position of familiarity. He wasn't a confidant.”

“What made you suspicious of him?”

“He tried to gain access to my computer files. I discovered it yesterday going over some surveillance footage.”

“You believe he was working undercover for the FBI?”

“Yes. They believe we're running protection—which we
are
—but also prostitution and drugs, which we're not. I'm trying to confirm Gershon's association, but it doesn't matter. He's dead. He can't have given the feds anything.”

Berezovsky nodded. He took a gold cigarette case out of his tuxedo inner pocket and extracted a Sobranie Black Russian cigarette. He lit it with a heavy onyx lighter on the desk.

“I see you still indulge in your weakness,” Kirov said.

“Better than the Sobranie Cocktails you smoke. Sobranie Black Russians were supplied to the royal courts of Great Britain, Spain, and Romania. They are pure. No filter. You might as well inject nicotine directly into your veins. My hero, Errol Flynn, smoked them. Of course, he died at fifty, with the body of a seventy-five-year-old man, but all heroes are flawed. Watch him in
Charge of the Light Brigade
. Magnificent. As for
your
hero, I want to see the man's face.”

“I've got a picture of him. I'll send it to your iPhone now.”

Kirov hit some keystrokes.

Berezovsky picked up his iPhone from the desktop. He found the picture within five seconds.

And his entire demeanor changed.

He stared at the image of McCall pulled off the surveillance camera. Slowly he set the cigarette down into a glass ashtray the size of a fist and blew out a cloud of blue smoke. But there was no warmth anywhere in his body. All he felt was an icy chill.

“I know this man,” he said. “He is not some local neighborhood hero. He would not take a personal interest in Katia or anyone else, even if she was his lover. He is a professional. An operative of a shadow unit within the CIA that no one acknowledges. It is called The Company. His name is Robert McCall. There was a rumor that he had resigned. That is obviously bogus. He is
still
working as a government operative. Or, if he
did
quit, he is back in the game.”

“But if he knew anything about the mission, he wouldn't have walked into my nightclub the way he did. He would've known he'd be under surveillance. That I'd send his picture to you.”

“Perhaps he wanted me to know. I had the woman he loved killed.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Find a place where he will be vulnerable. Take as many men as you need. Have Daudov lead them. And Kirov … be very careful. Robert McCall is lethal.”

“I'm not surprised to hear that,” Kirov said. “There was something about the way he talked to me. The look in his eyes.”

“Inform me when he is dead.”

Berezovsky terminated the connection. He took out his wallet and extracted a worn photograph from it. In the photo were Katia and an eight-year-old Natalya, standing with Berezovsky in front of the Vienna Opera House. Across the bottom of Katia's figure she had written,
I love you, Alexei
. Across the bottom of Natalya's figure, in a child's scrawl, was written,
Love you, Daddy
.

Berezovsky stared at the photograph for several moments. Then he took the onyx lighter from the desk and set fire to it. The picture curled and blackened. He dropped the charred fragments into the ashtray.

*   *   *

McCall had handed in two passes at the Albany and Greenwich entrance and now he and Control walked up to one of the magnificent reflecting pools at the site of Tower One. The 9/11 Memorial was packed with tourists. There was a reverential atmosphere; no kids were pushing and shoving; pictures and videos were being taken, but it was all in a kind of respectful silence. Construction workers were still toiling beyond the two pools.

The two men had said nothing to each other on the walk over from Bentleys.

“How many passes have you got to the memorial?” Control finally asked.

“A month's worth,” McCall said. “I like to be able to walk down at a moment's notice. There's peace here. A sense of closure. I have an acquaintance; Hans Gerhardt, a charming German hotelier who used to be the manager of the Sutton Place Hotel in Toronto. His son Ralph was killed in Tower One on 9/11. He was thirty-four years old. Worked for Cantor Fitzgerald as vice-president of derivative bonds. His name is inscribed on this pool in bronze along with his girlfriend, Linda.”