Shakeup

58

They arrived a few steps away from the Lowell, and as they got out of Stone’s car, he spotted a large, unmarked, black van at the opposite curb, idling, making its contribution to global warming. “That’s us,” Maren said. She raised a small radio to her lips.

“Willie, what’s up inside?”

“Chief Myers just called for a bellman, so I think they’ll be right down.”

“I’m going in. Don’t send in the boys unless you hear gunfire.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Let’s go,” Maren said to Stone and Art. “And, Art, hang your raincoat over your arm to conceal the shotgun. No shooting, anybody, unless one of them starts it.”

Stone nodded and followed Maren into the lobby of the hotel. A bellman walked past them, pushing a cart of luggage, headed for the curb. Stone looked up at the elevator lights and saw one on the way down. “Descending,” he said to Maren.

“Got it,” she said. She centered herself on the elevator and stood there loosely, her hands folded in front of her.

The elevator opened and Deborah Myers stepped into the lobby, followed by a man who looked like Rudolph Valentino, but older and heavier and a sex addict, from what she had heard.

“Why, Maren,” Debby said, making an effort to smile. “What a surprise! What brings you to the big city?”

“I was hoping to run into you, Deborah,” Maren replied, “and my luck is good today.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m so glad you asked. I wondered if you and your bodyguard could take a ride with me downtown?”

“For what purpose?” Debby asked.

“There are some questions I’d like to ask you, and I hope you’ll have some answers.”

“The hotel has a conference room. Why don’t we go in there?”

“I’m afraid the nature of my questions requires a more official setting.”

Debby thought about it for a couple of seconds, then smiled again. “Sure, be glad to. I assume you have a car?”

“A very comfortable one,” Maren replied and headed with Debby for the street. “Stone,” Maren said over her shoulder, “would you give a lift to Deborah’s security man?”

“Of course,” Stone said, showing Rocco the Bentley, with Fred braced at the open door. “Art, will you ride shotgun?”

Art smiled. “Sure, Stone.”

No one in either car spoke on the ride downtown.

At the federal building, everyone placed his weapons in a tray and passed through the metal detector. It took Rocco three passes, to unload two handguns and an evil-looking knife.

Upstairs, Debby and Rocco were escorted to different interrogation rooms. Maren waved for Stone to follow her to an office, where she rang for a secretary, then dictated two documents, while Stone waited outside. When she was done, Maren motioned him inside and closed the door. She took off her jacket and began to unbutton her silk blouse.

“Really?” Stone asked, surprised. “In an FBI field office?”

“No, not really,” Maren replied. She took off the blouse, reached behind her and unhooked her bra, revealing what Stone had always felt was one of the finest views on the planet.

“You’re pressing your luck,” Stone said.

“Be a good boy, and you can watch me with Rocco.” Stone’s jaw dropped.

She put on the blouse again, but left the two top buttons undone, then she picked up a file folder from the secretary and started out of the office. Maren pointed at a door in the hallway. “You can watch from in there,” she said.

An FBI special agent came out of the interrogation room, bearing all three of Rocco Turko’s weapons, and Maren stepped in.

Stone took a seat and looked at Rocco, sitting calmly at the table in the interrogation room. He could hear him clear his throat.

Maren entered the room, and to Stone’s surprise, Rocco stood up to greet her.

“Good morning, Mr. Turko,” Maren said, offering her hand.

“Good morning,” he replied, shaking it.

“May I call you Rocco?”

“Of course.”

“And you may call me Maren,” she said. She took off her jacket and in so doing, her breasts nearly, but not quite, escaped her blouse. “I’m so glad we could get together.”

“So am I,” Rocco replied, smiling to reveal some very fine dental work.

“Listen, I know you’re going to want a lawyer, but if you can hold off that request for a few minutes, I don’t think you’ll need one.”

“Fine with me,” Rocco replied.

“First of all, are you acquainted with two people called Eddie Craft and Shelley Moss?”

“I don’t believe I am,” Rocco replied.

“Never met them?”

“No, not that I can recall.”

“Would you recognize them if you saw them?”

Rocco shook his head. “No.”

“They live in an apartment building at East Sixty-third Street and Park Avenue...”

Rocco began shaking his head.

“... in apartment 15D,” she said.

Rocco froze. “Say again?”

“Park and Sixty-third, apartment 15D.”

Rocco seemed unable to speak.

“Perhaps you know the people who live one floor below them, in 14D — a Mr. and Mrs. Moskowitz.”

Rocco’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

“Mr. and Mrs. Moskowitz” — she consulted a sheet of paper in her hand — “Leo and Mandy — were involved in a very unfortunate incident yesterday — an apparent murder-suicide. Leo shot Mandy, then exited his apartment through an open window, falling to the alley below. No one we’ve questioned can understand it. They seemed such a happy couple.”

“I didn’t know them,” Rocco finally managed to say.

“Obviously not,” Maren said. “You will recall that yesterday was a very rainy day.”

“I recall that.”

“Did you notice that some water had collected on the floor of the service elevator?”

Rocco began to shake his head, then stopped. “What service elevator? At the hotel, you mean?”

Maren smiled. “No, Rocco.” She leaned forward just a little, to give him a better view of her cleavage. After that, Rocco didn’t look anywhere else.

Maren picked up the phone on the table and said, “Bring them to me, please.”

An agent walked into the room and placed a handsome pair of shoes, complete with shoe trees, on the table. “These are very nice,” Maren said.

“Not mine,” he said.

“Oddly, we took them from your luggage and” — she pulled out the tree from one shoe — “they were made by a gentleman called Sylvano Lattanzi, in Milano, Italy.”

“If you say so.”

She held up a shoe. “And here’s a nice little label in the shoe that says, ‘Made expressly for Rocco Turko.’”

“Oh, well...”

“Oh, well, indeed, Rocco.” She opened the folder next to her on the table and took out a photograph and held it up beside the shoe.

Rocco tore his eyes from her cleavage long enough to look at the photograph and the shoe.

“You will note that the heel on your shoe is identical to the heel mark in the photograph, which was taken in the kitchen of apartment 14D.”

Rocco’s jaw was working, and he was licking his lips.

“You know what that means, Rocco. You’re a cop, after all, and I’ll bet you’ve investigated hundreds of murders and the evidence that they turn up, like this photograph. It means that you were in apartment 14D, yesterday.”

“I think I’m going to need to speak to an attorney,” Rocco said. “Right now.”

“Give me a couple minutes more, Rocco, and I don’t think you’ll need one, because I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse, as the Don said in The Godfather.” She leaned even further forward.

“We’ve got you dead to rights on the murders of the couple in 14D,” Maren said. “So what you’re looking at, Rocco, is the rest of your life in a maximum-security federal prison, where you’re in your cell, alone, for twenty-three hours a day.”

Maren deftly undid one more button, just to be sure she had his undivided attention. She did. “It also means that, for the remainder of your days, you will never again have sex with a woman.”

Rocco made an involuntary whimpering noise.

“But Rocco,” Maren said, regaining his attention, “it doesn’t have to be that way. Would you like to hear how it could be?”

“Yes,” Rocco said, hoarsely.

“If you tell me everything you know about the murders of Donald Clark, Deana Carlyle, Eddie Craft, Shelley Moss, Patricia Clark, and Frank Capriani — Eddie Craft and his girlfriend lived in apartment 14D... sorry, my mistake about that... then you can plead to the murders in 14D, and I have already taken it upon myself to speak to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has agreed to recommend a sentence of seven to ten years, out in five, and not in a maximum-security facility, but in a Club Fed in Florida, where the winters are kind.”

Rocco sat back in his chair and took a couple of deep breaths.

“It’s a limited, onetime offer, Rocco, and it expires in thirty seconds. What’s it going to be?”

“I agree,” Rocco replied. “I’ll take the plea.”

“A wise decision,” Maren said, taking a document from her file and handing it to Rocco with a pen. “You will note that I have included in this agreement the fact that you committed these six murders on the instructions of Deborah Myers.”

“Fuck her,” Rocco said, then signed the agreement.

The secretary entered the room and handed Maren a longer document.

“And this,” Maren said, handing it to Rocco, “which is a transcript of our conversation today. Ms. Banks, here, will witness both documents.”

Rocco signed, then he looked back at Maren’s cleavage. “I want to see them,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Rocco,” Maren replied, “but that sort of thing will have to wait for five years.”

Two agents came into the room, handcuffed Rocco, and took him away.

Stone walked out into the hallway, and when Maren emerged, he followed her back to her office, where she stripped off her jacket and blouse and got back into her bra.

“Well,” Stone said, “I’ve had a better day than Rocco. And that was an interrogation technique entirely new to me.”

She laughed and gave him a kiss.

Then they heard a ruckus outside in the hallway, and Stone recognized the voice of Little Debby, who was screaming oaths about Rocco Turko. He opened the door and watched her being dragged past by two female agents.

“There was a speaker in the room where she was waiting,” Maren said. “She heard every word that Rocco spoke.”