Unnatural Acts

47

Dino and Rosie were at the Bright Lights, Ink, office at the stroke of nine a.m. He showed his badge to the receptionist. “Is Mr. Abney in?”

“No, he normally doesn’t arrive until around ten,” she replied.

“Who is his secretary?”

“Margie Quinn.”

“Where does she sit?”

“Through the double doors, across the big room to the corner office. Her desk is just outside his door.” She reached for the phone.

Dino put his hand on hers. “Don’t,” he said, “and when Abney arrives, act normal, you understand?”

“No, I don’t understand,” the woman said.

“I have a warrant for his arrest,” Dino said. “There’s room on it for your name, too.”

“I understand,” she said.

“Let’s go, Rosie.” Dino pushed open the double doors and entered a large room with more than a dozen cubicles. He walked around them and came to Margie Quinn’s desk and showed her his badge. “Come with me,” he said, and pushed open the door to Abney’s office.

It was big enough to hold a large desk, a conference table, and a sitting area with a sofa and a pair of chairs.

“What is this about?” Quinn asked.

“It’s about Mr. Abney,” Dino said. “How long have you worked for him?”

“Twelve years,” the woman replied.

“Then you know what this is about.”

She bit her lip. “What do you want from me?”

“Sit down, Ms. Quinn,” Dino said, pointing at the sofa.

She did as she was told. “Has Ed Abney ever put his hands on you?”

She looked away.

“How long ago and how often?”

“The last time was a week ago. A couple of times a month for the whole time I’ve been here.”

“You must be very well paid,” he said.

“I am, but at first, it was a love affair. I know now it was never that, but I’m single and I have a daughter in a good private school. There aren’t any other jobs this good out there.”

“Last night, he tried to murder an NYPD detective,” Dino said. “I have a warrant for his arrest and another to search this place.”

“Good God,” Quinn said, and buried her face in her hands.

“First I need information: Abney isn’t at his residence, and he’s not here. Where else would he go?”

“He has a place in the Hamptons,” she said, getting up. “I’ll write down the address.” She went to the desk and came back with a slip of paper.

Dino handed it to Rosie. “Call it in,” he said. “Tell them I want two detectives over here, in case Abney comes in, and I want a police helicopter on the West Side pad right now, fully fueled.” Rosie left the room and went to Quinn’s desk to use the phone. Dino turned back to Quinn. “Where else?”

She shrugged. “I can’t imagine. His apartment, the office, and the house out there are his world, except at night.”

“Where at night, besides Sardi’s?”

She got a pad and wrote down a dozen restaurants and bars.

“Who’s his number two here?” Dino asked.

“He doesn’t have a number two. He doesn’t trust anybody else to help run the place.”

“You know,” Dino said, “off the record, if I were you, I’d put together a few people here and make Abney a lowball offer for the business. He’s going to need the money for lawyers.”

“That’s not the worst idea I ever heard,” she said.

“If Abney calls, everything is normal,” Dino said.

“I get you.”

“If he comes here, my people will take him in, but my guess is, since he didn’t spend the night at his apartment, he’s in East Hampton.”

“I think that’s likely,” Quinn said. “If he is, he’ll call in about ten and start giving orders. I’d better let everybody know to expect that, or they’ll say the wrong thing when he calls.”

“I’ll leave that to your judgment,” Dino said. He followed her out of Abney’s office and helped her climb onto her desk.

“Listen up, everybody!” Quinn yelled. People stood up at their desks and looked over the partitions at her. “The police are here, and for good reason. I’ll explain that later. In the meantime, if Ed calls in, everything is as usual, got that?”

Everybody nodded. “I want Pierce, Williams, and Cohen in Ed’s office right now.” She got down from the desk and went back to Abney’s office. The three others came in, looking curious.

Dino stood in the door and listened.

“Listen to me carefully,” she said. “Ed is going to be arrested before the day is out, and you can guess why. This time, he’s not going to get away with it. I think the four of us can buy this business cheap, as soon as he realizes how much trouble he’s in. He’s going to need cash, and quick. Who’s game?” Three hands went up. “All right, let’s talk about your 401(k)s and mine,” Quinn said.

Dino closed the door and went out to the reception room, just in time to meet the pair of detectives who were arriving. He gave them their instructions, then turned to Rosie. “Let’s go. I’m taking you to the Hamptons.”

“Why, boss,” Rosie said, “I didn’t know you cared.”

“PULL OVER here,” Dino said. They were at a map store at Forty-third and Sixth Avenue. “I want to get a map of East Hampton.”

“Map?” Rosie said, looking at him askance. “A paper map? Didn’t you ever hear of GPS, boss?”

“Have you ever tried using a cell phone map in a moving helicopter?” Dino asked. “Maintaining an Internet signal at a hundred knots?”

She shrugged.

“I’ll be right back.” Dino bought a map of East Hampton, then Rosie used the siren, while Dino found the street on the map. When they got to the West Side heliport, a police chopper was sitting on the pad, its rotors turning.

Dino opened the pilot’s door, gave him the street map, and pointed out the house. “Put it down as close as you can get to the house.” He got into the passenger compartment with Rosie, and they put on headsets.

The chopper rose from the pad, turned out over the river, and gained a couple of thousand feet, then turned and flew over lower Manhattan. The view was spectacular. They crossed Brooklyn, got past the Verrazano Bridge, then followed the south Long Island waterfront east, toward the Hamptons. There was an overcast a few hundred feet above them, but as they flew, the sky cleared and the ocean shone beneath them.

“He’s going to be there, I know it,” Dino said.

“I’ve never flown in a helicopter before,” Rosie said.

Dino patted her on the knee. “They’re very, very dangerous,” he said.