Cold Vengeance

CHAPTER 52

NED BETTERTON DROVE UP THE FDR DRIVE in his rented Chevy Aero, feeling more than a little disconsolate. He was due to return the rental car at the airport in about an hour, and that night he was flying back to Mississippi.

His little reportorial adventure was over.

It was hard to believe that — just a few days earlier — he had been on a roll. He’d gotten a bead on the “foreign fella.” Using the social engineering strategy known as pretexting, he’d called Dixie Airlines and, posing as a cop, gotten the address of the Klaus Falkoner who’d flown to Mississippi almost two weeks before: 702 East End Avenue.

Easy. But then he’d hit a wall. First, there was no 702 East End Avenue. The street was barely ten blocks long, perched right on the edge of the East River, and the street numbers didn’t go that high.

Next, he’d tracked Special Agent Pendergast to an apartment building called the Dakota. But it was a damn fortress, and gaining access proved impossible. There was always a doorman stationed in a pillbox outside the entrance, and more doormen and elevator men massed inside, politely but firmly rebuffing his every attempt and stratagem to enter the building or gain information.

Then he’d tried to get information on the NYPD captain. But there were several female captains and he couldn’t seem to find out, no matter who he asked, which one had partnered with Pendergast or gone down to New Orleans — only that it must have been done off duty.

The basic problem was New York Freaking City. People were tight as shit with information and paranoid of their so-called privacy. He was a long way from the Deep South. He didn’t know how things were done here, didn’t even know the right way to approach people and ask questions. Even his accent was a problem, putting people off.

He had then returned his attention to Falkoner, and almost had a breakthrough. On the chance that Falkoner had used a fake house number on his real street — after all, East End Avenue was an odd choice for a false address — Betterton had canvassed the avenue from end to end, knocking on doors, stopping people in the street, asking if anyone knew of a tall, blond man living in the vicinity, with an ugly mole on his face, and who spoke with a German accent. Most people — typical New Yorkers — either refused to talk to him or told him to fuck off. But a few of the older residents he met were friendlier. And through them, Betterton learned that the area, known as Yorkville, had once been a German enclave. These elderly residents spoke wistfully of restaurants such as Die Lorelei and Café Mozart, about the marvelous pastries served at Kleine Konditorei, about the bright halls that offered polka dances every night of the week. Now that was all gone, replaced by anonymous delis and supermarkets and boutiques.

And, yes, several people did believe they had seen a man like that. One old fellow claimed he had noticed such a man going in and out of a shuttered building on East End Avenue between Ninety-First and Ninety-Second Streets, at the northern end of Carl Schurz Park.

Betterton had staked out the building. He quickly learned it was next to impossible to loiter around outside without attracting attention or causing suspicion. That had forced him to rent a car and make his observations from the street. He had spent three exhausting days watching the building. Hour after hour of surveillance — nobody in or out. He’d run out of money and his vacation clock was ticking. Worse, Kranston had begun calling him daily, wondering where the hell he was, even hinting about replacing him.

In this way, the time he had allotted to New York City came to an end. His flight home was on a nonrefundable ticket that would cost him four hundred dollars to change — money he didn’t have.

And so now, at five o’clock in the evening, Betterton was driving up FDR Drive, on his way to the airport to catch his flight home. But when he saw the exit sign for East End Avenue, some perverse and irrepressible hope prompted him to swerve off. One more look — just one — and he would be on his way.

There was no place to park, and he had to drive around the block again and again. This was crazy: he was going to miss his flight. But as he came around the corner for the fourth time, he noticed that a taxi had stopped in front of the building. Intrigued, he pulled over and double-parked in front of the idling cab, pulling out a map and pretending to consult it while watching the shuttered building’s entrance through his rearview mirror.

Five minutes passed, and then the front door opened. A figure stepped out, duffel bags in each hand — and Betterton caught his breath. Tall and thin and blond. Even at this distance, he could see the mole beneath his right eye.

“Holy mackerel,” he muttered.

The man tossed the duffels into the taxi, climbed in after them, closed the door. A moment later, the vehicle nosed away from the curb and passed Betterton’s Chevy. Betterton took a deep breath, wiped his palms on his shirt, put the map aside. And then — taking a fresh grip on the wheel — he began to follow the cab as it turned onto Ninety-First Street and headed west.