Fast and Loose

31

Erik Macher gazed up at the girl on top of him. “How’s that, baby?” he asked.

“Oooh, good!” she replied, as she was expected to. “Why don’t you just move me into your apartment, and we can do this all the time? Looks like you’ve got plenty of room.”

“Don’t ruin the mood,” Macher said, then the doorbell rang. He glanced at the bedside clock: three AM. “What the hell?” he said, sitting up and unseating the young woman.

“What’s the matter?”

The doorbell rang again, and there was a hammering on it, followed by muffled shouting.

“Don’t you move,” Macher said. He reached into his bedside drawer and withdrew a Glock. He grabbed a robe, and as he departed his apartment, he slapped the panic button on his security system, and a siren began to wail. As he reached the first floor, there was a huge bang, a splintering sound, and the front door flew open, followed by a man with a steel ram, surrounded by uniformed police officers wearing body armor.

“Drop the gun!” a cop yelled at him.

Macher had forgotten the Glock in his excitement, and he opened his hand, allowing it to fall onto the stairs. “What the fuck is this?” he screamed.

A cop handcuffed his wrist and fastened the other end to the banister rail. “What’s your security cancellation code?” the cop shouted.

Macher told him, and the cop entered it into a keypad at the bottom of the stairs. The siren abruptly stopped. “I asked you, what the fuck is this?” Macher demanded anew.

A detective in a suit stepped forward and handed him a paper. “This is a warrant, allowing us to search the premises.”

“Search the premises for what?” Macher demanded, tossing the warrant aside.

“Whatever the fuck we like,” the cop replied. “You’ve been served, now shut up and cooperate. Who else is in the house?”

“My secretary lives on the second floor.” As if on cue, the woman appeared, one landing up, tying a robe around her. “And there’s a Ms.... oh, I don’t know what the hell her name is. She’s on the top floor in my bed... ah, apartment.”

“Is that your office?” the detective asked, pointing at a set of double doors.

“Yes.”

“All right,” he shouted to his group, “execute the plan.” He pointed at a young man in civilian clothes. “You — on the computers, now.”

“Gotcha,” the youth replied, heading for the double doors.

Macher sat down on the stairs, the cold marble freezing his ass through the thin silk robe, picked up the warrant and began to read. “Shit!” he said to nobody in particular.

As dawn broke over the Upper East Side, the policemen began departing, carrying boxes of documents and other evidence. The IT man approached the detective in charge and held up a thumb drive. “Got everything worth having,” he said.

“Go back to the precinct and print it all out,” the detective said, “then get yourself some breakfast and some sleep.”

The detective walked over to Macher, who was still sitting on the stairs, handcuffed to the rail. “You got a permit for the piece?”

“I have,” Macher said, “full carry.”

The detective took out an iPhone and opened a departmental app, then tapped in the name. “Okay, you’re licensed,” he said a moment later. He uncuffed Macher, cleared the weapon and returned it to its owner. “Have a nice day,” he said.

From the third floor, a young woman was heard to call out, “Do you want to go again? Or am I out of here?”

Macher started up the stairs. “Out of here!” he shouted.

Stone was at his desk when Dino called.

“Good morning. How’d it go last night?”

“We got the will,” Dino said, “and it’s been turned over to the DA, who will decide whether to prosecute. My guys are still slogging through the printout from St. Clair’s computers.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

“Something occurred to me — you know this strong case thing that had the bomb in it that killed St. Clair?”

“Yep, I know it, it lived in my safe for a couple of days.”

“Describe it to me.”

“It was a kind of briefcase, but bigger and thicker than the standard and covered in black leather. It had unconventional locks and a key that was a slab of titanium with some pointy things on it.”

“Right, and was there some sort of procedure to unlock it without the bomb going off?”

“That’s what I was told.”

“What was the procedure?”

“I don’t know,” Stone said, “I never tried to open it.”

“And who had the strong case before St. Clair opened it and got his head handed to him?”

“It was in the possession of Ed Rawls, at his house in Virginia, then Macher or some of his cohorts in his security firm broke into the house, roughed up Ed, and stole the case. Macher then took it to St. Clair and sat there in his office and watched while he opened it, then blooey!”

“The strong case was a CIA thing, wasn’t it?” Dino asked.

“Yes. Holly Barker, who was visiting me at the time, knew about it from her days with the Agency.”

“And Rawls was CIA once, that’s where he got the case?”

“Right.”

“And,” Dino said, “Macher was CIA once, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Then he would have known something about the strong case and how it worked.”

“Presumably.”

“And yet he sat there and watched St. Clair open it and kill himself.”

“Well... yes.”

“Doesn’t that sound to you like an awful good case for premeditated murder?”

“Well,” Stone said, “if you can prove that Macher knew how the case worked and withheld that piece of information from St. Clair, yes.”

“Did Macher or his men ask Rawls anything about the case when they took it from Rawls?”

“Ed says no, and in their rush he, ah, forgot to mention it to them.”

“I’m liking this,” Dino said.

“Then why don’t you have a chat with the DA and see what he thinks?”

“You know,” Dino said, “I believe I’ll do that.”

“Dino,” Stone said, “if you can get Macher locked up without bail, that would solve a number of problems for me and my clients the Carlssons.”

“Well, Stone,” Dino said, “this department is always ready to oblige you.” He hung up.