Need You Now

21

L ove was in the air. The little snow monkey was making eyes at the big, strong male. Nothing like fresh snow around the steamy cove to simulate the après-ski, in-the-hot-tub experience. All they needed was a bucket of ice, a bottle of chardonnay, and michael bublé on the loudspeaker.

“That’s Boo-Boo,” Connie told me. “The big guy is Yogi.”

“Cute, like the cartoon,” I said. “But I always thought the animated Boo-Boo was a boy.”

“So is this Boo-Boo.”

I took a closer look. If snow monkeys had a pop culture, Boo-Boo would be Sir Elton John. “Ah, now I get it.”

The Japanese macaque (aka snow monkey) exhibit was Connie’s primary responsibility at the zoo, and it was one of my favorites, especially in winter. I could have watched them all afternoon, but I actually did have a day job. I’d been doing my best by e-mail for the past two days, but sooner rather than later I needed to figure out if, when, and how I would return to my office at BOS. But not before I gathered some intelligence on Manu Robledo.

“Did you find anything?” I asked.

Connie leaned against the exhibit rail with arms folded, her back to the snow monkeys. The tribe had no interest in us, their attention focused on a pair of black-neck swans that had apparently asserted squatters’ rights on monkey island.

“I’m very nervous about this,” said Connie.

“Is Robledo that scary?”

“Well, possibly. But I mean, I’m uncomfortable about using Tom to check up on people like this.”

Tom was her fiancé. He was a trained but unpaid volunteer in the Auxiliary Police Unit at the Central Park Precinct, which meant that he wore the familiar blue uniform and seven-point shield, carried a standard-issue radio that linked him to regular NYPD officers, and patrolled Central Park as the civic-minded “eyes and ears” of the sworn members of the service. It did not mean that he had access to law enforcement databases to run background checks-unless he pulled strings and called in favors.

“I’m reasonably confident that Tom isn’t the first person to run a name through the computer for a friend.”

“But…” she said, her expression pained, “he’s a scoutmaster.”

So was Connie. They’d met while leading a group of aspiring Eagle Scouts on a ten-day hike through New Mexico. Rumor had it that Connie had flung Tom over her back and carried him the last eight miles. I wasn’t even aware that women were allowed to serve as scoutmasters, but Connie was totally committed. It seemed like the theater of the absurd: my life had been threatened, and it was still possible that my girlfriend had perpetrated a $2 billion fraud-but there I was before God and the gay snow monkeys, trying to console my sister about a possible violation of the Boy Scout pledge. A witness protection family was as dysfunctional as the next, I supposed.

“Connie, really. Just this once, it’s okay.”

“What’s done is done, I guess.”

“Tell me what you got.”

She took a breath, then let it go. “Manu Caesar Robledo. Born in Argentina. Forty-one years old, never been married. Travels between Miami and South America dozens of times a year. Owns a condominium on Brickell Avenue in Miami.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Gerry Collins’ office was in the Financial District on Brickell.”

“You’re thinking maybe Collins handled the finances of his so-called church?”

“Or his own finances. His condo on Brickell has to be pricey. That’s where you’ll find all those glamorous high-rises on the bay in the opening credits for CSI: Miami .”

“He wasn’t born rich, I can tell you that,” said Connie. “He’s from a little town called Puerto Iguazú. That’s in the Tri-Border area where Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil meet.”

“That may explain the bizarre accent he was able to patch together when I was at his church.”

“Could be. It’s an interesting part of the world.”

“You know it?”

“The zoo has a couple of endangered armadillos from that region. Ciudad del Este in Paraguay is right in that same neck of the woods. My supervisor went there on research three years ago. Said she felt safer in the jungle with the pumas and jaguars. It can be pretty lawless.”

“What about our friend Robledo-any problems with the law?”

“Nothing in this country or as an adult. He did get into some kind of trouble as a juvenile in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s, but Tom says he couldn’t tell anything about it from the computer entry.”

“Could be worth exploring.”

She looked like a nervous scout again. “We agreed that I would ask Tom this favor just once .”

“I meant I would explore it,” I said, but my words were drowned out by a piercing scream. My gaze shifted to the snow monkeys, where Boo-Boo was standing atop a boulder and throwing a hissy fit at Yogi.

“You tell him, Boo-Boo,” said Connie. We shared a laugh, but my sister was suddenly serious. My back was to the red panda exhibit, and Connie was gazing past me in that direction. “Don’t turn around,” she said.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“About a hundred feet behind you, standing beside a tree at about two o’clock from your left shoulder, there’s a man with a telephoto lens. At first I thought he was photographing the snow monkeys. But now it looks like he’s taking pictures of you and me.”

I immediately thought back to Puffy’s Tavern and the guy wearing the rapper’s hat who had come and gone without drinking his beer-who looked just like the guy who had photographed Lilly and me in the Singapore Mall, and who’d shown up again outside my apartment.

I couldn’t help turning my head, and Connie grabbed me.

“I told you not to look!” she said, but there was no stopping me. I wheeled around completely, and like a laser my gaze locked onto the photographer by the tree. The lighting was flat on such a gray afternoon, and he was wearing a heavy winter coat, but his reaction alone confirmed it.

“It’s him,” I said.

“Who?” asked Connie, but I was off like a track star.

“Patrick!”

I was at full speed, my legs churning, defying the ice and snow beneath my feet. The man with the camera ran for the exit, jumped the turnstile, and hoofed it up the hill toward East Drive. I jumped the same turnstile, slipped on a patch of ice, and skidded on my knees across the salted pavers. It hurt like hell, and my pants were torn. Worse, I was down long enough for the guy to put another twenty yards between us.

It occurred to me that he might have a gun, that I should give Connie a shout to call for security or dial 911. But he’d committed no crime, and I dismissed the thought. It was still daylight, and I had him in my sight. His lead was less than fifty yards. With everything I had been through in the past forty-eight hours, I could have closed the gap on Usain Bolt-even with my knees bloodied.

I pushed myself up from the cold walkway and was off like a rocket. The fool was running away from Fifth Avenue, the taxis, the subway, and other means of escape. He was trying to lose me in the park. This time, he was not going to get away. This time, he was mine.

“Patrick, stop!”

Connie was trailing far behind, but I could hear the concern in her voice. Strangely, it only propelled me. I was inside of twenty yards, and closing, as he darted in front of a horse-drawn carriage on scenic East Drive. The driver cursed and reined in his big draft horse, then cursed even louder at me as I, in hot pursuit, cut off the horse a second time. My target was slowing down, and adrenaline was pushing me even faster. He followed the sidewalk down a ramp and into a pedestrian tunnel. Wollman Rink was directly ahead, and I couldn’t let him get all the way there and disappear into a crowd. I went the other way, up and over the hill, and was dead even with him when he came out the other end of the tunnel. He glanced back into the tunnel and probably thought he had lost me as I dived like a hawk from the hill above him. He went down hard, breaking my fall like a human mattress beneath me. He writhed and squirmed, but he was exhausted from the run, and I was easily the bigger dog in the struggle. My knee was throbbing from the tumble over the turnstile at the zoo, but I drilled it into the small of his back anyway. He let out a miserable groan as I pinned his face to the frozen ground.

“Who are you?” I shouted.

He didn’t answer, but I wasn’t feeling much from him in the way of resistance.

“What’s your name?” I asked, harsher.

His resistance weakened even further. He was completely spent from the chase.

“Don’t hurt me!” he said, pleading.

“Tell me who you are!”

He started to cry-upper lip quivering, huge tears streaming down his cheeks. I had yet to slug him, and he was turning into gelatin. This was bordering on pathetic.

“Please, please, don’t hit me.”

It felt like I was beating up one of Connie’s Cub Scouts. “Start talking and no one is going to get hurt,” I said.

He drew a breath, then another. The crying was under control, but his body continued to tremble.

“Talk!” I said.

“My name is Evan,” he said with a sniffle, “and I can help you, Mr. Lloyd.”