Night kills

35

Quinn and Renz met for lunch at Tavern on the Green, where Renz ate at least once a week, because he was in love with the creme brulee. They had a table with a view out a window onto Central Park and an array of topiary. A tall shrub that Quinn assumed had been trimmed to resemble King Kong loomed over people negotiating a narrow walkway from a paved area where cabs were dropping off and picking up passengers. Quinn watched a woman in a thin summer dress hold the arm of a very old man in a brown suit as they approached the restaurant's entrance. They resembled each other enough that he figured they were father and daughter, and he wondered what his own daughter, Lauri, was doing right now in California.

"Four people in this area seem to have gone to ground, and for good reason," Renz said. "Of course there must be more, but these four are obvious."

"E-Bliss would want them obvious."

Renz drew a folded sheet of paper from his suit coat pocket. He smoothed it out and propped it on his water glass, keeping his distance so he could read it without his glasses. "Velma Grocci, the wife of mob boss Vin Grocci, cleaned out his bank accounts and ran out on him. Left him a note saying she was never coming back. Not that it would matter much. Vin's facing several life sentences for ordering various murders, including a hit on an undercover FBI agent. Velma's life wouldn't be worth much once hubby went behind the walls."

"Sounds right," Quinn said.

"Iris Klinger, suspected of embezzling half a million dollars from the insurance firm she worked for. She skipped bail and disappeared."

"With the money?"

"Looks that way. Then there's Marti Ogden, recently of the Upper East Side. Marti's a woman. Thirty-year-old daughter of Hart Ogden. She and dad fenced stolen diamonds. Somebody tried to double-cross dad and dad killed him. He's doing twenty-five to life at Elmira. The guy he killed had dangerous friends. We were about to close in on Marti and arrest her for handling stolen property, maybe save her life, when she flew off to Buenos Aires on a chartered flight. No way to know where she went from there, though, if anywhere. We found it odd that she used her real name for the charter. Not smart."

"Maybe," Quinn said.

"Number four is Jocko Lucci. Swindled millions from New Jersey casinos and washed the money here with a chain of pizza joints. Another bail jumper."

"A guy like that made bond?"

"He could afford it. His wife put it up. She died four days after he ran out on her and his bail bondsman. Jocko left a note saying he was leaving the country."

"The wife died how?"

"A bus ran over her on Second Avenue. Thing is, she had time after finding hubby's note to call the law and stop him from leaving, but she waited a whole day and he was gone."

"Or became somebody else," Quinn said.

"That would be the somebody we've got in the morgue, minus head, arms, and legs, and plus a broomstick."

The waiter arrived with crustless, quarter-cut tuna salad sandwiches, but Quinn knew they were only an unimportant prelude to the creme brulee.

Renz dutifully took a bite of his sandwich. "There've gotta be dozens, maybe hundreds, of other people who've disappeared voluntarily, and the law doesn't get involved," he said, around a mouthful of tuna salad. "Why should it? Nothing illegal's been done. Private detectives are sometimes hired to find these folks, but not with much success. If you know what you're doing or have connections, and the whole wide world to get lost in, you can usually stay lost."

"Yeah, but the runners in this case would figure to be not only in trouble, but high profile, at least to the police or whoever else might search for them."

"We won't stop looking for Marti Ogden, and the Feds won't stop looking for the other three."

"Trouble is, they're somebody else now."

"Trouble is," Renz agreed. He pushed his plate with the sandwich away. He'd had two bites. The healthy part of his meal was over. Time for dessert, even though Quinn hadn't had a bite of his sandwich.

Renz sat up straighter and looked around for their waiter, but didn't see him. Turning his attention back to Quinn, he said, "We've got some information on Victor Lamping. He's thirty-six years old, was born in Baltimore, served in the army in Special Forces in Afghanistan, and was dishonorably discharged four years ago."

"Discharged for what reason?"

"We're working on that, but it's not easy to find out. Special Forces aren't like other military outfits. They've got their own set of rules and it looks like nobody's up to challenging them. Once we contacted the Military Record Center in St. Louis, everyone in the place clammed up. We couldn't even find out anything about Lamping from before he joined the military."

"Well, we know what he's doing these days."

The sun had tracked to a slightly different position. Renz was almost in silhouette now against the expanse of bright window looking out on the green lawn and King Kong. Quinn wished he'd brought his sunglasses in with him.

"How do you plan on playing E.Bliss.org?" Renz asked. "Should we shut them down?"

Quinn was aware that Renz knew better; the politician in Renz needed affirmation that the decision wasn't his alone.

"Not in my judgment," Quinn said. "When we nail them, I want them nailed hard and for good. So far, we don't have anything approaching actual proof. We'll keep watching them while we build our case. The last thing we want at this point is to spook them so they roll everything up and disappear themselves. Jill Clark figures to be their next victim, so we can play for time."

"Agreed," Renz said. "But we wouldn't want the media to discover what we know and when we found out. They'll think we shoulda broke into E-Bliss's offices like Eliot Ness and the Untouchables and gunned everybody down. Make sure you keep the media out of it. Cindy Sellers is all over me every day like chiggers."

"I'll do what I can," Quinn said. "We've been reasonably successful so far."

Renz sat high in his chair again. "Hey, there's our waiter."

He had his arm halfway up to summon the waiter when his cell phone beeped. He dug the phone out of a pocket, flipped it open, and pressed it to his ear and identified himself. His hound-dog expression became even graver as he went to a different pocket with his free hand and got out a black leather-bound notepad. He said, "Uh-huh," and then said it several more times while making notes. Renz thanked whoever had called. He flipped the phone closed so it made a loud snapping sound.

"We've got another victim," he said. "Female. What's left of her was found less than fifteen minutes ago on the Lower East Side."

He tore off the top sheet of paper containing the information from his notepad and handed it across the table to Quinn. He slipped the notepad back in his pocket, then settled down in his chair.

"Round up your team and go," he said. "I'm waiting for dessert."