Speak of the Devil

25

COX AND I AGREED THAT HE WOULD DRIVE ME OUT OF FORT PETERSEN and over to Flatbush Avenue, where I’d be able to catch a gypsy cab back into Manhattan. The subway would have been just as quick, if not quicker, but I think better with actual space to stare off into. In the subway, except for the occasional elevation, you’re literally in the dark.

As we headed for Flatbush, Cox told me that the instant Commissioner Carroll had shared the name Angel with him, he knew who we were dealing with.

“I had that moving company on my list for Diaz. U-Move. Carroll told me you’d flushed out the name Angel… bang. I know Angel Ramos used to work at that place, too.”

“So you’re already familiar with Angel Ramos?”

“Anybody working the Nine-five who didn’t know Angel Ramos might as well flush his badge down the can.”

“The good old Ninety-fifth Precinct.”

“One goddamn crack about that Bad Apples crap, and you’re walking.”

Not much of a threat, but I took the meaning. “Was your partner involved in any of that?”

Cox whipped his head to face me. “What’d I just say?”

“You said no cracks. That wasn’t a crack, it was a question.”

“The whole thing is hype,” Cox said. “They’re just trying to sell papers. McNally was clean.”

“What about those two cops? The murder-suicide. That doesn’t sound like hype.”

“You want to stick to the topic?”

“Fine. Tell me about Angel Ramos.”

“He’s a punk. Big strong punk, but a punk. There’s a lot of gang action back there in the hood. I’m sure that’s no surprise. That church you were standing in front of like a fucking target is one of the hangouts for Ramos and his crowd. The guy’s got a whole racket going. He’s got a string of girls he likes to dole out. Running any drugs you can think of.”

“So you’ve been keeping an eye on him?”

“We’ve got an operation here to try and clean the shit off the street. That means creeps like Ramos. Except all we’ve ever gotten him on is robbery and banging heads. He’s slippery. Now, with this whole stupid Bad Apple stink, our operation’s pretty much shut down. The criminals are having a nice laugh while the cops investigate the cops. Great way to clean up crime, isn’t it?”

“Have you ever dealt with Ramos personally?”

“Hell, yeah, I’ve been in the bastard’s face plenty of times. He’s cold. A punk like that’s not going to live to see thirty.”

“Did you ever see him with Roberto Diaz?”

The radio began to crackle. Cox reached over and turned it off. “I never saw Diaz until last Thursday. Son of a bitch, too. I’m standing there at the parade with my thumbs up my ass and suddenly this old blind guy with a dog falls down right in front of me. He was having a heart attack. What the hell’s a blind guy doing at a parade in the first place? I was down there doing CPR when the shooting started. Me and the blind guy were just about trampled to death by people running from the shooter. I didn’t even see my partner lying on the street. I finally got clear and everyone was screaming that two guys with guns went running into the park. First time I ever laid eyes on Diaz was when he was down by the fountain.”

I was tempted to ask him about the last time he laid eyes on Diaz-alive, anyway-in the Municipal Building, but I figured he’d just threaten to make me walk the last block and a half. We reached Flatbush and he pulled over. As I shouldered open the door, Cox picked up my Amigo Willy card from the seat. “What are you hoping for with this stunt?”

“Old gumshoe trick,” I said. “Trolling for information.”

“You’re wasting your time. No one’s going to respond to that.”

Au contraire, I thought as Cox pulled off down the street. You just did.

TOMMY CARROLL WASN’T IN HIS OFFICE. STACY INFORMED ME THAT Carroll hadn’t been feeling well and that he had gone home. Stacy looked pale and unhappy. I wondered if she knew the scuttlebutt concerning Philip Byron, but I didn’t ask. I did go ahead and ask her if she had a boyfriend.

She gave me a suspicious look. “Why?”

“If you do, I think you ought to go see him, that’s all. You look as if you could stand some TLC.”

She hesitated a moment before responding. “I can’t.” The words came out almost in a whisper.

“So then you do have one. Why can’t you go see him?”

Whatever minor veil had seemingly lifted quickly descended. She looked at me with robotic eyes. Even her blazer seemed to harden. “I will note for the commissioner that you came to see him.”

“No need. I’ll catch him at his place.”

“I told you, he’s not feeling well.”

I dared to touch her on the shoulder. “Honey, your boss is likely to be feeling a whole lot worse before this thing is over.”

IT WAS RUSH HOUR. I TOOK THE SUBWAY TO TWENTY-EIGHTH STREET and walked the few blocks to Murray Hill. A pair of policemen were standing over what we used to call a drunken bum on the sidewalk at Lexington and Thirtieth. The bum was asleep. His head was leaning on the brick wall below a travel-agency window, which showed a large poster of a carefree guy and a dishy woman running along a tropical beach. It looked as if the scene were sprouting directly from the poor drunk’s head, as if he were dreaming it. Not such a bad dream. Kind of made me want to tell the cops to just leave him be.

As I approached Tommy Carroll’s building, the unformed thought that had been nagging me since my conversation with Leonard Cox finally formed. McNally at the parade. A cop from the embattled Ninety-fifth Precinct, far from home base. Gunned down by a shooter who-more and more, it seemed-had been acting on instructions from a known troublemaker from the selfsame precinct. I rolled the thought around and played with it while I waited to be buzzed into Carroll’s building, then put it away for later.

Betsy Carroll answered the door. “Oh my God, it could be Harlan himself standing there. Come in, Fritz. It’s been too long.”

She insisted on taking my coat. My.38 was in one of the pockets. I had a twinge, then I remembered that this demure woman was licensed and well trained. I recalled one of my first visits to a shooting range-in the basement of a building on West Twenty-second Street-and my father pointing out to me the small woman in the big goggles.

“They told me downtown that Tommy’s not feeling good,” I said. “I hope it’s okay, my coming over.”

Betsy Carroll gave me a measured look. She was pastier than I recalled from the last time I’d seen her, which had probably been around a year or so ago. The skin around her sharp cheekbones and usually pointy chin was beginning to fall. I realized that the pasty look was partly because of the contrast with her shoe-black hair.

“Tommy hasn’t told you, has he?” she said in a low voice.

“Told me what?”

“He hasn’t told anyone at work. I just thought you… Maybe because you and he… Oh, Jesus, Fritz. Tommy has cancer. The big stupid bear smoked himself to lung cancer and now it’s got him. It’s not good. He hasn’t told you, has he?”

“He hasn’t said a word.”

“Then don’t you say a word. He’d kill me. We were supposed to go to Tortola this week and get a little sun. Just, you know, relax. I had to look that word up in the dictionary and show it to Tommy.”

“Jesus, Betsy, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“He’s scheduled to start radiation in a few weeks, but he’s not sure he wants to. Now with all this damn… whatever it is going on, he’s not going anywhere. I swear, Fritz, the man is going to allow no time between working and dying to-”

She clamped her eyes closed. Her fists, too. A few seconds later, tears emerged from under the eyelids. She drew a sharp intake of breath and opened her eyes. “He wants to die with his boots on. The rest of his life comes second. It always has. All of it.” She wiped her tears with the backs of her hands and gave the approximation of a smile. “Men.”

“I need to see him, Betsy.”

“Of course you do. Somebody always does. Wait here.”

She disappeared down the hallway. I looked at a framed print of Grand Central Terminal on the wall, the print with the sunlight streaming through the cathedral windows as if heaven itself had just pulled up outside. A minute later, Tommy Carroll appeared at the end of the hallway. He was in silhouette and he filled the space. I heard his labored breathing before he spoke. “Come in, Fritz. I’m in my office.”

The dark form turned and walked off. I followed. Betsy was standing at the open door to her husband’s home office as I emerged from the hallway. She gave me a plucky smile as I entered, then closed the door behind me.

Tommy Carroll had loosened his tie and rolled his sleeves partway up his freckled arms. He was settling into a chair in front of a laptop computer. I noticed a short tumbler next to the laptop. Something brown, with a melted chip of ice. He hit some keys on the laptop, stared at the screen a few seconds, then pivoted the laptop in my direction. “You want to see what it’s come to?”

I didn’t, really, but I knew I would. It was Philip Byron, of course. The picture was from the waist up. He was seated or standing in front of a red wall. His left eye was red and swollen, and he had what appeared to be several cuts above it and on his chin. He was holding up his left hand, which was covered with a gauze bandage. A trace of red had seeped through. His expression was somewhere between mortified and extremely grim. Or maybe despairing and angry. I didn’t really know the man. As Cox had said, the barrel of an Uzi rifle was planted against Byron’s temple. All that could be seen of the person holding the rifle was the arm. Outstretched to show as much of the rifle as possible, wearing what appeared to be a puffy black winter coat. Five million New Yorkers wear puffy black winter coats. Not that it mattered. We knew who the arm belonged to. Or, if not who owned the arm, then who had taken the picture. I knew the face. Even on the good brother, it was a disturbing face.

“He wants ten million dollars or else he kills Byron. He also says he’ll kill more people. We’ve got twenty-four hours.” Carroll looked at his watch. “Just under. At five o’clock tomorrow, he tells us where he wants the money delivered.”

“Five o’clock. That’s better than high noon.”

“A punk like this likes to hide in the dark. He’ll want the money dropped somewhere at night.”

“Is this going to happen?” I asked. “Is he going to get his ten million dollars?”

Carroll hit a button on the keyboard and the image of Byron vanished. He hit another key and a new image came up. It was the face of Victor Ramos, with the addition of a thin mustache, above a slate board bearing a series of numbers and letters. But it wasn’t Victor Ramos. It was his twin brother. Angel Ramos’s mug shot.

Carroll placed his finger on the screen just below Ramos’s chin. The liquid screen ballooned slightly.

“He’s going to get his throat cut, that’s what,” Carroll said. “You or Cox, or me if I have to. We’re going to find him, and we’re going to take him out.”

“We can’t do it that way, Tommy. You know that. If that’s your plan, I’m done here.”

Carroll’s face grew crimson in a matter of seconds. “You’re not done until I say you’re done. Goddammit, Malone, I’ll take you out!” He punctuated this last sentiment by slamming his fist on the desk. The force made his tumbler fall to the carpet. He let it remain. Carroll’s shoulders and head were trembling as if he were caught up in his own private earthquake. Which, of course, he was.

“Betsy told me,” I said.

He glowered at me. “Told you what?”

I said it again, slowly. “She told me.”

This time he got it. We remained in silence a few seconds, then Carroll reached down and picked up the tumbler and set it back on the desk. He rubbed the spilled liquid into the carpet with his shoe. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

“I squeezed it out of her,” I lied. “I had a hunch.”

Carroll seemed to like that. “The great detective and his hunch.” He produced a bottle of Jameson’s from a desk drawer and poured a few fingerfuls into his tumbler. He barked out, “Lisbeth!” When the door behind me opened, he said, “Get me another glass, would you? Fritz here wants to drink to my health. What do you think about that, honey?”

We said nothing while Betsy went off to fetch the glass. She came into the room and set it on Carroll’s desk. He tried to make eye contact with her, but she refused. She left without a word. I took a seat while Carroll poured out a shot.

“I hope you like it neat,” he said, sliding the glass across the desk.

I picked it up and tapped it against his. “To your health.” I thought of Charlie Burke’s toasts. He’d have been unimpressed.

Carroll growled, “Just don’t tell me you’re sorry. I don’t want to hear that from anybody. I’ve got no damn room for pity. I hate pity.”

We threw back our drinks like a couple of cowboys. Carroll refilled his, then aimed for my glass. I waved him off. “I’m good.”

“Unless you want to be trapped with a drunken, pissed-off old man, you’d better leave.”

“You should take the trip to Tortola, Tommy. Get away with Betsy and sit on your can for a few days. If not for you, for her.”

He set down his tumbler, running his thumb back and forth along the rim before looking up at me. “I’ve already got the Post calling for my head. Now we’ve got a psycho out there ready to blow the deputy mayor’s brains out. And I’m supposed to go off and play in the sand?”

“So far you’ve done a pretty good job of keeping the city from even knowing there’s a psycho out there. We know who he is now. We’ll get him. If we do it right, we’ll even get Byron out alive. Then you and the mayor can work up some sort of cutesy story about his fingers. A buzz-saw accident while he was out in the heartland helping his old pa bring in wood for the winter, whatever you want. It’ll all be over soon. Then take the damn vacation. It’s not going to kill you.”

The words were out of my mouth before I could call them back. Carroll acknowledged them with a bemused look as he took another sip. “You see? If I tell people what’s happening to me, it’s going to be just like that. Everybody tripping over their tongues.”

“As if that’s ever bothered you.”

“No, you’re right. I got thicker skin than that.” He picked up a framed photograph from his desk. I couldn’t see what it was. His voice lowered. “They’ll railroad me right out of there, Fritz. You know they will. They’ll smell the blood. Leavitt, the papers, all of them. It’ll be ‘Thanks for the psycho, thanks for the Bad Apples, you really screwed up royal, here’s your gold watch, now get the hell out of here and go die somewhere else.’ ”

“That’s pity,” I said.

“That’s fact! Fucking Leavitt. He’s the one that really burns me. Candy-assed little playboy. That prick should have stayed in Brooklyn busting criminals. But he’s too big for that. He’s got to be goddamn mayor. Screwing his celebrity girlfriends and whatever the hell else he can get his hands on. Do you think Leavitt’s big goal was just to be mayor of New York City? No chance. This is a guy who doesn’t know when to stop. He’s that kind of politician. As far as Marty Leavitt’s concerned, he’s just stopping off here to piss on a few fire hydrants on his way up. The man has plans. Do you think he’s about to let this Bad Apple thing take him down? Not if he can pin the damn thing on me and give me the boot. And if word got out that I’m being eaten alive, it’d just give him one more way to hold me up as damaged goods.” He glanced at the photograph again, then set it back down. “I’m staying put. And we’re getting Angel Ramos. That’s all there is to it. If this Nightmare business explodes now, it could bring me and Leavitt down. What I’m telling you is that I’m not going down. Or when I do, it’s on my own terms. I’ve busted my ass all my life to get where I got. I don’t go out a loser. It’s just not going to happen.”

He snatched up his drink. For just an instant, he looked like the healthiest man on earth.

BEFORE I LEFT, I HAD CARROLL PRINT ME OUT A COPY OF ANGEL Ramos’s mug shot. Betsy Carroll showed me to the door.

“You’re not much for keeping secrets, are you?” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Secrets can eat away at people, too. It would do him good to talk about it with someone.”

“He didn’t want to talk about it, Betsy. He just wanted to yell.”

She pulled open the door. “You’ve got to start somewhere.”

I hadn’t been to my office since Wednesday, so I walked the eleven blocks up and over to Forty-first Street. I stopped off at a cash machine on the way and withdrew a thousand dollars. As I passed the library, I saw that the lions out front were each wearing an enormous Christmas wreath.

There was a pile of mail under the slot, and the door plowed it as I pushed it open. It’s a small reception area, four chairs, a low black table covered with outdated magazines, one of those Don Quixote prints by Picasso. I pulled a man’s daughter from the paws of a serial rapist a number of years ago and he thanked me with a midtown office. Nothing fancy, but a convenient place to put my feet up and to meet with clients. There’s a receptionist’s desk but no receptionist. At least not on a regular basis. I hire one now and then for a day’s work when I’m feeling charitable. New York City’s temporary help comes in all sorts of varieties, and I consider it cheap entertainment. The rest of the time, when the desk is empty, I tell the waiting clients that my receptionist had to run out for an emergency. Margo and I took in a James Bond movie a few years back, and while Bond was playing cutesy with Miss Moneypenny for the jillionth time, Margo whispered in my ear, “If you had a Moneypenny, I’d kill you.” Before the night was out, we’d somehow transformed the name “Moneypenny” to “Dashpebble” and christened my nonexistent receptionist.

The mail was mostly junk. Some of it was semi-junk, and I tossed those pieces onto Miss Dashpebble’s desk. The rest I dumped in the trash can next to the desk. I hadn’t emptied the trash can for a while. Maybe it was about time to get one of those entertaining temps in.

I went into my office, which overlooks Bryant Park, behind the library. When the weather’s warm, the place is swarming with people. Junior executives from all over midtown come to the park at lunchtime and loosen their ties or pull their skirts up to the danger zone and soak in the rays. Not for nothing do I keep my binoculars handy.

But a cold November Monday nearing seven o’clock? At a glance, I counted fourteen hardy souls bundled like Cossacks.

The red light on my phone was blinking, so I checked my messages. One was from my mother in California. She can never remember my cell number. She sounded garrulous and a little angry. Pretty typical. She said she was going to hold the phone out so that I could hear “the mighty Pacific.” This was followed by ten seconds of silence. She came back on and said she was having a wonderful time, that she loved me and I should stay out of trouble. She gave a cackling laugh and hung up.

There were a few calls about cases that I’d stuck on the back burner, then a familiar voice calling me “Fritzy boy.” It was Jigs. I put the message on speakerphone and dropped into my chair.

“Most boring day of my life, I think. You should pay me double. I shadowed that half a brother of yours, like you asked. He was very polite on the subway in the morning. Gave up his seat to a one-armed lady. A real gentleman. But I don’t think he was sleeping with her. Too old, too fat, too black. Didn’t seem like Paulie’s type. I think I snooped out what you need, though. A woman he works with. They took lunch together at a Mexican place near their office. I’ve got it written down what they ate. He paid. No hand-holding, no footsies, but they seemed to have a lot to talk about. Then, around three-thirty, a coffee break in City Hall Park. This time she was crying. Paulie was patting her on the back like he was trying to burp a pet pooch. And for the hat trick, drinks after work. That’s where I am now. The Raccoon Lodge on Warren. They’re in a booth. I’m looking at the tops of their cheating heads as we speak. She’s got a name, too. It’s Annette Hartman. Redhead. Not bad. I wouldn’t kick her off the Ferris wheel. Husband’s name is Robert, but you play your cards right, I bet he’ll let you call him Bob. They live at eight seventeen West End Avenue, and I’ve got to say, Fritz, it shocks me that people actually pay you to find out this kind of thing. This is too easy. I don’t know why you’re not a millionaire by now. So look, if these lovebirds decide to go somewhere and flap their wings in private, I’m off the clock. I’ve got a call in to the homely and fair Allison from the Cloisters. Say a prayer for your favorite altar boy, Mac.”

I’d scribbled down the information as Jigs was giving it to me. Next to “Annette Hartman,” I wrote, “crying.” Before I handed the name over to Phyllis, I’d want to check on it. Chasing after spouses has always felt to me like bottom-feeding. Charlie Burke calls it “bottom-line feeding.” It was a good thing Phyllis wasn’t asking for photographs. That kind of work depresses me.

I pushed my chair back and put my feet up on the windowsill. Rodin got it wrong when he chiseled The Thinker. His guy looks like he might have been mulling over a tough chess move, but for real honest-to-goodness thinking, you’ve got to bring your feet up level with your head. So long as you don’t fall asleep, the cranium will start clicking.

Click.

I had to find Angel Ramos.

Click.

I had to find him before the next sundown.

Click.

The demand for ten million dollars told me one thing: Ramos was losing his cool. It was an irrational sum of money. Call it a hunch, but to me there seemed a desperate smell in it. Whatever had been the purpose of all the pussyfooting around with the “nun” giving us the finger at Gristedes, the original drop at the Cloisters, the million dollars being designated for the Convent of the Holy Order of the Sisters of Good Shepherd and all the rest if it, things had now gotten more blunt. We had two severed fingers in a box, and we had an Uzi jammed into the side of Philip Byron’s head. These recent events squared more clearly with the Angel Ramos I’d been getting to know, the punk who’d steal money from the collection plate and recruit his ten-year-old nephew to run drugs. Call it another hunch, but I didn’t get the feeling Angel Ramos was intending to pass along his latest ransom demand to nuns or monks or anybody else. This was a grab. This was it. This was the enchilada.

My ploy with the Amigo Willy cards had gone bust. I’d figured a few crank calls, at least. I tried Donna Bia’s number again, still not sure what I’d say to her if she answered. She didn’t. I hung up without leaving a message. I looked at my watch. I glanced out the window. Finally, I looked at my feet. “You boys ready?”

They offered no resistance. I picked up the phone and called the rental place I use, up on Fifty-second.

“Saddle up my pony,” I said to the person on the other end. He wasn’t with the program, so I had to translate. I hung up and fetched my blackjack from my desk drawer. A gift from the old man. When he was a beat cop, he’d lifted it from a man who had been number two to take over one of the big Italian crime families. The mobster told him he called it Betty. Betty had cracked some pretty notorious skulls in her day. I lightly slapped the blackjack a few times against my palm. Even with taps, you can feel the bones beginning to worry.

I went into the closet and pulled out my scratched-up bomber jacket and checked through the pockets to be sure I had my black watch cap. All set.

On my way out the door, I told Miss Dashpebble to hold my calls.