Step On A Crack

Chapter 115

“I WA-WA-WANT a lawyer,” Paul Martelli said when he was handcuffed to the leg of my squad room desk about half an hour later in Manhattan.

The cool, calm demeanor I remembered from outside St. Pat’s seemed to have taken a long bathroom break. The man’s hands were shaking, and circles of sweat had formed beneath the sleeves of his crisp blue dress shirt. There was an army of Feds out in the hall, waiting to get their crack at him, but not until I was done.

There was one thing I needed him to clear up for me.

Jack had already told me most of it. How he and Martelli had become fast friends after the Rikers Island hostage situation. How they found that they shared an undying contempt for the system; how they felt their pathetic pay was beneath them.

Martelli had been the inside man during the siege. He was the mastermind working behind the scenes, pushing our buttons. Literally having written the book on the subject, he knew what our reactions would be. Plus, he could influence what we did.

“I don’t have to explain to you how the game works, do I, Paul? Cooperation is the only thing that can save any of you losers,” I said. “Right now, the music’s still playing, but I’ll give you a little tip. The seats are almost full.”

Martelli sat there blinking and sweating. I could almost see the thoughts shifting through his head. His right knee began to jump suddenly.

“I’ll tell you whatever you need to know on one condition,” he said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“This place is filthy dirty,” the FBI agent said. “I need a moist towelette. I’m nervous, Mike.”

“How was the First Lady killed?” I said after I tossed him a lemon-scented one from under the take-out menus inside my desk drawer. Martelli didn’t speak again until he was finished meticulously scrubbing his face and hands. He seemed to have calmed down considerably, too.

“Alvarez did her,” he said.

“Jose Alvarez?” I said. “The hijacker who was killed at the dealership during the escape?”

“Actually, his cousin Julio,” said Martelli. “We had a pretty tall order,” he went on, staring at the back of my computer monitor. “In order to get a state funeral going, we needed to kill somebody high-profile and make it look like an accident. For months, I pored over potential targets. When I read about the First Lady’s allergy and her and the former president’s annual holiday meal at L’Arène, I figured we had it solved. We all put our heads together; then we made our pact. Julio quit his guard job and got a prep-cook job at L’Arène. When the president and First Lady came in, he put peanut oil in her foie gras in the kitchen.”

“So it was all over money?” I asked the FBI agent.

“We can’t all be Boy Scouts like you, Mr. Mom,” the negotiator said, looking me in the eyes for the first time. “Of course it was about money. Ring up those rich-and-famous assholes we kidnapped. They’ll tell you straight up. If they take your call, that is. Money’s what makes this dirty world go round, Mike.”

I looked away from Martelli in disgust. A young FBI agent with a wife and two small kids had been killed during the standoff, and it was obvious Martelli couldn’t care less.

But I could see panic start in Martelli’s eyes as I motioned at the door and the Feds walked in for him.

“You wouldn’t happen to have another Wet-Nap for the road there, Mike?” he said quickly.

I opened the desk drawer for a millisecond, then slammed it shut.

“Wouldn’t you know it,” I said. “I’m fresh out.”