Stone Cold

7

The same night, 1,927 miles away, Nate Romanowski sat behind the wheel of a white panel van outside a closed florist’s shop on 74th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Since this was the third night in a row he’d been there, he had begun to recognize a few of the occupants of the brownstone apartment buildings on the street. They couldn’t see him, though, due to the dark tint of the windows. There was the skinny lady with large, round sunglasses who left her building every night at six forty-five p.m. sharp, who would blast out the door as if the block were on fire and charge toward Broadway or Amsterdam to find a restaurant, he guessed, since she didn’t return until after nine. There was the professorial-type man in his mid-fifties who came outside and stood on the stoop and furtively smoked a cigarette in obvious fear of being seen by passersby on the street or his wife inside. There was the balding middle-aged Wall Street type who walked his tiny but manically energetic toy fox terrier and looked as if he’d just hooked into a leaping trout.

Twice he’d seen Jonah Bank, the infamous New York stockbroker, financial adviser, and “wealth-management executive” who had bilked investors — many of whom lived within blocks of where Nate was parked — of over $9 billion in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history. That a banker was named Bank lent the scandal a twirl of irony.

But both times, the operation had been called off at the last minute.

Nate hoped tonight was the night. He was sick of New York and it made him tired. The thick air was filled with smells — taxi fumes, exotic cooking, the Hudson River, steam from the sidewalk grates — and sounds — blaring horns, sidewalk conversations, the throbbing hum of the city itself. It was sensory overload.

He missed thin air, big skies, vast quiet, and his falcons. He also missed his sense of righteous purpose, and yearned for it in the same way he yearned for Alisha Whiteplume and Haley. He wished that instead of being behind the wheel of a panel van in the middle of more than eight million people he was sitting naked in a tree watching the Twelve Sleep River roll by.

It wasn’t the first time in his life he was completely out of his comfort zone. He could do the job. But he couldn’t convince himself that he would take any satisfaction from it.

Nate had been sent to assist in the operation, which had been in the planning and reconnaissance phases for weeks. He was not the primary on the job. The primary, code-named Whip, had been in New York for over a month shadowing Bank and casing his habits and movements. Bank was in the midst of his first trial for security fraud and was free for the time being to return to his home in The Dakota on West 72nd each night. Nate had never met Whip, although he’d seen a photo and had been briefed on him.

Whip was a longtime associate in the enterprise, and for most of it the only operator. As far as Nate could discern, Whip knew as little about him as he knew about Whip. They referred to each other by the code names given to them: Whip and The Falcon. Nate wondered if Whip liked the idea of an additional operator in the firm.

So far, Nate’s communications with Whip had been via prepaid throwaway cell phones — a new phone and a new number every day — so neither could be tracked or monitored.

Upon Nate’s arrival in New York, Whip had told him that Bank was literally untouchable during the daytime. He was picked up by federal marshals each morning and delivered to the courthouse of the Southern District of New York, and returned to The Dakota by two private bodyguards. Breaching the security at the building was nearly impossible, Whip said, and the problem with taking down Bank on the street was the proliferation of closed-circuit security cameras in the neighborhood: they were everywhere. Whip said he’d never seen so many cameras anywhere else except London.

Whip’s voice was low and flat, and with a hint of a southern accent that Nate guessed was western Kentucky. Whip didn’t try to get familiar with Nate in any way, and used as few words as possible to convey information. Nate was fine with that, and he guessed Whip had a similar Special Ops background because he used the same jargon.

Whip said he’d discovered a vulnerability in regard to Jonah Bank. Nate knew there was always a vulnerability, if the time and effort was spent to discover it. No human being could be one hundred percent secure. There was always a way to get close enough to a target to do the job.

Every night between seven and seven-thirty, Whip said, Bank left The Dakota alone on foot without minders or bodyguards. He changed out of his $3,000 Dolce & Gabbana three-piece courtroom suit into a baseball cap, a worn leather bomber jacket, baggy jeans, and Nike running shoes. Bank’s destination was Zabar’s, an eclectic specialty food store eight blocks away at Broadway and 80th, where he’d buy the “Nova Scotia”—a bagel with scallion cream cheese — and a single black-and-white cookie. Bank would return to the building before eight. Whip speculated that Bank’s bodyguards weren’t aware of his nightly sojourn, or they’d accompany him or insist on fetching the snack themselves.

Bank didn’t deviate from his established route on the round trip. After leaving The Dakota, he’d walk up West 72nd to Broadway and blend in with the crowded foot traffic for the remaining eight blocks to Zabar’s. But on the way back, while he was eating, he’d return by a different route: 80th to Amsterdam, then 74th to Columbus Avenue, then to 72nd and The Dakota, where he’d enter the same side door from which he’d departed.

Whip had identified one block on the return route that was poorly lit and not bristling with closed-circuit cameras. It was on 74th, between Amsterdam and Columbus. The block was quiet and residential, with only one storefront retail business — Abraham’s Florist Shop, where Abraham’s white panel delivery van was parked out front during business hours. The single CC camera Whip identified was across the street from the florist’s shop.

Many nights, Abraham took his van on final deliveries and never returned it. Whip guessed Abraham took it to his home in Brooklyn. Other nights, Abraham left the van parked and locked and rode the train home. There didn’t seem to be any way to predict whether the vehicle would be left on the street or gone for the night until Whip figured it out: it depended on the location of Abraham’s last delivery. If the delivery was in the direction of Brooklyn or in Brooklyn itself, Abraham kept the van. If it was somewhere else or there were no more deliveries at all, the owner would ride the train home.

So for the past three nights, Whip had placed anonymous orders via the Internet for deliveries after six to three different addresses on the way to Brooklyn, each time specifying that the flowers be left on the stoop if the recipient wasn’t home. He paid for each with a valid but stolen credit card number from a list he’d been provided.

Whip had taken a photo of the florist’s logo on the side of the van with his cell phone, and had a vinyl replica made uptown. Then he’d found a nearly identical 2009 Chevy Express Cargo Van at a location near LaGuardia Airport and reserved it for Nate. Nate’s job was to drive the van and slip it into the empty space after Abraham went home for the night and wait for further instructions. If anyone ever reviewed the video history of the block, they’d notice the lack of a pattern to whether the van was there for the night or gone.

The CC camera could clearly view the van on the street, but it couldn’t see through it to the opposite sidewalk. There was an eighteen-foot length of pavement blocked by the van. Anything that happened within that eighteen feet couldn’t be seen.

On both of the two previous nights, Nate had heard his throwaway phone chirp and heard Whip say, “I’ve got him. Unlock the doors and get ready.” Nate had responded by punching the electric toggle on his armrest and hearing the locks clunk open. He watched the sidewalk via the passenger-side rearview mirror while poising his hand over the door handle, ready to throw open the sliding door.

On night one, Jonah Bank had been wearing the uniform Whip had described and he’d approached in an amble, as if he wanted the walk back to his home to last as long as possible. In the distance behind Bank was a rapidly approaching figure hidden in shadow. Nate guessed it was Whip.

As Bank neared the rear bumper of the van, Nate heard a cacophony of enthused voices and looked up to see ten or twelve well-dressed people coming down the sidewalk in a writhing knot. They’d engulfed Bank just as he approached the sliding side door of the van.

“Abort,” Whip said softly, and melded back into the darkness.

The group of people were clutching tickets and talking about the last time they’d heard Diana Krall sing at the Beacon Theatre a block away. They unconsciously parted to let Bank pass through them going in the other direction, and re-formed when he was through. By then he was twenty feet away on the sidewalk, strolling toward The Dakota, and two steps away from a pool of overhead streetlights and back in the field of vision of the CC camera.

The night before, Bank had appeared at the exact same time and place. Nate had glanced up the street — no concertgoers this time — and unlocked the doors to the van. Again, he saw Bank approach in his rearview mirror and the dark form close on him from the shadows, on pace to overtake Bank when he was shielded by the van. But there was someone else — a woman who had passed Nate’s vehicle thirty seconds before, en route to Broadway. Something had made her turn around, and she was now jogging back the way she’d come. Her heels clicked on the pavement with sharp percussion, and Bank heard them and paused to look over his shoulder.

She was suddenly in Bank’s face, screaming.

“It’s you, you bastard!” she shrieked, jabbing a finger in his face. “It took me a minute, but I realized it was you, you putrid piece of shit.”

Because Bank was only half turned, Nate could see the weary look of bemusement on his face. When Bank said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You must be mistaken, lady,” Nate saw Whip’s form freeze on his approach.

“You’re Jonah Bank, you wicked prick,” she screamed. “You stole my grandmother’s last dime. You stole every penny from the sweetest woman I’ve ever known, and I hope you go straight to hell and burn for a thousand years.”

Bank shrugged unconvincingly and turned away from her. He was then next to the sliding door of the van and for a moment Nate couldn’t see him. Then Bank walked by the driver’s-side window, head down and determined, with the woman skipping alongside, jabbing her finger and cursing.

“It’s him, everybody!” she shouted, trying to rouse the residents of the quiet buildings. “It’s Jonah Bank. Right here, the pathetic douche-bag thief of New York! The predator!”

No curtains rustled from the windows of the brownstone apartments.

There was a whisper from the cell phone: “Abort.”

“It’s him!” she yelled, still keeping pace with Bank. “Here he is, the bastard.”

The two of them entered the pool of light on the corner, and she stayed with him, skipping alongside and jabbing at him with her finger until he was out of sight.

“I’ve got him. Unlock the doors and get ready.”

Bank’s only concession to the events of the night before was to flip up the collar of his bomber jacket and pull his cap lower to further obscure his face. Plus, he seemed to be walking more rapidly, with his head down.

This time, the block was empty. Nate unlocked the door.

Bank approached the van quickly. As he did, and a second before he walked into the blind spot directly next to the sliding panel door, Nate saw Whip close in until the two figures melded into one. Nate threw the van door open and stepped back as both of them hurtled inside. Whip had wrapped up Bank and was on top of him as they hit the van floor, rocking the vehicle. In the next second, Nate saw a stubby revolver in Whip’s hand and a flash of Bank’s panicked eyes as the muzzle pressed into his ball cap with enough muscle to jam the man’s head into the floor. Whip reached back with his free hand and slammed the door closed behind him.

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but—” Bank said, and never finished the sentence. Instead, there was an angry snap-snap-snap-snap.

The reports from the gun were loud inside the van. Bank made an ungh sound and stopped struggling, except for a reflexive tapping of his fingertips on the back of the passenger seat that sounded for a moment to Nate like Morse code. Then it stopped.

The inside of the van smelled sharply of gunpowder. Small-caliber or partially silenced, Nate thought. It was unlikely the neighbors would have heard anything, since the door to the van was closed and the shots had been muffled by the muzzle pressed hard into Bank’s ball cap.

Whip looked up, and Nate saw his face for the first time. He was young, boyish, pale, with high cheekbones, brown hair brushed straight back, a red slash of a mouth parting to reveal perfect white teeth, and close-set, piercing eyes.

“Go,” Whip said. “Ease out and don’t burn rubber.”

Nate started the van, pulled out, and drove the half-block through the green light on Columbus and beyond. There were no shouts, no sirens, no one peering out the apartment windows or gathering on the stoops of the brownstones.

He heard the sound of a body bag being unfurled, and felt the van rock slightly as the body was rolled into it. The zipper sang as it was closed, and within half a minute, Whip was in the passenger seat, reaching for the buckle of the seat belt.

“I got him into the bag before he bled on the floor,” Whip said. “Still, we’ll need to wipe down every inch of this van.”

Nate nodded, and noticed Whip still had the gun in his hand, although it was resting on his right thigh.

“You can put that away now,” Nate said.

Whip reacted with a slight grin. “I will when I’m ready. You worried?”

“No.”

“Are you wondering about this weapon?”

“A little.”

“Ruger LCR double-action .22,” Whip said. “Hammerless, so it doesn’t snag on clothes. Eight rounds in the cylinder. I load the first four with .22 smalls. Four through eight in the cylinder are .22 long-rifle hollow-points. Not that I’ve ever had to use four through eight.”

“Why .22 smalls?” Nate asked.

“No one ever uses them anymore, but they’re deadly little rounds at point-blank range. Very little noise, as you noticed, so no need for a suppressor. And the bullets don’t exit the skull, so there’s no messy exit wound. The slugs penetrate and just bounce around in there through the brain like bees in a jar.”

He paused and looked down at his gun. Whip said, “No spent casings ejected, of course, because they stay in the cylinder.”

Nate grunted.

Whip said, “I hear you use a wheel gun as well, but a hell of a lot bigger.”

“Yup.”

“Bigger isn’t always better.”

“No, just bigger.”

Whip seemed to be weighing what he said next, then apparently let it go. In a few minutes, he addressed the inside of the windshield without looking over.

“Do you know where we’re going in Jersey?”

“Yes.”

Whip withdrew his cheap phone and pressed out a ten-digit number and brought it up to his ear.

“It’s done,” he said. “We’ll be there in an hour.”

He listened for a moment, then terminated the call.

“What did he say?” Nate asked.

“He said I just did some good.”

“Does he always say that?”

“Yes, he does,” Whip said softly, while he shoved the Ruger into his outside jacket pocket. “Because he believes it.”

“Do you?” Nate asked.

“Take the George Washington Bridge,” Whip said, gesturing ahead.

“I said I knew how to get there.”

“I’ve got one question,” Whip said after a few moments. “Do we want to get to know each other or not?”

Nate wasn’t sure how to answer.

Twenty minutes of silence later — Nate was grateful Whip didn’t mind silence, either — at the Hackensack exit onto I-80 from the New Jersey Turnpike, Nate noticed in his rearview mirror that Jonah Bank was sitting up in the back, listing unevenly from side to side inside the body bag, as if he were drunk.

“Hey,” Nate said.

“What?”

Nate chinned over his shoulder, and Whip turned around and said, “Oh shit.”

Then, without hesitation, Whip unbuckled his seat belt and drew the pistol and turned in his seat and extended his arm toward the swaying head inside the body bag. The single report was much louder than the previous four, and Bank’s dead body flopped straight back and landed with a thump.

“That never happens,” Whip said, turning back around and buckling his seat belt. “Really, it doesn’t. We’ll not speak of this again,” he said, shaking his head.

“That’s why I use a bigger gun,” Nate said.

On the New Jersey state highway 208 North, Nate said, “Do you know who commissioned this?”

“No,” Whip said quickly. “I never ask, and I don’t want or need to know. And, frankly, I don’t care. Jonah Bank was the lowest of the low, the way he fleeced all those old Jews. He had a lot of enemies, and he probably had some friends who didn’t want him talking.”

“So you never ask?”

“Never. I know by the time the job gets to me, it’s been fully vetted. All I ask is to have enough time to do the recon properly and figure out the vulnerability. Once I’m satisfied I’ve done both, and only then, do I move.”

Nate asked, “Have you ever gone after someone who might be innocent?”

“No,” Whip said, as if the question were ridiculous. “Never. That’s not what we do.”

Nate nodded, but he wasn’t sure he was satisfied with the answer.

Whip seemed agitated, though, by the question itself. He leaned forward in his seat and turned his head toward Nate. “What I can’t figure out is just why you’re even here.”

“Me either,” Nate said. “I guess because he asked me.”

“But why? We do three or four operations a year. Each one requires lots of time, money, and planning. This one took two and a half months. I’ve never botched a single operation and we’ve attracted zero attention or heat. The reason it’s always gone so perfectly is because the target is completely vetted and we don’t try to do too much or rush things…”

Nate noticed that as Whip spoke more heatedly, his accent became more pronounced, and he said thangs.

“We keep our heads down, is what I’m saying,” Whip continued. “We stay under the radar and do good work. But all of a sudden he feels the need to recruit some kind of ponytailed nature boy… I don’t know what is going on. No offense, of course.”

“Of course,” Nate said through gritted teeth.

Whip said, “Bringing you on means one of two things. One is that he thinks I’m losing my edge, but that doesn’t make any sense. I have not lost my edge, as you can see from what happened back in the city. So if he’s looking to replace me, he’s got to have another reason than that.”

Whip raised his hand in the air with two fingers extended.

“The other possibility is he wants to expand operations, double or triple the number of jobs. But more people and more jobs means more chances of exposure. That’s too many damned pots to watch over for anyone, and something’s going to boil over, if you catch my drift.”

“I don’t know the answer,” Nate said.

“I’m sure as hell going to find out,” Whip said, sitting back. “I liked it the way it was. I don’t need help, and we don’t need another operator. That’s just what I think. If it comes down between you and me, well, it’ll have to be you. No offense, of course.”

“Of course.”

Hill Top airport was three miles north of West Milford. It was a tiny, privately owned airstrip without a control tower or normal nighttime operations. Nate parked the van on the shadowed side of a private hangar and they wiped down the interior and exterior of the van and stripped the vinyl ABRAHAM’S FLORIST SHOP signage from the sides. Both broke their cell phones into pieces and threw them inside the body bag along with the cleaning rags and zipped it back up. Whip checked for spots of blood on the pavement since he’d shot a hole in the bag’s fabric, but said it was clean.

It was a cold night and moisture hung in the air to make it seem colder. Nate could see his breath, and his fingers and toes were starting to get numb.

They heard the airplane approaching at low altitude and it landed in the dark and taxied their way.

Nate and Whip grasped the opposite ends of the body bag and carried it toward the small plane.

Before they hefted the bag inside, Nate said to Whip: “It won’t be me.”