Tongue tied

Chapter 23

Oyster Bay, despite the popular misconception, was a largely working-class town on the Island's generally silk-stockinged North Shore. Theodore Roosevelt had had a home there-Sagamore Hill, now a museum-but most of the town's residents were neither political nor business aristocracy. They were the people who installed the hot tubs, pumped out the septic tanks, and rolled the lawns of this section of Long Island's old and new rich. Oyster Bay, it appeared, as we drove through it en route to the House of Annette: Nails of Glory-which we had found in the Nassau County yellow pages-was not so much a Jay Gatsby town or a Tom and Daisy Buchanan town as it was a George and Myrtle Wilson town.

There was no Doctor T. J. Eckleburg sign, as in Gatsby, but plenty of suburban retail and office sprawl, most of it identical to what we'd passed in Hempstead. One difference between the commercial suburbia I was familiar with in Albany and that of Oyster Bay was the Long Island preponderance of retail stores in long buildings, probably dating to the 1920s and 1930s and done in a brick "colonial" motif or an "Old English" style that featured leaded windows and exposed timbers. These were the North Shore versions of LA strip malls, except sometimes with second stories.

The strip we parked down the street from included- along with a pizza parlor, a tae kwon do emporium, and a copying center-the House of Annette: Nails of Glory. Of additional interest to Lyle, Dave Welch, Thad, and me-all of us in Lyle's NYPD

Ford-was Annette's next-door neighbor, Damien's Den of In-Ink-Kwity, a tattoo parlor.

At 6:25 Sunday morning, all of the businesses were closed. So was the chain video store we were parked in front of. Traffic was all but nonexistent, and a fine mist was in the air, which was so rainforestlike that I would not have been surprised to hear a macaw cackling or see a salamander skitter across the hood of the Ford.

We sat for several minutes going over our options. Both Barner and Welch were skeptical of my theory-which had become a conviction over the past hour-that Steve Glodt was the mastermind behind the Moyle and Plankton kidnappings. Both cops agreed that powerful people were capable of savage criminal acts-Lyle had seen it numberless times over his long career-but they both doubted that Glodt would be so spectacularly arrogant and reckless.

Having spent a couple of days, off and on, with Jeris, Plankton, and Moyle, I thought I understood them well enough to make this argument: Glodt had calculated he had plenty to gain from the cruel stunt-publicity and, even more importantly, added

"edge" that the Gonzo Sports Network would go for. And he figured he had little to lose if caught. Glodt could well have speculated that if Plankton and Moyle remained in character, they would consider the whole thing a hilarious practical joke-just guys joshing other guys on a colossal scale-and they would consider it unsporting, even unmanly, to press charges or ever to testify in court against the charmingly roguish prankster who also happened to own their network.

Having observed Plankton and Jeris at their most oafish, Thad found my scenario plausible. He was also eager to expose Glodt and, like me, to test the limits of the J-Bird's willingness to let sadistic straight male jerks of a well-known type be sadistic straight male jerks of a well-known type. Lyle was indulging Thad and me by driving us over to Oyster Bay, and Welch came along to watch. On the way to Oyster Bay, Lyle had checked again with the other detectives working the case back in the city, but none reported any breaks.

Lyle said, "Miss Annette living next door to a tattoo parlor does get my attention."

"Is this one of the tattooists that was checked?" Welch asked.

"I'll find out."

Lyle phoned his office, spoke to someone there, and hung up. "It was checked out yesterday by the Oyster Bay department."

I said, "What did the questioning consist of? Did they ask Damien the tattooist if he was involved in the Moyle kidnapping, and he said no, and they left, or what?"

"It could have been something like that."

We sat for another minute looking down the street through the mist at the nail and tattoo parlors. The long business block was set back from the highway about thirty feet, with face-in parking along the facade. The second-story windows bore no signs or lettering, and it looked as if there were apartments behind them. That would square with my information from the J-Bird gang that Glodt's girlfriend lived above her nail parlor. At the center of the block was what looked like a first-floor entryway leading to the second-floor apartments. Fire regulations, I guessed, would have required a second entrance and stairway, probably in the rear of the building.

Thad said, "What if we just went up to the apartment over the nail parlor and knocked on the door?"

"And say what?" Lyle said. "Even if I identified myself as a police officer, whoever's in there could tell me to screw off. I could wake up a judge and ask for a search warrant if I had something more to go on than Strachey's imagination running wild. But I don't, so getting in there with either a legal document or a battering ram is not in the cards."

"The chances are good," I said, "that at this early hour everybody inside the apartment is asleep. Maybe Thad and I could get inside the apartment, look around, and either confirm that the J-Bird is being held in there or that he isn't, and then leave. Thad, do you think you could get us inside?"

"Probably so. It's an old building without a lot of updating otherwise, so it may well have old locks I could go right through. Do any of you have a lobster pick with you?

I reckon not."

Lyle said, "I have a department tool you could use. But I'm just trying to figure out how I'm supposed to explain to a commander-or to a department inspector or to a judge- that the rescue of Jay Plankton was effected through a citizen's breaking and entering-and a B and E that I was myself an accessory to. Or even worse than that and this is the likeliest way for all this to play out-that Plankton isn't in there at all, but my lockpicker was employed in a B and E that led to a ten-million-dollar lawsuit against the department, against an Albany PI, and against a Mennonite turnip farmer from Jersey."

"Eggplant," Thad said.

"But Lyle has a point." Now this was Welch getting into it. "If you going in there the way you said goes wrong, we're all fucked. That's why I think, Thad, that instead of you using Lyle's department equipment, you should use some of the finer implements on my Swiss Army knife, which maybe you found on the roadside somewhere. And that while you go in, Lyle and I should cruise up and down the highway until we get a call from you to either pick you up, and we all go to IHOP for breakfast, or to come to your aid pronto and we do."

Lyle was shaking his head, but instead of objecting he just let out a long sigh and said, "Jee-sus."

Thad and I were in the backseat of the Ford, and when Welch reached over the seat to hand Thad the Swiss Army knife, I saw that Thad had goose bumps on his arm. His hand was not trembling, though, an indication that he was anticipating not sex but house-breaking. An unusual Mennonite was Thad, or so I assumed from my limited experience.

Lyle made Thad and me both memorize his cellphone number, and when we had, we climbed out into a fine spray of light rain.

"This feels nice," Thad said. "I feel like a pile of fresh lettuce at the old Rinella's market in Ephrata when I was a kid. They had a machine that sprayed the produce, and I liked to stick my face in the mist."

"Actually, those gadgets are back," I told Thad, as Lyle pulled onto the highway and headed away from the strip mall. "I saw one in a supermarket recently that not only misted the greens periodically, but when it did so a nearby speaker broadcast thunderstorm sounds."

"And let loose with a blast of Ferde Grofe?"

"I'm not kidding," I told him, and I wasn't.

"No lightning bolts though, I hope."

"Not yet."

We crossed the highway and walked toward the business strip with apartments above it, then cut along the side of the building and around back. There we found an acre of tarmac, with garbage dumpsters next to some of the rear entrances to the pizza parlor and the other businesses. Six cars were parked side by side at the far rear of the paved area, which apparently provided parking for the business employees and the building's second-floor tenants. No light-colored van was among the cars, just Chevy, Pontiac and Honda sedans and a beat-up old VW Rabbit.

We noted the location of the nail parlor, the second business from the far end of the building, next to the tattoo den.

Thad said, "What if Miss Annette's apartment is above her nail parlor, but not directly above it? What if we waltz into somebody else's home by mistake?"

"We'll apologize," I said, "and ask where Miss Annette lives."

"Sounds like a plan."

The entrance to the rear stairway was in the center of the building, opposite the one in the front, and Thad had no trouble making his way through the lock in well under thirty seconds.

"You'd make a successful criminal," I told him.

"Thank you. I once was one. Not much of what the FFF did way back when was legal."

At the top of the wooden stairway was a long corridor going off to the left and to the right. Directly ahead was a wider stairway leading down to the front entrance. We turned left, toward the apartment over the nail parlor. There were three doors, however, one apparently to an apartment in the front of the building, one to an apartment in the rear, and one on the far end.

Thad said, "Uh oh."

"It's probably the front one or the rear one," I said.

"Yes, one or the other."

We checked the name cards on the doors. The one on the front apartment said

"Gomspold," and the card on the rear apartment said "D. Carletti."

"Gould it be Annette Gomspold?" Thad whispered.

"Maybe. And I wonder if the other one is Damien Carletti, the tattooist?"

But when we checked the door at the end of the hallway, the name card read

"Annette C. Koontz."

"I smell coffee brewing," Thad said. "But it seems to be coming from Gomspold's place."

These apartments, so close to one another, suddenly struck me as unlikely venues for holding kidnap victims. Even if the captives were bound and gagged and unable to cry for help, as Moyle said had been the case with him, getting them in and out of this building without attracting attention seemed like a stretch. My conviction that Steve Glodt was behind the kidnappings and that the J-Bird was being held, and possibly tortured and mutilated, in Annette Koontz's apartment-assuming that this woman actually had any connection whatever with Glodt-was starting to waver.

Thad said, "I'll just knock on the door lightly to see if anyone is up and about. If there's no response, I'll go in." He had the corkscrew from Dave Welch's Swiss army knife poised.

I thought, What am I doing here? How did I get mixed up in this thing? Why am I not home in bed in Albany with Timothy Callahan, instead of prowling through a building in Oyster Bay, Long Island, probably about to scare the crap out of some innocent workingwoman who is luxuriating in the only rest and solitude she can enjoy all week long? Could I have my PI license revoked for this? Or be convicted of a felony? Would it be house-breaking? Stalking? Invasion and assault?

Thad rapped lightly on Annette Koontz's door.

We waited.

No sound came from the Koontz apartment or from any of the others.

Thad looked at me, but before I could suggest that maybe we should reconsider what now felt like a reckless, even idiotic, misadventure, he had inserted the business end of his implement in the door's single lock, quickly maneuvered it this way and that, and when he turned the loiob, the door swung open.

We stood for a moment looking into a living room furnished with some fat leather chairs and a beige leather couch-Had a woman purchased these objects?-and a large-screen TV. It had been set inside one of those home-entertainment-center type structures ("A man's home is his megaplex"), which had a small bar attached to it. The illumination was dim, coming from a double window whose shades were lowered.

Thad looked at me again, then stepped carefully inside the apartment. I followed him.

A familiar voice said levelly, "Shut the door, you pond-scum, puke-ass-faggot, maggot-head creeps."

Jay Plankton was holding an automatic weapon the size of a grenade launcher, and it was aimed at Thad and me. He was standing in the semidarkness of a doorway leading to a room in the back of the building. His good diction indicated that he still had his tongue.

Thad said, "Hey, J-Bird, we come as friends."

"Rescuers," I added. "If that's what's needed, here we are."

"Shut the door," he said again, and I did as I was told.

Thad said, "So you're in on it? Way cool."

"You fooled me, Jay," I added. "What a prank! You're… you're too much, you crazy fucker, you."

"You can cut the showbiz crap," Plankton snapped. "I've reached my limit, and I'm not taking it anymore. No more. No more." He sounded exhausted, desperate.

"Jay, you're cracking me up," I said. "If you put that gun down, I'd collapse on the floor laughing. That is the idea, isn't it?"

But the look in Plankton's eye was not one of devilish merriment, or even of guilt. He looked enraged and crazed.

"You're going to get in there with your friends," he said, moving into the room with us, and waving toward the back room with his revolver. "And then I'm going to decide what to do with you. A good possibility is justifiable homicide."

"What would the justification be?" Thad asked.

"I'm in a bad mood," Plankton shot back. "1 low's that?"

"Interesting," Thad said, being careful, I guessed, not to worsen Plankton's mood.

I said, "We're here to rescue you, Jay-to look after your well-being, assuming that's what you want. ' I 'his is a l l in keeping with the terms of my agreement with you and Jerry Jeris. But you seem to have an entirely different idea of my role in all of this that's erroneous. Speaking of roles, it's unclear to me exactly what your role is. Gould you clear that up?"

"Shut your trap and get the hell in there!" Plankton snarled, moving away from the doorway to the back room, and waggling his large firearm at me.

"I guess we're going in there," I told Thad, and he followed me past Plankton, who kept the gun raised and his finger poised on the trigger.

The only illumination in the room was from the doorway we walked through. I could see that the windows had been covered with cardboard on which slogans had been spray-painted. One was FFF Lives! and another was Queer Revenge! It was a movie-of-the-week idea of gay protest, but someone must have thought it could be taken seriously by somebody.

The smell of nail polish was strong in the room, and it was apparent that here was the room where Leo Moyle had suffered his captivity. But as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, who, I wondered, were the two figures bound and gagged on the couch in the darkest corner of the room? I was about to guess out loud when Thad beat me to it.

"Are you Miss Annette?" Thad said to the female, a bosomy, large-haired blond woman whose dark eyes were huge with fright. The other figure was that of a slender man in jeans and a white T-shirt, with thinning hair and black circles around his eyes, which also showed fear. Many tattoos adorned the man's arms, but I was unable to make out what they represented.

The scared woman was not able to answer Thad's question regarding her identity owing to the duct tape pasted across her lower face, and her eyes darted from the J-Bird to Thad to me and back to Plankton and his revolver.

"I'm starting to get the drift of what happened here," I said. "You're not actually party to a gigantic scam, Jay- unless you're a better actor than anybody I know is likely to give you credit for." Plankton's eyes narrowed as he tried to sort through that.

"Instead," I said, "it looks like your kidnapping was not a stunt that you knew anything about. You really were dragged out here against your will from New York and held here by these people and at least two others who aren't here right now. You managed to get loose from your bonds during the night, overpower these two, tie them up, and take possession of the revolver they had held on you and earlier on Leo Moyle.

"You were waiting for the other two members of the gang to return, at which point you would either notify the police, or-once you determined who was behind the operation, the FFF or someone else entirely-you would torment your tormentors for a time before deciding on their ultimate disposition. Am I right?"

"You're digging your own grave, Strachey," Plankton said. "But keep going."

"The part you're getting wrong, however, is this, Jay. Because you were blindfolded, you never saw your captors. When Thad and I walked through the front door just now instead of crashing through it, you assumed that we were the other two kidnap-gang members and that we had been part of an elaborate hoax from the beginning. Well, I 'm here to tell you, Jay, that there has been a wicked hoax, yes. But Thad and I were never part of it. We're only here to expose the monstrous hoax and rescue you."

Plankton was shaking his head with a look of disgust. "What a pathetic wuss you are, Strachey. Christ, you don't even have the courage of your convictions." He indicated the graffiti on the cardboard window coverings, as if Queer Revenge figured importantly in my moral underpinnings. In fact, it ranked far down on my life's wish list, maybe number seven or eight.

I said, "Jay, you've been understandably unhinged by what you've been through. But before you miscalculate badly and randomly redistribute many of the human organs present in the room-and I do understand your impulse to do so-I want to point out a provable fact that is sure to come as an eye-opener to you."

Miss Annette's eyes got even bigger. She knew what was coming.

"Do you know, Jay, who this woman is?"

"Hell, she's some damn, man-hating, ball-breaking lipstick lesbian! Who gives a wet fart who she is?"

"No, you're wrong. Do you know where you are?"

"Shit, no. Where am I, anyway?"

"You're in Oyster Bay, Long Island, in an apartment over Annette Koontz's nail parlor. Miss Annette here is Steve Glodt's girlfriend. Why don't you remove the tape from across what I'm sure is her pretty mouth and ask her who organized and funded the kidnapping operation?"

Plankton stood there and said nothing for a long tense moment. You could see what was left of his operational mental machinery spinning fast. Finally, he said, "Say that again, Strachey?"

"Ask Miss Annette who had what to gain by making you and Leo even madder and meaner than you already are.

Ask her who is in negotiations with GSN for a radio-TV simulcast deal, only GSN wants more 'edge' on the show, more white male anger."

Plankton stood for a moment longer staring at me hard. Then he slowly turned his gaze toward Miss Annette. Her eyes stayed on the automatic, which turned toward her also.

"Is there any truth to that?" Plankton asked her, looking a little dazed now.

She nodded vigorously and said something that sounded like "Eee! Eee!" but was probably meant to be "Steve! Steve!"

Plankton stood for a moment longer. Then he sighed, lowered his gun, and said to Thad and me, "Come here. I want you to look at something."

He found a wall switch, and an overhead light went on. Still holding the automatic, Plankton rolled up his right sleeve. Freshly tattooed on his upper arm was a big heart, and inside it were the words J-Bird Loves Al Gore.

Thad said, "That looks bad, J-Bird. But it could have been worse."

"It was," Plankton said. Then he dropped his trousers, tugged at his boxer shorts, turned and bent over. Tattooed on his ample left buttock were the words "And J-Bird Loves"-and on his right buttock-"George W. Bush Even More."

Plankton yanked his pants up, the gun still in his right hand, and buckled his belt, the gun barrel wobbling dangerously.

"Glodt probably thought you'd think it was funny," I said.

"I don't."

"Apparently not."

Plankton pointed the gun again. "Gome on. We're all going for a ride. The three of us, I mean."

"Why don't you let the police handle this, Jay? They're nearby. I can call them."

"Don't bother. I'll deal with Steve."

"We don't have a car," Thad said. "Somebody dropped us off."

Plankton looked at the tattooed man, who 1 assumed was Damien of Damien's Den of In-Ink-Kwity. '"You got a car outside, you fucking pervert?"

The man nodded and thrust his right hip at us. "(Jet his keys," Plankton said.

I groped inside the man's pocket and came up with a set of keys.

"Which car is it?" I said. "The Rabbit?" He shook h i s head. "The Pontiac?" An eager assent-he wanted us out of there.

"Should I shoot these two before we go?" Plankton said, pointing his automatic, and this led to an outbreak of violent twisting and flopping on the couch. Plankton did not shoot, however. He just snorted and said, "Let's go sec Steve. Steve wanted to deal with GSN, but first he's going to have to deal with me. Bring that box along,"

Plankton said, indicating an aluminum case the size of an airline carry-on bag that lay atop a nearby table. Then, wielding his gun again, Plankton motioned toward the door to the corridor. Thad and I did what the J-Bird seemed to want us to do, which was to lead the way out of Annette Koontz's apartment.