Color Blind (37 page)

F
BI Manhattan. Streamlined. Quiet. No smell of bad coffee. No peeling paint. No perps screaming about their rights.

Kate headed down the corridor until she found the door, slightly ajar, with his name on it, peeked in and saw him bent over, inserting a file into a low drawer, another one between his teeth.

Agent Marty Grange looked up, did a double take, and the file dropped out of his mouth. He quickly straightened up, smoothing neatly pressed pants.

Kate took a quick breath, thought she must be out of her mind to be here. “I need a favor.”

“A favor?”

“Yes.”

“Well?” Their eyes met and Grange quickly glanced to the side.

“I’d like to see the FBI file on Angelo Baldoni. You mentioned that the Bureau had been compiling one for years.”

“And you want
me
to get it?”

“Yes.”

“And I should do this because…”Grange stared at the file that had fallen to the floor, then went to retrieve it just as Kate did, the two of them bent over, almost eye-to-eye for an awkward moment.

“Timing”—Kate straightened, file in hand—“is everything.” She smiled.

Grange took the file, but didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

“I’m asking for your help. I’m not satisfied with how my husband’s case ended.”

“And you want to open it up?”

“No, I want to close it. But I’d like to know what really happened. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t the Bureau?”

Grange seemed to be considering that. “And you think Baldoni’s file might help?”

“Maybe.” Kate took a step closer and Grange caught a whiff of her perfume, felt his muscles twitch.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay I’ll get you the file.”

“Really?” She was genuinely shocked.

“It’s not such a big deal.” Which was true—especially if they were retiring him, which was what he sensed was just around the bend.
Fuck them, after all these years.

Kate continued to stand there, just a few feet from him, and Grange thought if she didn’t move soon he would have to run down the hall to the men’s room and splash cold water onto his face, maybe his entire body. He could feel the sweat beading up on his brow.

“That it?” he said, drawing the back of his hand across his forehead.

“Well, actually, no. I was wondering, I mean, while you’re at it, how about Uncle Giulio Lombardi’s file too?”

“Jesus, McKinnon. What do want? Full access to the Bureau’s files?”

“That would be nice.” Kate laughed, pushed her hair behind her ears, and Grange heard himself say, “Okay,” and the next thing he knew she’d grabbed his hand and was shaking it and he knew that at that moment, if Kate McKinnon had asked him to walk into the White House and shoot the goddamn president’s dog, he’d say okay again.

“You’re a doll,” said Kate. Words she never imagined saying to Marty Grange.

A smile twitched at the corners of his lips.

“I’ll get the files to your home. Address?”

“One Forty-five Central Park West. But I can come get them. I don’t want to put you to any trouble. When will you have them?”

Grange checked his watch. “Couple of hours.” He thought about another lonely night in his one-room Midtown efficiency, drinking warm beer. He took a breath and tried to sound nonchalant. “I have to be up there, on the West Side, so I could bring them by.”

“You don’t have to do that, I can easily—”

“I
said
I’d drop them off. Like I was saying, I, uh, have to be on the Upper West Side anyway.” A lie. He did not have to be anywhere.

“Okay. Thanks.” Kate smiled and she meant it. “I was wondering…”

“What now? Another file?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“But…” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“What?” Grange had the awful feeling that McKinnon was about to tell him not to come and now that he’d said it there was nothing in the world he wanted to do more than simply sit across from the woman in her apartment. “I said I’d bring the files.”

“No, that’s not it. I, uh, well, there’s something else, but…I’ve already asked too much.”

“I said what, didn’t I?”

“There’s this private investigator, the one who trailed Andrew Stokes—remember, his former employer mentioned it? I think he might be helpful, but I can’t get him to open up without a warrant.”

“So you’ve already talked to him?”

“Afraid I have. I know what you’re thinking, that I—”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” He wiped his damp palms along the sides of his pants. “Where’s this PI work out of?”

“Midtown. Forty-sixth and Sixth.”

A block from the efficiency hotel that Grange had no desire to return to any earlier than he had to. “Give me a half hour to get on the phone so those files will be ready by the time we get back.”

N
ot much of an office,” Grange said loud enough for Baume’s receptionist-wife to hear.

She pursed her lips. “Eugene is busy at the moment.”

Kate tried a smile, leaned over the woman’s desk. “Look, it’s kind of important, and—”

Grange didn’t bother to wait. He stepped past her and pushed open the door to Baume’s office.

The PI glanced up, and saw Kate. “You got the warrant?”

“Well, no, but—”

“I told you,” said Baume, “I can’t say anything without it. That’s personal and private information and protected under article H of—”

Grange planted his hands onto Baume’s desk. “Forget article H, or Q, or P, or F—as in fuck all of the articles.”

“And who are you?” Baume looked into the dark marble eyes Kate had so often had trained on her, though now she was beginning to see it was an act Grange had perfected, his own form of protection. “I already told your friend—I need a warrant.”

Grange relished the phrase,
your friend,
then slapped his ID onto Baume’s desk. “You know, lately, the FBI has been working pretty closely with the IRS. Checking on small businesses, PIs specifically. You’d be surprised how many they had to close down.”

Baume sighed. “What was the file again?”

“Stokes,” said Kate. “Andrew Stokes.”

Baume rolled back in his chair, wheels squeaking, pulled open the lower drawer of an old metal file cabinet, came up with a dog-eared folder, and plopped it onto his desk.

Kate flipped it open and started shuffling through a stack of black-and-white photos.

“Speak,” said Grange.

“About?”

“The story on Stokes. I hate to read. And don’t leave anything out.”

Baume sighed again. “I followed Stokes for about a month. Real low life, though he had a fancy address and a fancy job. He was into hookers, gambling, drugs. Regular party boy. Occasionally scored his drugs on the street. I’ve got a picture of that in there somewhere,” he said. “His wife didn’t care about any of that. Just the girls, the hookers, you know.”

Kate perused the photos, all a bit grainy, obviously taken with a telephoto lens and from some distance, but still she recognized Suzie White.

“His main squeeze,” said Baume tapping the picture of White. “Stokes was very hot for that little number. Would pick her up in Midtown and take her to a hotel couple of times a week.”

“Midtown?” Kate asked, thinking that Suzie worked out of the Bronx.

“Yeah. Worked the tunnel crowd, corner of Tenth Avenue and Thirty-ninth. I remember because I used to take time out to get myself a cupcake—you know, there’s that famous place on that corner, the Cupcake Café. I nicknamed the hooker Cupcake because of it. Good thing that case only lasted a month or I’d have gained twenty pounds.” Baume laughed, but no one laughed with him. “Other days Cupcake would meet Stokes on a corner near his fancy law office. Name’s in there somewhere.”

Kate managed to say it. “Rothstein and Associates?”

“Yeah. That was it. Cupcake, the hooker, worked for that guy there.” Baume tapped another photo.

“Angelo Baldoni,” said Kate, staring at the photo. She turned to Grange. “So Baldoni was Suzie White’s Midtown pimp, the wise guy Lamar Black mentioned, the one she was hiding from up in the Bronx.”

“That guy, Baldoni, was running a small stable of girls, very young ones,” said Baume. “I used to see him collecting money from them. He’d rough them up too. A real pig, that guy. I didn’t know who he was right away. But when I found out, hell, I didn’t want anything more to do with the case.” Baume eyeballed Grange. “You know about Baldoni?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Read that he died,” said Baume. “Good riddance to bad rubbish, huh?” He took the remaining photos from Kate, sorted through them and selected one. “How about this guy? You recognize him?” He pointed at a blurry picture of two men coming out of a bar, one of them Stokes.

“Guilio Lombardi,” said Grange.

“Bingo. Stokes was hanging with mobsters! Jesus H. Christ. Once I realized that, I quit. I wasn’t going to fuck with the likes of Giulio Lombardi.”

“Smart move.” Grange took the photos. “You have any of Lombardi and Baldoni together?”

Baume shook his head. “Just Stokes with each of them. Baldoni was the one who supplied Stokes with drugs, both curbside and home delivery. Saw Baldoni going up to Rothstein and Associates with a brown bag a couple of times.”

“What about the partner, the boss, Richard Rothstein?” asked Kate, taking a deep breath.

“Never met the guy. Saw him go in and out of his building, but I wasn’t being paid to watch him.”

Grange had to ask: “You ever see Rothstein with Lombardi or Baldoni?”

“No. Never.”

Kate let out her breath.

Grange fingered the edge of another photo. “Where’d you take this?”

Baume thought a moment. “It was the last on a roll. I remember because I was pissed that I’d run out of film. I’d been trailing Stokes, who had just met with Baldoni, and then that guy showed up, and either Stokes met with him or Baldoni did. Can’t really remember. Like I said, I ran out of film. And that was like the last day because I didn’t want to work a case that had anything to do with the mob, and so I took the money and ran.”

“You mind if I keep this?” asked Grange, already sliding the photo into his jacket pocket.

“Doesn’t much matter what I mind, does it?” said Baume.

“Not really.” Grange leaned toward Kate. “Maybe you’d better take the whole file. I don’t think Mr. Baume has any use for it.”

T
hat was great,” said Kate when they were outside. She squeezed Grange’s arm, and he let out a tiny gasp, which was lost under the noise of the traffic. “So who is that in the photo?”

“This,” said Grange, recovering and removing the photograph from his pocket, “is none other than Charlie D’Amato, aka Charlie D. Well-known crime-world underboss, a
capo bastone
.”

Kate stared at the photo of a man who looked to be in his late sixties, white-haired, kindly, like someone’s grandfather. “What’s that, like a godfather?

“More like a vice president. But still very powerful. And still very dangerous—even though he’s doing life in Sing Sing.”