He pulled me to my feet and grabbed the hood of my jacket, pushing against my back to move me upward.
“You’d be surprised at how efficiently we work, Alex. A few ex-cons, some of the friends Kendall left behind in the ghetto, a bunch of hungry guys willing to scratch their way out. You’d be surprised.”
“Did Eugenia leave her makeup on your boat, Rowdy? Is that why you had to get rid of it? You were such a good Samaritan to let the cops use the boat that night, after you’d taken it out first and killed her. They didn’t know they were covering up most traces of both you and Eugenia.”
“What do you know about her makeup?”
“Let me stop,” I said. “Let me sit down.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was poking me with his finger or the gun, but I got the point.
“We found Eugenia’s makeup in the ditch in front of City Hall,” I said, pausing to steady myself. The spiral was so tight now that we were practically facing each other as the curve narrowed.
“You’re lying.”
“They got her print off the mascara. And they got yours off the plastic bag.” Maybe the second half of what I said would be proved true by the end of the day. Touch DNA might be the nail in his coffin, if we could shut that lid before he slammed mine. “Your best girls got Chanel makeup? Salma, Eugenia—how many others? Should have just thrown it overboard with the ice pick.”
“Hard to do, Miss District Attorney. Eugenia left it in the glove compartment of my car. It wasn’t on my little boat. I didn’t remember that till I got to work the other morning. Just tossed it away with all those old bones.”
“You were getting sloppy, Rowdy.” I was tired and light-headed and didn’t think I had much to lose.
“You know what they say about the end of the tunnel, Alex. Look ahead and you can see the sun rise.”
The dark interior of the tower opened onto a small platform about ten feet above me.
“Were you part of Leighton’s Tontine Association?” I asked.
“Another minute or two you’re going to be eating one of your socks, young lady,” Kitts said. “I’m going to stuff one right in that busy mouth.”
“Is that where you got the idea for a gentlemen’s club?”
“Those rich boys didn’t want me anywhere near their dinner parties. But when the operations they ran went to the dogs, when that all broke up, I had me an idea for a little something else.”
“A bit more like an escort service,” I said. “Young girls, high prices, fancy settings. Who better to know when the mayor isn’t going to be at home?”
“You’d be surprised how many gents fantasize about a night in the Lincoln bedroom,” Rowdy said, taking one of my socks in his hands and twisting it around. “Hell, what I had to offer here in Manhattan wasn’t so bad.”
“You transformed the Tontine Association into another kind of club. And you renamed it Sub Rosa. Sleazy, Rowdy, and I should have been the first to figure you for something sleazy.”
“It wasn’t such a bad idea. Archibald Gracie really did belong to a dining club called Sub Rosa
.
You ought to tell Chapman to bone up on his history. Maybe he would have brained it out by now,” Kitts said. “Sit yourself down and give me one of those hands, Alex.”
We had made it to the top. Daylight poured in through the windows and the brightness hurt my eyes as we emerged from the dark climb.
“Is there really a tontine, Rowdy? Somebody in line to get all the money in Salma’s shoe boxes?” My hands were deep in the pockets of my jacket.
“That was just seed money to ship in the precious cargo.” He was motioning for me to give him my right hand. “It’s a small club, Alex. Last man standing’s going to be able to set himself up for a nice life anywhere he wants to go. Now, give it up, girl.”
“The mayor?” I was trying to clear my head, sitting on the lacy metal fretwork and trying to meet Kitts in the eye, instead of looking all the way down.
“Clean as a hound’s tooth. I don’t think Vin Statler likes the ladies.”
“Donny Baynes?”
“He might like to be a player, but he just doesn’t have the cash. It’s probably what keeps that boy honest. Same with that loser Spindlis.”
“Ethan Leighton?”
“Like father, like son. That gene pool must have been really screwed up.” Kitts liked the sound of his own voice. He clearly relished telling me about his ability to outsmart the richer, more powerful men who surrounded him. “Those boys play rough.”
“Who tagged me, Rowdy? You do it yourself?”
He frowned as he tugged at my hand. “I don’t usually have to do this kind of shit myself, Alex. I got men. I got people I pay to do things for me. You know how that is, don’t you? I need you to just hold out your hand.”
Kitts wrapped one end of the smooth cashmere sock around my wrist, doubling the knot until I winced in pain. I was trying to think of any word that applied except
panic
. That had consequences I didn’t want to accept.
“I’m surprised you missed the signals, Alex.”
I couldn’t make up my mind whether to look out at the bright blue sky, praying for a miracle, or watch Kitts tie the other end of the long sock to the banister.
“You hear me?”
“What signals?” I asked.
“Jeannie Parcher. That paralegal I got messed up with. She wanted to talk to you so bad. She threatened me that she’d go see you for advice. What to do when I got nasty.”
Mike had guessed right about that. Jeannie had tried to tell me about her experience—Mike had asked me if Rowdy had gotten rough with her—but I didn’t pick up on what terrified her about this hideously evil man.
“What did you do to Jeannie?” I asked softly.
“Nothing you want to hear right now,” he said, sneering at me. “You ought to give her a ring sometime.”
The arm that Kitts was tying up jerked so badly that he grabbed my shoulders and started to shake me.
When he let go, I realized for the first time that he had bound me securely to the iron rail. I’d been so fearful of falling throughout the entire climb that it was almost a relief to be anchored to something that wasn’t going to move.
“It’s too tight, Rowdy.” I was still afraid of what he might do to me before he left.
“I don’t really think you’re in a position to be calling the shots, Alex. Shit, there’s always the Civilian Complaint Review Board.” He was laughing as he balled up the other sock between his hands and leaned over to stuff it in my mouth. “You can take up all your problems with them.”
I recoiled as he came at me. I clutched the banister as tightly as I could, almost chained to it as I was. Both of my knees came up between us, almost reflexively. I kicked my legs out in front of me with all the power I could muster and struck Rowdy Kitts squarely in the gut.
I screamed as I watched him fly backward over the railing, shouting my name, falling through the middle of the spiral staircase until his body hit the floor of the water tower, several stories below me.
I covered my eyes with my hand and tried to make myself breathe.
FIFTY-ONE
“I’ll tell you what it’s going to take, Loo.” Mike was talking to Peterson on his cell, standing at one of the windows. It was more than an hour after I had pushed Rowdy Kitts to his death. “Go to the Bronx Zoo, get yourself the kind of tranquilizer gun they use on elephants. She’s not coming down that staircase unless you pump her full of that stuff.”
Mercer had untied me and was massaging my wrist, trying to stop the tremor in my hands. The two of us were sitting on the floor of the tower’s platform, leaning against the wall while we waited for backup.
“Coop’s not going anywhere unless you put a bag over her head and have somebody carry her down. She can barely open her eyes up here. Vertigo, smertigo—I’m not cleaning up after her if anything happens. I draw the line at my assignments.”
“I can’t move. I don’t feel steady enough to stand.”
“Did you hear that, Loo? Tell you what. I’ll lower down a bucket. Maybe you can fill it with a few Bloody Marys to loosen her up. No, I’m not kidding. Hurry along.”
“I just killed a man.”
“Correction. The murdering son of a bitch got a faster exit than he deserved. Me? I would have plucked out all his finger- and toe-nails, then I would have gouged—”
“Enough, Mike,” Mercer said.
“I would have tortured him. I would have taken pleasure in it. What does that say about me? He bought his own ticket out of here, Coop. You know how many lives he ruined, how many girls are dead because of Rowdy Kitts? Think forward—think of the women you’ve saved. Those can’t be teardrops, are they? You’ll lose me if you start to cry. I’ll abandon you right here.”
Mercer wouldn’t let go of me. “You do anything that makes you feel better.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and checked my emotions. There would be plenty of time for all this to settle over me when I was safely at home.
Mike was circling the small platform, checking every crevice and jiggling the bricks, as though to see if they were loose.
“Can you please be still? You’re making me dizzy again.”
“Rowdy didn’t say what he was coming up here for?”
“I didn’t ask. I just assumed it was to get rid of me.”
“No offense, kid, but it’s not always about you. He took a real gamble on this climb. Turned out to be his death gamble.”
Another chill went through me. “He couldn’t get out of the basement as long as I was keeping warm, waiting for you in the lobby.”
“Yeah, but why was he in here in the first place? Why did he waste all that time forcing you to climb to the tower? He could have just cold-cocked you and kept heading for the highway. There must be something up here he wanted.”
Mercer looked away from me for the first time and got to his feet. I closed my eyes. Mike’s idea had piqued his interest.
“Rowdy thought we’d have caught him because of the first Jane Doe on the beach. Did I tell you that?” I was rambling, but I couldn’t remember which parts of the story I had repeated to Mike and Mercer when they found me.
“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, Alex. My mother used to say she could tell when I was being bad ’cause she had eyes in the back of her head. Would have saved me a lot of lives if I could have stopped perps before they got started.” Mercer extended a hand. “You want to try standing?”
I shook my head. “What’s happening downstairs?” I could see flashes of light that reflected off the shiny black paint of the stair rail.
“Crime Scene’s finishing up with photographs. There’s a bus ready to take the body out. We’ll head down after that.”
“Seriously, I don’t know how I’m going to move.”
“We’ll get you down.”
Mike was on his tiptoes, running his fingers around the rim of the fancy trim that topped the brickwork. “You’ve got a few inches on me, Mercer. Help me out.”
“Will do.” He tossed his head in my direction, expecting I wouldn’t catch the body language—his request that Mike do some hand-holding for a while.
“What’d we miss, blondie?” Mike hovered over me while he talked. “This Eugenia was also from Ukraine?”
“Yes, but more than six months ago. She was living with Rowdy, but threatening to blow the whistle.”
“So I should have noticed nails bitten to the quick? Half the girls on the boat were like that, their nerves shot to hell. The jogging bra? Is that so very American?”
“The rose tattoo. I should have figured that wouldn’t have happened to the girl until she was firmly the property of her trafficker.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. Could just have easily have been done before she set sail. Did he admit to tagging your car with the GPS?”
The flashes of light had stopped, but now from below I could hear voices. Someone was talking about a body bag. Another guy warned his companions not to step in the blood.
“I’m talking to you, Coop. Did Rowdy say he tagged you? Don’t listen to what’s going on.”
“He talked about guys who did the dirty work for him and for Reid. Guys he’d locked up, street thugs.”
“Who better to have access to a GPS than Rowdy? Probably walked into headquarters and told them the mayor’s detail needed a few. Queered the numbers off them so they’d be impossible to trace.”
“This what you think Rowdy was after?” Mercer said.
At the point where the crown molding touched the edge of the ceiling, almost seven feet above the landing, Mercer had dislodged and removed a loose brick. He reached in, retrieving a small plastic folder, not much bigger than a wallet, with a zippered top.
“What have you got?” Mike asked, walking away from me.
“Your idea, Detective. Take a gander.” Mercer stepped around him and reached out for me. “On the count of three, you’re on your feet. There’s still some life in those eyes of yours, isn’t there? You’ve got to be a little bit curious.”
I clutched the stair rail with one hand and grabbed on to Mercer with the other.
Mike had unzipped the pouch and was scanning the documents inside. “This is why Rowdy was risking so much to climb up here, and why Anita was willing to come with him.”
“What are they?” I was standing, surprising even myself, sandwiched between my two friends.
“These two are American passports. One for Salma Zunega and one for Anita Paz. The letter enclosed with them says they were obtained from the office of Congressman Ethan Leighton.”
“That means they might even be legit. Passports and potholes—that’s what most congressmen do half the day. No wonder there were no papers kept in Salma’s apartment. That’s one of the holds, one of the controls, Rowdy kept on his girls. He hung on to the only proof they had that made them legal,” Mercer said. “What’s that other one?”
Mike unfolded the cream-colored paper. I could see that it was headed in fancy calligraphy, bore a seal of some kind, and had the print of a tiny foot inked on it.
“It’s the birth certificate for Ana.”