No One Rides For Free - Larry Beinhart (32 page)

When I left the house, I walked, and walked, and
walked. Finally I found myself down by the water in the West Village.
Down by Morton Street Pier, where Christina had put my hand to her
lips and, when I asked her if it mattered that there was a woman
already in my life, said, "I don't think so. "I had made
her a promise, that I was going to find out who did it and do what
could be done about it. Christina, who called me "Angel,"
even when I was armed and dangerous.

The sky was muddy gray, and the muddy gray Hudson was
covered with a scum. Garbage floated, but it looked like the river
had a skin, and things were stabbed halfway in. When I went after
Haven I would be going over the line, like him. Like going into that
river in front of me, not knowing how much would cling to me when,
and if, I climbed out. I could think of reasons for diving in. The
man had made me death's stalking horse, then paid me with the dead
man's money. He had used Christina's pain to pay the cost of his
cover-up. "Angel," she said to me, "you're the only
one I can turn to." He had put my woman and my child at risk.
Also, there was gold down there, under the scum. Mike Paley and Uncle
Vincent had told me so. It was as if the Devil stood behind me,
whispering in all his different voices, urging me on. But when I
turned to look, the only thing that stood behind me was my own
shadow.

From the pier, I headed down to Wall Street, to stalk
Haven.

The building with the offices of Choate, Winkler,
Higgiston, Hahn & Moore, attorneys-at-law, had exits from both
ends of the lobby. An effective stakeout had to be inside. To make
myself look like I belonged, I bought a cup of coffee in a container
to go, a newspaper, picked a good vantage point to view the elevator
and leaned against the wall. From time to time, I glanced at my watch
impatiently, as if wondering, "Where the hell is she?" Had
one of the security guards questioned me, that would have been my
explanation, along with something convoluted as to why I could not be
seen with her in her office.

Associates usually leave late, anywhere from eight to
midnight. Partners leave anytime they please. Sometimes after lunch,
often around four, to beat the rush. Haven came down
at
ten past.

Outside the building, he headed west. He was an old
man, moving slow, and easy to follow. When he got to Broadway he went
north to Cortlandt where he turned left and headed for the World
Trade Center. I trailed him past the CNN studios and into the lobby
of the Vista Hotel. He was just passing through, and I followed him
as he went out to West Street. On the other side was Gateway Plaza.

Rising out of the rubble of old warehouses and loft
buildings, part of what will be Battery Park City, Gateway Plaza is a
logical idea. Housing within walking distance of the highest density
of jobs in the world, an area which otherwise has no places to live.
I had been there before, on a divorce case. For the downtown broker,
businessman or lawyer, Gateway is heaven-sent. Nooners take place at
a time that does not have to be accounted for. Some girls work there;
more are kept there.

But Haven didn't go into the building itself. He went
around the side, to the underground garage. Slipping his plastic card
into a box mounted on a steel pole, he caused the doors to open.
There was no way to follow him in, so I waited. A few minutes later
he drove out in his Mercedes. As I watched him go, I thought that it
was an odd place to keep his car. Convenient for him, but I would
have assumed that the parking spots, in a town where a place to park
can rent for more than entire homes elsewhere, would be reserved for
tenants.

I had to endure long protestations of integrity and
go all the way up to fifty bucks before the doorman at the front
entrance acknowledged to me that Mr. Haven did pay the rent on an
apartment there. At that price the doorman included the information
that Mr. Haven didn't live there often, but that his "cutie"
did.

I had some shopping to do and the time to do it in,
since I couldn't make my next move until after dark. My old friend on
Perry Street was home when I called and said that a quarter was no
problem. We did some tasting together, and I was starting to move.

The next thing I wanted was a briefcase. Something
cheap, ordinary and untraceable. Then I remembered that I had one
just like that, the one that Choate Haven had given me with the
initial job, the one where I fingered Wood for him. I picked it up
from the office. Then I went over to Forty-second Street, and from
one of many, many stores offering them, I bought a knife. I also
bought a pair of panty hose. Back at Gateway Plaza, I waited where
the driveway came out into West Street. It was dark by then. What I
needed was a nice lady leaving the garage to get caught at the light
with her window open. It took an hour, but finally one did.

When she stopped, I stepped out. I wore a stocking
mask and held the gun I had been carrying since I had chatted with
Whelan at Kevin Murphy's. I told her to give me her purse. She gave
it to me. I said don't yell. She agreed to that. I told her to drive
away. She did.

I simply walked away in the other direction. All I
wanted was the key card that opened the garage. I took it, handling
everything through the stocking so as not to leave prints. When it
was all over, I intended to send her belongings back. It was the
least I could do.

I wanted Choate Haven alone. Preferably at night. The
garage was perfect.

The next night he worked until six. Then he went to
dinner with clients. After dinner he took a cab over to the Gateway
to get his car. It was eight by then and it would have been perfect,
but he had one of his dinner companions with him. The night after
that, he went straight home. I was getting increasingly strained,
doing more coke, worrying about stopping once it was over.

I no longer had to wait inside the lobby; I knew
which way he would come out if he was going to the Gateway. At four,
the day after he went home, he came out, heading west. This time he
went in the front door. The time had come.

My guess was that he would take three to five hours.
There would be a dinner, then some drinks. When he undressed he would
hang his clothes carefully on hangers in the closet. Then it would
take some time for her to get him in operating condition. But just in
case I was wrong and he was going to pop her quick, I didn't want to
miss him.

Using the stolen card, I let myself into the
underground garage. I found his Mercedes. It was as spic and span and
shiney as Edgar Wood's Jaguar had been. Sitting down in the grime and
the grub to hide myself, I decided that if I had Haven's kind of
money, it would be an old Silver Cloud, just to flaunt it, and I
would let it go dusty, just to show I didn't give a shit.

From where I half sat and half lay, I could see the
elevator door. Every half-hour I got up, did two little lines, then
stretched to keep from getting too stiff. The time crept. And crept.
My anger and I held each other close, like lovers, starting to
breathe hard, waiting to get swept away with mutual infatuation.

Luck was with me. When the elevator door opened and
Choate Haven stepped out, looking as well groomed and impeccable as
ever, he was alone. As he came toward his car, I slid around the
passenger side, pulled down my stocking mask and slid out my gun. As
he came alongside the car, I moved around behind the trunk.

He reached in his pocket for his keys, found them and
bent for the lock. I came up and around, moving fast. I had the gun
in my right hand. With my left, I grabbed his hair, then smashed his
face down into the roof of the car. He was an old man, weak, even
frail, and it didn't take much effort. It had all the macho thrill of
mugging old ladies and crips. I lifted him up by the hair. Blood was
trickling from his nose and it looked broken. I turned him around.
Then I sapped him with the pistol. He crumpled. I checked his pulse.
He was alive but out cold.

I had thought about confronting him. To find out why
he thought he had done what he had done. Maybe just to find out if I
was right, all the way down the line. But if I spoke to him, I would
have seen him more and more as a person, a creature of fear and
frailty. I couldn't afford that.

I picked up his keys, opened the door, then dragged
him into the driver's seat. Then I heard the sound of the garage
doors opening. I pushed him over so he lay flat, closed the door and
scrambled around the front of the car where I would be hidden.

Whoever it was found their parking space, got out,
locked up and headed for the elevator. Each sound echoed and I could
follow the action easily. I kept my head down until I heard the door
close.

Grabbing the briefcase, his briefcase, I came out on
the passenger side. I opened that door, took my plastic bag of
cocaine, worked it into the hinge until it was stuck, then pulled it
until it tore. The crystalline white powder spilled over the inside
of the case, as intended. Then I put his hands all over the case,
leaving his prints on the case and coke on his fingertips. I
scattered some more of the white lady on the seat and floor. I folded
the bag down over the tear and put what was left in my pocket..

Then I closed that door and went back around the
other side. He was still out, and I hauled him up. Except for the
blood trickling from the smashed nose, it was a handsome patrician
face. From the care he lavished on it, the perfect tan, the perfect
haircut, the barber-close shave, I knew it meant a lot to him. I took
the knife and began to carve a "C" in his cheek. He started
twitching. I stopped; the pain was waking him up.

I sapped him again. It scared me, but when I checked,
he was still alive. I finished cutting his face as quickly as I
could. For good measure I blew some coke into his nose through a
straw and threw a paper strip, used by banks to bind up stacks of
hundred-dollar bills, on the door.

Panic and nausea started up from my bowels. All I
wanted was to get out of there. As I pushed the button that opened
the garage door I heard the elevator again. I don't know if they saw
me. If they had they couldn't have identified me through the mask.
Still, I was only able to clamp down the control until I was outside
the big metal doors. Then I ran. I ran for a long river block until
what was left of my reason told me it was the worst thing I could do.

I stripped off the mask, dumped it down a drain and
turned east, walking around the World Trade Center. I dropped the
knife into the next drain. It was legal for me to have the gun and it
had not been tired, but there would be traces of hair, blood and
possibly scalp on the barrel. I wiped it as best I could with a
newspaper out of the gutter, and with spit. Then I walked into the
brightly lit underground world beneath the towers. I found a fairly
isolated phone booth. First I called the
New
York Post
. In a half-assed Latin accent I
told them that a prominent attorney had been knifed in a drug deal
that went bad. I told them where it was and suggested that they get
there before the police hushed it up. I gave them five minutes, then
called the police. I wanted everyone to find Choate Haven before he
woke up and crawled away. They would think that the "C"
carved in his face stood for cocaine.

But Haven would know better. He would know what it
really said. Don't fuck with Tony Cassella. He's no better than you
are. Don't fuck with Tony Cassella. He'll get right down in the dirt
there and cut your face, frame you with drugs and tear your life down
so that there's nothing left you care about.

Just because you're a fragile old man doesn't mean
that Tony Cassella won't break your nose and leave you bleeding in an
underground garage. He knows the kind of fix and frame that'll warm
the hearts of aging hoods like Mikey Fix. Antonio Cassella has his
devils too; he doesn't understand what they are or why they live with
him, but every time you look in the mirror, you'll know.

When I got to Christina's, I didn't buzz. I slipped
the outside lock. When I rang the bell to her apartment, I sensed her
come to the door and I saw the light as she peered through the
peephole. She unlocked the locks and opened the door as far as the
chain would allow. She was lovely, in a long caftan, soft white with
red and gold embroidery down the slit front.

She was distraught.

"It's done. Let me in," I said, unshaven
with eyes blood-shot from too little sleep, too much coke. I could
smell the stink of fear sweat coming off me.

"I have company," she said.

"It doesn't matter," I said, my voice held
in neutral. She closed the door. I heard the chain unlatch, then she
opened it again. I walked past her into the living room. A slim,
well-groomed young man sat there. His cotton shin was better than
anything I had, and the rep tie loose at his throat was silk. He
looked like a Stefan.

"You better go now," I said to him.

"Who do you think you are?" he said.

"Tony," she admonished me.

"Get him out of here, or I will," I said.
At that moment, I meant it. Cut up one, cut up two, it was all the
same to me.

"Go on, Stefan, it's all right," she told
him.

"Christina," he protested.
 
She opened her closet door and brought him his suit
jacket. In spite of himself, he took it when she handed it to him. He
made protesting noises as she led him to the door. She made soothing
noises, then she closed the door behind him.