The Garden of Betrayal (22 page)

“Diplomatic plates,” he said.

“Good,” Reggie said. “Where’d you grab it?”

“One hundred twenty-fifth and the river, on the West Side. There’s a parking lot. I used to get high there sometimes before I went cruising, to calm myself down a little bit. Fucking car was just sitting there, man, totally cherry. I watched for a while to make sure it wasn’t a setup and then figured what the fuck, you know? Fucking key was even in the ignition. It was weird.”

“You put the car on the truck and did what?”

“Took it straight to Frank’s.”

“Was Frank there?”

“No. Frank only ever worked days. I drove the truck into his garage and left it there with the car still on top. Then I went out and got fucked up.”

“And you’re sure the key was in the ignition.”

“One hundred percent.”

Reggie released Vinny to rack the slide on his gun. He elevated the barrel and touched it to Vinny’s forehead. Vinny’s eyes crossed.

“First you don’t remember anything, and now you’re remembering too much,” he said. “You must think I’m stupid.”

“I swear,” Vinny squeaked. “I remember. Frank called the next morning. I had a monster fucking tequila headache, and Frank was screaming at me. Calling me a stupid motherfucker and saying he didn’t want to work with me no more. I didn’t know what was going on. Frank was fucking fierce. I was scared. I thought he was going to fuck me up good.”

“And did he?”

“No, man. He came around later that day, all fucking strange and spooky. Told me to keep my mouth shut about that car, forever. And I did, until right now. Never talked about it again.”

Reggie lowered the gun and nodded thoughtfully.

“I reckon you’ve told me about half the truth, Vinny, and I appreciate it. So I’m not going to shoot you in the head.” He lifted the gun again and pressed it to Vinny’s chest. “I’m going to shoot you in the heart, so your mother can send you off in an open casket.”

“I told you everything,” Vinny wailed.

“You didn’t. You saw what was in the trunk of that car, or Frank told you. You know why we’re here.”

Vinny looked as if he might pass out.

“I don’t. I swear. I don’t know anything about anything in the trunk.”

“You’re lying,” Reggie insisted. He took a half step backward, extending his arm more fully. “I hate to shoot you like this, Vinny, because I’m wearing my favorite coat, and I’m going to get blood all over my sleeve when your heart explodes.”

Vinny moaned, tears running down his face.

“Last chance,” Reggie said.

A surge of furious despair brought me to life as I realized what was going to happen next. Vinny wasn’t going to admit to knowing what
was in the trunk, and Reggie wasn’t going to shoot him. Vinny would realize that Reggie had been bluffing, and we’d never learn whatever else he might know. I remembered what Claire had said about our being together.

I swung the bat. I swung it as hard as I could, catching Vinny on the inside of his right knee. He crumpled to the ground, screaming. I drew it back to take a second swing and Reggie grabbed me by the shirtfront, his body interposed between me and Vinny.

“Where’s my son?” I yelled, struggling to get past Reggie. “What did you do with him? Tell me, you little motherfucker, or I’ll kill you.”

Joe came running around the corner, flashlight in one hand and gun in the other.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

Reggie wrenched the bat from my hands and shoved me toward Joe.

“Get him out of here,” Reggie barked. “Now. I’m going to clean this mess up as best I can.”

Reggie and I didn’t talk much on the ride back to Manhattan. He kept his police radio on and tuned to the Staten Island frequency. I heard the call for a patrol car to the gas station where we’d left Vinny, and a follow-up call for an ambulance. I rode with my head tipped against the passenger window, too emotionally spent to care. Reggie hung a left into Battery Park City after we emerged from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, hopping the curb at the end of Liberty Street and following the footpath toward the North Cove marina. We parked shy of a flight of stairs, with a view of the river. He turned off his headlights and lit a cigarette.

“You and me have a problem.”

I watched the lights of the Financial Center play on the water, listening.

“I’ll admit I screwed up tonight. I shouldn’t have let you come. That makes me stupid, because I let you get mixed up in something you shouldn’t have been mixed up in. But you crossed a line back there. I’m not a goon, and I don’t work with goons. I scare people, and I slap them around sometimes, but I don’t ever hurt anyone unless they’re trying to hurt me, and never if they’re defenseless.”

I straightened up in my seat, took a cigarette from his pack, and lit it. I hadn’t smoked since college. The first inhalation made me flushed and dizzy. I exhaled and took another hit, feeling my nerves steady.

“I hear you, and I respect your opinion. But I’d be lying if I said I felt bad about what I did back there.”

The statement was as much a revelation to me as it was to him. Reggie sighed.

“I’m not saying I don’t understand the impulse. I deal with scumbags all the time, and it wouldn’t make me lose any sleep to kick the shit out of most of them.”

“So, why don’t you?” It had never occurred to me that Reggie had any hard limits. I always assumed his methods adapted to meet the circumstances, regardless of what those circumstances might be. “Because it’s illegal?”

“Fuck legal or illegal. That’s for lawyers to worry about. At the end of the day, you’re a good guy or a bad guy. Good guys try to help people; bad guys try to hurt people. And if you start hurting people to help people, then you’ve crossed the line. It’s not that complicated.”

“I’m a father, Reggie. I know you care, but Kyle’s my son.”

“Why I shouldn’t have brought you along,” he muttered, sounding angry at himself. “Who knew you’d turn into fucking Joe DiMaggio on me.”

I took another hit from the cigarette, remembering the rage I’d felt when I swung the bat.

“Let me ask you a question. What happens if we find the car, and track it back to whoever kidnapped Kyle, but can’t prove anything in court?”

“We find the guy, and I’ll make the case. One way or another. That is what I do.”

“Always? Every time?”

“No,” he admitted. “Lot of random bullshit happens when you get into court. But the nice thing about scumbags is that they tend to do the same bad things over and over, so you almost always get another crack at them. I got a list. Some names I put on the list, some names I got from Joe, some names he got from his old partner. I know where they live, and I have the precinct cops keep an eye on them, and I watch the computer for crimes that fit their pattern. Most of them will end up in jail eventually. And the ones I don’t put behind bars I’ll pass along to my last partner, when it’s time for me to retire. That’s how things work.”

“Not good enough,” I told him, thinking about Claire again. “I need this settled. For me, and for my family. We find this guy and it looks like we can’t make a case, I’m going to have to deal with it myself.”

“And what about Claire and Kate?”

“What about them?”

“You can’t take care of them from jail.”

It was a testament to our friendship that he was able to home in on my vulnerable spot.

“True. But who’s going to know?”

“Me.”

“Right. But I’m not asking you to get involved. If and when the time comes, all you’ll have to do is look the other way.”

Reggie turned off the engine and opened his door.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s walk.”

We made our way to the river and then turned left onto the esplanade. The wind was up and the temperature had dropped. I flipped the cigarette away, buttoned my coat to the collar, and buried my hands in my pockets.

“Vinny tell you anything else?”

“Where Frank usually dumped the cars after he stripped them. In the swampland off the Arthur Kill, near Prall’s Island, on the western edge of Staten Island. He gave me a pretty good description. I’ll get a search team out there tomorrow.”

“You think they’ll be able to find the BMW?”

He shrugged.

“Cars last a long time in the water.”

I wanted to ask about bodies but couldn’t make myself say the words.

“Tell you what’s bothering me,” he continued. “Beyond your going vigilante. Vinny said the key was in the ignition.”

“So?”

“So, when the homicide detectives searched the room where Munoz was murdered, they found the key to his brother-in-law’s car in his pants pocket. Where’d the second key come from?”

I gave it a few seconds’ thought and came up empty.

“No clue. I can ask Gallegos if Munoz had more than one copy.”

“You think Gallegos was straight with you, right?”

“Absolutely,” I said, remembering the expression on his face when I’d told him about Kyle.

“Which makes me wonder about the girlfriend out on Long Island, the one Munoz was supposedly smacking around. Detectives interviewed
the girlfriend’s neighbors. The neighbors said they heard a lot of fight noise coming from her apartment. Said she usually wore dark glasses and floppy hats but that they saw bruises on her face and arms. Doesn’t sound right if Gallegos was telling the truth about his brother-in-law being a kind and gentle person.”

“And the girlfriend would have had access to his keys,” I said, beginning to understand what Reggie was thinking. “It’s a big coincidence that she disappeared the same night he was murdered.”

“Exactly. The file has fingerprints for her that they lifted from the apartment. I’ll run a check in the morning, see if she’s turned up in the system.”

We reached the end of South Cove and stopped by the railing, facing south toward the Statue of Liberty.

“The big picture still doesn’t make sense to me. What does any of this have to do with Kyle?”

Reggie tossed his cigarette butt into the water.

“Don’t know yet. Police work is like that sometimes—you figure out the what before the why. All you can do is keep pulling at loose strings and see what happens. You think you’ll be able to learn anything about that bribe Gallegos mentioned?”

“I got a decent shot at it. I’ll start digging first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Good.” He turned to face me. “One more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You get it into your head to do something wild, make sure you talk to me about it first. Because you’re right that I wouldn’t want to send you to jail, but you might be wrong about what I’d do. I’ve had to make a lot of tough calls in my line of work. I’d rather not confront that kind of decision with you.”

“Agreed,” I lied. If push came to shove, I was going to do what I had to do, with or without his approval.

“Then let’s go get a drink. It’s been a long night.”

I was at the bar at Pagliacci with Alex and it was raining on us. Alex lifted his empty glass and rattled the ice cubes, water dripping from his sleeve. I turned to suggest that we leave and saw a third man on the stool beyond him, his face concealed by Alex’s profile. There was something familiar about the man. I leaned forward and back, trying to get a better look, but Alex was always interposed between us. I was reaching over to tap the stranger on the shoulder when I felt someone tugging at my arm.

“What?” I demanded, coming awake abruptly.

I was lying on the couch in my study, where I’d bedded down again after a heavy drinking session with Reggie. Kate was standing over me, dressed in jeans and a brown V-neck sweater. She had my bathrobe under one arm.

“What time is it?” I asked, fumbling for my watch on the coffee table.

“Eight.”

“Shouldn’t you be on your way to school?”

“I don’t have any classes this morning.”

I opened my mouth to ask why not, and she touched a finger to her lips, shaking her head from side to side. Wondering what was up and whether it had anything to do with her odd behavior the previous night, I tossed off the throw blanket I’d been sleeping under and reached for my pants. She intercepted my hand and offered me the robe instead. I was too hungover to play games. I was about to snap at her when I registered her expression. She looked scared. I stood up and slipped the robe on over my T-shirt and boxers, tying the belt tight.

Kate led the way into the kitchen. The apartment was dark and quiet, and I noticed Claire’s coffee cup in the sink. She’d told me she had an early charity breakfast when I’d called the previous night to post her on my trip to Staten Island with Reggie. I hadn’t mentioned hitting Vinny. Claire’s absence begged the question of who Kate thought might overhear us. I felt an increased twitch of anxiety. It wasn’t like Kate to be melodramatic.

She opened the steel service door to the fire stairs and motioned me to pass through first. The small landing was crowded by two gray plastic trash cans and a blue recycling bin, and the cement floor was gritty underfoot. Closing the door behind us, she squeezed past me and took a seat on the stairs. I sat down next to her, wrapping the robe beneath my legs. The stairs were just wide enough for us to sit at a right angle to each other, our inside knees touching.

“I know this is weird,” she whispered, inclining toward me, “and I’m sorry, but there’s something really strange going on. It’s kind of complicated, so let me explain first and then you can ask questions, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, trying to conceal my discomfort.

“Yesterday afternoon, I got home from school early and started downloading some music videos. Our Internet connection was all messed up, normal one minute and dead slow the next. I did a soft reboot of the modem and the router, but that didn’t fix the problem, so I decided to restart everything manually.”

I nodded, grasping the big picture if not the details.

“The equipment is up on the top shelf of the linen closet, and I was feeling around the back of the modem for the power cord when I touched something unfamiliar. There was a little metal box plugged into the port where the Ethernet cable from the router usually attaches, between the modem and the cable. It looked like an oversized coupling, or one of the little signal amplifiers the cable TV guys use. I’d never seen anything like it in a network setup before. I unplugged the box and hooked the cable directly to the modem again and everything worked fine.”