“The question is who.”
“We know that Aubrey always had it with her, so my best guess is that somebody found out about this secret documentary, killed her, took the laptop, and has no idea there’s a second copy. And I’m betting it’s one of the thirty-two men on those videos.”
“I guarantee you it’s not the Honorable Michael J. Rafferty,” Kylie said, a wide grin on her face.
“There you go,” I said. “We’ve just narrowed down the suspect list to thirty-one of our fair city’s most respected citizens.”
CHAPTER 55
It had taken less than two minutes to cut Nathan Hirsch free from that bomb, and more than two hours to fill out the investigative work sheets that detailed the incident.
“If I’d have known that saving his life would involve so much paperwork,” Kylie said, pushing her chair away from her desk, “I’d have thought twice about flipping the switch on that cell jammer.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “Since when have you ever thought twice before pulling one of your crazy-ass stunts?”
“It wasn’t a stunt. I got a court order.”
“Kylie, you can bullshit Barbara O’Brien, but don’t bullshit me. I saw the signature at the bottom of that warrant. Rafferty’s not a federal judge, so he must have sent his clerk across the street to the district court and had one of his cronies sign it. You couldn’t possibly have gotten all that done before the fact.”
“Well, aren’t you the crafty detective? What’s important here, Zach, is that we saved a man’s life.”
“Yes, and now that man is cuffed to a bed in Bellevue, his wife is filing for divorce, and the DA’s office is charging him with half a dozen white-collar crimes. So I guess you’re right. It sounds like a win-win all the way around. How do you plan on celebrating?”
“C.J. and I are going for dinner at the Mark.”
“Are you serious? The same hotel where the robbery took place?”
“They have an incredible restaurant in the lobby. The hotel manager invited everyone at the poker game to be his guest, anytime. Hey, do you and Cheryl want to join us?”
“Thanks, but Cheryl took the Amtrak down to Philadelphia for a conference. My victory dinner will be a solo affair: sausage pizza, a six-pack of Blue Moon, and a Yankee game.”
“That sounds dreadful.”
It did. But it was a lie. Not the Cheryl part, but everything else. Q had texted me earlier in the day and told me he had a lead on the two thugs who had chloroformed Bob Reitzfeld, tied him up, and escaped with eight hundred thousand dollars. It was ironic that C.J. would be returning to the scene of the crime on the very same night that I was working hard to connect him to it.
As soon as Kylie left the office, I texted Q. Some of my informants like to give up the information they’ve got, take the money, and run. Not Q Lavish. He doesn’t take money, and he enjoys turning our get-togethers into a social event.
An hour later, we were at Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Chinatown, sharing eight different kinds of dumplings. Halfway through the meal, the waiter brought us an order of boiled chicken feet with black bean sauce, which I happily pushed over to Q’s side of the table.
“The two boys who hit the poker game are Tariq Jessup and Garvey Jewel,” Q said, picking up a turnip cake with his chopsticks and taking a bite.
“You sure?”
“A hundred percent. I have a signed confession,” he said, totally straight-faced. “They’re waiting for you to cuff ’em and stuff ’em.”
“Sorry. Dumb question. Let me rephrase. What makes you think they’re the perps?”
“Jessup and Jewel are two bottom-feeder hip-hop promoters. They troll the streets and the internet looking for any wannabe Kanye or Nicki Minaj who can keep a beat and chant a rhyme. They put together a show, package it to any low-end club that will take them on, then beat the bushes for friends, family, and anyone else they can get to line up behind the velvet rope.”
“So they’re musical impresarios,” I said.
“Impresarios who get paid in watered-down drinks and a small percentage of the gate if they’re lucky. There’s a ladder in the music business, Zachary, and these brothers barely have one foot on the bottom rung.”
“And yet…”
“Are you familiar with Gansevoort PM? It’s a club in the meatpacking district.”
“I’ve heard of it.” From Kylie. She was supposed to meet C.J. there but called it off when Aubrey Davenport’s body turned up on Roosevelt Island.
“Now that’s a club,” Q said. “Their music rocks the roof off the building. And so do their prices. But guess who was seen there the past two nights?”
“Jessup and Jewel.”
“Correct. They had their mitts all over two women who were totally out of their league, and they’d traded up from rack vodka to bottles of Dom. These mofos never had that kind of money in their lives.”
“Is it possible they won it in a poker game?”
Q picked up another chicken foot. “You sure you won’t try one of these?”
“No, I’m more of a breast man. Do you know where I can find Jessup and Jewel?”
“They move around.”
“How about tonight?” I said.
He gave me a wide grin and sank his teeth into the chicken foot. Of course he knew. Q knows everything.
CHAPTER 56
After dinner we polished off an order of sweet fried sesame balls and two pots of bo-lay tea while Q gave me everything he had on Jessup and Jewel. Then he helped me craft a cover story I never could have invented on my own.
“It’s a little over-the-top,” I said. “Can we make it more…I don’t know…realistic?”
“You mean like the Nigerian prince scam? Zach, you know the old saying ‘You can’t make this shit up’? Sometimes the more unbelievable something is the more people are willing to believe it.”
“You think they’ll buy it?”
“You think you can sell it?” he fired back.
I shrugged. “Early on, I worked undercover for Narcotics. I remember my first day on the street. I hadn’t showered or shaved for a week, my clothes were stained and raggedy, and I was totally convinced that I was the most authentic wreck of a junkie ever to try to make a buy. I approached the dealer, and the first thing he says to me is ‘Take off your shoes.’”
Q started laughing before I even got to the punch line. “And I bet you had on a nice clean pair of socks,” he said.
I nodded. “Dumbass rookie mistake. After a year I transferred out because I hated smelling like the inside of a Dumpster, but by the time I left I’d gotten pretty good at lying. I guess I’ll find out if I still can pull it off.”
“Drug dealers are hard to con because they think everybody’s a narc. Jessup and Jewel are two-bit hustlers who have no reason to suspect you’re undercover. You’ll do fine. Just act like the guy in those old Westerns: you’re Black Bart walking into the saloon.”
“More like Caucasian Bart,” I said, “but I get your point.”
I paid the check and found a store in Chinatown that sold burner phones. Then I walked to Grand Street and took the D train uptown to the Bronx. It was a forty-five-minute ride, which gave me plenty of time to repeat my cover story to myself till it was second nature.
I got off at Bedford Park Boulevard and walked another eight blocks to Webster Avenue. The club was called Rattlesnake. If you could call it a club. It was more of a dive bar with a sandwich board on the sidewalk that said LIVE MUSIC TONIGHT.
There was no line, no velvet rope, just a guy in a muscle shirt sitting outside. He nodded at me and said, “Welcome to the Snake. Two-drink minimum.”
It was relatively crowded for a Tuesday night. Close to a hundred people, most of whom checked out the white guy, then went back to what they were doing. I went to the bar, ordered a beer, and found a table near the back, as far from the music as possible.
Two minutes later, just as Q had predicted, a good-looking man with shoulder-length dreads and a black beard flecked with gray pulled up a chair and flashed me a warm, gracious smile.
“Garvey Jewel,” he said. “You with a label?”
I barely looked up from my beer. “No.”