3 Quarters (42 page)

T
he whole operation was coming unraveled. In the last two hours Lou Barnicle had received one phone call after another.

The murder of Sandy Fraser was bungled,
he thought.
What a pity. Great piece of ass wasted. Bobby Emmet has an alibi. The
Daily News
guy, Max Roth, has a big story ready for the morning paper.

A real fucking mess. Those assholes of mine fucked it up again.

Now I have to figure out what to tell The Fixer when he calls. He'll be pissed off that it was bungled. Again. He'll call me an incompetent, a cretin. Wait'll I get my hands on this cocksucker when this is all over . . . .

Meanwhile, I'll assure this pompous prick that I did a masterful job of damage control with the homicide cops; told them that I was at work all morning, had lunch with my parish priest, who wouldn't forget the five grand I palmed him, at the estimated time of Sandy's murder. That because I have a funeral to arrange, the kid, Donald, is with the nanny. That the cops were apologetic, even called me Captain. Said they'd be in touch with any new developments.

But my dream's in jeopardy,
he thought.
If I can hold this operation together, I'll be running the State Division of Police, in charge of all the state troopers. With a finger in the pie of every local police force in the State of New York. A fucking army of cops and untold millions in pension funds.

At 4:09
PM
the phone rang.

“The business with the woman was badly handled,” The Fixer said. “Get the child somewhere safe. This thing is coming to a head.”

“The Max Roth story scheduled for the morning paper worries me,” Barnicle said.

“Everything will turn out all right so long as we have the kid,” The Fixer said.

“I still get my appointment?” Barnicle asked. “And my share of the money?”

“Of course,” said the man, whose steady, calm voice was reassuring on the other end of the line. “Just be sure he's somewhere safe, and you will get everything that is coming to you.”

“The kid is already safe,” Barnicle said.

“Where is he?”

“At the nanny's house in Rockaway,” Barnicle said, and gave The Fixer the address.

“Good.”

“When do I get to finally meet you?”

“In two hours,” said the man. “Bring the last of the money to the transfer point. The other main players have been contacted and will be there.”

“I'll be there. With the money.”

Barnicle smiled. He was certain that despite these minor setbacks caused by Bobby Emmet, everything would work out as planned. The campaign would get what money it needed, and the leftover cash would be split evenly among the fund-raisers. Then the political appointments would come after the November election.
Then I'll fix this fucking Fixer,
Barnicle thought.
With pennies on his eyes . . .

“One more thing,” The Fixer said. “Use your best men. Emmet must cease to be a problem ASAP.”

A
t 4:35
PM
Bobby accompanied Forrest Morgan into the police medical board to see Dr. Benjamin Abrams.

On the way there, Bobby had filled Morgan in on all he knew about the doctor's involvement in the pension scheme.

Morgan said that while he had had Bobby and Patrick under surveillance, he had witnessed the blind-doctor routine and traced Abrams's and John Shine's license plate numbers.

“Like I told Tuzio,” Morgan said, “I had you under surveillance the whole time. I was on the police boat that cruised past you this morning when you were spying on Shine's house. So, what's up?”

“I'm not really sure,” Bobby said, unwilling to give him more than he already knew, yet. He didn't want Morgan charging into that house cowboy style for a cheap promotion and risking Dorothea's life.

“You ain't being straight with me, Bobby,” Morgan said.

“I really don't know for sure,” Bobby said. “Maybe Abrams can tell us what we need to know. He's the answer.”

They stepped off the elevator and approached the reception desk. Morgan flashed his gold IAB badge.

“Would you tell Dr. Abrams I'd like to see him?” Morgan said. “I'd also like to see all the files for all three-quarter medical pensions in the last couple of years. Just the approvals, ma'am.”

The receptionist swallowed a dry knot, got up from her desk, and walked down the corridor, then knocked and entered the office door bearing Abrams's stenciled name.

Bobby looked at Morgan, who stood rocking on his heels.

“How many years you got left before you put in your papers, Forrest?” Bobby asked.

“The duration, baby,” Morgan said. “Where the fuck am I gonna go?”

Bobby looked uneasy when he heard Abrams's office door being frantically locked as the woman told them, “The doctor said he would be out in a min . . .”

Bobby barreled past her, Morgan right after him. Dr. Benjamin Abrams ended his life before the receptionist could end her sentence. The gunshot was low and muffed but loud enough to send Morgan and Bobby crashing through the locked door, the doctor's stenciled name shattering with the glass.

Dr. Abrams was bent forward in his swivel chair, his forehead on the desktop, the barrel of his service revolver buried in his mouth, both thumbs looped through the trigger guard, smoke leaking out of his open mouth and trailing through the exit wound at the base of his skull. The ceiling was splotched with blood and brain matter.

Bobby moved closer and saw the hastily written note on the desktop, scrawled on NYPD stationery that was sprinkled with blood: “Dearest Rebecca, I love you. I'm sorry. Love, Dad.”

The Montblanc pen lay beside the note. There had been no time to write more. There was nothing else to say. On the TV Bobby saw a lurid videotape playing. It showed Dr. Benjamin Abrams in a blood-soaked bed with a naked woman. Her throat had been cut—just like Sandy's, Bobby thought.

Bobby looked from the TV and stared at Abrams and felt another wave of guilt crash through him.

“Je-sus Christ, we should have gotten his gun first,” Bobby said.

“Corrupt cops always have a second one,” Morgan said, watching the videotape as a horrified Abrams got out of bed and began dressing. “For their last meal.”

“For Chrissakes, Morgan, he was a
doctor,
“Bobby said angrily. Bobby watched the video and noticed a convention lapel name tag pinned to the doctor's suit jacket: DR. BENJAMIN ABRAMS, American Association of Police Physicians, Boston Sheraton.

“He was
dirty,
“Morgan said. “He died like he lived.”

Bobby took a step closer to the TV screen as something odd caught his eye. He now noticed that in the dead woman's hand there were some coins. Quarters. Three of them.

“The doc here was obviously being blackmailed,” said Morgan. “ . . . Something you see there that I don't?”

Bobby shook his head, said nothing. He turned away from the TV and the dead doctor. Standing silently in the doorway of the office was an astonished Dr. Hector Perez. Morgan saw Perez and walked to him.

“Doctor . . . Inspector, . . . at some point I'm going to need to speak to you and the other doctor on the medical board, too,” Morgan said, pulling a business card from his vest pocket and handing it to Perez. “All the records here are going to be examined. Please check your schedule for tomorrow and see what time is convenient for you, sir.”

Perez looked at the card and then at Morgan, blinked, nodded, said nothing.

Uniformed cops now arrived from the lobby of the building. Ms. Burns was hyperventilating in the outer office. Forrest Morgan told one of the uniformed cops to call the morgue and a forensic unit. Morgan picked up a phone to call his own office and turned his back to Bobby.

Bobby knew Morgan would be tied up there for hours with the Abrams suicide. Without saying goodbye, Bobby walked for the exit in the confusion. Before he left, he made eye contact with Dr. Hector Perez. The doctor looked like a condemned man staring at the gallows.

On the Queensboro Bridge back to Manhattan, Bobby called Gleason and told him about Sandy and Abrams and what he had seen at John Shine's house. Gleason told him to meet him at the basement office in the Empire State Building at 8:30
PM
. He made Bobby promise not to make any more moves until they met. Then Bobby received a call from Max Roth, who told him to pick him up outside the main library at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. He said he had tracked down some of the information Bobby had asked him to find out. He could show him what he learned on the way to the
Daily News.

Then Bobby called Patrick.

“Remember last week, the day I got out of jail, they found a dead hooker in a hotel in Manhattan?” Bobby said.

“Yeah, the Hotel St. Claire,” Patrick said.

“She had three quarters in her hand . . .”

“Christ, I never put that together with this . . . .”

“There was a convention of police physicians going on in that hotel that night,” Bobby said. “I want you to check the guest list.”

“Who we looking for?” Patrick asked.

“A doctor named Hector Perez,” Bobby said. “Deputy inspector, NYPD.”

Dr. Hector Perez had received a phone call at the office just a half hour after Dr. Abrams took his own life. Bad news traveled that fast. The report was obviously picked up on the police radio band. Perez was still damp with fear when he'd answered the phone. The blackmailer on the other end told him that he needed him that night to do a final piece of business for him. It would be the last thing he would ever ask of him.

Perez had refused. He had told the blackmailer that he could no longer do what he asked, that IAB was still there, that they were wise to the three-quarters scheme, and hung up on him.

When he left the building to drive home to Brooklyn, a shaken Dr. Perez climbed into his Lexus. On the passenger's seat was the pillowcase from the Hotel St. Claire, filled with bloody sheets. Perez screamed when he looked into the pillowcase. Also on the seat was a pair of blindfold glasses, identical to the ones Dr. Abrams had worn. The car phone rang. Dr. Perez was afraid to answer. After three rings he snapped it up.

“I still have the razor,” the blackmailer said. “And the videotape. Don't force me to give them to the police. Don't do that to your wife and your beautiful unborn baby.”

“What the hell more do you want from me?” Perez screamed into the phone as he sat on the street in his car.

“I need you to wait on a bus stop on Flatbush Avenue and Avenue U tonight at midnight,” the calm voice said. “Wear the glasses and bring your doctor's bag to give someone a checkup. She's running a fever, and I want to be sure she's ready for travel.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“Then we're finished?”

“I'll give you the razor and the original videotape,” the blackmailer said. “We'll be finished.”

“I'll be there,” Perez said.

A
t 7:05
PM
Moira Farrell popped the cork from a chilled bottle of Roederer Cristal and filled five gleaming fluted glasses. She had gathered together the main players involved in the three-quarters cash operation of the Stone for Governor Campaign in her plush Court Street office.

She handed a glass each to Cis Tuzio and Hanratty, who sat on one green suede couch opposite Barnicle on an identical couch. Moira Farrell handed a third glass to Barnicle and picked one up for herself.

She placed the fifth glass on the end of the large coffee table. Also on the table sat two very large unzippered duffel bags with dangling shoulder straps. Each bag was stuffed with five million dollars in neat bundles of one-hundred-dollar bills. The result of two hundred fraudulent three-quarters medical pensions, at fifty thousand dollars per. The money was to be used as a slush fund in the general election for the Stone for Governor Campaign.