Neptune Avenue (24 page)

No, the business might not be about fish or doughnuts at all. It might be about using the former as a cover for bringing drugs into the country, and the latter as a cover for spreading them out into the city’s streets.

Jack took out his cell phone and called Linda Vargas about what he’d seen that morning, and then he placed another call to ask his boss about setting up surveillance at the doughnut shop and the fish company. For once—excited, no doubt, about the possibility of a career-boosting case—Sergeant Tanney got right on board.

FIVE HOURS LATER JACK
was driving down Coney Island Avenue, freshly showered, attired in his best sport coat, in the best mood he’d been in for a long time. His work was going well, and he was on his way to pick up a beautiful woman and take her out for a fine meal at a seafood place out on Long Island that was not frequented by cops or—as far as he knew—Russian gangsters. He was going to order an expensive bottle of bubbly and some kind of fancy lobster dish for himself and Zhenya, and they were gonna have a hell of a night.

He glanced at his watch. He was early, but he looked forward to surprising her. The summer sky was still bright; they could enjoy a nice cocktail out on the balcony and still make it out to the restaurant in time to watch the sun set over the Long Island Sound. While he was stopped at a red light, his cell phone trilled. He would have ignored it, but he looked down and saw that it was Zhenya.

“I gotta warn you,” he told her, “I just showered and shaved, and I’m smelling pretty damn good.”

There was silence on the other end.

“Zhenya?” he said. “Are you there?”

“I’m here. But I hev some bad news.”

The driver behind Jack honked, and he stepped on the gas again. “What’s up?”

“It is, eh, it is my friend Mika. Her, eh, her husband just … they have fight, and I must to go to her to the hospital. We can take dinner tomorrow, no?”

Jack frowned. He noticed that her English was even more garbled than usual—and that her explanation didn’t feel right.

“Uh, okay,” he said slowly. “I hope your friend is all right. I’ll call you later.”

He hung up, disappointed and more than a little suspicious.
Let it go,
he told himself.
So you’ll have dinner tomorrow …

Spider sense. Tingling.

He drove on toward her Coney Island apartment.

A block away, he pulled over and picked up his cell phone again. He dialed her home number. Her landline.

“Yes?” she said.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was trying to call my uncle. I pressed the wrong speed dial.” He hung up again. At least he was sure that she was really at home.

He sat in his car thinking for a minute. Then he got out and walked over toward her apartment building. He didn’t get close, though. He found a building entrance a good eighty yards away and sat down on the stairs.

ZHENYA EMERGED FROM HER
building just five minutes later.

She glanced right and left, then moved off down the sidewalk, away from Jack, toward Brighton Beach Avenue.

He felt a bit ashamed of himself, but he gave her a few seconds and then slipped off after her.

She turned east on the avenue, which—lucky for him—was thronged with evening shoppers. She passed under the shadow of the elevated subway tracks and moved off down the crowded sidewalk. Jack quickstepped on behind.

Several blocks down, she turned in to the supermarket they’d visited just a few days before. That was a little odd—if her friend had just been taken to the hospital, why wasn’t she hurrying over there? He sighed; maybe he was just being paranoid. Maybe she was buying a box of chocolates for the hospital visit.

He waited ten minutes, though. Surely, even with long lines, it wouldn’t take ten minutes to buy a box of chocolates?

Out she came—there was her blond hair, her green summer dress. She carried a large shopping bag, her right shoulder dipping a bit with the weight. Not just chocolates …

He gave her a few seconds to get ahead of him, and off he went, figuring that she was headed for Coney Island Hospital, just a few blocks away.

But she turned in to another shop. A liquor store. Jack frowned again: she was definitely not going to be bringing liquor into a hospital She came out with another bag and stopped on a corner of the busy avenue, next to a stairway leading up to the elevated trains. She set down her purchases, then took out a compact and applied some lipstick.

Jack’s face tightened as he watched.

He thought she might head up the subway stairs, but she set off briskly down the avenue instead. A block down, she turned in to another storefront. Jack risked getting a little closer to see what it might be. A car service dispatch office. With a couple of shiny black Lincoln Town Cars parked out front.

Shit. He glanced behind him. There was no way he’d ever get back to his own car in time.

Zhenya came out of the office with a man who opened the back door of one of the cars for her, then moved around to the driver’s seat.

Jack looked around frantically. He saw a yellow cab double-parked next to a newsstand a few yards away. He ran over and jumped in the back.

The driver, a little butterball of a man, sat calmly eating a sandwich. He took another bite, then set it down. “Where to, mister?”

Jack pointed at the black sedan. “Follow that car.”

The driver looked up at the rearview mirror. “Are you kidding?”

Jack groaned. “Come on—it’s getting away.”

The driver shook his head. “We don’t chase people, mister. That crap is strictly for the movies.”

Jack thought of flashing his badge but realized what might get better results—he yanked out his wallet, pulled out a wad of bills, and shoved them over the seat.

The driver picked up the money, crumpled the wax paper from his sandwich, and put the cab in Drive. “Which car did you say we’re after?”

THE TOWN CAR LEFT
Brighton Beach, caught the Shore Parkway, and swooped around the southwest end of Brooklyn, under the soaring Verrazano Bridge, retracing the route Jack had taken just hours earlier. But this time it left Brooklyn altogether, veering up onto the Brooklyn Bridge, cruising toward the office towers of Manhattan. Across Chambers Street, past City Hall, onto the West Side Highway.

Eventually it pulled onto a side street in midtown, in front of a narrow, soot-grimed five-story hotel, one of the few remnants of a once-seedy Times Square. The old red-and-beige sign running down the façade said
THE RYAN
, but it might just as well have said
NO-TELL HOTEL
.

“Keep going,” Jack told his driver. At the next corner, he opened his door and looked back to see Zhenya stepping into the hotel.

His driver called out to him, “What, no tip?” but Jack just rolled his eyes; he’d already given double the normal fare. He jogged back down the block and stopped outside the hotel to give Zhenya a brief lead. While he waited, he examined his wallet and discovered that he had sixty bucks left. He took out a twenty, folded it into a neat square, and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

He took a deep breath and entered the tiny lobby, which featured an incredibly dusty plastic plant and a couple of beat-up old armchairs with greasy upholstery. The desk clerk sat reading a paperback. He was a lanky guy in his early fifties, his gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. He wore a faded black T-shirt emblazoned with the words
THE CRAMPS
, and he hadn’t shaved in about three days.

Perfect,
Jack thought,
someone who could definitely use a little extra cash.
He glanced over at a narrow staircase leading up into the guts of the old hotel.

The clerk put down his book. “You need a room?”

“No. That woman who just came in here, the blonde … I’m wondering if you could help me.”

A wary look. “Help you
how
?”

“Is she visiting somebody registered here?”

The clerk frowned. “What are you, some kind of cop?” Jack pulled out his badge. The clerk shrugged. “You have a warrant?” Jack reached into his pocket, palmed the twenty, and pushed it across the counter. The magic substance that greased the city’s many wheels …

The man looked at the bill as if it were a dead cockroach. “I don’t want your money, man. Let me show you something.” He pulled aside some of his hair on the left side of his head, revealing a scar. “See that? It’s 1988 and I’m walkin’ through Tompkins Square Park, coming back from visiting my mother, who’s in St. Vincent’s Hospital getting a fucking angioplasty, okay? Suddenly, all hell breaks loose and these fucking cops jump out of this van and throw me down on the ground. …”

Jack glanced wistfully at the staircase. He reached into his pocket and pulled out another twenty.

The desk clerk just scowled. “What’s your problem? You think I’m gonna violate one of our guests’ civil rights for some lousy bribe? Typical corrupt police bullshit.” He crossed his arms over his skinny rib cage. “I know the law, man. This is private property. You wanna snoop around, you need a warrant.”

Jack winced. After one more glance at the staircase, he retreated out into the street. Across the way stood a dingy deli; he entered and found a couple of café tables near the front. The windows were half-plastered with beer posters and Lotto ads, which suited him fine; he had a good view of the front of the hotel, but he’d be tough to spot.

AN HOUR AND TWO
watery cups of coffee later, Zhenya emerged. She patted her hair, then stood out on the sidewalk for a moment, looking both ways. She gestured back at the front door of the hotel.

A slim young man stepped out. He had a blond crew cut and wore a dark blue, high-collared tracksuit. He joined Zhenya on the sidewalk, reached out his arms, and gave her a hug. A long, heartfelt hug.

And then he kissed her.

Jack stared through the grimy deli window; he felt as if he had just been sucker punched in the back of the head. He almost trembled with shock and anger. And misery.

Zhenya and her
friend
parted ways, she heading east, he going the other direction. Jack hesitated for a moment, stunned, and then he hurried out of the deli and turned west.

The blond man strolled down to the next corner, where he stopped in at a Rite Aid drugstore. He emerged a minute later, peeling the plastic wrap off a pack of cigarettes. He tapped one out, lit up, and inhaled deeply.

Jack thought about his uncle Leon’s joke about the chicken and the egg and felt sick to his stomach.

The man turned around and headed back. Jack ducked into a doorway, waited until he passed, then set out after him again, moving on the other side of the street.

When Zhenya’s lover reached the hotel, he didn’t go in right away; he paused out on the sidewalk, enjoying his smoke. Jack ducked back into his deli hideaway and watched the man through the window. He couldn’t believe it—what was he, cursed? Two cheating women in a row … Christ, maybe he oughta become a monk. …

The lover was handsome, though rather sharp-faced. He was clearly a lot younger than Jack. A stud in bed, no doubt. Jack’s hands clenched; he was tempted to step out and kick the guy in the balls.

Lover Boy leaned against the side of the hotel, idly puffing away and watching the passing traffic. After a minute, he stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and pulled off his jacket; even though evening was setting in, the temperature was still oppressive.

Jack moved closer to the window and stared. The young man had a tattoo on the side of his neck.

It took several seconds for Jack to recognize its significance, and then he felt as if he had been punched again. He remembered Tyrese Vincent, back at the Coney Island McDonald’s, talking about a blond, sharp-faced young Russian with a tattoo on his neck. Who had shot Daniel Lelo two years ago.

Looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world, the man flipped his cigarette butt out into the street, turned around, and sauntered back inside the hotel.

Jack scrambled to pull out his cell phone.

T
HE HALLWAY SMELLED OF
strawberry air freshener and Lysol and cat piss (rather strange, considering that this was supposed to be a hotel).

Emergency Service Unit officers took up positions on both sides of the door to room 312. Under other circumstances, they might have brought up a battering ram, but that had not proved necessary this time. (The desk clerk had lost his will to argue when he saw a truck full of flak-jacketed ESU guys come pouring into his lobby.)

Jack stood a few paces down the hallway, sweating in a borrowed Kevlar vest. His mind was racing, thinking about his conversation twenty minutes ago with the sergeant in charge of Brooklyn South Homicide’s evening tour. (Thankfully, Tanney had been off duty.) The other supervisor had wondered what Jack was doing in midtown Manhattan, miles outside his normal jurisdiction, but Jack had cut him off. “This might close two cases: an attempted murder in Coney Island two years back, and a recent homicide. We need to move on this immediately; I don’t know how long the guy is gonna be inside the hotel.”

The sergeant had called Lieutenant Cardulli, who then called in the ESU. Soon Jack was going to have some tricky explaining to do, but for now he needed to focus on not getting his head shot off.

He watched as the lieutenant in charge rapped on the door; everyone held their breath.

No answer. The LT signaled silently to his officers, and then he held out the room key and slipped it into the lock. A quick turn of the knob, a good shove on the door, and they went in, flowing through the door like a tidal wave.

But the room was empty. Clothes gone. Cleared out.

Jack’s heart sank. He peered out the wide-open window: a fire escape, a back alley. He thought of the desk clerk and he growled.

Downstairs, the clerk looked like a guilty dog who had chewed up someone’s shoes. He sputtered at first, making angry comments about storm troopers and fascist pigs, but his tone damped down when Jack explained that their suspect had shot several people, including a truly innocent bystander.