The Con Man's Daughter (5 page)

"Mommy only bakes late at night," Grace said. "When she can't sleep."

"Well, that's when the real bakers work. The union bakers work late at night."

"They can't sleep because they're worried, right? So they bake stuff."

"Right. Union workers are always worried. It's good, though, because they make fresh rolls and cakes and doughnuts for the stores to have in the morning."

"Is nighttime when the union says you're supposed to bake?"

"In this house, you can bake anytime you want."

"The union won't get mad?"

"I know people," Eddie said.

After Scott took off, Kate and Grace moved in with Eddie. But none of her other plans changed. For months, she'd been calling Realtors and scanning the classifieds, trying to get an idea of the total cash required to become a minor restaurateur. Eddie closed the refrigerator door and walked over to the open pantry in time to stop a falling cookie sheet from beaning his granddaughter.

"Hey, chef," he said. "Do you know how to separate the whites of the egg from the yolk?"

"Is the yolt the same as the shell?"

"No, the 'yolt' is the yellow."

"Okay, you just put the yolts on a dish, and the other stuff just goes in a bowl."

Eddie returned to the sink for one more close read. Elbows on the sink, he held the smudged recipe card under the fluorescent light. He'd put the fluorescent light in at the same time he'd installed the bay window over the sink. Installing the bay window had been easier than baking this cake. He'd put the window in for his wife, who had seen all the world she cared to through those panes. In the last years of her life, Eileen went to Mass every morning, stopped at the superette, came home, and that was her day. The more Eddie's life revolved around things outside the house, the more Eileen became its prisoner.

The window needed work. They all probably did. With his finger, he scraped the molding around the window frame. Dried-out caulking chipped off in his hand. He brushed the flakes into the trash as he watched a light-colored Chevy Impala move slowly down the street. The driver had the interior light on, reading something from a notepad. Not to worry. A marked NYPD car sat idling across the street. With another two detectives in the living room, there was nothing they couldn't handle.

"This sounds like a lot of eggs," Eddie said. "Are you sure it's not a restaurant recipe?"

"Restaurants don't have recipes, Granpop," Grace said, setting the pan on the counter. "If the cake is too big, I'll just take some next door. Mom says that whenever you make a cake, you're supposed to give a piece to someone. So I'll take a big piece over to Uncle Kev and Aunt Martha."

"That reminds me. You didn't answer my question before. How come you don't want to stay with Uncle Kevin and Aunt Martha?"

"She watches
Oprah
."

"That's a good reason," he said. "Why don't you just go in and watch Uncle Kev's TV?"

"'Cause Uncle Kev only has a little tiny black-and-white TV. Like the kind the baby Jesus had."

Grace had not asked him a single question about Kate. Eddie figured that Aunt Martha, the wife of his brother Kevin, had already told her more than she wanted to know. Aunt Martha didn't believe in coddling. But when Eddie tried to reassure Grace by saying, "Your mom is going to be fine," she simply looked at him and said, "I know."

The white Impala circled the block again. They should grab him, Eddie thought. But the guy was too obvious to be bad. He was just searching in the dark for a street address on a block where the houses were too old to bother with numbers. He floated past.

Eddie's house, one of the newer ones, had been built in 1927. The nine-room brick Tudor with its odd gables and arched doorways was a handyman's special when they bought it with his biggest fight purse. Those first few years, he did most of the work himself, but he lost interest in the house long before Eileen died. The three most dire needs were a new slate roof, new plumbing, and a new heating system.

Eddie's bank account didn't show nearly enough money to handle all three. His checking account held just enough money to cover a few regular bills: insurance, phone, and electric. Eddie Dunne hated banks, credit cards, and other paper trails. He paid cash every chance he got. At present, his only income came from working nights in his brother's bar, but Eddie lived frugally. He fixed things himself, bought old cars, and dressed as if he were applying for welfare. Since he'd stopped drinking, his only vice was gambling: sports betting with a local bookie, lottery tickets, and a once-a-week trip to Yonkers Raceway.

Grace dragged the chair from the pantry toward the kitchen sink. She wore Kate's old apron, a green one with shamrocks. It said, kiss the cook, she's irish. It came down to her ankles. She'd found a clear glass cake plate and a yellow-and-green tin cover painted with Pennsylvania Dutch symbols. Eileen had bought it on a trip to the Amish country thirty years ago and then used it for every cake after that.

"Aunt Martha wants to buy a gun for the bar," Grace said.

"A gun in a bar? Oh, that'll turn out good."

"It's because of all that stuff, you know. But Uncle Kev doesn't want to. He says she'll just shoot him in the ass."

The white Impala backed down the street and stopped next to the marked Yonkers police car. It was a short conversation; then the Impala pulled in behind Eddie's Olds.

"We have company," he said

"Aunt Martha and Uncle Kev-o," Grace sang out.

"Wrong-o," he sang back. "Somebody in a car-o."

A tall man in a dark suit got out of the Impala. Under the glare of a single streetlight, he flicked a cigarette on the pavement, then ground it out with his shoe. He was slender, with a full head of hair. From the way his upper body cleared the roof of the car, Eddie figured he was about six four, maybe taller. He leaned back down and picked something off the seat, a cell phone or a pager. As soon as he started coming up the long driveway, Eddie recognized the walk. Walks never change. People get old, get fat, but the way they walk remains a signature. Their guest was Detective Matty Boland, the NYPD's gift to women. During the waning days of Eddie's police career, Boland was a hotshot rookie in the Detective Bureau.

Grace put her finger in the vanilla extract and tasted it. She made a pained face as the front doorbell rang. Eddie had assumed Boland would walk around back. Only people who didn't know them rang the front doorbell. Grace wiped her tongue with her apron.

"Why don't you go watch TV for a while, babe. I have to talk to this guy."

"Is he going to help find Mommy?" she asked softly.

"Absolutely. I just have to fill him in. Then we'll get this cake rolling after that."

"We don't want it rolling, silly," she said.

Chapter 6

Monday

8:30 P.M.

Both detectives hustled to the front door as Detective Matty Boland rang the bell again. As he yanked on the antique door, Eddie reassured them he knew the guy. The hand-carved wood, curved on top to fit the arched doorway, swelled up and stuck in damp weather. It was the original door, and he'd been babying it for years, not wanting to think about the hassle of replacing it. Then he wondered what the hell he was worried about. Would it really matter if it crumbled today? He put some muscle into it and it popped open.

"Jesus Christ," Boland said, smiling. "We kicked down steel doors in Harlem faster than that."

"Nobody ever uses this door. I thought you knew that."

"How many years since I was here? I'm supposed to remember doors?"

Eddie had always liked Matty Boland. He was cocky, but not afraid to back it up. His looks and Manhattan social life made him a media darling, but he was a tough street cop. When Eddie was under the IAB microscope,

Boland went out of his way to support him. After Eddie was forced to resign, Boland came up to him and said that if he ever needed anything, he should just call.

"Anything new on your daughter?" Boland asked, as Eddie led him into the kitchen. "Jesus, I can't even imagine-"

"How did you find out?"

"Detective Panko, Yonkers PD, called the office, asking about certain names in the Russian mob."

"She called the Seventeenth squad?"

"No, I'm outta the Seventeenth, be a year in June. I made a move into a federal task force working Russian organized crime."

"Is that why you're here?"

"C'mon, Eddie. I'm being up-front about this. I'm working with the feds on the Russians. What more can I say?"

"Let me guess," Eddie said. "The feds smell an opportunity. They sent you because they think you'll raise my comfort level with whatever deal they're offering."

Boland smiled sadly and looked around the room. His teeth looked like they'd been bleached. He had an upscale haircut, and his handsome features had a pampered glow, like he'd been to a tanning parlor or invested in some expensive skin care.

"I remember this place now," Boland said. "Your wife is a redhead, right?"

"Eileen passed away a few years ago, but you're right, she was a redhead."

"I didn't know that, Eddie. Sorry. Shit, I still sound like an idiot, don't I? I probably should have let someone else do this… but I figured I'd look out for a cop better than… you know…
them
."

Boland gestured toward the living room and a Yonkers cop he'd assumed was a fed. The fed-hating thing was part of his act. Boland had a charming, bad-boy way that women fell for. Eddie remembered that Eileen, who had never liked any of his cop friends, spoke of Boland for days after she first met him.

"The reason I'm here," he said, "is because the powers that be in the Russian task force want to offer you a deal. It's a quid pro quo arrangement, according to them. They help out on this case, you help them with the Russians."

"We already have an FBI team working solely on the kidnapping. Why can't your task force guys pick up a phone if they hear something about Kate?"

"Because nobody's heard shit," Boland said, taking a seat at the kitchen table. "And we're probably not going to. That's the problem. We know Brighton Beach is stirred up. Things are happening, but we can only watch it from a distance. You follow me?"

"You're not exactly subtle."

"Not for nothing, but what would be the point in subtle? You know what I'm here for. We need eyes and ears inside Borodenko's operation. If we had them in now, we might be kicking doors in tonight. Maybe your daughter is behind one of them."

"If I knew someone inside Borodenko's operation, I'd be all over him myself right now."

"That's exactly what I told them. But you're getting too far ahead here. It would be great if you could hand us Borodenko on a silver platter, but we're realistic. We have other, more immediate goals."

"Let me know when you get to the part about helping my daughter."

Eddie found a lime in the fruit bin and made a gin and tonic for Boland. He knew the drink wouldn't be

Boland's first of the day. He poured himself a club soda, but he didn't add the lime. He wasn't fooling anyone. Club soda is club soda.

"I have an offer," Boland said. "I figured you'd at least want to hear it."

"I can listen."

"First, tell me what this is all about. Why are you so sure that Borodenko's people grabbed your daughter?"

"Money," Eddie said. He knew the money idea would buzz comfortably around Boland's head. The
why
question is always foremost in the minds of cops. Greed is the easiest motive for them to understand. Eddie leaned against the sink and filled him in on Lukin's information: the black BMW, the aborted shipment of stolen cars from a New Jersey pier. He explained Lukin's reasoning-that Borodenko's henchmen had been looting every known Lukin associate. They'd searched Eddie's house for money because Borodenko thought he was holding it for Lukin. Kate had just been in the wrong place, at the worst possible time.

"I can call someone in customs," Boland said. "Have them search any vessel remotely connected to Borodenko."

"I'm indebted to you already."

"Don't be too quick," Boland said. "You know what they say about payback."

Boland's face, almost too pretty years ago, had benefited from some wear and tear. But, with the exception of a little gray, he hadn't changed much at all. The guys who kept working never did; it was the guys who retired who aged badly.

"If they want information on the Russians, I can do that," Eddie said. "If that's your deal."

"It's not my deal. I'm just the messenger on this. If it was mine, we'd be out there right now, no strings. But the feds want your old boss, Anatoly Lukin, Eddie. If you can deliver him, they'll have the task force make your daughter priority one. Just say the word and they'll start rousting Borodenko's people tonight."

"And all they want is a rat?"

"Did I say rat? Where do you get rat?"

From the living room came the voice of Ricky Ricardo, who was frantically calling for Lucy. The cops had been watching CNN, but Grace took over the clicker, choosing laughter in black and white. Grace loved all the old shows, especially the ones on Nick at Night. Schooled by her mother, she knew all the adventures of the Ricardos by heart.

"Lukin is a sick old man, Matty. He won't live long enough to go to trial."

"They know that. All they want is a quick, easy win. They want the head of a
vor
to hang on the wall at a press conference. It's the feds, man. All PR."

"If I give up Lukin, they start looking for Kate right, now?"

"Not just lip service, Eddie, but a serious, pull-out-all-the-stops search. I'll be there to guarantee it."

"Tell the powers-that-be it's a deal," Eddie said.

"Okay," Boland said, hesitating. "Sure you don't want a night to think about it?"

"No. Call your boss now, Matty. I'll give them whatever they want, as long as I get my daughter back."

"You didn't ask about immunity."

"Are they planning to indict me?"

"You never know. Just do me a favor and take a little time to consider asking for immunity. It's easy to talk yourself into a jam with these people."