The Finishing School (15 page)

The room exploded, everybody talking at once.

“But you said he’s facing three years! He can’t do that. What about college?” Trevor’s father exclaimed.

“You and me should talk outside, Melanie,” Dan said.

Patty Atkins blurted, “But I never said my client wasn’t interested—”

Trevor waved his hand in the air. “Whoa, you guys, calm down. I’m not freaking out here. Nobody else should either, okay?”

“If he does this undercover stuff, does that mean he won’t have to go to jail?” Trevor’s father asked.

Melanie turned to Patty. “I assume you’re looking for a probation-ary sentence?”

“Naturally. I mean, look at him, he’s a baby. He’d get eaten alive inside,” Patty said.

“I don’t want to see him do hard time either, Patty. But the fact is, to get to zero jail time from where he is, he needs to produce something. And I’m not talking about just giving a statement. Without any arrests to his credit, he’ll never make probation. So that’s a reality you all need to consider.”

“Maybe Trevor
should
go to jail,” his father said. “It might teach him a lesson. God knows, I can’t control him. It would be better than exposing him to something dangerous anyway.”

“Jail
is
dangerous,” Melanie observed. “Trevor’s charged with a drug offense, so he’d get designated to a maximum-security facility. He’d be in with some hardened types.”

“You happy now? See where you ended up? What did I tell you?” Trevor’s father demanded, looking at his son in disgust.

Melanie sighed and got to her feet. “Look, why don’t we stop for today. I’m beginning to feel like this isn’t going anywhere.”

“Not necessary,” Trevor said. “I’ve made up my mind. You’re missing the point. All of you, but especially you, Dad.”

“Trevor,” Patty said, “please don’t say anything further until—”

“No, really! It’s my life. Let me talk.”

Melanie sat back down behind her desk. “Okay. We’re listening.”

Trevor drew a deep, sighing breath. Tears began to roll slowly down his cheeks.

“Brianna Meyers was my best friend. Dad, I’m not saying this to hurt you or anything, but you
know
me and her both came from some fucked-up family situations. Some of that stuff that went on before Mom left? That was some mad shit! And then after, when Mom wouldn’t see us for two years? Brianna got me through all that. She was a great person. She was smart and kind. She played the cello. She had a pretty voice and a nice body. It’s a fucking
waste
that she died, and that prick Expo is responsible. Bottom line,” he said, turning to Melanie, “show me where to fucking sign, because I’m in.”

“I respect your feelings for Brianna, Trevor,” Melanie said gently. “We all do. But we need to make sure—”

“I’m
sure
,” Trevor said firmly. “I’m definitely sure. And it’s my decision. So let’s do it.”

Melanie considered telling him no. The final call on whether to allow a witness to cooperate lay in the prosecutor’s discretion. If something happened to Trevor, it would be on Melanie’s conscience, and she wasn’t sure she wanted that burden. On the other hand, Carmen Reyes was still missing. Didn’t Melanie also need to consider
Carmen’s
future,
Carmen’s
safety? Rosario Sangrador’s death weighed so heavily on Melanie that she needed to watch herself lest she become a less aggressive prosecutor than she ought to be.

“All right,” Melanie said finally. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

AFTER HIS FATHER LEFT, Trevor Leonard gave them a full and complete proffer of information.

“I went to Screen just once with Brianna and Whitney, maybe two, three weeks ago,” Trevor explained, sitting in a guest chair in Melanie’s office, his lawyer still beside him. Melanie sat behind her desk. Dan and Bridget leaned against her filing cabinets, listening and taking occasional notes.

“No question,” Trevor continued, “Whitney was hooking up with the dude. He comes up to us, like, the minute we walk in the door, says everything’s on the house. And at first I thought he was into Brianna, right, because he’s majorly checking her out. I remember he asked her how old she was, which I thought was weird. But then him and Whitney disappeared for, like, an hour. Whitney came back high off her ass and all skanky, like she just got finished doing the wild thing. Her hair a mess, her makeup smeared all over her face. She flaunted it, too, like she wanted everyone to know what a porn star she was. I was, like, go take a shower, skank, you disgust me.”

“Did you see Esposito again that night?”

“No. Well, yes, but only from a distance. I never talked to him again.”

“When you met him, was anyone else with him? Anyone who might’ve worked for him?”

“Yeah, actually. Two bodyguards. From what Whitney was saying, they drive Expo around in a big black Escalade and hurt people for him. She seemed to get off on that. Chick was a major thrill seeker, I’m telling you.”

“Can you give us physical descriptions of Esposito and the bodyguards?” Melanie asked.

“Expo’s, like, a fly-looking dude with a shaved head and this huge diamond earring. Thirties, forties, I’m not sure. Old anyway. The bodyguards are both as big as houses. One’s black, one’s white, and the white one’s got a nasty-looking scar in his cheek, like from a bullet hole.”

Melanie caught Dan’s eye; he nodded at her solemnly. She’d already filled him in on the goons’ descriptions as reported earlier by Gabriel Colón. Expo was watching the feds before
they
started watching
him
.

“Did you happen to catch the bodyguards’ names?” she asked Trevor.

“The white guy with the scarface was Pavel. Russian dude, I think. The black guy, no. Oh, and there’s another guy who works for Expo, named Bud. I never met him, but Whitney mentioned him, and Expo talked to him on the phone when I was at Screen that night.”

“Did Whitney say anything in particular about Bud? Any details?”

“He was a go-between. The one who’d call her when Expo wanted her to do something.”

“Trevor, let me ask you something,” Dan said. “Just hypothetical, now. Think you could get into Screen, maybe take Detective Mulqueen with you, introduce her around so she can make a controlled buy of heroin from Esposito or one of his employees?”

“Hey, wait a minute—” Patty Atkins began, but Trevor cut her off.

“Hey, it’s cool. Really, Patty, I’m not afraid of any of this. I’m pretty into it.”

“Trevor, Patty’s right to be concerned,” Melanie said. “I want to make sure myself that if you go to Screen, we have all the bases covered as far as your safety’s concerned.”

“Quite honestly, the last time I was there, I bought some X. The Russian bodyguard steered me to a house dealer who was operating out of the men’s room. So it’s cool, I’ve done it before. I’d recognize Expo’s people, and they’d do business with me.”

“And just so everybody’s extra comfortable,” Dan said, “Detective Mulqueen can do the actual buy. I’ll go, too, blend into the crowd, observe and jump in if anything starts looking hinky. We’ll be right on top of Trevor the whole time.”

“There’s just one problem,” Trevor said.

“What’s that?” Melanie asked.

“Screen moves around.”

“You mean, like, the floor moves?”

Trevor giggled. “The floor? What, like
Saturday Night Fever
? What century are
you
from? No, see, Expo’s regular clubs are strictly for the bridge-and-tunnel crew. Celebs and ‘it girls’ like Whitney Seward and their posses, they turn up their noses at those places. They only go to underground clubs, see?”

“Underground?”

“
Secret
. Not only do you have to know someone to get in, you have to know someone just to
find
the place. Screen changes locations every week, and people follow it around. It’s always in some totally bizarre place. The time I went, it was in this secret bunker beneath the Waldorf that was built for some, like, railroad tycoon or something,” Trevor said.

“So where is it now?” Dan asked.

“That, I wouldn’t know. You can’t just dial Information to find it, and I’m not hooked up. So like I said, there’s a problem.”

“No sweat,” Melanie said. “I’ll take care of getting that information. When it comes to New York City nightlife, I have the greatest source in the world.”

BY THE TIME Melanie finished debriefing Trevor Leonard, it was after six o’clock. She needed to get on the stick if she wanted to sneak her team into Screen that night to do a heroin buy from Esposito’s people.

Melanie whipped out her cell phone, where she had her sister on the speed dial.

“
Dígame
,” Linda answered.

“Hey,
chica
, where are you?”

“Getting a pedicure and a wax. I have a date later.”

“You and Josh sure are getting hot and heavy. When am I gonna meet him?”

“Josh who? We broke up.”

“You’re kidding! When?”

“Mmm, yesterday.”

“And you’re onto somebody new already?”

“Why sit home?”

“Fast work, even for you. I’m impressed.”

“Get with the program,
bebé
. You should take a page from my book.”

“Yeah, right, I’ll give it some thought. So, listen, what time are you going out?”

“Uh-oh. I feel a request to baby-sit coming on.”

“If you’re volunteering, I accept, but that’s not why I called.”

“So you’re not working late tonight?”

“Well, actually I am, but—”

“
Again
? Your bodacious ass should quit that job,
chica
.”

“Right. As long as Maya and I can live with you, because then we’ll be destitute.”

“I’m serious. That boss of yours is a rhymes-with-witch.”

“You’re not the only one who thinks so, but this isn’t on her.”

“For God’s sake, it’s almost Christmas, Mel.”

“Tell it to the bad guys. They’re the ones making me work late. Anyway, I need a favor, and it’s not baby-sitting. It’s more in your skill set, sis.”

JUST AS MELANIE was grabbing her coat to run home and steal some precious moments with Maya, the phone on her desk rang. The caller ID displayed Bernadette’s extension. Melanie did the calculation in her head—how fast she could sprint to the elevator versus how long it would take Bernadette to get out to the hall and catch her.
Drat
!

She reached for the receiver. “Yes, Bern.”

“Hey, girlfriend, I need an update on the Holbrooke ODs case.”

“Okay, sure, no problem. We—”

“Not
now
. I’m on a conference call. Six-thirty, my office.”

And Bernadette hung up. Melanie kicked her desk in frustration.
Why the helldja call me if you were already on the phone
? Now she was stuck waiting around, using up what was likely to be her only personal time for days to come. She tried not to feel sorry for herself, but really, she missed her daughter. Linda was right—it
was
holiday season, December 18 at 6:10 A.M, to be exact. Not many shopping days left till Christmas. Shouldn’t she be home? Everyone else in the world was partying or decorating the tree or spending time with family. Wait a minute, though, not
everyone
. Not Carmen Reyes. Or Brianna Meyers or Whitney Seward. Melanie reminded herself why she did this job.

The thought of Christmas shopping made her crazy, though. Between work and Maya’s being sick, she hadn’t had time to get anything for her poor little daughter. She looked at her watch. Twenty minutes until Bernadette wanted to see her. Hmm, the miracle of the Internet. She knew she wasn’t supposed to, but…

Melanie went online, searching for toys for Maya. She wanted a doll with dark hair and pudgy cheeks, one that looked like Maya. The selection on Amazon was vast, but nothing seemed to fit the bill. Dolls with bottles. Dolls that wet and cried real tears. Dolls that smelled like baby powder. Dolls with removable clothes to teach zipping and buttoning skills. None of them had the right look. Finally, time running out, Melanie started looking at storybooks instead. She didn’t spend enough time reading with Maya. Heck, she didn’t spend enough time doing
anything
with Maya.

“Melanie Vargas,
what
do you think you’re up to?”

Melanie nearly fell out of her chair.

“Bernadette, I—”

“Your office Internet connection is reserved for official government business!” Bernadette snapped, looming over Melanie’s desk.

“Yes, I know. I—”

“Yeah, since when is Dora the Explorer official business?”

“I’m sorry. I had a few extra minutes while I waited for you to—”

“I never hold this single-motherhood thing against you, Melanie. I even assign you a high-profile case. In exchange, I expect to see some discipline.”

“Look, Bernadette, I apologize. It won’t happen again. And you don’t need to worry. Everything is under control on the Holbrooke case. We have a promising new angle, a cooperator—”

Melanie’s phone rang. Saved by the bell! It was her boss’s secretary, Shekeya Jenkins, calling to say Vito Albano was on the line for Bernadette.

“I’ll take it in my office,” Bernadette said. “
You
, come with me. I swear, I have to watch you every second.”

Melanie’s face went hot with indignation, but she held her tongue and followed Bernadette down the hall to her corner suite, which sat at the intersection of the two corridors housing the Major Crimes Unit. BERNADETTE DEFELICE, CHIEF, screamed the brass nameplate, all in caps. Why did it seem like every time she walked into her boss’s office, Melanie’s stomach was upset for one reason or another? She wasn’t alone in this: Everyone else’s relationship with Bernadette was the same way. Yet as much as she resented her boss, she admired her, too. Bernadette was exciting, dynamic, and good at her job. She got things done. She had the best Rolodex in the business and therefore brought in the best cases. She recruited talented prosecutors and demanded the best work from them. Too bad she accomplished all that by wielding a stick instead of a carrot, but still, Melanie wouldn’t trade the experience for anything less dramatic or interesting.