You Have the Right to Remain Silent (27 page)

Romero looked at Holland and said, “You must be …”

“The bait,” Holland said dryly. “Curt Holland, formerly with the FBI, now a fugitive from injustice. I owe a debt of gratitude to both of you, putting yourselves out like this.”

Romero didn't like his manner. “We're doing it to help Marian.”

Holland smiled his sardonic smile. “She has good friends,” he said with unexpected graciousness.

“I wan' some coffee,” Sanchez announced and headed for the kitchen.

When they all had coffee and found seats in the living room, Ivan and Romero took turns telling what they'd learned. The two men had never met before that night but found they worked well together. The address on Bleecker Street turned out to be a church, a fact that made Marian groan. “No, that's good,” Ivan said. “It's an old, narrow, three-story brick building, and the Souls on Parade use only the first two floors—”

“The what?”

“The church that owns the building, Souls on Parade. I think they're from California. Anyway, the Paraders use the first floor for holding services and meetings and the like, and the second floor is offices and living quarters. The third floor is divided into two apartments.”

“One of which is leased by the FBI.”

“We think both of them are,” Romero interjected. The entrance to the two apartments was at the back of the building; the church was separated from the structure to the left by a sidewalk only about three feet wide. Romero and Ivan had almost missed the two men they were looking for, because they were watching the only entrance they could see from the street, the one to the church itself. “But when we spotted that guy with the triangular face,” Romero went on, “we knew we had the right place.”

Romero had brought listening equipment with him. When Page and Quinn were out of sight, the two cops followed the narrow sidewalk around to the back where they found a flight of outside stairs. Romero hauled out his equipment and listened: Paraders on the first and second floors. At the top of the stairs on the third floor they were faced with two doors. Romero checked both apartments; nobody home.

Ivan said, “I was surprised they had no electronic security system, but I guess they figured the rigmarole of installing one would call attention to the place.” He grinned. “Deadbolts and Yale locks, all of which can be opened.”

Romero grinned back. “An' you just happen' to have a set of picks.”

Ivan pretended to be affronted. “You know carrying picks is against the law. I merely said ‘Open, Sesame' and the problem disappeared. One of those apartments is sure as hell occupied. Rumpled bed, take-out food cartons in the trash. But the other apartment hasn't been used in a
long
time.”

“That's why we think the FBI rented both places,” Romero said. “A fully functional apartment in the Village standing empty? No way. The feds wanted to make sure they didn't have any neighbors. And that apartment has another use as well. It's part of an escape route.”

“Wait a minute,” Marian interrupted, trying to visualize the layout. “Two entrances, you said. That sounds like no hallway separating the apartments. Do they have a wall in common, then?”

“Sure do,” Romero said. “And right off the kitchen in both apartments there's a … a pantry, would you say?”

“I guess,” Ivan answered.

“From the kitchen it looks like a broom closet when the door is closed. But—and here's the cute part—you can get from one pantry into the adjoining one in the other apartment. The feds knocked a hole in the wall, just enough for a crawl space. We found the pantry door in the occupied apartment locked, to keep your man Quinn from getting out. But that's the escape route.”

“One moment.” Holland had a question. “I assume the two rear entrance doors are in close proximity? If someone were watching both doors, how would escaping from one apartment to the next be an advantage? There must be another way out of the building other than the rear entrance.”

“You got it,” Ivan said. “The empty apartment is on the side of the building overlooking that three-foot sidewalk separating the church from the next building. And there are fire ladders down the side walls of both buildings. You wouldn't even have to go all the way to the ground. Through the pantry wall, out the window onto the fire ladder, step across three feet of open space to the fire ladder next door, up to the roof and away.”

“It's a good set-up,” Romero added. “No alley in back, no place at all for a surveillance team to hide. If the feds suspect the building's being watched from out front, they can come and go by means of the fire ladders without ever being seen from the street. Neat.”

Marian pursed her lips. “But with one glaring flaw. What better place for a stake-out than that empty apartment? Page must check it every time he comes in, but still—”

“Hold it a minute,” Ivan interrupted her. He looked at the former FBI man. “Sorry, Holland, but I got to say this.” He turned to Marian. “Are you sure you wanna go on with this? You're going against your captain's orders. You're harboring a fugitive. You're planning a B and E. The rest of us, we can claim we didn't know you were acting against orders—we don't take the heat. But you got no loophole, Marian. If we don't pull this off, you're in deep shit—you know that, don't you?”

“I know it,” she said quietly.

“So think again, willya? Drop it right now and we all go home clean. Holland turns himself in and fights the charges with legal counsel the way everybody else does. If he turns himself in to you and not the FBI, you're a hero instead of a shoo-in for early retirement. Otherwise, you could even do time on a harboring charge, for chrissake.” He jerked his thumb toward Holland. “Is he really worth the risk?”

They were all listening for her answer, including Holland. “It's not just Holland,” she said. “Getting Quinn out of there alive is worth the risk. Nailing Page is worth the risk. Wrapping this thing up ourselves—oh yes. That's worth the risk.”

Sanchez laughed. “You wan' to rub DiFalco's nose in it.”

“I want to rub DiFalco's nose in it,” Marian admitted.

“A noble motive,” Holland said ironically. “But I'll take it.”

“So we just move in on them or what?” Romero asked. “What are we waiting around for?”

“Yeah,” Sanchez agreed. “There's five of us and one of him. Let's go get 'im.”

“Not … a good idea,” Holland said, his speech even more clipped than usual. “Once Page sees he's trapped, he'll put a bullet through Quinn's head and there goes our evidence. You could conceivably arrest him for Quinn's murder, but that would do nothing to clarify the circumstances leading to the East River Park murders, would it? And it most assuredly would not extricate
me
from the imbroglio Page has entangled me in. No, we need to get Page away from the safe house, long enough for us to go in and bring Quinn out unharmed.”

“A diversion,” Romero said.

They talked about that. Ivan went into the kitchen to make a fresh pot of coffee; he'd been there enough times before to remember where things were kept. Marian tilted her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes, listening to the voices around her. Tired as she was, she was amused to hear Gloria Sanchez's latin cadence gradually slipping away; she was sounding more and more like the black members of the Downtown Queens.

Romero was saying, “We've not only got to get him away from there, but we gotta make sure he
stays
away long enough for us to get Quinn out.”

“Thass easier said than done,” Sanchez growled in her newly husky voice. “Hey, Malecki—where's that coffee?”

Holland's eyes slid toward her. “What happened to Chiquita Banana?”

“It's ready,” Ivan said, coming back in with the coffee pot. “You pour your own.”

“Page isn't going to leave Quinn alone any more than he has to,” Marian said to Romero. She waited her turn and poured herself a cup of coffee. “How can we be sure he'd stay away even if we got him out?”

“It wouldn't have to be long,” Romero answered. “The problem is finding a place he
couldn't
leave immediately.”

“Like where, for instance?”

“How about jail?” Sanchez drawled.

The other four looked at her a moment—and then all started talking at the same time. Finally Ivan yelled for quiet and said, “We couldn't hold 'im. Even if we set something up, some humbug drug bust, say—all he'd have to do is flash his I.D. An FBI agent? We couldn't even take 'im in.”

Romero began to laugh. “Marian, remember Large Marge?”

Her face lit up. “I do indeed!”

“Large … Marge?” Holland asked.

“She's a member of a girls' street gang called the Downtown Queens,” Romero explained. “The last member, as it turns out. But Marge has a special talent. Remember what it is?”

Marian nodded. “Marge can relieve unsuspecting strangers of cumbersome burdens they carry about with them. Like billfolds. She could lift Page's I.D.”

“Is she that good?” Ivan asked.

“She's that good,” Romero assured him. “She has a
great
way of distracting the mark.”

“Aha,” Holland said. “And this pocket-picking girl gangster will help us if we just ask her nicely?”

“She won't have much choice,” Romero replied. “The rest of her gang is in jail for killing a woman and chances are Large Marge knew they were going to do it. She could still be charged as an accessory before the fact. I tell her we'll ask the DA's office to lay off if she cooperates. She'll go for it—hell, she's only sixteen.”

“Ye gods,” Holland said. “We have to depend on the assistance of
children?
”

“Wait till you see her,” Marian said wryly. She turned to Romero. “Do you know where she is?”

He waved a hand dismissively. “I can find her.”

“Okay,” Ivan said, “but we still won't be able to hold Page long. Once he makes his phone call, the FBI will confirm his identity. We'll have to say gee, we're sorry, we thought you were a street pusher—and then let him go. He's gonna be in and out faster than you can read the Miranda warning.”

“We'll need only that long,” Sanchez said. “Since the locks ain't no problem, we just go in and get Quinn. It's not like he's armed or nothin'.”

“A point of curiosity,” Holland said. “What is this Large Marge going to do with Page's I.D. once she's lifted it? The minute he finds it's missing, he'll insist that she be searched.”

The others were silent a moment. Then Marian said, “She'll have to pass it on.”

“To whom? Not to the arresting officers—who I presume will be Romero and Malecki. That's too risky. We need someone else there, someone who can take the I.D. and quickly disappear … somewhere.”

“The ladies' room,” Marian and Sanchez said together.

The three men exchanged glances and began to nod. “Yeah,” Ivan said, “a public place like a bar where your Large Marge can approach him. She lifts the I.D., passes it to another woman who heads for the ladies' while me and Romero move in to make the bust. Now we need the woman.”

“Not me,” Sanchez said. “Page knows me and I don't have no reason to meet him in no bar.”

“And not Marian,” Holland said firmly. “Page is bound to be suspicious of every little thing that happens now. If she calls him instead of waiting to hear from him, there's no telling what he might do. It's too chancy.”

Romero didn't think it was important. “Okay, so we get somebody else. But it'll work. And I get a piece of the bust.”

Holland had his doubts. “I'm not convinced of the wisdom of this course of action,” he said. “We bring in another outsider at the eleventh hour and expect her to play Page along—a very wary and distrustful Page, I might point out. He's going to be
looking
for a set-up. Whoever this woman is, she'd have to be a good actor.”

Marian smiled. “I know a good actor,” she said.

23

On Sunday Kelly Ingram had only one regularly scheduled performance, a matinee. Shortly before curtain she'd placed a call from her dressing room at the Broadhurst, tapping out the FBI number listed in the phone book. When the call was forwarded and Trevor Page's voice came over the line, Kelly launched into a second and wholly unofficial performance. She was worried about Marian Larch, she said. She'd been unable to reach her, and just now some guy named Curt Holland had showed up backstage looking for Marian and muttering what sounded like threats as well as saying a lot of other strange things and she was sure she'd heard Page's name mentioned and she didn't like being disturbed before a performance and she was afraid this Holland character might come back and what in the name of heaven was going on?

He'd bought it. When Page had pressed her for details of what Holland said, Kelly had replied she didn't have time to go into all that because the matinee performance of
The Apostrophe Thief
was about to begin. They'd made a date to meet at a bar called FiFi's after the performance.

The matinee had gone well. Her fellow actors had warned her that Sunday afternoon audiences were usually sluggish, but this one had been alert and responsive right from the opening line. With an effort Kelly shifted gears away from Abigail James's play to the one co-scripted by Marian Larch. Five people, including Marian, had coached her on this new role she was to play: four New York cops and an ex-FBI man—unusual directors, to say the least. She felt inexplicably calm, on her way to meet a murderer.

Trevor Page had killed four people, Marian had told her, ruthlessly slaughtering three people against whom he had no grudge just to make sure he got the one man who was causing him trouble.
You will never be alone with him
, Marian had promised. Kelly was still shocked to think a man with such a good, open face could be a killer. And he and Marian had seemed to hit it off so well together. But if Marian said Page was dangerous, then Page was dangerous.