Hack, page 6
“So are the jokes,” Phil said.
“Sergeant D’Amico, don’t you have medicine cabinets to search?” Izzy asked him, before turning to me. “What’s your pedigree, Shepherd?”
“Mutt. My mum and dad are college professors. Actually, they met at Woodstock. I came along much later.”
“Okay. I got work to do. Go out the back way before my boss shows up. The fucking commissioner was here last night. The mayor is hiding under his desk.”
I did as I was told and met the lady who lived behind Aubrey in a similar townhouse. She had a British accent, a sweet face, perfect puffy white hair, and she actually offered me tea, which I politely declined. She resembled Miss Marple the TV detective, so I asked her opinion.
“In mystery movies, when the hero gets a hot tip the police do not have, he or she keeps it a secret from the detectives and they run the clue down on their own, you know, to solve the case. What do you think about that?”
“I thought you were the police,” she replied. “Well, I think that would be a bad idea. It could be dangerous. These things are best left to the professionals, young man.”
To hell with Miss Marple.
15.
Outside Miss Marple’s house two burly guys from the same mold blocked the sidewalk. One was big and the other was bigger. I am six foot tall and two-twenty. They were taller and looked twice as heavy. They were wearing steel-toed work boots and coveralls caked with what looked like years of black ink. Each wore a silly, small square hat made out of folded newspaper on top of their fat pink heads. The bigger guy was looking back and forth between me and a sheet of paper. I craned my neck and saw that it had a photograph printed on it. My photograph. He stuffed it into his coverall pocket.
“You Shepherd?” asked the big one in front of me, fists ready.
“Who?” I asked, trying to walk around them.
“It’s him!” the bigger one on my right said, throwing his heavy left arm around my shoulder and gripping my shirt collar with his sweaty fist.
Oh man. I took a deep breath, set my feet and bent my knees. At the same time I cracked a big smile, brought my left arm up in front of me, bent at the elbow, and windmilled my right arm behind me and up between me and Bigger.
“Peace,” I grinned, making the V-sign with my left fingers, which I quickly poked firmly into Big’s eyes.
I hooked my right elbow onto Bigger’s arm just above his elbow and grabbed my right wrist with my left hand, as Big wailed and put his hands to his eyes. Bigger pulled on my collar, trying to lift me, which was perfect. I pulled my right arm with my left, as I jumped off the ground and twisted violently down and to the left, putting my entire weight into the move. His elbow joint gave with a pop. Bigger groaned and went down, first on his knees, then onto his right side. I followed him down and aimed my right knee and all my weight deep into his gut, letting gravity do the work. He groaned again as I rolled onto my back. A foot glanced off my foot and I saw Big above me, blinking in pain, trying to see where to punch me. I lay flat on my back, both legs out, and let him come. When he stopped at my feet, I hooked my right foot behind his left ankle and kicked him high on the same shin with my left, just under the knee, pushing through with all my strength, which whipped him backwards onto the cement with a nice thump.
I stood up, soreness beginning in my knees and elbows, and my hands had pavement scrapes on them. Big and Bigger were doing a lot worse. Big couldn’t decide which to hold, his bleeding head or his eyes, as he whined on his back. Bigger was in the fetal position, cradling his dislocated elbow and muttering. I took another breath to calm down. Their paper hats had come off. They had bald spots.
I squatted next to Bigger and took his left wrist. He winced and tried to pull away but I told him to stay still. I found a good pulse in the wrist and his fingernails re-colored when I squeezed them.
“It’s just dislocated. You’ll be fine,” I told him. “Okay, I lied. I’m Shepherd. Who are you guys?”
They just kept moaning. I noticed a lump on Bigger’s butt, pulled out his dirty leather wallet and found his driver’s license.
“Mickey McElhone? Are you kidding me? Ginny’s your sister?”
He didn’t answer until I poked his tender gut. “Uh-hunh.”
“How about you?” I asked Big, dropping Mickey’s wallet. “You another brother?”
“Sean,” he whined.
“Mickey and Sean. Pleased to meet you guys. I gotta run. Say hi to Ginny for me. Or was there something you wanted to say to me?”
There wasn’t.
16.
I walked to the end of the block but it took me a while to find a cab. As a new New Yorker, I was still figuring out how to tell which ones were available. What was clear was that whenever I needed a cab, so did everyone else. The trick was apparently to need a cab when no one else did. While I was waiting, I called my new stuff into the Mail, including the testing and the drugs in Neil’s system, which made Nigel happy. Just as I snagged an empty yellow cab, I noticed two silhouettes sitting in a blue Honda parked down the block, looking at me. As my cab left, the car pulled away from the curb and followed. At the first traffic light I noticed the Honda had NYP plates, the same as the staff at the Mail. There were special free parking zones for them around Manhattan. The passenger tried to sink low in her seat but I caught the flashing eyes, the floating red hair. Beware, beware. Ginny McElhone, my favorite Daily Press reporter was on my tail.
Again, I recognized the Baluchistani pop music in the cab, even though it was a different cabbie. I spoke to him in a language he understood but he replied in English, suddenly nervous.
“You want me to evade someone? Where can I go that he cannot in this traffic, sir? Who is following you, please? I want no police, no trouble, boss.”
Just when it was getting to be fun. In the movies, cabbies lived to lose tails and were rewarded with big tips. Of course, an immigrant Muslim cabbie would want no trouble in post-9/11 New York. I told him to pull over and gave him a nice tip for a short trip. Behind me, I saw the Honda had also pulled over and was waiting behind an SUV. I ignored them, pretending I didn’t know they were following me. I spun and walked quickly down the sidewalk toward them. When I passed, they slid down in the seats. I kept walking briskly. By the time I reached the next corner, I saw their car had done a U-turn and was heading back down the block, still on my ass. I should have done it on a one-way street. I was a new guy on their turf. This might not be so easy.
I kept walking, aware of them shadowing me at a discreet distance. I thought as I walked. Different turf but it wasn’t like I didn’t have experience with this. The only problem was I had no backup. No resources, no team. And no car to race away from the bad guys. There were two of them, so if I took a bus or subway, one could follow. Three blocks later, the solution presented itself.
I read the sign and took out my wallet. The price of $9.99 was a good deal for a getaway car. Well, not an actual getaway car. A bicycle. A big, blue, clunky girl’s bike in fact. They were called Citi Bikes rentals and they were all over town. I swiped my new credit card and in a minute, I was off. I could see Ginny and her driver arguing. Should she rent one too or stay with the car? I spotted Ginny trying to get her own wheels but she was having trouble with the machine and gave up. I was a block away when they followed, both still in the car. Wrong move.
I let them follow me for a while as I pedaled leisurely, a slow-speed chase. I waited until I reached a block without any bike kiosk and decided to make my move. While the light was still red but cross-traffic on the avenue had thinned out, I scanned for cops. None. I floored it, sort of, through the red light. I went outlaw, weaving through the stopped traffic at the next light. A quick glance back and I saw Ginny running through the intersection, while her driver honked and tried to get through the stalled traffic. I could hear distant cursing as I cycled east. Three blocks later, no Ginny, no Daily Press in sight. I hung a right to the south, downtown. The sun was shining and I was enjoying my bulky blue bike in the big city. It was hard to concentrate on traffic and lights because of the distraction of the fascinating variety pack of humanity surging everywhere. It was like a zoo for every age, race, color, face and body ever invented.
When I was in the East Forties, I turned my girly bike right, towards Times Square. Half an hour later, I found another Citi Bike station near Broadway and 43rd to return my trusty wheels. I was at the Crossroads of the World, which was like being inside a giant video game, with all its lights, giant screen displays and electronic ads. I stood on the sidewalk on the east side of Broadway. Across the street was the open pedestrian area, with huge bleachers. On my side of the street were giant flashing billboards for Broadway musicals.
Why had Aubrey come here? There was the Times Square information center. Aubrey wouldn’t need tourist information. There was a Body Shop store. He might have bought some toiletry items but he didn’t have any purchases with him when he returned to the townhouse. There was a hotel. I asked a woman behind the desk if she knew who Aubrey was. She did know who he was but said he had not been there and thought I was nuts. By process of elimination, there was only one possible business left on the block.
I walked into the Times Square McDonald’s, which was filling up with lunchtime trade, and asked for the manager in my best command voice. I used my iPhone to call it up and showed him Aubrey’s photo in the Mail.
“I just came from the murder scene. Did this guy come in here yesterday?”
“Wow. Yeah, looks like him.” The guy was young and skinny, with a buzz cut and an AIRBORNE tattoo on his arm. A name badge on his uniform shirt said EMILIANO.
“The guy was big as a house, ate like a hippo, man. Not easy to forget.”
He took me into a small back room with lockers, bathroom supplies and a computerized security camera system on a shelf, topped by a small flat screen that showed eight different camera views at once. He clicked on the previous day’s recordings and rewound them until he found a big white blur.
“Is that the guy?”
I watched Aubrey order a super-sized tray of a dozen Big Macs, fries and several giant chocolate shakes and then sit and methodically gobble it all down. It was impressive. A one-man eating contest. Then he went up and ordered a tray of apple pies and hot fudge sundaes and polished those off, too.
“Guy is something to watch, huh?” the manager said. “Thought the dude was going to eat the furniture.”
According to the time stamp on the footage, Aubrey, the big gourmet, was loving it at Mickey D’s from just after he left the townhouse until just before he rejoined his film crew at Bistro du Bois. Now I knew why he refused to tell the cops where he was. For him, the choice between a murder rap or an alibi that included a career-ending fast food pig-out might be a tough choice. I decided to come clean and told Emiliano who I was. Then I took a deep breath and really went for it. My mom always said if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
“Emiliano, this is very important. This footage may prove that this man is not a killer. Can I get a copy?”
“A DVD okay?”
“That would be great, thanks. Could I get two?”
“Sure.”
While he made the copies, I thought it out and decided to call Izzy’s cell phone.
“You again?” Izzy laughed in greeting.
“Congratulations,” I told him.
“For what?”
“For great police work that led you to the McDonald’s in Times Square and perhaps the prevention of a miscarriage of justice.”
“The fuck you talking about?”
I told him. Izzy sounded both annoyed and suspicious but I suspected that was his normal demeanor. He and Phil got through the traffic very quickly, which is what lights and sirens are for. After viewing Aubrey’s food-fest film, Izzy said something in a foreign language that sounded like German.
“Es vaskst by mir in teller,” he groaned.
Izzy confiscated the original hard drive—along with the entire machine, which Emiliano did not like. Phil softened the blow by giving him a receipt, and explained that there were so many different video surveillance and software systems that grabbing the entire works was the only way to guarantee they could play and copy the evidence.
“So, let me get this straight,” Izzy said to me. “You’ll let me take credit for screwing up my own homicide case and making myself look like an asshole. Gee, thanks, amigo.”
“I just get to put it in the paper first. Would you rather I took credit in the paper and didn’t tell you?” I asked.
“Okay. I admit that would be much worse,” Izzy agreed. “Thanks. The pooch may be screwed here but maybe I can un-screw it. But Forsythe could still have killed Leonardi before he left. This just tightens up his alibi timeframe. It could still work.”
“And he still ate Neil Parmesan,” Phil pointed out.
“True,” I said. “And he smacked him around. But I think maybe he didn’t kill Neil. I don’t think he had time to do all that cooking, for one thing.”
“Then who did?” Izzy demanded.
We all looked at each other for a while, clueless.
“Maybe whoever fed him Neil,” I suggested.
“You’d make a great defense lawyer,” Izzy said. “Nobody has proved anyone fed Leonardi to Forsythe without his knowledge.”
“But now we’ll have to eliminate that possibility,” Phil sighed. “Izzy, he’s right. And he did the right thing.”
“Okay,” Izzy said. “Sorry, Shepherd. Thanks, man.”
“You’re welcome.”
They had investigating to do and I had another exclusive to write. I turned to leave, then paused.
“Izzy, what did you say, when you saw the footage? Sounded like German.”
“Old Yiddish expression. Es vaskst by mir in teller,” Izzy repeated. “In English it would be ‘It’s growing on my plate.’ It means the more you eat, the more there is. Like this damn case.”
17.
I went back to the Mail and gave them one of the DVDs so they could take stills for the morning paper and run the whole video on the paper’s website. I kept the second DVD for myself. For a change, Aubrey’s lawyer refused to comment. I wrote up my story about how Aubrey had lied about where he was because he did not want the world to know a haute cuisine critic had pigged-out on fast food. I did my best to write in the short, punchy New York Mail style, by imagining I was writing a Hallmark greeting card about murder. I made it clear that Aubrey had eaten human flesh and might still be the killer but the McDonald’s footage made it possible he was innocent of the murder. Apparently, at a newspaper, when you completed a big story, they didn’t congratulate or thank you. Your reward was they just stopped yelling at you to finish.
I grabbed a Dr. Pepper and a bag of pretzels from a vending machine in the lunchroom. It was after nine. I yawned. I tossed my empty soda can and plastic bag and headed home. I was too tired to walk or bicycle, so I decided to take another cab. I told the woman cabbie my memorized address in TriBeCa on Broome Street. She grunted, flipped the meter flag and sped off, punching my address into a GPS navigation unit.
“What does TriBeCa stand for?” I asked her.
“What?” she asked.
I repeated the question.
“You live there and you don’t know?”
“So you don’t know either?”
We both laughed.
The cab stopped in front of the wrong building, the first of three identical brick buildings on the right. My apartment was in the last one. Not wanting to lose my new friend by pointing out her mistake, I paid her and walked the fifty yards to my building. The outer door was unlocked. The inner door was supposed to be locked and opened only by key or buzzer from one of the apartments. It was closed but unlocked. So much for security. I pulled it closed behind me and, feeling lazy, took the small elevator up to the third floor. I got a glass and a cold bottle from the fridge. On the couch, I downed a full glass of icy arak, which was like getting hit over the head with a licorice stick.
How could Aubrey partake of his unholy entrée and still not be the killer? I had another blast of arak. The solution did not present itself. I had a third glass.
* * *
I was awakened at six the next morning by my doorbell ringing. It tinkled off-key like a bicycle bell, as someone pushed the mechanical doorbell button. I looked through the peephole, an ancient metal disc that swiveled over a two-inch hole in the metal door like a little porthole. It was a kid wearing a NEW YORK MAIL t-shirt, dropping off a copy of the paper. My story was page one, The Wood, again, but the copy bore no resemblance to what I’d handed in. A single word was emblazoned across the front page under a picture of Aubrey shoveling Big Macs into his face: “GLUTTON.” The subtitle read: “Killer Critic Chows Down On Fast Food Fare—The Video Aubrey Did Not Want You To See.”
There was also a timeline, a map of the locations involved and a profile of Aubrey’s big belly, containing a list of all the food he had wolfed down that day. There was also a story with Badger’s byline about Aubrey’s frantic phone calls to his victim, a possible attempt to set up an alibi. Badger attributed the transcripts of the voicemails to a law enforcement source, not to illegal phone hacking. I turned on the TV and flicked through the news channels. Several anchors were holding up the Mail with my byline on the front.
I called Bantock. He picked up on the first ring.
“Shep! Mate! Your video’s gone viral!”
“Look, I need a break. I’ll call in any follow-up, okay?”
“Sure, sure. Not too long, though.”
“I read The Wood. Why did you cut out the stuff about Aubrey possibly being innocent?”
Bantock laughed. “Come on, Shep. We’d never piss on our own yarn unless and until the cops drop the charges.”
I ate two blueberry Pop Tarts at room temperature and crawled back into bed. My low-key cocoon at the Mail had been shattered. Mary Catherine would flip. I was supposed to be quietly doing my job, not being the star of my own reality show.
