False Move, page 20
‘They took her,’ Pinky said needlessly. ‘I fought for her best I could, but a bitch with a bad attitude and the face to match got the drop on me.’
‘Fucking Megan Stein,’ Lacey growled. He touched his cheek. ‘Scarred here?’
Pinky nodded. ‘She was with the tall dude you warned me about, Nicolas. But tell the truth, I think the bitch was the more dangerous. She was all for kicking me to death before her pal brained me with that pot.’
‘She’s twisted, but Hayden James is the most psychotic fuck I ever met. If he took Stella …’ Lacey wobbled towards them, but his attention was on the door.
Po stood and grabbed him by an elbow. ‘Slow down, partner.’
‘I have to get my daughter back.’
‘We all do,’ Po reassured him. ‘But we can’t do much with two walking wounded to contend with. We need to get you both to a hospital.’
‘No way!’ Both Lacey and Pinky spoke simultaneously, and with equal force.
Lacey peered down at Pinky. Took in his swollen face, the blood, and the wreckage of the fight around him. ‘What did they do to her?’
‘Just some manhandling,’ Pinky told him. ‘Don’t know what happened after I was knocked cold, but I doubt she was harmed. They wanted her alive, and I’m betting she’ll stay that way till they get their hands on you.’
There was no other reason for taking Stella other than to force a trade. Tess eyed the man; whatever his response was might forever determine her opinion of him. He held up his hands in surrender. ‘They can have me.’
Tess shook her head. ‘No, they can’t.’
‘You can’t stop me,’ said Lacey.
‘Bra, you want me to get you in a headlock?’ Po warned, still gripping Lacey’s elbow to support him to stand. Lacey curled a lip at him, but thought better of getting in a tussle he couldn’t win.
‘I don’t have anythin’ else to offer them,’ he groaned, ‘so if it’s a case of Stella or me, they can have me.’
Again Tess shook her head. ‘You’ve already seen what lengths they’ll go to. These guys aren’t playing around anymore. If you hand yourself over to them they’ll kill you, and what are the chances they’ll let Stella go, huh? They’re trying to cover something up, right? They won’t want anyone left behind who knows their secret.’
‘Stella can’t tell anyone anything … she doesn’t know anything.’
‘She can tell the police she was kidnapped and what they’ve done to you. They won’t let her do that.’
‘Bastards, if they—’
‘What you need to do is tell us why the hell they took her. What is it you have on Elite they want back so badly?’
Po interjected. ‘Listen guys, as much as I want to hear it too, we should get outta here. Somebody’s bound to have heard the ruckus and called the cops.’
Stella’s street was residential, and while most of the inhabitants probably held jobs in the city, there might be stay-at-home parents, or retirees, in earshot. Ordinarily the area would be quiet this early in the day, and the sound of a door getting kicked in – even if the subsequent fight inside escaped them – wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. They were fortunate a patrol car hadn’t already arrived to check things out. Calling the cops themselves would be the sensible course, but doing so might sign Stella’s death warrant. They all knew they had to leave, and as quickly as possible.
Lacey shrugged free of Po, energized by his need to free Stella, and it allowed Po to assist Pinky to stand. They trooped out of the apartment and down the steps to where Po had abandoned the Mustang. There were neighbours on the street, watching, some with their heads together in conversation as they noted the bloodied aspect of two of them. There was little they could do to dissuade the witnesses from speaking to the police, so they didn’t bother. Once they’d squeezed Pinky and Lacey into the back seat, and Tess was once more ensconced in the passenger seat, Po set the muscle car rolling.
‘Mr Lacey,’ Tess said. ‘So we know exactly what we’re dealing with, tell us why Elite want you so badly they’ll resort to violence and kidnapping.’
‘They’re covering up a murder,’ he stated.
‘Who’s murder? Ethan Prescott’s?’
Lacey grunted in scorn. ‘Prescott was collateral damage, Jacob Mathers too.’
‘Who was Mathers?’
‘He was the son of a bitch that shot me. I killed him in self-defense, and had to do the same with Prescott when he tried to slit my throat. No, they died as a consequence of the cover up of a previous murder that I learned about and decided to—’
‘Make some money from,’ Tess finished for him snarkily.
Lacey thought about it, and shrugged. ‘Yeah. It’s pointless lying. I intended blackmailing Elite.’
‘It’s the only reason you’ve sat on the evidence as long as you have.’
Lacey nodded. ‘I planned on throwing my employers to the wolves, but I had to be practical about it. I mean, I’d be effectively putting myself out of a well-paid job, right? I was gonna demand cash for my silence, but, well, fuck ’em, once they paid up I was gonna send copies of the evidence to the cops and the papers. It’s why I went to Si Turpin, who made the copies for me, before betraying me and setting the trap back there at his workshop. He said he’d added some kinda self-destruct virus to the copies if anyone tried opening them, and told me to come back so he could put things right. It’s a good job he ran away, if his nose wasn’t already broken, I’d flatten it again for the lard-assed bastard!’
Po perked up at the description. ‘He’s a fat guy with a flattened nose? He didn’t happen to be wearing a New York Jets football jersey?’
‘Huh? Yeah. You know him?’
‘Nah, bra, but I did run into him in the street.’
Po chuckled at the private joke that only Tess would appreciate, except she was too distracted by the import of Lacey’s confession. He’d killed in self-defense – twice – and was a would-be blackmailer, but he’d also planned on putting things right by ensuring justice was done: he wasn’t all bad, she decided, especially when it appeared that his daughter’s welfare was most important to him. All things considered, she couldn’t think too badly of him, albeit he wasn’t the kind of person she wanted as a potential father. She shook off that final thought. She thought back to when Stella told her about whose protection detail Lacey had worked, and immediately discarded Beyoncé as a suspect. ‘This is to do with Jon Cutter, isn’t it?’
‘How’d you figure that out?’
‘When you first ran away, it was from Cutter’s home in West Roxbury. You were chased by his protection detail – Mathers and Prescott among them – and that’s how Prescott ended up in the river at Mattapan. Why did you go to his house, to get the evidence?’
‘No, with some inside help I’d already pulled the evidence from Ben Holbrook’s server. I went to see Cutter ’cause …’ He faltered, unprepared, or unable, to go on.
‘You initially thought you could bribe him directly?’ Tess suggested.
Lacey sighed. ‘No, initially I only wanted to kill the sick bastard who’d molested and murdered his little sister.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
Tess was silent as she struggled to absorb Lacey’s shocking admission. It wasn’t that he’d gone looking to exact swift justice that troubled her but what he’d accused the movie star of.
‘Yep, you heard right,’ Lacey explained. ‘High on drugs and drunk as a skunk Jon Cutter sexually molested his own sister, and when he came down and realized what he’d done, and how it’d affect his career, he drowned her in his swimming pool to shut her up. You asked if I’d planned blackmailing him, I only wanted to put a bullet in his head. Besides, Elite had already beaten me to him with their demands. In a panic he reached out to Holbrook to save him, which he did at a high price.’
‘And all this time you had evidence of the sexual assault and murder on the USB stick?’ Tess asked.
‘CCTV footage of the murder, the molestation occurred behind closed doors. I also had recordings of various telephone conversations between Cutter and Holbrook, plus details of the regular fund transfers made to Elite disguised as retainer fees. There was also a second piece of CCTV footage showing Hayden James’ involvement: he was the guy who removed Carly Cutter’s body from the swimming pool, and who must have been responsible for getting rid of it. Carly’s remains have never been discovered, and to date Cutter’s secret has stayed safe. Shit, and now the evidence is gone, it will stay that way.’
‘Maybe,’ Tess said, ‘maybe not. Perhaps there’s a way to circumvent Turpin’s malware program so the files can be opened safely.’
‘He tried to spring his trap on the promise of removing the virus; whether or not it can actually be done is questionable. I think he was only blowing smoke up my ass till I got to his workshop.’
‘I’m no expert,’ Tess admitted, ‘but I’m confident it can be done. It’s a pity Turpin is in the wind, or we could have gone back to him and made him remove it.’
‘We don’t need the evidence,’ Po announced. ‘We only need to get Stella back safe and sound, then our combined testimony will be enough to bury Holbrook and Cutter, right? Once the FBI’s involved, you can bet your asses their tech specialists will be able to retrieve the evidence, either from your data sticks or from Elite’s servers, or through confessions. I’ll happily beat a confession outta Hayden for what he did to you, Pinky.’
‘I’ll hold him while you do it, Nicolas,’ Pinky said, ‘plus that sour-faced witch.’
Tess pondered Po’s rescue suggestion, if not his proposal for violence. ‘You’re right, Po. I’m sure if I ask nicely Emma will advise us on the correct course of action, and hopefully how we can keep our butts out of prison for being accessories after the fact. The difficult and most important part’s getting Stella back alive, and not getting ourselves killed in the process. We are outgunned, outnumbered, and – I hate to admit it – also outmatched.’ She shrugged apologetically at Po, but she was stating facts. Elite’s assets were trained close protection operators, with backgrounds in the military and law enforcement, and they were still alive only because, until the events at 56th Street, there clearly hadn’t been a shoot-to-kill policy in place. That had invariably changed. One look at Pinky was enough to convince her that his life had only been spared through oversight: his head wound should’ve killed him, and only the slightest miscalculation in the angle of the blow had saved him from a fatal skull fracture. Hayden James hadn’t struck him to spare his life, but to permanently shut him up.
Pinky removed the wet towel from his head, inspected the blood on it and was satisfied he’d finally gotten his bleeding under control. ‘We’re maybe outmatched, us,’ he said, ‘but there’s no need to be outnumbered or, heaven forbid, be outgunned. I got my ass kicked back there, but I’m not done yet. I might still be able to help even things in our favour, me.’
‘Before you do anything, we need to get your head looked at,’ Tess said.
‘I’ve been tellin’ him that for years,’ Po quipped.
‘I’m fine. The bleeding’s almost stopped now.’ In evidence, Pinky waved the tea towel at her, and she grimaced.
‘You could have a concussion for all we know. You need checking over, Pinky, and I’m not taking no for an answer.’
A quick glance at Aaron Lacey showed her wadded shirt was equally stained red but he’d pushed it aside on the bench seat. She should have borrowed a shirt from Stella’s wardrobe, but her semi-nakedness beneath her jacket was her least concern back at the apartment. She could rectify that later, and grab a shirt from her overnight bag in the trunk next time they stopped. Which should be soon.
‘We need you checked out again, too,’ she said to Lacey. ‘I think your wound could be infected.’
Lacey and Pinky exchanged frowns. Tess frowned equally as hard. Lacey sighed. ‘OK. I know just the place to go. Hey, Po, is it?’
‘That’s me.’
‘Yeah, well take a left and go five blocks, and I’ll point out a doctor’s place I’ve used before. He’s off the radar and I trust him to keep his mouth shut.’
Po nodded affirmative. If the cops had circulated a description of the Mustang they were risking things by staying on the island but it was a case of needs must. Witness testimony was unreliable at best; perhaps nobody had given a clear description of the make and model of his car, but the dinged hood and bullet-scarred windshield and trunk wouldn’t stand up to close inspection. Plus, his back seat passengers were bleeding all over his upholstery. It wouldn’t make any difference that they had either been victims of violent assault or rescuers of those under attack, they would be all whisked to the nearest precinct for questioning, and that’d mean Stella wouldn’t be freed.
Minutes later, Lacey indicated an unassuming doorway on the lower level of a six-storey brownstone, whose nearest neighbours were a family deli and a beauty salon. The Harlem River was less than two blocks east, and the whistle of moving vehicles on the adjacent Harlem River Drive was a constant background noise. On the doctor’s street there was little traffic, and pedestrians were few. Po pulled the Mustang into a free spot outside a red brick housing authority building. ‘I’ll stay with the car,’ he said as he stepped out and lit a cigarette.
‘Those things will kill ya,’ Lacey told him as he squeezed painfully out of the car.
‘Not as quickly as an infected bullet wound,’ Po replied. ‘Go and get yoursel’ fixed up, bra, and I’ll worry about myself.’
‘Hold on, I’m coming with you.’ Tess wasn’t prepared to let Lacey out of her sight: she wouldn’t put it past him to try to give them the slip and head off to a confrontation with Elite alone. Lacey chewed his bottom lip, but waited until she had helped Pinky from the back seat, and they joined him on the sidewalk.
‘Doesn’t look much like a clinic to me,’ Pinky observed as they approached the scratched front door: windblown trash had piled up either side of it, and a broken bottle kicked into a corner of the doorstep, ‘more like a rat’s nest.’
‘Wait till you meet the doc, he’s a vision of insanitary too.’
‘And you expect me to let him stitch me up?’
‘He’s good with a needle, just don’t let him hack any phlegm in your cut.’
Pinky gagged.
Lacey grinned at his expense, then aimed a wink at Tess for her approval.
Tess ignored the nonsense, contemplating instead the man who could be her biological father. She had mixed feelings. His love of Stella was admirable to a point, but it was still his greed that had placed her in danger to begin with. Why hadn’t he immediately gone to the police with the evidence instead of trying to extort cash? His assertion that he was effectively severing his employment and needed to secure his revenue was weak; it wasn’t as if he was unemployable by another more reputable company. In fact, after being hailed a hero for revealing the identity of a murderer, the offers of work would probably flood in. No, for all he had a sense for justice, she didn’t think it was as widely felt as the streak of avarice that afflicted him. What was it Stella had said about her father: it was all about him? Tess had to concur with the assessment. If it turned out that he was her progenitor … no! She didn’t want to think of him as her parent.
Lacey rang the doctor’s doorbell.
The two men stood on the sidewalk, mouths open, splashed with blood, looking at the door like extras from a zombie movie sensing warm flesh inside. There was no sound from within. Lacey rapped his knuckles on the door, and felt it shift in its frame. He glanced over his shoulder at Tess. Then his natural ex-cop’s inquisitiveness kicked in and he placed his hand flat and gave the door a gentle shove. ‘Yo! You there, Grover?’ he called as the unlocked door swung inward.
Again there was no answer. Both men sought guidance from Tess: she was as an ex-cop too and as inquisitive as they were. She nodded at Lacey to go in. He entered, but with a touch of trepidation. It was as if everywhere was a potential trap to him these days. Pinky stepped inside behind him, while Tess brought up the rear. She detected the smell before any of them saw Grover’s body. The apartment was grimy, and hadn’t been redecorated in years, and it was imbued with the odours of lingering illness, but over and above there was a scent of blood and voided bowels. Tess had visited enough scenes of sudden and violent death to recognize it. She clutched Pinky’s arm, holding him back from entering the sitting room. It was too late to halt Lacey. He’d gone in, alerted also by the smell, and they heard his guttural oath as he made the discovery. Tess and Pinky both took a peek inside, then exchanged sickened expressions.
Herbert Grover was lying alongside an easy chair, its fabric faded and worn thin: the man was almost as insubstantial. His clothing was bags of formless material piled around a skeletal frame. His skull also lacked recognizable shape; it had been crushed so severely. His blood and brain matter had leaked into the threadbare carpet under him, as had his urine when death released his control over his bodily functions. Tess pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
‘Those sons of bitches …’ Lacey crouched over the old man, shaking his head in dismay. ‘They didn’t have to hurt him, he was dying anyway. He deserved a more dignified ending than this.’
‘We don’t know that Elite are responsible,’ Tess cautioned.
‘Who else could it be?’ Lacey snapped.
Grover was running a backstreet surgery; his clients were often desperate people. Perhaps one of those, eager for a fix, had beaten the man to death in a burglary gone wrong. But what were the odds that the timing should be so coincidental? Lacey was probably correct, and one or other of Holbrook’s hired guns had beaten the doctor, for clues where to find Lacey.
‘We have to call the cops now,’ Lacey said, as he stood again. ‘I’m not leaving him to lie here and rot.’
‘We will,’ Tess assured him, ‘but not until we’re out of here.’
