ELBOWS ON MY DESK, I looked out at the class of twenty-two astonishingly smug and overconfident first-year law students.
"Can anyone tell me why the law permits law enforcement agents to use deceit at the investigative stage, when they're not even sure of a suspect's guilt, but strictly forbids them from lying during the testimonial stage, when they're absolutely sure the suspect is a criminal?"
Five months had passed. I had taken an extended leave from the Bureau, and I'd been teaching a course in criminal ethics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice since January.
Some leave. I was doing everything I knew just to hold it together. I wasn't sure I'd ever go back, at least not to C-10, not after the beating I had given Cavello in his cell. But who was I kidding? It was more than that. Lots more. The bastard had been right. Since that day, the image of Jarrod's face looking out the window of that juror bus hadn't left my mind.
A female student in the second row raised her hand."It's the means to an end," she said."Mapp,andUnited States versus Russell allow the police to use deceptive procedures to obtain evidence. Without it, they might never make a case. It's deception for the greater good."
"Okay." I nodded, then got up and started to stroll around."But what if the police have to lie about those procedures during testimony-in order to protect their case?"
In the back row I spotted something that annoyed me. Some kid seemed a lot more interested in a newspaper folded in his textbook than he was in me. I raised my voice."Mr. Pearlman, you care to weigh in on this?"
The student fumbled with his textbook."Yeah. Sure thing. Not a problem."
I went up to him, removing the newspaper from his desk."Mr. Pearlman here is busy checking his stocks while the Fourth Amendment is under siege. I hope for your future clients' sake you've got a nice family practice in entertainment law to go into."
There were a few laughs around the room. Typical suck-up snickers.
I felt a little ashamed, though. Like one of those professorial bullies who gets his rocks off from a big show of power over his class. And that wasn't me. A few months ago I was pushing around one of the most notorious criminals in the country. Now it was just some kid, in law school.Jeez, Nick.
"So, Mr. Pearlman," I said, offering the kid an olive branch,"the Supreme Court case that held that the exclusionary law of evidence was bindingis…"
"Mapp versus Ohio,sir. U.S. 643. 1961."
"Nice guess." I grinned. I tucked the newspaper under my arm."I have stocks, too."
The bell rang shortly afterward. A couple of students came up to go over an assignment or question a grade. Then I just sat alone in the empty classroom.
You're lying to yourself again, Nick. You're trying to run, but you're not fast enough. It wasn't about some kid catching up on the box scores in my class. Or the Fourth Amendment, or police methodology. It wasn't even about this closed, dark corner of the universe I had let myself drift to, pretending I was building a new life.
No. I flipped the paper over on my desk. I stared at the headline. The very one I'd been waiting these past five months to see.
GODFATHER, PARTII. In big bold letters.
Unfinished business-that's all it was. Cavello's retrial was scheduled to begin next week.
SHE WAS DOING her best to recover, but it was hard and lonely. And long. And basically impossible. Yet she was starting to come through it.
For a while her sister, Rita, stayed with her. Andie had suffered a ruptured spleen, a collapsed lung, a lot of internal bleeding, and burns on her legs and arms. But those were the wounds that healed. What hurt a lot more was the pain inside. Every time she looked into Jarrod's room, caught his scent on his books and things, his pajamas, his pillows.
Then there was the anger she felt every single day. Anger that his killers had never been brought to justice. That everyone knew who was behind it-Cavello! And the bastard wasn't even being charged. She even had dreams of finding him in his jail cell and killing him herself.
Then one day she was finally able to put some of Jarrod's things away, pack them into boxes, without crying. Without being too ashamed. She had asked the coroner to cut off a piece of the Knicks uniform shirt Jarrod was wearing that day. She kept it in her purse.
MARBURY
3
She started back toward having a life with the simplest things. Doing her proofreading, seeing a flick. It was like relearning the steps of life all over again. Telling herself it was okay. Tolive was okay.
Over time, she found herself reading the papers again, watching the news. Laughing at a joke on Letterman. One day, she even picked up a copy ofVariety. A few weeks later, she called her agent.
Then, five months after it happened, Andie found herself standing in front of the doors to a casting studio on West 57th Street. The call was for some Cialis commercial. All it took was looking fortyish and a little sexy-pretty much herself. Her agent said,Go. See how it feels.
Standing in front of the studio, Andie had never felt so terrified in her life. It was like the first time she ever went on a casting call. It was too new. It wasn't right.Way too soon.
A pretty blond woman stepped out of the elevator behind her."You goin' in?"
"No, you go ahead." Andie shook her head. A wave of panic swept over her. A tightness pounded in her chest. She needed air.
She didn't even wait for the elevator, just hurried down the back staircase and onto 57th Street. Her legs felt weak and wobbly. She sucked a deep, grateful breath into her lungs.
This isn't going to go away, Andie. It's always going to be with you. Survivors pull it together. You have to do that, too. A few people passing by on the street glanced at her. She realized how foolish she felt, and probably looked.
Andie pressed herself against the cold concrete of the building and took another breath. She reached into her purse and felt for the little piece from Jarrod's uniform. You're always going to be with me.
Andie went back into the building, taking the elevator this time, back up to the third floor. She stood outside the studio again. Clutching her portfolio, she sucked in a breath. This was hard. This was so damn hard.
A woman stepped out just as she entered, and the woman had that look of disappointment Andie knew so well. Andie pushed through the doors and walked up to the receptionist.
"Andie DeGrasse. I'm here to read for the part."
FROM A STAIRCASE across 183rd Street, I bit my lower lip as I watched her coming back home. I don't think she ever saw me, and I wanted to keep it that way. The alternative was too crazy to spend time thinking about.
Andie DeGrasse looked good. She was dressed up and clutching a large black portfolio. On the outside it looked as if she had it all back together. But I thought I knew what must be going on inside her.
I came up this way from time to time, and I wasn't even really sure why.
Maybe I just felt good that someone had come out of this thing alive. A couple of times I even went up and knocked on her door. I'd say hi, or bring something-a little news about the investigation. Basically, stand around a few moments, as though it was an official visit and I had something to say that I couldn't quite put into words. It felt good being connected to somebody. I didn't reach out to people much since the trial.
Maybe I was just kidding myself again. Maybe it was simply Andie DeGrasse. How she was pulling her life back together after what had happened. I envied that. That she never once accused me, though she had every right to-that she never looked at me with blame in her eyes.
Maybe it was simply the knowledge that we shared something-neither of our lives would ever be whole again. That's what I believed, anyway.
So I watched her as she climbed the stairs to her building and unlocked the inside door. She checked her mail and tucked a few envelopes and magazines under her arm, then disappeared from sight. A short while later, the lights went on in her apartment.What am I, a stalker? But I knew that wasn't it.
I finally walked across the street. Another tenant stepped out, and I fumbled in my pockets for a second, as if I'd lost my keys, catching the door before it closed.
Her apartment was 2B, on the second floor, facing the street. I climbed the stairs. I remembered the night we took the jury in. For a few seconds, I just stood in front of her door.What was I here to say? I had started to knock when it hit me, the feeling of total foolishness, stupidity.
I backed away quickly, heading to the stairs.
That's when the door opened. And I was facing Andie.
SHE WAS STANDING THERE in a powder-blue sweater over jeans, barefoot, holding a black trash bag in her hand. When she saw me she did a double take."Hey."
I tried to act just as surprised-because Iwas."I was dropping something off," I said, holding out the book I'd brought along."I read this book. I was going to give it to you. I mean, Iam giving it to you."
"The Four Agreements." She removed it from the manila envelope, nodding."‘Don't take anything personally,' ‘be impeccable with your word.' My sister gave it to me. Good choice, Agent Pellisante."
"I'm evolving. And it's Nick." I shrugged.
"Which is it?" she asked."Evolving, or Nick?"
I smiled."So, how's it going?"
"I went to an audition today. A Cialis commercial. You know, when the moment hits."
"And how'd it go?"
She smiled."Dunno, exactly. All I had to do was look fortyish and sexy. Right up my alley, right? But I read the part. It's the first time… Have to pay the bills, right?"
I gave her a knowing look. Sometimes, I just wanted to reach out and hold her, hoping she would rest her head on my chest awhile. I just wanted to show I cared.
"I don't know-for forty, I think you look great. Honestly."
"Forty-ish." She raised an eye with a sharp smile."Come back in eight years and I'll give you credit for a compliment. In the meantime…" Andie leaned against the door frame."So how's the class you're teaching?"
A couple months back, I had written to her to let her know I'd left the Bureau and started teaching again. I just stood there with my hands in my coat and shrugged."The highs aren't quite the same as my old job. So far, no one's shooting at me, though."
Andie smiled again."How about I give you a choice, Nick? You can take the trash down behind the staircase on your way out. Or, if you want, you can come in."
"I'd like to," I said.
"You'd like towhich? "
I stayed where I was."You know, the retrial's starting. Jury selection's coming up. Next week."
"I read the papers," Andie said.
"I'm still a witness. The case is strong. They're going to put him away this time."
She stared at me awhile. Her mouth was full and her eyes sharp. Brown."That's what you came by to tell me?"
"No." What promises could I make that I hadn't already broken? We'd never caught the men who killed her son. We had nothing to tie it to Cavello."I thought maybe you'd want to come to the trial with me."
She took a step back."I don't know. I don't know if I can be close to that man."
"I understand." I lifted the trash bag out of her hand. I guess that was a decision. She smiled as if she could see right through me.
"Still the public servant, huh, Nick?"
I gave her a self-deprecating smile."Evolving."
She smiled.
"Hey, Pellisante," she called, catching me halfway down the stairs."Next time, you really should think about coming in."
THE FOLLOWING MORNING I was at my desk. In my office. At home.
I was doing what I always did on the days I didn't teach. What I'd been doing every free day for the past five months: sifting through every piece of information I could find on the case. Every document. Every sliver of evidence.
Looking for some way I could tie the bus blast to Dominic Cavello.
If anyone saw my study, my disheveled desk, they'd probably think they'd stepped into the lair of some obsessive, pathological nutcase. Good God, I had photos taped everywhere. The blast site. The van. The juror bus. Thick binders of FBI reports on the explosive device stacked high. Interviews with people on the street who might've seen the two men in work clothes running away.
More than once I thought I had caught a break. Like when the stolen New Jersey plates led back to some horse trainer in Freehold who had links to the Lucchese crime family. But that turned out to be coincidence. None of it led anywhere. None of it directly tied to Dominic Cavello or his people.
I was sipping my morning coffee, having to admit that my mind was drifting back to Andie DeGrasse, when the phone rang.
"Pellisante," I answered.
It was Ray Hughes, the agent who'd taken my place at C-10."Nick"-he sounded happy to catch me-“any chance you're free?"
Sometimes we'd have lunch, and Ray would pick my brain, or I'd pick his. I figured all he wanted was to go over my testimony for the upcoming trial."I'd hate to miss out onEllen, Ray, but I think I could find my way down to see you."
"Not here. There's a government jet waiting for us. At Teterboro."
If Ray wanted to grab my interest, he had it. The offer of a crummy sandwich at his desk in the Javits Building would have done the trick, too.
"A plane to take us where, Ray?"
The acting head of the Organized Crime Unit paused." Marion."
I stood up quickly from my desk, coffee spilling over my work notes.
Marion was the federal prison where Cavello was being held.
ABOUT FOUR HOURS LATER, the government Lockheed touched down at the airport in Carbondale, Illinois. A car was waiting for us and drove us to Marion Federal Prison. Marion was a vast, depressing-looking redbrick fortress stuck in the middle of a marshland in rural southern Illinois. It was also one of the most secure federal prisons in the United States. Although Cavello had yet to be convicted, after what happened in New York, the government wasn't taking any chances.
Warden Richard Bennifer was waiting for us. He escorted us out to the special control units, where Cavello was being held. The only visiting station was a glass-paneled room, with a guard standing by with a Taser and a surveillance camera running at all times. The prisoners here were lifers, level sixes, lost to the outside world for all time. I rejoiced. I was looking forward to seeing Cavello spend the rest of his life in a place like this.
Ray Hughes and Joel Goldenberger remained outside and watched through the one-way glass.
Cavello was already sitting there when I came in. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, his feet chained together. He was gaunter and older than when I'd seen him last, and a thin, gray growth clung to his jawline.
He'd been informed the government was here to see him, but the government was here to see him a lot. When he saw it was me he did a double take. Then came a wistful smile, as if he had just found an old friend.
"Nicky!" He tilted back his chair."Is it a holiday or something? Who's minding the class?"
I sat down across from him, behind the protected glass, and didn't laugh."Hi, Dom. How's the jaw?"
"Still hurts." He laughed."Still think of you every time I brush my teeth."
Then he twisted around to the guard behind him."You watch this guy. Last time he came to see me in jail, I had to take my meals through a straw for months." He wheezed a laugh."This is the guy that should be in here,not me. Anyway, you're lookin' fit, Nicky. Playin' any golf? Retirement looks like it agrees with you."
"They let me come back, Dom, just for a day." I smiled thinly."To deliver some news."
"News, huh? Good, I don't get much news in here. Jeez, Nick, they got some special downward career spiral planned out for you. You're a messenger boy now. Anyway, I'm glad you're here. I like the company. It's just that, you look a little peaked, eh? Must be that kid, huh? Tell me, how're you sleeping these days?"
I balled my fists tightly. I knew he was trying to make me react again. But this time I just let him go."I'm going to be sleeping just fine, Dom."
"And how's that gal doing? You know, the pretty one who was on that bus. I heard she pulled through. I tried to send a little money to some kind of fund." He shrugged."But my lawyer told me that when they heard it was from me, they sent the check back. Imagine. And for once I was just trying to do something nice. How's that for sour apples?
"Anyway, Mr. Messenger Boy, I'm doing all the talking. What kind of news you got for me? I'm all ears."
"We thought you'd want to know. The government's going to be adding two new indictments against you."
"Twomore? " He sighed theatrically."Who can keep track?"
"These you will, Dom. They're for the murders of Special Agents Manny Oliva and Ed Sinclair."
Cavello furrowed his brow."I'm trying to think, do I know them?"
"We have the murder weapon, Dom. A couple of clammers uncovered it. After all these months, there it was, buried in the sand. Ballistics confirmed it. It's the gun that killed the two agents. You're going down for it, Dom. It's a match."
The jocular grin slowly started to fade from Cavello's face, replaced by a look of serious concern. This was a capital offense, and the murder weapon sealed it."Clammers, huh? Imagine that. You look like you won the lottery, Pellisante. You wanna let me in on the joke?"
"The joke is I'm going to see you at trial next week, you piece of shit. And here's some other news. It's going to take place at Fort Dix army base in New Jersey. The trial will be closed to the public. Totally secure.
"The jury will be secret and sequestered on the base. This time, you won't be able to get to anyone. We've got you, Dom. U.S. Attorney Goldenberger is waiting outside with the indictments now."
It was my turn to smile. A smile I'd waited more than two years to give him."How's that for sour apples, Dom?"
Cavello just stared back at me. He scratched his chin."An army base, huh? Fort Dix. Isn't that where all the explosives are, Nicky boy? Could be a real blast!"
RICHARD NORDESHENKO STEPPED UP to the immigration booth marked VISITORSat JFK. He pushed his passport and visa through the slot.
"Kollich." The black, heavyset immigration agent leafed through his documents. He typed in the name."Can I ask you to please place your index finger on the pad?"
Nordeshenko complied. He wasn't worried. This time he was Estonian. His name was Stephan Kollich. Pharmaceuticals. As the agent went through his passport, he would find that the travel-weary businessman had been to the United States many times.
The past five months had been trying ones for Nordeshenko. Pavel had been sick. At first it was thought to be the flu. Then it was diagnosed as diabetes, type one. After months of treatment, they finally had it under control. Then Nordeshenko's leg began to worsen. His old Chechen wound, the shrapnel finally taking its toll. These long trips killed him. He shifted uncomfortably. He even had to wear special shoes.
Now he had to do this Cavello job all over again. And he'd done so well the first time.
"Business or pleasure, Mr. Kollich?" the immigration officer asked, double-checking the face in the documents against Nordeshenko's.
"Business is my pleasure," Nordeshenko replied. The officer smiled.
This time it promised to be messy. He would have to put himself on the line, use all the skills he had learned. He already had his plan in motion. Reichardt, the South African, was already here in New York.
Preparation was Nordeshenko's trademark-what he had made his reputation on. And never once had he taken a job that he did not complete.
The immigration agent picked up his stamp."How long will you be staying in the United States, Mr. Kollich?"
"Only a few days." That was the one thing he would say that was definitely not a lie.
The agent stamped his passport. He folded the documents together and pushed them back through the slot with a nod.
"Welcome to the United States, Mr. Kollich."
"I'VE GOT NEWS," I said to Andie DeGrasse over the phone.
I wanted to tell her about my visit to Cavello, the new indictments. I wanted to keep the hope alive that if we'd found something on Manny and Ed after all this time, there had to be something out there on the bus explosion. At least that's how I was rationalizing it. The truth was, I'd been thinking about her a lot over the past few days. The truth was, I wanted to see her again.
"You like paella, Pellisante?" asked Andie after I'd given her my news.
"I like paella, sure," I said. On weekends with Ellen, I wasn't above rolling up my sleeves and putting dinner together myself."In fact, I'd go to heaven for a good paella."
"Then how does tomorrow sound? Around seven? I want to hear about your meeting with Cavello blow by blow."
"Tomorrow sounds good," I said, surprised at the dinner invitation.
"And, Pellisante," Andie said,"prepare to die and go to heaven. My paella's that good."
I hung up, and couldn't stop the smile that was creeping over my face. The first one in quite some time, actually.
THAT NIGHT I COULDN'T SLEEP. Part of it was Andie, I know. Part was the exhilaration of seeing Cavello out in Marion.
For so long I was sure he was going to get away with the murders of my two close friends. Today had changed all that. On the jet back from Marion I had called Manny's and Ed's wives. I told them that they would see the bastard finally put on trial for the murders of their husbands.
I was wired-awakened! For the first time in months. I was free from the guilt and shame I'd been trapped in since the jury stepped on that bus. It's out there, I told myself, a connection to the explosion. I just had to think outside the box.
That's when it hit me. It was as if the alarm clock had gone off-my brain a little bleary fromER reruns at 2:00 a.m. I leaped out of bed and headed into my office, unstacking one of those towers of FBI documents piled high on my desk.
You're looking in the wrong place, Nick.
The IED. The improvised explosive device. The bomb. That was the key.
I yanked out the FBI forensic report on the explosives. I pretty much had the damn thing memorized by then anyway. The van had been packed with more than thirty pounds of C-4. Enough to do the job ten times over. Getting their hands on that much plastic wasn't like shopping for dry tarp at the local hardware store.You just have to think of it as antiterror, Nick.Not anticrime.
My C-10 buddies had gone over every turncoat and informer on the list, and couldn't scare up a lead pointing to the kind of people Cavello might normally call on for a job like this. It needed coordination much more sophisticated than anything he'd tried before. The technology had first been used by the Chechens.
Why not the Russian mob?
Somewhere in this pile, my Homeland Security contacts had given me books of known bad guys who were thought to be in the country at the time of the bombing.
So I started over again. Leafing through pages of blank faces and names. Andie claimed she'd seen a man with long blond hair under his cap, running away. So why not? What if the hit was set up by the Russian mob?
Sergei Ogilov was still the Boss of Bosses in Brighton Beach. He wasn't exactly a golfing buddy of mine-I'd put a number of his men away, or had them deported. But he'd probably talk to me.
A long shot maybe, but sometimes they come in.
Like Dominic Cavello's gun had washed to shore.
MONICA ANN ROMANO was in the middle of the best sex she'd ever had. Not that the list of her lovers was very long. It certainly wasn't. The man she'd met while having an after-work drink with friends was taking her from behind. He was very good, from her perspective anyway. Not like the boring accountants and law clerks she'd been with before, who only lasted a couple of minutes and were as nervous and inexperienced as she was.
"How's that, luv?" he said."Is it good for you? Does it feel okay?"
"Oh, yes," Monica said, panting. Did she even have to answer? She felt herself about to come. This was the third time.
For far too long Monica had come home from work, made dinner for her sick mother, and slumped into the den with her to watch TV. She was thirty-eight years old. She knew she had put on weight and that no one really looked at her anymore. Until this chance meeting, she had pretty much given up on the idea of ever finding somebody.
And then-Karl.
She still found it hard to believe someone so good-looking and well-traveled had come on to her. That in the crowd of attractive female lawyers and legal aides, this tall, blond European with the sexy accent had picked her out. He said he was Dutch, but she didn't really care where he came from. The only thing that mattered was where he was now, about eight inches inside her.
Karl finally rolled onto his back, breathing hard, his body slick with sweat. He reached for her hand. He pulled her close and lifted the hair away from her face."How was that? Good for you, I hope?"
"Perfect." Monica sighed."I'd say I'd like to volunteer you for a few friends at the office, but I don't want to share you with anyone."
"Don't want to share me?" He grinned."You selfish little siren. You know what I say to that?"
"What?" Monica smiled."You don't want to share me either?"
"I saythis! "
All of a sudden, he dug his thumb deep into her throat. The spasm of shock and pain straightened her spine. The pain was unbearable.
Karl pulled her right off the bed. Monica's eyes were jumping out of their sockets.Stop,please, you're hurting me, she tried to say, but all that came out was an awful garbled sound. She tried to pull away from him. His grip was immovable.Why are you doing this?
"You know what I say to you, Monica?" He brushed back his long blond hair."I say, I'm glad you liked it, Monica. All our fun and games so far. But now it's your turn to do something for me. Something a little more serious. Something… more pleasurable."
"YOU WORK AT the federal courthouse?"
He still had his strong fingers dug into her throat. Monica could barely suck enough air into her lungs to breathe."Yes." She managed a single word.
"Good answer." Karl nodded. He relaxed his grip a little."You've been there awhile now, yes? I bet you know everybody. All the other fat cows? All the security personnel?" His fingers squeezed, and Monica's eyes widened, tears streaming down her cheeks."Youdo know them, don't you, Monica?"
She nodded, her lungs about to explode.Yes, she knew them. She saw them every morning and afternoon. One of them, Pablo, always kidded her because she liked Mike Piazza and the Mets, and so did he.
"Good girl," Karl said again, allowing her to take a needed gulp of air."People trust you, don't they, Monica? You never miss a day at work. You take care of your mother in your little house in Queens. It must be lonely coming home every day, making her din-din, checking her oxygen. Taking the poor woman to the doctor."
Why was he saying this? How did he know everything about her?
With his free hand, Karl reached into the drawer of the bed table and removed something.What?
A photograph! He flipped it in front of Monica's eyes. An alarm bell went off in her. It was her mother! Outside their home in Queens. Monica was helping her down the stairs in her walker. What was going on?
"Emphysema?" Karl nodded sympathetically."Poor lady, barely able to breathe. What a shame, if she had no one to take care of her." His thumb dug into her throat again. Shock waves ran down her spine.
"What do you want from me?" Monica gagged, feeling as if her chest was about to explode.
"You work in the courthouse." His blue eyes gleamed."I need to get something inside. This will be easy for you. As you Americans say-a piece of cake!"
Suddenly Monica saw what this was about. What a ridiculous fool she'd been to even think he was interested in her."I can't. There's security."
"Of course there's security." Karl smiled. He clamped his fingers on her throat again."That's why we have you, Monica."
ANDIE LOOKED NOTHING short of terrific as she opened her apartment door for me. She had on a zippered red sweater and a pair of faded jeans. Her hair was tied back in a brooch, with a few loose curls dangling down her cheeks. Her eyes were dazzling-and looked pleased to see me. I felt the same way about her.
"Smells like I remember," I said, inhaling a whiff of shellfish with tomatoes and saffron. The paella that was going to take me to heaven.
"At least I won't have to catch you sneaking around outside," Andie said with a smile.
"How aboutstakeout? That sounds a little better," I said, holding out a Spanish Rioja.
"You're stakingme out? Why?"
"Well, maybe that's what I'm here to talk about."
"Do tell," said Andie, batting her eyelashes and grinning.
I'm sure I just stood there for a second, recalling how she had looked to me in the jury box during the trial, with that crazy T-shirt on, before any of this happened. Our eyes had met a few times back then. I thought we were both aware of it. There had definitely been one or two averted stares.
"I have some appetizers under the broiler. Make yourself at home."
I stepped into the small, nicely decorated living room as Andie ducked back into the kitchen. She had a yellow paisley fabric couch and a coffee table withArchitectural Digest andInStyle on it. A creased paperback,The Other Boleyn Girl. I recognized the jazz she had on. Coltrane. I went over to the bookshelf and picked up the CD.A Love Supreme.
"Nice," I said."I used to play a little sax.Long time ago."
"What?" she called from the kitchen."Like in the fifties?"
I came over and took a seat at the counter."Very funny."
She slid a platter of cheese puffs and empanadas across the counter."Here, I went all out."
I grabbed a cheese puff with a toothpick."Tasty." She poured me a glass of Pinot Grigio from an open bottle and sat across from me.
She had a fresh, blossomy scent-lavender or apricot or something. Whatever this was-dinner, a date, just bringing her up to speed on Cavello-I was already enjoying it more than I thought I should.
She smiled."So, uh, thisis just a little bit awkward, isn't it?"
"I left the car running downstairs, just in case."
"In case it got weird?"
"In case I didn't like your paella."
Andie laughed."Bring it on," she said, and tilted her glass."So I guess this is good news, right?"
"That's right." We clinked glasses."Cavello is going down this time." Suddenly, talking about my meeting with the gangster didn't exactly seem like the thing to do. All we ever had between us was that awful trial. There was a lull. We both took another sip of wine. Andie smiled and let me off the hook.
"We don't have to talk about it. We can talk about your class. Or what's going on in Iraq. Or, God forbid, the Yankees."
Over dinner, I finally told her more about my meeting with Cavello. I think it made her feel good, knowing the bastard would have to account for something. And the paella was a ten, just the way I liked it.
Afterward, I helped her clean up, stacking dishes in the sink until she made me stop, insisting she'd finish the rest later. She put on a pot of coffee.
Andie's back was to me. We were talking about her acting, when I noticed a photo on the counter. Her and her son. She had her arm wrapped around his neck, smiles everywhere. Love. They looked like the happiest mother and son.
When I looked up, Andie was facing me."Don't take offense, Nick. But why do you keep coming around here? What is it you want to say?"
I was at a loss."I don't know."
"You want to say it hurts? I know it hurts." Her eyes were glistening now."You want to say you wish you could've done something?"
"I don't know what I want to say, Andie. But I know I wanted to come and see you."
And I wanted to just reach out and hold her, too. I don't think I ever wanted to take someone in my arms as much as I wanted her. And I think, maybe, she wanted it, too. She was just leaning there, palms against the counter.
Finally, Andie smiled."Car's still running, huh?"
I nodded. In the past minute or so, the temperature had risen about a hundred degrees in the kitchen."Don't take this wrong, but I think I'm gonna pass on that coffee."
"Hey." Andie sighed."Whatever."
I found my jacket on the chair where I'd left it, and Andie walked me to the door."Everything was great," I said,"as advertised." I took her hand and held it for a second.
"It's because I feel good around you. That's why I came. You make me laugh. No one's made me laugh in months."
"You know, you've got a nice smile, Nick, when you let it out. Anyone ever tell you that?"
I turned to leave."Not in a while."
She closed the door behind me. There was a part of me that wanted to say,screwit, Nick, and turn around. And I knew if I did, she would still be there. I could almost feel her standing on the other side of the door.
Then I heard Andie's voice."What's done is done, Nick. You can't make the world come out right just because you want it that way."
I turned and pressed my palm against the door."I can try."
RICHARD NORDESHENKO KEPT his face still as he squeezed his hole cards up from the table. A pair of threes. The player across from him, in a black shirt and cashmere jacket, and with an attractive male companion looking over his shoulder, tossed $2,000 into the pot. Another player after him raised.
Nordeshenko decided to play. He was ahead tonight. Decidedly. Tomorrow his work began. He would make this his last hand, win or lose.
The dealer flipped over three cards: a two, a nine of clubs, and a four. No improvement, it would seem-for anyone. Cashmere Blazer winked to his boyfriend. He'd been pushing pots all night."Four thousand." Nordeshenko read him for four clubs, trying to make his flush.
To his surprise, the other player behind him raised, too. He was heavyset and quiet, wore dark shades, hard to read. Despite his large hands he nimbly shuffled his chips."Four thousand more," he said, leveling off two stacks of black chips into the pot.
The right bet, Nordeshenko thought. Drive the third player out-in this case, him. But Nordeshenko wasn't going to be driven out. He had a feeling. Things had been going his way all night."I'm in." He stacked a tower of eight black chips and pushed them in.
The dealer flipped over another four. Now there was a pair on the board. The guy chasing the flush checked. The heavyset player was betting now. Another four thousand. Nordeshenko raised him. To his surprise, Cashmere Blazer stayed along.
Now there was more than $40,000 in the pot.
The dealer flipped over the last card. The six of spades. Nordeshenko couldn't see how it helped anyone, but he recalled when he'd been in this exact spot before. His adrenaline was racing.
The man with the boyfriend puffed out his cheeks."Eight thousand!" The few spectators murmured. What the hell was he doing? He'd been pumping the pot all night. Now he was throwing good money after bad.
The heavyset player shuffled his chips. Nordeshenko thought maybe he did have a pair in the hole. Ahigher pair. Clearly, he read his hand for the best at the table."Eight thousand." He nodded, making two even stacks of eight black chips."And eight more."
Now the murmurs became gasps. Nordeshenko made a steeple with his fingers in front of his mouth, then let out a deep breath. Clearly, the heavyset man expected him to fold. And 90 percent of the time, he would've done just that. He was up enough. Why give everything back?
But tonight, he felt this power. Soon he'd put his life on the line. All the money in the world might be meaningless then. That gave him freedom. Besides, he was almost certain he had read the table perfectly.
"Shall we make it interesting?" he asked."Here is your eight thousand." He looked at Cashmere Blazer."And yours," he said, nodding to the man in shades, evening out a second column of black chips. Then he made a show of doubling the entire stack."And sixteen thousand more."
This time there wasn't a gasp-only a hush. A hundred thousand dollars sat in the center of the table!
Nerves were what separated you under fire. Nerves, and the ability to read one thing. Smell it. That's what made him the best at what he did. Nordeshenko stared at the man in shades.Indecision? Fear?
Cashmere Blazer sagged back, clearly feeling like an idiot. Better to toss in his cards now without showing them and not be thought a total fool."Adios," he said.
‘You're bluffing," the heavyset guy said, swallowing, his eyes X-raying Nordeshenko through his shades.
Nordeshenko shrugged."Play and see." He was sure all the man had to do was push in the balance of his chips and he would take the hand.
"Yours." He grunted, flipping his cards upright. A pair of sixes.
Nordeshenko flipped over his lower pair."You were right."
Shouts went up. The dealer pushed the mountain of chips his way. He had won more than $70,000!
Moreover, he had read every indication, every mannerism, correctly. That was a good sign. For tomorrow.
Tomorrow was when the real game began.
AT 10:00 A.M., Dominic Cavello was brought handcuffed into Judge Robert Barnett's courtroom.
Four U.S. marshals surrounded him. Several others were spread out at intervals along the perimeter of the room. This was a pretrial hearing, back at Foley Square. Cavello's lawyers had made a motion to suppress all evidence related to the murders of Manny Oliva and Ed Sinclair. They wanted a hearing to determine whether the evidence should be allowed, but I knew the judge would see their request for what it was-a stalling tactic.
Cavello acted his usual cocky self as he was led into the spacious room. He chirped hello to Joel Goldenberger across the way-asked how he was doing, along with the wife and kids. He made a comment to one of the guards about the Mets, how they'd finally put a real team together this year. When he spotted me in the rear, he winked, as though we were old friends. He conveyed the image of a guy about to beat some minor traffic violation, not a person on leave from the isolation unit at Marion who might very well be headed back there for the rest of his life.
The door to the courtroom opened. Judge Barnett stepped in. Barnett was supposed to be a no-nonsense guy. He had been an offensive lineman while at Syracuse and served as a fighter pilot in Vietnam. He didn't give a shit about the press, or free access, or Cavello's lawyers' theatrics. The judge had presided over a couple of Homeland Security cases after 9/11 and imposed the maximum sentence permitted by law on every one. We couldn't have gotten a better judge for this.
He quickly signaled everybody to sit down."I've studied the motions," he said, adjusting thick black reading glasses,"and I find no merit in the defense's motion to delay this trial any longer.Mr. Cavello. "
"Your Honor." The defendant stood up slowly, showing no reaction to the decision.
"You'll be answering the United States government's charges beginning Monday morning, ten a.m. You are entitled, by law, to be present at the selection of your own jury, which will take place in this courtroom. But these proceedings will be conducted totally in secret. No names will be divulged once they are selected. At that point they will be transferred to the Fort Dix army base in New Jersey, where, as you already know, your trial will take place. You will be restrained there as well, as will the jury. The entire trial will be conducted behind closed doors.
"And, Mr. Cavello." The judge stared down at him sternly.
"Yes?"
"I'm warning you only once. Any disruptions-and I mean if you as much as tip over a glass of water unexpectedly-and you will be watching your own proceedings on Court TV. Is that understood?"
"I wouldn't dream of it, Your Honor," Cavello said.
"I didn't ask you that, Mr. Cavello." The judge's voice stiffened."I asked you if it was understood."
"Of course." Cavello bowed respectfully."Perfectly, Your Honor."
THE TELEPHONE WAS RINGING, and Monica Ann Romano froze where she was sitting on the living room couch. She didn't want to answer it.
She already knew who it was. Who else would be calling this late on a Sunday night? She had a crazy thought that maybe if she ignored the ring, he would go away. Everything would go back to how it had been before she had the best sex of her life.
She just sat looking at the phone, letting it ring.
"Would you answer it, please!" She and her mother were watching TV, and the ringing was blocking out the sound.
Finally Monica stood up and wrapped the cord out into the hallway. She noticed her hands shaking."Hullo."
"Hello, luv." The voice on the other end made her blood freeze.
How had she ever gotten herself into this mess? How had she been so pathetically stupid as to think he'd be interested in her? She should go to the police. She should hang up on him and call them now. They would understand; they would still trust her at her job. And if it wasn't for her mother, she had told herself over and over, she would.She would!
"What do you want?" she answered curtly.
"You used to like hearing my voice, Monica," the caller said."I'm feeling hurt. What do I want? I want the same thing you do, Monica. I want you and your mother to live a long, healthy life."
"Don't play with me," Monica spat out."Just tell me what you want me to do."
"All right," he said. He seemed to be enjoying himself."How about we meet for coffee tomorrow morning before you go to work? The café right across the square, where we met that other time. Say, eight thirty sharp. I'll fill you in on what happens from there."
"This isit, " Monica said, her stomach knotting."You promise, just this one thing."
"Be a good little girl, and you'll never hear my voice again. ButMonica, " Karl said in the sort of voice you'd use to reprove a child,"don't get any ideas. I'll do what I said I would. I promise. In fact, if I wasn't so trusting you'll be a good girl, I could do it right now. Come back in the living room.Come. "
Monica ran back into the room where her mother was watching TV.
A light shone on the window. Headlights. Then a car horn, three sharp blasts. She began to shake so hard she thought she could hear every bone in her body rattle.
THAT MONDAY MORNING was the tightest security I'd ever seen for a trial. Godfather, Part II.
It was more like a show of force by law enforcement. Dozens of cops, some in armor and riot gear, holding automatic weapons, manned barricades all over Foley Square. The line of prospective jurors stretched out the door, with policemen going up and down, checking IDs, opening bags, leading bomb-sniffing dogs. About a dozen TV vans were lined up and down Worth Street.
Everything was by the book, exactly how I would have done it. Still, with several trials running concurrently, all the lawyers, witnesses, jurors, and staff, there were a thousand things that could go wrong.
Instinctively, I checked the courthouse security room, which was situated on the ground floor. Security staffers were watching monitors of all floors. Entrances, elevators, the basement garage, and the corridor where Cavello was to be transferred to and from the Manhattan County Jail. I tried to tell myself that nothing was going to happen, that everything was going to go off as planned.
I was headed back up to the courtroom, passing by the lobby, when I heard my name shouted."Nick! Nick!"
It was Andie, restrained by two guards. She was waving."Nick, they won't let me in!"
I walked over to the entrance."It's okay," I said to the guard. I flashed my ID."I'll take responsibility. She's with me."
I pulled her through the jostling crowd."You were right. I had to be here, Nick. I couldn't stay away. For Jarrod, if not me."
"You don't have to explain, Andie. Just come."
I led her into one of the elevators, pushed the button for the eighth floor. There were a few others on board-a couple of attorneys, a court stenographer. The ride seemed interminable. I squeezed her hand."Hmmm," she said. Just that.
When the doors finally opened on eight, I pulled Andie to the side and waited for the other people to clear. Then I gave her the hug I wanted to give her the other night. I almost kissed her, too. It took guts to be here. To show her face. But I could feel her heart beating against me."It's okay, Andie. I'm glad you're here."
I showed my ID to a guard stationed outside the courtroom and escorted her inside. The room was still nearly empty. A couple of marshals chatting, a young assistant district attorney laying out jury forms along the lawyers' row.
Andie looked anxious suddenly."Now that I'm here, I don't know if I can do this."
"We'll stay over here," I said, placing her in the back row of the gallery."When he comes in, we'll be together. Maybe we'll wave."
"Yeah, or give him the finger."
I squeezed her hand."Nothing bad is going to happen. The evidence is even more solid than before. He's gonna arrive soon, and we're going to choose twelve people. Then we're going to put him away until the day he dies."
MONICA ANN ROMANO SUSPECTED what was in the small bundle she was carrying, and it made her want to throw up.
She had taken it from the man she once trusted. Now she walked nervously across the square, showing her federal ID and passing by the guarded police barricades to the courthouse. It was the most nerve-racking thing she had ever done in her life. By a lot.
Finally, she stood in the courthouse employee line. Every bag was being opened. Even the lawyers' and their staffs'. Monica knew who was in the courthouse that day: Dominic Cavello.
"Big doings today, hon," chirped Mike, a lobby guard with a large handlebar mustache, who pulled her through the maze of people and over to the authorized personnel line.
"Uh-huh." Monica nodded nervously. She smiled hello to a couple of familiar faces.
The guy in front of her, a lawyer with a beard and long hair, opened his case. Monica was next. Pablo, who always teased her about the Mets, caught her eye and smiled. Her heart was beating savagely. She felt the weight of the bundle pressing down on her. What if they looked inside?
The lawyer in front of her closed his case, passing through. Now it was just her and Pablo. Could he hear her heart pounding? Holding her breath, Monica stepped into the gate.
"How's the weekend, hon?" The guard took a perfunctory peek inside her handbag."You catch those Mets?"
"Sure I did." Monica nodded, closing her eyes, expecting a loud beep to go off.Her life to be over.
It didn't. Nothing happened. She stepped through. Just like every other day. A tremor of relief went through her. Thank God.
"See you at lunch," Pablo said. She started to hurry away. Then she heard him call,"Hey, Monica."
Monica Ann Romano froze, and she turned around slowly.
The guard flashed her a wink."I like your hat."
THE LAWYERS WERE IN the courtroom. Cavello, too. Judge Barnett gazed out at the nervous group of prospective jurors who had cautiously filed in."I doubt there's a person in this room who doesn't know why we're here," he said.
Each juror had been given a number. They all took a seat. Every eye seemed to be glancing at the gaunt, gray-haired man who sat with his legs crossed in front of them. Then they looked away, as if afraid to let their eyes linger too long.That's Cavello, their faces said.
I turned back to Andie, who only moments before had watched as the bastard was led in. Cavello's handcuffs were removed. He took a look around the courtroom. Cavello seemed to find Andie immediately, as if he knew she would be there. He paused and gave her a slight, respectful nod.
But her gaze didn't waver. It seemed to be telling him,You can't hurt me anymore. She wasn't going to give him the thrill of seeing her look scared. She clenched her palms against the railing. Finally she looked away. When she lifted her eyes again, they landed on mine. She gave me a thin smile.I'm okay; I'm good. He's going down.
"I also doubt there's a person among you who truly wants to be here," Judge Barnett went on."Some of you may feel you don't belong here. Some might even be afraid. But, be assured, if called, it is your legal and moral duty to serve on the trial. And twelve of you are going to serve-with six more as alternates. What ismy duty is to remove whatever fear and discomfort many of you may be feeling, given the defendant's last trial.
"Therefore, your names and addresses, anything about your family or what you do, will not be released-not even to the members of this court. Those selected will spend the next six to eight weeks confined to the Fort Dix army base in New Jersey, where this trial will take place.
"I know no one is eager to give up their lives and remain separated from family and loved ones for that amount of time. But the defendant must be tried-that is all our duties. A jury will be decided upon-and hewill be tried. Anyone who refuses to do his or her duty will be held in contempt of court."
The judge nodded to the clerk."Now, is there anyone in this room who, due to some commitment or handicap, feels he or she cannot faithfully execute this duty?"
Virtually every hand in the room shot into the air at once.
A ripple of muffled laughter snaked around the courtroom. Even Cavello looked at the show of hands and smiled.
One by one, jurors were called up to the bench. Single mothers. Small-business owners. People pleading that they had paid for vacations or were holding doctors' notes. A couple of lawyers argued they should be excused.
But Judge Barnett didn't buckle. He excused a handful, and they left the courtroom, discreetly pumping a fist or grinning widely. Others glumly went back to their seats.
Finally, about a hundred and fifty people remained, most looking not very pleased.
Cavello never even glanced at them. He kept drumming his fingers against the table, staring straight ahead. I kept thinking of the words he had uttered to me as they pulled me away from his jail cell the day of the juror bus blast.
Me, I'm gonna sleep like a baby tonight… First day in a month I don't have to worry about a trial.
"Mr. Goldenberger, Mr. Kaskel," the judge addressed the attorneys,"I'm sure you have some questions you'd like to put to these good people."
RICHARD NORDESHENKO HAD FILED unnoticed into the courthouse. It hadn't been difficult to obtain a standard juror's notice from Reichardt, then doctor the date and name to fit his need. He got in line with the other dour-looking jurors. Then, like every job he had ever done, he walked in through the front door.
For a while, Nordeshenko sat eyeing a magazine in the crowded jury room, listening to people's numbers being called. Many of them were nervously muttering what-ifs about getting selected for the Cavello trial. Everyone he listened to seemed to feel they had a foolproof excuse.
Nordeshenko quietly chuckled to himself.None of them would need an excuse.
At 10:15 a.m. he checked his watch. Nezzi would be driving the stolen catering van into the underground garage. Nezzi was the best in the world at this. Still, you never knew what could happen on a job, especially one as complex as this.
Last night, Nordeshenko had written a long letter to his wife and son. He had left it in his hotel room, in the event he did not make it back.
In the letter he admitted he was not exactly the good man they may have always thought he was, and that the things they may be hearing about him were probably true. He wrote that it saddened him that he had had to hide so much from them over the years. But in each life, he added, one is never all bad or all good. What was good about his life was the two of them. He wrote that he loved them both very much, and trying to close with a joke, he told his son that he too had grown to prefer poker over chess.
He signed the letter,from your loving husband and father, Kolya Remlikov.
Nordeshenko's real name.
A name neither of them knew.
At precisely 11:40 a.m., Nordeshenko put down his magazine and made his way outside and up to the third floor. It was mostly court and administrative offices. He found the men's bathroom along the elevator bank and ducked inside. A heavyset black man with a large mole on his cheek was finishing up washing his hands. Nordeshenko ran the water, waiting for him to leave.
When the black man departed, Nordeshenko removed the top to the trash receptacle, dug his hand through the balled-up paper towels, and removed the carefully wrapped bundle that he knew was there. Just as Reichardt had said it would be.
Nordeshenko went into a stall and unwrapped the bundle: a Heckler and Koch 9mm pistol, his gun of choice. He checked the magazine and, seeing that it was fully loaded, tightly screwed on the suppressor.
He knew the judge was a stickler for regimen. He always let out his court a few minutes before 12:30 p.m. for lunch. The story went that no lawyer arguing before Barnett wanted to be in the middle of a key point around that time.
Only a few minutes more.
From his pocket, Nordeshenko took out a tiny cell phone. He had checked one at security, just like everyone else, but kept the second hidden away. No messages. That meant Nezzi was gone and everything was set now.
He checked the code that would get things started. All that was left to do was to hit Send.
Nordeshenko left the stall and took a last look at himself in the mirror. His heartbeat started to quicken.Remi, be calm. You know how people will react. You know human nature better than anyone. The element of surprise is with you. Just like it has a dozen times before, everything will go your way.
With his newly dyed hair, the fake beard, and glasses, the thought passed through him that in the next few minutes he might die as he always feared:unrecognized. With someone else's name. The prints would have to be matched, and even then, the trail was blank. Just a sergeant in the Russian army, a deserter. It might be weeks, months, before anyone even knew he was dead.
Of course, and Nordeshenko smiled to himself at this, he might live, too. He cocked the Heckler and stuffed it inside his pocket.
It was like pushing all your money into the center of the table. In this case, a 2.5-million-dollar fee.
You never knew for sure until you turned over the last card.
DOMINIC CAVELLO WAS eyeing the courtroom clock too, trying to block out the idle chatter, which he knew, in just moments, would have very little to do with the rest of his life. That was when Judge Barnett would lean into the microphone, no matter who was speaking, and ask if this was a good time to take a break.
And then, as if on cue, at 12:24 p.m. the judge cut in on the prosecutor's questioning."Mr. Goldenberger…"
Cavello felt his pulse start to race.Sayonara, he snickered.Playtime's over. Little Dom here is ready to go home.
The judge instructed the prospective jurors to reconvene at exactly two o'clock. Slowly, the jury pool began to file out."Marshals, you may take possession of the defendant now."
Cavello stood up. He didn't give a shit about what was going to happen next. In fact, he'd make their job easy."Okay, fellas." The same two who had brought him in this morning were taking him back to jail. The broad-shouldered guy with the thick mustache held out the cuffs."Sorry, Dom."
Cavello put out his wrists."Not a problem, Eddie-boy. I'm all yours."
He knew their names. He knew a half dozen little things about them. The black guy had been a tank commander in Desert Storm. The one with the bushy mustache had a son who was being recruited by Wisconsin to play football. He snapped the shackles tightly over Cavello's wrists.
"Jeez, guys, can't you give an honest citizen a break? Hey, Hy," he called out to his attorney,"you guys have a nice big steak on me. See you back here at two."
The marshals led him out the side entrance to the elevator in the hall, on the way back to his prison cell, a couple of blocks away. He'd made the trip so many times, he could probably do it in his sleep if he had to.
"You know what the worst thing is about spending the rest of your life in jail?" He winked to the marshal with the mustache as they headed out into the hall."The food! Especially at that pigsty, Marion. You know the only thing that keeps you going out there?" He nudged him with an elbow."The death sentence, that's what. The lethal injection." Cavello laughed."That's the only thing that gives you any hope!"
A third guard, with a radio in one hand, was holding the doors open when they got to the elevator. He barked into the radio,"They're on their way." Eddie and the black guy escorted him inside.
The black marshal pushedU, forunderground. He knew that if the basement was selected, the elevator wouldn't stop at any other floor, unless it was overridden from inside. The doors closed.
Cavello turned to the black marshal, who never talked very much."You like pizza, Bo? Black people eat pizza, don't they?"
"Yeah, I like pizza, Dom," the black guard growled.
"Sure, all cops like pizza." Cavello sighed."Hey, you know what we should do? Screw this jail thing. How 'bout we ditch this baby at the lobby and take a spin out to the old neighborhood in Brooklyn for an hour or two? I'll show you what a real Italian meal is. C'mon, I'll have us all back by two. They won't even know we were gone."
He nudged Eddie as the elevator descended, watching the floor lights start to go down.
"That would be a pisser, wouldn't it, Eddie-boy? The whole free world is out looking for us-and we're just sitting at Pritzie's having a veal and peppers and a beer. So whaddya say?"
The burly marshal grinned."Sounds like a plan, Dom."
"That's what it sounds like to me, too," Cavello said, following the lights of the floor panel as the elevator descended."A plan."
ANDIE WAS WAITING for me out in the hallway. She said that she'd seen enough. She didn't have to be there anymore. I rode down the elevator with her and a couple of prospective jurors to the lobby. There was a little awkwardness between us there. I told her how brave I thought she was to come. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Thank you, Nick. It was a good idea."
On my way upstairs, I stuck my head inside the security room for a check on Cavello. He was headed down to the basement now. I watched over the shoulder of one of the agents as Cavello moved in front of the elevator, chatting with his guards. Everything was under control. The security captain was in close contact with all points along the exit route."The subject's in motion," he reported in.
Suddenly, the ground beneath us rocked. It was like an earthquake! Coffee cups, pens, clipboards clattered to the floor.
"Jesus, something's happened," one of the agents monitoring the screens shouted and pointed."In the garage! There's been an explosion down there! Holy shit!"
We crowded close to the monitor and watched what happened next in shock. Billowing gray smoke began to block the screen. Then everything went completely black.
A radio report crackled in from one of the units stationed underground."There's been an explosion down here. The garage is on fire. There may be casualties. I can't make much out. Too much smoke, smoke everywhere."
The captain seized a microphone."This is Meachem. We have a situation in the garage! Some kind of explosive device has been detonated. I want SWAT, backup, and medical units down there pronto. And I want to know what the hell's going on."
I didn't have to look at the screen. Iknew what was going on.
The screens kept flashing back and forth to different monitors in the garage, trying to locate a clear view of what was taking place. I grabbed Meachem by the shoulder."Captain, this isn't about the garage. It's about Cavello! Get all agents on alert. He's on his way down there now!"
I rushed back to the other end of the console and checked the elevator scene.
Jesus, no!
My eyes bulged in horror. I couldn't believe what I was seeing-only I knew it was happening again.
I ran to the door.
CAVELLO WAS STILL in the elevator, kibitzing with the guards, joking for all he was worth. His eyes angled toward the control panel. The descending lights flashed:7, 6, 5.
Now!
In that instant he lunged toward the panel, pressing his thumb solidly onto the heat-sensitive square for the third floor.
"What the hell?" The elevator jerked to an unexpected stop. The door started to open. The black marshal reached out to rein in Cavello, powerfully pressing him up against the wall. Then someone stepped inside.
The marshal's jaw fell open."What the-"
The first shot caught him between the eyes and hurled him against the paneled wall. He sank to the floor, leaving a dark-red smear.
The next two shots caught Eddie-boy in the chest. Two plum-colored circles appeared on his white shirt. The guard released Cavello with a deep groan as he crumpled to the floor. He looked up at the shooter."I've got kids."
"Sorry, Eddie-boy," Cavello said. Two more silenced thuds ripped into his chest, and the guard went still.
"Hurry," the Israeli snapped, pressing the button for the lobby, then tossing Cavello a pouch."We don't have any time."
Inside the pouch, Cavello found a dark woman's wig and a raincoat. The Israeli plopped the wig on Cavello's head and draped the coat loosely over his shoulders, doing his best to conceal the fugitive's cuffed hands. He knew they only had seconds, no more, while attention was diverted by the explosion in the garage.
Cavello pressed down the wig."Is everyone in place?"
"We had better hope so," Nordeshenko said, positioning himself behind Cavello in order to conceal his gun."You're ready? This is no sure thing."
"Whatever happens," Cavello said,"it beats life in prison."
"Perhaps," said the Israeli.
The elevator doors opened again at the lobby. A couple of people were waiting to board.
"It's broken. Take another," Nordeshenko growled, pushing Cavello past them. Then he and the disguised mobster rushed down the long corridor toward a side entrance onto Worth Street.
Behind them, people had seen the bodies in the elevator. They were screaming. Nordeshenko never looked back."Hurry!Or we both die here. I'm allergic to prisons."
It was about forty yards down the corridor to the security station, but it seemed like more as they wove through bystanders, ignoring the shouts behind them. Nordeshenko spotted Reichardt and two of Cavello's men posing as press at the entrance. He turned up the collar of Cavello's raincoat and hurried toward them.
Fifteen yards more. That was all.
As they approached, a radio crackled."Something's happened!" one of the guards shouted."Close it down, now!"
Reichardt removed a dark metallic object from under his jacket. Then everything went completely nuts. Shots rang out, automatic gunfire in the courthouse lobby. Two guards went down before they had a chance to get to their guns. The last one, a blond woman, fumbled frantically with her holster as Reichardt slammed her against the marble wall with a burst of automatic fire. She hit the floor dead.
Nordeshenko and Cavello were running as they reached the security station.
They heard a shout."FBI! Everybody get down!"
Nordeshenko took a look and saw a figure at the end of the corridor, arms extended in shooting position, trying to get a shot off through the crowd.Shit. He pressed Cavello in front of him. A round whizzed past his face, ripping into the chest of one of Cavello's hoods. Reichardt returned the fire. The noise of the gunfire was deafening. People were screaming and scrambling for their lives.
Nordeshenko shielded Cavello with his own body. It was the job. He pushed through the doors.Outside!
It was chaos all around them. Cops were running toward the entrance to the underground garage down the block. The detonated bomb had worked well. A cloud of dark smoke rose into the sky.
A young cop came up to them, not sure what was going on."We're hurt," Nordeshenko said to him."Look." As the cop leaned closer, Nordeshenko stuck the muzzle of the Heckler into his chest and pulled the trigger. With a groan, the policeman sank to the sidewalk.
A black Bronco screeched to the curb in front of them. The back door was flung open, and Nordeshenko, Cavello, and Reichardt dove inside.
Nezzi was at the wheel. Without coming to a complete stop, the Bronco sped away.
A commercial truck pulled out directly behind them, then suddenly stopped in the street, blocking any pursuit.
At the corner the light was green. They shot onto St. James and drove up two blocks, through Chatham Square, then made a right on Catherine, in Chinatown. They made another quick right on Henry, then Nezzi pulled the Bronco into a vacant lot.
Nordeshenko leaped out, still shielding Cavello's body, and ripped open the sliding door of a blue minivan. He pushed the gangster in. Then he jumped behind the wheel. Reichardt and Nezzi got into a tan Acura parked across the street. The Israeli saluted them.
For the first time, Nordeshenko felt a cautious sense of optimism. No one was following them. No one was shooting either.
The two vehicles pulled away.
A block away, three police cars sped by, lights flashing. They were going in the opposite direction. Nordeshenko let himself smile. One day they would hold a clinic on this escape.
"Are we free?" a voice from behind asked. Then Dominic Cavello lifted up his head.
"For the moment," Nordeshenko said."Now all we have to worry about is gettingoff this island."
I RAN OUT to the street and stood there-staring helplessly as the black Bronco sped away. There was no way I could stop it. I watched it turn at the corner, melding into traffic, then disappear from sight.
Every muscle in my body seemed to shrink and collapse; I'd never felt more useless in my entire life. Two police cars started after them, having to navigate around some delivery truck blocking the street. But it was too late.
I ran back to the courthouse and flashed my ID at a startled cop, grabbing his radio."This is Special Agent Nicholas Pellisante of the FBI. Dominic Cavello has escaped from the federal courthouse in Foley Square. He is traveling east on Worth in a black Bronco, unidentifiable plates, headed toward Chinatown. Suspects have fired shots. There are multiple casualties."
A dead patrolman lay crumpled on the pavement. He looked no older than twenty-five. Stunned pedestrians were rushing out of the courthouse. Most had their hands to their faces. Trying to cover up the shock?
I rushed back through the doors and into the courthouse. EMS techs were already administering to one of the fallen guards. Meachem was there, the captain. He was ashen-faced. Some useless police chatter began to trickle in. I felt the urge to slam the radio up against the wall and watch it shatter.
I didn't know where to go, except back inside the security office. Special Agent Michael Doud was in there. He was in charge of the FBI's on-site security team, and he was already playing back video from the bloody scene in the elevator.
"I saw the getaway car," I told him."Black Bronco. I couldn't see the plates. There are two security marshals down out front."
Doud took a deep breath."I've got the mayor's office on the line. And the chief of police. There's an emergency order to block all tunnels and bridges out of Manhattan. Everything's on the highest crisis alert. They shouldn't be able to get off the island."
"Don't bet on it," I said, and gritted my teeth.
I sat down and slammed my fist against a nearby table in frustration. All of a sudden I felt a tremendous draining of strength. What the hell? I placed my hand against my ribs. The feeling was slick and warm.
Jesus, Nick.
I was bleeding like a stuck pig.
DOUD'S EYES MET MINE. We both looked down at my blood dripping onto the floor.
"Sonovabitch," I said. Then I opened my jacket. There was a wide circle of blood seeping through my shirt.
"Get EMS in here, now!" Doud shouted to one of the security men.
"Good idea." I nodded, sagging back against the wall.
A shout came over the radio."I think we've got a fix on them." It was the open line to the mayor's crisis center. A black Bronco had been spotted turning off Tenth Avenue, feeding into the entrance for the Lincoln Tunnel, heading to New Jersey.
"We've got the entrance covered," the voice from the crisis center declared."Port Authority's got SWAT in place there."
Through the phone lines, we were able to patch in a video feed from the crisis center. Above us, one of the monitors began showing a wide sweep from a camera overlooking the tunnel. The black Bronco was about tenth in line."There it is!" All of a sudden the camera zoomed in tighter. The traffic was funneling into two lanes.
I held my side, but I wasn't going anywhere right now. I could make out the black Bronco. The same one? It sure looked like it.
"Suspect vehicle has Jersey plates. EVX-three-six-nine," a voice announced over the radio.
For a second I was caught up like everyone else, just hoping we had managed to land on the right vehicle. Then a thought flashed through my mind. I grabbed a microphone off the table.
"This is Special Agent Pellisante. These people likely have automatic weapons andexplosives. The car could be booby-trapped. Cavello might not even be in there anymore. The SWAT teams should do their best to isolate the vehicle."
My wound was history now. I moved closer to the screen and watched the Port Authority team start circling in, surrounding the vehicle from a distance, letting others pass. It was a tricky assault. There were lots of innocent people around. Hundreds of them.
Black, helmeted figures began to creep into the wide-angled camera view. The Bronco was four rows from feeding into the tunnel entrance. I could see the police teams narrowing in, arms drawn. The Bronco's windows were tinted black. If someone in there was looking out, they had to see the assault force coming.
The Bronco inched up to the first row. A police car suddenly sped up, blocking the entrance to the tunnel.
SWAT personnel were all over the place, crouched low, closing in.
I could see exactly what was happening. The Bronco was surrounded by at least twenty heavily armed policemen.
The Bronco's front doors swung open. I stepped closer to the screen."Be him," I said, balling my fists."Be him."
People were coming out of the Bronco, hands in the air. A male dressed all in black. Then a woman, wearing a floppy hat. A small boy. The boy was crying; he grabbed the woman.
"Son of a bitch!" I heard someone say over the radio. The picture didn't need any words or captions, though.
It was the wrong car. We'd lost Dominic Cavello.
I STAYED IN THE COURTHOUSE security room until the EMS people wouldn't let me be there any longer. A couple of young med techs did their best to treat me, but I wasn't going anywhere until I saw the videotape. The tape of the man in the elevator-the one who had sprung Cavello.
I watched it at least a dozen times.
He was medium height, not especially well built. I couldn't really tell if he was young or old. I looked for any distinguishing marks. He had a beard, which I figured for a fake. Short dark hair, glasses. But this guy knew precisely what he was doing. He never hesitated, not for a second. He was a pro, not just some hired gun. He caught us off guard, even with New York 's finest and two dozen FBI agents all around the courthouse.
"Can you zoom in on the face for me?" I asked the security tech manning the video machine.
"Right." A touch of a button, and the camera panned in.
I stood up, moving myself closer to the screen. The film got grainy. It narrowed in to a close-up of the steely, professional eyes as the killer himself stepped on the elevator. Steady and businesslike, efficient. I burned those eyes into my mind. The security tech slowly advanced the film, frame by frame. Suddenly there were gunshots. The two marshals went down.
"Get this over the wires to the NYPD and the crisis control room," Mike Doud directed the techie."I want this picture out to every bridge and tunnel and every cop on the street."
"It's a waste of time," I said, sagging back against the table."He doesn't look like that anymore."
Doud snapped at me, obviously frustrated."You got a better idea?"
"I might. Compare it to the film from Cavello'sfirst trial. Go day by day if you have to. Eliminate the beard and the glasses. I'll bet he was there."
The medical people were literally dragging me away now. They had a van waiting. I looked up at the face on the screen one last time. I wanted to make sure I recognized it when I saw him again.
I was sure I was looking at the man who blew up the juror bus and murdered all those people.
WHEN THE CALL CAME IN I was in the back of an EMS van, rushing me to Bellevue Hospital.
I was stripped to my waist and had an IV in my arm and EKG sensors attached to my chest. The sirens were blaring as we zigzagged through traffic up the lower East Side. I asked for the cell phone in my jacket.
"I just heard," Andie said. Her voice was cracking with disbelief and sadness."Oh, God, Nick, I just saw it at a coffee shop. It's all over the news."
"I'm sorry, Andie." But I was more than sorry. How many times could I say those words to her?
"Goddamnit, Nick, every cop in New York was down there."
"I know." I sucked in a breath. One of the EMS people tried to take away the phone, but I brushed him aside. The flesh wound in my side wasn't hurting so much now. Nothing cut deeper than the anger and disappointment building inside me.
"The bastard killed my son, and now he's free."
"He's not free," I said."We'll get him. I know how that sounds, but we'll get him." The hospital was only blocks away."I'llget him."
For a second Andie didn't answer. I didn't know if she believed me, and in that moment, I didn't care.Because I meant it.
I'll get him.
I felt as if I might be passing out as I disconnected from Andie with a mumbled"Bye." The van was stopping at the emergency entrance.
I never even told her that I'd been shot.
RICHARD NORDESHENKO SHIFTED the silver Voyager into the entrance lanes for the George Washington Bridge. The tie-up was massive, and Nordeshenko wasn't surprised. He scanned the radio news channels-they were already all over the story.
Flashing police lights were everywhere. Every single vehicle was being checked, trunks opened. Trucks and vans were being pulled aside, their cargoes searched. Nordeshenko looked up into the sky. Above him, he heard thewhip-whip-whip from a police helicopter circling above. This wasn't good.
They had already changed cars twice. He had removed the beard and eyeglasses he'd worn in the courthouse. There was nothing to worry over, right? Just be calm. Cavello was safely hidden in a hollowed-out compartment under the rear seat. Even if the Bronco had been located by now, what did it matter? Everything was in order. No one could connect him to the vehicle he was driving now.Unless they found Cavello.
The tall steel towers of the bridge loomed about a quarter mile ahead. Police on foot were making their way back toward their car. It was a typical code-red response. SWAT teams and bomb-sniffing dogs. Well-trained perhaps, but with no practical experience.
"What's the delay?" the gruff voice said from the back."How does it look up there? Is everything okay?"
"Relax, you should be honored. This is all for you."
"It's cramped in here. And hot. It's been over an hour already."
"Not as cramped as the isolation unit of a federal prison, yes? Now be quiet, please. There is one last checkpoint to pass through."
Two policemen wearing armored vests and carrying automatic rifles were coming up to the Voyager. One of them tapped on the window with the barrel of his gun."License and registration, please. And open the back."
Nordeshenko handed the officer his documents, which showed he was a resident of 11 Barrow Street in Bayonne -and that the van was registered to the Lucky George Maintenance Service in Jersey City.
"Any word?" Nordeshenko asked him."I heard what happened. It's all over the news."
The officer checking his documents didn't answer. The other flung open the hatch to the back and peered in. All that was visible back there was an industrial-sized vacuum cleaner, a rug-cleaning machine, and some cleaning agents in a plastic tray. Still, Nordeshenko held his breath as the policeman poked around.
Nordeshenko had a pistol strapped to his ankle. On a dry run the day before, he had decided what he would do. Take out the officers. Run back against traffic to the other lane, where cars were still moving. Pull a driver out of any vehicle and get out of there. Cavello was on his own.
"What's that?" one of the policemen barked. He pushed aside the machinery and pried open a compartment.
Nordeshenko nearly reached for his ankle, but didn't. Not yet. His heart stood still.Take out both of them. And run.
"There's supposed to be a spare in here," the officer said,"by law. What if this old piece of junk breaks down?" He re-covered the compartment.
"You're right, Officer." Nordeshenko slowly relaxed."I will tell it to my boss. I'll tell him we owe you a free rug cleaning."
The policeman handed Nordeshenko back his license as the cop in back slammed shut the doors."You don't owe me shit," he said."Get a spare tire in here, pronto."
"Consider it done. I hope you catch him," Nordeshenko said. He raised the window and started to drive away. Minutes later, as he cleared the security area, traffic picked up pace. They crossed over the bridge. As soon as he saw the sign separating New York from New Jersey, his heart started to slow down.
"Congratulations. We're golden," he called back."By this time tomorrow you'll be out of the country."
"Good." Cavello lifted himself out of the compartment."In the meantime, there's been a change of plans. There's something I have to take care of first. A debt I have to pay."
THEY DROVE WEST to Paterson, New Jersey, on Cavello's instructions-a tree-lined neighborhood of middle-class homes. Nordeshenko pulled up in front of a modest, pleasant, gray-and-white Victorian. It was April, but a Nativity scene was still there from Christmas, center stage in the small front yard.
"Wait in the car," Cavello said, tucking the handgun he had taken from Nordeshenko into his belt.
"This isn't what you're paying me for," the Israeli said."This is the kind of thing that can get us killed."
"In that case," said Cavello, opening the door and turning up his collar,"think of it as on the house."
He went around the side and pushed open a metal chain-link fence leading to the backyard. He was excited now.
He kept his promises. That's what made him who he was. People knew, when the Electrician promised to do something, it always got done. Especially this promise.
He walked up close to the house until he came to a porch in back, screened in by wire mesh. Then he stopped. He heard the sound of a TV inside. A children's channel. He listened to the singsong voices and some happy clapping. He saw the back of a woman's head. She was sitting in a chair.
Cavello climbed the porch steps and opened the screen door. He had to laugh. Nobody needed alarms in this neighborhood, right? It was protected. It was protected byhim! You pull something in this neck of the woods, you might as well keep on running for the rest of your life.
"Rosie, how do you like your tea?" a woman's voice called from inside.
"A little lemon," the woman in the chair said back."There should be some in the fridge." Then,"Hey, look at the little lamby, little Stephie. What does a little lamby say?Baaah… Baaah. "
Cavello stepped in from the porch. When the woman in the chair saw who it was, her face turned chalk white."Dom!"
She was bouncing a baby girl, no more than a year old, on her lap.
"Hi, Rosie," Dominic Cavello said, and smiled.
Panic crept over the woman's face. She was in her early fifties, in a floral shift, with her hair up in a bun, a St. Christopher medal around her neck. She wrapped her arms around the child."They said you'd escaped. What are you doing here, Dom?"
"I promised Ralphie something, Rosie. I always keep my promises. You know that."
There was a noise from behind them, and a woman walked in carrying a tray with tea on it. Cavello reached out his hand and shot her with the silenced gun, the wound opening where her right eye had been.
The woman fell over, and the tray hit the floor with a loud crash and clatter.
"Mary, Mother of God." Ralph Denunziatta's sister gasped. She hugged the child close to her breast.
"That's one cute kid there, Rosie. I think I see a little of Ralphie, with those fat little cheeks."
"It's my granddaughter, Dom." Rosie Scalpia's eyes were flushed with panic. She glanced at her friend lying on the carpet, a red ooze trickling out of her eye."She's only one year old. Do what you came here to do, just don't hurt her, Dom. She's Simone's daughter, not Ralphie's. Please, do what you have to do. Just leave my granddaughter alone."
"Why would I want to hurt your littlenipotina, Rosie?" Cavello stepped closer."It's just that I owe your little prick-faced brother a favor. And there's nothing we can do about that."
"Dom, please." The woman looked terrified."Please!"
"The problem is, Rosie, even though I wish your little granddaughter here a long and healthy life, after I square things a little." He leveled the gun in the woman's face."Truth is, hon, you just never know."
He pulled the trigger, and the top of Rosie's forehead blew out, sending a spatter of tapioca-like bone and brain over the drapes.
Ralph Denunziatta's little grandniece started to cry.
Cavello knelt down and stuck his finger into the baby's belly."Don't cry. You're a cute one, aren't you, honey?" He heard the teakettle whistling on the stove."Water's ready, huh?C'mere. " He lifted the child up out of her dead grandmother's arms. She stopped crying."Thatta girl." He stroked her back."Come, let's take a little stroll with your Uncle Dom."
THEY RELEASED ME from the hospital at my own request later that day, with a large bandage over my ribs, a vial of Vicodin, and the doctor's order to go right home and rest.
Truth is, I was lucky as hell. The bullet had barely grazed me. But I still had one hell of a rug burn on my side.
Two agents from Internal Affairs debriefed me after I was treated. They drilled me over and over about the events at the courthouse, from the moment I had seen what was taking place on the security screens to my run out to the lobby. I had discharged my gun. One of Cavello's men was dead. And what was making it particularly ugly was that I wasn't on active duty.
But what was hurting me a lot more than my side was that it had been more than five hours now and there was no sign of Cavello or the black Bronco. We had the escape routes blocked as well as we could. We had Cavello's known contacts blanketed. But somehow, even with the tightest security ever for a trial, the sonovabitch had gotten away.
Against my protests, a nurse had wheeled me down to the lobby at Bellevue, and I stiffly climbed into a waiting cab.
"West Forty-ninth and Ninth," I said, exhaling, resting my head against the seat and shutting my eyes. Over and over I saw the black Bronco speeding away, disappearing into traffic. And me, unable to do a thing. How the hell had they pulled this off? Who was the gunman in the elevator? How, under all that security, had they been able to get a gun inside?
I slammed the heel of my hand into the driver's barrier so hard I thought I broke my wrist.
The driver turned-a Sikh in a turban."Please, sir, this is not my cab."
"Sorry…"
But I wasn't completely sorry. I felt packed in a pressure cooker. My blood surged with this restless, clawing energy, about to explode. We had turned on Forty-fifth, heading crosstown. I realized what was really scaring me. Going back to my apartment, shutting the door, facing the empty rooms-the useless stacks of evidence, just worthless paper now.Alone.
I was about to blow. I honestly felt like I could.
We turned onto Ninth. From the corner I could already see my brownstone. This nervous, tightening rush swelled in my chest.
I rapped on the glass."I changed my mind," I said."Keep driving."
"Okay." The driver shrugged."Where to now?"
"West One eighty-third, the Bronx."
I RANG THE BUZZER repeatedly-three, four times, and I knocked on the door.
Finally I heard a woman's voice."Just a minute. Coming… just a second."
Andie opened the door. She was wearing a robe with a pink ribbed cotton tank underneath, her hair still loose and damp, presumably from the shower. She stared at me, surprised.
My left arm hung limply at my side. My clothes were rumpled. I probably had a wild, crazed look in my eyes.
"Jesus, Nick, are you okay?"
I never answered because I really couldn't at that moment. Instead, I backed Andie inside and pressed her against the wall. Then I kissed her as hard as I could. Whatever came of it, well-
Suddenly, she was kissing me back just as feverishly. I tugged the robe off her shoulders, ran a hand underneath the ribbed tank, hearing her soft moans. She had a sweet, citrusy, just-out-of-the-shower scent that I inhaled deeply.
"Jesus, Pellisante." She sucked in a breath. Her eyes were as wide and flaming as torches."You don't even give a girl time to breathe. I kind of like that."
She started to pull my shirt out of my trousers. Then she went to unbuckle my belt.
That's when I winced-in pain. It felt like sandpaper raking across my side.
"Jesus, Nick, what's wrong?"
I swung away from her, propping myself against the wall."Something ran into me today… at the courtroom."
Andie gently raised my shirt and came upon the large bandage. Her eyes went wide."Whathappened to you?"
"A bullet happened." I sniffed, letting out a frustrated groan.
"A bullet!" Andie didn't seem to find that amusing."Nick,you were shot? "
"I was. I guess I still am."
She helped me over to the couch, where I slowly eased myself down-crumpled, actually. She gently unbuttoned the rest of my shirt."Oh, God, Nick."
"Truth is, it just grazed me. It actually looks worse than it feels."
"Oh, right, I can see that," she said, nodding. She propped up my feet on the coffee table."You were on the way to the hospital. That's where you were when I called.Nick, what are you doing here? What'd the doctor say?"
"He said go straight home and take it easy." I curled a contrite smile.
"So what were you thinking that brought youhere? "
"I guess I was thinking you might find it sexy. Or take pity on me?"
Andie's incredulous stare burned a hole through me. I guess she didn't find that funny either. She unbuttoned my shirt all the way and ran her hands across the edge of the bandage and shrugged."I don't know… maybe it is alittle sexy."
"See!"
"You're crazy." She took off my shoes and placed a pillow behind my head."Can I get you anything?"
"No. I'm loaded with painkillers." I pulled her into me."You.I need you."
"Oh, now I see. You catch a little drug buzz, you knock on the one door where you figure you can get something?"
I shrugged."So? Was I right?"
She leaned forward and placed a kiss softly on my face; another kiss brushed my lips."Maybe. A bottle of wine would've worked, though. You didn't have to go and get yourself shot."
"Damn." I groaned, disappointed."Why didn't I think of that before?"
I pressed my thumb softly into the nape of her neck."I couldn't go home, Andie. I didn't want to be there right now."
She nodded, brushing the hair out of her eyes."Just stay here. We don't have to do anything." She rested her head against my shoulder.
I closed my eyes, shutting out the horror of what had happened today, and my anger at watching Cavello escape. My sidewas aching like hell. And honestly, I didn't knowwhat I'd been thinking, coming here now."Thank God," she whispered against me,"thank God you're okay."
"One thing about these Mafia douche bags-they're mean as shit, but generally, they're poor shots."
"Please don't joke with me, Nick. This is very unnerving. Somebody tried to kill you."
I shut up, and I felt a tear, her tear, land on my chest.
"Cavello's gone," I said."I can't believe it, but we don't know where he is."
"I know," she whispered.
For a while we just sat there. I was starting to get woozy. Maybe from the Vicodin. Maybe from the stress of the day."I won't let you down, Andie. You know that, don't you? We'll find a way to get him. I promise, whatever it takes."
"I know," she said again.
This time I felt she did believe me.
THE NEXT MORNING, I found myself on Andie's couch when I woke, a quilt pulled around me, pillows under my head. I had to leave.
Andie was asleep in the bedroom. I peeked in. I was about to leave a note, but I sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked her hair. She opened her eyes.
"I've got to go."
"Where?" she said, reaching for my hand from under the covers.
"I made you a promise last night. Gotta go deliver."
Andie nodded, eyes glistening."C'mere."
She had a sexy, early morning voice that was proving tempting, and my side suddenly felt 100 percent better. For a second I thought about taking off my clothes and climbing into bed with her.
"I owe you one," I said, and squeezed her back.
"One, two,three… whatever you want. How's your side?"
"Better. All I needed was a little TLC." I raised my arm. But not too far.
"What are you going to do, Nick?" She looked at me, a little more seriously.
I knew what I was going to do first. It was no longer possible to stay on the sidelines."Cut my class." I smiled. I squeezed her shoulder, got up, and went to the door.
"Pellisante," she called.
"Yeah?"
"Do me a big favor. Try not to get yourself shot. Or even shot at."
"I'll talk to you later." I smiled.
I went back to my place to shower and change. Sabbatical was over now. I was heading down to the Javits Building. On the cab ride I checked in with my buddies at the Bureau.
No sign of Cavello. That didn't shock me. I knew, with the kind of planning they'd had, they'd have a perfect out.
We had located the getaway vehicle, though. The black Bronco was found in a vacant lot on Henry Street, not four blocks from the courthouse. Turned out it had been heisted two days before from a shopping mall on Staten Island. And the Jersey plates were pilfered too. We had the entire Eastern Seaboard virtually closed down. Every airport and bridge. Every port from Boston to Baltimore.
But Cavello could be just about anywhere now.
"There's something else, Nick." Ray Hughes exhaled."Ralph Denunziatta's sister was found late yesterday. She was shot in her home-right between the eyes. A neighbor who was apparently visiting with her was shot dead, too."
"Christ!"
"Nine millimeter, same caliber that was used at the courthouse. We're checking the ballistics now. But listen, it gets worse."
"Worse? How can it get worse?"
"There was a kid there. The police found Denunziatta's one-year-old grandniece in the kitchen."
"Oh, come on, Ray."
"She's alive. But listen to this. She's got severe burns over her face and hands. Hot-water burns, Nick. What kind of creeped-out monster is this, anyway? There was a note scribbledon the kid's bib. The handwriting people are looking it over now."
An explosive, tightening rage balled up in my gut."What did it say?"
"It said, ‘I keep my promises.'"
I WAS BURNING NOW, on fire.
I went home and took that shower. The whole time I kept thinking of Ralphie's sister and that poor little one-year-old kid. On top of all the other things I was close to exploding about, now this horror. I sat there in my towel, staring at the photos of that animal Cavello I had stuck on the kitchen wall. The piles of useless accumulated evidence.
Until I couldn't stand it anymore.
I dressed and went and got my Saab out of the lot on Eleventh Avenue. But I wasn't headed to the office.
It didn't matter anymore about what was right or"appropriate" behavior.
I crossed the river through the Lincoln Tunnel and turned onto Route 3, to Secaucus, New Jersey. Secaucus was what came to my mind when they called New Jersey the"armpit of the universe." Miles and miles of drive-in, big-box malls and fast-food franchises, stuck in between a toxic swamp and the Jersey Turnpike.
About a mile down 3, I pulled into the lot of a drab, two-story cinder-block building I knew well. United Workers of Electrical Contractors of New Jersey.
Local 407. Cavello's outfit.
I opened the glass door and went straight past the startled receptionist, flashing my FBI shield."I'm going up to see Frankie Delsavio."
The receptionist jumped up."Excuse me, sir, you can't just…"
I didn't even wait for her to finish the sentence.
Two broad-shouldered men, who figured this as their job description, jumped out of their chairs to block my way.
"Don't even try it," I said as one of them stretched an arm out in front of me. My eyes were flashing and probably a little crazy."You understand?"
"Mr. Delsavio's not around," the goon grunted, looking as if he had flunked the screen test forThe Sopranos.Too fucking large.
I shoved my ID in his face."This is the last time I say this nicely.Get out of my way. "
I hustled up the stairs, moving on pure adrenaline. Everyone in the building was probably connected. Feds didn't burst in here alone, without backup.
The second floor was filled with union offices. Cavello's people who got the cushy assignments, doing nothing but collecting cash. I went down the hall as the bozos from the lobby followed behind. A few secretaries looked up, trying to figure out what was going on.
Another guy stepped in my way. Dark glasses and an open, wide-collar shirt over a polyester suit."'Scuse me, sir!" He flipped open his jacket, exposing his piece. I didn't even wait for him to pull it.I pulled mine.
I stuck the muzzle under his nose and pushed the startled gangster against the wall. I pressed my FBI ID close to his face."Thissays, ‘yes, I can.'"
People started getting up from their desks behind me. I saw that the two goons who'd followed me from the lobby had their pieces out.
"This is a legitimate, private business," the guy against the wall declared."Our corporate counsel is down the hall. You're here without an appointment or a legitimate business purpose. Show me a subpoena or a warrant, Special Agent, or get the hell out."
I pressed the gun into his cheek."I asked to see Frank Delsavio."
"As you were told"-and he looked at me straight on-“Mr. Delsavio is not on the premises. You can't see him if he's not here."
Just then, a door opened at the end of the hall. A heavyset man stepped out, ruddy cheeks, hair combed over, in a short nylon jacket and an open plaid shirt.
"Agent Pellisante," Frank Delsavio said in a raspy voice."Sallie, why didn't you just tell me it was Special Agent Pellisante? I just came back in. C'mon, step into my office. They musta not known I was here."
"IT IS STILL SPECIAL AGENT, isn't it?" Delsavio grinned."Or maybe we should call you Professor. I hear you were teachin' a class."
Frankie was Dominic Cavello's longtime number two, but in the big boss's absence, he was running the show. On the family chart he was known as the Underboss. He'd been married for thirty years to one of Vito Genovese's nieces. Royalty, Cosa Nostra-style. But not exactly one of the Five Good Emperors. He'd probably ordered ten to twenty murders we couldn't pin him on.
I followed Frank into his office. There was a cheap hardwood desk cluttered with pictures of his family. On the walls there were some cheesy prints of Italy and a signed photo of Derek Jeter eating at one of Frankie's restaurants. A few tubes containing rolled-up architectural plans were leaning against the wall. I smiled. I wasn't sure if Frankie Delsavio had ever been near a construction site in his life.
"So you have to excuse me." He motioned me to sit."I've been out of touch the past few days. Down in Atlantic City, checking out a big site. So tell me"-he grinned, smirking-“how goes the trial?"
"Fuck you, you cockroach," I said, grabbing him by the collar and taking him right out of his leather chair and pushing him against the wall."I want to know where he is."
A few books and artifacts fell to the floor. The grin on Frank Delsavio's face disappeared. This was not a small man, and no one, not even the cops, pushed him around.
"I invited you in here as a friend, Nicky Smiles. There's about two dozen people out there who don't have much to do in their life. They can blow off your head. You're not even on active duty, Pellisante. You sure you wanna do this now?"
"I asked about Cavello," I said, pushing him harder against the wall.
"How would I know, Nicky? I told you, I've been out of touch. Besides, the Boss doesn't clue me in on every little decision he makes."
"Every little decision." I smiled, the rancor boiling over inside."You know, Frankie, the only reason I never closed you down was because I thought you had the only sense of humor in this shitbag outfit. Otherwise, you'd be waiting foryour trial, same as him. But I'll bring you in, Frankie. I could do it tomorrow. There's enough on you, I swear. We'll close this whole operation down. You'll all lose the Beamers, your fat-cat jobs."
"You know what I think, Nicky?" Frankie stared as he spoke. He shook his head at me with a little smile."I don't think you have the clout to do that right now. I don't even think you're on this case. The only reason I let you in here was out of respect to your past position. Now I'd appreciate it if you'd let go of my shirt-before I call in our lawyer down the hall and he slaps you and the Bureau with a harassment suit. That wouldn't go over well in the classroom, would it, Nicky?"
"We're not talking business as usual, Frankie." I tightened my grip."This isn't going away. This is like Bin Laden. You don't want to step anywhere near this shit. I'll give you a week, then I'll do what I promised. I'll shut the whole operation down." I let go of his collar. But I still stared at him."That was a one-year-old kid your boss burned up, Frankie. Coulda been your granddaughter."
Delsavio straightened his shirt collar."I don't know where Dominic Cavello is. And that's the truth. And just for the record, Nicky, no way that couldever be my grandkid. 'Cause I'd never rat him out." Then Delsavio grinned, flexing his shoulders."But if he happens to call in or send me a postcard, I promise, you'll be the first to know. Even before his own wife and kids, Nicky Smiles." He grinned."Anything you want me to tell him, you know, if he should write in?"
"Just this." I smoothed out the mobster's jacket."Tell him I keepmy promises, too."
AN HOUR LATER, I was in front of Assistant Director in Charge Michael Cioffi, who ran the FBI's New York office."I want back in," I said.
Cioffi was my boss. He was the one who had placed me on administrative leave after I beat Cavello. Outside of the politicos down in DC, he was one of the most senior people in the FBI.
"Nick." He leaned back in his chair."No one holds you responsible for what happened yesterday."
"That's not what it's about, Mike.Cavello is. And I know more about him than anyone in the Bureau. Besides, we both know I'm a little too late in the game to ever qualify for tenure."
The ADIC smiled. He stood up, stepped over to his office window. You could see Ground Zero from there, the vast, empty space. Beyond it, the Statue of Liberty."So how're the ribs?"
"No harm, no foul." I raised my arms."I get a big fat commendation for being wounded in the line of duty, and I didn't even have to stay overnight."
"That's sort of the problem, Nick." Cioffi smiled again, but this time tightly, his hands against the sill."You weren't exactlyin the line of duty. And Ray's been handling this for months now. And right now, the shit's hitting the fan a little."
I stood up, too."This isn't about Ray, Mike. I'll report to him, I don't care. Just put me back on assignment. You need me." I looked at the boss I had served under for eight years."Ineed it, Mike."
The ADIC looked closely at me. I couldn't quite read him. He stepped back to his desk and picked up a file. It looked like a field report."I heard you paid a visit this morning to a certain union headquarters in New Jersey. You're not on active duty, Nick. You can't go wild, on a whim. We've got our people on this, Nick. They can't be looking over their shoulder."
"I understand that, Mike. That's why I want back in."
Cioffi sat back. I was just waiting for the nod. He let out a long, deliberating breath."I can't."
"You what?" If the ADIC had pulled out a gun right there and popped a couple of hollow-point rounds into my chest, I don't think I would have looked at him with more surprise."Mike?"
"You're one of the best I have, Nick. But you're too close to this case. Way too close. Too emotional. This isn't a witch hunt, Nick, it's an FBI investigation. The answer's no."
I sat there, jaw hanging, the words digging their way into my brain, one by one.
"I'll give you another assignment if you want back in. Wall Street. Antiterrorism. Name it, Nick.But not this. "
Not this. I stood there absorbing the blows. I'd tracked this bastard for years. I'd lost two men bringing him in. I didn't wantanother assignment. All I could do was stare back blankly."Please,Mike…"
"No." The ADIC shook his head again."I'm sorry, Nick, you're out. And I won't change my mind."
RICHARD NORDESHENKO HAD flown back out of Washington, DC. Right under the almighty U.S. government's nose. Through London, then on to Tel Aviv. Then he drove along the coast back to Haifa.
The acacias were blooming as he piloted his custom Audi S6 up the heights of Mount Carmel to his home high above the Mediterranean. He had burned his extra passports before he left the States; he would never need them again.
"Father!" Pavel gleefully shouted as Nordeshenko stepped through the door. He was two days early. His wife, Mira, ran out of the kitchen."Richard!Is that you?"
"It's me," Nordeshenko answered. He hugged both of them tightly, each in an arm. Three days before he didn't know if he would ever see them again."It's good to be home."
And it was. Through the glass doors, the deep turquoise of the Mediterranean was like a welcome, mood-lifting tonic to him. And the tender embrace of his family. He would never deceive them again. He had all the money he needed; his career was over. This was a young man's game, after all.
"Father, come see." Pavel pulled him by the hand."I've found a defense against Kasparov's Spanish opening. I've solved it!"
"What an Einstein we've raised," he joked to Mira.
"No, what aKasparov, " said Pavel.
The boy tugged him into his room. Nordeshenko was exhausted. And not just from the flight. He had dropped Cavello off at a safe house they had arranged near Baltimore. The bastard was to be crated up and put on a freighter.And to where? Nordeshenko found some amusement in his destination. Even Interpol would not go there.
He was happy to part ways. The malicious animal killed for sport, not for business or necessity. It was his nature. Back in Russia they would spit and call him a devil. Well, he had done his job. He hoped he would never see that piece of garbage again in his life.
"Look, Father." Pavel dragged him over to the chess set. The boy held up a queenside bishop."You see?"
Nordeshenko nodded, but in truth, he didn't. He was so incredibly weary. The board was a jumble to him. Chess was a young man's game, too. But he smiled, tousling the young child's hair."Look in the bag. I've got something for you," he said.
The boy hurriedly undid the wrapping. His eyes grew wide.
World Championship Poker. Pavel's face erupted in joy."Come," he said, pushing the chessboard aside."Let's play."
"My little Einstein wants to play poker? Okay. We'll go best out of three. Then I get to sleep for about a week!" Nordeshenko pulled up a seat, recalling his great bluff back in New York, which seemed a lifetime ago."And I've got quite a poker story for you, Pavel."
His feet felt like twice their normal size."Just let me take off these shoes."
FOR A WEEK straight I never left my apartment. I kept replaying the tape from Cavello's escape. The scene in the elevator. I even timed it-exactly forty-seven seconds. I'd watch it over and over. Then I'd rewind it and play it again. And again. And again.
The phone would ring. My doctor checking up on me. My department head from school. The Bureau-there was still an inquiry going on. And Andie-she called my cell phone a couple of times.
Finally, I stopped picking up, even my cell. All I did was watch the tape. Each time it was the same. Cavello lunges out, hits the button. The two marshals try to rein him in. The doors open. In steps the guy with the beard, surprising them. No time to react. He takes out the marshals, flips Cavello the disguise. In a moment they're gone.
I focused on the guy with the beard. Zoomed in on his face. I tried to memorize every line, every feature. I kept running through the Homeland Security photo books I'd been given. I didn't know what I was looking for. But something. There had to be something.
Cavello was gone. Probably already out of the country by now. You could get aboard a freighter out of Newark or Baltimore; you could hop a private jet to some landing strip in Mexico, without filing a flight plan. Passports could be doctored.
I kept reminding myself I'd been an FBI officer for thirteen years. It had been my world, my life. The vows I took, to uphold the law-these were sacred vows.
But something Andie said had got me thinking.
You can't make the world come out right just because you want it that way, she had whispered to me through the door.
Outside, darkness had fallen again. I took another swig of beer. I rewound the tape.
I remembered what I'd said back to her, through the door.
I can try.
THE BUZZER RANG, startling me. I thought about just letting it go.Don't even move. Whoever it is, they'll go away.They always do. I took another sip of beer and let it go down slow.
The ringing continued. Insistent. Irritating. Then maddening.
"Nick. Come to the door. Don't be a poop." It was Andie.
Maybe I was ashamed to see her because I'd made promises that now seemed empty. Maybe I was afraid to cause her more pain, or drag her in, now that I'd made up my mind what I wanted to do.
The buzzing continued."Nick, please. You're being a jerk."
Maybe because I knew if I opened that door, I wouldn't be able to close her out again. And maybe that scared me a little. Maybe it scared me a lot.
But she wassitting on that damn buzzer.
I paused the tape. Then I walked into the hallway. I stood for a moment in front of the door, still not sure what I was going to do. She buzzed again.
"Hey!" I called out, finally opening the latch."I'm coming."
She was dressed in a green cowl-necked sweater over jeans."You look awful," she said, staring at me.
"Thanks." I let her in."How…" I started, but she cut me off.
"You look like you've been wearing the same clothes for a week, and a shave sure wouldn't hurt."
"How did you find me?"
She stepped into the apartment, her eyes surveying the place."You think there's another Nicholas Pellisante who was shot and taken to Bellevue Hospital? You didn't return my calls."
"You'd make a good cop," I said, shuffling into the living room.
"You make a lousy friend."
"You're right. I'm sorry."
"Apology not accepted. Thiscould be a nice apartment."
Andie took off her coat and scarf and draped them over a chair. I sat down against the padded arm of the couch.
"I went to the Bureau after I left the other day. I tried to put myself back on the case."
"Okay…"
"They told me I was out. Off the case. No way in hell I'd ever get back on."
Andie looked shocked."Why?"
"Too emotional, they said. Too close. They'll hook me up with any case I want. Just not this one."
"That seems totally unfair. What are you going to do now?"
I looked up at her. Her molten eyes. The sweater, contracting and expanding with her breaths."I don't really know, Andie."
"You know what?" She came over and stood in front of me. She cupped my face in her hands."Youare too emotional, Pellisante. Youare too close."
She brushed a kiss against my cheek. Then my eyes, my lips. I pulled her in to me. Her mouth was soft and warm, and tasted delicious. This time she kissed me hard. My hand traveled under her sweater. Over her bra. Every nerve in my body was excited, on edge. The hairs on my neck were standing. Andie had very soft skin, very nice breasts.
She kissed me again, unbuttoning my shirt, popping a button. She ran her tongue across my shoulders and chest, licking along the edge of my wound. Then she yanked her sweater over her head. Was this a good idea? Did it matter? Not anymore it didn't.
I pulled her to the couch, undoing her pants. She grappled with my trousers, kissing me again, her thick hair falling all over my face.
"I think we need each other, Nick," she whispered, touching her lips to my cheek."Whatever the reasons, it's just the way it is."
I slid out of my pants and back onto the couch, and I pulled her soft body onto mine. I was finally inside her, and it felt right. We started to move against each other, into each other, whatever.
"I'm not arguing. I'm glad you came."
"Not yet… but very soon."
THE FIRST TIME, we made love like two starved people who couldn't get enough of each other, who hadn't been with anyone for a long time. Which happened to be the truth. It was sweaty and frantic, and at that slapping, breakneck pace, we couldn't hold back, and didn't. I think we both came at about the same time, locking hands, locking on each other's eyes, maybe already falling in love.
"Oh, Jeez." Andie collapsed into me, her hair damp with perspiration, her body drenched and spent."That was long overdue, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," I said exhaling, agreeing, rolling onto my back."Overdue."
The second time it was a lot more tender. We moved into the bedroom, with a bottle of Italian Prosecco on the night table, Tori Amos on the CD player. This time it was slow and much more romantic, at least my idea of romance. It was like slow dancing. We found this nearly perfect rhythm. Both of our bodies were slick with sweat. I loved it.
The third time, we went back at it like numero uno. Couldn't control ourselves. The hottest yet. Probably the best. I guess it was something we were dying to do for a long time.
The fourth…
All right, there was no fourth. We were too empty, too spent. We just lay there, coiled together in each other's arms. Andie's heart was racing against my chest. I loved that too.
"Don't get the wrong impression," she whispered."I'm not that easy. I usually don't give it up until the second trial."
"Me either," I said, breathing heavily."Unless we're unable to reach a conviction."
We stayed like that for a while, entwined and exhausted. It took all my remaining strength just to caress the curls of her hair with one finger.
"I meant what I said before, Nick," she whispered."I know how much you want Cavello. And I know how much it hurts after what happened the other day. I know what it feels like having the thing you want most in the world taken from you."
"I know you do," I said, squeezing her tight.
"What I'm trying to say is, I want whatever happens between us to be in spite of that, Nick. Okay?"
"Andie, I'm not going back to some bullshit job at the Bureau policing corporate tax returns. I can't. I'm gonna get Cavello. With their help or without. For you, for me… it doesn't matter. I can't be right until it's done, until it's over."
"And me?" She shrugged."Am I wrapped up in that, too?"
"You?" I leaned on my elbow and smiled."I think we're sort of wrapped up in each other right now."
"I'm serious," she said."What happens now?"
"Now?" I didn't have an answer. I was a little scared by this incredible magnetism between us. In fact, I felt myself come alive again. All of a sudden we were at it again-my hands massaging her, Andie making ever-descending circles with her nails just above my crotch.
"Now"-I rolled on top of her again-“I guess we go for four."
ANDIE AND I MADE LOVE a lot over the next couple of days. Four turned into seven, seven into ten, but neither of us was really counting, nothing as rational as that. A couple of times we even got dressed and went out in the neighborhood for a meal or some coffee. But all it took was a look.That look. And we'd rush back.
Maybe both of us just needed the thrill of feeling excited again. After our long, inward thaw, I couldn't take my hands off Andie. I couldn't wait to feel her body next to me, merged with me. I didn't want to be separated from her. Cavello could wait for a while, just this once. It was like the tap was wide open and the water kept pouring out. We both needed it. But the reprieve didn't last very long.
I hadn't checked my messages for days. When a call came in, we'd listen to the voice on the machine and pretend it was a million miles away.
Until this one call. The caller's voice froze me with surprise.
"Hey, Pellisante." The smirking Jersey accent was about the last one I expected to hear.
I spun over to the side of the bed and fumbled for the phone."Frankie?"
"Nicky Smiles." Frank Delsavio acted as if he were talking to a long-lost friend."You know that postcard I was talking about, from that mutual friend of ours?"
"I know who you're talking about, Frank."
"Well, wouldn't ya know, I got one after all. How 'bout that?"
I stood up."Where is he, Frank?" It was more of a demand than a question.
"Where is he?" Delsavio chuckled, clearly finding amusement in twisting me on a string."He's at the end of the earth, Nicky-boy! He told me to tell you that." The scumbag started laughing."That's what he said to say, ‘the end of the fucking earth, Nicky Smiles.' "
Maybe he knew. Maybe he knew I was out of the game-that I couldn't touch him, whatever he said or did. I clenched my fists and felt the blood surging through my veins.
"I told him you needed to know and it was urgent," Frank Delsavio said, still chuckling."He told me to send you his regards. He said to make sure I said that-those exact words.End of the earth. ‘Come and get me, Nicky Smiles.' "