Among Thieves Page 10

  Beck nodded, acknowledging that Manny had figured it out. He said, “I don’t like doing something for nothing. I will if I have to, because this involves one of yours, Manny, but … you know.”

  Manny smiled. “Okay, James, you keep thinking. Just don’t get too cute with this. You know where I’m headed. Down the line, like you say, but that’s where this is going.”

  13

  Milstein lay wide awake next to his softly snoring wife. But it wasn’t her snoring that had awakened him. A dream or a half-awake memory of his cigar being slapped out of his mouth jerked him awake.

  He laid immobile in his bed, his heart pounding so hard he had trouble breathing. When the beating subsided, he rolled over halfway to look at the glowing digits of his clock radio. 3:14 a.m.

  Milstein kept seeing the face of the man who called himself Mr. Smith, feeling the hand around the back of his neck and the thumb on his throat, remembering the strength that nearly lifted him off the bench. Milstein wasn’t a big man, but he still weighed 155 pounds. How many men could lift that much one-handed? Whoever the man was, he didn’t look that big, but clearly he was strong. And he had a cocky invulnerability about him. Who the hell was that son of a bitch?

  Milstein tried to get back to sleep. He might have dozed off a bit, but deep sleep evaded him. He finally sat up and swung his feet onto the floor. The clock read 4:32 a.m. He ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. His right hip ached. His bladder was full.

  He stood up in his undershirt and boxers. The bedroom was cold. He picked up the cell phone from the night table. He stepped into his slippers, lifted his robe up off the floor and shuffled off to the bathroom.

  This was going to be a grind, getting through a day without enough sleep.

  Just as he was about to empty enough of his bladder to feel comfortable, his cell phone began vibrating in the pocket of his robe.

  “Fuck.” He pulled out the phone. Walter Pearce’s number displayed on the caller ID.

  “Hang on,” he said.

  * * *

  Walter Pearce filled one side of a small booth in a twenty-four-hour diner located on Trinity Place in downtown Manhattan, his phone held to his left ear.

  The diner was within walking distance of One Police Plaza, where his contact at the Real Time Crime Center had been working the twelve-to-eight shift.

  He had been in the diner since 2 a.m. calling back and forth to his contact at One PP. His eyes were stinging, he felt wired from too much coffee, and he felt queasy from a greasy serving of ham and eggs with home fries, followed an hour later by an order of pancakes.

  As he waited for Milstein to come back on the phone he switched the phone from his sweaty left ear to his right. Tired of holding it, he put the phone on speaker and set it down on the Formica-topped table.

  The work for Walter had gone in two parts.

  First, finding a contact to do the research he needed. He had done that from home, calling until he had located a detective he’d worked with four years ago named Edward Ronson. Then he’d headed downtown to meet Ronson and tell him what he needed.

  Ronson had made a big deal about it, even though they both knew he’d either find what Walter asked for in about fifteen or twenty minutes or he wouldn’t.

  Ronson’s main selling point was his availability. Most cops and more than most detectives wouldn’t risk screwing around getting information from the NYPD databases and passing it on, even to a licensed private detective who was a former cop.

  Ronson, however, always needed money. He had two ex-wives, two sets of children, hefty bar bills, and a habit of midweek gambling sprees at the Yonkers racetrack slot casino.

  Walter made sure to tell him three times what he was looking for and to just print out everything he could find and bring it to him.

  The problem was, Walter had no idea when Ronson could slip in his search requests, so he just had to wait. And wait.

  When the disheveled detective finally walked into the diner, Walter spotted a large manila envelope under his arm. It looked fairly full. A good sign.

  Ronson slid into the booth across from Walter, hatless, wearing a worn suit and a wool overcoat that had seen better days. He dropped the envelope on the table and held out his hand under the table.

  “Christ, it’s a shitty walk over here. Fucking cold enough to freeze dog shit out there. Feels like snow any minute. Come on, I gotta get back.”

  Walter ignored Ronson’s lack of greeting. He wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries anyhow. He tapped a fold of five hundred dollars in twenty dollar bills against Ronson’s knee under the table.

  Ronson slid out of the booth as soon as he had the money in his hand. Maybe he really did need to get back to his desk at the RTCC. Or maybe he had done a lousy job and wanted to get out of there before Walter had time to check what he’d brought and refuse to pay him.

  Ronson hadn’t bothered to collate the pages he’d printed out. It took Pearce nearly an hour to sort through everything. When he was satisfied he had something worthwhile, he called Milstein.

  * * *

  Milstein had kept Walter on hold until he had settled in his chair out in the living room.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Right,” answered Walter. He picked up the phone, took it off speaker, and spoke directly.

  “So I got the information we want. It’s pretty much what I expected. Maybe a bit worse.”

  “What do you mean, worse?”

  “These are bad people, Mr. Milstein. The one with the neck tattoo is named Ciro Baldassare. He has a long record. Two incarcerations. He’s connected to organized crime. Most of the names I see on his sheets are based in Staten Island. Among other things he’s a bone breaker. His last bit was for assault in connection with collecting money. Don’t know what kind of debt it was, gambling or loan sharking, but whatever it was wasn’t pretty. He broke up two guys pretty bad. Sentence was three to eight. Would have been worse if it hadn’t been two against one.”

  Milstein interrupted him. “Okay. Okay.” He didn’t want to hear too many details. He already had enough trouble sleeping. “Anything on the other two?”

  “Nothing on the black fellow who passed us. I never got a good enough look at him to describe him. But I got lucky on the one who confronted you at work and took you off in the park. About a year ago, Baldassare got pinched driving a car he didn’t own. That same guy was with him, and went through the arrest process with Baldassare. Nothing came of the arrest, but I have the report. The man with Baldassare then is the same one we saw. His name is James Beck. Very interesting story.”

  “Meaning?”

  “First of all, he’s a cop killer.”

  A chill went through Milstein that had nothing to do with his cold living room.

  “What? A cop killer walking the streets; how’s that happen?”

  “It’s not quite what it sounds like. About ten years ago, Beck got into a fight in a bar in downtown Brooklyn. I know the place. Used to be a lot of cops went in there. It’s close to the courts and detention complex. It’s the usual mess with cops and booze sometimes. Cop actually got shot in there long time ago, and that pretty much put the place out of bounds for years.”

  “Who shot him? This guy?”

  “No, no. It was another cop who shot him. I don’t remember the details, but somebody’s gun went off. Hit a guy in the leg. Drunken accident. Just telling you what kind of place it was. Anyhow, apparently this fellow Beck got into a beef and punched out a cop. Cop hit the floor. Busted his skull in three places. Died three days later.”

  “Died?”

  “Yep. One punch. Dead.”

  “Must have been some punch.”

  “A hard punch, a harder floor. It can happen if you land wrong. So Beck gets charged with murder. Gets convicted of first-degree manslaughter. Judge sentences him ten to twenty-five.

  “That’s hard time. Maximum-security prisons. But Beck appeals. Gets a new lawyer. There’s a lot of background on this,
bottom line the lawyer appeals based on procedural errors. Cited all kinds of shit, but mainly he found out the prosecutors suppressed a witness. Another cop in the bar who apparently was willing to verify Beck’s claim that the other guy started it.

  “Takes eight years, but Beck finally gets out. Sues for unlawful incarceration and so on. Settles with the City and State for a little over two million bucks. After that it gets shady. Not much information to be found.”

  Milstein closed his eyes, seeing what he was up against. “Anything else?”

  Walter continued. “My guess is Mister Beck made some nasty friends during those eight years in prison, including Ciro Baldassare. It must have been a really tough stretch. You go into prison labeled a cop killer, life is not going to be easy. On the other hand, he certainly would have had some status with other prisoners. Kind of a good-news, bad-news thing.”

  “Okay, Walter. Good work. What are your conclusions?”

  Walter Pearce paused before he spoke, gathering his thoughts. He wanted to tell Milstein to get as far away from these people as fast as he could, but he knew it was too late for that.

  “Like I said before, Mr. Milstein, these fellows are not your usual bad guys. They’re more sophisticated. Certainly Beck is. He’s clearly got a lot of enemies in law enforcement after what he pulled off, but he obviously has resources on the other side. I need to find out a hell of a lot more about him. Where’d he come from? What he was doing before he went to prison. Anything I can get on his prison record. But frankly, I don’t know that it will make much of a difference.”

  Walter paused and then continued. “There are a lot of questions to answer, Mr. Milstein. What’s this man’s connection to Olivia Sanchez? How does she know Beck? Why did she send him after you? What exactly does she want? And if she gets it, does he go away? Or is it just the beginning of a long extortion that goes on and on until he gets everything he can? For sure, you don’t want to go up against this man until you know more about who he has behind him.

  “I’m not saying these guys aren’t vulnerable. They have prison records. We could get this Baldassare fellow arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. He pulled a gun on me for chrissake. But then what? How many more are behind him?

  “As for Beck, did he do any real damage to you? We can get him arrested, too, but proving something might be awful hard.”

  Milstein thought about it. Beck hadn’t done anything that would show. There were no witneses. But maybe he could still file a complaint. Have him arrested.

  Walter interrupted Milstein’s thoughts. “I’ll answer my question. The answer is no. Beck has resources. Access to a good lawyer, for one. And remember, he’s in a weird category. As far as the legal system is concerned, he doesn’t even have a traffic ticket. He had no criminal record before the bar fight, and the conviction was overturned. Expunged. They paid him damages. It’s like the crime never happened. It’s like he never served time. You can’t even use anything he might have done in prison.”

  Milstein looked out at the dark night. Dawn hadn’t even begun to lighten the sky.

  “Shit.”

  Milstein wasn’t about to discuss Olivia Sanchez with Walter. What Walter had said was logical. Find out the connection, see what she wanted and all that. None of this was good news, but Walter had no real proof Beck was working for organized crime. Nevertheless, he had to find out more and hope Markov could convince Beck to take the payoff and leave.

  “Okay, Walter. That’s very helpful.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I want you to messenger what you have to my building. Leave it at the concierge desk.”

  Walter shook his head in dismay. Where the hell did Milstein think he was going to get a messenger at five o’clock in the morning from a diner in downtown Manhattan?

  “I’ll drop it off myself. Then I’m going home to sleep.”

  “Right. Okay. Fine. Listen, after you sleep, I want you to stay on this. See what else you can come up with on Beck. I want to know where he lives, how to find him. Anything else you can find out about his associates. Anything you can uncover.”

  “All right,” said Walter. “I did some preliminary work. There’s no trace of Beck in any of the five boroughs looking through the usual resources. But I haven’t done a deep dive. I’m sure I can find him.”

  “Good.”

  “By the way, there are some expenses I’ll want you to cover, Mr. Milstein. Cash outlays. I’m not comfortable with waiting until my end-of-the-month bill.”

  Milstein automatically wanted to argue about it, but was too tired. “How much?”

  “Five hundred for the cop I hired to go into the department databases. And about seventy-five bucks for cabs I’m taking to get all this done.”

  “Five seventy-five. I’ll leave an envelope for you with the concierge. When will you be back at this?”

  “Sometime after two.”

  “Fine.”

  Milstein ended the cell phone connection. He looked at his watch. Laid his head back and closed his eyes. No question he had to unleash Markov. Olivia had gone way overboard. She couldn’t be allowed to get away with this. Beck had to be handled. Made to forget about threatening anybody, or demanding compensation. But would Markov see this his way?

  And it wasn’t just Beck. What about that other guy? The ties to organized crime. Christ, that’s all I need, thought Milstein. Well, this Beck character seems to be the leader. Take care of him and maybe this mess could be put behind them.

  Great, thought Milstein, all this shit and I’ll still be left with that maniac Crane. He’ll be worse than ever after this.

  14

  Markov dozed in his car after talking to Milstein. He woke as Vitaly pulled up to an old five-story apartment building on Brighton 4th Street that housed a Russian restaurant on the ground floor.

  The south side of the building faced the ocean. The restaurant, however, had no view of the boardwalk. It was blocked by a decrepit one-story structure.

  Markov owned several apartments in the building and held a long-term lease on the restaurant. He rented the restaurant space to a Ukrainian family he didn’t particularly like, but the family accommodated him whenever he wanted to come downstairs for a meal. Even at six o’clock in the morning when he felt like having blintzes and coffee.

  He’d slept a few more hours on the living room couch in one of the apartments he owned, but wasn’t occupied at the moment. Now he sat downstairs in the restaurant eating cheese blintzes and slurping black coffee, thinking about the plan he had formed.

  Stupid fucking Milstein, thought Markov.

  As soon as Milstein had finished telling him about what Crane had done and the trouble the woman was making, he knew what he had to do. He didn’t need any more details about who did what to who.

  He knew as sure as he knew his heart was beating that the fucking jackals were always lurking. Watching, circling, ready to tear off a bite for themselves. And another and another until you had nothing left. Now they were getting ready to tear into him and his money.

  Alan knew it. He had seen it. Why else go after that woman? This fucking bitch, whoever she was, circling around, trying to make a name for herself, trying to get ahead using my money to do it. To justify her existence. Goddamn selfish cunt.

  Crane was right to come down hard on her. To fend her off. But what an idiot, breaking her fingers. There were so many better, easier ways to take care of a nosey bitch before she went out and got some criminals to help her. Markov pictured this damn woman in a business suit mincing around trying to show everybody how smart she was. How diligent. With somebody else’s money, the arrogant fucking piece of shit opportunist cunt.

  And now this evil bitch gets some mafia, some set of criminals to come after Milstein and Crane and his money.

  What? Did Milstein think for a second that criminals live to perform some noble act to save the honor of a woman? Idiot. No, this was an attack on the money. My fucking money. The woman was just an ex
cuse. An opportunity. A way in.

  Like all fucking jackals they start with a negotiation. Come at Milstein like it was a business discussion. And Milstein believing it. Negotiating.

  Markov shook his head.

  There’s no negotiation. Not one fucking dime. Not a penny. Negotiate with jackals and you soon have nothing to negotiate.

  He shoved another chunk of his cheese blintz into his mouth and slurped from his mug of hot coffee.

  And then, just as he was sleeping soundly upstairs, fucking Milstein calls him again, like a big hero with more information about the criminal, James Beck. Who gives a shit? All he had to know was that Beck would be coming to see Crane at noon.

  Markov picked up his phone, scrolling to find the first number he would try for Gregor Stepanovich. His call was answered on the third ring.

  He gave Gregor Crane’s address in Tribeca and told him to be there no later than eleven-thirty. Bring two of his best. He gave him more instructions, making sure Gregor understood what he needed to plan for.

  Markov finished his third blintz and drained the coffee. Six forty-five. The clothes he’d slept in were a mess. He knew his armpits stank. He felt as if the residue of the drugs were leaking through his pores. He needed a schvitz. Steam. And fresh clothes.

  He went over everything in his mind once more. First, deal with Crane. Teach him some sense. Then, take care of this man Beck, whoever he was. But first, find out everything about the woman from him, and everything about who he was and who was with him. Markov wasn’t sure if he needed to kill him. Maybe hurt him enough to teach him a good lesson. Gregor was good at that. Gregor could spend all day and all night hurting someone and never tire of it. Never get sickened by it. Gregor would extract whatever information he needed from Mr. James Beck.

  After that, the woman. He’d heard she was good-looking. He’d see about that. See about enjoying the beautiful woman before he ended her life. Fucking miserable bitch starting all this trouble. Who did she think she was? He’d let Gregor in on that. He’d never seen Gregor rape a woman, but he’d heard Stepanovich and his men talking about it. They talked about it like they used their cocks as weapons. It was more than just sexual. Much more. How many had they done that to in Bosnia? Markov was sure it was many. As many as they could.