“No idea.”
Anastasia continued staring at Crane. For the first time since they’d been guarding him, Crane wondered, is this guy just trying to fuck with me, or could Markov be paying these thugs to watch me until he has his money, and then kill me? No. He’d made money for Markov in the past. If he made him almost whole this time, there’d be little reason for Markov to kill him, but still—definitely got to think about a Plan B. There’s no downside having a Plan B.
All right, Crane told himself, keep going. Make this work. Cover your bases. First, get the fucking money. Money can solve anything, even this hard ass watching him like he was a target.
As Crane settled behind his keyboard, he had a disturbing thought. If these guys did manage to kill him, Olivia could very well end up with everything.
For a moment, Alan Crane tried to calculate the possibility that Olivia Sanchez had planned it that way from the very beginning.
71
It took Jeffrey Esposito and his men two hours just to square away the bodies and arrest the survivors.
They’d left the Seven-Six in four cars. Esposito and Augustus Mosebee in the lead, driving an unmarked squad car. Behind him the three detectives from his precinct squad in another unmarked. Behind them were two patrol cars. He’d managed to wangle one more than he originally planned after talking to Pearce, both cars with a team of two uniformed cops.
They’d heard the gunfire and seen the light from the burning gasoline five blocks away. Esposito stopped and immediately called for support. All police personnel in the area were told to respond to gunshots at Beck’s location.
Esposito sent one patrol car to investigate the fire on Conover. He and his detectives and the other patrol car converged on the gunshots on Reed Street.
By the time Esposito screeched to a halt near the bullet-ridden SUV blocking the empty lot, the gunshots had ceased. He flooded the SUV with his high beams. The unmarked and the patrol car pulled in next to him and did the same. That’s when he spotted the two men Beck and Ciro had knocked out lying on the ground.
Everyone stayed behind the cover of their open doors. Esposito got on his loudspeaker and ordered, “Police. Anybody in there, come out with your hands up.”
Immediately, shots rang out, bullets hitting their cars. Esposito and his men returned fire, but the advantage of the two remaining assault rifles almost outweighed their superior number of handguns. Two patrol cops taking cover behind car doors were hit. One in the hip, the other in the lower part of his bulletproof vest.
By then, more police flooded into the area and joined the gunfight.
Eventually, the overwhelming firepower of the cops prevailed. Of the six remaining Bosnians, three were killed, two seriously wounded. The sixth evaded injury by taking cover in a dip in the ground behind a pile of discarded tires. He surrendered babbling unintelligible English.
Before it was all over two more cops were hit, both in the lower legs.
Everybody was half deaf from the gunshots.
On Conover, the first fire truck had arrived before the cops. Two more were on the scene by the time the flames were extinguished.
Three more patrol cars arrived on that side of Beck’s building, but they had stayed well back of the billowing fire, even though they saw bodies on the street and sidewalk.
All five men that Demarco had wiped out had survived the fires because they were on the far side of the SUV. Four suffered extensive burns when the SUV went up in flames, but by then the firemen were on the scene and had dragged them away.
The driver died from inhaling superheated air and burns over most of his body. The arsonist that Manny had shot had managed to roll away from the flames, but he was badly burned and unmoving.
Once the paramedics loaded ambulances with the survivors, all under arrest and escorted by police, the Crime Scene Unit teams began securing the area, waiting for the Medical Examiner personnel who would investigate and handle the dead.
While all that was going on, Esposito and Mosebee pounded on Beck’s front door. Alex Liebowitz appeared in his pajamas, looking bewildered and somewhat terrified at the gunshots and fires.
Of course, he had been prepped by Beck.
All the computer equipment and files had been locked and secured behind a fake back wall.
Whatever questions the cops asked him, he answered, telling Esposito that James Beck was not around, he didn’t know where he was, or when he might return. As for Ciro Baldassare, Alex told the cops he had never heard of him, but that James Beck might know him.
He volunteered that they should contact Beck’s lawyer, who he was sure would straighten everything out.
Alex kept jabbering at Esposito and Augustus Mosebee, distracting them, trying to hand them a piece of paper with the phone number of Phineas P. Dunleavy.
When they asked Alex for ID, he presented it. When they asked why he was at this address, Alex said he was staying there while his place was being renovated.
Esposito finally grabbed the piece of paper Alex kept trying to give him and threw it on the floor. Knowing the building would be empty, he and Augustus did a cursory search and stormed out.
Esposito realized this was now out of his hands. His only course of action was to stay out of the way of McManus and the other higher-ups now on the scene. He and Augustus trudged back to his car. They’d already given their preliminary interviews. Now they would have to wait for their union delegates, and start the long procedures that were standard.