“I know, Manny.”
Guzman shook his head. “He should already be dead.” He pointed a finger at Beck. “And don’t make any mistake, James. These high-and-mighty assholes with more money than they can count, they think they have all the power. They look at us like cockroaches. Fucking ignorant ex-cons. They think they can snap their fingers and the system comes down on us and we’re gone. Garbage taken out. Like we’re nothing. You think you can change that?”
“No. But so what. I only have to convince two assholes this is in their best interests. Olivia gets paid. Puts her life back together, and when the time is right, we do what we have to do. Or not. That’s all I’m saying.”
Manny nodded imperceptibly, frowning his agreement.
“You usually don’t have trouble being patient, Manny.”
Manny shifted on the couch. “This feels different.”
“You want something to do, call Olivia.”
“Why?”
“I have to run this deal past her, obviously. I can’t see her not taking it. But she should hear it from me, with you in the room. So she knows you agree.”
“All right.”
“Plus, I’m going to brace this Crane asshole at noon. Maybe she can tell me something more about him. The more I know when I walk in there, the better.”
“Okay.”
Beck paused. “And as long as she’s here, talk to her about this arms dealer. How it works. Where he makes his money. His operation. Maybe we get Alex to do some research on him.”
Manny tipped his head and squinted an eye at Beck.
Beck said, “What?”
Beck watched the wheels turn in Manny’s head. He was happy the old con was seeing it now.
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.