“Shit. I knew you were a cop,” Jessup said.
“No you didn’t, or you wouldn’t have showed up. But here’s the good news. Our beef isn’t with you. As soon as C.J. sits down, and you finger him for the Mark hotel robbery, you both win a Get Out of Jail Free card. Just walk out the door. No questions asked.”
“Who’s C.J.?” Jewel said.
“Don’t be stupid, Garvey,” I said. “All you have to do is point out your inside man at the poker game, and you’re free to go.”
“Happy to do it, officer,” Jessup said, “but he didn’t say his name was C.J.”
“Fair enough. And my name isn’t Fly Boy.”
Jessup’s phone rang. He looked at me. “He’s here.”
“Tell him where to find you, then stand up and wave. If you warn him and he bolts, you’re in cuffs.”
Jessup followed orders, and I stood off to the side with Reitzfeld until a man in a black Windbreaker and a black baseball cap walked over to the table and shook hands with his partners in crime.
Only it wasn’t C. J. Berringer.
CHAPTER 72
“This is the dude who planned the whole operation,” Tariq Jessup said, pointing at the newcomer. “He kept seven hundred thousand, and we got fifty thou apiece, which is not the kind of payday that fosters allegiance to your employer. So, I repeat, he did it. Do we get to go now, Officer Fly Boy?”
Reitzfeld stepped into the picture. “Don’t move until I tell you,” he said.
Jessup and Jewel recognized him immediately. “Dude,” Jessup said, “sorry about the chloroform and tying you up and shit, but that was his idea, too. We were just the help.”
Reitzfeld wasn’t interested in them. He was focused on the man in the black cap. “Why’d you do it, Rick?” he said.
Rick Button, the stand-up comic, who until seconds ago had been one of the victims, shrugged. “Ah, the age-old question: why did the comedian steal the eight-hundred-thousand-dollar poker pot?” he said. “It was better than spending a year in a body cast, gumming my food, and shitting into a bag, which is what would have happened, compliments of a pair of Russian Neanderthals who work for the Bratva in Brighton Beach.”
“Excuse us again, officers,” Jessup said. “But Garvey and I break out in hives when we’re in the presence of this many happy white people. You said we could go. Are you or are you not men of your word?”
Reitzfeld didn’t look at me. It had to be his call. “Get lost,” he said. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t be telling tales about this evening around the hood, or it will come back to bite you in the ass.”
“Have no fear,” Jessup said. “We got played by a cop. It’s not exactly something we plan to be tweeting about.” He turned to Button. “I’m updating my résumé, boss. Can I count on you for a reference?”
Button laughed. “Good one,” he said.
Jessup and Jewel left the beer hall.
“Sit down and don’t move,” Reitzfeld said to Button. Button sat.
Then Reitzfeld put his arm on my shoulder and walked me ten feet away from the table. “I got this, Zach. You better go, too,” he said.
“Bob, this is a whole different scenario than the one we rehearsed,” I said. “Shelley won’t have the same compassion for this idiot that he did for Kylie’s boyfriend. Do you think he’s going to want to prosecute? Should I—”
“The only thing you should do, Zach, is get the hell out of here. Wash your hands of the whole affair. You helped me nail this weasel, and for that I am forever grateful. Whatever Shelley wants to do now is his call, but I can tell you that whatever it is, he’ll make sure that your name isn’t connected in any way.”
“The only way for that to happen is for him to let Rick Button walk. If he’s arrested, there’s no way to keep my name out of it.”
“Don’t lose any sleep over it, Zach. You didn’t do anything wrong, and nobody is going to be asking you if you did. Thanks for the beer. Now go.”
I went. Straight to Cheryl.
Her first question after I recounted the entire evening was right out of page one of the shrink’s handbook. “So how do you feel about all this?” she said.
“Relieved,” I said. “I know it looked like I was trying to remove C.J. from the picture, but I’m really glad it wasn’t him. If it ever turned out that Kylie was dating a criminal, her career would be toast.”
“And you would have lost the best partner you ever had,” she said.
“And the most infuriating, and the most unpredictable, and the most unreasonable, and by far the most insane,” I said. “I mean, yesterday she pulled the plug on tens of thousands of cell phones, and today she walked straight at a woman in a trance who was programmed to shoot her.”
“It sounds like she’d be hard to replace.”
I wrapped my arms around Cheryl, put my lips to her ear, and whispered, “So would you, Fly Girl. So would you.”
EPILOGUE
HAITIAN JUSTICE
CHAPTER 73
Geraldo Segura was a man of his word. As soon as the cops were gone and the money had been wired to his account, he left Princeton Wells unharmed and in perfect health, except for the damage the expensive booze was doing to the man’s liver.
He took a cab to JFK, and despite the fact that he was a millionaire a hundred times over, he had opted for a coach seat on Emirates to Adelaide, Australia, for $1,160. A first-class ticket with its own private cabin would only have cost another $23,000, but his logic was simple. Nobody pays attention to the people in the cheap seats.
He breezed through airport security with his new identity, and now at thirty-nine thousand feet he sat back in seat 58A, comfortably lost in the pack of 398 other economy passengers on the Airbus A380.
His mind flashed back to the start of his long day: a predawn visit to the Karayib Makèt in Brooklyn. The thugs at the door, all of whom towered over him, had no idea that he could have incapacitated them all. Two of them grabbed him, one on each arm, and asked what he wanted.
“I’m here to talk to Dingo Slide,” he said.
“Dingo is resting with his ancestors,” one of the goons said.
“Then who’s in charge of this shit operation?” Segura demanded. “You fuckers owe me money.”
The man drove a fist into his stomach. Segura doubled over and gasped for breath. But it was all an act. He had pulled back just before the moment of contact. Why let his attacker know he had abs of steel, and that nothing short of a kick to the gut from a mule could have brought him down?
They dragged him to the rear of the store, through a cold room, until he was face-to-face with the one man he had come to meet.
“My name is Geraldo Segura,” he said defiantly.
“So…the martyr has returned to seek revenge,” the leader of the Haitian cartel said. “I am Malique La Grande. I’ve been reading about your impressive accomplishments. Were you planning on killing me as well?”
“No. I’m here for compensation.”
La Grande laughed out loud, and the others joined in. He waved his hand, and his men released their grip on their captive. “Prison has damaged your thinking,” La Grande said. “Why would you think we owe you money?”
“Because it’s the honorable thing to do. If Dingo Slide were here, he would agree. But I guess the Zoe Pound code of honor has deteriorated under new management.”
“I know you’re a fighter,” La Grande said, taking a gun from his waistband. “This is how I win fights. Talk to me about honor.”
“I was a kid. Zoe Pound drugs were planted on me. The least you can do is pay me for doing twenty years for your crime.”
“So you lost twenty years,” La Grande said. “I lost four kilos of heroin. We all pay a price.”
“Bullshit!” Segura said, digging a hand into his jacket pocket.
The men at his side grabbed him and forced him to the ground.
“Emmanuel, you let him in here with a gun?” La Grande bellowed.
“No, boss. No, no,” the guard said. “I searched him.”
“What’s in his pocket?”
One guard pulled Segura to his feet while Emmanuel dug a hand into the jacket pocket. “This is all, boss,” he said, holding up a fistful of paper.