Among Thieves (41 page)

She wondered what Nydia's apartment would be like. Probably reeking of garlic and diapers, overheated, with a bunch of beat-up toys littering the place. Olivia pursed her lips at the thought. Much like the one she had grown up in. Her mother's place in the Mott Haven projects felt like eons ago, and she would die before she ever returned to that life.

This was going to work, she told herself for the hundredth time. Alan and I can pull this off. We've been through every step of it over and over again.

Beck had come to the right conclusion. He had to go after the money. And she and Crane were going to let him do just that. Crane would leave enough bread crumbs for them to follow. When Markov tried to retrieve his money, it would be gone. Gone with Beck's fingerprints all over it.

While Markov was blaming Beck, she and Alan would steal the money from Beck, and disappear.

It could work. It had to work. Olivia Sanchez wasn't going back to the projects.

 

62

By the time Beck returned to his bar after talking to Walter Pearce, it was 12:35 a.m. He'd finally convinced Walter Pearce to get on board.

Of course, having Walter agree to Beck's plan didn't mean he could convince the cops to play it the way Beck wanted. But that was what the extra twenty-thousand was for. To motivate the lumbering ex–NYPD detective.

Pearce would succeed, or he wouldn't. Beck would know that answer in the next few hours. If he succeeded their odds of survival increased dramatically. Either way, Beck had no choice but to go forward.

When he walked into the second-floor space, Manny, Ciro, Joey B, Demarco, and Alex Liebowitz had all taken seats at the dining table.

Beck pulled out his cell phone, rested it on the table. He looked around. Joey B seemed to have arrived at a strange state of suspended animation, finally settled in his seat, attentive, staring at nothing.

Manny and Ciro as usual displayed little emotion. Demarco, who might have raised an eyebrow or shot a look that spoke volumes, was expressionless. Alex sipped a cup of coffee, for once all his attention on one thing, Beck.

Everyone knew this was it.

Beck looked around at everyone.

He started to speak, stopped, and looked around again. And then he said, “Well, it's pretty simple. Men are coming to kill us tonight. Why?” He shrugged. “We tried to help one of ours.”

Beck felt his anger swell, ignored it, and continued.

“All right. We didn't ask for it, but it's coming. What do we do? We defend ourselves. But we can't defend ourselves like others can. We can't kill them before they hurt us because that would mean there'd be a reason for the law to come at us, and that can't happen.”

Beck paused to look at the men around the table. They were waiting. Waiting for him to give them the answer. The way out.

“So we have to do this a different way. Here. On our turf, our home, we have to do it a different way. A way that can work. So, let me explain.”

He looked around the table one more time. And then Beck started talking. He talked for eighteen uninterrupted minutes. Then he listened to questions. And then he went through everything again. And then one more time.

Even after all that, he knew that maybe only Demarco had grasped the whole thing. But no matter. All Beck needed was for each man to do what was required of him. None of them had to know it all.

Beck finished by saying, “So that's it. Obviously, I'm guessing at a lot of this. But I think I'm pretty close. So just concentrate on getting done what you have to do.”

Beck looked again at Manny and Ciro. He knew what they were thinking.

“Yes. If you can. If not…” Beck made a face. “If it all goes to shit, do whatever you have to do, and we'll face the consequences.”

He got a nod from each man.

Beck said, “Okay.”

As if on cue Beck's cell phone rang. This time Ricky Bolo didn't wait for Beck to even say hello.

“They're getting ready to move.”

“How many?”

“It's hard to tell. There's a lot of bodies moving around in front of that building. Two SUVs. They're packing men and guns into both vehicles. Figure about fifteen of 'em. About half of them with semiautomatic rifles.”

Beck grimaced at the number. “Okay. Thanks.”

“What next?” asked Ricky.

“Call me when those SUVs leave that location, and then stay right where you are. Don't be seen. They spot you, you won't survive. If I don't call you by daybreak, disappear.”

“James.”

“What?”

“Jeezus, James, all these fuckers coming for you? Clear out, man. Just get the fuck away, now.”

“Call me when they move.”

 

63

Jeffrey Esposito had spent six hours pulling together the men he wanted to serve the warrants on James Beck and Ciro Baldassare.

He'd managed to get three from his detective squad who were on the four-to-midnight shift, and had agreed to stay on. They were reliable men, but not the bust-doors-down-shooters he would have preferred.

David Rutledge was a veteran detective. He played everything straight, went by the book. In fact, he carried a battered detective's notebook in his baggy back pocket and wrote everything down in a careful print. Everything. He referred to his notes constantly. Rutledge was overweight and wore glasses, but of all the men Esposito knew, Rutledge was the most fearless. He'd been in a shoot-out with Rutledge and saw him do something few could: stand and shoot back, without panic overwhelming him.

The other two detectives were Tony Ball and Michael Grandon. Both were young. Early thirties. Fit. They usually worked as a team. They gave the impression they were tough. Esposito didn't know if they were or weren't, but he figured at least they would be willing to act tough, and that might be good enough.

His best shot at success was Augustus Mosebee. He'd reached out to Augustus as soon as McManus had given him the assignment. They were old friends from working Missing Persons years ago. Augustus had landed on a Warrants Squad that specialized in going after serious felons. He was a six-foot-six black man who weighed somewhere around two-fifty. Maybe two-seventy. Augustus was one of those men who was so big that twenty pounds one way or the other didn't show much.

When he arrived at the precinct, Esposito was very glad to see him. There was nobody better than Augustus Mosebee when it came to knocking down people and getting handcuffs on them quickly. Especially people who didn't want to be knocked down and handcuffed.

Finally, Esposito had rounded up two patrol officers. That's all the precinct sergeant would spare him. They seemed completely ordinary. Just another pair of bodies that might either get in the way or actually help. Eight men including himself. They would have to do.

Esposito was studying a street map of the area when the call came through from the desk sergeant downstairs.

 

64

The back of Beck's building opened onto a small yard about eight-feet deep that ran the width of his property. The yard was overgrown and untended. There was an ailanthus tree that had grown tall enough to cover most of the back windows. An old slat-board fence ran across the back of the yard. The fence was only five-feet high. It wasn't much of a barrier, but wasn't meant to be. The fence was wired with a motion detector to warn Beck if someone tried to scale it.

On the other side of Beck's fence was an abandoned plot of land about fifty-feet deep that ran the entire width of the block. It was fairly clear of rubble, except along the back walls and fences of the buildings that faced Conover. The junk back there was completely random, everything from stacks of old shipping flats, to an abandoned Dodge Dart, to piles of old tires.

The west side of the empty lot was blocked by the two-story back wall of a warehouse. The chain-link fences at each end of the lot were topped with a single strand of razor wire.

The only entrance to the lot was through a rolling chain-link-fence gate on Reed Street, secured with a chain and a large old Master lock.

Beck figured the three scouts who had walked the area knew a killing field when they saw it. That, combined with the information Ahmet Sukol provided, guided Beck's plan of defense.

He calculated they would divide the attack into two groups: Kolenka's men and Markov's men. One attacking in the front of the building on Conover, the other group stationed in the back to shoot down anyone trying to escape the attack out front.

To cover the back, the second group would have to come in on the Reed Street side where the gate was located. The old lock and chain wouldn't stop anybody from getting into the empty lot. In the middle of a dark night, in the middle of winter, it would be easy to shoot down men stumbling over ice, junk, and snow.

Beck was betting that Kolenka's men would attack the front while Stepanovich and his men would cover the rear.

Beck knew getting into a gunfight with the attackers would cause too much damage and chaos. There was no chance that all of them would survive, and a hundred percent chance some of them would end up back in jail.

That's where his deal with Walter Pearce came in. That was the part of his plan that made him grind his teeth and wish he had never heard of Olivia Sanchez.

 

65

Ricky Bolo called Beck at 1:35 a.m. All he'd said was, “They're pulling out now.”

Beck thanked him, hung up, and announced, “Let's go.”

Within ten minutes, everyone was in place.

Ciro Baldassare and Joey B stood across the street from the empty lot, opposite the chained fence gate. Beck had positioned them behind Olivia's Porsche Cayenne, which was parked in the lot of a wholesale food store.

Ciro had his semiautomatic M-16 assault rifle set to fire in bursts of three. The 5.56-mm bullets could penetrate just about anything at the range he'd be firing from. Joey B had a pump-action Mossberg 500 shotgun loaded with Federal Flight Control LE132 12-gauge shot, a weapon with a capability pretty much the opposite of Ciro's. Each shell had fifteen pellets rather than a standard twelve. He'd be able to blast larger areas, with enough force to take someone down, but not enough penetrating power to kill.

It was nearly two in the morning. The moon had already set. The temperature had dropped to eighteen degrees with intermittent gusts of cold air coming in off the bay.

Ciro held the M-16 down low, standing motionless, wearing a dark wool overcoat that made him nearly invisible except for the wisps of condensing exhalations floating up and disappearing in the cold night air. Joey B stood next to Ciro, his broad back leaning against the rear of the small Porsche SUV. He held the Mossberg by the barrel, the butt resting on the ground in front of him. He wore a black wool coat much like Ciro's, and a black knit watch cap. He looked up at the dark night sky, trying to see stars between the scudding clouds, finally relaxed, free of any need to pace. A sense of calm came over Joey B, like a hunter waiting in the blind. He kept picturing it. Practicing in his mind what Beck had told him to do.

He would wait for Ciro. Move when he moved. Stand and shoot until he emptied the shotgun, or Ciro told him to stop.

*   *   *

Beck had concealed himself about a half block west of the empty lot, between a car and a wall near the corner of Reed and Van Brunt.

From there, he could spot any vehicle turning toward Conover, heading for the entrance to the empty lot. He had a Benelli M3 shotgun resting on the roof of a station wagon parked next to him, plus all the weapons he'd started the night with: his Browning, knife, sap, and extra ammunition.

*   *   *

Out on Conover Street, Manny Guzman stood alone, deep in the shadows of a warehouse doorway about twenty-five-feet north of the bar's entrance. An overhead high-pressure sodium light mounted above the doorway shone down brightly, illuminating the area, but creating deep shadows where Manny stood.

Manny had only one weapon. He'd substituted his Charter Arms Bulldog for a long-barrel .38 revolver. He had one shot to make. The target would be about twenty-five, thirty feet away, which was why he needed the range of the long-barrel revolver.

Once he made the shot, he could do the real damage he intended, with an item sitting ten feet from where he stood, carefully placed on the sidewalk.

*   *   *

Demarco Jones was also out front on Conover, but nobody quite knew where. Beck had left it up to him to pick his spot.

*   *   *

Beck stood motionless, hunched against the cold, waiting. Waiting for the call from Walter Pearce. If Walter failed to come through with the NYPD, Beck didn't see much chance of avoiding a bloodbath. He hated depending on a disgruntled retired cop. He hated even more depending on cops intent on arresting him. But he had little choice. They were five against how many? Fifteen? Twenty? Maybe more. He checked his watch in the dim ambient light of the dead winter night.

One way or another, it would be over soon.

 

66

Two things convinced Walter Pearce to follow Beck's plan.

The additional twenty-thousand dollars Beck promised him. And the absolute certainty that Frederick Milstein was going to screw him.

He figured the fastest way to make things work would be to go directly to the 76th Precinct in Brooklyn. He was certain that any police action against Beck would launch from there. It was a little after one in the morning when he walked through the double doors that led into the familiar sights and sounds of an NYPD neighborhood precinct. He presented his credentials to the desk sergeant, and did his best to convince him that he needed to see whoever was in charge of the detail heading out to serve warrants in Red Hook.

Naturally, the sergeant wanted to know more about it. Pearce told him, “Sarge, I'll be happy for you to hear the details, but I've only got time to tell it once. So please get whoever is in charge of this thing down here as soon as you can. Bottom line, I've got information that could prevent some good cops from getting hurt tonight.”