Badge of Evil (6 page)

THE NEXT MORNING,
when Bishop stepped into an elevator at Bellevue Hospital, he was not a happy boy. He'd only gotten about three hours' sleep, his head was killing him, and his stomach was fluttering wildly. He'd already had two cups of coffee, half a container of orange juice, and a bottle of water, and he still felt like he'd been licking talcum powder off the sidewalk. He must've had more to drink at V than he'd realized. And now he had to go interview some scumbag terrorist's mother. Great, just what he wanted to do. Victoria left a message on his cell that the hospital had offered the use of a conference room on the third floor and he should meet them there.

Bishop was wearing a navy-blue chalk-stripe suit, a light blue shirt, and a platinum tie. But even in the expensive, nicely tailored uniform of a successful executive, he still looked like a bouncer at a strip club. His skin was too brown from the tanning booth, his belt buckle was too big and too silver, and his shoes were too . . . well, his shoes were just wrong. But even if his skin tone had been normal, and the belt and shoes had been appropriate, his body would've given him away. No corporate clone or hedge-fund wizard was ever built like this.

In truth, Bishop looked only marginally more respectable in a conservative $2,000 suit than he did in his usual getup of Seven jeans, tight Armani T-shirt, lizard cowboy boots, and a blazer—to cover the holster on his waist. His shoulders, chest, and upper arms were so beefy with muscle that even though the suit jacket fit him properly, the expensive worsted fabric looked like it was about to split open whenever he moved; like he was in the first stage of that explosive transformation the Incredible Hulk goes through when his muscles start to bulge and all his clothes start to tear.

Bishop had brought along two of his investigators. Paul was a just-retired lieutenant from the South Bronx with thirty-two years on the street. Like someone who can play a musical instrument by ear, Paul was a natural, a brilliant investigator with an acute intuitive sense. The younger investigator, Eddie, was the son and grandson of cops but had forsaken the NYPD for the allure of Hollywood. Along with acting, taking film school classes, and writing screenplays, he worked for Bishop to pay his rent—and maybe gather material for his writing. Bishop liked Eddie. He thought he had a lot of energy and the potential to be a good investigator. But mostly he kept him on because of his skill with a surveillance camera.

The conference room was at the end of a gauntlet of small, identical administrative offices occupied by people who stared at computer screens all day, keeping track of things like patient bills and insurance payments. Victoria, her assistant, and Mrs. Andrea Jafaari and her sixteen-year-old daughter were already there when Bishop and his crew walked in.

“I'm sorry,” the private eye said as soon as he entered the room, “I hope we're not late.”

“Actually, you're right on time,” Victoria said. “We got here a little early to go over a few things. Frank Bishop, this is Andrea Jafaari and her daughter, Mary.”

As the rest of the introductions were made, Bishop was a little confused. Andrea? Mary? What the hell was that about? He knew going in that the suspect's mother was American, but he never thought she'd be quite this American. He expected an older, dowdier woman in Middle Eastern dress, perhaps wearing the traditional Islamic head covering. Instead, Jafaari, who appeared to be in her midforties, was completely unexceptional, an average, modestly dressed woman you'd never look at twice. Nothing about her was even remotely Arabic. And the daughter, meanwhile, was wearing Lululemon yoga pants and a necklace that said,
PRINCESS.

Sensing his confusion, Victoria said, “We just got some terrific news from the doctors. Ayad was taken off the respirator this morning, he's breathing on his own, and they believe he's gonna pull through. He hasn't regained consciousness yet, but he's definitely turned the corner.”

“That's great,” Bishop said with considerably less enthusiasm than he wanted to muster.

“Why don't we get going since we have a lot of ground to cover?” Victoria said quickly, in the hope that no one else had noticed Bishop's lackluster response.

“I'm going to ask you a lot of questions, Mrs. Jafaari,” Bishop said. “In order to help your son, I need to know what kind of kid he is, who he hangs out with, where he spends his time, what he's into. I need you to be completely honest with me. Even if there's bad stuff. I'm on your side here. The more I know about him and your family, the easier it'll be for us to conduct our investigation and hopefully help him.”

The suspect's mother spoke softly, but she was articulate and direct. She was a fifth-grade teacher who lived in an apartment in Astoria, Queens, a neighborhood where there was a large Greek population and a growing Muslim community. When she was twenty-two she had met and married an Egyptian named Ibrahim Ayad Jafaari against the wishes of her parents. He was, she said, elegant and mysterious, and it was all very exciting. It became a lot less exciting, however, once they were married.

Ibrahim turned out to be moody, secretive, and intolerant. He was verbally abusive to her and their son, Ayad. He even smacked her once, hard, across the face. He had trouble adjusting to America, and when Ayad was not quite six years old, Ibrahim packed up and left. Just walked out one day with no warning, barely a good-bye and no forwarding address. He returned to Egypt and she never saw him or heard from him again. She was seven months pregnant when he abandoned her and Ayad, and she named her daughter Mary, the most American, Christian name she could think of, to spite him.

She raised Ayad and Mary on her own. To supplement her teaching salary, she occasionally worked weekends at a local travel agency that catered to Arabs. Most of the trips were visits home to the Middle East or pilgrimages to Mecca. The agency ran several annual hajj specials that kept them very busy in the months leading up to Ramadan.

“Sometimes I worked a lot of hours,” she said, her voice starting to crack. “But Ayad was a good boy. He looked out for his sister and did whatever I asked him to do. He only got in trouble once. And it wasn't his fault. Six years ago—”

“Mom,
mom
, don't,” her daughter suddenly said, trying to stop her from telling the story.

“It's okay,” she said patiently to Mary, “they'll find out anyway. When Ayad was seventeen, a senior in high school, he was arrested for drugs. It was a big mistake. He was at a party and someone offered him a ride home. They got pulled over and there was a lot of marijuana in the car. Maybe some other things, too, I'm not really sure. It took a few days, but once the police realized he was telling the truth, that he knew nothing about the drugs, the charges were dropped and they let him go.”

“That's it?” Bishop asked. “No other problems? Nothing else we should know about?”

“No,” she said, suddenly weeping softly. “Nothing else. He was a good student and he worked part-time so he'd have spending money.”

“Are you okay, Andrea?” Victoria asked, and handed her a tissue. “Do you want to take a break?”

Bishop snuck a glance at his watch. They'd been talking for nearly an hour.

“No,” she responded. “I'm all right. I'd just like to finish and go be with Ayad.”

“We're almost done,” Bishop said. “You're doing great. How'd he meet the other suspects? The guys he was in the apartment with?”

“As I just mentioned, he worked part-time. In his second year at NYU, he took a class in Islamic studies. He'd always asked questions about his father; he was curious, as any child would be about a parent they never really knew. But he never expressed any interest in Islam or Arab culture. He was a typical teenager, focused on the usual things. But once he got to college and he began to pay a little more attention to what was going on in the world, he became interested in his heritage, his roots. So when he took that class, he also took a job at an Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge. It's just down the street from the mosque and the apartment where he was . . . where he was shot. He met two of the men at the bookstore. And I think they introduced him to the other two.”

“Did he ever talk about politics?” Bishop asked. “Was he angry or upset about the situation in the Middle East?”

“If you're asking me, Mr. Bishop, if he was a radical, or if he had extreme views, the answer is no. He was very passionate about politics, but what he wanted was peace and coexistence, not hate and war. At school he started an informal student group to promote campus coexistence. He has very close Christian, Jewish, and Muslim friends.”

“But, Mrs. Jafaari, surely he must've—”

“Must've what, Mr. Bishop? Hated America? Wanted to commit jihad? Not Ayad. He loved rock and roll, football, and fast cars. He loved being able to think what he wanted and do what he wanted. Ayad loved being American. He was reading the Koran for the first time. He bought his first kufi. He was going to the mosque on Fridays. And you know what? He was beginning to understand and appreciate his heritage, but it actually sharpened his appreciation for this country. Helped him realize how lucky he was. He was curious, he was learning about who he was for the first time. But he was not a—”

“I'm sorry,” Bishop interrupted. “It's just that it's a little hard to believe he was an innocent bystander in an apartment full of terrorists that got raided by the police.”

“I don't know what Ayad was doing in that apartment. But the idea that he would do anything to hurt anyone, that he would do anything that involved bombs, or . . .” Her voice broke and she suddenly couldn't continue. She was weeping now. After nearly an hour and a half, she'd finally lost her composure.

“I think that's probably enough for now, Frank,” Victoria said. “We need to get ready for the press conference anyway.”

“Sure, I've got plenty to get started. When's the press conference, Vic?”

“In about fifteen minutes,” she said.

“Good, then I'm gonna go powder my nose. See you in a few.”

•  •  •

The two men embraced, exchanged pleasantries, and caught each other up on recent events. Then they got down to business. Something would have to be done about the kid, Ayad Jafaari.

“We can't risk leaving any loose ends,” one said while sipping a cup of tea. “He's the only thing that can connect us to the apartment. We should move quickly.”

“Perhaps it will take care of itself,” the other one said optimistically. “If we let it be, if we just give it a little time, he may simply die from his injuries. We should know within a few days whether or not he'll survive. If he doesn't, then it's our good fortune, we don't have to do anything.”

“I'm not willing to leave it to chance. There's too much at stake. It's simpler to just clean it up and then we can move forward.”

The other man nodded and they sat in silence for a few moments.

Finally he said, “It will be very difficult, you know. Not impossible but certainly difficult. His hospital room is heavily guarded. There are police outside the door and police by the elevator to prevent access to the corridor. Lots of obstacles, very risky.”

“I understand, but it's critical that we cover our tracks. I'm confident you'll think of something. You always do.”

LUCY WAS ON
the number 6 train, heading uptown along Manhattan's East Side. She'd gotten on the train in SoHo, about a block and a half from her small one-bedroom apartment. It was noon on a bright, cool Saturday, the kind of day she'd once imagined she'd spend jogging in Central Park, prowling exotic boutiques for fabulous clothes, lunching at some chic spot with her girlfriends, and maybe hitting the Met or the galleries downtown in the late afternoon. At least that's what she'd thought her Saturdays would be like before moving to New York.

The reality on this Saturday and many others, however, was a little different. She was working. After the Domenico-Brock press conference yesterday, she and A. J. had gone back to the office to map out their strategy. A. J. said he would work on getting access to Brock. He was confident that once he spoke to the police commissioner on the phone, he could at least convince him to have dinner—A. J. had his cell number and knew his favorite restaurant—to discuss the possibility of a profile.

“Okay,” Lucy said, “then I'll work on this kid Jafaari and the backstory of the raid.”

“That's exactly what I was going to tell you,” A. J. said. “But there's something else I want you to do as well. Do you know the name Supreme? He's apparently some kind of music producer.”

“Seriously?” Lucy said, tossing her hair back with a sexy little flick of her head. “You've never heard of Supreme? He's the founder of Black Ice Records. He's an entrepreneur like Russell Simmons or Jay Z, only he's not quite as well-known because he spends a lot less time hanging out with rich white people and mainstream celebrities. He's a lot more street.”

“I'm impressed. Way to bring it . . .”

“You know I love you, A. J., but, really, don't do that. Even as a joke. You're like the preppiest guy I've ever seen outside of high school.”

“Sorry. But you don't have to get all up in my grill about—”

“A. J. C'mon.”

“Okay. I'm done now,” he said, laughing. “Anyway, Supreme has left me several voice mails. Serious voice mails.”

“He has? About what?”

“Did you see the story about ten days ago on that cop that was found dead in the Hamptons? The NYPD lieutenant? They found him in the bedroom of his house with a hooker who'd been beaten to death.”

“Yeah, I remember. The
Times
buried it in the Metro section and the tabloids only played it for, like, one day. He was a decorated NYPD veteran who'd been suspended because of some kind of investigation by Internal Affairs. His name was Anderson, right?”