Cold Vengeance (30 page)

C
HAPTER 66

T
HE BUILDING ON
E
AST
E
ND
A
VENUE
could not be dignified by the name
brownstone
. It was brick, not stone; it was narrow; and it rose only three stories. A more dismal and down-at-the-heels structure could not be found on the Upper East Side, Corrie decided as she lounged against a ginkgo tree on the opposite side of the street, drinking coffee and pretending once again to read a book.

The windows had firmly drawn shades that looked like they had been yellowing for decades. The windows themselves were filthy, covered with bars, and sporting lead alarm tape. The stoop was cracked, and trash had collected in the basement entrance. Despite the shabby appearance, however, the building seemed buttoned up pretty tight, with gleaming new locks on the front door. And the bars on the windows didn’t look old, either.

She finished her coffee, put away her book, and strolled down the street. The neighborhood, once German, had become facetiously known as the “girl ghetto,” the preferred neighborhood for recent college graduates, mostly women, newly arrived in Manhattan and looking for a safe place to live. The neighborhood was quiet, orderly, and undeniably safe. The streets thronged with attractive, preppy young women, most of whom looked like they worked on Wall Street or in one of the Park Avenue law firms.

Corrie wrinkled her nose and continued to the end of the block. Betterton had said he’d seen someone leave the building, but it didn’t look like anyone had been there in ages.

She turned around and strolled back down the block, feeling dissatisfied. The building was part of a long row of real brownstones, and no doubt each one had a small garden or patio in the rear. If she could get a look at the back of the building, she’d be able to check things out a little better. Of course, it might just be part of the overheated imagination of Betterton. Then again, there was something almost believable about his story of Pendergast blowing up a bar, burning down a drug lab, and sinking a bunch of boats. And although Betterton had been wrong, she had to admit he looked both smart and tough. He didn’t strike her as being someone who would be easy to kill. But kill him they had.

As she neared the center of the block, she eyed the two brownstones adjoining number 428. They were both typical, bustling Upper East Side buildings, with several apartments per floor. Even as she watched, a young woman exited one of the buildings, dressed in a spiffy suit and carrying a briefcase. The woman passed by her with nary a sideways glance, leaving a trail of expensive perfume. Other young women of the neighborhood were coming and going, and they all seemed to be of the same type: young professionals in business suits or jogging outfits. Corrie realized that her own Goth look—the streaked spiky hair, dangling metal, multiple earrings, and tattoos—made her stick out like a sore thumb.

What to do?
She went into a bagel shop, ordered a bialy with lox spread, and sat by the window where she had a view down the street. If she could manage to make friends with someone on a ground-floor apartment on either side of the building, she might just talk her way into seeing the backyard. But you just didn’t walk up and say hello to people in New York City. She wasn’t in Kansas anymore…

… And then, coming out of the brownstone to the right of 428, she saw a girl with long black hair, wearing a leather miniskirt and tall leather boots.

Dropping a few dollar bills on the table, she bolted from the bagel shop and went walking down the street, swinging her bag and looking up at the sky, on a collision course with the fellow Goth coming the other way.

It had been so easy. Now the sun was setting and Corrie was relaxing in the tiny kitchen of the ground-floor apartment, drinking green tea and listening to her newfound friend complaining about all the yuppies in the neighborhood. Her name was Maggie and she worked as a waitress at a jazz club while trying to break into theater. She was bright, funny, and clearly starved for company.

“I’d love to move out to Long Island City or Brooklyn,” she said, cupping her tea, “but my dad thinks any place in New York outside of the Upper East Side is populated by rapists and murderers.”

Corrie laughed. “Maybe he’s right. That building next door looks pretty creepy.” She felt horribly guilty manipulating a girl she would actually like to have as a friend.

“I think it’s abandoned. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone go in or out. Weird—it’s probably worth five million bucks. Prime real estate just going to waste.”

Corrie nursed her tea and wondered, now that she was here, how she was going to get outside into the patio behind the brownstone, get over the eight-foot wall into the backyard of the creepy house next door—and then break in.

Break in
. Was that really what she was going to do? For the first time, she stopped to think about why, exactly, she was here and what she was planning. She had told herself she was just going to check things out. Casually. Was it really the most intelligent thing to do: contemplate a B&E even as she was studying at John Jay for a career in law enforcement?

And that was only the half of it. Sure, she’d broken into more than her share of places before, back in Medicine Creek—just for the hell of it—but if Betterton was right, these people were dangerous drug dealers. And Betterton was
dead
. Then, of course, there was her promise to Pendergast…

Of course she wouldn’t break in. But she’d check it out. She’d play it safe, peer through the windows, keep her distance. At the first sign of trouble, or danger, or anything, she’d back off.

She turned to Maggie and sighed. “I like it here. I wish I had a place like this. I’m getting kicked out of my apartment the day after tomorrow and my new lease doesn’t start until the first. Guess I’ll go stay at a hostel or something.”

Maggie brightened. “You need a place to crash for a few days?”

“Do I!” Corrie smiled.

“Hey, it will be great having somebody here. Living alone can kind of creep you out sometimes. Do you know, when I got home yesterday evening I had the strangest feeling that somebody had been in the apartment while I was gone…”

C
HAPTER 67

B
Y TEN PM, THE WIND HAD PICKED UP
, raising faint whitecaps on the dark surface of the Hudson River, and the temperature hovered a few degrees above freezing. The tide was ebbing, and the river flowed smoothly southward toward New York Harbor. The lights of New Jersey glowed coldly across the dark mass of moving water.

Ten blocks north of the Seventy-Ninth Street marina, on the riprapped shore below the West Side Highway, a dark figure moved down by the water. It was dragging a broken piece of flotsam over the rocks—a battered remnant of a floating dock, some planks of wood adhering to an abraded chunk of marine Styrofoam. The figure eased the piece into the water and got aboard, covering himself with a rotten section of a discarded tarp. As the raft hung next to shore, the figure produced a stick, whittled flat at one end, which when dipped in the water became almost invisible and which subtly controlled the progress of what looked like a mass of floating detritus.

With a small push of the stick, the man shoved the improvised barque away from shore, where it drifted into the current, joining other random pieces of flotsam and jetsam.

It moved out until it was a few hundred feet offshore. There it floated, turning slowly, as it drifted sluggishly toward a group of silent yachts in a mooring field, their anchor lights piercing the darkness. Slowly, the flotsam floated past the boats, bumping against one hull, then another, on its seemingly random journey. Gradually, it approached the largest yacht in the anchorage, knocking lightly against its hull and drifting past. As it neared the stern there was the very slightest of movements, a rustle and a faint splash, and then silence as the now-tenantless piece of garbage continued past the yacht and vanished in the darkness.

Pendergast, in a sleek neoprene suit, crouched on the swim platform behind the stern transom of the
Vergeltung
, listening intently. All was silent. After a moment, he raised his head and peered over the edge of the stern. He could see two men in the darkness, one relaxing on a sitting area on the aft deck, smoking a cigarette. The other was walking around on the foredeck, barely visible from this angle.

As Pendergast watched, the man on the aft deck raised a pint bottle and took a long pull. After a few minutes, he rose—unsteadily—and took a turn around the deck, pausing at the stern not five feet from Pendergast, looking across the water, before reinstalling himself in his nook and taking another long drink from the bottle. He stubbed out the cigarette, lit another.

From the small dive bag he carried, Pendergast removed his Les Baer .45 and gave it a quick check. He shoved it back into the bag and removed a short length of rubber hose.

Again he waited, watching. The man continued drinking and smoking, then finally rose and walked forward, disappearing through a door into the interior of the yacht, where dim lights glowed from various windows.

In a flash Pendergast was over the stern and onto the aft deck, crouching behind a pair of tenders.

Thanks to his new friend Lowe, Pendergast had learned there were probably only a few crew members on board. Most had gone ashore that afternoon, leaving, the general manager believed, only four on the vessel. How accurate this information was remained to be seen.

According to Lowe’s description, one of the men was undoubtedly Esterhazy. And then there were the supplies Lowe had observed being loaded recently, including a long stainless-steel dry-goods box large enough to hide an unconscious person—or, for that matter, a corpse.

Pendergast briefly considered what he would do to Esterhazy if the man had already killed Constance.

Esterhazy sat on an engine room bulkhead next to Falkoner, the redheaded woman whose name he did not know, and four men carrying identical Beretta 93R machine pistols configured for automatic three-round burst action. Falkoner had insisted they retreat to the engine room—the most secure place on the boat—for the operation. Nobody spoke.

Soft footfalls approached outside the door, and then a triple knock sounded lightly, followed by a double knock. Falkoner rose and unlocked the door. A man with a cigarette in his mouth stepped inside.

“Put that out,” said Falkoner sharply.

The man quickly stubbed it out. “He’s on board,” he said.

Falkoner looked at him. “When?”

“A few minutes back. He was good—arrived on a floating piece of trash. I almost didn’t catch it. He climbed onto the swim platform and now he’s in the aft deck area. Vic up on the flybridge is keeping track of him with the infrared night-vision setup.”

“Does he suspect anything?”

“No. I pretended to be drunk, like you said.”

“Very good.”

Esterhazy rose. “Damn it, if you had an opportunity to kill him you should have taken it! Don’t get cocky—this man is worth half a dozen of you. Shoot him at your first chance.”

Falkoner turned. “No.”

Esterhazy stared at him. “What do you mean,
no
? We already discussed—”

“Take him alive. I have a few questions before we kill him.”

Esterhazy stared. “You’re making a huge mistake. Even if you manage to take him alive, he won’t answer any questions.”

Falkoner gave Esterhazy a brutal smile, which stretched the already repulsive mole. “I never have problems getting people to answer questions. But I wonder, Judson, why
you
would have a problem with that? Afraid we might find out something you’d rather keep hidden?”

“You’ve no idea who you’re dealing with,” Esterhazy said quickly, a stab of familiar fear suddenly freighting his anxiety. “You’re a fool if you don’t kill him right away, on sight, before he figures out what’s going on.”

Falkoner narrowed his eyes. “There are a dozen of us. Heavily armed, well trained. What’s the matter, Judson? We’ve taken care of you well enough all these years—and now you suddenly don’t trust us? I’m surprised—and hurt.”

The voice was laden with sarcasm. Esterhazy felt the old fear grow in the pit of his stomach.

“We’ll be in open water on our own boat. We’ve got the advantage of surprise—he has no idea he’s walking into a trap. And we’ve got his woman tied up below. He’s at our mercy.”

Esterhazy swallowed.
As am I
, he thought.

Falkoner spoke into his headset. “Take her out to sea.” He looked around the group gathered in the engine room. “We’ll let the others take care of him. If things go awry, then we’ll make our move.”

Pendergast, still crouching behind the tenders, felt a rumble shudder through the yacht. The engines had been turned on. He heard some voices forward, heard the faint splash of a mooring pennant tossed overboard; and then he felt the prow of the boat swing westward, toward the navigational channel of the river, as the engines accelerated to full throttle.

Pendergast pondered the coincidence of his arrival and the boat’s departure, and decided it was not a coincidence after all.