Fifth Ave 02 - Running of the Bulls (34 page)

“Are you saying I murdered him?”

“Did you?”

She barked out a laugh.
 
“Are you serious?”
 
She didn’t wait for an answer.
 
“No, Marty, I didn’t murder him.
 
I found him.
 
What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Not a thing.
 
I’m just tired of being lied to.
 
Why were you here?”

“I had an interview with him,” she said tightly.
 
“And what do you mean you’re tired of being lied to?”

Marty ignored the question.
 
“Schwartz was dead when you got here.
 
I want to know how you got inside.”

“The door was unlocked.
 
I rang the buzzer twice and then tried the handle.
 
I called out his name and got no response.
 
The air stank.
 
I saw the table lying on its side and knew that something was wrong.
 
I found him in the living room.
 
I called you and then his telephone started to ring.
 
It scared me.
 
I got out.”

“You did more than that,” Marty said.
 
“There’s no way you were here and didn’t look around.
 
You’re smarter than that.
 
You’re after something.
 
Tell me what you found.”

"I didn't find anything.
 
I got out of there."

“You said Wood killed herself because of you.
 
I know you were there the day she died.
 
I have an eyewitness who saw you leaving her house with a box.
 
Obviously, you threatened her.
 
I want to know with what.”

"We’ll talk about that later."

“What’s your relationship with Wolfhagen?”

"We’ll talk about that, too."

“What's the importance of November 5, 2007?”

Silence.

“Talk to me, or I swear to God I’m out.”

A van passed on the street, taillights burning red.
 
Marty left the living area and stepped back into the cold hallway, his shoes crunching on the broken glass.
 
He removed his paper slippers, shook them and put them in his pocket.
 
It was a moment before Maggie spoke.

“All right,” she said.
 
“I’ll talk to you.
 
But not over the phone.
 
I’ll come there.”

“When?”

“Now.
 
And while you're waiting, look in Schwartz’s bedroom.
 
Push past the clothes in his closet and see for yourself what we’re up against.
 
You have no idea, Marty.
 
None.
 
You’re close to the truth, but you don’t know all of it.
 
Look in that closet and see what I’ve suspected for years.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

8:19 p.m.

Marty pocketed the phone, turned on the hall light and took the stairs to the second floor.
 
He looked right and saw the door to Peter Schwartz’s bedroom hanging off its hinges like a broken jaw.
 
Splinters of wood led into and out of the room in concentric half-circles, as though scattered there not by force, but by a careful hand.
 

Unmoving, he stood just outside the room looking in.
 

Shafts of yellow light touched down from the opposite window, the bright shards of a wall mirror glinted like a splintered, frozen pond in the center of the embroidered rug, the smell of death, even here.
 
He reached inside for the light switch and turned it on.

Tried to turn it on.
 

He flipped the switch up and down but nothing happened.
 
No light would shine.

He listened, heard only the air conditioner, the gentle rippling of a curtain he couldn’t see, and removed the penlight from his pocket.
 
He swept the room with the waning amber light and spotted a lamp on the side table next to the window.
 
He went to it and turned it on.

Two bureaus, both with their drawers stuck out like dry wide tongues, were along the wall in front of him.
 
Each had been emptied for inspection, their contents stuffed back haphazardly.
 
The large, unmade bed was beside him, its high pale posts stretching to the ceiling, cream-colored sheets crumpled, pillow cases missing.
 
The door leading to the adjoining bathroom was open.
 
The closet was beside it, its double set of doors shut tight.

Marty went to it, swung open the doors.

Two rows of suits and shirts and folded pants on wooden hangers lined the top and bottom bars.
 
Marty pushed the upper rack of clothes aside.
 
In the sudden rush of air, he smelled the faint, unmistakable scent of leather and rubber--and knew.
 
He parted the lower set of suits and glimpsed a waist-high door painted red against the dark wall.
 
He cleared an area large enough to walk through and turned the black handle.
 
He pushed.
 

On the street, a car alarm began to scream.

Startled, he glanced over his shoulder, toward the window and listened to the bleating.
 
It was coming from one of the cars parked curbside and he cursed it.
 
Schwartz’s neighbors would be looking out, noting the lighted window, filing it away unknowingly.
 

He needed to leave, but not before learning what Maggie Cain already knew.
 
He ducked his head and slipped under the lower bar.
 
The door gave easily.
 
A light flashed on automatically, surprising him to the point that he drew his gun.
 
The room was narrow and deep, floor painted black, air heavy and still.
 

Marty holstered his gun and stood.

Along the pegboard to his left were leather head masks with zippered mouths, full rubber body suits, heavy metal chains and gleaming handcuffs, a coiled noose, a birch switch, nipple clamps, feathers, dildos, knives.
 
In another investigation, he’d seen something like this before.
 
But then, Marty had never seen knives displayed for sexual pleasure, and now he could only guess what Peter Schwartz had done with them.
 
Or what they had done to him.

He stepped deeper into the room, which opened to become surprisingly large and well appointed.

On the wall to his right were file cabinets, a desk with a computer, a telephone and an answering machine.
 
Toward the back was an entertainment center, complete with a massive, flat-screen television, a DVD player, camcorder and stacks of DVDs, each listed in descending order by month and year.
 
Marty scanned the dates, which began in the fall of 2001, and noted with interest that there was no DVD for November 2007.
 
The final DVD was for July, just a month ago.

Marty grabbed it, went to the television, turned it on, popped the DVD into the player, found the remote and hit PLAY.

The screen brightened to a lighter shade of gray and suddenly he was looking at a row of well-fed white men with soft arms and softer stomachs sitting naked on a long wooden bench, their faces concealed with leather hoods.
 

Above them, a single bare light bulb swung from a black cord, casting shadows, throwing light.
 
The camera panned left and Marty saw the object of their desire--in a large metal cage, a woman was lying naked on a gleaming metal necropsy table.
 
She was young, fit, attractive.
 
Cocooning her in duct tape was an older, powerfully built man, his dark hairy arms rolling her over and over, hoisting up her ass, shooting the tape through and around, pulling it tight.
 
The woman’s lips moved and her head lolled sluggishly.
 
She raised her head and seemed to scream, but there was no sound on this disc, only silence.
 

Marty clenched his jaw as the camera swung left.
 

The space was huge, open, industrial.
 
Black walls, floor, ceiling.
 
No windows.
 
Smoke in the air.
 
Strobe lights strummed at the rear of the room, briefly catching the jerky movement of other bodies, all wearing the same leather hoods, all naked and dancing.
 
He thought of Judge Wood, of her naked friends and their dark car, and wondered where they were in this crowd.

The camera panned, stopped and zoomed in on the several people sitting across the room at the makeshift bar.
 
And finally Marty saw faces.
 
He leaned forward and saw
faces
.
  
The leather hoods had come off and people were sitting on wide wooden stools.
 
The bartender wore a black rubber apron and nothing else.
 
He swung his hips and cracked open beers.
 
He laughed while he served them.
 

Marty was startled to find that he knew the man, had seen his face time and again on television and in the press.
 
He was Jackie Diamond, the well-known, right-wing, bible-waving, oil-rich, big-nosed senator from Arkansas.
 
He was worth millions, hundreds of millions, and here he was wearing black rubber and serving canned beer to a group of naked men and women probably just as wealthy and as powerful.

The camera panned up and Marty glimpsed the image of a bull painted money-green on the wall above the bar.
 
He pushed pause and the image froze.
 
The bull was enormous and towering.
 
It leaned over Diamond’s shoulder with bulging eyes and flaring nostrils, as though it would tear him apart if given the chance.
 
A gold hoop shot clean through its snout.
 
The rack of spotlights nailed to the ceiling illuminated it in a half-moon.
 
The head was an exact replica of the tattoo he’d seen on Wood.

Marty turned off the television, ejected the disc and put it back in the stack.
 
His hands were trembling.
 
He was beginning to see all of it now.
 
This club wasn’t just New York, it was nationwide and he was right in the middle of it.
 

He and Maggie Cain.

The car alarm stopped.
 
Marty checked his watch, went to the file cabinets and pulled open the drawers.
 
Empty.
 
He turned on the computer and looked for files.
 
None.
 
They had been purged, the hard disk cleared and reformatted, which wasn't a problem because the information was still ghosted there, assuming the person didn’t fully wipe it.
 

He opened the desk drawer and found empty folders, pens, pencils, a stack of printing paper, the usual.
 
But what, if anything, had been in those folders?
 
And why leave behind the DVDs?
 
He checked himself.
 
Why leave behind every DVD save for the one marked November 2007?
 
It was no coincidence the disc was missing--November 5, 2007 had been scrawled in blood above Wood's bed.
 
He knew what was on it--more of what he'd just seen on the July DVD.
 
Whoever took it obviously was on it.
 
They didn’t want to be seen.

Was it Maggie Cain?
 
She'd just been here.
 
But not long ago, so had the person who killed Schwartz.
 
So who took it?