Kill Me If You Can (3 page)

There was a
dead guy at my feet, a fortune in diamonds in my hands, and an NYPD uniform pointing his gun at me. Now what happens?

“Officer Kendall,” I said, reading his name tag. “I’m really glad you showed up. Thank God. Can you give me a hand here?”

“Who are you? Who is he?” the cop asked.

“I’m Dr. Jason Wood,” I said, dredging up a name. “And I have no idea who he is, but I can tell you he’s dead.”

I knelt down beside the body and tried to appear oblivious of the policeman’s gun. “There was nothing I could do. He had expired by the time I got here.”

Kendall was young, a beat cop, and this had to be the most action he’d seen since the Academy. One minute he was probably shooing unlicensed T-shirt vendors off Madison Avenue, and the next he’s involved in a bomb attack in the heart of Manhattan.

“Please do me a favor,” I said, barely looking up at him. “Would you point that gun somewhere else?”

“Sorry, Doc,” he said, holstering the weapon.

I leaned over the dead body like I knew what I was doing. “He must have caught some shrapnel when the bombs went off,” I said, stalling. “You know who’s behind it?”

“I don’t know shit,” the cop said. “I was on Forty-sixth Street. The call went out that bombs had gone off at Grand Central. I just got here.”

“Just a minute. Hold on. I’ve got an incoming.” I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and pressed it to my ear. Then I improvised. “Hello, this is Dr. Wood,” I said. “I know. I was actually in Grand Central when the bombs went off. I’m still there. I’ll get to the ER as soon as I possibly can.”

I stood up. “Look, Officer,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do for this man. But there are people who need my help. I’ve got to get back down to St. Vincent’s. Are the subways running?”

“Shut down,” he said.

“All right. I’ll walk if I have to.”

Kendall’s radio came to life then.
“All units, Grand Central Terminal. I have a ten-thirteen. Repeat—ten-thirteen: Officer needs assistance. Multiple looters at Five Borough Jewelry in the Forty-second Street Passageway. Shots fired.”

That’s when I found out that an officer in trouble trumps a dead civilian. Kendall didn’t hesitate. “I gotta go,” he said. “You wait here for the coroner.”

He raced off toward the Forty-second Street Passageway. As soon as he was out of sight, I headed in the other direction. As fast as I could.

I cut through the frenzied mass of people in Grand Central. It took maybe five or six minutes to get out to Lexington Avenue, where the insanity was even worse.

With the trains shut down, the street was teeming with commuters who wanted to get as far from midtown Manhattan as possible. And who were fighting over the few yellow cabs that had stopped.

Three men in suits had cornered one driver and were attempting to negotiate their way out of Dodge.

“Scarsdale,” one said. “I’ll give you three hundred bucks.”

“Ridgewood, New Jersey,” another guy said, and he actually held out a handful of hundreds. “A thousand dollars.”

I couldn’t believe it. I could fly to Japan for less than that. Jersey won the bidding war. He was about to get in the cab when I grabbed his arm.

“I’m a doctor. I have to get downtown to St. Vincent’s Hospital to deal with the victims,” I said. “If you’re taking the Holland Tunnel, you’ll go right past it.”

He looked down at my medical bag. “Yeah, yeah, Doc,” he said. “Hop in. Let’s get out of here.”

I got in. The driver locked the doors and began to weave his way through the human traffic jam on Lexington Avenue. St. Vincent’s is only a few blocks from my apartment. I was headed home. No charge.

Even if I decide to turn in these diamonds,
I thought,
I’m definitely keeping this little black bag.

Thirty minutes after
Walter Zelvas bled out on the floor of Grand Central, two NYPD detectives pulled up to his apartment building on East 77th Street. Some cops go by the book, some bend the rules. But Detectives John Rice and Nick Benzetti were considerably dirtier than most of the crooks they busted.

They had finished the day shift in Robbery for the Department, and now they were working for Chukov at a much better hourly rate. Their mission was simple.
Find the diamonds.

The doorman looked away as they entered the building. He knew exactly where they were headed. For fifty bucks he had supplied them with a key to the apartment of that nasty-ass Russian who had stiffed him at Christmas: Walter Zelvas.

The two cops entered the elevator.

Benzetti stood six feet tall, with slick black hair and an oversize hawk nose protruding from a small, pinched face. Tall, dark, and ugly. In reality, he was wearing six-inch cheater shoes, and his gray hair was slathered with Just For Men hair dye. The ugly came natural.

Rice, six three and bald, didn’t need help from a shoe company or a hair dye. But the two cops had one thing in common. They were both terrified.

They had met Zelvas once. And he didn’t like them. He didn’t care if they were on Chukov’s payroll. They were still cops.

They’d sat across the table from him at Chukov’s apartment, a bottle of vodka, a loaf of black bread, and a large block of cheese between them.

“Screw me over and I’ll kill you,” Zelvas had said. “And not with a bullet.”

He picked up a stainless-steel slicer and dragged it slowly, menacingly across the top of the cheese. A ten-inch sliver peeled away.

“Do you know how long it takes a man to die if you skin him alive?” Zelvas asked, popping the cheese curl into his mouth. “Six days. Four if you add salt.”

Benzetti and Rice stood to the left and right of the door outside apartment 16E, guns drawn. They knew Chukov wanted to ice Zelvas. What they didn’t know was that he was already dead.

“If Zelvas is there, we take him out quick,” Rice said. “I’ll aim for his head. You go for his heart.”

Benzetti knelt down, slid the key into the lock, and turned it. With Rice standing over him aiming high left, and his own gun pointed low right, he opened the door. Clear. The two men slowly padded into the living room.

The overstuffed sofa and two massive armchairs were covered in a shiny fabric with black and gold geometric shapes. Walter Zelvas was big and ugly, Benzetti thought, and he had furniture to match.

They scanned the room. Clear.

And then they heard it. A noise. Metallic. It was coming from the bedroom.

The two cops froze.

Whoever was on the other side of the door was too busy to know they were in the apartment. They moved silently, expertly, through the living room and flattened themselves against the wall outside the bedroom door.

From his lead vantage point Rice could see the wall safe. It had just been opened. But not by Zelvas.

He signaled his partner, and the two of them rushed in. “I’m guessing Walter isn’t at home,” Rice said, pointing his gun at the safecracker.

She looked up. She was drop-dead gorgeous. Midtwenties, dark hair, long legs, wearing ass-hugging jeans and a tight white blouse with the top three buttons undone.

“Shoot her,” Benzetti said.

“Back off,” the woman said in a voice that seemed to hold no fear. “Do you know who I am? Obviously you don’t.”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Benzetti said.
“Shoot her.”

“Maybe we should find out who she is first,” Rice said. “She obviously thinks she’s somebody.”

“I don’t care who she thinks she is,” Benzetti said.

“I see, I see,” she said. “Good cop, bad cop. You’re the two
mudaks
who work for Chukov, Benzetti and Rice. Zelvas warned me about you.”

“And you’re the woman breaking and entering, then ransacking Walter Zelvas’s safe.”

“I’m not ransacking. I have the combination. Zelvas gave it to me. As well as a key to his front door.”

She was defiant but she was also breathing hard. She was scared.

Benzetti loved watching this one squirm. The nice breasts were an added bonus for him. In a way, it would be a crime against nature to kill her.

“And why would Zelvas give you his front door key plus the combination to his safe?”

“I’m his girlfriend. I’m Natalia.”

Rice looked at Benzetti. “Chukov never said anything about Zelvas having a girlfriend.”

“So you
do
work for Chukov,” Natalia said. “What does he want here? You can tell me. After all, you plan to kill me.”

“He sent us to pick up some diamonds,” Benzetti said.

“I work for Nathaniel Prince,” Natalia said. “He sent me here for the diamonds, and he’s Chukov’s boss.”

“I thought Chukov was the boss,” Benzetti said.

“Chukov?” Natalia said, spitting out the name. “Do you think that boot-licking
dalbaiyob
is smart enough to run an operation like the Diamond Syndicate? Chukov works for Nathaniel Prince, and Nathaniel sent me, so put the guns down, gentlemen, and let me finish what I started. You couldn’t open the safe, anyway. I have the combination.”

“But we have the guns,” Benzetti said. He nodded to Rice. “Cuff her.”

Zelvas had a home gym in the bedroom, and Rice handcuffed Natalia’s slender right wrist to a two-hundred-pound barbell.

Benzetti reached into the safe and pulled out a black velvet bag. It had some heft to it—at least a couple of kilos. He wondered how many diamonds they could skim off without getting nailed. He dumped the contents on the bed.

No diamonds. Just cheese. A big fat wheel of cheese the size of a birthday cake.

Natalia let out a string of Russian curses.

“Calm the hell down,” Benzetti said.

She didn’t.

Rice grinned. “I don’t speak Russian, but I’m guessing she’s really pissed.”

Benzetti shrugged. “Hey, she was banging the ugliest guy on the Upper East Side, expecting diamonds, and all she got was a hunk of cheese. Hell, I’d be pissed, too.”

The two cops
left Natalia chained to the barbell and did a quick search of the apartment. After five minutes, Benzetti called it off. “If they’re not in the safe, they’re not here,” he said. “Which one of us breaks the bad news to Chukov?”

They flipped a coin and Benzetti lost. Jesus, he did not want to make this phone call.

Chukov was a two-hundred-fifty-pound powder keg with a half-inch fuse. Benzetti had once seen him smash a beer bottle and drive it into a man’s jaw for cheating at poker. And that was over a lousy hundred-dollar pot.

“Cheese?” Chukov screamed. “
Cheese?
You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Benzetti could practically feel the enraged Cossack’s spittle through the cell phone. “No diamonds?” Chukov shouted.

“And no Zelvas,” Benzetti said.

“Zelvas is dead,” Chukov said.

“Zelvas is dead?” Benzetti repeated so that Rice could hear the news. “And you know that how? You’re sure of it?”

“He was stealing from us,” Chukov said. “I’m in charge of the Syndicate’s loss-prevention department. Ten minutes ago I got a confirmation call from the field that Zelvas’s thieving days are over.”

Benzetti breathed out in relief. “I’m impressed. Where did you find someone who could get the drop on Walter Zelvas? Never mind. Did your man in the field say anything about the diamonds?” Benzetti asked. “If they’re not here, I figure Zelvas took them with him.”

“If he did, our man didn’t see them,” Chukov said. “He barely had time to finish Zelvas off when a shitstorm of cops arrived. He was lucky to get away.”

“He never saw any diamonds?” Benzetti said.

“That’s what he told me. I really don’t know, but I want those diamonds back!” Chukov yelled.

“And so does somebody named Nathaniel Prince,” Benzetti said.

That seemed to get the Russian’s attention. “What do you know about Nathaniel Prince?”

“Is he your boss?”

“You and Rice work for me,” Chukov said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Actually, there is one other thing I need to know,” Benzetti said. “Who’s Natalia? She’s around five ten, dark hair, fantastic rack, a very pretty lady.”

“How do you know Natalia?” Chukov asked.

“We’ve got her handcuffed in Zelvas’s bedroom. She was opening his safe just as we got here.”

“Natalia is Prince’s girlfriend.”

“
Prince’s
girlfriend? She said she was Zelvas’s girlfriend.”

Chukov laughed. “She gets around.”

“What should we do with the lovely Natalia?”

“Two choices,” Chukov said. “You can uncuff her, apologize for not knowing who she is, and tell her you’re going to do all you can to get the diamonds back for Nathaniel Prince.”

“I’m not much for apologies. What’s my second choice?”

“Keep her cuffed, rip off her clothes, fuck the living shit out of her—and a few hours later, you’ll be happy but dead. Prince will kill you—
gulag-style.
”

There’s something surreal
about sitting in the back of a taxi with a bag full of diamonds.
This can’t be happening to me,
I kept telling myself. But it was. I only wished I could open the bag and make sure.

My benefactor from New Jersey didn’t even talk to me. He was on his cell with someone in Tokyo, hedging funds or whatever those investor guys do. I’m sure by the time he got to Ridgewood, he’d made more than enough to pay for the thousand-dollar cab ride.

The driver was chatty all the way downtown, filling me in on his own financial plans.

“I can be back at Grand Central in an hour. There’s gotta be hundreds of rich guys willing to pop big bucks to get home to the suburbs,” he said. “This is the kind of incredible night a cabbie waits for.”

So little time. So many desperate stranded souls to gouge.
I smiled and hefted my medical bag. Who was I to judge?

He took me to the Emergency entrance at St. Vincent’s and left in a hurry. I walked the three blocks to my apartment, looking left, right, and behind me every step of the way.

My apartment is in a five-story brownstone, built back in the early twentieth century, when craftsmanship and integrity were still the hallmarks of the construction industry. The brick is so solid-looking that the tenants call it the Fortress.

I live on the top floor. There’s a closed-circuit TV system in the vestibule, and most nights I wave at the camera, and whoever sees me opens their door and gives me a “Hi, Matthew.”

But tonight I ran up the five flights, opened my door, double-locked it behind me, and exhaled. I hadn’t been arrested or killed and I still had the diamonds. I was safe. For now.

I always feel good about walking into my apartment, and tonight I felt even better. It’s hardly the biggest space in New York, but it feels homey. That’s because it’s wall-to-wall me. Literally. Every inch of wall space is covered with my paintings. I don’t know if I’m any good, but I like my stuff enough to want to look at it all the time.

My cat sauntered in. I got him at the shelter two years ago. He’s black and white, with about fifteen shades of gray. His name was Hooper when I adopted him, but I changed it to Hopper, after my favorite painter.

It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t come no matter what I call him.

“Look what Daddy brought home,” I said, showing him the bag of diamonds. He couldn’t have cared less, but I had been dying to show somebody.

“Well,
you
might not be interested, but I hear this stuff can be catnip for some women.”

I grabbed a beer from the fridge, sat down on the sofa, opened the bag, and let the diamonds trickle through my fingers. I was in
I’m-Rich-Beyond-My-Wildest-Dreams
euphoria when the doorbell rang.

Someone was coming for the diamonds! That had to be it. Shit!

I jumped up, sloshing beer on my pants, and headed for the cabinets where I store my paints, brushes, and a Beretta M9 semiautomatic. I’m an ex-Marine. Whoever was downstairs thought I was just an art student. Advantage: for me.

I gripped the gun and moved over to check the closed-circuit monitor. The cat, just as curious to see who was at my front door at ten minutes after midnight, followed me.

I looked at the screen and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Jeez, Hopper,” I said. “One of us is as nervous as a cat.”