Midnight Club (23 page)

80

John Stefanovitch; New York Harbor

THE HARASSMENT CONTINUED
the following morning.

It was the only way to get to St.-Germain.

A forty-foot launch transported nearly a dozen officers from U.S. Customs and the Drug Enforcement Agency, as well as Stefanovitch, out to a freighter called the
Osprey.
The Turkish ship was anchored just inside New York Harbor, near the Ambrose Light.

Captain Mohammed Rowzi silently cursed the fates as he examined a five-page document stamped with the official seal of the Customs Service, Department of the Treasury. A filterless cigarette that was half ash hung from his bloated, white-scabbed lips. Gulls circled and shrieked overhead.

Captain Rowzi’s command of the English language was poor, but he recognized enough words to understand that he and his ship were in serious trouble with the New York City police.

In particular, Captain Mohammed Rowzi knew that he was in big trouble with the unsmiling police lieutenant seated in the wheelchair before him on his ship’s deck.

“What is meaning this paper?” Captain Rowzi folded both arms across his broad chest, the papers flapping against the wind. He was trying to appear completely mystified as he talked to the police officials.

“This is just your basic court order,” Stefanovitch said in an innocent voice. “It means the Customs Service has received information deemed reliable, passed on by the police department or another law enforcement agency. Your ship is suspected of carrying contraband, specifically narcotics. Drug Enforcement and Customs now have the power to search the ship. They also have the legal power to seize any narcotics and other contraband they find.

“They have the power to destroy your ship’s cargo on the spot, actually. This is Inspector McManus. The search is at his discretion now. His call. Maybe he can tell you more.”

Stefanovitch glanced over at a U.S. Customs officer, Barry McManus, with whom he’d worked several times before. The most amazing thing about this charade was that it was perfectly legal, even commendable.

Captain Rowzi glared into Stefanovitch’s eyes. “Paper means nothing!” he said, and started to turn away.

“Glad you think so.” Stefanovitch shrugged. “I just hope the people who own all the cargo on board feel the same way. Inspector McManus, you can search the boat now.”

A half-dozen New York Customs inspectors immediately, and rather joyfully, went to work. They began their search by ripping apart several wooden crates filled with Turkish cigarettes, pottery, and phony Oriental rugs.

Next, the inspectors carefully went through the ship’s books, checking the bill of lading line by line against the ship’s actual contents. The inspectors found the usual discrepancies, but they made much of them. The search was as noisy as a New Year’s Eve party in Peking.

Five hours later, John Stefanovitch, Inspector Barry McManus, and a very unhappy-looking Captain Rowzi were back together again in the captain’s small, untidy quarters.

Outside the open door, a uniformed policeman stood with a riot shotgun poised across his chest. The freighter captain was already under arrest. Several million dollars’ worth of uncut heroin was being guarded on one of the police launches off the bow.

“I know nothing of drugs. Someone puts drugs on my ship.” Captain Rowzi solemnly, but nervously and unconvincingly, protested. “I am ship captain seventeen years.”

Barry McManus shook his head. He revealed a trace of sympathetic regret, but mostly bureaucratic indifference. His stiff stare was enough to bring strong men to tears. It had done just that more than once in McManus’s career.

“We want to talk to the owners of the cargo on board.” Stefanovitch repeated his bargaining appeal to the freighter captain. “I think I’ve been consistent on that point.”

The Turkish captain wearily shook his head. His khaki shirt was black with sweat stains that ran nearly to his belt. The cramped bunk room smelled like a horse stable.

“I told you name. Star of Panama Company,” he said again, emphasizing syllables with spit. “Star of Panama Company.”

“Yeah. The Star of Panama Company owns the ship. But not the cargo. Not the heroin, Captain Rowzi. We already went through all this crap. It’s on the bill of lading.”

“Captain Rowzi,” Inspector McManus broke in. “Captain, we legally searched your vessel, and we found uncut heroin. We also found perfectly legal pottery, cigarettes, machine-made rugs, specie. All that cargo is in jeopardy now. All of it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The round, bullish shoulders of the ship’s captain sagged further. His neck had almost disappeared.

“Know nothing of drugs,” he repeated.

Stefanovitch looked at the Customs inspector first, then at Captain Rowzi again. “Tell him, Inspector. I think he deserves to know. The owners ought to know, too. The owners of the cargo.”

“In accordance with provisions of the RICO Act,” McManus said to the freighter captain, “I’ve ordered my officers to destroy your vessel’s shipment of goods. Everything on board. All of the cargo. Everything you’ve brought to New York.”

Captain Rowzi couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Were these policemen insane? Entire ship cargoes were never destroyed. His eyes nearly fell out of his face. Such dangerous, unbelievable English words were being spoken: heroin… destroy…cargo.

“No! What I tell owners?”

Stefanovitch leaned forward in his chair. The stench of garlic and sweat coming from Rowzi was overwhelming in such close quarters.

“You can tell Mr. St.-Germain and his friends that under federal law there will be no restitution for any of their losses. Tell them that this is all legal. It’s the fucking law… Our law. And this is just a
start.
”

Stefanovitch started to leave the captain’s quarters, but he paused and turned back.

“And tell him that Lieutenant Stefanovitch said hello. We’re old friends. Old, old friends, Mr. St.-Germain and myself.”

81

AT EIGHT-THIRTY
that night, Stefanovitch pushed himself between crowded dining tables inside the Lotos Club on East Sixty-sixth. The Lotos Club had originally been opened as a gathering place for people in the literary arts. Nowadays it was a favored locale for business meetings, lectures, and lavish parties for executives.

That evening, the main-floor dining room was filled with men and women gathered for one of the hundreds of honorariums that plague New York every night of the year.

Up on the dark wood podium, Alexandre St.-Germain was addressing the room. He saluted the honoree, but also multinational businesses in general, a subject he was well versed in.

Stefanovitch temporarily parked his wheelchair beside one of the tables. He listened to the Grave Dancer talk.

He also watched—both St.-Germain and the other so-called business leaders. He wondered how many of them were legitimate in their multinational business dealings. Were any of them in the Midnight Club? They all looked so above it all; so beyond reproach; so perfect in every way.

Finally, Stefanovitch began to push himself forward again. He tried to clear his mind, refusing to second-guess himself about what he was doing here tonight.

He was flashing painful scenes from Long Beach on the night of the ambush. He was remembering things about Anna; how she had died that night in March.

When he got close to the speaker’s rostrum, Stefanovitch raised his voice above the din in the room.

“St.-Germain!”
he called. “I have a warrant for you to appear before the grand jury. It’s in connection with violations of the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Law. I’m serving you here, with all these very reliable witnesses present.”

Conversation around the room ceased immediately. The waiters stopped serving dinner. Silverware froze halfway to open mouths. St.-Germain’s face was a dark red mask of embarrassment.

Stefanovitch stared at the drug dealer and murderer for a long moment. No one in the dining room looked as if they could possibly belong to the Midnight Club. But nothing was as it seemed anymore.

Stefanovitch finally pushed himself out of the Lotos Club dining room. He was getting to Alexandre St.-Germain. He was sure of it.

82

STEFANOVITCH WENT HOME
after the Lotos Club. He felt better than he had at any other time during the St.-Germain investigation. All his instincts told him that they were doing this right. Just right so far.

He took a hot shower, dried off, and popped open a bottle of beer. He called Sarah, and told her about the scene at the Lotos Club. He wanted to talk about everything with her, but he knew enough not to try. He was too worn, absolutely fried, unfit for anybody’s company tonight.

Finally, Stefanovitch dropped off to sleep on his couch, half watching a movie. The late-night feature was
Chinatown
, Jack Nicholson at his most brilliant and mesmerizing as J. J. Gittes.

Sometime later the phone rang—a jangling up somewhere near the head of the sofa. Stef woke in a disoriented blur.

The room was a cubist puzzle. The picture window was on the wrong side of the bed. All the lights were still on, throwing glaring reflections from the windows back into the room. He finally realized that he was on the couch in the living room, not in his bedroom.

He reached for the phone, nearly pulling it off the stand in the process. He knew it could only be Sarah.

“Hello, this is Stef.” He imitated a phone-answering machine. “When you hear the beep, tell me last night wasn’t a dream. What time is it? Oh yeah, hi.”

There was a strange silence on the other end of the line.

It felt like the physical reality of being somewhere in pitch-blackness. Like falling into a deep tunnel, or drifting into the unfathomable mysteries of death.

A voice finally filtered through the receiver’s tiny black holes. Stefanovitch’s pulse quickened as he listened.

“I wanted you to know one thing, Stefanovitch. I shot her myself. I took the job personally.

“I stood in the hallway of your pathetic little apartment building in Brooklyn Heights. When the front door opened, I fired the shotgun. You can imagine the rest, I’m sure. You get the picture. Good night for now.”

83

John Stefanovitch and Isiah Parker; Central Park West

I WANTED YOU
to know one thing…

I shot her myself…

You can imagine the rest…

The unnerving explosions inside Stefanovitch’s head hadn’t stopped since the phone call.

At six-thirty in the morning, he was on East Forty-third Street waiting for the Sports Center to open. He’d been up since four.

For once, Beth Kelly was sympathetic during the workout. She pushed him, but didn’t try to break him. Something about the wounded look on Stef’s face had quieted her down.

By eight o’clock, Stefanovitch and Isiah Parker were back on Central Park West, waiting for Alexandre St.-Germain to come out to his limousine again, for the chase to resume, the real chase. Maybe the final one.

The Grave Dancer had gotten to Stefanovitch with the phone call.

He hadn’t been able to sleep after the call. He lay awake remembering the months of pain, the suffering after Anna’s murder and the shooting at Long Beach.

I wanted you to know one thing …I shot her myself.

He had waited more than two years; now he needed justice, some form of revenge for everything that had happened.

When he had been growing up, there was a lesson a priest in Minersville had taught. It mirrored his current frustration. In order to explain the concept of infinity to children, the priest would ask his classes to think back to the very beginning of infinity. The process always created a tremendous ache in Stefanovitch’s head. Obviously there could be no beginning. No matter how far he went back, billions and billions of years, he could never reach the starting point of infinity.

Stefanovitch felt that same overpowering frustration now. Alexandre St.-Germain’s freedom and arrogance mocked him. The Grave Dancer had placed himself above the law, outside of every moral and ethical system.

When the front door opened, I fired the shotgun.

You can imagine the rest, I’m sure.

“He’s kind of late getting going this morning. Must be having his Cocoa Puffs.” Isiah Parker finally spoke up inside the surveillance car.

Stefanovitch had told him about the phone call from St.-Germain, and Isiah knew it had shaken him. Lately, he, too, had had nothing but sleepless nights. Two, three hours at the most. He was completely committed to the case they were building against Alexandre St.-Germain. He thought of it as his own personal survival kit.

“Why do you think he called me?” Stefanovitch asked. “Why now? What the hell is going on?”

“Maybe the pressure’s getting to him. You embarrassed the shit out of him yesterday. Before that, you treated him like some cheap punk in front of his apartment. He’s arrogant. I could see that the first time I looked into his eyes.”

“No, there’s something else. Something about that phone call.”

“I don’t think so. Only that he’s still in control.”

“Maybe he’s taking control again,” Stefanovitch said. His eyes were trained thirty yards down the street. On the Grave Dancer’s car.

The blue limousine continued to wait in front of the apartment building. The motor running, smoke curling lazily from the exhaust. Taxis, other private cars arriving for pickups had to park in front of or behind the almighty limousine.

Eight-thirty became nine on Stefanovitch’s watch, a gift from his father when he’d left Minersville. The old Bulova still kept time. It also kept his fashion image right about where he wanted it on this particular morning—early racetrack.

Something was happening right now. His cop’s instincts told him that as he and Parker sat watching Alexandre St.-Germain’s building, another complex universe was operating, completely separate from theirs. St.-Germain’s sordid universe; the Midnight Club’s universe.

“This is getting a little too familiar,” he finally said. “The stakeout routine. Maybe that’s what’s bothering me. I’ve got ten past nine. He’s never this late. The limousine’s just sitting there. What do you want to do?”

Isiah Parker pushed open the car door and stepped out onto Central Park West. Traffic noise rushed inside the car. “I’ll go this time. Bet I get that asshole chauffeur to roll down the window in the limousine.”

“I’ll bet you do, too.”

Isiah Parker walked up Central Park West toward the waiting stretch limousine. His long stride ate up the sidewalk distance quickly. His dark glasses seemed to ward off glances from the other people on the street.

When he reached the limo, he knocked hard on the driver’s door. The window was mirrored. Parker could see himself, and the cars sliding past on the street. Finally, the glass eased down.

Isiah Parker smiled as he leaned in toward the driver. It was a typical New-York-cop-versus-New-Jersey-wise-guy confrontation, the kind that happened every day on the street. The driver wore a shiny black monkey suit. His smile was typically smug, behind dark Ray-Ban sunglasses.

“Where’s the Grave Dancer, my good man? Your boss is going to be late for work today,” Parker said.

The driver shrugged and he issued a coarse grunt. The gesture signified a what’s-it-to-you kind of attitude that Isiah Parker just loved.

“Mr. St.-Germain’s already gone to work. He left a message for you, though. He says for you two traffic cops to go ahead, give me the morning’s traffic ticket. He told me to tear it up in your faces. He says you have your laws, he has his. He said to tell you, and your buddy the cripple, that the game’s just beginning. It’s just the beginning, Dick Tracy.”

Moments later, an emergency call came over the police radio in Parker and Stefanovitch’s car. Something had happened. The Grave Dancer had gone to work all right.