NYPD Red 4 (8 page)

“Bullshit. That’s a goddamn lie.”

“You’re right.” I leaned forward and whispered, “I borrowed it from the evidence clerk at my precinct, but I’m going to swear you sold it to me. So either step outside and talk to my partner, or an hour from now your pretty little baby face is going to bring joy to the hearts of a lot of lonely men in a holding cell at Central Booking.”

Drug dealers don’t give up their customers’ whereabouts to the cops. It can be bad for their business. Or their health. Damian stared at me. Was I lying? Or did I really have cocaine in my pocket that I’d say was his?

I gave him my best Clint Eastwood stare back, but I didn’t have the balls to say, “Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”

He blinked. He stood up and closed his laptop, and I walked him out to Lexington Avenue.

“Mr. Hillsborough has had a change of heart,” I said to Kylie. “Ask him anything.”

“When did you last see my husband?” she said.

“He didn’t tell me he was married to a cop.”

“Answer the question,” she said.

“Yesterday. He was on a shopping spree, but he was a little low on cash, so we negotiated, and I got this handsome timepiece, and he got … well, you know what he got.” Damian held out Spence’s watch. “Take it. It’s yours.”

Kylie shook her head. “No. Technically, it’s yours. Where is Spence now?”

“Look, lady, I’m a dope dealer, not a travel agent,” he said, putting the watch back on his wrist. “I don’t know where to find your husband, but he knows where to find me. And the way that boy was fiending, trust me: he will.”

Kylie pulled her card out of her pocket and handed it to him. “Here’s your get-out-of-jail-free card, Damian,” she said. “Don’t lose it.”

“WHAT THE HELL
was that all about?” Kylie said as soon as we were back in the car.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He pissed me off. I guess I lost my shit.”

“You could have lost your job, Rambo. You’re lucky Damian is a dope dealer. If he was Joe Citizen, he’d lawyer up and call you out on police brutality.”

“I’m not worried. The definition of police brutality is the use of excessive force by a cop when he’s dealing with a civilian.”

“It looked pretty damn excessive to me.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t a cop. I was off duty.”

“So that must have been your off-duty shield you flashed,” she said, laughing.

“Are you finished yet, Judge Judy?”

“Almost. I’ve got one more thing to say.” She stopped the car at a light on 116th Street. She turned to me, and a generous smile spread across her face. “Thanks, partner.”

“I was wondering when you’d get around to that.”

“My timing sucks, but I mean it, Zach: thanks. When I tracked Baby D down, I thought I’d ask him a few questions, and that would be it. I didn’t know he’d be such a hard-ass. It threw me off. That’s why I called you. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Anytime, partner,” I said. “The problem is I don’t know how much it’s going to help. All he told you was that Spence scored some coke yesterday. I’m sure you must have figured that out this afternoon when you were standing ankle-deep in the wreckage at Silvercup.”

“It helps a lot more than you think,” she said. “Spence pulled five thousand dollars out of our bank account yesterday morning, which means he had enough cash to buy a quarter of a key.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “If he had that much money, why did he pay Baby D for the drugs with his watch?”

“For the same reason he busted up those sets. He was sending me another message.”

“Which is …?”

“If it has anything to do with me, he’s going to destroy it or get rid of it.”

“Ouch,” I said. “That hurts.”

“It sure does,” she said. “That’s why he’s doing it.”

The light turned green, and we rolled south on Lexington. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. It was after nine. At this point calling Cheryl wouldn’t cut it. I put the phone in my lap and stared out the window.

Kylie must have read my body language. “Do you want me to call Cheryl and apologize for screwing up your dinner?”

“Absolutely not.”

“From the look on your face, I’m guessing she was pissed that you had to leave.”

“Let’s just say she wasn’t happy.”

“She better get used to it, Zach. She’s living with a cop now. It’s the nature of the beast. We get called out day and night.”

“She works for the department, Kylie. I’m pretty sure she knows what being a cop is all about.”

“So what’s her problem?”

“This wasn’t a cop call,” I said.

I could see Kylie connecting the dots in her head. Knowing her, this had been all about NYPD putting the squeeze on a bad guy. She’d completely forgotten that the entire operation was personal.

“Oh,” she said. “Right. It won’t happen again.”

I doubted it.

We were at 86th and Lexington, nine blocks from my apartment, when the phone in my lap went off.

“You see?” Kylie said. “She can’t be that mad if she’s calling you.”

I looked at the caller ID. Private caller.

“It’s not her,” I said. I answered the phone. “This is Detective Jordan.”

“My man, Zach,” a familiar voice on the other end said. “This is Q. You looking for a couple of scrubs who are holding a necklace so hot they’re almost ready to pay someone to take it?”

“Everybody is looking for them,” I said, “and I’m at the top of the pile.”

“That’s why I called you first. I’m upstairs at the Kim.”

My adrenaline was pumping. “We’re less than five minutes away,” I said.

“
We’re
less than five minutes away?” he said. “Does that mean you’re with that knockout partner of yours?”

“Yes, I’m with Kylie.”

“At this hour? Sounds like you two are pulling the night shift. I hope I’m not interrupting any undercover work,” he said, following up with a lecherous laugh just in case I didn’t get the joke.

“You’re a pig.”

“That’s funny, Zach,” he said, still chuckling. “First time a cop ever called
me
a pig. I’ll see you in five.”

He hung up, and I turned to Kylie. “Change of plans. We’re meeting Q Lavish at the Kimberly Hotel.”

She hit the gas, and we sped past a familiar brick building on 77th and Lex. My apartment is on the tenth floor.

I craned my neck, looking up, trying to see if the lights were still on, but we were going too fast.

“What are you doing?” Kylie said.

“Nothing. I’m just checking to see if Cheryl’s home.”

“Of course she’s home. Do you think she moved out because you bailed on one dinner?”

“No. I’m just antsy. We’re still working out this living together thing.”

“Zach, it’s going to work out just fine. And Cheryl’s not going anywhere. She’s a smart woman. She knows the score.”

“Yeah, she does,” I said.

Old girlfriend, one. New girlfriend, zero.

QUENTIN LATRELLE, A.K.A.
Q Lavish, is our best confidential informant. And our least expensive. I’ve worked with him for two years and have never paid him a dime. That’s because Q isn’t in it for the money.

Q is a pimp. But it’s a word he never uses. “It would be like calling Yo-Yo Ma a fiddle player,” he says. “I’m a purveyor of quality female companionship for gentlemen of breeding and taste.”

Many of those gentlemen traveled in the same social circles that Red was created to protect and serve. That’s where Kylie and I came in. Q knew that if any of his elite clientele got arrested in flagrante delicto, he had someone on his speed dial who could make the unfortunate incident go away.

If that sounds like the wealthy horndogs have an unfair advantage over the average johns, they do. But if Q could help us find the perps who murdered Elena Travers, I’d be happy to help out some Wall Street power broker who got caught with his pants down.

The Kimberly, on 50th between Lexington and Third, is an upmarket hotel that manages to combine traditional European elegance with trendy New York nightlife. Q was waiting for us at Upstairs, the Kim’s opulent-to-the-max rooftop bar with a spectacular 360-degree view of Midtown.

Fluent in the language of fashion, Q knew how to dress whether he was having dinner at a four-star restaurant or hanging at a dive bar. Tonight he was wearing a pearl-gray suit and an open-collar navy shirt. Not very clubby, but perfect for the business-casual code at the Kim. Bottom line: he fit right in.

We sat down at his table, declined a drink, skipped the foreplay, and told him to get straight to business.

“Teddy Ryder and Raymond Davis,” he said. “They were cellies at Otisville, and they’ve been bunking together ever since. Not gay, just a couple of underdogs who threw their lot in together, hoping that the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts.”

“And is it?” I asked.

“If they were remotely competent, would I be here?” he said. “I’ll start with Teddy. He’s white, midthirties, comes from a family of grifters. His mom and dad sold swampland in Florida back in the eighties, and over the years they’ve probably run every scam in the con man’s bible. They were good, Annie and Buddy Ryder. He died a few years ago, and Annie’s about seventy, so she’s basically out of the game, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she still kept her hand in by bilking the blue-haired granny crowd out of their bingo winnings.

“Sadly for Annie and Buddy, whatever criminal acumen was in their DNA skipped a generation. Their only progeny, Teddy, has zero street charisma. The poor boy couldn’t sell a five-dollar cure for the clap if it came with a four-dollar coupon. Also, he’s never been arrested for carrying a piece. Jacking a limo at gunpoint is so far out of his league I’m surprised he didn’t shoot himself.”

“How about the other one?” I said.

“Raymond Davis is fortysomething, biracial—mom was white, father was African American, both long gone. He’s about as smart as a turkey sandwich, and to prove it he was scouting the bars uptown looking for a buyer for some hot jewelry. He tried to keep it vague, but that lasted until he was pressed for a description, and he all but held up a picture of that diamond necklace that was on the front page of the morning paper. Raymond’s done two stretches for armed robbery, so if I were a betting man, I’d say he was your shooter.”

“Do you know where we can find these two?” Kylie said.

“No, but I bet you’ve got someone down at One P P who can help you out.”

That got a laugh. “Wiseass,” she said. “We can take it from here. Thanks. You got anything else?”

“Not for NYPD. But I might have something for you. Something more … personal.”

Q Lavish might joke with me about working the night shift with Kylie, but he’d never get smarmy with her. He was too much of a gentleman. Plus, the look in his eyes said he was dead serious.

“Go ahead,” Kylie said.

“I heard you’re looking for your husband.”

“Jesus, Q,” she said. “I know you’re wired, but how did you—”

“I have clients in the TV business. They talk. I listen. I don’t know where he is right now, but I know he’s been over the edge. It’s not my place, but if you need an extra pair of eyes and ears …”

“Oh God, yes. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Just tell me whatever you think might help.”

She recapped the last few days since Spence went missing. Q didn’t say anything until she told him about our run-in with Baby D.

“Drug dealers are the worst,” he said. “And that pretty boy is as bad as the rest of them. He wouldn’t call you if Spence came over to his house and shot his mother. Giving him your card was just a waste of paper. But now that I know he’s one of your husband’s contacts, I’ll keep him on my radar.”

Kylie stood up, shook his hand, and thanked him again. Even if Q didn’t come up with a single lead toward helping us find Spence, she knew that his offer was genuine. And if he ever reached out to her for help getting one of his overprivileged clients out of a jam, she’d reciprocate in a nanosecond.

In the New York criminal justice system, it’s all part of the circle of life.

AS RELIABLE AN
asset as Q Lavish might have been, the State of New York didn’t think he was reliable enough. We couldn’t arrest Davis and Ryder solely on the word of an informant. We needed an arrest warrant, and finding a judge to sign one at this hour of the night would take time. Time we didn’t want to waste.

Parole officers, on the other hand, had a lot more latitude than cops. They could show up at a parolee’s house anytime. No warrant. No warning.

“Call RTC and find Davis’s PO,” Kylie said as she barreled up Third toward the One Nine.

The Real Time Crime unit worked out of One Police Plaza, and they could tell you in a heartbeat just about anything you needed to know about anyone in their databases. I called them, and in under a minute, I had Davis’s address and the cell number of Brian Sandusky, his parole officer.

My next call was to Sandusky. “Brian,” I said, “this is Detective Zach Jordan. One of your boys, Raymond Davis, was fingered as the shooter in the robbery-homicide at the Ziegfeld Theater last night, and I need you on scene to get me inside so I can bypass a warrant.”

“Davis? Elena Travers?” Sandusky said. “Holy shit, count me in.”

Some POs hate being dragged out at night to make a house call, but Sandusky was young and eager to help out on a high-profile case. I told him to meet us at the precinct.

Then I called Cates, gave her a top line, and asked her to call in an ESU team to help us bring in Davis and Ryder.

Seventy minutes after we left the Kimberly Hotel, Kylie and I were in our car, followed by two Lenco armored trucks from Emergency Service Squad 1, in lower Manhattan. PO Sandusky was in the backseat.

“Fourteen heavily armed cops in full body armor ready to take down two bungling low-level criminals,” he said as Kylie led the convoy across town, toward the FDR Drive. “Your average taxpayer might think that’s excessive.”