The Finishing School (35 page)

Pavel was sitting against the wall eating a meatball hero.

“He’s not dead?” Bud asked.

“No, you say not kill him yet,” Pavel said, speaking through his food, sounding defensive.

Bud dropped the leather bag containing Jay’s golf clubs next to the kid’s inert body. He’d paid attention to which one Jay had used the other night. Bud had a well-thought-out plan for how he would use that same club again and where he would dump it afterward. He’d brought along rubber gloves for the main event. Until then he was careful not to touch anything so as not to leave prints anywhere.

“Everything go okay? Where’s Lamar?” Bud asked.

“We have problems after we pick kid up. Cops is watching.”

“Shit. Are you serious? Did they follow you here?”

“Not to worry. I have brain.”

“So what happened?”

“We arrange to meet kid like you say, in front of subway stop near Hunter College.”

“Yeah, because it’s crowded there, but you’re not too far from the bridge.”

“Was good choice for location. But we get there, is like five sedans with dark windows.”

“Shit.”

“Cops.”

“Yeah. So what’d you do?”

“We drive, not stop. We call kid on cell number you give us, tell him get on subway and go to Grand Central instead. We wait for him there, outside.”

“Smart.”

“But by the time he come out, we see sedans again.”

“So he’s definitely talking, the little prick.”

Pavel’s lips twitched into the semblance of a smile. “He pay for that already, believe me.”

“Okay. So? How’d you lose ’em?”

“In Russia, man I work for, he teach me drive good. I know.”

“You just…”

“Go around block here, cut in front of cars there. They trying to hide so we don’t see them, but I know they are there, so I make move. Is not difficult.”

“But where’s Lamar?” Bud repeated.

“Even though we lose them, is not good use same car to go to airport. So we pull car into garage here. Lamar go to get another car.”

“All good. But you know, if the feds were watching before, they’ll be looking for you at the airport.”

“Is no problem. They look for three men together. So Lamar and I go separately. Kid by then we are done with, he is not with us. They will be tricked.”

Bud looked at his watch. “You should get going already.”

He was sending them to San Juan as if everything were normal. He didn’t want Jay suspecting anything too soon. Besides, the feds would find a way to follow the trail of the purported drug deal. They’d run off to Puerto Rico, too, leaving Bud free to take care of business here in New York.

“
You
handle this kid now?” Pavel asked dubiously. Pavel underestimated Bud. They all did. It didn’t bother him; in fact, he preferred it that way. Put him at an advantage.

“I’m just waiting for Jay. He should be here any minute, and then I’m leaving. What happens next is his decision,” Bud said.

“Of course.”

“I’m serious, Pavel. Jay’s gonna be fucking pissed if you miss that flight. We have a shipment to deal with.”

“I finish one minute. They don’t give you nothing eat on airplanes these days.”

Bud looked down at Trevor. A shame, all these bright young lives getting snuffed out before their time. But that’s what happened when you fucked around with people’s livelihoods.

Pavel crumpled the soggy deli paper into a ball and tossed it aside. He stood up, rubbing his greasy hands on his jeans.

“Did the kid say anything?” Bud asked.

“Yeah, of course, right away he give up that he is working with prosecutor.”

“I’ll call you with further instructions once you’re down there. You don’t call me, understand? And whatever you do, don’t call Jay. He’s chilling on this one, and he doesn’t want any paper trail.”

“I know.”

Pavel pulled on his bulky leather coat and headed for the exit. Only after he heard the door slam did Bud draw back his foot and kick Trevor in the head hard enough to wake him up.

“Aagh,” Trevor grunted, coming to but having trouble opening his swollen eyes.

Bud looked down at him with interest. It was funny, how little he minded the violence. Or, more accurately, how much he enjoyed it. With the neighborhood he was from, and hanging out with Jay all these years, he’d seen a lot of depraved, fucked-up things but had been careful to keep his hands clean. Recently, with his new goal, that had to change. He found he stepped comfortably into the role of brutalizer. Like that girl he had at home, who was still, fortunately, alive. He understood all the stories now, the ones where some local man in a desolate town kept a woman chained to the wall of his shed. He’d systematically torture her to death over a long period of time while keeping up his everyday routine. Bud saw how easily something like that could happen. Having Carmen tied up in his closet seemed natural to him now. Taking her out and terrorizing her had become simply something interesting to look forward to as he went about the rest of his day.

Trevor succeeded in opening his eyes, registering Bud’s face with obvious surprise.

“You really fucked up, my friend,” Bud said, smiling.

Trevor licked his split lip, trying to speak.

“Just a second,” Bud said. He went to the bathroom, concealed behind a flimsy plywood door in the corner of the space. There were no cups. But rummaging in the trash, he found an empty plastic Coke bottle and filled it with water from the rusty tap, using a crumpled paper towel to handle everything. He came back and poured a small amount of water into Trevor’s mouth. The kid looked pathetically grateful.

“I understand you’re friendly with Melanie Vargas. That’s a big problem for me and some friends of mine,” Bud said.

“She forced me,” Trevor managed, wincing with pain as he spoke. “She arrested me for selling X.”

“We all have our reasons for what we do, Trevor. But we all have to suffer the consequences when we make poor choices.”

The kid started to snivel, wet snot mixed with blood dripping from his broken nose. The sight only served to fill Bud with anticipation. He drew the rubber gloves from his jeans pocket and pulled them on with a snap. Then he took the nine-iron from the leather golf bag. Jay had danced away from the law so many times that he thought he was invincible. He never even bothered to clean his weapons, which gave Bud a golden opportunity now. This golf club was covered with Jay’s prints and soaked with the blood—and DNA—of his last victim, that cross-dressing club rat. Bud could kill the Leonard kid with it now and hand Jay to the feds in a nice, neat package, looking good for both murders. So Bud could truly relax in his tropical paradise when the time came. Not too long now either.

Trevor was watching Bud’s every move with eyes like saucers. Either the kid was scared shitless or he was completely incapacitated by the beating Pavel had given him, because he never even tried to get up. It continued to amaze Bud the way people let you take advantage of them. He’d massacre this kid without meeting a single flicker of resistance.

He walked over and stomped his left foot down square in the middle of Trevor’s chest, eliciting a shocked grunt, then raised the nine-iron in a perfect arc, bringing it down fast and hard, stopping a millimeter shy of Trevor’s skull. The kid was sobbing now, eyes fixed on the head of the golf club, which bore sticky clumps of blood and tissue from its last victim.

“I’m sorry, dude. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry. Ple-ease!”

“Remorse is bullshit, Trevor. Doesn’t mean jack unless you deliver on it. Luckily, there’s something you can do for me.”

MELANIE SAT bolt upright on the edge of the bed. “The message light’s on.”

“So?” Dan said.

“Was it on before?”

“Honestly, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Did the phone ring while we were…?”

“Not that I remember. But a bomb coulda gone off and I wouldna noticed.” He grabbed her by the wrist. “I was just resting. You’re not done.”

“Sweetie, we’ll never be done, but we still have a case to solve.” She took her hand away and picked up the receiver, studying the complicated telephone with its profusion of buttons.

“
Sweetie
. I like that. You’re not too free with the endearments, you know.” He traced a finger down her back, down the curve of her behind.

“Hey, stop distracting me,” she said, shooing his hand away. “I can never figure out how these things work. Do you push the red light? Oh, wait a minute, here it is.” She pressed a small button.

“
You have
one
unheard message
,” an automated operator said.

The next voice she heard was Trevor Leonard’s.

“It’s Trevor! I
knew
it.” Melanie put the call on speaker, stomach churning with anxiety. Goddamnit, she couldn’t believe she’d missed this call!

“
…couldn’t get away before to reach out to you
,” Trevor was saying.

Dan raised himself up on his elbow, and Melanie looked at him grimly. She knew the team was covering Trevor carefully. Surveillance at the pickup location, at JFK, on the flight, at Marín Airport here in San Juan. But she couldn’t shake this sick feeling in the pit of her stomach every time she thought about Trevor. It was too easy to imagine how things could go wrong.

“
I’m with Expo, but he left the room. I can only talk for a second. They’re, like, worried about surveillance, so they changed the flight. We’re gonna be coming in later, okay? I don’t have a time or a flight number or anything, but don’t worry if you don’t see me till tonight. So here’s the important part. Expo said something about meeting the connect in the bathtub at El Yunque at eleven o’clock to get the product. That’s all I know. Shit, gotta go
.” And he hung up.

“Meeting the connect in El what?” Dan asked.

“El Yunque. It’s a rain forest, maybe forty-five minutes from here. But the bathtub? I don’t know what that means.”

“We’ll find out. Holy shit. If we can surveil the hand-to-hand and then move in and pop ’em, how great would that be? I got to give you credit, sweetheart. This kid Trevor is coming through for us big time. You were really right about him.”

“Yeah, but don’t you think he sounded…I don’t know.”

“What?”

“Stressed?” she said.

“Absolutely. Anybody sneaking a phone call in the middle of an undercover who’s
not
stressed is a fucking idiot.”

“I guess you’re right.”

Dan pulled on his clothes and grabbed his gun from the dresser top.
Mira
, that body. She couldn’t even let herself look. She was crazy for this man, but maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing if work came between them for the moment and slowed down their mad rush. Because he scared her to death. Not to mention distracted her.

“I’m gonna want backup from the locals,” Dan was saying.

“Of course. I want this surveilled every step of the way, too. We’ve got our witness on the line here. Let’s get Albano on the phone and have him make the call. Time to pull rank. We need all the help we can get.”

“Not ‘we.’ You’re staying here,” Dan said firmly.

“And get an herbal wrap at the spa while my witness is in danger? I don’t
think
so. Plus, Carmen Reyes is still missing, and I promised her father I’d find her. We’ll never do that if we don’t nail Expo.”

Melanie got up and searched through her suitcase, which sat open on a stand waiting to be unpacked. What did you wear to surveil a drug deal? She chose black pants and a black wrap shirt for their dark color. Fading into the underbrush would be key.

“Sweetheart, I’m serious,” Dan said. “You’re here for the legal end. We need you safe to draft charges and get the scumbags extradited after we arrest ’em. I’m not letting you walk into a hand-to-hand in a fucking
rain forest
late at night. I mean, these guys down here, they don’t fuck around. They got AK-47s and
dogs
, as a matter of routine.”

She knew that Dan was right. But the thought of sitting in the hotel with no control over what happened to Trevor Leonard was simply intolerable. Bernadette had told her no cops-and-robbers stuff. But Bernadette had
also
said not to let Trevor out of her sight, and Melanie had a selective memory.

“So I won’t get right in the middle of the surveillance,” she conceded. “But you’re
not
leaving me here.”

Somebody knocked loudly on the door. Melanie tied her shirt closed, then went to look through the peephole.

“It’s Bridget,” she reported over her shoulder in a low tone.

“Shit.”

“What should I tell her?” Melanie whispered.

“I don’t know, but don’t let her in.”

He was right. With the tangled sheets and Melanie’s clothes still strewn across the floor, sex was in the air. Bridget would figure it out instantly.

Bridget knocked again. Leaving the chain on, Melanie opened the door a crack.

“Hey, Bridget,” she said.

“Hey. I was about to give up. Were you in the shower?” Bridget asked.

“Yes, actually. I’m still getting dressed. What is it?”

“I just got an update from Ray-Ray, wanted to fill you in. They lost track of Trevor temporarily—”

“Oh, my God! You’re kidding me!”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Jesus, Bridget, how could that
happen
?”

“It wasn’t their fault, really. They were told to hang back so they wouldn’t hink anybody up. They weren’t planning on the fact that this Pavel LNU character is a talented countersurveillance driver. But not to worry. Pavel’s vehicle was last observed bound for Brooklyn on the Williamsburg Bridge, so we’re sure they’re gonna get on the BQE and head to JFK. We got the airport swarming with guys. We’ll pick up the scent there, I’m positive.”

“I just got a voice mail from Trevor. I’m not sure when he left it, though. Could’ve been from earlier,” Melanie said.

“Really? What’s he say?”

“He gave me the time and location of a possible hand-to-hand later tonight.”

“Great. That’s excellent. So, worst-case scenario, we get him back in our sights then.”

“I’ll tell you all about it. Just let me finish getting dressed, and then I’ll meet you down at the bar. Because we have to get on top of this. I’m very upset that Trevor’s out of pocket.
Very
upset.”