Unauthorized Access (16 page)

“That’s ridiculous,” Lesley said.

“Or did Rob convince you how nasty the banks are?” Hanley said.

Lesley looked from one agent to the other. They both stared back impassively. She turned to her mother, suddenly needing the support that had irritated her so badly only a few minutes before.

Rose’s face said “I told you so” as clearly as if she had spoken the words aloud.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

RAY LANDRY LOOKED at the graffiti on the walls as he climbed the stairs of the tenement building. He turned onto the fourth floor and stepped over a discarded brown sweatshirt as he looked for number 406. Rap music thumped from behind one door and competed with the wails of a baby in another apartment. Landry was no stranger to squalor, but he found it hard to imagine how the human spirit could survive in such conditions.

Finding the place had been simple. Skinner turned out to be a highly visible figure in this Brooklyn neighborhood. Landry had started the night before with a visit to the Silver Cue pool hall and a couple of local bars. He had turned up a number of people who knew of Skinner and the neo-Nazis he hung with. Apparently his crew liked to throw their weight around all over the place, not just in the Jewish-owned businesses his client was interested in protecting. Several people were willing to tell him where Skinner lived, although they snickered that someone with Landry’s appearance would be asking after a piece of work like Skinner.

Landry knew the guy was home. Skinner had been carrying a pizza box when he and a young lady with long, limp hair had entered the building a few minutes before.

Landry’s gut rumbled ominously as he approached apartment 406. His stomach had been acting up more and more in the last day or so. He wondered if it was a flu coming on. For the moment he ignored it.

A knock on the door brought no response. He persisted. Eventually the door was yanked open from the inside and Skinner’s insolent form filled the doorway. A black Van Halen T-shirt with the sleeves cut off revealed hefty biceps adorned with the swastika tattoos Landry’s client had mentioned. Skinner’s scowl turned to a look of malicious delight at the sight of a priest standing outside his door.

“Well bless me Father for I have sinned,” Skinner said with a grin. “Did God send you to win me back?”

“You might say that,” Landry said. “I have a message you need to hear. May I come in?”

“Not likely,” Skinner said with a sneer. “Go bother someone who gives a damn.”

Skinner backed up a step into the apartment and started to close the door in Landry’s face. Landry gave the door a vicious kick just above the knob, slamming the door open.

Rage blossomed on Skinner’s face. He reached out with one hand to grab Landry, who caught the wrist and pulled the arm forward and downward to overbalance the bigger man. Landry drove his knee into Skinner’s lowered face and felt the cartilage give way as he crushed the nose.

Skinner ripped his arm out of Landry’s grasp and staggered backward into his living room, blood dripping off his chin. Landry gave him no time to collect himself. He followed Skinner into the room and faked a looping left. When Skinner’s right arm came up in the expected clumsy block, Landry drove in underneath it with a roundhouse kick to the midsection followed by a jarring punch to the face.

The big man grunted in pain and was forced to back up another step. He didn’t go down, though. Landry had to give him credit. The guy was tough. In fact Skinner looked like he was getting ready to make a charge. Landry edged to his left in preparation. Skinner bellowed out an angry roar as he bent low and drove toward Landry. The massive hands reached out to grab Landry, meaning to pin him down where bulk and superior strength would have the advantage.

Landry was ready. He ducked low to his left, deflected the right forearm, turned into Skinner’s right armpit, and used momentum to drive him headfirst into the wall. As the big man fell to the floor, Landry grabbed Skinner’s right wrist and straightened the arm by twisting it back and slightly upwards. He drove his left heel down onto the elbow, which broke with an audible snap. Landry dropped the arm and stepped back, not expecting any further trouble but ready for it nonetheless.

Skinner moaned but didn’t move.

A noise from the kitchen caught Landry’s attention. He closed the apartment door, pulled the nine-mil from his shoulder holster and went to investigate. The girl with the limp hair cowered in one corner of the kitchen next to the refrigerator. She shrank back further when she saw him, her eyes wide with fear. A partially eaten pepperoni pizza sat forgotten on the counter.

“Beat it,” Landry said.

She grabbed her purse and shuffled sideways into the living room, staying as far from Landry as possible. She gasped and slowed slightly when she saw the prone figure of Skinner, then pulled open the door to the hallway and was gone.

She might run and raise the alarm with Skinner’s buddies, but Landry planned to be finished long before help could arrive. He closed the door behind her, which did little to muffle the still-pounding rhythms of the rap music.

By this time Skinner had managed to drag himself up into a partial sitting position with his back against the wall and his broken arm cradled on his stomach. Sweat glistened on his forehead and the front of his T-shirt was a bloody mess. His eyes widened when he noticed the gun in Landry’s hand, then settled back quickly into a glare of undisguised hatred.

“You’re a dead man,” Skinner said. “When me and my buddies get through with you, there won’t be enough left to figure out who the body used to belong to.”

Landry walked over to stand directly in front of Skinner, pulled a silencer out of his jacket pocket and began screwing it onto the gun.

“I don’t really trust silencers, do you?” Landry said. “I find they can throw off the aim, so I always test ’em out first.”

He aimed at a table lamp in the corner. The gun emitted a sharp burp and the lamp’s glass base shattered into pieces.

“Seems to work,” Landry said.

Skinner licked his lips.

“Who
are
you?”

The words came out as a croak.

Landry squatted down and looked directly at Skinner. The gun hung nonchalantly in his right hand.

“People hire me to solve problems,” he said.

When Skinner didn’t reply, Landry continued. “Ever hear of a fellow named Rosenburg, owns a few grocery stores around the neighborhood?”

“Is that what this is about? That little Bohemian sent you?”

Landry lashed out with the gun, giving the broken arm a smart tap. Skinner screamed in agony and grabbed the hurt elbow with his good hand.

“You see?” Landry said. “That’s the kind of disrespectful attitude that got you into trouble in the first place.”

Landry waited until Skinner had his breathing somewhat under control, then continued.

“Rosenburg didn’t send me. He doesn’t even know I exist.”

That was true up to a point. As Landry understood it, the final straw had been when a couple of neo-Nazi skinheads had beaten up a teenage customer outside one of Rosenburg’s stores. At that point it became clear the police were doing little to protect their businesses from the persistent harassment, so the Jewish businessmen banded together and chose one of their number to seek out a more effective solution. He hired Landry to be the solution.

“Neither does the guy who owns Perlman’s Jewelers a couple of blocks from here,” Landry continued.

Skinner managed to twist what was left of his face into a sneer. “The Jews. You’re here because of the Jews.”

“You’re not as stupid as you look. That’s right, I’m here because you and your boys are making pests of yourselves in Jewish-owned businesses all over town.”

“You’re some sort of Zionist errand boy, is that it?”

“You should be more careful who you pick on.”

“Any one of my boys could whip five of those Jewish wusses.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Landry said. “People with money can buy all the strength they need. Like me, for instance. But being strong doesn’t always mean you can get money.” Landry looked around at the dilapidated apartment. “You’re living proof of that.”

Skinner tried to sit up straighter, but winced from the pain and settled back into the same position.

“What do you want?” he said.

“To work out an arrangement.”

Skinner just stared at him.

“Here’s how our deal is going to work. You agree to get your boys to lay off.” Landry paused and smiled. “And I agree not to kill you.”

Skinner scowled at him.

“We’ll stay away all right … until I find out who you are. Then it’s open season on you and your Jew-boy friends.”

Landry knew Skinner was no threat to him. Worthier foes than this idiot had tried to track him down and failed. And after today Landry would never again look like a priest with horn-rimmed glasses and a mustache.

“Don’t be stupid,” Landry said. “If I have to come see you again—”

He lifted the gun and squeezed off a shot in one smooth motion. Skinner screamed again and jerked his head to the right. His good hand flew to the left side of his head, where a chunk of his ear was now missing.

“You’ll never see me coming,” Landry said, the smile gone now. “You’ll just be walking down the street one day and then a crowd will be standing over your body watching the blood leak all over the sidewalk. And the same goes for those excuses for human beings you call friends. If any of you so much as walks by one of those businesses and looks in the window, I’ll know.”

He pointed the gun at the middle of Skinner’s face and said, “Pow.”

Skinner flinched.

“And that’ll keep happening until the harassment stops.”

Landry stood up. “Be smart,” he said, then walked out of the apartment and left Skinner to contemplate his future.

* * *

Owen and Fay Donovan married late and Rob wasn’t conceived until their ninth wedding anniversary. One result of this was that Owen was sixty-two years old the day he visited his son in jail. Rob’s father had a full head of thick, white hair and his face was creased with laugh lines. His normal smile was missing on this day, though. He gazed with utter seriousness through the partition at Rob.

“Of course I believe you,” Owen said.

A lump formed in Rob’s throat. For the second time that day he felt like reaching through the Plexiglas to hug someone.

“You’re the first person who’s said that to me.”

“None of those other people raised you, did they?”

Rob felt like the cloud over his head had just miraculously started to thin.

“I have to admit, though,” Owen said, “talking to Stan last night forced me into a corner. I had to sit myself down and wrestle with some tough questions. Like how well do I really know my son, and is it possible the boy I taught to ride a bike could have done something so awful.”

Owen looked unwaveringly at Rob. It was like he was holding his son, only with his voice instead of his arms.

“What I wanted to believe kept trying to get in the way,” Owen said, “but I think I managed to shove that to one side. In the end I had to admit that yes, you could have done it. Every one of us is capable of doing extraordinary things if we’re pushed hard enough. I also decided in your case it would have taken an incredible amount of pushing. There would have to be some major crisis going on in your life, maybe something you were angry about or someone you wanted to impress very badly. Your mother and I talked about that a while. In fact we did a whole lot more thinking and talking last night than we did sleeping. After a bit we agreed something that big would have changed you, and even though you’re here in Boston now, we think we would have seen signs.”

Owen paused. His voice became quiet.

“Were we wrong, son? Is there something we should have noticed?”

Rob shook his head.

“Of course not,” he said.

“Then this is my long-winded way of saying I believe you,” Owen said, “and we believe
in
you, no matter what.”

Rob blinked and rubbed at his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do in this place was cry.

“Of course,” his father said, “what we believe doesn’t matter.”

“It matters plenty to me,” Rob said.

“But we don’t decide if you go to prison, and the people who
do
decide won’t care what your parents think.”

Rob had to admit he had a point.

“You have to face something, son. Regardless of what anyone believes, it looks like you did it.”

“That’s what the lawyer said.”

“You should listen to him.”

“Someone planted that evidence, Dad. I have no idea how they did it, or who would want to.”

“You may not have any ideas now,” Owen said, “but you better come up with some. The FBI is going to trot out all that evidence and tell their story at your trial. If you don’t have a better one to tell—well, you know what happens then.”

Rob’s gut clenched down hard. He knew all too well what would happen.

* * *

Ray Landry no longer looked like a priest as he sat perusing the wine list in one of New York’s finest French restaurants. The horn-rimmed glasses and mustache were gone, and he had rinsed the temporary dark color from his blond wavy hair. Landry made it a strict policy not to wear a disguise in what he considered his personal life. He never changed his appearance while at his hotel, preferring to rent a cheap motel room with cash for that purpose. The motel clerk would see him check in with blond hair, and Landry would park his car directly in front of the room so he could leave without being seen and never have to return. The practice made it virtually impossible to track him down based on what he looked like.