Unknown Remains (11 page)

“What's up?”

“I'm going to be late. See if you can move my ten thirty to this afternoon. Anytime after one.”

Jack was waiting in the tiny vestibule as a young woman in business attire came through the door. He held it for her and smiled. “Morning.” In the blue Zegna suit and striped Zegna tie, he didn't get a second look.

Upstairs, Vicki's door opened a crack and then all the way. Vicki's hair was disheveled and she was wearing a T-shirt that came just past her hips. She was holding a coffee mug, steam rising from it.

“Where'd you go?”

“I had to change.”

“You look nice.”

He stepped in the apartment, closed the door, and kissed her, tasting coffee and a hint of toothpaste. She put her arm around Jack's waist and walked him into the bedroom, placed her mug on the night table, turned, reached for his tie with both hands and undid the knot, and unbuttoned his shirt. “How much time do you have?”

“How much do you want?”

“I've got to be at work at five.”

He pulled up the T-shirt, she was naked underneath, teased one of her nipples with his thumb and index finger, and brought the shirt over her head. She unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants and he stepped out of them, pulled off his boxers and sat on the bed. She knelt in front of him, kissed his thighs and took him in her mouth, brown eyes looking up at him, saying, y
ou're mine
, and he was.

He awoke at noon, Vicki's warm, naked body still pressed against him. He slid out of bed and dressed, tied the tie in the bathroom mirror, getting the knot just right.

He looked through the doorway at Vicki in bed, hair across her forehead, angling down, covering her right eye. He walked into the bedroom. “What time do you get off?”

“Eleven, but I'm working tonight. I'm a dealer at an after-hours poker club. I've been doing it for about a month, couple nights a week.”

“Why?”

“Money, why do you think? I can make three, four hundred in tips—more than I make waitressing.” She sat up naked, pillows propped behind her, sheet to her waist.

“I thought you were an actress?”

“If I had to rely on that, I'd starve. I've got student loans to pay off, and I have to live.”

Jack walked over and sat on the side of the bed. “How do you become a poker dealer?”

“It helps if you've been around cards all your life like I have. My dad ran a game in our house. There were always guys stopping by to play five-card and blackjack. He didn't charge admission, but made money off the rake.”

“The rake, huh?”

“It's a percent of the pot. My mother made sandwiches and served drinks.”

“How do you get a job as a dealer in an after-hours poker club?”

“You know someone. A friend of my dad's is a dealer. He called, said they were looking.”

“Isn't it against the law? The place gets raided, you get busted, right?”

“The club's owned by Frank DiCicco, ever heard of him?”

“The Mafia guy?”

“I'm sure he's paying the police to leave us alone.”

“Do you have any other hidden talents you want to tell me about?”

Vicki smiled. “Come back later, I'll show you. I can give you a key, you can spend the night. I'll wake you up with a blow job when I get home.”

In the morning
,
Jack called Sculley. “Listen, I've got to get out of town. What did you find out?”

“The prosecutor said he heard there were a couple places in Brooklyn, convenience stores on Flatbush Avenue. Of course, he wanted to know why. I told him I have a friend who was doing research for a novel.”

“He believed that?”

“What do you care.”

“Flatbush and what?”

Jack got out of the taxi at the corner of Flatbush and Tilden. He walked north several blocks, crossed the street, and walked south back to Tilden and kept going. He came to a small market that had a sign
in the window: IDs. Went in, looked around. He felt especially out of place in his J. Crew outfit.

He waited by the checkout counter for the cashier to ring up a woman's groceries and pack everything into paper bags. When the woman wheeled her grocery cart away from the counter, the cashier, a black man with short dyed blonde hair and a ring through his lower lip, said, “Look like you lost. What you need?”

“An ID, driver's license. I lost mine. And a passport.”

“Cost you two fifty for the license. Don't do passports.”

“Do I pay you?”

“See anyone else standing here?”

“First, I want to see the finished product.”

“Got concerns, take your biz elsewhere.”

This wasn't a time to negotiate. Jack took a wad of bills out of the pocket of his new khakis, counted the money, and handed it to the man. The cashier folded the money and put it in his pocket. He came around the counter, said, “Yo, over here,” and escorted Jack to the back of the store, opened a door, and motioned him inside. Jack followed the guy through the stockroom into an office with bare walls that needed paint. There was a teenager sitting at an old metal desk.

The cashier said, “Yo, Reg, y'all take care of my man here? Needs a license.”

The kid looked up from his computer, stood and moved behind a makeshift plywood counter that had a camera with a tripod on it. “Yo, want to come over here, gotta take your pitcher.”

The cashier left the room. Jack stood in front of the camera, and the kid said, “Go back couple inches. Stop. Okay, now look here, don't move.”

Jack heard the camera click several times.

The kid paused, looking in the viewfinder. “I think we got it. Have a seat over there.”

There was furniture on the other side of the room, a beat-up couch facing a couple beat-up chairs. He sat and paged through yesterday's
New York Post
.

“Need your name and address, what you want it to say.” The kid offered Jack a piece of lined paper and a pen. “Write it down for me, okay?”

Twenty minutes later, Jack walked out of the market with an authentic New York driver's license that said he was Richard Alan Keefer, born October 6, 1960, his real birthday. Had brown eyes, was six feet tall, and lived on West 59th Street in Midtown.

Now he could get out of the city, disappear.

NINETEEN

Cobb showed Jack McCann's picture to the Latina hotel clerk. “He worked at the Trade Center. He's gone missing. We've checked all the hospitals, and now we're checking Manhattan hotels. I wonder, you seen this fella around the property?”

“You with the police?”

“Private investigator hired by the man's wife, who is extremely distraught about her missing life partner she fears is deceased. Man has some issues upstairs,” he said, pointing at his temple. “Isn't right in the head.” Cobb had read that many 9/11 survivors had ended up in New York hospitals without identification, and others were dazed, wandering the streets of the city. Many people living close to ground zero had to evacuate their homes. Cobb didn't think he had to say anything else. There was a lot of emotion surrounding the events of 9/11.

The hotel clerk said, “I have friends who lost their husbands that day.” She took a breath, eyes getting moist. “We're not supposed to give out any information on our guests. I will tell you this, I have seen him in the hotel, but he is not registered as Mr. McCann.”

“Do you happen to have a Charles Bellmore checked in by any chance?”

The hotel clerk typed on the computer keyboard in front of her and glanced at the monitor. She wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

“You didn't get it from me.”

“Get what?” Cobb said and winked.

He took the elevator up to the fourth floor and walked down the hall to room 410, put his ear up close to the door, but didn't hear anything. He knocked and waited, but no one came.

Duane Cobb sat at a table in the tiny bar with a clear view of the reception desk and elevators. The call log on Sculley's cell phone had led him to the Michelangelo Hotel. Of the twenty-seven calls listed, only three weren't identified by a name. According to Cobb's old girlfriend with the state police, one number was a phone booth on Leonard Street; the second was listed to a Charles Bellmore, lived on Hudson Street, and the third was the hotel he was sitting in.

Earlier, he'd picked up a map of Manhattan and found the two streets. Leonard and Hudson were in Tribeca, ran into each other. Now he pictured Jack McCann escaping from Tower One, walking to Chuck's apartment, and ending up staying there. If that was true, why'd Jack use a phone booth to call Sculley?

Cobb found the phone booth on Leonard Street, and right around the corner was the apartment building. He went in, saw C. Bellmore on the directory, and took the elevator up to the fifth floor.

Cobb knocked on the door. No one came. He tried the door across the hall. It opened, and a girl with a ring in her nose said, “If you're looking for Charlie, I haven't seen him since nine-eleven. I don't think he made it.”

“I'm looking for a friend of his, guy named Jack.” Cobb showed her the photograph.

“He was here, but now he's gone. I saw him leave with a suitcase.”

“When was that?”

“Couple days ago.”

“How long was he here?”

“I don't know for sure, a week, maybe more.”

Cobb had nursed
two Cokes and eaten a hamburger and fries at the Michelangelo bar. Normally easygoing, he'd gone into full impatient
mode while he waited, the waitress looking at him like,
hey, slick, you've been holding this table for a couple hours now, ever going to leave?
And then a guy in a Yankees cap walked past him in the lobby. Cobb caught him in profile for several seconds. It was the man's size and the way he moved that told him it was Jack McCann. Cobb took two twenties out of his wallet, left them on the table, and hurried to the elevators.

Jack was looking
at his perfect New York driver's license, amazed it had been made in the back room of a neighborhood market. He heard a knock on the door. Hotel employees usually announced themselves. He got up and looked through the peephole, didn't see anyone, and swung the safety bar in place. There was another knock, but whoever was on the other side of the door didn't want to be seen. He slipped out of his loafers, picked them up, and quietly walked back into the room in his socks.

He stood at the window, looking down at cars zipping by on the street in front of the hotel. Whoever was in the hall—and he assumed it was Cobb or his partner—knocked again. He sat on the foot of the bed, looking at the door. He got up and went to the phone, pressed the front desk button, and heard a woman's voice say, “Mr. Bellmore, how can I be of assistance?”

“There's a drunk guy in the hall, banging on my door.”

“Oh dear. I'll contact security right away.”

Jack repacked the suitcase and set it on the floor. A few minutes later, there was a loud knock. “Mr. Bellmore, it's hotel security.”

Jack opened the door, looking at a heavyset man in a blue blazer.

“Sir, there's no one out here. Tell me what happened.”

“I rode up in the elevator with a guy who was hammered, started giving me a hard time. I don't remember what it was about. Followed me down the hall to my room. I went in, and he banged on the door a few times, and I called the front desk.”

“What did he look like?”

“Five eleven, dark hair, I don't know, maybe a hundred and seventy.”

“What was he wearing?”

“I don't remember.”

Jack went down to the front desk with the security guy, scanned the long, narrow lobby, and saw Duane Cobb on a couch, reading the newspaper, hotel guests moving past him, coming in and going out.

“There he is,” Jack said, nodding at Cobb.

The security guy said, “Over there, in the leather jacket?”

“That's him.”

“Mr. Bellmore, do me a favor, wait here.”

Jack waited till the security guy was halfway to Cobb, turned and walked down a hallway, through the kitchen and out a door that led to an alley. Two Asian men in burgundy aprons and smoking cigarettes glanced at him but didn't say anything. He walked to Seventh Avenue, looking around, making sure he wasn't followed, and hailed a cab.

Cobb saw Jack
McCann talking to a big guy in a blazer, had security written all over him, and now Mr. Security was coming across the lobby, moving toward him. Cobb was surprised, didn't think Jack would play it this way.

Up close, he looked even bigger, the size of an NFL linebacker. “Sir, I'm with hotel security. I'd like to have a word with you. Would you come with me, please?”

Cobb relaxed, in control, folded the newspaper and placed it on the couch next to him. “What's this all about?”

“Sir, are you a guest in the hotel?”

“No. I'm here visiting one. Just waiting for him to come down.”

“What's the guest's name?”

“Charlie Bellmore.”

“Mr. Bellmore said you were harassing him.”

Cobb gave him a big good ole boy grin. “He's putting you on. See, Charlie's a practical joker.”

“Sir, have you been drinking?”

“No, I have not. Like I said, Charlie's a kidder. He goes to great lengths to embarrass his friends.”

The security man looked like he was being conned. “Then you won't mind having a word with Mr. Bellmore, so we can clear this up.”

Cobb had taken his eye off Jack for a few seconds, and when he looked again, Jack was gone. “No problem. Let's go.”

When they got to the reception counter, the security man looked around and said, “I asked Mr. Bellmore to wait right here.”

“Maybe he's in the bar,” Cobb said. Although he knew Jack was long gone.

The security man said something to the female clerk behind the counter.

She shook her head.

“Try his room, will you?”

She punched in a number. Cobb could hear it ringing. The woman shook her head again and put the phone down.

The security man moved to the bar area, which opened to the lobby. There were only three tables occupied. He came back and said, “Sir, I owe you an apology. It seems Mr. Bellmore was having a little fun at my expense.”

“He is convincing, isn't he? That's why the gag works so well.”

“I'm going to have a word with him, I can tell you that.”

“I'd give him hell,” Cobb said.

“Oh, you can count on it.”

Cobb walked out of the hotel, looked across the street, and saw Ruben in his car, sitting at the curb in a no-parking zone. He crossed over and got in the front passenger seat. Ruben glanced at him, said, “Where's he at?”

Jack checked in
to the Omni on East 52nd Street with Chuck Bellmore's American Express card and no luggage. “The airline lost it,” he told
the Omni receptionist, who didn't react or say, That's too bad, or say, When the bag arrives, I'll have it sent up. She handed him a keycard and pointed to the elevators.

He'd left his suitcase at the Michelangelo, so he didn't have clothes or toiletries. He couldn't have taken the elevator carrying a suitcase with the security guy. It wouldn't have looked right, and after seeing Duane Cobb in the lobby, he wouldn't have had time to go up and get it.

Staring out the window at Madison Avenue, he called Sculley's office.

“Jesus, where are you?”

“Fifty-Second and Madison. Know what I'm talking about?”

“I'll meet you in the bar in half an hour.”

Jack was at a table in the far corner of the room when Sculley came in and signaled him. Sculley was sitting before Jack noticed his swollen jaw. “Jesus, what the hell happened?”

“I had a visitor last night. Somebody broke in, came through the French doors in back, triggered the alarm. The police called. I got up, went in the bathroom, there was a guy standing there. He hit me with something, knocked me out. Ilene said she screamed and he ran downstairs. The police came in the house responding to the alarm, and surprised him, chased him, but he got away. They checked the garage and the yard but didn't find him. They took me to the hospital, three thirty in the morning. I had my jaw X-rayed. It's bruised but it's not broken. Ilene's a basket case, won't go in the house, went to stay with her parents in Syracuse for a few days.”

“If I were you, I wouldn't go back there either. Stay in your apartment in the city, and watch yourself. I don't think they're going to bother you again, but why take the risk?”

A waitress walked up to the table, and they ordered drinks. A Stella for Jack and a Macallan's ten-year-old with a couple ice cubes for Sculley.

“The only thing missing is my cell phone. Why take someone's cell phone?”

“See who you've been calling and who's been calling you. Sure there weren't two of them?”

“I don't know how many there were. I was unconscious.”

“What did the guy in the bathroom look like?”

“I only saw him for a second. Ilene said she thought he had dark hair and was about my height.”

“Sounds like Duane Cobb. His partner's an ex-fighter named Ruben Diaz. I'll bet they came looking for me. Cobb probably knows I called you the morning of nine-eleven, so it must've been important.”

“He thinks you're alive?”

“He doesn't think it; he knows it. Cobb came to the hotel, saw me in the lobby, followed me upstairs, and knocked on my door.”

Sculley picked up a water glass and held it against his swollen jaw, eyes watering in pain.

“You okay?”

“I'll have to get back to you on that.”

The waitress brought their drinks and put them on the table. Sculley picked up the whiskey, took a sip, closed his eyes and made a face.

Jack said, “Vicki's dead.”

Sculley stared at him.

“The killer came to her apartment and shot her, executed her. I watched it and didn't do anything.”

Sculley frowned. “What the hell were you going to do?”

“The shooter came after me. I went down the fire escape and got away.”

“Was it the two who are after you?”

“No, but they all work for Frank DiCicco, a Mafia underboss. Ever heard of Frankie Cheech?”

“What's his interest in you?”

“I owe him money.”

“He's the loan shark?”

Jack nodded.

“How did Vicki get in debt to a loan shark?”

“She played high-stakes poker, a private game, got in over her head.”

“How much over her head?”

“Originally it was a couple hundred grand.” Jack drank his beer. “But the debt kept multiplying.”

“Why didn't you talk to her?”

“I didn't know about it. She had ten days to pay the original debt. She couldn't come up with the money, and the meter kept spinning.”

“This girl you had just met and barely knew asked you to bail her out? Come on.”

“She didn't ask. She told me what happened, and I offered.”

“Why?”

“I liked her, and I didn't want anything to happen to her. By the time I got involved, the debt had spun out of control. They were taking advantage of Vicki.”

“I think they were taking advantage of you.”

“It crossed my mind but not till later.” Jack paused. “I set up a meeting with Vincent Gallo, who ran the poker room, told him I was assuming Vicki's debt and to leave her alone.”

“You had that kind of money after buying the house?”

“Not even close. I cashed in most of our savings, which wasn't much. Then I decided to borrow the full amount from an elderly client who had given me power of attorney.”

“Are you out of your mind? If the loan shark doesn't get you, the SEC will.”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you. I see myself going to prison, and when I get out, Frankie Cheech will be waiting.”

“Jesus.” Sculley shook his head, sipped his drink, and made a face. “How long will it take Sterns and Morrison to find out?”

“They already know. My boss had been trying to reach me for a couple days before nine-eleven, and called again just before the first plane hit, wanted me to come up to his office on the ninety-fourth floor. I'm sure he was going to fire me on the spot.” Jack took a drink
of beer. “I was going to give Cobb and Ruben Diaz a cashier's check that morning.”