https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01I3X4NK8

CONCESSION

By

Al Lamanda

Copyright by Al Lamanda

Chapter One

Westchester County rolled by my window. Behind the wheel, Helen concentrated on her driving. Sixty-five minutes in the car and the only words spoken by her were, “Give me ten for the bridge.” I gave her a twenty and after she paid the toll, she tossed my change into her purse on the seat next to her. I kept my mouth shut.

Helen is Helen Ruiz-Dunn and when she has a mad on that emotion might as well be carved in stone tablets as the eleventh commandment. Born to a Korean mother and Cuban father, Helen has the complexion of California surfer without ever having to tan, almond shaped, grey eyes the color of smoke and a figure most women spend thousands of hours in the gym trying to achieve, but which Helen seems to take for granted. She can be generous to a fault or mean as a snake depending upon which side of the bed she wakes up on and when. Anything earlier than eight thirty and she has the demeanor of a mother bear protecting her cubs.

For the last ten years, the bed Helen wakes up on is mine or at least until recent events dictated otherwise. For nearly a week, she has slept in the second bedroom of the five-room apartment we share on Riverside Drive in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The neighborhood, once home of the wealthy elite saw a twenty-year downswing before the next generation of yuppie reinvented it as upscale posh. I moved in thirteen years ago when the six-story building was still under rent control, before the landlords put pressure on the city to decentralize rents, which they did about ten years ago. The kick in the legislature, however, is that rents could only be raised on new tenants moving in, not those grandfathered in, such as me. So while most of the occupants of the building pay between three and five thousand a month for their digs, we get away with murder the first of the month when our accountant writes a check for eight hundred.

Before I stray too far off course, let me back up and return to Helen. I watched as she withdrew the cigarette lighter from the dashboard and touched it to the seventh cigarette smoked since we began to drive this morning. A chain smoker extraordinaire, her cigarette of choice is Marlboro Red, but she will light anything in a pinch except for menthol. She will smoke anywhere, anytime, including elevators, police stations, restaurants and even in church.

We’ve been together ten years and Helen is the absolute love of my life.

She is from The Bronx. I hail from Brooklyn. We have nothing in common except for our chosen profession. She has a huge family of around three hundred. I have three, consisting of me, myself and I. We met in the Police Academy where we graduated top of the class. Six months into our probation, we called it quits and applied for a Private Investigators license. She was assigned to the 42 in The Bronx; I grabbed the prize at the 109. We hadn’t spoken since the academy until the day we sat in an office and filled out the P.I. licensing paperwork. I thought she was the most gorgeous woman on the planet. She thought I was a pervert and told me to fuck off. It was love at first sight, at least on my part. On her part, Helen thought I was a creep and told me so to my face. That, of course, had the reverse effect and made me even more star-struck for her. The topper came when she lit up while filling out the application and a uniformed officer came in and told her smoking wasn’t allowed inside city property. She told the uniform to fuck off and that was that, I was in way over my head.

After that, we went our separate ways for about a year. Fate brought us together. I worked mainly as a security guard while awaiting approval of my investigator’s license. Helen’s license was approved almost immediately, due mostly to the fact that he mother is a Police Captain in The Bronx and her father is the Queens District Attorney. She worked mostly for big law firms scattered throughout the city. A Park Avenue firm hired her to investigate an insurance fraud claim. A man struck by a city contracted snowplow sued and won just over a million dollars. The law firm, retained by the city smelled a rat and hired Helen for a simple tail and photograph job. The rat had his cousin follow him everywhere he went and the cousin made Helen. After dark, while the rat strolled past a construction site on Ninth Avenue near Hell’s kitchen, the cousin shoved Helen through a hole in the fence. Caught off guard, Helen stood little chance of escaping alive as rat and cousin decided a little rape was in order before strangling her to death. That’s when the fate I spoke of came into play. I was the security guard assigned to protect the construction site. Dully licensed and armed with a .357 Smith and Wesson, I shot rat and cousin to death just as they were tearing Helen’s clothing from her body.

At the hospital, Helen’s mother professed her undying gratitude at saving the life of her daughter. Helen’s father, a slightly built Cuban, cried in my arms and said if there was ever anything he could do for me to let him know. I thought about it and asked if they could pull some strings and expedite my license application.

They did and paid the processing fee to boot.

I visited Helen in the hospital. She remembered me as the creep who pestered her that day we filled out applications. I told her she was welcome and she told me to fuck off, but not before asking me if I had a smoke. I was still in way over my head.

Two weeks later, she knocked on my apartment door and invited herself in for coffee. She said she had given it a great deal of thought and decided that she needed a partner. Through her parent’s contacts, she said she had an overload of work and could use the help if I was interested in being the junior partner.

I told her I was.

She told me this was strictly professional and that there would be no sex between us, not then, not ever.

In short, never, never, never.

A decade later and here we are.

The thing about Helen, the thing I love most is she is completely free when it comes to expressing her emotions. Not even a hit of inhabitation in her bones. When we make love, it’s like lions mating and she’s the male. When we agree, it’s absolute and the same can be said for when we disagree.

When we fight, I rarely if ever win. Early in the relationship we argued about a client. I thought he was a shiftless bum. Helen thought the opposite. The argument escalated into shouting and I make the mistake of telling her she was acting like a bitch. It was as if a switch had been thrown. Calmly, quietly, Helen removed one of her high heels (the only time she doesn’t wear heels is when out for her daily jog) and belted me in the mouth with the spiked end of the heel. In addition to a painful split lip, the heel chipped two front teeth, which hurt like hell and bled like a war wound. The argument ended when Helen told me to man up and quit whining about a little blood.

In short, Helen is a fuse in search of a flame.

“This is our exit,” I said.

Helen bit her lower lip as she blew cigarette smoke out of her nose and didn’t bother to glance at me. “I know what exit we take.”

“I’m just saying,” I said.

“Well, don’t just saying.”

Helen skirted our massive Town Car onto the exit lane and off the highway where we were met by a stop sign.

“The instructions say to …”

“Will you shut up,” Helen said. “I read the directions same as you.”

We sat behind the stop sign for thirty seconds until she said, “Left or right?”

“I thought you said you read the …”

Left or right, damn you,” Helen snapped.

“Right.”

“Thank you,” she said in a tone as cold as ice water.

“Come on,” I said as she feathered the gas and steered us into a right turn. “How long is this going to go on?”

“It ends when you admit what you did and you apologize for doing it,” Helen said. “And I mean a sincere apology, not your usual ball-less bullshit.”

“Apologize for what? I didn’t … left … turn left here … didn’t do anything I need apologize for,” I said.

Helen made a left turn and then looked at me with her almond shaped eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t you think I know my own man?” she said. “I know you better than you know yourself, asshole.”

“Maybe so, but what did I … end of the block a right turn … do to cause all this anger?” I said.

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t seem to,” I said.

“My cousin’s wedding last week,” Helen said. “You don’t remember that?”

“The big …”

“Don’t you dare say it.”

“The chunky girl on the Cuban side, that wedding?”

“We’ve been to one wedding this year, of course that wedding.”

“What about it?”

“You cheated on me with my cousin, that what about it.”

I flipped through the rolodex in my head and recalled no such incident. “You’re out of your freaking mind I f… I think this is it … you think I’ve cheated on you with anybody, much less your cousin.”

“This is it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Helen brought the Town Car to a gentle stop in the parking lot of the Hideaway Motel and killed the engine. Then she faced me and slapped me a good one across the face. “With my cousin Kim, you don’t remember that?”

I rubbed my cheek. “The Korean or the Cuban side?”

“Don’t play cute with me,” Helen said and got out of the car. “Only one of us is cute and it isn’t you.”

I exited on my side and we met at the trunk. “I’m not playing with anything,” I said. “That’s the problem.”

“Asshole,” Helen said and popped the trunk by remote.

“How could I have cheated on you with your cousin when you never left my side the entire night,” I said and opened the steel suitcase inside the trunk.

“Up here,” Helen said and tapped her head with a finger. “That’s where sex exists, anyway.”

“Not for men,” I said and tapped my zipper.

Despite her anger, Helen grinned at me.

I reached into the steel case. “You want the .44 or the Lady Smith?”

“Lady Smith.”

I handed Helen the .357 Lady Smith revolver and a speed loader. She opened the wheel and fed it six rounds off the speed loader, then slammed the wheel shut with a flick of her wrist. Possessing the full power of a standard .357, the Lady Smith was smaller and contoured to fit a woman’s hand. It also had a pretty a red rose carved into the steel just above the grip.

I pulled a Browning .45 pistol from the steel case, fed it a ten round magazine and shoved it into the waste band of my jeans.

“You think we need shotguns?” Helen asked as she slipped a bulletproof vest over her shirt.

“This guy sounds pretty stupid,” I said. “I mean look at this place.”

The Hideaway Motel is a sixteen room, railroad motel in serious need of repair and paint. The kind of place that rents rooms by the hour to cheap hookers. In short, a dump.

Grab the money,” Helen said.

I lifted a leather briefcase from the trunk and closed it. “Room 16,” I said.

“Right,” Helen said.

We crossed the dark parking lot and walked toward Room 16. There were just two other cars in the lot in front of Room 7 and Room 10. My guess is hookers used the place as a revolving door sanctuary for Johns. Fifty bucks for the hooker and twenty for the room, the sheets are changed but once a week at best.

We paused ten feet in front of Room 16. “How sure are you about this?” Helen said and looked at me.

“Are you asking me if the little girl is still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Fifty-fifty,” I said.

“If she’s dead, I’m shooting him in the balls, then the face,” Helen said.

We walked to the door and I knocked.

The kidnapper was even a sorrier sack of shit than I imagined. Stoop shouldered with a balding crown of long, stringy hair and a three-day growth of beard, he could have been forty or he could have been sixty. He had the red, watery eyes of a drinker who had been drinking. He looked at Helen, then he looked at me, then he looked at the case in my hand. “That the money?” he said.

“Can we come in?” I said. “Or do you want to count it in the parking lot?”

The kidnapper stepped aside and we entered the motel room. Seedy is the word that comes to mind to describe the furnishings and the smell.

“Put the case on the bed,” the kidnapper said.

I set the case on the sagging bed and opened it to reveal five hundred thousand dollars in used twenty-dollar bills. The kidnapper grinned ear to ear. “The asshole can afford it,” he said. “I never did like his movies, anyway.”

“About the kid?” Helen said.

“I need to count the money first,” the kidnapper said.

“It’s all there,” I said.

The kidnapper pulled a stack of twenty-dollar bills and loosened the strap. Helen pulled her Lady Smith and smacked him on the back of the head. Not too hard, just enough to send him to the rug. As he rolled over to stand up, Helen cocked the Lady Smith and stuck it in his nose.

“You got something to say?” Helen said.

Wide eyed, the kidnapper stared down the barrel of the Lady Smith.

“Put it down,” I told Helen.

She looked at me, but didn’t lower her arm.

“We want the kid alive,” I said. “You accidentally shoot this stupid fuck and then where will we be? In a motel room that smells like stale piss with a case full of money and no kid, that’s where.”

Helen lowered her arm and the kidnapper jumped to the safety of the bed.

“What the hell is this?” the kidnapper said. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to work.” He rubbed the back of his head with his right hand.

I sat in the stained chair opposite the bed. “I don’t know how you think it’s supposed to work and I really don’t care,” I said. “You’re not giving the orders around here.”

“I have the kid,” the kidnapper said. “And I have backup.

“And we have you,” I said. “More importantly, she has a .357 she’s just itching to shoot somebody.”

“One in the balls first,” Helen said.

“Do that and the kid dies,” the kidnapper said. He looked at his K-Mart watch. “She has less than ninety minutes of air left and is forty-five minutes away.”

I looked at Helen. She nodded and backed off.

“My deal with Mr. Movie Star was the money for the girl,” the kidnapper said. “I’m going to give you the location and then I’m walking out of here with the money. You’re not going to stop me because you don’t know if I’m telling you the truth about the location. What I am telling the truth about is the ninety minutes of air.” He glanced at his watch again. “Eighty nine minutes now.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll have to go on trust here.”

The kidnapper snapped the leather case closed and looked at me. “Smart move,” he said. “1717 Wentworth Drive in Yonkers. Back yard. Bring a shovel. Then never look for me again. I have some well connected friends.”

I stood up from the chair and looked at Helen. “I’ll find it on GPS,” I said.

Helen nodded and I sucker punched the kidnapper a good one to his jaw. He bounced backward on the bed, then slunk to the rug like a drunken snake. “You want me to cuff him?” I said. “In case he really does have a backup?”

“No,” Helen said. “They’re more fun to watch when they’re not cuffed. Besides, if this idiot had backup, they’d be all over us by now.”

“I’ll call you on my cell phone,” I said. “If the girl is alive, don’t shoot him.”

“And if she isn’t?”

I reached over to peck Helen on the lips and she let me. I took that as a sign our relationship was on the mend.

*****

I followed the GPS in the Town Car and drove south through Westchester County until I reached the city of White Plains. My only thought was thank God most criminals are stupid. My job would be much more complicated if they weren’t, but there would be time enough later to laugh about the shortcomings of this particular kidnapper. I knew what the odds were that the girl would be alive and they weren’t good.

The GPS took me to Route 100 South and mapped out a thirty-minute drive to 1717 Wentworth Drive in Yonkers. Forty-five minutes to get there, forty-five minutes to dig the girl up. After that, it was out of my hands. I opened the rolodex in my head.

Two days ago, Chad West, the biggest movie star in the world if you believe the gossip rags on sale at the supermarkets, called his New York attorney with an emergency. The attorney, Martin Myers of Myers, Andrews and Gurney, responded by rushing to West’s twenty room apartment at the Dakota Apartment House on West Seventy-Second Street across from Central Park. If you’re old enough, you might remember what the Dakota is famous for. It’s where John Lennon lived and where he was shot to death as he walked to the front gate. It’s where Yoko still lives today. Before that it was home to the film Rosemary’s Baby.

I’ve done work for Myers, Andrews and Gurney before. Old stuffed shirts with too much corporate money, they handle civil cases, wills, endowments and other such matters for the beautiful rich. In doing so, they have become members of the beautiful rich, just with much flabbier skin and no tans. They also represent the city and private corporations, often sending investigative work our way.

Myers called me at home and requested my presence at the apartment on one Chad West. Myers said it was a matter of utmost importance. I asked Helen if she wanted to tag along and she told me to go to hell until I mentioned Chad West. To Helen, West is a God. With his chiseled good looks, blond, wispy hair and shaved chest, West is the number one screen idol in the world. His movies rake in hundreds of millions worldwide and it seems never a day passes where he and his live in girlfriend Monica Spinks aren’t in the news. They travel to Africa and adopt babies, speak at the UN about genocide, global warming and AIDS and you get the picture.

The doorman at the Dakota was expecting me. Even so, he didn’t hesitate to eye frisk me as he led me to the secretly guarded, guest’s elevator. It was the first time I’d ever been inside the Dakota and it was just as depressing as it appeared from the street. Ominous is the word that came to mind. What else can you say about a building that featured gargoyles on the roof as guardians of its tenants?

I heard or read that West paid twenty four million for his eight bedrooms, twenty-room apartment on the fifth floor. What the man needed with four thousand square feet of Manhattan living space is anybody’s guess. Maybe it was for the hoard of children he and Monica were planning to adopt. Maybe the guy just had too much Goddamn money. Who knows and who cares?

I was there on business and the business was ugly.

Myers did the introductions. At least sixty now, Myers had a full head of snow colored hair, deep penetrating eyes behind rimless glasses and a no nonsense way about him. A lifetime of preparing wills for elites such as West will suck the humor out of anybody, but away from the office Myers had a dry humor about him.

“Mr. West, may I present Helen Ruiz and Travis Dunn, private investigators that I trust implacably,” Myers said. “Helen, Travis, Mr. Chad West.”

I shook West’s hand and so did Helen. If the circumstances surrounding the introduction weren’t so dire, I’m sure Helen would have wet her panties.

“I hate to say this and make a bad first impression, but I need a drink,” West said.

We were in a room that I took for a study or den. It was a good thirty by thirty, all leather and books, huge cherry wood desk with reading lamps. It would have been right at home as an office at Myers, Andrews and Gurney.

West poured two ounces of whiskey from a crystal decanter into a matching crystal glass and sat behind his desk. Helen and I declined the offer to join him. Ten Am was a bit early to be tossing back shots.

Instead, we sat in leather chairs and faced West. The chairs were custom jobs that probably set West back five grand apiece, but they weren’t as comfy as they appeared. My guess is that they were designed that way to encourage whoever was seated in them to not overstay their welcome.

I looked my question at Myers.

Myers cleared his throat before speaking. “You are aware that Mr. West and Miss Spinks have adopted four children from various countries around the world?”

Who wasn’t? As I said, not a day goes by that something West or Spinks does isn’t reported on the news or in print. They fly around the world, scoop up starving children and make them their own. They speak at the UN and before Congress and what irks me is that they listen to these movie stars as if they carried word from the mount.

West swallowed half his drink and lit a cigarette. Helen took that as permission and lit one of her own.

Myers said, “Miss Spinks is in Spain working on her latest film. She has three of the children with her. Their newest child, a young girl from the province of Djibouti stayed behind with Mr. West to allow her to become acclimated to America.”

I remembered the stories. West and Sinks in Africa with their enlarging brood, bring the young girl home to New York or wherever it was they called home that particular day. West owns homes in Hollywood, Utah, New York and New Orleans, although I doubt he ever stayed there a day in his life.

“I’ll take it from here,” West said.

A giant on screen, in real life West stood no more than five foot eleven inches tall. He was forty-five now and a rumor circulated in the rags that he had Pec implants to keep his chiseled chest chiseled. Pushups were probably to time-consuming at this stage of his busy, busy life.

While I waited for West to speak, I ran the rolodex in my head for information on him. I knew that he made some of the most popular films of our time. He’s portrayed characters of every type, from cops to gladiators to war heroes. He’s won two Academy Awards and has had every type of accolade heaped upon him possible. He is, as some would say, a man’s man.

My first impression of the man was that of hen pecked pussy. He dumped his second wife of a dozen years to take up with Monica Spinks, a movie star some fifteen years his junior. Childless in marriage, West and Spinks appeared to have set the goal of adopting a child from every country on the globe except their own. In every photograph I’d seen of West, Monica and their growing crowd of children, West always appears absolutely miserable, or at least to my eye.

I grew tired of waiting and said, “Mr. West?”

West looked directly at me, making strong eye contact. Up close, he wasn’t as good looking as on screen. For one, his forty five year old skin didn’t appear as smooth as it did with tons of makeup on it. For another, he was, or at least to me, one of those people that looks better on film than in person.

“Normally I never leave the house without a bodyguard,” West said. “The press hounds us like you wouldn’t believe. We have no privacy … ever. It makes me wonder…” West paused to sigh openly. “Never mind, that’s not important. Yesterday afternoon … it was one or one-thirty, something like that. Anyway, I decided I needed to get out and take a walk. The problem was that I gave Swen the afternoon off so he could visit his mother in the hospital. She’s recovering from breast surgery.” West paused to gulp some more of his drink, then he cleared his throat. “So what I did, I put on some faded jeans, a sweatshirt and a baseball cap, dark glasses and went out.”

“With the baby?” I said.

“Yes, of course,” West said. “I put her in the stroller and entered the park as quickly as possible to avoid detection. Then …”

“How?” I said.

“How, what?” West said.

“Did you avoid detection?” I said. “On the way in I counted at least a dozen photographers hanging around just waiting to snap your picture.”

“Oh,” West said. “We have an elevator that goes down to the basement and out the rear of the courtyard. After they shot John … well.”

After they shot John like he knew him personally. Helen and I exchanged a hint of a glance. West continued. “Anyway, I made it across the street and went into the park at Strawberry Fields and walked down to the carousel. Binta has never seen a …”

“Binta?” Helen said as she crushed out her cigarette butt in a silver ashtray.

“West African,” West said. “Means With God.”

“So you took Binta to the carousel and what happened?” I said.

“I took her for a ride,” West said. “At first she was terrified, but then she got the hang of it and wanted more. We went around three, maybe four times. After that, I bought her an ice cream and that’s when it happened.”

“She was abducted?” I said.

West swallowed the last of his drink and set the glass on the highly polished desktop. “Yeah,” he finally said. “There’s a vendor that sells out of a pushcart by the carousel. It was hot, Binta wanted ice cream. Maybe five, six people were on line. next to the cart, six, seven feet to my left is a tree. I left her in the shade where I could watch her ever second, except for …” West paused to suck in air and let it out with a deep sigh. “Except for the twenty or so seconds it takes to ask for the ice cream and pay the guy. I turn around with two ice creams in my hands … she’s gone.”

We waited for West to pour another drink and take a hefty gulp. He swallowed, sighed and looked at us. “I thought … I mean at first that is … I thought she fell out of the stroller and maybe landed behind it. I ran over and she was gone. Just like that … gone.”

I glanced at Helen. I knew what she was thinking. Twenty seconds is enough time to get lost in Central Park and never be heard from again. Around a corner, behind a hill and out of sight. Central Park is a purse-snatchers wet dream for that very reason.

West took another sip of his drink. At that point I was wondering if he needed the whiskey to talk himself through the incident or was he a drunk. I settled on benefit of the doubt.

“And? I said.

“There were a note and a cell phone in the stroller,” West said.

“Show them the note, Chad,” Myers said.

West opened a desk drawer and removed a folded note, slid it across the desk toward me. I picked it up, unfolded the paper and read the words. They were neatly typed on regular paper and could have come from any printer anywhere. The note read, I AM NOW IN POSSESSION OF THE LITTLE GIRL. DO NOT REACT TO THIS NOTE AS YOU ARE BEING WATCHED. DO NOT CALL THE POLICE OR THE FBI OR THAT WILL ENSURE THAT YOU NEVER SEE HER ALIVE AGAIN. THE FEE FOR HER RETURN IS 500,000. THIS IS NOT NEGOTIABLE. I WILL CALL AT 6 PM TONIGHT ON THE CELL PHONE LEFT WITH THE NOTE WITH INSTRUCTIONS. IF I EVEN SNIFF POLICE … THE GIRL DIES.

I passed the note to Helen even though she read over my shoulder. “The phone?”

West removed it from the desk and slid it across to me. I didn’t pick it up. I didn’t need to in order to verify it was an untraceable 60 minute of airtime disposable sold everywhere. The preferred method of terrorist communication around the world.

“When he called, what did he say?” I said.

“Exactly?” West asked.

“The best you can remember.”

“He said Binta was alive and …”

“He called her that, Binta?” Helen said.

West nodded yes. “Her name is no secret. The media covered the adoption like it was the reincarnation of Pope John or Elvis.”

“Okay, then what?” I said.

“He said the money was to be delivered to the Hideaway Motel in Westchester, room 16,” West said. “He said it didn’t matter if I sent cops or tipped the FBI because he was a desperate loser who didn’t matter. He said what did matter was if I wanted the girl back or not, because if cops showed he would never tell them where she was. He said suicide by cop was a better alternative for him. He said midnight tomorrow night, which would be tonight , then hung up.”

I picked up the phone and checked the airtime minutes. There were fifty-three left. “He call back?” I said, knowing that he hadn’t.

“No.”

“Did he sound desperate on the phone?” Helen said.

“What do you mean?” West said.

“Anxious, in a hurry, crazy, anything in his tone that would indicate he is as desperate as he said he was,” Helen said.

“No,” West said. “He sounded cool and calm.”

“Besides Mr. Myers, who else have you told?” I said.

“No one,” West said. “You think I want the child harmed?”

“Monica?” Helen said.

West shook his head. “She’s on location shooting a hundred million dollar picture. Any leak of this and the whole words knows. I figure that after you deliver the money and I have Binta back, I’ll call the FBI and the hell with the world.”

“They won’t like it,” I said.

“The FBI?” West said.

“Yes.”

“Fuck them,” West said. “Binta isn’t their kid.”

Helen, ready for another cigarette, lit a fresh one and blew smoke. “Was he specific about who delivered the money?” she said.

“You mean did he ask me to deliver it personally?” West said. “No, he didn’t.”

“If I may interject,” Myers said. “Mr. West was fully prepared to deliver the money himself, but I suggested otherwise. I told him matters like this are best left to professionals. After thinking it through, he agreed.”

“I’d only fuck it up,” West admitted. “This isn’t a movie. Nobody is feeding me lines. Nobody yells cut and gives you take two so you can get it right. I mess up and Binta dies.”

“I must admit that my first reaction was to call the police,” Myers chipped in. “But upon studying the note and weighing the options of the phone conversation, I decided it best to call you instead and see how you feel about it.”

“They will be very pissed of,” Helen said.

“Like I said, fuck’em,” West said. “Binta’s only three years old, for God’s sake.”

“So you believe he’s that desperate that he’d let her die?” I said.

West looked at me and slowly nodded his head. “It’s a chance I don’t want to take.”

“Fair enough. Do you have the cash ready to be delivered?” I said.

“Of course,” West said. “That amount is no problem.”

I glanced at Helen to see if she wanted to take the lead. She did not. “How much do you make a year?” I said.

“What does that have to do with anything?” West said, showing real emotion for the first time since the conversation began.

“It’s relevant to my next question,” I said.

“I don’t know,” West said. “It depends on how much I feel like working. Last year I made two films. One this year with another in production.”

“What do you make per film?”

“My fee is twenty million plus five points on the back end,” West said. “Last year I made in the neighborhood of ninety million.”

“So why so little for the ransom?” I said.

West looked at me. Myers looked at me. Neither of them spoke.

Helen said, “The kidnaper either doesn’t understand how much you’re worth or he’s so desperate that 500 large sounds like all the money in the world to him.”

“I see what you’re saying,” West said. “So desperate he really doesn’t care if the police blow him to pieces. So desperate that …”

“He doesn’t care if he lives or dies,” Helen said.

“So you’ll deliver the money?” West said.

“Yes,” I said. “But I have a few questions I’d like to ask. Probably the same questions the FBI will ask once this is over.”

“At this point I have nothing to hide,” West said. “Ask.”

I glanced at Helen. I knew what she was thinking. Did West have something to hide before or was that a simple turn of the phrase. “At the carousel, did you notice anybody suspicious? Somebody who might have looked out of place.”

“You’re kidding, right?” West said. “It’s Central Park. Try to find someone who doesn’t look suspicious.”

“What I mean is at the carousel, did you notice anybody sitting or standing around that didn’t have a child with them?” I said. “Maybe someone you saw when you first entered the park?”

“You mean did I notice anybody following me?” West said. “I’d have to say no, but then I was doing my best to stay under the radar. Head low, avoid eye contact, that kind of thing.”

“Didn’t look around when you left the child alone just to be sure?” I said.

There was a brief hint of anger in West’s eyes, just enough to bring out the deep lines carved under and around them. “I left her six feet next to me, for Christ’s sake. My back was turned just long enough to ask for an ice cream. What the fuck was I supposed to do, build a dome around her to get her an ice cream cone?” The anger passed. West took a hit from his drink. “This city. This fucking, fucking city,” he said, softly.

I gave him ten seconds of peace, then I said, “You do realize that whoever took the child has had you under surveillance for quite some time? Unless he had a laptop and printer with him and wrote the note on the spot, spur of the moment. And the cell phone, all sixty minutes intact. He’s been stalking you, Mr. West. Stalking and waiting for the right moment.”

“I get that,” West said. “And I’ll let the FBI and police deal with that once I have Binta back. She’s the main thing, right? I mean, who gives a shit about a lousy half million compared to her safety? I’ll take the heat once she’s safe.””

“Mr. West, Helen and I have to prepare for this,” I said. “We’ll return about nine tonight. I suggest you don’t go out, don’t answer the phone unless it’s the disposable and above all try to stay calm. Okay?”

West nodded at us. “Myers said you guys are good, real good. I trust you.”

With that, Helen and I departed and made our way to a coffee shop six blocks south on Broadway. Over coffee and cheesecake, we hacked it out.

“Besides the desire for cheery drizzle cheesecake, what does your gut tell you?” I asked Helen.

Helen waited to fork a hunk of cheesecake into her mouth before answering. She washed it down with a sip of coffee, then said, “It stinks. More holes in this story than Swiss cheese.”

“Example?”

“The note. The guy says he desperate, but not so desperate he has the kind of time it requires preparing notes and buying phones and stake out movie stars,” Helen said. “Probably following him around for a month or more.”

“Yeah, but so does everybody else follow West around,” I said. “Our guy looks like just another paparazzi in search of a photo op.”

“A faceless face in a crowd of faceless faces.”

“Yeah.”

“You think he’d kill her?”

“Yeah.”

“Think she’s alive right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we better not fuck this up.”

“Let’s go,” I said. “We need to get ready for tonight.”

Helen looked me in the eye. “Just because we’re working a case doesn’t mean we’re back where we were.”

“For Christ’s sake,” I said. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about or do I have to Jeopardy my way through it.”

“You’re a detective, aren’t’ you,” Helen said. “Clue your way through it.”

Rolodex closed, I looked at the GPS unit on the dashboard. Ten minutes to destination. The anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach that I knew would show up finally arrived. This was our seventh kidnapping case in ten years and that feeling of pending doom of failure never goes away. Most kidnap victims do the opposite of what the demands state in that they immediately call the police and FBI. That usually just ensures the death of the kidnap victim. If it were your kid, what would you do. I asked myself that question as I went through a red light.

I opened the Rolodex in my head marked Personal Information. There was a mild amount of truth in Helen’s anger toward me. At her cousin’s wedding, another cousin on the Cuban side, a striking looking woman named Kim came on to me in a less than subtle way. Truth be told, I did nothing to stop it. She was a bit tipsy and making a fool over me and there is nothing as vain as the male ego, especially when it’s being fed by a gorgeous twenty-four-year-old babe in a too tight bride’s maid gown. Truth be told, that’s all it was, some harmless flirting, or so I thought. Helen thought otherwise. She knew that in my head I had thrown her cousin over a table and ravaged her to within an inch of her life. In my head. In my heart, Helen was still the only woman for me.

The GPS unit announced in its simulated voice, “Destination arrived.”

The Rolodex in my head slammed shut.

I looked at 1717 Wentworth Drive. A two-story house of wood frame construction on a small end of the block lot, a wood fence separated it from abutting homes on both sides. A for sale sign sat on the front lawn. The house to its left also had a for sale sign on the lawn. The house to the right didn’t, but there wasn’t a light on in any of them.

I called Helen on my cell phone.

“I just arrived,” I said. “The place has a for sale sign on it. Dark as hell. Ask the dirt bag if he left a marker.”

“Hold on,” Helen said. A few seconds passed, then she said, “Backyard. He said you’ll know it when you see it.”

“Okay, I’m going in,” I said. I was about to hang up when I heard a noise in the background. “What’s that?” I said.

“Nothing,” Helen said. “He’s pacing the room. Keeps saying, this ain’t how it’s supposed to go.”

“You think he’s going to rock and roll?”

“Let him,” Helen said. “I’m cocked and locked and just waiting.”

“He twitches, you shoot this asshole,” I said.

“What constitutes a twitch?” Helen said.

“I’m not joking.”

“I know.”

There was a moment of silence.

I said, “This is probably not the best time to say this, but you were right and I’m sorry. Nothing would have actually happened, but in my head, I was fueling my ego. Hell, I don’t even find her attractive. I’d never cheat on you.”

“I know that,” Helen said. “I just wanted to hear you say it so I don’t have to taze my cousin. Call me back when you’re done.”

I left the Town Car and opened the trunk. I removed the massive, 6-volt lantern and folding shovel that is always kept on hand and walked toward 1717 Wentworth Drive. A long, narrow cement driveway emptied to a plot of fenced in backyard grass. I scanned the lawn with the 6-volt and leaning against the wood fence was a scuba tank.

The ninety minutes of air.

I ran to the tank. The air hose was submerged into freshly dug Earth. I checked the air gauge. It showed a full tank of air. The knob to release air from the tank hadn’t been turned to the open position. The stupid son of a bitch had forgotten to open the air valve.

I dug two feet down to the large Rubbermaid container that was buried there, knowing full well what I wound find. A hole had been cut in the lid for the air hose to fit through, but with the tank turned off the hose was rendered useless.

I opened the lid.

Binta’s tiny body was lifeless. Dark skin against a bright yellow sundress, she appeared to be asleep. If you were a believer, she was now in some other place.

Binta.

With God.

I hoped so.

Chapter Two

The forty-eight hours Helen and I spent with the FBI were brutal. They don’t like it when civilians take the law into their own hands, although we weren’t civilians and duly licensed. To me they seemed more upset with the fact that they weren’t notified of the kidnapping than of the little girl’s death.

My license was threatened and blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is Binta would have died no matter who dug her up. The medical examiner said she would have run out of air within twenty minutes. He also said she died in her sleep. A trace of either was found on her nose and mouth, probably applied with a rag.

The Special Agent In Charge told us he would find a charge to tag us with and make it stick. Helen told him to check our background first, then she told him to engage in a sexual act with his mother, though not in those words. My heart soared with love for my woman.

I’ll pick up Helen’s report to the FBI from the point of our phone call after I arrived at the Wentworth address.

After speaking with my partner Travis Dunn by cell phone, the suspect appeared to grow more agitated than in the previous forty-five minutes. He paced the room in circles and kept repeating that it wasn’t supposed to go like this. At one point, I asked him how it was supposed to go and he replied, you leave the money and we split. You go get the kid and I leave the country. I told him to be patient. A few more minutes passed and he grew more and more anxious. I told him to relax. He said that he had to pee. I told him to leave the bathroom door open so I could watch. The suspect then entered the bathroom and I sat on the bed to watch him. After urinating, the suspect turned around as if to exit the bathroom, but instead reached behind the bathroom door where a double barrel shotgun hung from the towel hook. The suspect cocked both hammers on the shotgun and was in the process of aiming the weapon at me when I shot him four times in the chest. One barrel fired as he fell to the bathroom floor and several pellets struck me in the face. Under the circumstances, I felt I had no choice but to fire upon the suspect.

After that, it was my turn to write a statement. I did so, and then we were escorted to viewing room where we could watch through a two-way mirror as three agents interviewed Chad West.

Actually, one agent did the interviewing while the other two stood around with their hands in their pockets. The agent with us turned on the volume of the speaker feed to the interrogation room so we could listen.

“And you’re positive you saw no one hanging around your building or in the park that you recognized?” the agent conducting the interview said.

West, appearing very bleary-eyed and exhausted sipped coffee from a deli container and stared at the agent. “I’ve said it six times from fucking Christmas already,” West snapped. “How many times do I have to tell you guys the same fucking thing. No, I saw nobody hanging around or that I would say looked suspicious. And you wonder why I had private people deliver the money, you fucking assholes.”

The agent gave West a moment to calm down, then said, “I understand how difficult a situation this is for you, but try to…”

“Really?” West said.

“Mr. West, if…”

“I don’t think you understand shit about anything,” West said. “My face is more recognizable that the President. I can’t fart without it being reported. When Monica started adopting kids from all over the place, it was nothing but headlines and news stories. What kind of headline you think this is going to make? That kid was three years old, for God’s sake. We snatched her from her poverty-stricken shit hole to bring her to the land of dreams. Not three months later, she’s murdered. How do I explain that to the world, Mr. FBI Agent? Huh, how?”

“I don’t know,” the agent said.

“No shit, you don’t know,” West said. He looked at his coffee container. “Can I get some more and I’d appreciate it if you’d let me smoke.”

One agent left the room to fetch West more coffee. West pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lit one off his gold Zippo lighter. Helen took that as permission to light one of her own and I was mildly surprised when the agent in the room with us didn’t object.

The agent returned with West’s coffee and the conversation resumed.

“Mr. West, we’d like to perform an autopsy on the child,” the agent said.

For a moment, West appeared to look past the agent at the mirror as if trying to see who was behind it, then his eyes shifted back to the agent. “Are you asking for my permission?” West said.

“Technically yes.”

“Then my answer is technically no.”

The agent’s response boarded on mild shock at being refused. “I … don’t understand. It’s important to determine the …”

“She suffocated to death from being buried alive by a crazed madman,” West said. “I haven’t the medical training to dispense a band aid to a kid with a scraped knee and I know what the cause of death is, so what is the point of butchering the child like a hog to determine what we already know?”

The agent stared at West for several long and uncomfortable seconds as if at a loss for words.

West sipped coffee, took a puff on his cigarette, then leaned forward and looked at the agent as if a light bulb went on in his head. “You want to know if she was raped, don’t you?” West said.

“Mr. West, the bureau has …,” the agent said before West cut him off.

“The hell with the bureau,” West snapped. “The child is dead and the man responsible is also dead, so I fail to see the benefit of cutting her open so you can dot the I’s and cross the T’s. No. My answer is no.”

“We can …”

“No, you can’t,” West said. “Monica is on a plane home and production of a hundred million dollar film has been put on hold. The moment this story hits the news, it will dwarf every other story in the world for a month, maybe more. The funeral will be a three-ring circus and they will make documentaries about it on CNN. I will be forced to move Monica and the kids into seclusion to avoid the army of reporters that will follow us like a trail of ants to honey. Any celebrity looking to adopt a child will be scrutinized so far up the ass by agencies and foreign governments, they won’t do it. So why don’t you quit wasting my time and find out who the asshole is who murdered the child.”

I looked at Helen. “At least he has some balls,” she said. “Most of these Hollywood phonies would have scheduled an hour-long press conference on cable news by now to proclaim themselves the victim.”

I didn’t point out to Helen that West was the victim. She said that to see what the FBI Agent in the room with us had to say. He either missed her point or chose not to respond to it. The point being was West being sincere or using his formidable acting skills to bully the FBI?

Back in the interrogation room, the agent conducting the interview said, “Every resource is being used to identify the kidnapper, Mr. West. His fingerprints aren’t on file and he had no identification on him at the time. Dental records take time despite what they lead you to believe on television cop shows. Our forensics team is cleaning up the body to take photographs of the man to show you for purposes of identification.”

“What, you think I know this fucking creep?” West said.

“He certainly knows you, Mr. West,” the agent said. “Where you live, your habits, where you like to go and so on. It’s possible he learned that information from stalking you, but it’s also possible he knew that information because he had a relationship with you.”

For a moment, West was stumped into silence. “I hadn’t seriously considered it might be someone close to me,” he said.

“But you did consider it?” the agent said.

“Briefly,” West admitted. “But then I realized that anyone close to me knows all they had to do was ask me for the money and I would give it them.”

“Five hundred thousand dollars and you’d simply give it away?”

“If I knew the person and it was someone I trust, yes, I would.”

I opened the Rolodex in my head marked Chad West and made a note to check West’s personal wealth, filed it and shut it down.

“Mr. West,” the agent said, then paused when the door opened and a fourth agent stepped in with a large file.

“The photos,” the fourth agent said.

“Thank you,” the agent at the table with West said and took the folder. He opened the file in front of him so that West couldn’t see over it, studied the photos for a moment and then said, “Mr. West, have you ever seen this man before? Maybe hanging around your apartment building or in the park?”

The agent slid the file across the desk toward West, who picked it up, took one look and said, “You gotta be shitting me, right? I mean, this is some kind of joke or something you guys are pulling here, right?”

“No, no joke,” the agent said. “This is the man who kidnapped Binta and was shot and killed by Helen Ruiz in the motel room. I take it by your reaction that you’re familiar with this man.”

“Familiar with him,” West said. “That’s Paul Bruno.”

“Paul Bruno,” the agent said. “You’re positive of that name?”

“He was my fucking agent, for God’s sake,” West said. “I think I’m pretty fucking sure who he is.”

The hammer of silence dropped and for about ten seconds nobody so much as took a breath. Next to me, the FBI agent pulled his cell phone and called somebody. He stepped away and whispered so I wouldn’t overhear the conversation. I looked at Helen and although her face remained expressionless, her eyes told me this was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

“He’s your agent?” the FBI Agent at the table said.

“Was,” West said. “Was my agent. A long time ago. In fact, he was my first agent. Got me my first acting job when I was just nineteen. Played a fruit in an underwear commercial and a tomato in a ketchup ad.”

“How long was he your agent?”

“Three … no four years.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” West said. “I felt he wasn’t doing enough to further my career. There were no hard feelings or anything. At the time, he had dozens of other clients and didn’t even miss me. In fact, it was months before he even knew I left his agency.”

“How so?”

“I resigned to one of his staff people,” West said. “I hired a new agent and in fact I was working on a made for TV film when he called with a part. He seemed shocked that I no longer was a client.”

“And after that?”

“After that nothing. I’ve had three agents since then.”

“Any idea what led him to this?”

“I haven’t spoken to him in something like twenty-two years,” West said.

“No contact through friends or other actors?”

“No, nothing. As far as I know he was still doing his thing as an agent.”

My Rolodex opened again and I made a note to background check Paul Bruno.

“Anything else?” West said. “I’d like to meet Monica at the airport.”

“We’ll take you to the airport,” the agent said. “We can get you in and out without a crowd following you around. Just a few more questions first.”

“That’s right considerate of you under the circumstances,” West said. It was difficult to tell is he was being sincere or sarcastic.

“In your circle of influence, would you know anyone who may keep regular contact with Paul Bruno?” the agent said.

“Off the top of my head, no,” West said. “But I can make the question known. Anything else?”

“Yes, our file on you states …”

“You have a file on me?” West said with genuine shock. “The fuck for?”

“Relax,” the agent said. “We started it the second we received information on the kidnapping. It’s routine. We downloaded as many news stories as possible about the adoption of Binta for our own knowledge. Mostly to see if there were any objections to the adoption of the child. There were none.”

I looked at Helen. Who, we said silently to each, would object to taking a child from a lifetime of poverty and disease and transporting her to the lap of luxury where she had a chance to live past the age of forty, marry, raise a family and not have to worry where her next meal would originate from?

“No, not a one,” West said. “In fact, it was just the opposite. They celebrated the fact that this poor orphan would have a chance at a better life.” He stopped, thought for a moment and then said, “Had a chance at a better life.”

“One report said the papers would be final after ninety days,” the agent said.

“Yeah, probably,” West said. “My lawyers handle things like this for me. Us. I have lawyers for just about everything. We can’t even go grocery shopping without a lawyer in case we buy something that isn’t politically correct.”

“I understand,” the agent said. “In all likelihood, Paul Bruno acted alone. However, on the chance that he did not our investigation will be on going. We will keep in close touch with you and your lawyers. If you think of anything, anything at all, I’ll give you my private number.”

West nodded and took the business card the agent handed him. He stood up and looked at the agent. “Look,” West said. “Those two detectives, they risked their lives to save Binta. I would hate to see them in any trouble with you people. I mean it might not sit right if they wound up being charged with obstruction or some such stupid bullshit.”

“They won’t,” the agent said.

West nodded, then he was escorted from the room and taken to the airport in an unmarked, FBI sedan.

Then it was our turn again. In a conference room on a different floor, the Agent in Charge sat with us at a table.

Helen took the offensive. “Don’t even think about charging us with obstruction,” she said. “It wouldn’t stick, anyway. So why the call back? We already told you everything we know in interview and writing.”

“No charges,” the agent said. “I’m actually in need of a favor.”

“Like?” Helen said.

“Chad West is correct when he says this event will be the biggest media circus since the OJ trial,” the agent said. “None the less, we have a job to do. We would appreciate it if you didn’t speak to anybody or seek out to contact anybody regarding any and all of what took place.”

“Appreciate or insist?” Helen said.

“Both,” the agent said. “Because I’m not filing charges doesn’t mean that I can’t. Do we understand one another?”

“Yes, we do,” I said. “But it would help us help you if our names weren’t released to the media.”

“They won’t be,” the Agent in Charge said.

After forty-eight hours in FBI custody, Helen and I walked out of the building and into an unmarked sedan where the driver whisked us to Queens where we had dinner with Helen’s parents at an Italian Restaurant in Forest Hills.

Helen’s mother is slight of build, but tough as nails. At sixty, she is three years away from retirement and she’d like to make Colonel for the added pension dollars, but if not three quarter Captain’s pay for life is nothing to sneeze at. As a young woman, she must have been a looker because as an older woman she still could turn heads by walking into a room. Her Korean name is Jae-Sun, which translates to Respect and Good. Her American name is Julie, which is less fanciful and a lot more boring. American names generally don’t mean shit.

When we sat down at the table, Julie said, “I’d have shot him, too. Don’t lose any sleep over it.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Helen said.

The daughter didn’t fall far from the tree.

Helen’s father was another matter entirely. Rodolfo Luis Ruiz, though as slight of build as his wife has the reputation of a giant. He is considered to be honest, brave and fierce in the pursuit of justice. To make it from junior ADA to District Attorney of Queens meant he also possessed superior intelligence and a willing desire to play politics. He’s outlasted four different mayors in his tenure and that told me a great deal about how serious he took his life’s work as well as the man.

“They were hard on you the FBI, eh,” Rodolfo said.

“They are just doing their job,” I said.

“I’m starving,” Helen said. “Let’s order something before I pass out.”

“I took the liberty,” Rodolfo said. “And a nice bottle of wine.”

Julie looked at Helen and took her time before speaking. “It wouldn’t be very difficult for me to have you back in uniform with sergeant stripes,” she said. “Detective first grade within a year.”

“Mom, we’ve been over this a hundred times,” Helen said. “I left the job because I don’t work well with all the rules and regulations. Same with Travis. It drove us nuts having to conform to the point of ass kissing. Has anything changed in ten years?”

Julie didn’t respond, but Rodolfo did. To me. “Yet you made sniper in the Army. Didn’t that incur a great many rules and regulations?”

“I liked shooting the guns,” I said. “The rest of it sucked.”

Julie sighed. Rodolfo grumbled under his breath. Helen rolled her eyes.

“Does it hurt?” Julie said and reached out to touch the two band-aids on Helen’s left cheek.

“No. It’s little more than a scratch.”

“This time,” Rodolfo said.

“Dad, don’t start,” Helen said.

A waiter arrived with our food. A seafood dish for Helen and Julie, a steak for Rodolfo and me, a bottle of the house red wine to wash it all down. We ate in silence for a moment and as I took a sip of the harsh wine, Julie said, “How do you think the media will handle this?”

“Through the roof,” Helen said. “24-7 of Binta coverage. It won’t stop until something more tragic comes along to take its place.”

“I realize that,” Julie said. “I mean what angle will they take? Is the actor going to portrayed as the victim worthy of our sympathy or will they rip him apart for being careless enough to turn his back on the child?”

“It will probably be across the board,” Helen said. “I’m sure it will be discussed and analyzed for months by every talk show on radio. Some will say West is a victim of the ravings of a madman. Others will say he was careless and neglectful. Some will play the race card and there it will get ugly.”

At the mention of the race card, the table fell silent for a moment and we concentrated on eating. The race card would probably go as follows; some will claim that if Binta were a white child, West would have taken additional precautions before venturing out. Others will say West is to be heralded for adopting a black child to begin with. Some will say that only blacks should adopt black children and West is just additional proof of the burden the white man has put upon the black man. It will go around and around and not one damn thing of importance will be resolved.”

I ate another piece of my steak. It was tasteless to me at this point and I washed it down a sip from my glass. The harshness of the wine seemed to cut through the blandness and settle in my stomach like broken glass.

Julie said, “There will always be those who bring race into every situation, even when it doesn’t belong. Thirty years ago, when I made detective, it was because of Affirmative Action. I knew it and so did everybody else. I had to work twice as hard as everyone else to prove I belonged there. The thing is I had a voice in the matter. Not just verbally, but in my actions, my ability, my conduct. I spoke loud and often. The same for your father.”

“I was born here,” Rodolfo said. “My grandparents fought in the Spanish, American War and settled in Florida in 1899. Yet, when I was appointed a junior ADA, some thought it was funny to leave little notes on the phone at my desk. Dial 1 for English. I spoke English before I learned Spanish. It’s my first language, but that didn’t matter. Like your mother, I too had a voice and it spoke louder and more often that the rest. Now I run the show and those who left notes are long ago forgotten.”

Helen looked at her parents. “I know all that,” she said. “What, in your own very obtuse way are you trying to say?”

“The little girl no longer has a voice,” Julie said.

“Who speaks for her now?” Rodolfo added.

*****

Our spat quelled for the moment, Helen moved back into our bedroom where we made love for the first time in seven days and thirteen hours. Not that I was counting, for if I were I’d know the countdown to the second.

Afterward, Helen curled up against my chest and fell asleep for a little while. When she woke up, she said, “Trav, are you up?”

“Do you mean awake or …”

“Up as in awake, stupid,” Helen said. “Not the other kind.”

“Both, actually. What did you have in mind?”

“Talk.”

“Boring.”

“Would you just listen?”

“Okay.”

That was Helen’s cue to roll over for her smokes. She lit one and sat Indian style on the bed. I waited, but she said nothing. I said, “Is it almost getting shot?”

“I did get shot,” Helen said and blew smoke.

“Two BB’s a bullet doesn’t make,” I said.

Helen shook her head. “I was in control the entire time. He left me no choice.”

“Then what?”

“Do you understand what my parent’s said to us at the restaurant?”

“Which part? Affirmative Action, notes on the phone, the …”

“Voice for Binta, that part.”

“The who speaks for her now?”

“Yeah.”

“Unless, after twelve years of marriage to their daughter I don’t know them as well as I think, they were suggesting we dive a bit deeper into this mess and see what there is to see,” I said.

“Not bad, but not quite there,” Helen said. She puffed, blew a smoke ring and watched it fan out at the ceiling. “And I think it might be thirteen years. I’m not sure.”

“Okay, what part did I miss?”

“They weren’t just suggesting we do some poking around, they were offering to help us poke around.”

I mulled that over for a moment. “I buy that, but what makes you think there’s more to this than Paul Bruno and his desperate need for money?”

“Do you think it starts and ends with Paul Bruno?”

“No, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything we can do about it.”

“We can try.”

“There’s that. Why?”

“Maybe because I came within two seconds of taking one in the chest,” Helen said. “I’d like to know the full story behind what made him that desperate. Can you do that for me my husband?”

“We have anything else on our calendar right now?”

“Nothing we can’t handle or farm out.”

“Two weeks enough time?”

Helen crushed out her cigarette in an ashtray overflowing with butts, then she showed me some gratitude.

*****

The following morning, I was having coffee on the sofa, taking in the cable circus when our lobby doorbell rang. For two solid hours, on every cable news program the topic of conversation was Chad West, Monica Spinks and the tragic death of baby Binta. If it was possible to out cover the Baby Jessica story, the little girl who fell down the well, they had done so with ease.

Myers, whose first name is Martin was at the door.

“Marty,” I said. “Let me guess. The TV at your office is on the blitz and you wanted to watch the news?”

“Why, is there anything special on?” Myers said. As I said, away from the office, Myers had a dry sense of humor that countermanded his stuffy court demeanor.

“Nothing really,” I said. “Just round the clock Chad West and Baby Binta coverage. ”

“That’s what they’re calling her, Baby Binta?” Myers said.

“You knew this was coming. Coffee?”

“Sure. Where’s Helen?”

“Taking a bath. Sit. I’ll bring you a cup.”

Myers took a seat on the sofa while I went to the kitchen to fill a mug for him. When I returned to the living room, Myers had an envelope in his hand. “From West.”

I sat, took the envelope and pulled out the cashier’s check for our fee. Normal is ten percent of the ransom. I was expecting a check for fifty thousand. West added twenty five thousand extra. “He felt that the risks you took called for a bonus,” Myers said.

I nodded and set the check aside. “Something you should know,” I said. “We’ve decided to do a little snooping under the radar. Nothing big, mostly low key.”

“Why,” Myers said and looked at the muted television. “It’s a done deal as far as the FBI and police are concerned. That’s just circus fallout.”

“Wife wants, husband does,” I said.

Myers turned toward me. “For a tough guy you are the most pussy whipped individual I’ve ever met.”

“I’ll ignore that crack only because it’s true,” I said.

“Seriously, what do you hope to find?” Myers said. He tasted my brew and nodded his approval. “That the FBI won’t.”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing, possibly something. Helen thinks …”

Helen entered the living room wrapped in a white terrycloth robe. “Because you don’t,” she said.

“Marty brought us a check,” I said.

“Oh goody,” Helen said, sat, lit a cigarette and took the mug from Myer’s hand.

“Seventy five thousand,” I said.

Helen looked at me.

Myles said, “Travis tells me you’re going to do some poking around.”

Helen blew a smoke ring and sipped from Myer’s mug. “I’d like to know what I almost died for besides the money,” she said.

“You mean Paul Bruno?” Myers said.

“Something drove him to that,” Helen said. “I’d like to know what that was.”

“And you think you’re better equipped than the FBI to investigate that?” Myers said. “The two of you.”

“No,” Helen said. “But we’re not chasing down home grown terror cells, investigating bank robberies, searching for kidnapped children, backing up TSA, tracking serial killers or juggling ten thousand other investigations either.”

I looked at the television. Chad and Monica were on some cable news show giving a statement. “The FBI will keep the file open, but victim and perpetrator are dead and even they don’t have the manpower to waste on the dearly departed.”

Myers sighed. “No sense trying to talk you out of this, but I may have a few clients for you before the end of the month.”

“We’re low keying it,” Helen said. “So we’re still working on active clients.”

Myers stood up. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll be in touch.” He walked to the door, paused and turned back around. “Don’t spend that all at once, you crazy kids,” he said and let himself out.

I looked at Helen. “Call or visit?” I said.

“You in a hurry?”

“No.”

“Good,” she said, stood up and dropped the robe. “I hate it when you’re in a hurry.”

*****

I drove the Town Car across the bridge into The Bronx while Helen read a women’s fashion magazine and chain-smoked. I would like to be able to say that a drive to The Bronx is a pleasant experience, but that would be less than truthful. On the Major Deegan Expressway, I counted eleven abandoned cars on the shoulder, two of which were on fire. Needless to say, Graffiti is alive and well and actually gave me something to look at besides weeds and garbage for scenery.

I took the exit for Webster Avenue, the widest, longest street in The Bronx. Helen tossed the magazine on the back seat. “Stop at the DD for a box for the boys in the squad room,” she said.

I drove through bumper-to-bumper traffic past the zoo and botanical gardens to the Dunkin Donuts and entered the drive through. “Anything special?”

“Assorted,” Helen said. “Whatever you think Rachael Ray would like.”

At the speaker, I told the girl behind the glass to load up two dozen assorted and throw in a Box-O-Joe to go with it. Armed with enough artery fat to bring down a grizzly, I shot a few blocks northeast of Webster to the 55^th Precinct.

Julie’s Lexus was in her reserved for Captain spot. I slipped the Town Car into a vacant guest’s spot a few rows down. Armed with donuts and coffee, we entered the building of the 55.

Somewhere between eighty and one hundred years old, the two story structure is a massive red brick building that resembled an armory, which it may very well have been in the beginning. The interior is scratched wood the color of burnt orange and warped floors, although clean and polished.

We left a dozen donuts at the desk with the Watch Commander, then took the staircase to the second floor where Julie’s office is located in the rear of the detectives squad room.

Five of the green metal desks were occupied when we entered the squad room. I set the donut box on the first vacant desk and before we reached Julie’s office door, five detectives were making their selections.

Julie was behind her desk, the only one in the entire building that wasn’t green metal. Worn and scratched, nonetheless it was made of some kind of wood proving once and for all that privilege came with rank.

Julie looked up at us through rimless reading glasses as we came in and helped ourselves to chairs in front of the desk. “Manpower reports to the mayor’s office,” she said. “I don’t know how they expect me to keep a lid on this neighborhood with the personnel I have assigned to me. It’s a third what I need and half the Forest Hills precinct, which is a third this size.”

“Ah, but Forest Hills is rich white and sadly this is not,” I said.

Julie looked at us. “My daughter has a healthy glow to her skin and you don’t have that lemming chased by a fox look on your face, so I guess you two made up from whatever tiff of the month you had this month.”

“Thank you for the Jenny Jones moment, but that’s not why we’re here,” Helen said. She lit a cigarette, which brought disapproving eyes from Julie.

“Is there anyplace you don’t smoke?” Julie said.

“Pretty much no,” I said.

Helen said, “Paul Bruno. Last known address, arrest record, finances and whatever whatnot you can get your hands on.”

Julie looked at us. “Had lunch?”

“Half a month old Snickers bar from the glove compartment,” Helen said.

“I didn’t see that,” I said. “You didn’t share?”

“There’s a decent Thai place around the block from the zoo,” Julie said. “We’ll take my car. I get sick if I don’t drive.”

As Julie described, the Thai restaurant fired up some mean lunch dishes. We had hot and sour soup, followed by a spicy chicken salad, followed by stir-fried basil with beef as the main course, followed by Tums for desert.

Helen drank iced tea, I washed down water with lemon and Julie sipped from a bottle of alcohol free, Thai Beer.

“Why the feast?” I said as I shoved a huge fork full of basil with beef down my gullet.

“Walls have ears,” Julie said.

“Even the Captain’s walls?” I said.

“Especially the Captain’s walls,” Julie said. “The center of the universe right now is named Chad West with Monica and Binta in close orbit.”

“24-7 on CNN, Fox and MSNBC,” Helen said. “They’d have to blow up the Sears Towel to push it to page two.”

“Translation?” I said to Julie.

“Don’t let anyone know anything about whatever it is you uncover in the due course of your non-investigation into the file I didn’t leave in the glove compartment of my car that you didn’t find and take with you,” Julie said.

I looked at Helen. “For a minute there I thought she was going to say something that didn’t make sense.”

“Don’t worry, mom,” Helen said. “Your pension is secure.”

Soaking wet with rocks in her pockets, Julie weighs is at one ten, maybe. Out of uniform, which she wore now, she is delicate to the point of appearing frail. That fooled many a person, me included at first, but to know Julie is to understand that she can be as tough as nails when need be.

“Fuck my pension,’ Julie said.

“Mom,” Helen said.

Julie shrugged her thin shoulders. “I work mostly with men. Fuck you is the same as saying hello to them.”

“How do they say goodbye?” Helen said.

“What’s in the file?” I said.

“Read it,” Julie said. “Then call me at home.”

“What does dad say?” Helen said.

“Your father says he wants grandchildren,” Julie said and stared at me while saying it. “And since my son is just shy of imbecile status, the onus is on you.”

“We’re working on it,” I said.

“I’ll tell your father,” Julie said. “His birthday is in exactly nine months. Better get busy.”

Helen rolled her eyes at Julie and said, “He’ll have to settle for a new tie. I’ve told you a hundred times already, no kids until we leave the city and we’re not ready to leave the city just yet. Take it or leave it.”

As I said, the daughter didn’t fall far from the tree.

Julie looked at me. “Travis, you’re the man here. Pay the check.”