A Walk Among the Tombstones

We had cleared off the table. All of the money, repackaged to hide the counterfeit bills, was packed into two suitcases. I spread the map on the table and traced a route to the cemetery, indicating the two entrances on the graveyard's western border. I explained how it would work, where we'd set up, how the exchange would be made.



"Puts you right out in front," Kenan observed.



"I'll be all right."



"If he tries anything-"



"I don't think he will."



You can always kill me, I'd told him. Yes I could, he'd said.



"I am the one who should carry the bags," Yuri said.



"They're not that heavy," I said. "I can manage them."



"You make a joke, but I am serious. It is my daughter. I should be out in front."



I shook my head. If he ever got that close to Callander, I couldn't trust him not to lose it and go for him. But I had a better reason to offer him. "I want Lucia to run to safety. If you're there she'll want to stay with you. I need you here," I said, pointing to the map, "so you can call to her."



"You'll tuck a gun in your belt," Kenan said.



"I probably will, but I don't know what good it'll do. If he tries anything I won't have time to get it out. If he doesn't I won't have any use for it. What I wish I had is a Kevlar vest."



"That's the bulletproof mesh? I heard it won't stop a knife."



"Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It won't always stop a bullet, either, but it gives you a sporting chance."



"You know where you can get one?"



"Not at this hour. Forget it, it's not important."



"No? It sounds pretty important to me."



"I don't even know that they've got guns."



"Are you kidding? I didn't think there was anybody in this town doesn't have a gun. What about the third man, the sharpshooter, guy hiding behind a tombstone covering everybody? What do you figure he's doing the job with, a fucking Wham-O slingshot?"



"That's if there is a third man. I was the one who mentioned him, and Callander was bright enough to follow my lead."



"You think they're doing this with two guys?"



"They only had two when they kidnapped the girl on Park Avenue. I can't see going out and recruiting an extra person for an operation like this. This is lust murder that developed a commercial hook to it, not an ordinary professional criminal operation where you can go out and put a string of men together. There are some witnesses who would seem to indicate the existence of a third man in the two abductions that were witnessed, but they may just have assumed there was a driver, because that's the way you would expect people to do it. But if you only had two people to start with, one of them would double as the driver. And that's what I think happened."



"So we can forget the third man."



"No," I said. "That's the aggravating thing about it. We have to assume he's there."



I went into the kitchen for more coffee. When I came back Yuri asked how many men I wanted. He said, "We have you, me, Kenan, Peter, Dani, and Pavel. Pavel is downstairs, you met him coming into the building. I got three more men ready to come, all I got to do is tell them."



"I can think of a dozen," Kenan said. "People I talked to, whether they had money to kick in or not, everybody said the same thing. 'You can use a hand, tell me, be right there.' " He leaned over the map. "We can let them get in position, then bring in a dozen more men in three or four cars. Seal up both exits, plus the rest of them, here and here. You're shaking your head. Why not?"



"I want to let them get away with the money."



"You don't even want to try for it? After we've got the girl back?"



"No."



"Why not?"



"Because it's crazy to get into a firefight in a graveyard at night, or shoot at each other from cars careening around Park Slope. An operation like that's no good unless you can control it, and there are too many ways this one can slip out of control. Look, I sold this by setting it up as a standoff, and I did a good job designing it that way. It is a standoff. We get the girl, they get the money, and everybody goes home alive. A few minutes ago that was all we wanted out of the deal. Is that still how we feel?"



Yuri said it was. Kenan said, "Yeah, sure, it's all I ever wanted. I just hate to see them get away with anything."



"They won't. Callander thinks he's got a week to pack his valise and get out of town. He hasn't got a week. It won't take me that long to find him. Meanwhile, how many men do we need? I think we're fine with the people we've already got. Say three cars. Dani and Yuri in one, Peter and… is it Pavel in the lobby downstairs? Peter and Pavel in the Toyota, and I'll ride with Kenan in the Buick. That's all we need. Six men."



The phone rang in Lucia's room. I answered it and spoke to TJ, who was back at the laundromat after having no luck looking in driveways and at curbs for the Honda.



I went back to the living room. "Make that seven," I said.



Chapter 21



In the car Kenan said, "I figure the Shore Parkway and the Gowanus. That sound okay to you?" I told him he knew more about it than I did. He said, "This kid we're picking up. How's he fit into the picture?"



"He's a kid from the ghetto who hangs out in Times Square. God knows where he lives. He goes by his initials, assuming they're his initials and he didn't find them in a bowl of alphabet soup. He's been a big help, believe it or not. He put me on to the computer wizards, and he saw Callander tonight and got the license number."



"You think he's gonna do anything for us at the cemetery?"



"I hope he doesn't try," I said. "We're picking him up because I don't want him wandering around Sunset Park being resourceful when Callander and his friends are on their way home. I'd like to keep him out of harm's way."



"You say he's a kid?"



I nodded. "Fifteen, sixteen."



"What's he want to be when he grows up? A detective like you?"



"That's what he wants to be now. He doesn't want to wait until he grows up. I can't say I blame him. So many of them don't."



"Don't what?"



"Grow up. A black teenager living on the streets? They've got the average life expectancy of a fruit fly. TJ's a good kid. I hope he makes it."



"And you really don't know his last name."



"No."



"You know what's funny? Between AA and the streets, you know a hell of a lot of people without last names."



A little later he said, "You get any sense of Dani? He a relative of Yuri's or what?"



"No idea. Why?"



"I was just thinking, the two of them riding around in that Lincoln with a million dollars in the backseat. We know Dani's got a gun. Say he pops Yuri and takes off. We wouldn't even know who to look for, just a Russian guy with a jacket that don't fit him too good. He's another guy with no last name. Must be a friend of yours, huh?"



"I think Yuri trusts him."



"He's probably family. Who else you gonna trust like that?"



"Anyway, it's not a million."



"Eight hundred thousand. You gonna make me a liar for a lousy two hundred thousand?"



"And almost a third of it's counterfeit."



"You're right, it's hardly worth stealing. We're lucky if these two jokers we're meeting are willing to haul it away. If not it goes in the basement, save it for the next Boy Scout paper drive. You want to do me a favor? When you're up there with a suitcase in each hand, you want to ask our friends a question?"



"What?"



"Ask 'em how the hell they picked me, will you? Because it's still driving me nuts."



"Oh," I said. "I think I know."



"Seriously?"



"Uh-huh. My first thought was that he was in the dope business on some level or other."



"Makes sense, but-"



"But he's not, I'm almost certain, because I had somebody run a check and he hasn't got a criminal record."



"Neither have I."



"You're an exception."



"That's true. How about Yuri?"



"Several arrests in the Soviet Union, no serious jail time. One bust here for receiving stolen goods but the charges were dropped."



"But nothing involving narcotics."



"No."



"All right, Callander's got a clean slate. So he's not in the dope business, so-"



"The DEA was trying to make a case against you a while ago."



"Yeah, but it didn't get anywheres."



"I was talking to Yuri before. He said he backed out of a deal last year because he sensed that some agency was trying to trap him with a sting. He had the sense it was federal."



He turned to look at me, then forced his eyes front and swung out to pass a car. "Jesus Christ," he said. "This a new national law-enforcement policy? They can't make a case against us so they kill our wives and daughters?"



"I think Callander worked for the DEA," I said. "Probably not for very long, and almost certainly not as an accredited agent. Maybe they used him once or twice as a confidential informant, maybe he was strictly office help. He wouldn't have gone very far and he wouldn't have lasted very long."



"Why not?"



"Because he's crazy. He probably got into it because of a low-grade obsession about dope dealers. That's an asset in that line of work but not when it's out of proportion. Look, I'm just going on a hunch. There was something he said on the phone when I told him I was Yuri's partner. It was as if he was starting to say that explained why they hadn't been able to rope Yuri in."



"Jesus."



"It's something I can find out tomorrow or the next day, if I can get a hook into the DEA and see if his name rings a bell with them. Or take an unauthorized dip into their files, if my computer geniuses can swing it."



Kenan looked thoughtful. "He didn't sound like a cop."



"No, he didn't."



"But the guy you described wouldn't really be a cop, would he?"



"More like a buff. But a buff with the Feds, and fixated on the subject of narcotics."



"He knew the wholesale price of a kilo of cocaine," Kenan said, "but I don't know what that proves. Your friend TJ probably knows the wholesale price of a key."



"I wouldn't be surprised."



"Lucia's classmates at this girls' school, they probably know it, too. Kind of world we live in."



"You should have been a doctor."



"Like my old man wanted. No, I don't think so. But maybe I should have been a counterfeiter. You meet a nicer class of people. At least I wouldn't have the fucking DEA on my back."



"Counterfeiting? You'd have the Secret Service."



"Jesus," he said. "If it's not one goddamn thing it's another."



"THAT the laundromat? There on the right?" I said it was, and Kenan pulled up in front but kept the motor running. He said, "How are we on time?" then glanced at his watch and the dashboard clock and answered his own question. "We're fine. Running a little early."



I was watching the laundromat, but TJ emerged instead from a doorway on the other side of the avenue and crossed over, getting in the back. I introduced them, and each claimed to be pleased to meet the other. TJ shrank back against the seat and Kenan put the car in gear.