He and Surani had been lovers for the past seven years, and partners – in the professional sense – for four. Someday soon, one or the other would propose marriage. Kepler was pretty close to popping the question.
And God save anybody on the force who made a single comment about it, lifted a single eyebrow, exhaled a single sigh.
Kepler examined his phone again, to order takeaway. At the beginning of his address book on the Galaxy were three folders, !breakfast, !dinner, !lunch, the punctuation mark added so the files would stay first in line, before people. He was debating between the first and third – he was sort of in a pancake mood – when the brass finally cruised into the room.
The promise of sausages and waffles went away, along with the phone itself, when the harried man, in a suit, strode inside. Wrinkled of face, boasting multiple chins, Captain Paul Barkley was in his late fifties. He carried the round belly of somebody who ate when it was convenient for him, not when the long hours and necessities of a case required him to grab breakfast to go when it was really lunchtime, or vice versa.
Still, the man had a rep as righteous as Kepler’s tan – and far more genuine. Everybody knew Barkley had paid his dues and he carried bullet scars to prove it, according to legend. So none of the detectives griped, at least not too much, and definitely not to his face.
‘Gentlemen.’
‘Captain,’ Surani said. A nod from Kepler.
‘Busy day,’ Barkley muttered and looked at his iPhone to prove it. Read a text. Sent a text, ignoring the men.
Kepler’s stomach protested. Waffles. He wanted waffles. Or maybe a club sandwich.
Barkley snapped, ‘So, what’s this about? Request for an undercover op?’
‘Right,’ Kepler said.
‘Where’s Detective McNamara?’
‘On the way,’ Kepler said.
‘Well, get started.’ Barkley raised an intimidating eyebrow. Impatience ruled.
‘Well, you know, sir, we’re not sure. We didn’t put it together.’
‘It was—’ Surani stopped speaking and looked behind the captain, into the doorway. ‘Here’s the mastermind of the op. She can give you all the details. Hey, Gabby!’
The beautiful but severe woman stepped into the room. Unsmiling, typically, she looked over all three men, nodding a greeting to the captain.
Kepler, with his proclivities, wasn’t the least interested in Detective Gabby for her body. But, man, she dressed well. He appreciated that. A thin white blouse beneath the black-and-white-checked jacket. What was that cloth called again? There was some word for it, that pattern. A gray skirt.
And those were great dark stockings. Nice high heels too.
He and Surani weren’t into cross-dressing, but if they had been, there were worse people to mimic than Detective Gabby.
She was a bit of a legend herself. Daughter of a detective working Organized Crime, she’d joined the force right out of college, working Crime Scene. When her father was killed in the line of duty, she became a detective and moved up to Major Cases, often working OC detail, like her old man had, specializing in the ultra-violent Eastern European gangs based in Brooklyn and Queens.
Known for her undercover work, she had a shining arrest record. And – more important – her conviction rate was off the charts. Anybody could collar anybody; having the brains and balls to make sure the fuckers went away for a long period of time was something else altogether.
Gabby pushed an ornery strand of auburn hair off her forehead.
The captain asked her, ‘So you want to run an undercover op?’
‘Sounds like a TV show,’ Kepler quipped, trying to get her to smile. Everyone ignored him and he decided to stop being cute.
‘That’s right,’ she told them.
‘What’s the deal?’
‘I heard from a CI of mine there’s a player who’s surfaced. Guy named Daniel Reardon.’
‘Never heard of him. Organized crime?’
‘No connection with any of the crews I could find,’ Gabby reported. ‘According to my informant, he runs a small operation out of a Wall Street front. He’s got two partners he works with. Have first names only. Andy or Andrew, and Sam.’
‘Or “Samuel”?’ Kepler inquired.
She turned her eyes on him; usually they were green, today they were more yellowish, eerie. ‘Only “Sam.”’ Spoken briskly, as if: Wouldn’t I have mentioned the longer name if that was what I’d heard? ‘Don’t know anything else about them. But my CI heard it’s an eight-figure operation.’
‘Jesus. Who’s your informant?’
‘Guy connected with the Sedutto crew.’
With some reverence, Kepler asked, ‘Your guy’s a confidential informant embedded with Sedutto? And he’s still alive?’
As if irritated at the interruption, she said curtly, ‘He’s very good. And I pay him a lot of money to be good.’
The captain asked, ‘What’re Reardon and his crew into?’
‘It’s serious shit, Paul. Mostly cleaning money, some drugs, some guns. Offshore stuff. But the worst is he’s hit at least a half-dozen people. A couple witnesses and some rivals. And one of the witnesses? Apparently the guy’s family was with him. Killed them too.’
‘Oh, man,’ Surani said, shaking his head. He and Kepler were exploring adopting.
‘Multimillion operation and hits,’ the captain mused. He did not sound at all dismayed. Good press material, he’d be thinking. This was cynical but Kepler knew you had to consider image in this business. White Knight shit mattered at budget time, it mattered at promotion time. This was a game everybody learned and nobody felt guilty about playing.
‘What do you have in mind for the set?’ Barkley asked.
‘It’s going to be tricky. Reardon’s smart. And suspicious as hell, according to my CI. I need to set up a fake office somewhere in Manhattan.’
‘Office? What does that mean?’ Barkley asked bluntly.
Her voice matched his: ‘A company. A business, an office. Probably an investment firm. I don’t need much. A couple of rooms, furniture. Some phony files I’ll gin up myself. Decorations, props. The office’ll be deserted – and half empty, like it was raided. That’s part of my plan.’
‘We’re not Abscam, we don’t have a lot of money.’
‘What’s Abscam?’ Surani asked.
No one answered. Kepler reminded himself to explain to his partner that it was one of the biggest stings in U.S. history.
Gabby said, ‘Won’t cost us much. I was thinking we could use that place Narcotics closed up last month. It’s just sitting empty. Midtown. Turtle Bay. Oh, and I’ll need an unoccupied town house somewhere on the Upper East Side. Just for the exterior. The whole thing’ll probably come in under a couple G’s.’
Barkley grumbled, ‘That’s probably do-able.’
‘I’ll have IT put together a fake website for the company. I’ll make it look like it was just raided. And I’ll do a Facebook page for my cover identity. Simple stuff. But good enough to fool Reardon if he checks. Which he will.’
Barkley grunted once more. ‘Hold up. You gotta convince me, Detective. Tell me more about Reardon.’
‘Don’t have a lot. I’ve datamined him. He’s rich, lives fast. Owns a Maserati, but it’s slower than his Porsche. He’s got a fancy boat in Connecticut and another one in lower Manhattan.’
‘Well, well,’ said Surani. ‘We’re going after a whole new class of perps. Moving up in the world.’
‘Or down,’ Gabby corrected, frost in her voice. ‘He kills families, remember?’
At least Kepler wasn’t the only one she tapped with her whip.
‘Reardon’s single. Never married, though my CI tells me he sometimes claims he’s divorced and sometimes he’s a widower. He’s got a loft in TriBeCa worth three million and a company on Wall Street. It’s legit – he’s involved in venture capital work. The Norwalk Fund. But he only made one point two million last year, according to his taxes. His lifestyle’s five times that. So the investing’s a cover for the money washing, arms sales and other things he does.’
‘Maybe he just lies to the IRS about how much his legit company makes,’ Kepler suggested.
‘Not about his cover business. Why would he do that? Who’d do that? It’s suicide. He’s not stupid, Brad.’
Ouch.
Surani asked, ‘And the partners? Andrew and Sam? They’re connected to The Norwalk Fund?’
‘I checked out the company, of course, trying to find their full names. And, no, they’re not.’
Of course …
‘So whatta you want to have happen out of this?’ Barkley asked. He was known for his love of the big picture.
‘I’ll get close to Reardon, then lay out some bait, give him and Andrew and Sam the chance to hook up with my CI informant in something big. I’ll be an innocent, so they’ll have to take me out.’
‘Nail them on criminal conspiracy,’ Barkley said.
‘Exactly. My CI, his name’s Joseph’ll be wired. As soon as they meet with him and mention the kill word, we can move in. And get warrants for their offices and houses. If we’re lucky we can find something linking him to the earlier hits – weapons, records, cash transfers.’
‘Seems like you’ve thought this through – like you always do, Detective. Tell me how you want to run it.’
She explained, ‘My cover for the set will be Gabriela McKenzie, manager for the phony business I mentioned. I’m calling it Prescott Investments. It’ll look like my boss – Charles Prescott – has been doing some kind of illegal stock trades. And you two have been investigating him for that. It’s time for the bust, but he’s disappeared. You come up to Reardon and me on the street. You break the news about Prescott. That’ll get Reardon’s attention. Then, after you leave, my Joseph comes up too. He’ll tell me that he was doing some illegal deals with Prescott and he’s pissed he skipped town. He’ll ask me to hand over this mysterious list that’s worth millions.’
Barkley asked. ‘What’s in the list?’
A good question, Kepler reflected.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said dismissingly.
Or maybe not.
‘It’s a MacGuffin,’ Gabby continued. ‘Could be anything. But I’ve decided to make it seem to Reardon like it’s a list of underworld kingpins involved in a plot to take down the stock exchange for a day or two and clean up in a big way. I’ll drop some clues for him to figure out. Like, one of Prescott’s clients is a German terrorist/arms dealer. I’m calling him Gunther. The others are brokers or traders, mostly overseas. And I’m working on a lease that has to be signed up in the next few weeks – for that property on Bankers’ Square in Manhattan, where the stock exchange is putting in a new communications system. Reardon may figure it out from that, but to be on the safe side I’m going to hide this memo in some files that I give him to examine, like I didn’t know it was there.’
She slapped another document on the table.
From: Charles Prescott
To: Investment Syndicate
Re: Updated Timetable
2nd of the month: New York Stock Exchange Technology Center, on Bankers’ Square in Lower Manhattan opens.
4th of the month: The lease for warehouse at 7 Bankers’ Square is effective. Our ‘engineers’ arrive, with appropriate equipment to disable Technology Center’s fiber optic system, directly below warehouse.
6th of the month: U.S.-based investors exit jurisdiction to safe havens. Recommended: Switzerland, Cayman, St Kitts, St Thomas.
8th of the month, 11 a.m.: The event occurs at warehouse. NYSE suspends trading.
8th – 9th: Completion of short sales transactions made throughout the year, distribution of profits to investors.
‘The target date’s around Columbus Day, so I’m calling it the October List – the people in the syndicate Prescott put together.’
‘Love it,’ Kepler said. He was truly impressed. If he played for the other team, he could easily fall in love with Gabriela.
She continued, ‘Joseph’s also going to demand back the deposit he paid Prescott. Four hundred thousand dollars, something like that.’
‘Whoa, hold on – I can’t come up with buy money like that,’ the captain said quickly.
‘No. I won’t need actual cash. It’s enough for Reardon to know the stakes are high. If the deposit’s four hundred K, then the operation’s dealing with serious cash. It’ll seal the deal.’
Barkley asked, ‘Why use your CI for the part? Why not an undercover detective?’
‘Credibility. If Reardon checks around, he’ll find Joseph’s connected with the Seduttos. But, like I said, I will need at least a couple other officers, in addition to Brad and Naresh. I want Elena Rodriguez from Narcotics.’
‘I’ll try to swing it,’ Barkley said.
Gabby said firmly, ‘Make it work out. I need her. She’s good.’
‘What’s her role in the set?’ Barkley asked.
‘She’ll be a fellow employee of mine at Prescott.’
Surani: ‘You said threaten you. How’s Joseph going to pressure you into giving him the list?’
‘He’ll kidnap my daughter.’
Kepler blinked at this, surprised. She has a daughter? Gabby was the least maternal person he could think of.
She continued, ‘Reardon’ll stay close to me while I run around town trying to find the October List and the four hundred K. I’m sure he’ll call in Andrew and Sam – they’ll pretend they’re helping me get my girl back. But what they’ll really do is cut a deal with Joseph to sell him the list or go into business with him.’
‘What if Reardon doesn’t bite?’ Kepler asked.
‘Then you’ve wasted a day or two when you could be playing golf.’
‘He doesn’t play golf,’ Surani said. ‘He watches golf.’
Kepler gave him the finger. Subtly. And an affectionate glance.
‘And I’m out two grand for the set,’ Barkley grumbled.
She looked at him as if he were a husband making an extremely petty remark about starch in his shirts.
Only Gabby McNamara, of the thirty thousand cops in the NYPD, could nail brass with a look like that.
‘So, Paul, can we go forward?’
Or use their first names.
He debated a moment. ‘You got three days tops. We roll it up on Monday, whatever you find, or don’t find.’
‘Deal. Thanks.’ Her gratitude extinguished fast. ‘Now, a lot of the work’s going to be convincing Reardon this’s legitimate.’ As if she were saying she had to drop her laundry off, Gabby said, ‘I need to shoot a cop.’
Did she glance my way when she said that? Kepler wondered.
Barkley said firmly, ‘No weapons discharges on the set. Can’t happen.’
‘I need to,’ she said, and the words were all the more forceful because she was so blasé. ‘If Reardon has any doubts, that’ll put them to rest. We’ll rig a gun with blanks or training rounds.’ She steamrolled ahead. ‘We’ll get some youngster from Patrol. He’ll be jazzed.’
Kepler said, ‘No.’
Everyone turned to him, Gabby most piercingly. He said, ‘You can’t have Reardon next to you. The patrolman or witnesses would see him and he’d become a suspect. He’d go to ground or back off.’
‘Good point. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll make sure he’s at a distance.’
Barkley pointed out, ‘The press, the public, everybody’ll go ape shit, a cop gets shot. Suddenly it’s front-page New York Post. People’re going to ask questions about him.’
She said, ‘It’ll happen on a deserted street. Upper East Side. That’ll minimize witnesses. And we’ll give the cop a fake name. I’ve checked and there’s nobody on the force named Fred Stanford Chapman. My date to the high school prom. We’ll get a fake name tag and have a phony press release ready. Tell the head of the Patrolman’s union it’s part of a set.’
