Necessary Decisions, A Gino Cataldi Mystery (27 page)

Sanchez walked up to #164, key in one hand, the other clutching a gun. She took a deep breath then knocked on the door. When no one answered, she knocked again. “
Hola
! Housekeeping.”

The curtains moved—just barely, but they moved. One more time, she knocked. “
Hola
! Maid service.”

The curtain closed. She reached for the lock with the key, but Delgado shook his head. They’d let Sir Lancelot and the mighty SWAT team handle this.

Delgado let her take the lead back while he brought up the rear, just in case whoever was in there decided to come out. He called Lance on the phone. “Need your special brand of talent,
amigo
. The gentleman in room #164 is not feeling sociable.”

By the time Delgado turned the corner, Lance and his crew were there. He didn’t know
how
they got there that fast, but they did. “Room #164. And try not to kill the girl.”

Lance looked at him. “What do we know for sure?”

“Nothing. This could be a plain old asshole who didn’t feel like answering the door because he was getting a piece of tail. Or it could be a wired-up junkie ready to blow his—and your—brains out. Or, it could be the kidnapper with an innocent girl in there. So be careful.”

Lance nodded and gave some kind of mysterious hand signal to his men, the kind only Special Forces, and CIA, and FBI, and SWAT team guys—all of the acronym people—do. They moved along the wall like fucking spiders.

They got into position on both sides of the door. The guy from the rear, the one who looked like a couple of trees, moved up with a battering ram that Santa Ana would have paid a bucketful of gold to have had at the Alamo. Delgado presumed Coop knew she would be paying for a few motel doors. Good thing they weren’t at the Ritz.

The battering-ram guy swung his tree-trunk arms back then swung what probably
was
a tree into the door. It went down like the houses Delgado used to build out of cards. He rushed to give them backup. Before the door touched the floor, they were inside, and judging from the resulting noise, #168 would have more than a few complaints.

“Down! On the floor! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!”

Delgado heard a shot then several more as he raced through the door, low. A white male lay on the floor, bleeding. More than bleeding, his head was almost blown off. No rush on a bus for him. A gun lay on the floor next to him. Delgado hoped it was actually the guy’s gun and not one from the arsenal Lance and his crew had. The girl lay on the bed, face buried in her hands, screaming as if she had a limb severed. Lance and his men cleared the bathroom, closet and under the bed, then announced the area to be secure. Delgado stood, went to the girl on the bed, and sat next to her.

She shrieked and pulled her legs up tight against her. If she could have crawled into the wall, she would have. It wasn’t until Sanchez arrived that she showed signs of calming down.

Sanchez turned to Delgado, whispering. “Get them to step outside. I’ll see what I can find out.”

Delgado got Lance and his men to follow him out. He took out the cell and punched in Gino’s number. He wanted to wait for Sanchez, but there was no sense in it. The girl on the bed was
not
Jada Hackett.

Chapter 39

Terminal C

D
oran made the turn from the toll road extension onto JFK. He was fast approaching the airport. He picked up the phone. “I’m on JFK Boulevard.”

“What kind of car are you driving?” the kidnapper asked.

The question took Doran by surprise. Did these guys really not know? “I’m in a Ford Flex. Black.”

“Good. Listen closely. The next instructions are
very
important. If you fuck them up…well, you don’t want to do that. Clear?”

Doran wanted to clear this guy’s head out right now. “Clear.”

“I am going to give instructions. Take the phone off speaker. I will be whispering, so it may be difficult for you to hear. If the radio is on, turn it off. Turn off the air conditioner too. Do not—I repeat—
do not
repeat what
I
say.
Do not
put the phone back on speaker.
Do not
question anything I say. Clear?”

Doran gritted his teeth. “Clear.”

“You will answer me with simple sentences. Yes. No. Okay. Clear. Such as that. Clear?”

“Clear.”

“Oh, one more thing. Take the other cell phone you have and drop it out the window now.
Right now.
”

A sickness crept into Doran’s stomach. These guys had been fucking with them the whole time. They
knew
he had another cell with him.
How?
He dropped the phone out the window. “Okay.”

“Roll up your window.”

“Okay.”

“Go to the Terminal B parking garage.”

The sickness spread throughout Doran’s body. Gino would be set up at C. They still had the GPS in the car, and the GPS in his boot, but no communications. He prayed Gino picked up on that.

When the turn came up for Terminal C, Doran went straight then turned left toward B.

Come on, Gino. Look at the GPS.
Somebody
look.

***

I was doing almost ninety down the Hardy Toll Road when I caught a little slip of the wheels as I negotiated the turn onto JFK.
Watch your ass, Gino. Don’t need a wreck.

The phone rang. By the fourth ring, I straightened up enough to grab it. It was the guy from Central. “Cataldi.”

“We lost Doran’s phone.”

“What?”

“The signal is gone.”

“What does that mean? Did he turn it off, or…”

“Even if he turned it off, we’d have a signal.”

“So…what?”

“Doesn’t matter. We still have the GPS devices in the car and on Doran. The bigger problem is, he’s not headed to Terminal C.”

“What!”

“He turned toward Terminals A and B. Driving slow.”

A or B. Why?
They could be making a detour. They might suspect a tail, and if so, the garage would be a good place to spot a tail. No stopping in front of the garage on entrance or exits. I got back on the phone.

“Do we still have the two tails on him?”

“They’re still with him.”

“All right, they stay. Tell everyone else to stay put. Tell them to stay in range, but if he goes into the garage,
do not
follow him in. Circle and spread out. Try to catch them coming out the other side. If Doran’s car stops, we go in.” I thought about the layout of the garage, how the kidnappers might work this. “I’m on JFK now. As soon as you know if it’s A or B, let me know. I’m sending two cars to provide more cover. I repeat, unless he stops, we
do not
go in.”

***

Doran slowed down as he approached parking for Terminal B. He got his ticket and eased onto the ramp. “I’m on my way up.”

Boss’s voice came through the phone, smooth and confident. “Good. Continue driving slow. Exit the ramp at the first level.” He waited a few seconds. “Turn right and slow down to five miles an hour. Someone will approach the car.
Do not
stop. They will get in.
Do not
stop. Keep going at the same speed.”

Doran let off the gas, easing it down to five miles per hour. He could walk this fast. The parking garage was big, and every space he’d seen so far was occupied. He got almost to the end of the lane when the kidnapper spoke.

“Take the left turn at the end and continue at the same rate of speed.”

Doran cast a few quick glances to the sides. Their knowledge of his location seemed too close for them to be guessing. They had to be in the garage. As he navigated a turn, a man appeared from behind a car. He wore a mask and pushed a gun against the driver’s side window, level with Doran’s head.

“Don’t stop. Open the doors.”

He climbed in the back seat. Through the mirror, Doran could tell that the gun was aimed at his head. “I’m not armed.”

“I am. Keep going. Same speed.”

***

I stepped on the gas, kicking it up a notch. When I hit the turn for A and B I slowed so I didn’t spin out of control. I’d never been a very good driver, so I couldn’t do the shit that other cops did, like take hairpin turns doing eighty, or bob and weave in traffic like they do in movies or on cop shows. I called Central. “What’s the news? I haven’t heard anything.”

“Doran’s in the garage at B, but he’s still moving. Slowly, but moving.”

“Everyone in place?”

“Got three cars circling and one at the exit near the freeways.”

“Tell me if he stops. I’m joining them.”

***

Within fifty yards another person approached the car, also masked. He got in the front seat. “Where’s the money?”

Doran didn’t say anything.

The backseat guy put the gun to his head. Pressed firmly.

Front-seat spoke again. “
Where
is the money?”

“They didn’t have time to get it. The bank—”

Backseat hit him with the gun, and blood gushed from above his right ear. Doran’s head fell to the side, his hand reaching for where he was hit. “Goddamn!”

Backseat said, “Should I kill him?”

Doran spoke with real panic in his voice. “Scott said he can get it tomorrow. That’s when you asked for it originally.” Doran could tell by the tone and attitude that backseat wouldn’t mind killing him.

Front-seat’s eyes bored into him. “Why didn’t they tell us that on the phone?”

“Scott thought it would be better to tell you in person.”

“Scott, my ass,” Front-seat said. “Tell Detective Cataldi he made a big mistake.”

“He didn’t—”

Front-seat leaned toward Doran. “I
know
the money is ready.”

This was no bluff. Doran heard it in the guy’s voice. “The money was tainted,” Doran said. “They put chemical tracers on it. We figured you’d be more pissed if we came with that.”

“Tell the detective he will be hearing from us. Soon.”

They weren’t buying anything Doran said. “I will.”

Front-seat eyed him. “Aren’t you going to ask how your niece is—
Uncle Eddy?
”

Doran heard the truth in the guy’s voice. “I think you know I’m not Uncle Eddy.”

“Give me the cell phone,” Front-seat said. “Now keep driving at the same speed.
Do not
stop. Go to level two. Repeat the same procedure. Same speed. Someone may approach you again. If not, proceed to level three. Continue until you reach the roof or get new instructions. In any case, do not stop. Clear?”

Doran made sure to get as good a look as he could at the guy—this had to be the top man. “Clear,” he said, and noted the man’s big hands covered with gloves. For the first time, he realized the man was very large, much bigger than Doran.

Front-seat nodded to the back, and the man with the gun exited, disappearing into a mass of parked cars close to the elevator. When Doran glanced toward Front-seat, the man had a gun. Doran turned down the next aisle at the same monotonous rate. About halfway down, Front-seat opened his door.

“Remember what I said. We’ll be watching. And when you talk to Detective Cataldi, tell him it was a
very
big mistake.”

In the rearview mirror, Doran saw Front-seat reaching for his mask just as he disappeared behind a minivan. Pretty soon Doran reached the ramp going up to level two. He wanted to speed through this thing, get out of here, and report to Gino. But these guys were too unpredictable. They might be watching. Without Gino’s permission, he wouldn’t risk that girl’s life.

***

Boss removed his mask and ducked behind the van, watching to make sure the cop followed instructions. When the cop got on the ramp, Boss got in the elevator. He changed out of his jogging pants, turned his shirt inside out, removed his gloves, and tucked everything into a dark plastic bag. When the elevator opened, he walked at a steady pace to the airport entrance, depositing the bag in a garbage can on the way. A long corridor led him to another set of elevators, which he took to the bottom level, and then he got on a tram car bound for Terminal C. If things went according to plan, Number Three was already there, waiting to board a shuttle bus that would take him to long-term parking. Driver would be waiting.

***

I punched the seat next to me. Too much time had passed. Something was wrong. First Doran’s phone disappeared, and now he’d been in the garage driving around for what seemed like half an hour. It might have really been half an hour. I called Sameena, who was in one of the cars tailing Doran. “Anything?”

“Been too long. I know that.”

I sighed. “I’m with you. Something is up.” I thought for a moment. “Sameena, go in. See what the hell is going on in that garage.”

“On my way.”

Sameena called back a few minutes later. “I’m on the top level before the roof. Doran’s right in front of me, driving real slow.”

“Anyone with him? Or in sight?”

“No one but him in the car. I’m checking the lot…got a few people walking, but they’ve got luggage. None of them fit the role.”

What the hell was going on?