The Chessman (26 page)

Hartzell didn’t trust the phones at home or in his office anymore, figured the lines were tapped and frankly assumed everything he said above the lowest of murmurs was heard by whatever technical miscreants the Coordinator had working New York with him. He also assumed they had some kind of tracking software on his computers, the kind that reveals anything typed, as well as monitoring incoming and outgoing e-mails. They were probably able to review his browsing history in real time, but Hartzell figured this minor Googling would indicate that he was not an oblivious dunce cap—in fact, it would be expected, and make them feel they had him exactly where they wanted, which the bastards did—but he spent another half hour surfing cricket scorecards in order to bore any observing hired guns stiff.

Children are often cautioned never to threaten animals, no backing a raccoon into a corner or tossing a rock at a hornet’s nest, which then forces the creatures to defend itself with everything in its god-given arsenal. Nothing good can come of that, children are warned. The same holds true for con men. Best to quickly fleece them or have them jailed and hopscotch down the boulevard. Caging Hartzell, forcing him to submit as though he were a
common thief
, stripping him, little by little, of the fruits of his labor not only rubbed against every fiber in Hartzell’s soul, but gave him time to pause, and think, and get a mental second wind.

Remarkably, Lucy had been miles ahead of him in pursuing this line of thought. That very first morning after the Coordinator’
s
arrival, she had the gumption and grit in her to head off to her morning Juilliard classes, more to get away from these demented freaks than concern over any missed assignments. So with her locks combed over the bandage covering half of her forehead, one arm wrapped in a sling, a medicated look about her eyes, and the bald Hercules as her shadow, she stopped to give Hartzell a long and soulful hug. They draped across each other a full minute so that even the Coordinator turned to stare out the window in order to give them a brief moment of privacy. Hartzell was dead on his feet, having spent a nerve-wracking night making
arrangements
with the nameless gentleman from Chicago who would be
coordinating
his life into the foreseeable future, but her hushed words pierced through his foreboding. “Turn the tables, Papa,” Lucy had whispered, like a ghost in his ear that very first morning. “Turn the tables.”

Blind with greed, that was Duilio “Leo” Fiorella’s critical character flaw, Hartzell had calculated. Having much the same defect, he considered himself an expert in this arena. To keep with St. Nick’s carnal metaphor, what if the tables could be turned and if, blinded by a burning greed, it was Duilio “Leo” Fiorella who had really stuck his dick in it?

Hartzell knew the Coordinator wouldn’t budge one iota, but Vince and David, they were white collars from The AlPenny Group, that alchemist outfit charged with turning Fiorella’s common metals—steel, iron, nickel, and platinum, tainted black by racketeering, drug-dealing, narcotics, gambling, prostitution and god knew what else—into legal gold. These two were guys that Hartzell could deal with, worm his way in, wine and dine them into giving him some wiggle room in which he could maneuver.

So Hartzell went on the charm offensive with a baker’s dozen of specialties catered from H&H Bagels every a.m. to be washed down with the Coordinator’s now-favorite coffee, Kopi Luwak—and for lunch, perhaps some French grub at Daniel or double-cut lamb rib chops at The Palm or, if you’re in the mood, off to Gramercy Tavern for some fish croquette, and, in case they were feeling homesick, end the long day with a feast at Da Nico. He even scored box seats at the new Yankee Stadium for the trio to attend an evening ball game—and all on Hartzell’s dime. He enthusiastically answered all of their questions, even the awkward admissions of his fraudulent activities, with about seventy-five percent truthfulness, a high-water mark for Hartzell.

By the beginning of the second week, the three were best mates, three blokes in pretty much the same line of work sharing secrets between shits and grins. Hartzell would become energized in explaining to them in detail the twists and turns of the scams he’d perpetrated and who he’d stung. And for how much. The three would laugh endlessly about Hartzell’s genius tax evasions, accounting frauds, equity leveraging, layers of fees amassed at every level, capital kiting, and the psychological profiling of his rich victims.

Hartzell set them up behind the solid African mahogany table in the large conference room on the thirtieth floor of his Park Avenue office building, Hartzell Investment, Inc.—an expensive front that filled his wealthy clients with an aura of Hartzell’s gravitas as they rushed to open their checkbooks for him. He gave Vince and David a tour of the building, buying them café lattes at the kiosk on the second floor lobby, and showed them the best nooks and crannies in which to inconspicuously people watch. He told the two how he’d determined the times when some of the office building’s knockouts in skirts came to the kiosk to refuel, which Hartzell had truly done for his own amusement some time back.

So by the middle of the second week, when he pointed two fingers at the accountants and asked, “Normal and extra leaded?” to their nods of approval, he was able to disappear for twenty minutes. Of course it would only take a determined fellow ten minutes to grab three cups of java at the coffee kiosk and return, but, in Hartzell’s case, he grabbed Stephanie’s cell phone from the top of her purse on his way out, raised a finger to his lips to hush her and shake his head as he pointed back down the hallway and grinned mischievously, and slipped out to the elevator bank. Stephanie, his front desk receptionist, had been surprised by the two visitors, who had soon become regular fixtures at the firm. Although Steph knew nothing of Hartzell’s financial scam, she knew him to be a private person and performed her assigned tasks, for which she was highly compensated, with committed discretion. Hartzell didn’t know if they’d done anything to his cell phone, but he knew there were ways in which his cell phone signal could be monitored. Even in the days B.C.—Before the Coordinator—Hartzell only utilized clean phones, unconnected to him, to make certain calls.

Hartzell took the elevator down two floors, making sure to press Lobby and a handful of other stops as he stepped off onto the lower floor. He swiveled his head left and right as he crossed the elevator bank, turned a corner, and quickly stepped inside the stairwell. He leaned his back against the door, shut his eyes, and counted slowly to sixty, listening for any suspicious noises or accompanying footsteps. He started swiftly down the stairs, taking them two at a time, while flipping open Stephanie’s cell phone. Speaking in the stairwell was nothing new to Hartzell, as he’d moved mountains in the privacy of the stairwell over the years on throwaway phones in conversations that would be meaningless to any potential eavesdroppers.

He hurried down the staircase, making all sorts of blusterous phone noises—scoring additional box seats for yet another Yankees game for his visitors and himself to attend. When that call ended, he came to a sudden halt and listened in silence for another sixty seconds. Hartzell didn’t sweat the two accountants reviewing spreadsheets in his conference room several flights above; he knew those two would have to be directed to where the staircases were situated in case of an inferno. Instead, Hartzell’s excessive caution was due to that unknown third man, the goddamned phantom who had come out of nowhere and caught Hartzell in a death grip that first night. That was who Hartzell feared most, Fiorella’s number-one weapon. Assuaged of his concern that Fiorella’s trained killer had omnipotently hidden inside a potted plant on the floor Hartzell had randomly chosen to depart on and then transmutated into the east staircase as a dust bunny, Hartzell punched in a number he’d long ago memorized and spoke in a quiet tone for no longer than sixty seconds. Twelve minutes later, Hartzell returned to his office with three hot coffees and drank his cup while bullshitting with the bean counters.

By the end of the second week, he dropped down to the twentieth floor, to the office of a patent law firm where both senior partners had hefty investments with Hartzell’s firm, gave them a song and dance about changing computer systems and asked if they had a PC for him to use to log in to his Internet e-mail for a few minutes now and again until the IT gents buggered off. After a quick
No Problemo
and
Anytime, Drake
, they let Hartzell utilize a computer in a private conference room. Hartzell made a mental note to send both partners a handful of tickets to a comic musical that was soon to open at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre for them and their wives, or mistresses, to attend.

Five minutes here and there with a clean phone or unmonitored PC, away from any prying green eyeshades, was all Hartzell needed to set events in motion. He had new passports to obtain, numbered accounts to shift, tables to turn, and one last mountain to move—and this particular Everest Hartzell was planning to move straight up one Duilio “Leo” Fiorella’s ass.

The bastards should never have touched Lucy.

Chapter 33

“A
re you sure you can walk away?”

“It could take months to find him, Terri. Westlow planned for this day, so he’ll have a change of ID and looks. In the end, he’ll be burned by a friend or an astute motel clerk.”

The two were in a couple of bench chairs at their boarding gate at Ronald Reagan National, sucking down Starbucks and waiting for the mid-afternoon flight into Minneapolis.

“I’m torn.”

“What do you mean?” Cady asked.

“After looking through Dorsey’s photo albums, and knowing how her daughter’s death shattered that sweet, wonderful woman’s life, and how the Chessman’s victims were complicit in Marly’s murder. I’m torn.”

“Is this the same girl I met in Cohasset? The one screaming for justice?”

“It’s not black and white anymore.”

“It never is.”

“The only reason I want him caught, Drew, is for what he did to you.”

“The man methodically plotted and carried out a string of murders, including the assassination of a sitting congressman.”

“We both know Patrick Farris was at the lake that night, right there in the thick of things.”

“Look at what Westlow did to the secondaries, Terri, the victims not directly responsible for Marly’s death. Barrett Sanfield was stabbed in the heart over his part in the cover-up, right up close and personal. Bret was the patsy they sucked in for concealment, but he didn’t deserve to be burned alive.”

“They used to hang horse thieves. Bret and the lawyer were involved in something a bit more than snatching a pony.”

“They used to do a lot of things, Terri, but what about Dane Schaeffer? The kid threw a party, a stupid drunken bash at the family lake home. Did that merit the death penalty? When Schaeffer heard Marly was missing, he jumped in a boat and took off searching for her. Yet Westlow killed him just the same, drowned the young man—again, up close and personal.” Cady shrugged. “I guess what I’m getting at is that Jake Westlow’s not some modern-day knight-errant on a quest to save the kingdom.”

“He’s not the one I’ve been thinking of as a modern-day knight-errant on a quest to save the kingdom.”

Cady shook his head. “Right.”

A cell phone buzzed. Terri dug through her purse and flicked it on.

“This is Terri.”

Cady had decided to build a career out of gawking at Terri; he studied her profile as she answered the call. He watched her mouth suddenly drop, the humor fall from her eyes as she held the cell phone toward him.

“What?”

“I think it’s him,” Terri said slowly. “And he wants to talk to you.”

Cady took the phone and held it to his ear. “This is Cady.”

“Did Simon say you could jump on a plane?”

Cady recognized the voice of his late-night hotel visitor and was already on his feet, spinning three hundred and sixty degrees in the pre-boarding area, scanning the faces of all male passengers, searching for anyone with a phone to their ear.

“How’d you get this number, you son of a bitch?”

Cady stepped out into the walkway, sweeping dozens of faces in the two neighboring wait areas. Traffic was thick; a recent flight had deplaned. Cady’s head swiveled left to right and back again as he filtered men of Westlow’s height. He began walking toward the terminal, assuming the Chessman wouldn’t allow himself to get caged in at the far-away gates.

“It’s one of the contact numbers listed on Sundown Point’s web site. I thought I might need a rental cabin.”

“You leave Terri the hell out of this,” Cady spoke into the phone as if it were a separate being. “You understand me?”

“You’re calling her
Terri
now?”

“She gets one prank call, Westlow, or a car drives by her place she doesn’t recognize and you’ll spend each day finding a new rock to sleep under because I’ll never stop looking for you. Never.”

“Understood.”

“Good. Any chance of telling me where you’re calling from?”

“Was your Café Au Lait as weak as mine?”

Cady felt ill. Had the bastard actually been in line with them? He began to jog, sweeping faces and heights, looking for men over six feet tall, men holding cell phones or wearing earpieces, perhaps with a cup of Starbucks in tow.

“I was disappointed. I mean I can make lousy coffee at home for practically free, but I suppose they’ve got a captive market here.”

Cady neared the security lines. Westlow had either passed through security or had merely followed them to the airport and was now trying to get in his mind.

“So where do you call home these days, Westlow?”

“Thanks to you, Agent Cady, I find myself out on the streets. Truly homeless.”

“Good to hear, but you can cut the Agent Cady crap. I’m no longer working with the bureau.”

“Oh my—I’m afraid that won’t do. Not yet, anyway.”

“What?” Cady’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Now I’m working for you?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but what with the FBI being
compromised
in the Gottlieb investigation, I suppose others might phrase it that way.”