The October List (14 page)

Gabriela gingerly lifted out the shirt, which was tied with a gingham hair ribbon. As she did, the garment unfurled and something fell from the inner folds to the grim floor of the alley. The colors were the pink of flesh and red of blood, and the shape was that of a small finger.

Daniel got to her just before her head hit the cobblestones.

CHAPTER
17

5:30 p.m., Saturday
25 minutes earlier

The only good is what furthers his interest …

Joseph Astor recited this to himself as he carried his shopping bag toward a warehouse on the far west side of Manhattan, in the Forties. Traffic on the streets was noisy; on the Hudson River, silent.

His large form blustered over the sidewalk, and people glanced at his bulk and his dead eyes and his curly blond hair and they got out of his way. Joseph paid them no mind, after noting that none of them was a cop or other threat.

An impressive view of the
Intrepid
aircraft carrier before him, Joseph turned down a side street and approached the one-story warehouse. He undid the heavy Master padlock and muscled the door open, stepped in and slammed it shut. He flicked on the lights. The warehouse was mostly empty, though there were two vans parked inside, one completely useless, and sagging boxes stacked in one corner, molding into an unpleasant mass on the floor. The place was little used and typical of a thousand such buildings, two thousand, three, throughout the New York area. Small, solid structures, always in need of paint and fumigation, either windowless or with glass panes so grimy they were virtually blacked out. Most of these buildings were legitimate. But some were used by men,
mostly
men, who needed safe houses for certain activities – away from the public, away from the police. Long-term leases, paid in advance. Utilities paid by fake companies.

Tonight would be the last time he’d use this warehouse; he’d abandon it forever and move to the other one, similar, in SoHo, for the rest of the job, which he might have called the Gabriela Job or the Prescott Job but instead had – with some perverse humor – taken to calling Sarah’s Sleep-Away.

He took his jacket off but left on the beige cloth gloves – always the gloves. He strode to the corner of the place, a workbench. In the center of it was the windbreaker he’d showed Gabriela earlier in the day, along with a pink sweatshirt, on which
Sarah
was stitched across the chest. To the right were a dozen old tools and from the pile he found a large pair of clippers, like the sort used for cutting branches or flower stems. The edge was rusty, but sharp enough.

The only good …

From the shopping bag he extracted the fiberglass hand of a clothing store mannequin. He’d stolen the plastic appendage from an open loading dock behind a showroom in the Fashion District earlier that afternoon, after he’d been tailing Reardon and Gabriela near the building with the
Prescott Investments
sign on the front.

Gripping the clippers firmly, he cut into the dummy’s little finger at the second knuckle. This he rested in the middle of the sweatshirt and lifted out the last item in the bag, a beef tenderloin, sealed in thick cellophane. He used the clippers to snip a hole in the end of the bag and let the blood dribble onto the plastic digit and the sweatshirt. There was more liquid than expected; the result was suitably gory.

Excellent.

He bundled the shirt up with a gingham hair ribbon.

Seeing the beef blood spread, he thought: How lovely, how
delicious
… A line he would remember to share with Gabriela later. As he worked, he opened a bottle of his favorite beverage in the world. His Special Brew. It was virtually all he drank. Sustaining, comforting. He drank deeply.

A bottle a day …

After tidying up and putting the steak into the refrigerator in a tiny kitchen area of the warehouse, he put his handiwork into a CVS drugstore plastic bag.

He returned to the table and sat, sipping his beloved Hawaiian Punch – the original flavor, red.

Joseph wondered what the reaction would be to the memento inside the bag.

Another glance at his watch. The deadline was looming. He was thinking about Gabriela and the October List and Daniel Reardon. Joseph had met him only about six hours ago, on the street with Gabriela, and already disliked him intensely.

Then his thoughts segued to Gabriela’s friend, Frank Walsh, whom he did not know, but had only followed around and, of course, datamined. Joseph always did his homework before he went out to ply his craft.

Pudgy Frank Walsh. Nerdy Frank Walsh.

Joseph didn’t have any particular dislike for Mr Walsh; he considered him to be a rather stupid, naive man. Pathetic.

He reflected that it was a shame Frank was going to spend his last night on earth with his mother, and not getting laid. At least, Joseph thought, sipping the sweet drink, he
assumed
not. Ick.

The September cold seeped in and, even though he had plenty of natural insulation on him, he shivered. Joseph was eager to get this part of the job over with and return home to Queens, where several new Netflix movies awaited, snug in their little red envelopes. Most people would probably be surprised that a man like him, who had killed twenty-two people in his life – men, women and, though only out of necessity or accidentally, children – would enjoy movies. And yet, why not? Killers were people too. In fact, he’d learned some things about his line of work from movies and TV.

The Long Good Friday
,
The Professional
,
Eastern Promises
, others.
The Sopranos
not so much. Although he liked the acting, he wasn’t quite sure why Tony and the crew – none of them particularly clever – hadn’t been arrested and thrown in the slammer halfway through the first season.

Luck, he guessed.

No, scriptwriters.

He turned his jacket collar up and contemplated, with pleasure, returning home, sitting in front of the Sony by himself, well, with his Maine coon cat, Antonioni, and watching the latest disks. He wondered if he should take the tenderloin with him for dinner.

No, he’d do a Lean Cuisine tonight. Save the calories.

Joseph glanced at his watch. He took the CVS bag, stepped outside and locked the warehouse door.

CHAPTER
16

4:50 p.m., Saturday
40 minutes earlier

‘I never thought we’d find it,’ Gabriela said breathlessly. ‘The October List.’

They were on Third Avenue, walking fast away from the office building.

Daniel Reardon said, ‘I didn’t get a look at it. What could you tell?’

‘I just glanced at the first page. Names and places and numbers. Maybe accounts, maybe dollar amounts. I don’t know what they mean. And I didn’t recognize anybody.’

They continued in silence for a few minutes before he said, ‘In the list, did you see anything about “October”?’

‘No.’

‘I wonder what it means. An anagram, a name?’

‘Maybe,’ Gabriela suggested, ‘it means something’s going to happen next month. Something really bad.’ She sighed, as if feeling all the more guilty about not turning the list in.

‘How long?’ she asked. ‘Until Joseph’s deadline?’

A pause, and Daniel said, ‘About an hour and ten minutes.’

‘No! It’s
that
late?’ Gabriela tugged her jacket closer. The wind was brisk and filled with autumn chill. ‘There’s no way we can find the money in time! We don’t have any leads.’

Daniel agreed. ‘I don’t see how.’

‘We have the list, though!’

He hesitated then said, ‘That’s not what he wanted by six. He wanted the money.’

‘But it’s the most important thing to him. Didn’t you get that impression? If he’s reasonable, he’ll take it and let Sarah go.’

‘I’m sorry, Gabriela, but I don’t think he
is
a very reasonable man.’

She stared at him and there was hysteria in her voice. ‘But it’s all I’ve got!’

‘Still,’ he persisted, ‘we’ve got to try to find his money. Or at least a place where it
might
be, so we can tell him we’re getting close. That could be enough – if we can give him something specific – to buy more time.’

Her shoulders slumped and she nodded back at the building. ‘If there’s nothing in the office, then I don’t know where else we could find any clues to—’ She abruptly stopped speaking.

‘What?’

Frowning, Gabriela said, ‘Last night, when I met you?’

He smiled. ‘I remember.’

‘I’d left work early for that meeting about negotiating the warehouse lease in Bankers’ Square? The rush job? I had some files with me.’

‘Right. I was thinking you were quite the workaholic. What’s in them?’

‘Open items for the accountant. Some business, but some personal of Charles’s. If I find something in them, we can at least tell Joseph we’ve got a lead.’

‘Then let’s get to your place. Fast. We don’t have much time.’

They hurried toward the uptown street, to catch a cab.

Daniel was lifting his arm to flag one down when a voice from behind them barked, ‘Hold it right there.’

They stopped, exchanged surprised glances, then turned around.

Gabriela blinked and looked at the two detectives with unbridled anger. She whispered to Daniel, ‘No, we can’t wait! We have to get to my place now!’

She regarded the cops. ‘Detective Kepler and …’ She looked toward the other one, smaller, his grayish complexion.

‘Surani.’

Kepler gestured the cab to keep going.

‘No!’ Gabriela barked.

The driver hesitated and then, responding to the detective’s angry glare, sped off to pick up another fare.

Surani asked, ‘Have you heard from your boss?’

‘No. I don’t know anything more about where he’s gone. I would’ve called you if I found out anything.’

‘Would you?’ Kepler asked. ‘You weren’t too busy?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Her voice was flint.

‘Hanging out in your apartment, watching TV?’ the detective shot back. ‘Who knows what you’ve been up to?’

She asked, ‘How did you find me here? You’ve been following me?’

‘We were at Prescott Investments. Someone fitting your description was spotted walking away from the place. We thought we’d take a stroll around this beautiful neighborhood. And see if you happened to be here. After committing a felony.’

The more relaxed of the two, Surani, said, ‘There was a report that somebody maybe broke into the Prescott office just now.’

‘What?’ she asked, frowning.

Kepler regarded her closely – and cynically. ‘Was it you?’

‘I—’

‘Don’t lie.’

‘No,’ Daniel said firmly.

Gabriela turned to look at Daniel, who was easing forward to the officer. ‘Gabriela wanted some personal items. But we saw there was a police seal, so we left.’

‘Yeah?’ Kepler asked.

‘That’s right,’ Gabriela said, looking around, as if Joseph was nearby, coolly observing this conversation.

Oh, and by the way, somebody’ll be watching you. Every minute …

‘Look, we have to go. I don’t have time for this.’

Kepler continued, paying no attention to her protest, ‘There was an officer in front of the building. Why didn’t he see you go into the lobby?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gabriela said stiffly. ‘If he was supposed to be guarding the place, ask him.’

Kepler snapped, ‘What the hell were you looking for?’

‘Some
personal
things. You heard that. A checkbook, some bank statements of mine. Nothing you’d be interested in. Nothing having to do with Charles.’

‘And you didn’t break the crime scene seal?’

‘Of course not.’

‘It’s a crime, you know,’ Surani said.

‘I assumed so.
That’s
why we left.’

Kepler said ominously, ‘I’ve got an officer going through the place now. Just to see if anything’s missing.’