The Fixers Game
Chapter 1
New York City
Reggie James was in the right place at the right time.
He was sitting in front of a window in his second-floor apartment smoking weed and staring down at the alley next to his building. He had the window open and had placed a small fan on the sill to blow the smoke out. His mama would kill him if she found out he was doing weed in the house.
Reggie was texting his girlfriend when he noticed a man wearing a suit walk into the alley. Nobody in this crappy neighborhood of Bed-Stuy wore suits, and they sure as hell didn’t walk into an alley alone dressed in one.
Reggie’s curiosity was aroused.
As the man stopped to light a cigarette, Reggie sent the text, turned on his iPhone’s video app, and began recording. The suit was standing with his back to him, but the alley was well lit. He figured when the guy turned around he’d be able to see his face real good.
After glancing at his watch, the man took out a cellphone and made a call. He was still on the phone when Reggie saw a tough kid from the hood named DeMarre walk into the alley, pull a gun, and move with purpose toward the suit.
Reggie knew what was gonna go down and was excited to be recording it on his phone. When he uploaded this to YouTube, it might go viral.
DeMarre stopped ten feet from the suit and said, “Put the phone away and don’t turn around or I’ll shoot.”
The suit stole a quick glance behind him, saw DeMarre with the gun, and did as he was told.
“Now reach into your pocket, like, real slow, and bring out your wallet.”
After the suit pulled the wallet out, DeMarre said, “Toss it behind you and step forward away from it.”
Keeping his gun trained on the suit, DeMarre picked up the wallet, stuffed it in a front pocket of his jeans, and then sprinted out of the alley.
Reggie had recorded the whole thing.
Now he trained his camera back on the suit. The guy waited a minute and then turned around. Reggie zoomed in on the face. He was maybe in his forties, had a crooked nose that looked like it had been busted a few times, and dark, mean eyes. Suit or no suit, this guy was a badass.
The man happened to glance up, saw Reggie recording him on his iPhone, and frowned.
Reggie kept filming.
He figured the dude would thank him later when the cops used his video to put DeMarre in jail.
The suit took out his phone again. He was only on it a few seconds. Then he put it away and jogged toward the street. The minute he reached the sidewalk, a dark blue ride pulled up to the curb. As soon as the suit climbed in, the car sped off.
Reggie felt like he was tripping. This was dope, he thought. Way cool. He wanted to send the video to his girlfriend, but figured he’d better call the cops first. His mom always preached to him to do the right thing.
As he punched in 911, Reggie thought it was strange that the suit had dashed out of the alley and this car just, like, pulled right up for him. He stopped thinking about it when the cops answered his call.
Nine-One-One, what’s your emergency?
Chapter 2
Two days later.
Emily Lynch fired the last
five bullets in her Beretta 92FS at a silhouette target in the Woodland
Shooting Range in Brooklyn. Then she ejected the cartridge and slapped in
another one with fifteen nine mills.
She had hit the target’s face and chest so many times it was shredded. No surprise there. During her two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lynch had qualified for her Army Marksmanship Badge as an “expert” by hitting the required count of at least twenty-six out of thirty shots.
Every once in a while, men at the Brooklyn range stopped behind her to watch. She suspected they were more interested in admiring her sweet butt than her shooting.
Lynch pressed a button and the target moved electronically along a pulley until it reached her stall. She removed it, replaced it with a fresh one, and then let it go out the maximum range distance, twenty-five yards. After stifling a yawn, she began blistering the head again.
Emily Lynch was bored.
She was a private investigator, and her partner, Frank Boff, was in Los Angeles vacationing with his wife. As a result, she didn’t have an active case to work on.
Lynch wasn’t good at dealing with down time.
She didn’t go to movies, museums, or sports events. And although she was a statuesque six-foot-tall and had the looks of a runway model, she didn’t like shopping for clothes, either. The majority of her wardrobe consisted of jeans, T-shirts, and white blouses. The only clothing indulgence she allowed herself was the black lace bras she bought from Victoria’s Secret size 34d, which barely contained her ample breasts. She usually left her blouses open three or four buttons on the top to expose her cleavage and make men stare. Lynch got a kick out of that. She was a look-don’t-touch kinda girl. It was the rare guy she allowed within hands reach of her body, and nobody since her last boyfriend turned out to be a stone-cold killer.
The only thing Lynch liked doing during down time, besides shooting up targets, was drinking Jameson whiskey at one of her favorite dive bars. Back when she was with the NYPD she had trouble keeping the cap on the bottle, even on duty. She had been warned by her supervisor several times to lay off the booze. She tried and failed miserably. Eventually she was suspended. When she showed up drunk to one of her required AA meetings, she was fired.
Without a job and nothing to do, Lynch lost all self-control. She spent so much money drinking Jameson at bars she couldn’t pay her rent and wound up homeless for a while. She slept in shelters, subways, and sometimes picked up a drunk at a bar and stayed the night at his place. She didn’t like to think about all that.
Just when she was at her lowest, Boff entered her life. He was close friends with her uncle, Mike Cassidy, a retired star columnist for the Daily News. Uncle Mike hooked her up with Boff on a couple of cold case murder investigations. Although they didn’t particularly like each other, she did well enough that eventually he offered to partner with her. As part of their deal, she had to promise to keep her drinking reasonably under control. For the most part, she did.
As she aimed at the target, she felt her phone vibrate in her jeans pocket. Phone usage is not allowed on shooting ranges, so she slid her gun into her ankle holster, took off her earmuffs, and walked out into the lobby to answer it. She recognized the caller’s number and smiled. It was her Army buddy.
“Hey, what’s up, Kelly?” she said.
You still got my back, right?
“Now and forever. Where you been, girl? We haven’t spoken since last week.”
I know. My bad.
“How’s life as a public defender?”
About as good as life was in Iraq.
Lynch laughed. “Come on Kell, nobody’s shooting at you in Brooklyn. It’s gotta be better.”
It is, but sometimes it gets me down.
“Why?”
Public defenders are the pack mules of the court system. I’m juggling about a hundred cases right now. I mean, some days I’m in court with as many as ten clients.
“Then I guess you don’t have much of a social life.”
About as much as you do. Kelly laughed. Anyway, reason I’m calling is I need some help from a private investigator on a case.
“You got it. What’s it’s about?”
I was handed this armed robbery involving a kid who was caught on a phone cam mugging some suit in an alley at gunpoint. He stole the guy’s wallet and ran off.
“So just plead him out, Kell. I don’t get why you need an investigator for something like that.”
Normally I wouldn’t. But when my client opened the wallet to remove the cash and plastic, he told me there was a badge in the wallet.
“NYPD?”
Negative. He said the badge had a circle with ‘US’ in the center of it and under it ‘Special Agent.’
“That’s not a FBI badge,” Lynch said. “They look totally different. Did it say ‘CIA’ in big letters above the circle?”
No. My client said there was something written around the edges of the circle, but he was so freaked out at seeing the badge he didn’t bother to read what it said. He just took the cash and plastic, wiped off his prints with his hoodie, and dropped the wallet in a wire trash can.
“That was a DEA badge. Did your client look at the dude’s driver’s license and get his name?”
Nope. Like I said, the badge spooked him. What’s really strange is the video shows that when the suit saw that my client had left the alley, he made a quick phone call and then ran out to the sidewalk.
“That’s not unusual for someone who just got mugged.”
Yeah, but the second this guy reached the sidewalk a dark blue car pulled up to the curb. The dude hopped in and the car sped off.
“So, he called somebody to pick him up.”
Emily, the video shows that this guy was on the phone maybe five seconds. That car had to be waiting really close to the alley in order to get there as fast as it did. It may be just me, but something seems strange about that.
“Do you have a copy of the video?”
“Yes. On my computer and my cellphone.”
“Where’s your office?”
I’ve got a luxury suite in Bed-Stuy on the second floor above a Popeyes, with a McDonald’s next door. She laughed again. I’ve put on ten pounds eating that junk. But on my salary, it’s affordable food and sure as hell is convenient when you’re working round the clock with a heavy case load.
“Give me your address. It’s four o’clock. I should be there by four thirty.”
Chapter
3
During their tours of duty
in Iraq, Lynch and Kelly Hyland had been best of friends and inseparable. They
had first met at a martial arts tournament on the base camp. Lynch was an Army
kickboxing champ, and Kelly had her black belt in karate. Those tools came in
handy for them when fending off attacks, not from enemy insurgents, but their
own male soldiers. Rape was a big problem in Iraq that the Army hushed up.
Lynch remembers the anger she and Kelly had felt when her supervisor told a group
of women personnel not to go to the latrine or take a shower alone in order to
avoid the risk of rape. She and Kelly defiantly went solo.
The first time three men tried to mess with Lynch she put all of them in a hospital. Kelly did the same for some muscle-bound bozo who thought he was a swinging dick. After that, no men tried to harass them.
When their tours of duty were up, Kelly used the Post 9/11 GI Bill to help pay her way through Stony Brook University, and then was accepted at Brooklyn Law School. Lynch chose a different profession. She had never liked high school and had barely graduated. College wasn’t for her. She joined the NYPD and got her gold detective shield when she was thirty-one. She and Kelly remained pals in New York. They tried to have dinner together once or twice a week and texted or called each other almost every day.
Lynch took a cab to the Bed-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Boff always bitched when she invoiced taxi costs to him. He was something of a tightwad and kept insisting she take the subway. He warned her that if she didn’t use the subway, he’d stop reimbursing her for the cabs. But when it came to her, Boff’s bark was worse than his bite, and he kept paying.
As Lynch stepped out of the taxi, she noticed a few homies hanging on a corner brazenly check her out. A couple whistled. One even started to pimp walk her way. She pulled up her pants leg to show her ankle-holstered Beretta, smiled at the homie, and then quickly covered the gun up. The dude put both hands over his broken heart and rejoined his buddies.
There was a plaque on the downstairs door to Kelly’s building:
LAW
OFFICES OF
Kelly S. Hyland, Esq.
www.khattorney.net
Lynch smiled at that and
took the stairs to the second landing. There was only one door on the floor and
it was half open.
“Hey, Kell, it’s me,” Lynch called out and then stepped into the office. What she saw sent a chill down her spine. Kelly was lying face down on the floor with blood pooled around her head.
Lynch pulled her gun and knelt down to feel her friend’s neck for a pulse. There wasn’t any. She stood up and walked in a crouch out the door to see if the killer was lurking. Satisfied he wasn’t, she took out her phone and called the cops. After she had given them a quick rundown of what she had found, she hung up.
Although Lynch felt devastated, she kept her wits about her. As an ex-detective and now a private eye, she knew she had to survey the crime scene before the cops got there and locked it down.
After holstering her gun, she put on latex gloves and looked around the one-room office for four things: the customized leather shoulder bag she had given Kelly as a present when she was accepted at law school. Her computer. Her cellphone, and the licensed Glock 43 handgun she kept in her top desk drawer.
Lynch spotted the shoulder bag hooked over a wooden chair near her desk. Kelly’s wallet was in the bag. Inside it she found five twenty-dollar bills, two tens, three singles, and four credit cards.
This wasn’t a robbery gone south.
In the distance Lynch heard sirens heading her way. She didn’t have much time. There was a wireless mouse on Kelly’s desk but no computer or cellphone. She saw a computer bag hanging on a hook behind Kelly’s desk. Inside it there was a charger cable for a phone, sunglasses in a case, keys on a chain, a plastic storage bag with toothbrush, dental floss, and toothpaste, and a large bottle of Advil.
She opened the desk top drawer. The Glock 43 was still there. As she closed the drawer, she heard the cop cars pull up on the street below with their sirens still on. She made one last observation. Kelly was not killed at her desk. In all likelihood she had walked out from behind it, either to greet someone, or to try to defend herself. With her gloves still on, Lynch checked Kelly’s hands for defensive wounds. There weren’t any. Her attacker had shot her before she could get close to him.
As she heard footsteps charging up the stairs, Lynch took off her gloves, shoved them in a pocket, and made a silent vow that whoever had killed her friend, that person would be properly punished.
Frank Boff was having dinner at the Napa Valley Grille in Westwood near the UCLA campus with his wife Jenny, daughter Sharon, and her ex-mobster boyfriend, Aaron. Jenny had picked the pricey restaurant to celebrate Sharon and Aaron having made the Dean’s Honors list at UCLA. Boff had suggested they dine at a great hot dog place he had discovered called “Hot Dog on a Stick,” but as usual, Jenny ruled.
Boff cringed when he opened the menu and saw the prices. He ordered the cheapest main course he could find. Something called oven roasted Jidori chicken breast, which the waiter explained was a mixed-breed free-range chicken known for its robust flavor. It came breaded. Boff didn’t think the fancy-ass bird tasted as good as Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the damn dish set him back twenty-seven bucks. To his chagrin, everybody else ordered without regard to price. Jenny took the cast iron seared sea scallops, which cost thirty-eight dollars. Sharon ordered a similarly-priced wild pacific jumbo shrimp dish. Aaron, the nephew of Boff’s friend, Moshe Rosen, the Los Angeles-based Israeli mob boss, ordered filet mignon, the most expensive thing on the menu.
To make matters worse, the restaurant didn’t carry his favorite wine, boxed Almaden Chablis. When Boff had asked for a glass of it, the waiter acted like he had ordered sewer water. He was forced to get a glass of the house white wine, which ran him fourteen bucks. For that kind of money, he could’ve gotten a five-liter box of Almaden and had enough cash left over for two pushcart hot dogs with all the trimmings.
As the waiter cleared away their dinner plates and handed out dessert menus, Boff felt his old flip-top cellphone vibrate in his pocket. He checked the caller ID. It was Lynch.
“Jenny, I’ve got to take this call.”
His wife shot him a disapproving look as he stood up and walked out the front door.
“What is it, Emily?”
She’s dead! She’s fuckin’ dead!
Boff could tell she had been drinking.
“Who’s dead?”
Kelly! My best friend! Some scumbag shot her in the head. Gonna rip his fuckin’ heart out!
“Slow down. Tell me what happened.”
Boff listened while his drunken partner ran down everything, beginning with the call from Kelly. She was somewhat incoherent and slurred words, but he got the gist of it. Boff’s interest picked up when she told him Kelly’s client had mugged some guy carrying a DEA badge, and that the robbery had been caught on a phone video. Then she explained about finding her friend murdered in her office, the missing computer and cellphone, and the cash and plastic in Kelly’s wallet.
“It doesn’t sound like a robbery,” Boff said.
No shit, Sherlock. I think it had something to do with one of her cases.
“Why do you say that?”
Cause the perp took her computer and cellphone. Hold on second. Gotta throw up.
He heard her retching. When she came back on Boff said, “Stop drinking, Emily.”
Can’t. I’m hurtin’ bad.
“If you want to help your friend, you need to cut out the drinking.”
Easy for you to say. You didn’t see Kelly’s head blown open.
“Did you call the cops?”
Yeah. Two yo-yo detectives questioned me an hour. He heard her throw up again. Boff, while I was being questioned by the dicks a uniform came in…He told the dicks a client of Kelly’s had been killed that same day at Riker’s Island. Guess who that client was?
“The one charged with mugging the guy with the badge.”
Bingo. Boff, I couldn’t a made it through Iraq without Kelly. I loved her. I want to work this case.
“I’ll get on a red eye tonight and be in New York in the morning. I don’t want you handling what appears to be a dangerous investigation by yourself.”
But you’re on vacation.
“You’re my partner.”
Your wife gonna be pissed at you.
“Yeah, well, it won’t be the first time or the last. After twenty-two years of marriage, ten in the DEA and twelve representing felons, Jenny getting pissed off at me comes with the territory.”
If you gonna hate on me for ruining your vacation, just stay the hell in L.A.
Boff sighed. “Look, Emily, I’m happy for the diversion. I’ve been bored to death here. I should get in to New York in the late morning. Right now, I want you to take a cab to my mother’s store.”
Ya gonna pay for it?
“Yeah, yeah. And have my mom make you a pot of coffee.”
Don’t want no coffee. More whiskey.
He lost his temper. “Godammit, Emily! Sober the hell up!”
Boff knew Lynch had rarely seen him lose his temper. It had the desired effect. After a long pause, she said in a low voice, Okay, boss.
“And don’t do a thing on this case until I get there. I’d hate for you to get killed and have to break in a new partner.”
He heard her spit out a laugh before hanging up.
Boff speed-dialed Lynch’s uncle, Mike Cassidy.
“Mike. Emily’s drunk. But she’s on her way to my mother’s apartment. Get her sober.
What happened?
Boff quickly explained it to him.
Damn. Kelly was my niece’s closest friend.
“I know. Emily wants to work the case. I’m taking a red eye tonight. I’ll hook up with you guys in the late morning and we’ll tackle it together. And Mike, don’t let her out of the apartment tonight.”
Not a chance. She’s sleeping here on our couch, even if I have to tie her down. See ya tomorrow.