"How so, my man?"
"We're not your man. We're your only hope here. You expect us to believe that Bernardino gave you a suitcase full of cash to buy a freaking horse? Come on." Mike had had a good night's rest and didn't give a shit how long it took to break Harry down.
"It's what happened, pally." Harry shrugged.
"No paperwork, nothing? What a friend!"
Harry shrugged some more.
"Listen, I heard different. I heard you and Bernardino were on the outs."
"Who said that? I never heard that." Harry feigned amazement.
"The way I heard it, he blew you off a long time ago, so what happened to change his mind?"
"What can I tell you? We went back a long way together. I gave him all the particulars on Warlord. He started slow, but he was picking up. A real beauty. It was a good deal."
"Who started slow? Bernardino or the horse?"
"The horse started slow. He was a late bloomer."
"So Bernardino gave you money for a slow horse. Why would he do that?"
"Bernie was like that, real heart-of-gold kind of guy. He believed in dreams. You know that about him, right?" He locked eyes with April.
"When did he fulfill your dream, Harry?" she asked.
Harry smiled. "I don't know, a couple of weeks ago. I don't remember what day."
"You can't remember getting a suitcase full of money. Can't remember when your dream came true. Come on." Mike laughed. "You're an insult to the field."
"Honest. I'm retired. I don't know one day from another."
But Mike knew they had a problem, and so did April. There was no mention of any meeting between Bernardino and Harry in Bernardino's daily calendar, and certainly no file on horses. Not any kind of horses. Bernardino had been a careful man. If he was going to spring for a racehorse, the odds were his files would be full of horse statistics, or spreadsheets-whatever they did with horses. But there was none of that. Bernie didn't have horse pinups in his file like his house pics. So many houses, all in different styles, different locations. Bernardino wouldn't purchase an item cold. He wasn't that kind of individual. Mike figured Bernie hadn't known about any horse. He changed tack and hammered the other subject.
"We need to talk to your girlfriend, Harry. Clear up a few things."
"Talk to her. Who's stopping you?" Harry lifted his shoulders, saw his hands fly up in front of his face, and took the opportunity to examine his nails. He could hardly control his grin. He was enjoying himself. No one could touch him.
"I would talk to her if I had a last name, a number," Mike said.
"I'm old. I forgot."
"Harry. Be easy on yourself. Give us a name. We're going to find her anyway. Down the road it's going to get nasty. You know how it is. If everything's on the up and up, nothing can hurt you. You got a gift horse. Okay we'll forget the gift tax. I give you my word. This is not about the money, you know that. Money…" Mike lifted his own shoulders and let the word trail off. "Money between friends. That's sacred. We won't touch it. Just give us the name." Mike glanced at April. She tapped her wrist. She was going out for a break.
"Mikey, I've been married forty-five years. Cherry's just a friend, but my wife is everything to me. You know how it is; I just can't do it."
Mike did know how it was. He'd hit a brick wall. But he had a method for finding people, and pretty much it always worked. "Yeah, pally, I do know how it is. See you later."
"Can I leave now?"
"What do you think?"
Mike and April left the interview room together. Mike called Marcus Beame on his cell. "I need you to find someone," he told him.
"No problem, Lieutenant, who?"
"Female known as Cherry. Breeds horses. I'd guess around fifty, maybe a little younger, maybe a little older, but not much. I don't have much more than that. She's a known associate of Harry Weinstein."
"Harry's girlfriend?" Marcus laughed.
"You got it."
"You got a place to start looking for Harry's Cherry?" Beame joked.
Mike clicked his tongue. "You know, he said he'd spent Wednesday night with her in the city, but I'm thinking she doesn't live here. Try upstate somewhere. Horse country. Nothing fancy, though. Harry's a lowlife."
"Okay. I can do that. Work back from Harry."
"You might try checking horse-breeding records, too. I think thoroughbreds are registered with the racing association-I don't know, some association. Cherry's got a horse called Warlord. See if she sold it to anyone."
"Anything else, sir?"
"That's it. And I don't want to know how you do it-whatever you have to do, just get her in here."
"Do I have twenty-four hours, boss?"
Mike checked his watch. "Yeah, sure. Before noon tomorrow would be real good."
April met him on the stairs a few minutes later. He was on his way to the men's room. "Something odd has come up."
"Oh, yeah."
"The same number came up on both Bernardino's and Jack Devereaux's caller ID list."
Mike frowned. "What does that mean?"
"Beats me," she said.
Twenty-eight
Jack Devereaux was an angry man. The press and the cops had made him a prisoner in his own home. He was stuck on the sofa with his sweetheart plying him with food he didn't want to eat, antsy as hell. He wanted to go out to eat. He wanted to walk, and he wanted out of where he was. His bruises were healing, and his broken arm itched. He was beginning to think of fleeing but felt he was too famous to move. It was not a good situation.
His father had left him a town house on Sutton Place, and another house in California. Both had heavy security, but he resisted moving into a world from which he'd been excluded for so long. To be sure the Manhattan house was amazing. The classic four-story brick building on Fifty-seventh Street had been gutted and redesigned for a contemporary sensibility. The rooms flowed one into another and even from one floor to another. Staircases seemed to be suspended on air.
He and Lisa had visited there exactly once. Lisa had been intrigued by the huge kitchen, the mirrored ceiling in the master bedroom, the terrace on the East River, and also by the obscenely large master bathroom. The bathroom took up half a floor and was tiled in three different colors of marble. The shower had no walls. The Jacuzzi was a custom design; its faucets looked like real gold. The attention to detail in the house was so opposite to the lack of attention paid to him that Jack reacted to the tour by vomiting in his late father's powder room toilet. He hadn't gone back. But now the idea of having resources was beginning to jell. He wanted some of that money so he could hide.
But it wasn't so easy. He couldn't exactly get a billion-dollar check and suddenly become the head of a giant corporation. It didn't work like that. There were little things like procedures, probate. Everything took time. He knew that from when his mom had died. In a huge estate like this, the feeding frenzy among the lawyers would drag it all out. Probate hadn't been filed yet, but Jack had been informed that he could take his trusteeship in the company foundation immediately. He could also request a deposit or something, a few mil to tide him over until the estate was settled. Since his visit to the hospital, he was getting calls from his new "friends," the lawyers at the firm of Gibson, Frank, and Field urging him to get out of town, and he wanted to go. But he was resistant to leaving the only life he'd ever known. He didn't want to lose himself.
On Monday after the murdered cop's funeral, he was wavering. On Tuesday when he got an early-morning call from Al Frayme, he still hadn't moved. Lisa wasn't quitting her job anytime soon. She was back at work, and he was alone again, bummed out, glad to get a friendly call.
"What's up, Al?"
"How are you holding up? We're worried about you," Al said. "Anything we can do?"
"Thanks, but as I told you Friday, there's nothing to worry about. I'm fine."
"Good. Then business. You're not going to let me down next week, are you?"