A small man in a white smock looked up in alarm as Walker dragged the huge bloodstained prisoner through the swinging doors.
“Knife fight?”
“No,” said Walker. “Popped his ulcer. He’s puking blood.”
As if to demonstrate, Vinnie heaved again, splashing a gout of blood across Walker’s white uniform shirt. Cursing, Walker wrestled Vinnie into a plastic chair.
Vinnie groaned. “I gotta go … toilet. Got the shits.”
Walker looked at the slight ward attendant and cursed again. “Should I take him, or …?”
The attendant nodded. “Yeah, go ahead. And then get him up on a gurney. Cuff and strap. There’s one in the hallway. I’ll call Bellevue. We can’t handle a perforated ulcer here. Wait! Sign him over first.”
Walker signed a blank form. The medic picked up the phone, and Walker got Vinnie moving down the hall to the toilet. He installed the prisoner in a doorless booth and turned to one of the sinks. He started dabbing at the bloodstain on the front of his shirt. He had reduced it to a large pink smear when he heard a faint sound behind him and turned.
Vinnie had squat-walked up behind him so as to keep his reflection out of the mirror. As soon as Walker turned, Vinnie sprang forward, rising, and drove his knife deep into Walker’s chest. Again. Walker collapsed without a sound.
The medic had finished his call and was busy typing out the transfer form. He saw a man in a guard uniform walk past him and called out, “He okay?”
“Yeah,” the man mumbled, and was gone.
“Cut to the chase,” said Roland irritably. “What’s it all mean?”
Karp looked around the conference table. He had everyone’s attention. “What does it all mean? Okay, here’s my take, but anyone else, you got any ideas, jump in. Mehmet Ersoy, our victim, had a brother who had access to art treasures. The brothers had a racket going. They worked some European cities and then, late last year, started in New York. He brought the head of security for the Turkish mission, Djelal, in on it, and maybe Djelal brought in his cousin Nassif.”
“How do we know that, Butch?” asked Hrcany. “Because they got money? Hell, I got money. Maybe their family’s loaded in the old country. We don’t even know these guys hang out together. I sure don’t with my cousins.”
“They hang out,” said Bello. Everyone turned to look at the cop, amazed, as if a file cabinet had started talking. “I followed Nassif. He went to the mission offices, then the two of them headed out in an embassy car.”
“Where did they go?” asked Marlene.
“They bought paint on Canal Street. I saw them heaving a big carton into the trunk of the Caddy. Big carton. They had to tie it down. Then they went back to Djelal’s place on 56th. They left the carton in the car.”
Roland laughed. “Very suspicious. We could get them for Attempted Felonious Decorating with a Bad Taste Color.”
Karp resumed: “Okay, at least it’s established that they’re buddies. Anyway, Ersoy, and whoever, started selling artworks through the Sokoloff gallery, some genuine pieces but also a lot of fakes. It was the same scam he’d used in Europe. They sold a lot of material to Sarkis Kerbussyan.
“Late last year, Ersoy told Kerbussyan that they’d gotten hold of this super treasure, this Mask of Gregory. Kerbussyan agreed to buy it and began gathering serious money from the Armenian community. He puts something like a million bucks down on it, most of which we find in Ersoy’s bank box after his death. At about the right time Ersoy’s brother sends this box of caviar.”
Karp paused and looked meaningfully around the table again. “Anybody want to bet that it was caviar in that box? No, me neither. Let’s say this mask was in the box. It goes out from Turkey on March 10, arriving at JFK March 11.
“Okay, now it gets complicated. A little prior to this, a Turk had contacted the Viacchenza boys and set up a theft from air freight. A box of caviar. He pays heavy cash in advance, with a promise of more. The Viacchenzas do the heist on March 11, late. This is a Friday. Two days later, Sunday, Mehmet Ersoy is murdered. Two days later, somebody calls Joey Castles and tells him the Viacchenzas are ripping him off. On the 18th, the Viacchenzas are gunned down. Maybe the snitch was the mysterious Turk, maybe not.
“Meanwhile, after all this, Joey is still talking to Sally Bollano about Turks and making some big score off them, with the involvement of a major fence. So. That’s it. How many animals can you find in the drawing?”
Roland spoke first. “Simple. Ersoy screws Kerbussyan on an art deal. Kerbussyan wants to get even. Tomasian wants to be a martyr to the cause, so he pops Ersoy.”
“That doesn’t explain the theft from the airport,” Marlene objected. “It doesn’t explain the Bollano deal.”
Roland answered blandly, “That’s a detail. Ersoy arranged for the theft. Or maybe the thing didn’t ever exist. It really was caviar, or a box of bricks. Then he tells Kerbussyan the thing got ripped off, and by the way, the million is nonrefundable. Kerbussyan has him killed, like I said. Now we got these other two Turks, they got a load of high-value objects they want to move. They’re scared to run it through the auction houses-there’s too much heat now. So they contact the mob and set up a deal with a heavy fence.”
“What about this guy Jimmy said hired the theft? What’s-his-face, Takmad?” asked Guma.
V.T. tapped a squat green-covered book he’d been leafing through. “It means ‘nickname’ in Turkish. Cute.
No, it’s got to be either Djelal or Nassif. Roland’s story is interesting, and it fits all the facts.”
Karp could see Guma nodding, satisfied. Karp might have been satisfied too if he had never met Sarkis Kerbussyan face to face.
16
What’s going on?” asked Marlene. She was sitting next to Harry Bello in his car at the junction of Leonard and Centre, and they could see, and hear, that something was not right a block north at the Tombs. There were a half-dozen blue-and-whites parked near the corner occupied by the jail, their lights flashing. Sirens heralded the arrival of others. Harry moved the car onto Centre and was stopped by a uniformed cop who was directing traffic around the confusion.
Harry flashed his shield and asked, “What’s up?”
“Escape. Scumbag knifed a guard and walked out through the courthouse.”
“Who was it? The escape?”
“Name of Boguluso. A big motherfucker, they say. Shouldn’t be too hard to catch. Probably hiding in the neighborhood.”
Harry doubted that, the part about being easy to catch. He headed around the blockade toward the day-care center.
He was silent, but Marlene picked up his mood. “You’re worried,” she said.
He nodded and grunted assent. “Don’t be,” she said. “He’s a punk. They’ll pick him up. It’s not like he could vanish into Chinatown. If he had any brains, which I doubt, he’d be halfway to the moon by now.”
Not to the moon, but only to Hempstead, Long Island, at a house belonging to Duane Womrath’s girlfriend’s grandmother. Granny was in a nursing home, and Rita was watching the house.
The three of them sat in the living room, drinking beer and smoking dope, while the TV blared game shows.
“We should go west,” Duane said. “Fuckin’ Arizona.”
“Yeah,” said Vinnie without enthusiasm. He was wondering how to get rid of Duane for a while so he could hit on Rita. She’d go for it. Or if not, he’d pop her anyway. He was glad tobe out of jail, sure, and it was Duane and Rita who’d planned it all out and pulled it off as slick as it went, but that was then. Vinnie was a child of the now.
He drained his beer and said, “We should get some more brew,” looking significantly at Duane.
Duane said, “Fuck the brew, Vinnie! We gotta make some plans. We got to get out of state. That screw checks out, it’s murder one, and they’ll never stop lookin’ for you.”