“Thank you very much.”
“Hey, honey, trust me — I have other things you can do for me.”
Both eyebrows went up. “I bet you do.”
I let that pass. “We are assuming this Roger Kraft character was the driver of the Ferrari.”
“A sound assumption, I think.”
“I agree. But why was he killed?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe somebody hired the job and was tying off a loose end.”
I narrowed mine back at her. “Maybe. But what if Kraft had a grudge against young Colby himself? Clearly that was no accident outside Pete’s Chophouse, not when Roger Dodger was out driving a sports car that didn’t belong to him, while wearing a fake beard and pony tail.”
She had a slow nod going. “Did that second-in-command guy at the brokerage, Owens, hire Kraft maybe? Owens and Colby were arguing about something, you said, and it got heated.”
“True,” I admitted.
“Also, Kraft was working on Owens’s car, which happens to be the red Ferrari that almost got a lot redder. Could that be the reason for the office dust-up — Colby learned Owens tried to have him killed...?”
She shook her head and her hair went wild, then tamed itself.
“No,” she said firmly, answering her own question. “That’s dumb. Colby would’ve called the cops on his ‘friend.’”
“Probably.”
She cocked her head. “Just probably?”
I gestured with an open hand. “As irrational as Don’t-Call-Me-Vince has been lately, who knows? But more likely it’s some work thing and just demonstrates what a loose cannon that concussion’s made out of our client’s baby boy.”
Her nod was in slow motion. “I can buy that.”
“But, again, doll — why was Kraft killed, and who did it...? If Pat has any ideas about that, he’s sure not sharing them.”
The waitress stopped by again and Velda held up a hand, preferring not to have her coffee cup refilled. We’d both had enough caffeine already to fuel the evening ahead.
Velda said, “All we know about Kraft is that he was part of a heist crew, and after this new heat, with their driver turning up dead? The accomplices will be in the wind.”
“Most likely. And if Kraft hadn’t been killed the same chest-crushing way as Shannon and that call girl? I would think tracking that end of things might pay off.”
“But we’re obviously dealing with one killer.”
“Right again. This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with smash-and-grab bank jobs.”
Her eyebrows rose contemplatively. “I have my own police contacts. You want me to dig into the late Mr. Kraft and his life and times?”
“Damn straight. You still know some of the undercover girls in Vice, right?”
Her dark hair bounced as she nodded. “Yeah. Nobody’s around from when I worked there, a million years ago, but yes, I have contacts. And I know some of the working girls, from that undercover job a couple of years back. Let me guess — that dead upscale hooker, what was her name?”
“Jasmine Jordan. But you’re ahead of me on this.”
“I am. I’ll see what I can find out about her and maybe we can get a line on her patrons. If one of them is Vincent Colby, we could be getting close to an answer his father — our client — won’t like.”
My grin was nasty. “I warned him this afternoon — told him I intend to follow this wherever it leads. The old man had his chance to bail.”
She raised a forefinger. “Something else.”
“Shoot. You should pardon the expression.”
“We’re assuming one killer because of the distinctive method of murder.”
“Yes we are.”
“But we’re leaving out the first two kills — the raped, strangled secretary from the Colby firm, and the suspicious-as-hell hit-and-run in that parking ramp of all places, taking down a broker from Colby, Who’s It and What’s It. Let’s call them murders, too.”
“Let’s.”
She leaned forward, keeping her voice down. The restaurant was starting to fill up and murder talk required a little discretion.
“Obviously,” she said, “the first two homicides are related to Colby and his business. But they lack the signature kills of the other victims. Those could be the work of someone else. They don’t even have to be the acts of a single perpetrator. It’s even possible we are looking for three murderers.”
I winced. “You’re giving me heartburn, baby.”
“It’s the corned beef and cabbage.” She shook her head again and the dark locks shimmered. “This is going to bleed into tomorrow, Mike.”
“I know it will.”
The check came.
I said, “Call the temp agency and get somebody in to fill in for you. Maybe that little Asian cutie is available.”
She arched a single eyebrow this time. “Fill in for me how?”
I smiled and raised both palms in surrender. “Honey, nobody could ever really fill in for you, not even on a temporary basis.”
“Right answer.”
Chris Peters was on board almost immediately. He and his wife and baby girl lived in Brooklyn, so I had to wait for him a while, but it would be worth it. Turned out he did have a key to his late partner’s pad, and — like me — he didn’t want to leave this thing to Pat.
“Mike, don’t quote me,” he said, when I picked him up in my souped-up black Ford heap near the subway station in Tudor City on East 42nd. “But I’m not in sync with Captain Chambers on this one.”
“How so, Chris?”
“Let’s just say I’m less anxious to bring Casey’s killer in alive.”
The slender blond cop was dressed for work — a tailored suit jacket with room around the waist to hide bulges of gun and gear. The unofficial NYPD policy was, “Dressed for a meeting, ready for mayhem.” I was garbed similarly, though my ensemble was set off by my porkpie fedora; Batman doesn’t go out without his cowl, does he? A kid like Chris, even on detective duty, went bareheaded.
I parked on a cross street a couple of blocks from Shannon’s apartment building. Our breaths were smoking. As we walked quickly along, nudged by the chill, I mulled what the young cop had said.
We’d just paused before heading behind the place, where Chris knew of a rear door adjacent to the service elevator. Luckily the building was on a corner and the doorman wouldn’t get wise to us.
I said, “You leave the vigilante shit to me, kid. You got a career going on the PD. Me, I got asked to leave a long time ago.”
“You were a cop once, Mike?”
“Most PIs were. I was making too much noise on the street when I was your age, and they stuck me on a desk. Which was the same as firing me, far as I was concerned.”
“I hear you.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “If we’re approached in there, you show your badge and make the trouble go away. I have a badge too, if it comes to that, but it says ‘Private Investigator’ on it.”
He was nodding, breath pluming. “But either way, if we’re caught at this, I play the cop card.”
“Damn skippy. You have a key given to you by your late partner. You have a right to cross a police crime scene barricade. You’ll get your ass chewed if it gets back to Captain Chambers, but he won’t pursue it.”
“Okay.”
“And if he does, I’ll convince him I talked you into this.”
In well under five minutes, we were on Shannon’s floor. The expected crime scene tape was there, in a dramatic X, which we ducked under, after Chris unlocked the door.
The forensics team had left the place in good shape. Beyond the taped outline of where Shannon had fallen near and against the couch, no sign of their work remained. Even the dust of the black-graphite fingerprint powder had been cleaned away, which isn’t easy.