He parked across the street, got out, and walked over to the entrance.
The tenant list was on a brass buzzer pad beside the door to the small lobby. Kovac went down the names.
Bird, V. Apartment 309.
As he debated whether or not to ring the buzzer, a white Lexus turned in at the drive. The garage gate groaned and rattled as it began to rise.
Kovac moved away from the building entrance, went back down the sidewalk, nonchalant, going for a stroll. The Lexus rolled down into the garage. He waited until the car had turned to the right in search of a parking spot, then walked down into the garage, ducking under the descending gate.
It was as simple as that to get into a building where residents believed they were secure. He checked the ceiling for cameras, but there were none.
He didn’t bother to hide, but walked over to the elevator as if he lived there, and pushed the button to go up. Ten seconds later he was joined by the driver of the Lexus, a tired-looking guy with a red, runny nose and a plastic bag from Snyder Drug.
“You got that bug that’s going around?” Kovac said.
The guy rolled his eyes. “I wish I was dead.”
“Drink whisky.”
“That helps?”
The elevator arrived and they got on. Kovac pushed the button for the third floor and glanced up at the ceiling of the car. No security camera.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “After you’ve had a couple, you won’t give a shit.”
“Good point.”
“Where you going?”
“Four. Thanks.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence and nodded to each other when Kovac got off on the third floor.
He didn’t go down the hall to Ginnie Bird’s apartment but stood there outside the elevator, waiting for the car to go back down and come back up, and the doors to open on David Moore. The hall was empty. Someone had taped a bright orange sign on the wall beside the elevator, inviting all residents to the October meeting of the renters’ association.
VOTING ON THE ISSUE OF CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS ON THE BUILDING EXTERIOR.
WE NEED A QUORUM! PLEASE COME!
Kovac considered writing his neighbor’s name and phone number on the poster as a source of expertise on the subject.
Maybe five minutes passed before the elevator rumbled as it descended, then rose out of the parking garage. Kovac stood in front of the doors so that when they opened, David Moore stepped right into him.
“Hey!” Moore barked, annoyed at the obstacle, then realizing the obstacle was Kovac. The look in his eyes went from annoyance to confusion to suspicion in a split second.
Kovac hit him hard in the chest with the heels of both hands, knocked him back into the elevator car, into the back wall, and followed him in.
“What the hell?” Moore said, trying to get his feet back under him.
Kovac grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shoved him into the corner.
“Listen, you sorry piece of shit. I know all about you and your girlfriend,” Kovac said. “I know all about your little tête-à-têtes at the Marquette every other week.
“What are you? One of those pervs that gets off on taking the chance of being caught?
“That’d be you, all right,” Kovac sneered. “You don’t have the balls to stand up to your wife. You want somebody else to tell her you’re out on the town with some fifty-bucks-a-blowjob skirt. You fucking coward.”
Moore pressed himself back into the corner, raised up on his toes like that would somehow make him a bigger man than the worm that he was.
“You can’t treat me this way!” he blustered, red faced, more afraid than aggressive. “This is harassment and-and brutality.”
Kovac curled his lip in disgust. “Call a cop, limp-dick. I’ve got twelve witnesses who’ll swear I was playing Parcheesi at the Moose Lodge in New Hope.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Yeah, I’m crazy,” Kovac said sarcastically. “I’m not the one meeting in a public bar to pay off the guy I hired to whack my wife.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You make me sick.” Kovac all but turned and spat on the floor. “What’d you think, David? That everyone would just assume your wife was mugged, or that some nutjob did her because of Karl Dahl?”
“I didn’t do anything to Carey!”
“And you figured you were playing it smart to be seen in public at the time of her attack, that you were extra clever, using your motive as your alibi.”
“What motive?”
“Your little plaything you got this apartment for. A junkie whore too stupid to think you’re exactly what you appear to be-a loser with a big mouth and delusions of grandeur. You’re pathetic.”
The look on Moore ’s face was priceless. Kovac smiled like a tiger. He had opened both barrels of bullshit and actually hit some nerves. A little knowledge and a lot of attitude went a long way toward rattling people with something to hide. All the years of wading hip-deep in the excrement of criminal minds had taught him more about human nature than any Ph.D. in psychology could have.
David Moore was the kind of guy who needed to feel important, needed people to think he was smart. That he had to lower himself to the standard of prostitutes to accomplish that wouldn’t matter.
“You’re thinking, ‘How do you know all that, Kovac, you dumb son of a bitch?’” Kovac said, still smiling. “I know all kinds of things about you, Sport. I know about your taste for hookers. The flowers, the gifts, the expensive dinners, paying for it all out of the family funds. I know about your biweekly habit at the Marquette, Mr. Greer. You go there to pretend you’re a big shot, don’t you? Mr. Hollywood, the film executive.
“By the way, that’s lower than low, using your wife’s maiden name. Freud would have a field day with you and your issues with women, huh? What’s that all about, David? Your mother screwed up your potty training?”
Moore was silent, seeming to be holding himself very still, as if one wrong move and his whole alternate universe would implode on him.
“What I can’t figure is where Edmund Ivors fits into this sordid little puzzle. What’s a guy like him have to gain acting as your beard, helping you out with your alibi?”
“I don’t need an alibi,” Moore said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Kovac just looked at him, stunned to silence for a moment.
“You haven’t done anything wrong? Jesus Christ, you cheat on your wife with whores, spend her money to finance your secret life. What part of that isn’t wrong?”
The elevator gave a little jerk and groan and began to descend.
Kovac hit the key for the second floor and pulled Moore out into the hall with him when the doors opened. The door to the stairs was just to the right. He gave Moore a shove in the back.
“Step into my office here for a minute, Ace.”
“Fuck you, Kovac,” Moore said, turning around.
“Are you resisting?” Kovac asked, incredulous. “Are you resisting me? ’Cause if you’re resisting, all bets are off, pal.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“You want to have this conversation downtown? ’Cause I’ll be happy to take you there and put you in the box for a formal questioning. Is that what you want?” Kovac asked. “You want to up the ante? You want to call my bluff? Go ahead. Then you can call a lawyer, and I can call Chris Logan, and he’ll have you arraigned and toss your ass in the can. And if you think a judge is going to give you bail for trying to kill one of their own, you’re even dumber than you look. Is that what you want?”
“I didn’t try to kill my wife!”
The door to apartment 214 opened and a woman stuck her head out, glaring at them. “Take your fight somewhere else, or I’ll call the cops.”