“You got a message that night,” interjected Montgomery. “And you went to meet someone.”
Cowl said, “Okay, I’ll give it to you straight. The message was from Jenn. She was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“She wouldn’t tell me on the phone. So I went over there.” His face twisted with the memory. “And between the time I got the message and made my way there, someone... cut her up really bad.”
Devine leaned forward. “And was that someone you?”
“Why would I do that to her? I liked her. A lot.”
“Because Sara Ewes knew about the Locust Group owning the Lombard Theater. And she told Stamos to check it out. And maybe she did and realized what was going on. Or maybe you let something slip during pillow talk and she had to be taken care of.”
“Jesus, Devine, you’re making me out to be some sort of creepy killer.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m a businessman.”
“Were you the one to call the cops?”
He hesitated. “Yeah, I called them. But if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it.” He added, with a disgusted look, “What twisted psycho would do that to a woman? They... mutilated her.”
“Did you see or hear anyone while you were there?”
“No. I had a key. I let myself in. I called out to her. No answer. I went back into her bedroom, and bam... there she was, tied up and cut up. The word bitch was carved into her stomach. I almost threw up.”
He looked like he might throw up now.
“The police said she bled out. It must’ve taken some time, but you couldn’t have missed the killer by much.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been thinking that if I got there twenty minutes sooner I might’ve died.”
Now Montgomery’s face twisted. “Or you might have been able to save her, Brad.”
He looked surprised by this. “Yeah, that’s right, maybe. I didn’t think of that.”
“Obviously,” she said with disgust.
Cowl looked at Devine. “So, you said you want to make a deal? Care to explain?”
“Area 51?”
“Oh, that. We were just doing some crypto-mining there and also some carryover high-frequency trading that our facility in Queens couldn’t handle. All totally legit.”
“The place has been cleared out,” said Devine.
“Yeah, we decided to do some operational consolidation and shifted all of that, plus our Queens operation, to a building in Jersey. Again, nothing illegal about that.” He cocked his head and gave Devine an enigmatic smile. “You trying to shake me down somehow? Now, that’s illegal.”
“Money coming in from all over the world and money going out to the Locust Group, Mayflower Enterprises, thousands of other entities. I don’t believe there’s enough soap in the world to do that much laundry.”
“You’re a really funny guy. Where’s your proof of anything?”
“I put a camera up there. Now it’s gone.”
“Oh, right. Illegal search, evidence inadmissible. Thrown out of court or not even filed. In fact, there’s no proof of where that camera was or what it was taking pictures of. Let’s go down to the fifty-first floor and compare what’s on the film to what’s in that room. You want to do that?”
“But the optics won’t look good when people hear what we know.”
“You start spewing lies about me and this firm, I bury you in court for the next twenty years. I bury whoever you’re working for, too. And at the end, I’ll still be rich, and I don’t know what you’ll be, but it won’t be good. And I’ve been doing some digging on you, Devine. You left the Army under a cloud. Guy in your unit killed himself by hanging. Left behind a luscious wife. Then another guy you knew ended up dead. My people tell me he might have been banging the bedsprings with the first guy’s wife. He might have killed the guy instead of it being a suicide. You knew them both. And they’re both dead. And then you dump your career and come into my world. What’s that all about? You got some guilty secret hanging out there?”
“This isn’t about me.”
Cowl eyed Montgomery and held up his phone. “And you helped him plant the camera, sweetie. After all I’ve done for you. I mean, shit, a guy can’t trust women, can he?”
“Like Dominique Deveraux?” she said. “You couldn’t trust her, so she took a dive into the East River?”
Cowl stared blankly at her.
“How did you make her death go away?” asked Devine.
“Poor kid. She was all messed up, a druggie. The cops actually thanked me for trying to give her a better life. And she would have had a much better life if she hadn’t been so inquisitive.”
“And Sara? She knew about the Lombard Theater being owned by Locust Group. She told Stamos. And I think you killed them because they found out what you were doing.”
“You got one wild imagination. I already told you I found Jenn. I didn’t kill her. And so what about the Lombard Theater? I didn’t know it was a crime to own something.”
Devine glanced at Montgomery, but didn’t respond.
Cowl shook his head, grinning. “You got nothing to deal with and you’re sure as hell not getting a dime from me. That’s what this is about, right? You shaking me down? Or trying to get a confession? Well, forget it.”
“Then I guess we’ll be going,” said Devine.
Cowl shook his head. “Oh no, that’s not how this is ending.”
Four men edged from the shadows.
Karl Hancock eyed Devine, his face still battered from being hit with a car tire. He had his pistol out. Two other men had shotguns. The fourth man held an MP5. They had brought a howitzer to a knife fight. But that was okay. Devine didn’t have a knife.
Cowl said, “Instead of waiting for you to try and make trouble, we decided to do a preemptive move. You saved us from chasing you down by coming here.”
Devine said, “There’s an army of people waiting right downstairs. If we don’t show, they come up.”
Hancock said, “There’s no one down there. I’m having the whole block monitored. You came here because you thought you could roll Cowl over. Well, you were wrong.”
Cowl said, “I’ve been playing this game a long time. I’ve seen it all. And now, so will you.”
“Okay, Devine,” said Hancock. “You and the lady are going to get jacked. Taken to a really, really bad section of the Bronx, robbed and killed, and your bodies dumped in an alleyway for NYPD to find and lots of forensic evidence that a particularly violent gang did the honors. And the cops will also find evidence tying you to Chilton’s murder. He was in love with the lady here, and you cut him out. You and he previously fought over another chick. He tried to get the lady back, and you decided to end it and put him in the pool to try and implicate poor Mr. Cowl here. That was easy enough to do since the lady here has a key to the place and she told the staff to leave. We know you met up with Chilton the night of his death outside the place where his grandfather lives. You made arrangements for him to meet you at Mr. Cowl’s home. And he did. And you killed him. All while Mr. Cowl wasn’t even in town.”
Devine wasn’t listening to any of this because it didn’t matter. He was focused on the business of combat. In his mind the dimensions of the room shrank down into a close-quarters battle zone.
The four men became numbers in his head. Their positions, the accuracy and potency of their weaponry, their sight lines, the obstacles to getting away, the issue of having Montgomery with him, the proximity and possible use of Brad Cowl were also assigned numbers in his brain. The MP5 he could see was on two-shot selector, not full auto. Shotguns were side by side, not pump action, so twin barrels and two rounds each. Hancock had his Glock, with a standard magazine. Cowl was four feet away, drink in hand, no weapon that he could see. Shooting angles and obstructions thereto were observed and dialed into his combat brain. Possible scenarios were spit out. None of them were good. But they never were.