Ah, he got it now. Rhyme barked a sour laugh. “It’s not the brass, is it, Lon? The ban-the-consultants didn’t come from the brass; it was the mayor. He wanted me out because of the election. I’m a fall guy.”
Rhyme knew next to nothing about politics — it didn’t affect his universe of forensic science — but he did know a special election for governor was coming up soon, and Mayor Harrison — a Bronx-born lifelong shirtsleeve politician — was going head-to-head with billionaire businessman Edward Roland, who lived in a posh portion of Westchester County.
“Looks like it.” Sellitto scoffed.
So, Rhyme found himself a pawn in a political contest, a role he didn’t think he’d ever played before.
“Listen, Lon, you seen Amelia yet?”
“She dropped it off.” His voice was low.
“You take credit. Don’t tell anybody it came from me.”
“Fuck, Linc. I take credit all the time for shit you come up with.”
“Night, Lon.”
The call was disconnected.
He was staring at the Locksmith whiteboard when his computer dinged with the sound of an incoming email. It was a Zoom invitation from a man he hadn’t spoken to in some time. NYPD Commanding Officer Brett Evans — the same rank as somber Rodriguez, of the handlebar affectation.
Rhyme took another sip of scotch and, manually this time, clicked on the link.
Soon he was looking at a man in his mid-fifties. Evans was the epitome of police brass. He had a lined, lean face, broad shoulders and hair going gray. His eyes were forever calm. This was a chest-up-only angle but Rhyme remembered him as having slim legs. “Dapper” was the word that came to mind.
“Lincoln, sorry to bother you at night.”
“No worries, Brett.” Rhyme rarely littered conversations with pleasantries like “doing well?” or “what’s happening?” and he didn’t now. He waited.
“I heard what happened, Lincoln. Jesus.” His face was troubled.
Rhyme couldn’t help but chuckle. “Aren’t you afraid of getting busted, Brett, talking to me? Obstruction of justice, conspiracy... treason?”
“You always did have a sense of humor. Anyway, Lincoln, as soon as I heard I called Sally Willis. I put in a word for you. Nobody’s changing their mind.”
Evans had worked his way up from patrol to gold shield and beyond. Commanding officers, or “commanders,” perched in the loftiest aeries of NYPD hierarchy.
But their power did not trump City Hall’s.
“No, it’s set in stone. Nothing to do. You can’t appeal a business decision.”
Evans mused, “The O’Neil case? Hell’s Kitchen?”
“Remember it, sure.”
Rhyme — yes, as a consultant — had handled forensics at a scene detective third grade Evans had run near the West Side piers. In walking the grid at a warehouse, long abandoned by the ruthless Eddie O’Neil, Sachs had discovered an unusual feather. After several days of analysis and research — and eyes-closed pondering, Rhyme was able to trace it to a neighborhood pet store, where O’Neil, they learned, bought his illegally imported birds. The owner of the store — after some horse-trading (Rhyme liked the animal motif) — agreed to be a confidential informant against the mobster. O’Neil got collared minutes before a shootout with rivals that could have led to the deaths of dozens of innocent pedestrians and drivers on Ninth Avenue.
That had been the case that made Evans’s career.
“I owe you for that one. Always have. So, listen, Lincoln. I’ve got some buddies in New Jersey State Police. They use consultants, no problem.” He chuckled. “And, I mean, plenty of homicide in New Jersey, right? The Sopranos.”
Rhyme had no idea what opera singers had to do with murder in New Jersey, but there was no disputing his premise.
“They’d love you on board.”
“Appreciate it, Brett,” Rhyme said, not adding that he wouldn’t take a job with that outfit, as fine as it was, because his expertise was New York City and he was not inclined to begin his education anew into infrastructure, geography and culture.
And then there was the commute...
“I also know some people at commercial forensic operations in the city,” Evans added. “That work can be just as challenging, right?”
No, it didn’t come close. He said, “I’m sure it is. But for now I just need to think about things for a bit.”
“Sure. I understand. You should know, there’re more than a few of us here think this is bullshit.”
But there were some important ones who did not.
“Thanks for the call, Brett.”
Rhyme was tired, bone tired. He summoned Thom, who escorted him upstairs in the tiny elevator and got him ready for bed.
Soon he was lying on the elaborate, mechanically operated mattress and starting to doze off. Just before sleep arrived, though, he thought: Yes, indeed he was a pawn in the chess game of state politics — a piece that had been removed from the board, without sufficient tactical forethought.
And, unable to avoid belaboring the metaphor a bit longer, he wondered: Just how would his sacrifice affect the endgame?
19
When is a truck not a truck?
Viktor Buryak was alone, cats excepted. He was jotting notes on the results of the auction and he was pleased. The wire transfers from the three bidders were already in. With Buryak, customers always paid up front.
Everyone had bought something. Welbourne, the truck. The twins, the boat. And Kevin Duggin picked up a backhoe.
Buryak was, he felt, part of a new generation of mobsters. That didn’t mean he was Gen ZZ or whatever was current, of course. Buryak was in his fifties, conservative, a traditionalist. He wore a suit every day, usually with a stylish vest. He polished his shoes. He never indulged in illegal substances — and why would he when he had tea and his first favorite beverage, fine brandy?
And neither did new generation mean developing and selling state-of-the-art designer drugs to those who were under thirty but who had a six-figure disposable income.
No, the innovative part was what his company, VB Auctions, actually sold.
The bidders in tonight’s auction had no need for any such equipment and wouldn’t even take delivery. Buryak was cautious to the edge of paranoia and so he’d come up with the idea of a phony auction.
What the men had really been bidding for was the commodity that was Viktor Buryak’s specialty, and perhaps the most dangerous product in the city. Worse than drugs, plastic explosives, poisons, machine guns.
Information.
The “dump truck” that stone-faced Welbourne bought was really a file that Buryak and his employees would assemble. It would contain exacting details of shipments of fentanyl and OxyContin from a warehouse in Pennsylvania to Virginia to New York and on to its ultimate destination in Connecticut (the circuitous route, which involved using separate trucks decorated with fake signage, was for security).
The file would also include the names of the drivers, their personal information (family members too) and the names of police in each jurisdiction the trucks would roll through, including, in New York City, a few precincts with cops who could be counted on to turn a blind eye, or even help Welbourne’s hijackers.
The “boat” the Twins had bought was a dossier on a man named Suarez who’d come to New York from Miami, with a small crew, and was planning on starting a drug operation that catered to the Latinx population. It was small-time and not much of a threat to any of the bidders, but the dossier could be used to guarantee that the man would have to kick over a good portion of the take to the winner. It contained sexting messages between the married Suarez and a mistress. Selfies too of both of them, several naked in bed, the bath, the floor, the kitchen island (really? Buryak had thought). The girlfriend was, literally, that: a girl, sixteen, which made the pictures child pornography and their self-documented activities statutory rape.