And God save anybody on the force who made a single comment about it, lifted a single eyebrow, exhaled a single sigh.
Kepler examined his phone again, to order takeaway. At the beginning of his address book on the Galaxy were three folders, !breakfast, !dinner, !lunch, the punctuation mark added so the files would stay first in line, before people. He was debating between the first and third — he was sort of in a pancake mood — when the brass finally cruised into the room.
The promise of sausages and waffles went away, along with the phone itself, when the harried man, in a suit, strode inside. Wrinkled of face, boasting multiple chins, Captain Paul Barkley was in his late fifties. He carried the round belly of somebody who ate when it was convenient for him, not when the long hours and necessities of a case required him to grab breakfast to go when it was really lunchtime, or vice versa.
Still, the man had a rep as righteous as Kepler’s tan — and far more genuine. Everybody knew Barkley had paid his dues and he carried bullet scars to prove it, according to legend. So none of the detectives griped, at least not too much, and definitely not to his face.
“Gentlemen.”
“Captain,” Surani said. A nod from Kepler.
“Busy day,” Barkley muttered and looked at his iPhone to prove it. Read a text. Sent a text, ignoring the men.
Kepler’s stomach protested. Waffles. He wanted waffles. Or maybe a club sandwich.
Barkley snapped, “So, what’s this about? Request for an undercover op?”
“Right,” Kepler said.
“Where’s Detective McNamara?”
“On the way,” Kepler said.
“Well, get started.” Barkley raised an intimidating eyebrow. Impatience ruled.
“Well, you know, sir, we’re not sure. We didn’t put it together.”
“It was—” Surani stopped speaking and looked behind the captain, into the doorway. “Here’s the mastermind of the op. She can give you all the details. Hey, Gabby!”
The beautiful but severe woman stepped into the room. Unsmiling, typically, she looked over all three men, nodding a greeting to the captain.
Kepler, with his proclivities, wasn’t the least interested in Detective Gabby for her body. But, man, she dressed well. He appreciated that. A thin white blouse beneath the black-and-white-checked jacket. What was that cloth called again? There was some word for it, that pattern. A gray skirt.
And those were great dark stockings. Nice high heels too.
He and Surani weren’t into cross-dressing, but if they had been, there were worse people to mimic than Detective Gabby.
She was a bit of a legend herself. Daughter of a detective working Organized Crime, she’d joined the force right out of college, working Crime Scene. When her father was killed in the line of duty, she became a detective and moved up to Major Cases, often working OC detail, like her old man had, specializing in the ultra-violent Eastern European gangs based in Brooklyn and Queens.
Known for her undercover work, she had a shining arrest record. And — more important — her conviction rate was off the charts. Anybody could collar anybody; having the brains and balls to make sure the fuckers went away for a long period of time was something else altogether.
Gabby pushed an ornery strand of auburn hair off her forehead.
The captain asked her, “So you want to run an undercover op?”
“Sounds like a TV show,” Kepler quipped, trying to get her to smile. Everyone ignored him and he decided to stop being cute.
“That’s right,” she told them.
“What’s the deal?”
“I heard from a CI of mine there’s a player who’s surfaced. Guy named Daniel Reardon.”
“Never heard of him. Organized crime?”
“No connection with any of the crews I could find,” Gabby reported. “According to my informant, he runs a small operation out of a Wall Street front. He’s got two partners he works with. Have first names only. Andy or Andrew, and Sam.”
“Or ‘Samuel’?” Kepler inquired.
She turned her eyes on him; usually they were green, today they were more yellowish, eerie. “Only ‘Sam.’ ” Spoken briskly, as if: Wouldn’t I have mentioned the longer name if that was what I’d heard? “Don’t know anything else about them. But my CI heard it’s an eight-figure operation.”
“Jesus. Who’s your informant?”
“Guy connected with the Sedutto crew.”
With some reverence, Kepler asked, “Your guy’s a confidential informant embedded with Sedutto? And he’s still alive?”
As if irritated at the interruption, she said curtly, “He’s very good. And I pay him a lot of money to be good.”
The captain asked, “What’re Reardon and his crew into?”
“It’s serious shit, Paul. Mostly cleaning money, some drugs, some guns. Offshore stuff. But the worst is he’s hit at least a half-dozen people. A couple witnesses and some rivals. And one of the witnesses? Apparently the guy’s family was with him. Killed them too.”
“Oh, man,” Surani said, shaking his head. He and Kepler were exploring adopting.
“Multimillion operation and hits,” the captain mused. He did not sound at all dismayed. Good press material, he’d be thinking. This was cynical but Kepler knew you had to consider image in this business. White Knight shit mattered at budget time, it mattered at promotion time. This was a game everybody learned and nobody felt guilty about playing.
“What do you have in mind for the set?” Barkley asked.
“It’s going to be tricky. Reardon’s smart. And suspicious as hell, according to my CI. I need to set up a fake office somewhere in Manhattan.”
“Office? What does that mean?” Barkley asked bluntly.
Her voice matched his: “A company. A business, an office. Probably an investment firm. I don’t need much. A couple of rooms, furniture. Some phony files I’ll gin up myself. Decorations, props. The office’ll be deserted — and half empty, like it was raided. That’s part of my plan.”
“We’re not Abscam, we don’t have a lot of money.”
“What’s Abscam?” Surani asked.
No one answered. Kepler reminded himself to explain to his partner that it was one of the biggest stings in U.S. history.
Gabby said, “Won’t cost us much. I was thinking we could use that place Narcotics closed up last month. It’s just sitting empty. Midtown. Turtle Bay. Oh, and I’ll need an unoccupied town house somewhere on the Upper East Side. Just for the exterior. The whole thing’ll probably come in under a couple G’s.”
Barkley grumbled, “That’s probably do-able.”
“I’ll have IT put together a fake website for the company. I’ll make it look like it was just raided. And I’ll do a Facebook page for my cover identity. Simple stuff. But good enough to fool Reardon if he checks. Which he will.”
Barkley grunted once more. “Hold up. You gotta convince me, Detective. Tell me more about Reardon.”
“Don’t have a lot. I’ve datamined him. He’s rich, lives fast. Owns a Maserati, but it’s slower than his Porsche. He’s got a fancy boat in Connecticut and another one in lower Manhattan.”
“Well, well,” said Surani. “We’re going after a whole new class of perps. Moving up in the world.”
“Or down,” Gabby corrected, frost in her voice. “He kills families, remember?”
At least Kepler wasn’t the only one she tapped with her whip.
“Reardon’s single. Never married, though my CI tells me he sometimes claims he’s divorced and sometimes he’s a widower. He’s got a loft in TriBeCa worth three million and a company on Wall Street. It’s legit — he’s involved in venture capital work. The Norwalk Fund. But he only made one point two million last year, according to his taxes. His lifestyle’s five times that. So the investing’s a cover for the money washing, arms sales and other things he does.”