Chapter 68
WHAT SEEMED LIKE a rapid heartbeat later, Emily slid into me as the van fishtailed with a shriek of brakes. My head almost hit the ceiling as the van crossed Fifth Avenue and hopped the curb in front of Berger's building.
The back doors popped open, and Emily and I quickly followed the tactical team across the sidewalk and under the hunter green awning. When my eyes adjusted to the dim lobby, I spotted the doorman pressed against the wall beside an immense oil painting, his hat on the floor between his feet, his white-gloved hands in the air. A sign beside him said ALL VISITORS MUST BE ANNOUNCED.
"Not today, friend," Hobart said, handing the guy back his hat.
Everyone froze in place as the wood-paneled elevator door at the far end of the lobby dinged open. Half a dozen laser sights trained on a tall, gorgeous young couple in business attire. Before they could open their mouths, they were taken facedown onto the Oriental carpet.
"They're clean, Chief," Wong said, tossing Hobart the young business guy's wallet.
A broad, black-haired man wearing blue work clothes and wire-rim glasses appeared from a door beside the elevator.
"The back elevator is here, officers. This way," he said in a thick Eastern European accent as he waved at us frantically.
A contingent of men was left to secure the lobby while we went through a dusty back hall and packed into a film noir-era freight elevator.
"This is so crazy, so crazy," the super kept repeating as he operated the manual elevator.
Damn straight, I thought. There was absolutely no joking now or even talking as we watched the floors slide by with a disturbing sound of rattling chains.
At the top floor, we came out into a dingy, narrow, windowless hallway lit by a single hanging bulb. This was definitely the service entrance. A hand signal from Hobart halted us at the corridor's bend beside some garbage cans. Two men rushed forward and knelt beside the lock on Berger's apartment's back entrance, placing the breaching explosive.
They ran back, and Hobart radioed down to some of his men now in the building's basement.
"In position," Hobart said.
"Roger. Pulling the switch. The juice is off. You're a go," a cop radioed back.
Hobart nodded. Then one of the commandos tapped a stapler-like detonator, and Berger's back door was blown to smithereens with an enormous crunching blast.
The next few moments were a chaos of running men and shouts.
"FBI!" Hobart screamed in a voice that sounded like it could have knocked the door down on its own. "Down! Down! FBI! Everyone on the floor!"
Behind the SWAT team, Emily and I entered over the remains of the still-smoking door into a high-ceilinged kitchen. Instead of the granite countertops and high-end cabinets I was expecting, there were well-used industrial-size stoves and stainless-steel countertops. But that head-scratcher was nothing compared with the dining room.
A dozen tables were covered in linen and set with formal place settings and unlit candles. For some reason, all the china and crystal and silver set out made the room look unbelievably creepy. There was even a grand piano on a stage in the corner. It looked like we'd walked into a restaurant.
"Talk about not knowing what we're going to find," Emily said, shaking her head.
We passed into an even larger wood-paneled living room. There was an incredible amount of art on the massive mahogany walls. A mix of museum-quality sketches, photography, what looked like a Renoir. Modern stuff.
"There's more paintings than wall space," I said.
We were stepping toward the stairs at the opposite end of the room when we heard shouting from above. There was an enormous chandelier-rattling thump followed by a blood-curdling scream.
"What is this? Why are you in my house? What the hell are you doing?" I heard as I arrived on the next floor at the commando-filled doorway.
Then I looked inside.
"No," I said, staring in wide-eyed wonder.
Emily bumped into me to look in as well.
"What the hell?" she said, shaking her head.
"You're hurting my back. I have a bad back," said the man on the floor-the tremendously fat, naked man lying facedown on the floor.
Chapter 69
I GAGGED AS A WAFT of the stifling room's horrendous body odor slapped into me. I started coughing. I was surprised I didn't throw up.
Whoever the morbidly obese man was, he certainly wasn't the suspect from the witness statements or sketch or the surveillance video.
We'd screwed up, I thought as I lowered my gun.
"God, somebody get a sheet, huh?" Emily said, holstering her service weapon as she averted her eyes.
"And a case of Lysol," Wong said, covering his nose and mouth as he finished cuffing him.
Reluctantly, I went into the room and tore a filthy sheet off the bed and covered the guy's backside with it. It barely fit. He was easily six hundred pounds. Maybe even seven. The ESU guy actually had to use two pairs of handcuffs to secure the fat bastard's wrists.
I knelt down beside him.
"Lawrence Berger?" I said.
"Yes," he said, lolling his large head in my direction. "Oh! Wow! Michael Bennett. I didn't know you were here. My God. This is so surreal."
Emily and I exchanged baffled looks.
"I know you?" I said.
"You gave a lecture on homicide investigation to the general assembly at John Jay back in 'ninety-three, was it?" Berger said, looking into my eyes. "Your wife was there with you. A tall, pretty Irish lady. Tell me, how is your wild Irish rose these days? Oh dear, what am I saying? The article about you in New York Magazine said she died. Well, she's in a better place. My deepest condolences."
Before I could punch the man in his mouth, Hobart hauled back hard on his handcuffs.
"Ahhh! My wrists!" Berger screamed, tears in his eyes. "Ow! Stop it! That hurts! What are you trying to do? Break my arm? Didn't I tell you I had a bad back?"
"I look like your chiropractor, fatty?" Hobart said in the man's ear. "Watch your mouth before I fill it with my combat boot."
Berger nodded as he turned slowly toward Emily.
"Don't tell me you're Agent Parker. You guys have teamed up again? I feel honored. Nice core. Pilates?"
"That's it," Hobart said, tugging back hard on the cuffs again.
But instead of screaming again, Berger did something as surprising as it was horrifying.
He broke into giggles.
"You call this pain?" Berger said, smiling back at Hobart after a beat. "I've paid more than you make in a week for far, far worse, Brown Sugar. What were you going to do with your combat boot again?"
This was taking a bad turn. Getting weirder and weirder. Hobart let the cuff chain go as if it were on fire and wiped his hands on his pants.
"Where were we again?" Berger said, turning back around to face me. There was an oddly chipper tone in his voice now.
"Who the hell is this, Berger?" I said, showing him the sketch and FAO Schwarz surveillance photo.
Berger squinted at it.
"That would be a crappy rough semblance of Carl, I think," Berger said.
"Carl?" Emily said. "Who the fuck is Carl?"
"Carl Apt is my friend," Berger said. "My very close friend and companion. I know what you're thinking. Longtime companion, aka gay lover, but no. Not that I didn't make some overtures. Strictly business, Carl is. Pure as the driven snow and twice as cold."
"Carl what? Works for you?" I said, trying to piece things together.
"Kind of," Berger said. "It's complicated."
"I say we gag this turd," Hobart said.
"Where is he? Where's Carl right now?" I said.
"Where Carl usually is, silly," the fat man said, rolling his eyes. "He's upstairs taking a bath."