Murder Games Read online

  Then, with one more sentence, he explained exactly what he meant.

  I hung up with Julian, shoving my phone away to get the maximum rpm from my bike, the first glimpse of Citi Field up ahead.

  Forget that bottle of expensive whiskey, Julian. You, my friend, are getting a case and then some…

  Chapter 107

  “HEY, YOU can’t park there!”

  That was the first cop chasing me after I sprinted from my bike. The second was the one who saw me hurdle the turnstile into the stadium without breaking stride. Neither was fighting in his desired weight class, to put it mildly, but they were able to stay close on my heels because the people crowding the walkways, still making their way to their seats, were blocking my path. I was back to weaving in and out of traffic again, only now on foot.

  Tick-tock…

  I didn’t need to check the time because I could hear the public-address announcer asking everyone to stand for the national anthem. I had two minutes at most to get to the mayor. Every year, you can bet the over-under in Vegas on the length of the national anthem performed at the Super Bowl. The average for the past ten years has been a minute and fifty-seven seconds.

  As a Mets fan, I knew Citi Field pretty well. Even if I didn’t, I’d still know where I was heading. Deacon would be coming out of the home dugout, along the first-base line, immediately after the anthem. Right up until then he’d probably still be taking his practice throws in the batting cages near the clubhouse.

  President George W. Bush ruined it for every other politician, especially in New York, when he threw a perfect strike at Yankee Stadium before game 3 of the World Series after 9/11. He threw it from the mound and didn’t cheat it by a foot.

  There was no way Deacon would attempt anything different. He’d throw it from the mound, too.

  “The bombs bursting in air…”

  Whoever was singing the anthem was getting close to the end. I kept running and weaving, stealing glances at every section opening to see where I was in relation to the field. I had to time the turn just right.

  Damn!

  Up ahead, I could see two cops running toward me. Word was out—there was a crazy Mets fan on the loose. What they didn’t know was that I was a New York Knicks fan as well.

  Time for the pick and roll.

  Slashing toward a concession stand, I drew the cops toward me, waiting until the last possible moment to spin around them, a condiments table running interference for me. Thank you mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut.

  “Stop him!” I kept hearing.

  No one could, though, not yet. I passed another section opening, spying the end of the Mets dugout down by the field. On a dime I turned, blowing past the guy in charge of checking tickets to race down the steps.

  “O’er the land of the free…”

  I had a clean shot over the railing, catapulting myself over it and onto the field. No less than half a dozen police and security guards were on my tail down the aisle, with more coming at me from every angle.

  The one who finally got me, though, was the cop in the dugout the second I tried to reach the tunnel to the clubhouse. He was definitely fighting in his weight class; there was no evading him.

  “Gotcha, you son of a bitch,” he said, slamming me down.

  Chapter 108

  “GET THE mayor!” I said. “Tell him it’s Dylan Reinhart!”

  The crowd roar drowned me out, though. The anthem had just ended.

  I’d been all over the news, but no one was about to recognize me with my face smooshed hard against the concrete floor of the dugout. I was surrounded by arms and elbows, all of them angry and eager to keep me down. There was a heel digging into the back of my neck.

  “The mayor!” I tried again. “He can’t go out to the mound!”

  The crowd was still too loud. The only voice that rose above it belonged to one of the cops hovering over me, who instructed the rest. “Get him the hell out of here!” he barked.

  I got scooped up into a headlock, my feet barely touching the ground as they carried me through the tunnel leading into the bowels of the stadium. The crowd noise dimmed, overtaken by the echoing voice of the public-address announcer asking everyone to welcome a special guest to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

  Immediately to my left, a door burst open. The mayor, surrounded by a posse of guards and staff, came walking out in a shiny blue Mets jacket as I passed by. I tried to call out to him only to get a thick, heavy hand from one of the cops slapped over my mouth.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw my last chance. Livingston was bringing up the rear, busy looking at a folder. No way he was going to see me unless…

  “Fuck!” the cop cried out, pulling away his hand in pain. I’d bitten the hell out of his finger.

  “Livingston, it’s Reinhart!” I yelled as loud as I could.

  He couldn’t see me, but he heard me. “Wait!” he said. “Stop!”

  The cops stopped as Livingston walked over, confused. He knew enough, though, to tell them to let go of me so I could explain.

  Only there was no time.

  The crowd roared again—albeit with a smattering of boos mixed in—as Deacon exited the dugout. I could see over Livingston’s shoulder as the mayor stopped for a moment to turn and wave, holding up a baseball in his other hand. Then he was gone…heading to the mound.

  That made two of us.

  Without a word of warning I shoved my way past Livingston, bolting back toward the dugout. I could hear the snapping sounds of hands on leather as the cops reached for their holsters, but there were too many people still lingering in the tunnel for a clean shot.

  Springing into the dugout, I launched myself up the steps and onto the field, the mayor about to step over the chalk of the first-base line. I could hear the crowd gasp as I lunged in the air, tackling Deacon hard to the ground. He didn’t know what had hit him—or who—as he rolled under my grasp, his first instinct being to get the hell away.

  I wouldn’t let him.

  Every cop with every gun, every photographer with every lens—they all ran toward us.

  Deacon was livid. “Reinhart, what the—”

  “Give me your phone, Mr. Mayor,” I said.

  “My what?”

  “Your phone. Give me your phone!”

  Deacon hesitated, and the cops began to close in. Call it faith or call it curiosity, but he raised a hand for them to stand down. With his other hand he reached into his pants pocket, giving me his cell phone.

  Assault and battery on the mayor of New York City in front of more than forty thousand people would normally require some explaining. But in the words of Mark Twain, actions speak louder than words.

  Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Death is throwing out the first pitch…

  I turned and heaved the mayor’s phone toward the pitcher’s mound, directly at the rubber. It was a bit high and outside, but close enough to make my point.

  Boom!

  The mound exploded with the force of a grenade, everyone on the field taking cover. All they got on them, though, was some flying dirt.

  Elijah Timitz, the man who would forever be known as the Dealer, had figured out a way to remotely detonate a bomb while being nowhere close to his intended target—in his case, as far away as hell.

  “With GPS, your cell number can trigger anything,” said Julian.

  Ultimately, the reporters would all ask me the same question—how did I know?

  The worst part was that I couldn’t give credit where credit was due. Not that Julian Byrd would care one lick. Anonymity is the hacker’s code, he was always fond of telling me.

  How did I know?

  “A little birdie told me” was all I’d say.

  Then I wouldn’t say anything more.

  Chapter 109

  “WHERE ARE you taking me?” asked Tracy.

  We were in the backseat of a cab heading across Central Park to the Upper East Side. Tracy didn’t recognize the address I gave the d
river, nor should he have.

  “You’ll see,” I said.

  Earlier that morning I was far less coy with the mayor and his chief of staff. Edso Deacon, Beau Livingston, and I had a cozy little breakfast at City Hall. Deacon had eggs, Livingston had oatmeal, and I had all the leverage in the world.

  Figuring out what Timitz had on Judge Kingsman and the mayor was as easy as following the money. It always is.

  Kingsman wasn’t crooked. It was more like bent. He was so blinded by his history with Deacon, the bond they shared, that he was willing to grant a mistrial in a case involving criminal negligence on a construction site operated by Deacon during his commercial real estate days. In return, Deacon—through a PAC and a couple of shell companies—essentially bankrolled two of Kingsman’s reelection campaigns to the New York State Supreme Court.

  Of course, it would’ve probably taken me months to piece all that together. Thanks to Timitz, it only took three days—UPS three-day shipping, to be exact. In keeping with the Dealer’s knack for sending packages, I received all his evidence—timed perfectly, or so he had planned—after the mayor was supposed to have died at Citi Field.

  “What are you going to do with it?” asked Deacon.

  “The same thing you’re going to do with whatever you dug up on me,” I said. “Nothing.”

  Some people would argue that I had a civic duty to go public with the information. It’s a fair argument. The problem is that life sometimes makes you choose between the lesser of two evils. Simply put, the people who would benefit from knowing my role in the CIA during my supposed fellowship at the University of Cambridge would make Deacon and company look like choirboys.

  But that’s a story or two for another time.

  “Anything else?” asked the mayor.

  He was all but assured reelection, thanks to his surviving an assassination attempt, provided that the motives for the attempt never saw the light of day. He was doing everything in his power to make sure they didn’t.

  “Yes—one more thing,” I said. “You’re now going to tell me what Elizabeth had the integrity to keep to herself. Why did you originally have her transferred to your security detail?”

  Life can often be messy and mystifying. As when an attractive young detective gets what looks like a promotion only to discover that she was assigned to the mayor in order to provide cover for an affair he was having. She could quit or go to the press, but either action would mean that she wouldn’t get to do what she always wanted to do: serve and protect. So she stayed quiet, convinced ultimately that all the people she’d be able to help over time were far more important than one politician who couldn’t keep it in his pants.

  She was right.

  The cabdriver pulled up to the brownstone on East 74th Street. I paid the fare as Tracy stepped out, still without a clue as to why we were there.

  We walked up the steps, and I rang the doorbell. Seconds later, the door opened.

  “Right on time,” said Barbara Nash. “C’mon in.”

  The head of the Gateway Adoption Agency welcomed us into her home, a pair of golden retrievers with red bandannas around their necks happily greeting us right behind her. Behind them was Ms. Peckler. In her hand was an iced tea instead of a clipboard.

  “I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot,” she said. “I’m sorry about that.”

  Epilogue

  Special Delivery

  Chapter 110

  A FEW weeks before the big day, I thought I had a good idea how we would decide on her name.

  First we would each write down our ten favorites. Then we would exchange lists to see if there was a name that both of us had chosen.

  “What do you think?” I asked, pouring Tracy and myself some more coffee. I even brought two pens and a couple of sheets of paper with me to the kitchen table. “It makes sense, right?”

  Tracy gave me the Look. Only this time, it felt a little different. There was a smile hiding behind it.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” he said.

  Tracy grabbed a pen, quickly scribbling something before handing the paper back to me. He’d written only one name. Annabelle.

  My mother’s name.

  Annabelle McKay-Reinhart arrived safely at JFK airport, greeting us with a pair of big, beautiful hazel eyes and an extended yawn. It’s a long trip for anyone from South Africa, let alone a two-month-old.

  There were a few more papers to read and sign, which Barbara Nash took us through while Tracy and I took turns holding Annabelle. We did our best to pay attention, although at times all we could hear was the sound of our pounding hearts. We were awestruck and overwhelmed.

  The escort from Gateway’s affiliate in Germany, an angel of a woman, handed us a large envelope containing Annabelle’s medical records, her birth certificate, information about the formula she was on, and a picture of her birth mother, as we requested. The envelope was red.

  Who said red’s never good?

  “You have a beautiful and healthy baby girl. Congratulations,” said the escort. “And if I do say so, she’s quite the flirt, too. On the second leg of the flight, from Frankfurt, your daughter had a gentleman sitting next to us gushing over her the entire time.”

  “Did you hear that?” said Tracy. “Our daughter.”

  Yeah—life can be messy and mystifying, all right. But every once in a while you get a day that seems to make sense of it all.

  Those are the days you remember most.

  The days you cherish.

  The days you hold in your arms with all the love that you could possibly have in your heart.

  Isn’t that right, Annabelle?

  The Store doesn’t just want your money—it wants

  your soul.

  For an excerpt, turn the page.

  I CAN’T stop running. Not now. Not ever.

  I think the police are following me. Unless they’re not.

  That’s the crazy part. I’m just not sure.

  Maybe somebody recognized me…

  My picture’s been all over. I bet someone called the NYPD and said, “There’s a crazy guy, about forty-five years old, stumbling around SoHo. On Prince Street. Wild-man eyes. You’d better get him before he hurts himself.”

  They always say that—“before he hurts himself.” Like they care.

  That crazy guy is me. And if I had seen me, I would have called the cops, too. My dirty-blond hair really is dirty and sweaty from running. The rest of me? I feel like hell and look worse. Torn jeans (not hip, just torn), dirty army-green T-shirt, dirty classic red-and-white Nikes. “Dirty” is the theme. But it doesn’t really matter.

  All that matters right now is the box I’m carrying. A cardboard box, held together with pieces of string. What’s in it? A four-hundred-and-ten-page manuscript.

  I keep running. I look around. So this is what SoHo’s become…neat and clean and very rich. Give the people what they want. And what they want is SoHo as a tourist attraction—high-tech gyms and upscale restaurants. Not much else. The cool “buy-in-bulk” underwear shops and electronics stores selling 1950s lighting fixtures have all disappeared. Today you can buy a five-hundred-dollar dinner of porcini mushroom foam with frozen nettle crème brûlée, but you can’t buy a pair of Jockey shorts or a Phillips-head screwdriver or a quart of skim milk.

  I stop for a moment in front of a restaurant—the sign says PORC ET FLAGEOLETS. The translation is high school easy—“pork and beans.” Adorable. Just then I hear a woman’s voice behind me.

  “That’s gotta be him. That’s the guy. Jacob Brandeis.”

  I turn around. The woman is “old” SoHo—black tights, tattoos, Native American silver jewelry. Eighty years old at least. Her tats have wrinkles. She must have lived in SoHo since the Dutch settled New York.

  “I’m going to call the police,” she says. She’s not afraid of me.

  Her equally hip but much younger male friend says, “Let’s not. Who the hell wants to get involved?”

  They deliberately
cross the street, and I hear the woman speak. “I have to say: he is really handsome.”

  That comment doesn’t surprise me. Women like me a lot. Okay, that’s obnoxious and arrogant, but it’s true. The old gal should have seen me a few years ago. I had long dirty-blond hair, and, as a girl in college once told me, I was a “hunky nerd.” I was. Until all this shit happened to me and wore me out and brought me down and…

  The old lady and younger man are now across the street. I shout to them.

  “You don’t have to call the cops, lady. I’m sure they know I’m here.”

  As if to prove this fact to myself, I look up and see a camera-packed drone hovering above me, recording my every step. How could I have forgotten? Drones zoom through the sky—in pairs, in groups, alone. Tiny cameras dot the corners of every building. In this New York, a person is never really alone.

  I stumble along for another block, then I stop at a classic SoHo cast-iron building. It’s home to Writers Place, the last major publisher left in New York. Hell, it’s the last major publisher in all of America.

  I clutch the box that holds the manuscript. Dirt streaks my face. My back and armpits are soaked. You know you smell like hell when you can smell your own sweat.

  I’m about to push my way through the revolving door when I pause.

  I feel like I could cry, but instead I extend the middle finger of my right hand and flip it at the drone.

  ANNE GUTMAN, editor in chief and publisher of Writers Place, greets me with her usual warmth.

  “You look like shit,” she says.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Now let’s get the hell out of your office and go someplace where we can’t be watched.”

  “Where’d you have in mind, Jacob? Jupiter or Mars?”

  “Christ. I can’t stand it,” I say. “They watch me 24-7.”

  She nods, but I’m not sure she agrees with me. I’m not even sure she cares. I lean forward and hand her the box.