The Black Book Read online

The music through the speakers, one song coming to a violent, triumphant climax of violin and cello. Another song beginning, the bass playing solo, moving slowly and cautiously, like a snake through the grass, a warning of a storm.

  All that was missing was a drumroll.

  “Your name,” Amy said. “It was your name in the little black book.”

  “What?” My phone fell out of my hands. On impact with the carpet, the face of my phone lit up, showing the last message from Kate, which I had yet to read.

  I picked it back up to make sure I read it correctly.

  Bc she knows u idiot. She knows about u and so do I

  Then I remembered that I never locked Amy’s front door after entering.

  And then I turned and saw Kate walking into the apartment, her weapon drawn.

  One Hundred

  “KATE, TAKE it easy,” I called as she walked toward the bedroom. I held out my right hand as a signal to stop. I held out my left to Amy. “Amy,” I said, “give me the gun.”

  “No.” Amy shook her head, steeled herself through her tears, aimed the gun toward the doorway into the bedroom.

  “Amy, I know how to use that thing. You don’t. You’ll get us all killed.”

  Kate approached with her weapon in both hands, held at waist level in front of her, walking on the balls of her feet. She could hear what I was saying. She knew Amy had a gun now.

  As Kate approached, I moved into the space between Amy and the doorway, where Kate now stood with her weapon aimed at Amy and, by extension, at me.

  “Amy,” Kate barked, “drop that gun or I’ll put you down. Drop it right now or I’ll shoot.”

  The way she said it. I’d heard that voice before, that no-fucking-around tone. Amy was a prosecutor, not a cop. She wasn’t cut out for this.

  “Do it, Amy,” I said, remaining between them. But it wouldn’t matter. If Kate wanted to shoot Amy, she would.

  Then I heard it behind me, the sound of the gun releasing from Amy, the soft plunk as it fell onto the nearby bed. I saw it in Kate’s eyes, too, that hint of relaxation.

  But only a hint. Kate was keyed up, her eyes on fire.

  Amy wasn’t sobbing anymore, either. I had my back to her, but I knew she was no longer upset. The only emotion she was experiencing now was pure terror.

  “Both of you, against that wall.” Kate motioned with the gun. We complied, moving to the far wall. Kate retrieved my weapon off the bed, training two guns on us now. Then she shuffled back toward the doorway and gave us another command, the smart move, the one I would make if I were giving the orders.

  “Both of you, on the bed,” she said.

  I took the lead, sitting down on the edge of the bed. I hoped that would be enough. But again, if Kate was smart—and she was—it wouldn’t satisfy her.

  “Scootch back all the way on the bed,” she said. “Back against the headboard, hands on your thighs, feet on the bed, ankles crossed.”

  That was the smart move. Make us as immobile as possible. We couldn’t rush her this way. In the time it took us to uncross our ankles, push ourselves off the bed, drop our feet down on the carpet, and make a move toward her, she’d have time to empty her magazine and probably reload. She had us completely under her control.

  Amy and I sitting on the bed, Kate standing at the opposite end of the small bedroom. I had nothing for a weapon other than my phone, which I put next to me on the bed. I wasn’t a good enough aim to skull her with it, and even if I succeeded, it wouldn’t do more than momentarily stun her. She’d recover in time to riddle me with bullets.

  Satisfied that we were sufficiently subdued, Kate lowered the guns in her hands.

  “Was she a part of it, too?” Kate asked me, gesturing toward Amy.

  “A part of what?” I asked, though it wasn’t hard to tell what she meant.

  “The bribes. The payoffs. I know it was you, Billy.”

  “It wasn’t.” But I remembered what Amy had said to me. It was your name in the little black book. “Somebody set me up,” I said.

  Kate glared at me, worked her jaw. “It’s gonna be like that, is it? Just deny everything up and down?”

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” I said. “Don’t turn this around. It was you, Kate.”

  Her face showed no sign of anything but disgust. “I trusted you,” she said. “I fucking loved you, Billy.”

  With those words, her expression broke. She didn’t cry, but she choked up nice and good, the fire still in her eyes but now showing real pain.

  She took a deep breath and said, “You’re under arrest, Billy Harney.”

  It didn’t register with me. It didn’t make sense.

  She was going to…arrest me?

  That’s when I knew.

  Kate wasn’t the dirty cop.

  If she were, I’d be dead. Amy and I both. Arresting me made no sense. I could still fight back. I could hire a lawyer and prove my innocence. I could prove that she was the dirty cop, not me. If she had been the dirty cop, she would have killed me, just as she killed Ramona Dillavou and Camel Coat—whatever she needed to do to maintain her cover-up.

  It wasn’t Amy, and it wasn’t Kate.

  And it sure as hell wasn’t me.

  “Kate,” I said, “listen—”

  And then we all listened, we all heard it. The soft click of Amy’s front door opening.

  Kate’s head whipped to the right, surprised.

  Then not surprised.

  “What are you doing here?” she said to whoever it was.

  With Kate momentarily distracted, I reached for my phone, held it in my hand. Using it as a weapon felt like a million-to-one shot.

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t use it in other ways.

  I heard his voice from the living room.

  And I dropped my phone back on the bed, just before Lieutenant Mike Goldberger walked into the bedroom.

  One Hundred One

  KATE TOOK a step back to clear some space as Goldie walked into the room.

  My mouth opened, but I couldn’t speak.

  “Nobody’s arresting anybody,” he said. “We just need to talk this out.”

  He seemed almost amused, seeing me and Amy lying on the bed, our feet up and legs crossed. He looked at Kate. “Oh, put the guns away, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “This is Billy we’re talking about. I’m sure he can explain this.”

  Kate lowered her weapon to her side. Goldie took my gun from Kate.

  “That’s better,” he said. He walked over to the windowsill and punched out the music on the iPad. “That damn music,” he said. “Drowned out a perfectly good recording device.”

  Then Goldie walked toward the bed, facing me, his back to Kate. “So Billy,” he said. “Let’s figure this out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out,” said Kate. “I’m taking him in, Goldie.”

  “No, you’re not, Katie.”

  “The fuck I’m not.”

  Goldie looked at me. He heaved a deep sigh.

  Then he spun and aimed my gun at Kate. He fired a single shot. Kate had no chance to react. The bullet hit her above the right eye. She dropped in her tracks, falling to the carpet.

  Amy let out a horrified gasp and reached for me. I drew her in. I didn’t know—I didn’t know what to—

  Goldie spun back around, probably to make sure I wasn’t making a move on him.

  “I can’t believe…” I tried to say. “I can’t…”

  “You can’t what? I’m cleaning up your mess, pal. Because you wouldn’t leave well enough alone.”

  Everything was racing through my mind. Trying to fit together pieces of a puzzle that hurled at me from all directions—

  “It was you,” I said. “You set me up. You made Kate believe it was me.”

  “I…needed to keep Kate guessing, yeah,” he said. “But I wasn’t gonna let this fall on you.” He angles his head. “I admit I didn’t expect her to come here on her own and try to arrest you. We can’t have that. Nobod
y arrests nobody. Keep the whole thing a mystery, am I right?”

  I moved forward on the bed, enough to shield Amy, who couldn’t speak, who was shaking uncontrollably.

  “You’ll never get away with this,” I said.

  “Get away with what?” he answered. “My name’s not in the little black book. And this thing with Kate? Hey, I was never here.” His smile never reached his cold eyes, appearing and disappearing from his lips. “Here’s what happened, Detective, and listen carefully, because your life depends on it.” He raised a hand. “Kate walked in and caught you and Amy together. She was jealous. She pulled out her gun to kill you both, but you got off a shot first. You killed her in self-defense.” He looked down at Kate. “That’s a story everyone will believe. I’ll make sure they believe it. They won’t even charge you.”

  He walked back over to the bed, watching Amy and me.

  “And Ramona Dillavou?” I said. “And Joe Washington?”

  His head bobbed back and forth. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. But they won’t come back to me, either, my friend. If you push things, I think what you’ll find is that those murders will come back to you.”

  “You framed me for those, too?”

  He shrugged. “Insurance,” he said. “In case you got too nosy. I don’t want you in prison, pal. I want you by my side.”

  My mind was racing, looking for angles, anything. We were sitting ducks on this bed, unarmed and unable to make any meaningful attempt at fighting back.

  “So that’s out of the way,” he said. “Then there’s the matter of the little black book. Somebody took a copy from Margaret Olson’s safe last night. And Margaret tells me that only one person had a key to her office, and that same person knew that Margaret had a safe hidden underneath her desk.”

  Goldie turned his gun—my gun—and trained it on Amy. “That would be you, Ms. Lentini. So do me a favor and hand it over, if you would.”

  One Hundred Two

  GOLDIE GESTURED with the gun and said it again. “The little black book, Amy. If you please.”

  I realized that Goldie hadn’t heard what Amy told me tonight in the apartment. I had destroyed the bug I’d found in the living room, and the music Amy had turned on in the bedroom blocked out the bug in here.

  So Goldie didn’t know that somebody had broken into Amy’s apartment and stolen the little black book.

  He thought Amy still had it.

  “I made copies,” Amy said, which was smart of her but unlikely to work on a guy like Goldie.

  He snickered, showed some teeth. “Sure you did,” he said. “And if you don’t say the word by midnight, copies are going out to all the news stations in town, right? C’mon, now, Amy. Give it up. Or I’m gonna have to do the same thing to you that I did to Kate.”

  It was clear to me then that he was going to do that anyway. He couldn’t let Amy live. Not after this. He might think he could convert me, but Amy?

  “Don’t tell him,” I said to Amy. “The moment you do, you die.”

  “No.” Goldie, showing the first sign of angst. “No. If I get back the little black book, she can live. She can’t hurt me. She’ll have nothing. My word against hers. Margaret’s word against hers.” He looked squarely at me. “Your word against hers.”

  “Not mine,” I said. “I’m not lying for you.”

  I started to push myself off the bed. Goldie shook his head and pointed the gun at me. “Don’t move, Billy. Not until I can talk some goddamn sense into you.”

  “You kill her,” I said, “you’ll have to kill me, too.”

  “Jesus Christ, kid! Why should I have to do that? Just give me Amy’s copy, and I have the original. There won’t be a little black book anymore. Don’t you get it? Everything will work out fine. Margaret’s going to be mayor. She’s going to dump that idiot Tristan Driscoll and appoint…”

  He stopped on that.

  “Appoint who?” I asked. “She’s going to make you the new police superintendent? Was that the deal you cut with Margaret?”

  Goldie’s shoulders rose and fell. “Didn’t have much of a choice. I didn’t want to cut any deal with that bitch. But I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t give her the damn thumb drive.”

  Right. I got it now. “Ramona Dillavou did,” I said. “She was trying to cut a deal for immunity with Margaret. Ramona admitted it to you after you tortured it out of her.”

  Goldie smirked. “Ramona—she was a tough broad,” he said. “Held out a long time.”

  “Then why didn’t Margaret just make it public once she had it?” I asked. “Tedesco’s name was in that book. He’d be ruined.”

  Goldie shook his head. “Smart a guy as you are, kiddo, you never did think like a politician, did you?”

  Amy cleared her throat. “If Margaret made it public and outed Tedesco, then Tedesco wouldn’t endorse Margaret,” she said. “And he wouldn’t give her his campaign war chest. Margaret couldn’t win without those things. The little black book was more powerful as a threat, as blackmail.”

  Goldie wagged a finger. “See? There you go, Amy. You’re a politician already. I’m sure Mayor Margaret Olson will have a nice cozy spot for you in the office.” He drew a breath. “Yeah, I went to Margaret. I had the original, and she had the only copy. So we made a deal.”

  He seemed almost proud of it.

  “Enough,” he said. “Amy, I need that thumb drive. Give it to me, and we all live happily ever after. You both have great careers ahead of you. You’ll get married and have beautiful babies, and everything will be swell. On the other hand, you don’t tell me, well, I gotta put a bullet in Billy’s kneecap.”

  “No!” I said. “Don’t tell him.”

  “And you don’t tell me after that, I put one in his other kneecap. We keep going ’til your boyfriend looks like a fucking piñata.”

  “Don’t, Amy,” I said. “No matter what, don’t tell him.”

  Goldie looked at each of us, his bravado wavering. He gave me a cross look and shook his head.

  “I’ll cop to it,” I said. “I’ll say I was the dirty cop. I took the payoffs from Ramona Dillavou. I’ll admit it, Goldie. Just let Amy go. Let Amy walk out of here, and you have my word, on my daughter’s grave, that I’ll take the fall. You already have my name in the little black book, anyway, right?”

  A wave passed through me. I thought about what I’d just said, and it didn’t make sense. I could see Goldie doctoring the little black book and putting my name in it to frame me, sure—but that didn’t account for the copy Ramona had made on the thumb drive. Ramona had given Margaret that copy. And she did it without Goldie’s knowledge. Goldie only found out about it later, after he tortured Ramona. So how could Goldie have doctored the copy that Amy had found in Margaret’s safe?

  How could my name have been in the copy?

  “Not your name specifically,” Amy said. “You never let me finish.”

  I wanted to turn to her, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Goldie.

  “There were no first names in the book, only last names,” Amy said. “The cop taking the payoff had the last name Harney. That’s all it said. ‘Harney.’”

  I closed my eyes a moment, sucked in a breath.

  Not Billy Harney. Just Harney.

  That’s when I knew who had broken into Amy’s apartment and stolen the little black book.

  It was Patti.

  Goldie raised his chin, turned his head toward the window. His voice louder, he said, “We’re not getting anywhere. You better come in here and talk some sense into him.”

  One Hundred Three

  The Present

  I TAKE a breath and pause. The clock over the jury box says it’s almost noon. Right about now, the judge should be looking for a logical point to take a break so the jurors can have their lunch—and, more important, so he can have his own lunch.

  But the judge has hardly moved, his eyes narrowed in concentration, fixed on a space somewhere between me and my lawyer. The jurors are al
l leaning forward; some of them have been filling their notebooks with scribbles, but most of them have dispensed with the note taking and have settled into positions best suited for viewing the horror show. It’s so quiet inside this courtroom that you can hear the breathing from the spectators’ gallery, the collective inhales and exhales.

  Lieutenant Mike Goldberger, initially shaking his head in mock disbelief, has slowly transformed during my testimony, his eyes now cold, his shoulders drawn in, his fists clenched. He is trapped in the courtroom, essentially. If he runs away, he looks guilty. He looks pretty damn guilty right now anyway, but I know what he’s thinking: This is only Billy’s word. His word against mine. That’s Goldie. It always was. Always calculating. Always seeing every angle.

  My father, sitting next to him, eyes me intently, some fingers covering his mouth, unsure how to act.

  Margaret Olson, like Goldie, even more so than Goldie, is a prisoner in this courtroom. She’s the prosecutor, after all. She can’t just storm out. She has essentially never stopped shaking her head during my almost three hours of testimony as she watches her political career swirl down the toilet, as she considers every possible angle to salvage it. Ultimately, I assume, she’s thinking the same thing as Goldie. It’s his word against mine. The word of a desperate defendant looking at life in prison who will say anything, no matter how far-fetched, to save his own ass.

  My lawyer, Stilson, has forgotten his role and has listened along with the jurors, the reporters, and curious onlookers. “So Lieutenant Goldberger said, ‘You better come in here and talk some sense into him’?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “He was saying it to someone not in the room. He was speaking toward the recording device in the room, wherever it was.”

  Stilson, whose first instinct all morning has been to simply ask what happened next, instead cocks his head. “You said you knew at that moment that it was Patti who stole the thumb drive from Amy’s apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  I looked at her, my twin sister, as still as a statue, but I could see it in the sheen of her eyes, the single tear that had fallen. I could almost see the bubble over her head saying, I’m sorry; I’m so sorry.