Kill Me if You Can Read online

  I had some great friends, and drunk, sober, or anywhere in between, they were fun to hang with. Except Leonard Karns.

  Leonard was sitting alone on the sofa, nursing the cheap red wine he’d brought, because “beer is for frat boys and rednecks.” He looked amused, like an anthropologist studying a primitive tribe of beer-swilling natives. Everyone ignored him, except Hopper, who jumped up on the sofa to check him out. Karns reached out to pet him, and the cat responded with a nasty hiss and took off.

  “Poor Leonard,” Katherine whispered. “He seems to be unpopular across all species. Why did you even invite him? He doesn’t like you or your paintings.”

  I smiled. “I know. Having him around keeps me humble.”

  At ten o’clock the doorbell rang and I checked the closed-circuit monitor. I didn’t recognize the guy. He was short and fat — about three hundred pounds — with slicked-back black hair, a small goatee, and no mustache. If I’d ever met this guy before, I’d have remembered him. I didn’t.

  I’m not usually paranoid about strangers, but I had these diamonds that didn’t belong to me, and somebody might be looking for them.

  My Louisville Slugger was still standing in the corner next to the front door. With fifty friends and a baseball bat nearby, I figured if he was looking for trouble, I had the edge.

  I buzzed him in.

  Chapter 19

  I HELD THE apartment door open and waited. The fat man was slow and ponderous. He clomped up the stairs, stopping at each landing to catch his breath.

  Katherine joined me. “Who’s coming?”

  “Party crasher. Nobody I know.”

  “A heavyset guy?”

  “Fat.”

  She poked me in the ribs. “Shh, he’ll hear you.”

  “I think he knows he’s fat.”

  She punched me in the shoulder. “Stop.”

  The fat/heavyset man got to the fourth-floor landing and looked up at us. “Hello, Katherine,” he said.

  “Hello, Newton,” she said. “Take your time.”

  “Like I have a choice,” he said, grabbing the handrail and trudging up the last flight.

  “I gather you know him,” I said.

  “He’s my surprise.”

  The man was red in the face and sweating hard when he got to the top. “Matt, this is Newton,” Katherine said. “Newton, this is Matthew Bannon, the brilliant young artist I was telling you about.”

  “Why does every brilliant young artist I meet have to live at the top of a five-story walk-up?” he said, extending a sweaty sausage-fingered hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Newton.”

  “Not Mister. Just Newton. One name. Like Madonna.”

  “You look exhausted, Newton,” I said as we entered the apartment. “Can I get you something?”

  “An oxygen tank would be nice,” he said.

  “We have beer.”

  “Even better,” he said. “Two cans.”

  By the time I brought back the beers, Newton had taken off his size 54 jacket. The blue shirt underneath had sweat rings the size of saddlebags under each arm.

  “Newton is here to look at your work,” Katherine said.

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll give you a tour.”

  “I work alone,” he said. “You stay here with Katherine while I look around.”

  He popped the top on the first beer and, with a can in each hand, casually began moving his way around the apartment.

  “You think he’ll like my stuff?” I asked Katherine.

  “It doesn’t matter if he likes it,” she said. “He buys art for someone else. A hedge-fund guy. He’s got tons of money and no time to shop. Newton shops for him.”

  “If this guy has so much money, why wouldn’t he want a Pablo Picasso or a Willem de Kooning? Why would he want an original Matt Bannon?”

  “He has those guys already. He’s passionate about discovering young talent.”

  It took Newton ten minutes to look at my entire life’s work. He handed me two empty beer cans and I brought him two more.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Thirty.”

  “And you served in the military?”

  “Marines.”

  “He was deployed to the Middle East three times,” Katherine added.

  “I sensed that from the work,” he said.

  “What do you think?”

  “Bluntly,” Newton said, “I think Mr. Bannon has a ways to go, but the raw talent is there.” He turned to me. “I think my client will like your work, and I have no doubt he’d be happy to invest in you.”

  “Invest?” I said.

  “I’d like to buy three paintings,” he said. “If you’re as good as I think you are, not only will my client experience the joy of having them in one of his homes, but years from now an early Matthew Bannon will be worth a lot of money. Win-win.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “Which three early Matthew Bannons would you like to buy?” I said.

  “The four people in the subway station, the old man in the bodega, and the woman at the window,” he said, pointing at each one as he talked. “How much?”

  I had no idea. I looked at Katherine.

  “Give us a minute,” she said to Newton and pulled me to a corner. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. The canvases cost around fifteen bucks each, and the frames were about thirty. Plus the paint. So my investment on each one is about fifty bucks. I’m a total unknown, so if you could get three, four hundred apiece, that would be huge.”

  She winked at me and led me over to Newton.

  “You’re right,” she said. “Matthew is raw, he will get better, and at this stage he’s an excellent investment. You’re smart to get in on the ground floor.”

  “The fifth floor,” Newton said, polishing off his next beer and opening another. “I was so winded climbing those stairs that I wanted to buy the apartment on the third floor and move in. Now stop greasing the skids, Katherine, and tell me how much.”

  “Two thousand apiece.”

  “That’s a tad steep.”

  “Five thousand for the three paintings,” Katherine said. “That’s a thousand for every floor you climbed. And I’d hate to see you go home empty-handed after all that work.”

  Newton guzzled the last beer. “Deal,” he said. “I’ll send my crew to pick them up tomorrow.”

  He shook my hand and left.

  I wrapped my arms around Katherine. I could see Karns sitting on the sofa, glaring at the two of us. Bannon’s hugging the teacher. What’s up with that?

  “Did you just sell my paintings for five thousand dollars?” I asked.

  “Just three of them. You still have plenty left.”

  I loved this woman so much. I kissed her hard.

  Everything in life seemed to be going my way. All I could think was, This can’t possibly last, can it?

  Chapter 20

  IT WAS THREE thirty in the morning, and Katherine and I were wrapped in one of those oversize blankets with sleeves. It sounds stupid, but when you’re on the roof of your building and you’ve just made love under the stars, nothing is stupid.

  “I was wrong,” I said.

  She snuggled up closer to me, and I could feel the heat of her body against mine. “About what?”

  “When I woke up this morning with you in my arms,” I said, “I thought I could never be any happier than I was at that moment. But it’s less than twenty-four hours later, and I’m even crazier in love than I was then.”

  “It probably didn’t hurt that I sold three of your paintings,” she said.

  “You think I love you for your marketing prowess?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You’re always going on about how you love me, but I don’t recall that you’ve ever mentioned why. Why?”

  “Because you’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re funny, and you’re giving me an A in Group Critique.”

  “Says who? Where’d you hear that one?” She wa
s grinning.

  “You mean you’re not giving me an A?”

  “You deserved an A on your term paper, but I don’t post the final grades for another two days,” she said and looked a little pouty. “You’ll have to wait like everyone else. I don’t play favorites. Much.”

  I kissed her. “Thank you for selling my paintings,” I said. “I can’t believe you got five grand. I’d have sold them for a lot less.”

  “I knew that,” she said. “And so did Newton.”

  “He did? Why didn’t he negotiate?”

  She smiled. “It’s all part of the game.”

  “Since when is art a game?”

  “Not art. Commerce. The price of a painting shapes what people think of it. And no matter how sophisticated Newton’s boss is, he’s not going to be happy hanging something on his wall that costs the same as an Elvis on velvet.”

  “You’re telling me Newton paid top dollar so he could look good to his boss?”

  “No,” she said. “So you could look good.”

  I shook my head. “I guess I’ve got a lot to learn about the art business.”

  “You’re in luck,” she said, kissing me. “I’m an art teacher.”

  We lay there wrapped in each other’s arms, gazing up at the stars. I never thought I could feel this good about a woman. Katherine Sanborne had changed my life, and with my medical bag full of diamonds, I was on the verge of changing hers.

  “You think all that money will screw us up?” she said.

  Shit! She knew about the money. I didn’t know how she knew, but she did. It was a punch to the gut. Deny, deny, deny.

  “What money?” I said lamely.

  “You just made your first sale for five thousand,” she said. “It’s a pretty impressive way to start your career.”

  Oh, that money.

  I exhaled slowly. “No,” I said, “it won’t screw us up. Besides, it’s only one sale. It could be a fluke.”

  “No. You’re going to resonate with people,” she said. “You’re honest and it comes through in your work. It’s the essence of Realism.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  But she was wrong. I wasn’t honest. And I had a bag of somebody else’s diamonds in my footlocker to prove it.

  Chapter 21

  GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL is a majestic beaux arts building sitting on forty-eight acres smack in the middle of Manhattan. It’s been called the heart of the nation’s greatest city, and yet not one of New York City’s thirty-five thousand cops has jurisdiction in the terminal.

  In a world where bureaucracy trumps geography, Grand Central has been designated the responsibility of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police, and MTA cops work for New York State.

  “You realize we got no juice here in Grand Central,” Rice said as he parked the car in front of a hydrant on 43rd Street.

  “I make my own juice,” Benzetti said. “Especially when a bunch of crazy Russians are up our asses. If we don’t find the diamonds, they’ll just decide that we took them, and they’ll ice us the same way they put away Zelvas.”

  They entered through the Vanderbilt Avenue doors and stood on the West Balcony under a trio of sixty-foot-high arch windows.

  “It looks like everything’s back to normal,” Rice said, looking out over the marble balcony at the vast concourse below.

  “Except for the beefed-up security,” Benzetti said.

  “I know. I counted five Staties when we came through the door,” Rice said. “Normally, there’s one.”

  Benzetti grinned. “Nervous times.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Central Security Office. Lower level.” Benzetti checked his watch. “I got a friend working this shift.”

  The two cops walked down the sweeping marble staircase, crossed the concourse, passed the circular marble-and-brass information pagoda with its famous four-sided clock, and went down another flight of stairs to the dining concourse.

  They made their way through the food court, where Brother Jimmy’s, Zaro’s, Junior’s, and more than a dozen other celebrated New York food institutions had taken up residence underground, then down a ramp till they got to a door that said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  Benzetti rang a bell and flashed his badge at a camera, and the two of them were buzzed in.

  “NYPD,” he said to the sullen-faced MTA cop at the front desk. “I’m looking for Sergeant Black.”

  The cop eyeballed the shield, nodded, checked a directory, and dialed a four-digit number.

  “Be right out,” the cop mumbled.

  Five minutes later, a tall, attractive African-American woman with three stripes on the sleeves of her uniform came out and threw her arms around Benzetti.

  “I know this ain’t no social call,” she said, stepping back from the hug.

  “Baby, you know me. I don’t need backup for social calls,” Benzetti said. “This is my partner, John Rice. John, this is Kylie Black.”

  They shook hands and Kylie escorted the two men inside. The grandeur and the classic beauty that made the building an architectural landmark was nowhere to be found in the command center. Whatever charm the space may have had when it was built more than a century ago had been painted or plastered over. What remained was an uninspired sterile cavern with fluorescent lighting, banks of monitors, and rows of people at desks and consoles doing their damnedest to keep an eye on every one of the six hundred thousand people who passed through the terminal every day.

  “What can the MTA do for New York’s finest,” Kylie said, letting her tongue gently glide across her upper lip, “that we haven’t done already?”

  “I hate to bother you,” Benzetti said, “but we need to look at some of America’s Funniest Home Videos from Tuesday night.”

  “The bombing?” Black said. “We’ve already run the tapes for the NYPD, FBI, Immigration, Homeland Security — you name it. We’ve had everyone looking at that bomb blast except for the fat lady who runs the food stamps program.”

  “We’re not here about the bombing,” Benzetti said. “Some reporter from the Post was mugged Tuesday night by some homeless prick who’s taking up residence in your lovely train station.”

  “Mugged?” Kylie said. “First I heard about it. Usually our wretched refuse are pretty well behaved. They come here to sleep and use the toilets. The bus terminal is where you get most of your muggings. Grand Central is the home of the harmless homeless.”

  “Well, one of your bums ripped off this Post reporter’s brand-new leather jacket. His wife is a friend of the mayor’s wife, and you can guess the rest.”

  Black shook her head. “NYPD assigns two detectives from Robbery to get a bead on this dude’s precious jacket before City Hall shits a brick.”

  Benzetti shrugged. “Hey, I got two years till I make my twenty. Somebody asks me to do something, I shut up and do whatever makes them happy.”

  Black smiled broadly. “I’ll remember that, Detective Benzetti, next time I can think of something that will make me happy. Come on, I’ll set you guys up in a room with the tapes. Knock yourselves out.”

  Chapter 22

  THE TECH WAS gaunt and pasty. His name was R. J. or J. R. Rice and Benzetti didn’t pay attention, didn’t care. All they wanted was for him to leave.

  “You guys know how to navigate this puppy?” the tech asked.

  They were sitting in a cramped screening room with a computer, a thirty-inch monitor, and not much else.

  “I’ve got a sixteen-camera surveillance unit at home,” Rice said.

  “LOL,” the tech said, actually laughing out loud. “Well, this will be like going from a Buick Skylark to a Bugatti Veyron.”

  “They both got four wheels and an engine,” Benzetti said.

  “LOL,” the tech repeated, not laughing this time. “But don’t worry, it’s idiot-proof.” He held up both hands. “Not that I’m saying you guys are idiots.”

  “LOL,” Benzetti said. “Just show us how to work the goddamn
Bugatti computer and get out of here.”

  Ten minutes later the tech left the room, and Rice pulled up the cameras on the main concourse.

  “The bomb went off a little after eleven Tuesday night,” Benzetti said. “Start the search an hour before.”

  The images were high-def, and finding Walter Zelvas in the late-night comings and goings of thousands of travelers took less than twenty minutes.

  “Freeze it,” Benzetti said. “There he is, buying coffee at Starbucks.”

  They tracked him as he walked into the waiting area, then fast-forwarded as he sat down, got up, checked the monitor, then repeated the process, getting more frustrated each time.

  “His train is late,” Rice said as they watched Zelvas go back to Starbucks.

  As the time code approached 11 p.m., Zelvas finished the second cup, crumpled it up, threw it in the trash, crossed the concourse, stopped to have a few words with a porter, and then entered the men’s room. Rice froze it again.

  “There’s the guy the cops described. Beard. Poncho. That’s the Talibum — the guy with the bomb. He’s following Zelvas into the john.”

  “That’s no bum,” Benzetti said. “That’s the guy Chukov hired to waste Zelvas. Pick them up on the bathroom camera.”

  “There are no bathroom cameras,” Rice said. “Some crap about civil liberties.”

  They watched the video at normal speed. Eighty-eight seconds later, Zelvas stumbled out of the men’s room, bleeding from the neck and firing his gun backward. Then he disappeared out of the frame.

  Seconds later, the man in the poncho stood in the men’s-room doorway. He pointed a gun in the direction Zelvas had headed, but first he had to deal with the MTA police.

  “This is like watching the Keystone Kops,” Rice said as the bearded man handily dispatched a cop with a bucket of soapy water.

  The bum grabbed two grenades from under his poncho and pulled the pins, and the screen was engulfed in smoke.

  “That bastard is slick,” Benzetti said. “See if you can pick him up on another camera.”