message for him to come home. The second I had hired Barto, our carefully thought out charade was over. I wished I hadn’t found out the hard way.
If, in my exhaustion, I had begun having second thoughts about the chain of violence, they vanished the moment I scanned the headlines at a newspaper stand outside the arrival gate.
Anthony Murano, the brother of one of Ivan Alfonseca’s victims, had several weeks ago gotten himself purposely arrested. Yesterday, while both men were preparing to be bused to court, Murano attacked Alfonseca. Witnesses said it was all over in a flash, that Murano, a recently discharged army ranger, snapped Ivan’s neck like a twig. No one was shedding any tears. Lawyers from as far away as California were tripping over themselves volunteering to defend Murano. Did I think this was part of the master plan? No, not this. This was revenge, pure and simple. If anything about revenge can be pure and simple. Whatever it was, pure or not, it had made my task nearly impossible.
I took a cab to a hotel across the Grand Central Parkway. Inside my room, I called my brother. There are times when only family will do, and this was one of them.
Chapter Twenty
Aaron had done as I asked, made the phone calls, delivered the messages. He was an awfully efficient messenger. Everyone I had asked to call had called. Everyone I had asked to see had come. But I did not fool myself that it was all Aaron’s considerable salesmanship which had produced these remarkable results. It was as if the sense of inevitability which now dominated my waking hours had seeped into the lives of all the people connected to this case, from the perpetrators of the crimes to their accomplices to the people on the periphery. This case, which, in the end, was not about kidnapping or rape or even murder, but about a bicycle and a silly gang of wealthy boys who called themselves the James Deans. I clipped my old.38 to my belt, clicked off the room light, and checked the door handle behind me. Today, I had determined, the chain was to be broken. The violence that began twenty-six years and eleven months ago was going to come to an end.
You had to admire Steven Brightman. He was out and ready for jogging early, the sun barely hinting at its arrival. Far enough away that he wouldn’t notice me, but close enough to see his face, I watched him stretch for five minutes on the steps of his brownstone. Although he could not have anticipated what was about to happen, he had to have some idea that the things he had so skillfully manipulated for so many years were about to spin wildly out of control. Yet his calm expression never changed. If he was frightened or worried, he didn’t show it. I could not make the same boast.
When he started down the block toward me, I was almost tempted to stay hidden and let him pass. I couldn’t. Like with Barto, I would probably get only one chance. In spite of his cool, collected demeanor, he wouldn’t be expecting this, not here, not now. I needed him off balance, but also feeling he had the upper hand. He struck me as the type of man who would always feel he had the upper hand. As he ran past, I stepped out from behind some brownstone steps.
He startled. “For chrissakes, what the fuck-Prager?”
“We need to talk.”
“You look like shit. Go home. Shave and shower, then call me later. We can talk about anything you want then.”
“Now!” I whispered angrily, letting him see the barrel of my gun pointing at his belly.
“Okay. What’s this about?”
“I just got back from Florida.”
“How nice for you.” He sneered. “You don’t look like you got much of a tan.”
“Barto tried to kill me.”
“Who?”
“Look, Brightman, we can do this a few ways.”
“And they would be …?”
“One is I hand you my pistol, let you pat me down to see I’m not wearing a wire, and we have a talk out here in the nice empty street about compensation.”
“I’m listening.”
“The other is I stick this gun in your ribs and take you for a ride.”
“You won’t kill me.”
“You’re right, I won’t, but John Heaton’ll be happy to. You ever meet his friends Rocky and Preacher Simmons? They won’t need much encouragement, Brightman, and I bet you I can be awfully fucking convincing.”
That put a chink in his armor. Though he was still smiling at me with his mouth, his eyes had withdrawn from the performance. They were too busy sizing me up.
“Tick … tick … tick …” I waved the.38 from side to side. “Clock’s running.”
“What is it you think you know?”
Good. Good. He’d given me an opening. I held my revolver out to him, flat in my palm, my finger nowhere near the trigger.
“It’s one or the other, Brightman, no free samples. It’s a limited menu. We talk or you die; those are your choices.”
He swiped the.38 out of my hand and stuffed it in the waistband of his shorts. Without him asking, I removed my shirt and spun around slowly. I put the shirt back on. I spread my legs and let him run his hands and up and down both legs, inside my socks.
“Check under my balls,” I instructed.
He laughed, but did it anyway. I moved to the car parked closest to us, sat on the fender, and removed my shoes and socks.
“Okay?” I asked.
“Not yet.” He looked down the block in either direction, stepped into the street to see if he could spot anyone lurking about. The early Sunday sky was a bit brighter now, and the new light afforded him a pretty good view. Satisfied that we were alone, he said: “Talk.”
“I want you to know that I think you’re a piece of shit and if I was able to prove anything I was about to say, we wouldn’t be having this little chitchat. I’d throw the proof up in the air between the DA and John Heaton and let them fight for it like a jump ball. Fortunately for you, all I got is a bag full of circumstance and supposition.”
“Why not open the bag and let me have a look?” he said, his eyes still locked on my face. “Then maybe we can determine the value of your assets.”
“Let’s start with the James Deans.”
“The James Deans … You’re very good, Prager. What a bunch of jerks we were. You know, one other person’s mentioned them to me in twenty-seven years.”
“Yes, I know. Kyle Lawrence, the boy who helped you murder Carl Stipe. He’s one of the missing pieces. Something happened around the time of his death that caught Moira’s attention. That’s why you had to kill her. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”
There was no denial. Brightman said nothing. He didn’t have to. The cocky smile he’d been showing me for the last several minutes slid off his face. He noticed me notice.
“As you were saying …”
“Okay, so to get into the James Deans you had to take a scalp, steal something, right? You had balls, so you took the Hallworth Harrier. Mike stole a box of sanitary napkins from Wiggman’s. Pete grabbed Mr. Hart’s glasses. Jeff was a pussy and stole his father’s watch. That leaves Kyle. What did Kyle steal? Mike Day told me that no one but you knew and you vouched for him. What did he steal, Senator?”
“It’s impolite to ask questions you think you know the answers to, Mr. Prager. Didn’t your mama ever teach
