underestimated the press reaction. You see, you knew Moira. To you she was some boring, plain-Jane, forgettable drip who no one would be interested in. To the press, the disappearance of a young woman under mysterious circumstances is like blood in the water to sharks. It doesn’t matter to them if the woman looks like Quasimodo and has the personality of a brick. They turn her into the Black Dahlia and sell papers. So you’d gotten away with two homicides, but your political career was fucked.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “fucked is the word.”
“But things began breaking your way. Spivack and Associates was floundering, and Joe, who probably assumed you were innocent in Moira’s disappearance, came to you with an idea of how to save his company and your career at the same time. You prop up Spivack and Associates and he’d find you some shithead to take the fall for Moira. He probably convinced himself he wasn’t doing anything wrong, really. After all, you hadn’t done it and you wouldn’t be free to run for higher office until the crime was solved. For his part, he’d be saving his company and a lot of people’s jobs. You didn’t have to be asked twice and gave him the money. But he got cold feet. I don’t know why. Maybe he started taking a good look at you for the crime and arrived at the same conclusion as me. In any case, you refused to take the money back. He may not even have offered. He knew he’d already been compromised.”
Brightman looked impatiently at his Swatch. “Now the clock’s running on you, Mr. Prager.”
“I’m almost finished.”
“Thank God!”
“I’d watch that if I were you. You’re already into Him pretty deep.”
“Look-”
“Did Barto come to you or was it the other way around? Doesn’t matter. Barto sees that Ivan Alfonseca’s been arrested for all these rapes in the boroughs. He remembers Alfonseca from when he worked as a marshal in South Florida. He waits for Alfonseca to get convicted on enough counts so he’d have nothing to lose by confessing to Moira’s murder. Barto arranges to have the family back in Cuba paid off. During trips to Rikers, his lawyers bring him the office sign-in sheets to fill out. He is given a story to remember about how he killed Moira and where he planted the jewelry. Now all you need is a patsy to think he’s discovering all this on his own. That’s where I come in. The timing was just too perfect. After two years, you just had to have me now. Why? I kept asking myself. Why?”
“It certainly wasn’t your charm,” Brightman said. “I shall have to have a talking-to with the man who recommended you. He assured me you’d be adequately incompetent.”
“Really, and who was that?”
“Let’s get on with this, Prager.”
“I’m curious about how you handled Spivack. My instinct is you and Barto kept him in the dark. Although he’d already been compromised, there was no need to involve him until he couldn’t do anything about it. On the other hand, he might have been a part of it as long as he thought you were innocent. Or you might’ve had more on him than I’m aware of. I guess I’ll never know.”
“The man did kill himself. I don’t think he did that because he was depressed over his wardrobe.”
“You did almost everything right, even lying about having slept with Moira. That was brilliant. It took my attention away from any other reason you might have to do away with her. Once I was convinced it wasn’t about an affair, I stopped thinking of you as a suspect. And you deserve a lot of credit for having the foresight to keep some of Moira’s jewelry. That’s what sold everyone on Alfonseca. Almost everything broke your way. Spivack killed himself. Alfonseca’s dead. I don’t know where Barto is. The thing is, if you’d only hired some other poor schmuck besides me, you’d have gotten away with it.”
“Oh, but I have, Moe. Like you said, your brilliant oratory is just so much smoke. It’s completely valueless. None of it would stand up in court, and if your pal Wit ever tries to print a word of this, he knows I’d sue and win.”
“I don’t suppose I could appeal to your humanity and ask you to come with me and turn yourself in?”
“Humanity! Are you nuts? I’m a politician.”
“Then just tell me where Moira’s body really is and the bicycle, too. These families have suffered enough.” I raised my right hand. “I give you my word, I won’t mention you at all.”
“Sorry. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Okay, how’s about you take my revolver and blow the back of your head off.”
“Once again, I must disappoint you,” he said as calmly as if I’d asked him to pick up some flour for me at the store.
“How about I go to your brownstone and tell your wife what you’ve done?”
“Be my guest. Unfortunately she’s away with friends, but I’ll have her call you when she gets back. She wouldn’t believe a word of this.”
I ripped my.38 out of his waistband and pressed the barrel to his head. “How about I blow your brains all over the street?”
He didn’t look scared until I pulled back the hammer.
“All right, Prager, what is it you want?”
“Nothing,” I said. “You’ve already given me what I wanted.”
“What?”
I pulled the trigger. Click. The front of Brightman’s running shorts got dark with moisture and a stream of urine ran down his bare leg.
“You fuck. It was empty.”
“Old cop rule: Never give a murderer a loaded weapon.”
He twisted up his face into a mass of red distortion. “You’re not getting a fucking penny from me now, you asshole.”
“How’s it feel, thinking you’re gonna die? I bet you Moira and Carl didn’t piss themselves.”
“Carl shit himself, the little screaming bastard. What a fucking baby. All he cared about was what his father would say if he didn’t fight for that stupid fucking bicycle.”
“He was a little boy, for chrissakes!”
“Not a penny, you hear me?”
“Like I said, you’ve already given me what I want.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
I didn’t answer, but walked up the brownstone steps and rapped on the front door. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
It took a few seconds, but the door swung back. Brightman’s wife, Katerina, was first out. Her eyes were rimmed in red, silent tears staining her perfect face. Her presence wasn’t strictly necessary, but I had wanted so much to punish Brightman. His career would be over. Geary would see to that. Somehow, that wasn’t enough. I wanted him to hurt, to suffer, to lose someone he loved the way the Stipes and Heatons had.
Thomas Geary was next through the door, his rugged good looks intact. He shed no tears over Brightman. There were always other horses, other races to run. If not exactly responsible for Moira’s death, he was not guiltless, either. His money had helped finance Moira’s execution. Though no pauper, Brightman could never have afforded to pay off Spivack, Barto, Alfonseca, Morenos, and the like without raising an eyebrow. Geary didn’t ask where the money was going, because he didn’t want to know. He had admitted as much to me in my noisy hotel room across the way from La Guardia.
“Looking back,” he confessed, “there were a thousand questions I should have asked. It was the same about hiring you. Though we both trusted the man who recommended you, I was quite skeptical. You had no track record to speak of, and frankly, Constance thought you were a bit of a pushover as a boss. Your brother sounded more qualified. Now, in all honesty, I wish I had hired him.”
“That makes two of us.”
Brightman’s face, red with fury, went starkly white and blank. He was naked before the world for the first time since his birth. He stared at the open windows on the first floor of the brownstone, realizing Katerina and Geary had heard every word. Still, none of it would holdup in a court of law. But there are other courts in which to try a man, and places in the cosmos where the statute of limitations never ever applies.
