earliest. We know you're the executor of Mr. Berger's estate, and we're here to ask you to freeze action on all accounts before anyone else is killed.'
'Hmm. That's a tall order,' the lawyer said, leaning slowly back in his chair. 'You're assuming a lot. I'm not even sure I should admit that my client had a relationship with Mr. Apt.'
'Crazy assumption, I know,' I said, 'considering your client admitted to it and to his guilt in his signed confession before he killed himself.'
Duques took off his glasses and chewed on an endpiece.
'A signed confession that I'm going to fight to have expunged,' he said.
'We're not here to bicker, Mr. Duques,' Emily said.
She placed a sheet of paper on the lawyer's desk. It was a printout of Apt and the hooker at the Carlyle from the security tape.
'This morning, we found this woman dead at the Carlyle Hotel,' Emily said, tapping the paper. 'Apt paid two thousand dollars in cash for the room that he killed her in. We know Apt isn't independently wealthy. Berger took him in off the street.'
'Allegedly,' Duques said, raising an eyebrow.
'Right,' I said, going into our folder and showing him a crime scene close-up of Wendy Shackleton's beat-in face. 'And see, this is where Apt allegedly bashed in this young lady's alleged face with an alleged chair leg.'
That's when I stood.
'I told you we're wasting our time,' I said to Emily. 'I told you we should have gotten the warrant first.'
Duques stood himself as we were leaving.
'Wait, I'm sorry,' he said, rubbing his eyes. 'Of course, I'll help. We actually have a team working on the audit right now. I'll tell them to put blocks on all transactions. Also, if I find any discrepancies, I will let you know first thing. Though in all honesty, it might take a little while. Mr. Berger's estate is in excess of eight hundred million dollars.'
'What's your cut?' I said, still in pissed-off bad-cop mode.
'Thank you, Mr. Duques,' Emily said, getting me out of there. 'I knew you'd do the right thing.'
Chapter 91
Despite the charming Mr. Duques's assertions to do everything humanly possible, for the rest of the day, we put full-court pressure on the city DA's Office to speed things up on a warrant. Emily even placed a call to the FBI's New York Office White Collar Squad for any guidance they could give in cutting off Apt's money supply.
By 7:30, we hadn't heard back from anyone, but at least it seemed we were barking up the right money tree now. Also, no one else had been ritualistically killed-at least that we knew of. I love progress.
I was going to give Emily a ride back to her hotel, but she begged off, saying she needed to get some shopping done for her daughter.
'Get some sleep, partner,' she said as we departed in the parking lot. 'You're going to need it.'
I turned down the police radio as I began my drive home and slid in a Gov't Mule CD that I kept in the glove box. A machine-gun roll of skull-whomping drums started up, followed by a soul-piercing electric guitar. The hard- wailing Southern rock turned out to be just what I needed to reduce my about-to-pop blood pressure. I turned it up as high as it would go as I punched my Impala toward the FDR.
My stress felt purged as I pulled into my beach bungalow's driveway an hour later.
'Finally. There you are. I was getting worried,' Mary Catherine said as I crossed the porch and opened the front door.
'What's up?' I said.
'Did your phone battery die or something? The phone's been ringing off the hook. Your FBI agent friend said something urgent just came up and to call her right away.'
I quickly checked my phone. Emily had left three messages. I must have missed it over my head- banging.
I called her back.
'Emily?'
'You need to come back to the city right away, Mike. Karen from the CIA just called me again with new info that she said might lead us straight to Apt. She's coming to my hotel room. You need to get here as soon as you can.'
'On my way,' I said before hanging up.
'I take it you're not staying for dinner,' Mary said.
I nodded and then glanced beyond the kitchen doorway at all the kids seated at the dining room table. Beside a cauldron-size metal pot, Juliana was passing out plates of pasta. That's when I inhaled the scent of garlic and olive oil.
Sweet glory of angels!
Mary had made a massive batch of her world-famous meatballs and sauce.
I glanced at my phone.
Too bad I was going to have mine for tomorrow's breakfast.
Chapter 92
Starving and biting mad, I listened to some more Gov't Mule as I hammered back toward Manhattan's big-city bright lights. It was nine thirty on the button when I rapped on Emily's hotel room door.
She surprised me when she answered it. She was in a bathrobe.
'Hey, Mike,' Agent Parker said, hurrying toward the suite's bedroom after she let me in. 'Karen isn't here yet. Why don't you have a seat and a drink while I get changed?'
'Twist my arm,' I said, spotting a six of Brooklyn Lager on a table by the terrace door.
I rolled open the sliders to her room's small terrace and drank by the rail. The first beer was good. The second even better. Down on the street in front of the hotel, taxis were lined up back to Central Park West. One after the other, they pulled into the hotel's driveway, and well-dressed, smiling folks got into them on their way to a night on the town. With my drink, the sultry night air, and the romantic city lights, I felt like I was having one, too. Almost, at least.
I decided to raise my drink to them and the city at large. I was proud of them. They weren't going to let Apt ruin their night. That's what the Carl Apts of the world didn't understand, I thought as I took an icy sip. New York was just like the human race. Sure you could scare it, slow it down, maybe even halt it for a little while. But it kept right the hell on going. No matter what. That was the best thing about New York City.
'Mike, where are you?' Emily called behind me.
'Out here,' I said, turning.
I froze in midspin by the terrace sliders. Inside the doorway, Emily wasn't wearing her usual Fed business getup. She was wearing a midnight blue dress. A short dress that hugged her hips and showed a lot of cleavage. As I failed to close my gaping mouth, she fingered the string of pearls around her neck.
I was still stumped for a verbal reaction when there was a knock on the door.
'Is that Karen?' I finally said.
'I don't know. Go see,' Emily said.
It wasn't Karen. It was two white-jacketed room service guys with two white-linen-covered rolling tables. On one table were two silver trays, on the other two silver buckets. They wheeled them both out onto the terrace and
