At its most basic, our plan was to rattle cages-four of them, one at a time-and wait to see what happened. For it to work, I had to be right about two things: that our mole was an amateur, an otherwise straight citizen, except for this foray into serial blackmail; and that he or she was already spooked, maybe on the verge of running scared. The actual mechanics were simple. I would call one of our suspects. My speech would be short and threatening. Without identifying myself, and using a voice scrambler, I would tell him or her to be at the southeast corner of Broad and Pearl Streets in ten minutes’ time. Otherwise, Nick Welch’s suicide case would be reopened as a murder investigation. And then we would watch and wait. An innocent person might have any number of reactions to that kind of calclass="underline" incomprehension, confusion, disbelief, anxiety. Our mole, on the other hand, inexperienced and already skittish, would-we hoped-do one of two things: show up at Broad and Pearl, or run. If that happened, we’d be watching and following. Then Neary and I would confront the guy and shake-hard.
It was simple, but not without risk. The biggest one, of course, was that I’d gotten it all wrong. Maybe our mole was no amateur, maybe Trautmann had trained him well, or maybe he had ice water in his veins. Maybe he’d take my call, and do absolutely nothing. If that was the case, our only alternative would be to mount close surveillance on Trautmann and all four of our suspects. That would be expensive and time consuming, and it would mean Pierro was shit-out-of-luck, for now at least.
There were other risks, and we’d tried to plan around them. But there’d be things we hadn’t thought of. That was one of the truisms of this kind of work: nothing went according to plan. People did the unexpected, equipment broke, all luck was bad. Shit happens.
It was slow going downtown, but Sikes drove well. He knew the streets and was unruffled by the traffic. He and Pritchard made some desultory small talk about the Knicks, but mostly it was quiet in the van, with a faint undercurrent of tension. It wasn’t obvious, or even unpleasant, just a low-level hum, like the cycling of a heating system. The sound of each of us getting his head in the game.
At three o’clock, a maroon Chrysler pulled out of a spot just off the southwest corner of Water and Broad, and our van pulled in. We had a view of the MWB offices, to the south, and the intersection of Broad and Pearl, to the north. An attractive woman with dark eyes and olive skin and lots of curly hair was behind the wheel of the Chrysler. There was a fine-featured Hispanic man in the passenger seat. Neary spoke to them.
“Thanks for keeping it warm. What’s happening?” he asked.
“Nothing,” the woman said. “Pressman and Sanchez were on the horn ten minutes ago. Said they were all at their desks.”
“Okay. You and Victor head up Broad. Let me know your location,” Neary said. The woman nodded, and they drove off.
“Let’s do a radio check,” Neary said to Sikes. Sikes reached into a compartment on the side of the driver’s seat and took out a big radio in a black leather holster. He flicked a switch and static bloomed, then dwindled to a hiss.
“Unit One to all units, radio check,” he said.
“Unit Two to Unit One, this is Pressman, on the third. I hear you, Eddie,” said a voice.
“Three to One, Sanchez here, Sikes. I’m on four. You sound good,” said another.
“Unit Four to Unit One. DiLillo here.” It was the woman in the Chrysler. “Got a space on the west side of Broad, just south of Stone. Good view. Hear you fine. Victor’s out walking.”
“Unit Five to One. This is Victor, Eddie. It’s freaking cold out,” another voice said. Sikes looked at Neary, who nodded.
“Juan has your toy,” Neary said to me. Pritchard pulled a black, plastic case from under his seat, opened it, and took out a black plastic box a little larger than a beeper. The voice scrambler. He handed it to me.
“Checked it out this morning. It works fine. Give it a try,” he said. I spoke into it.
“Testing, testing, one, two, three. In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight,” I said. I sounded like a robot castrato. I flicked it off.
“I’ll be outside the building,” Pritchard said. He fixed a tiny earpiece in his left ear and went out the back door. A minute later he was on the radio, asking for a check. Sikes acknowledged him.
Neary reached back and handed me a sheet of paper. “Here’s your cheat sheet,” he said. On the page were the names, office numbers, and home addresses of each of our suspects, along with physical descriptions of each of them, and grainy headshots that looked like they were copied off ID photos. It also listed the cell numbers of everyone on our little team.
“Who first?” I asked. I thought I knew the answer. Neary’s management wanted more than anything to know about the two Brill people on the list, and Neary wanted to know about Cheryl Compton.
“Compton,” Neary said. Sikes picked up the radio.
“Unit One to Unit Two. Give me a location on Compton, Lenny,” Sikes said. A couple of moments later a voice came back.
“Two to One. Give me a minute, Eddie,” the voice said. There was silence for a while. “Two to One. She’s not at her desk. She’s… in the hallway. She’s turning.” There was another pause. “She’s in the can, Eddie. Been in and out of there all day. Could be she’s got her period, or the runs or something.” Sikes rolled his eyes. Neary took the radio.
“One to Two. This is Neary. Spare me the health report, Len. Where’s Vetter?”
“Two to One. Just passed him in his office, boss, working at his desk,” Pressman answered. Neary looked at Sikes and me.
“Vetter first, then.” He spoke into the radio. “Unit One to all units, we’re live now with Mitch Vetter. Acknowledge.” One by one Neary’s people called in their acknowledgments. Neary handed me a cell phone. “Caller ID’s blocked. It’s all yours,” he said. I punched in Vetter’s number and switched on the voice scrambler.
“Mitchell Vetter speaking.” I remembered the high-pitched voice and the New York accent.
“Listen to me. Unless you want to see the Nick Welch case reopened as a murder investigation, be at the corner of Broad Street and Pearl in ten minutes. Ten minutes, Vetter, or you’ll be answering a lot of questions about Nick Welch.” There was a long silence at the other end of the line. And then there was laughter.
“Sid? Fucking Sid, is that you?” Vetter was laughing hard. “Jesus, you are a sick puppy. The voice thing is a cute touch, though. But who the hell is Nick Whosis? Sid? Sid?” I hung up. Neary looked at me. I shook my head.
“He thought it was funny,” I said. “Unless he is very slick, he didn’t know who Nick Welch was. He thought I was somebody named Sid.”
“Unit One to Unit Two. What’s up, Lenny?” Neary said into the radio. Lenny’s whispered voice came back quickly.
“Two here. He’s at his desk, laughing and making a phone call. Now he’s talking, still laughing. He’s stopped laughing now, looks confused. Still talking, shaking his head. Now he’s off the phone.” Pressman paused for a moment. “He’s just looking at the wall now, shaking his head. Now he’s typing at his keyboard again.”
“What do you think?” Neary asked me.
“I think he’s not our guy, but give him a few minutes,” I said. Neary nodded and called Pressman on the radio.
“One to Two. Lenny, stay close to Vetter for another fifteen.” Pressman acknowledged. Neary handed the radio back to Sikes, who updated the other units. Then we waited. After about a day, fifteen minutes passed, during which time the most exciting thing Mr. Vetter did was to buy a soda. We agreed to move on. Neary looked at Sikes.