“Okay, easy,” he said, coming up on them, pulling the cuffs from his waist. He grabbed Shane’s other arm and cuffed him. He pulled Jez to her feet and kept a heavy foot on Shane’s back. He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and called Dispatch for backup. They were so closing that shithole down for a few hours.
He saw that Jez’s eye was red and the skin split and bleeding at the cheekbone. There was going to be a huge shiner; he could tell by the way the skin was already bluing beneath the red.
“He hit me,” she said, incredulous. “He got a hit in on me. That out-of-shape old man.”
“Okay, Kung Fu Mama. Breathe. Relax.”
“I don’t believe it. I turned the corner and he was waiting for me. I ran right into his fist.”
“But who’s on the ground now in a puddle of piss? You win.”
She nodded, walked a breathless circle, hands on hips.
“I want a fucking lawyer!” screamed Shane as Grady recited his rights. “Unnecessary force!”
“Shut up, Shane,” said Grady calmly, pushing hard with his shoe on Shane’s back. “Really. Please shut up.”
The wail of sirens was sudden and loud, seeming to come from nowhere, drowning out the sound of Shane screaming about injustice and the violation of his various rights.
BY THE TIME they let him stew in it, wet and covered in the black filth from the alley floor, he was less passionate. They seated him in an interrogation room, cuffed to the table for the better part of two hours, promising him a public defender. Meanwhile, they tended to Jez’s injury, dealt with paperwork, went over and corroborated the information sent to them by Isabel Raine, checked Charlie Shane’s criminal history, came up with some theories of their own. By the time they reentered the room where they’d left him, Shane seemed thoroughly broken; whatever alcohol might have been in his system had worn off. He was just a sad old man in a lot of trouble.
“Where’s my lawyer?” he asked when they entered, without lifting his eyes from his hands folded in front of him.
“On his way,” Grady lied. “If that’s the way you want to go. I’ll tell you what, though. In spite of the list of charges-obstruction of justice, fleeing custody, assaulting an officer-we’re just not that interested in you. You’re more or less worthless to us.”
Shane didn’t look up and didn’t respond, but Grady could tell he was listening.
“We’re interested in the man you knew as Marcus Raine.”
Grady thought he saw Shane jump a little at the sound of the name but he couldn’t be sure.
“Did you know there are security cameras in the lobby of your building?” Jez lied. “We know you let people in to trash the Raines’ apartment. You tell us who those people are? And you’ll have your face back in underage tits before the sun comes up.”
Without his crisp uniform and smart cap, with a five o’clock shadow, reeking of booze and cigarettes, Shane seemed to have aged fifteen years since they saw him at the Raines’ building. Grady saw that his hands were covered in angry patches of raw, red skin, that his scalp was peeling, his nose red from regular boozing. His knee was pumping like a jackhammer; he was scared. Good news for them. Grady cobbled together a little story from the information they got from Isabel Raine. Some of it was true, some of it made up, like all good fiction. He’d see where it got them.
“At this point we know quite a bit. We know that Marcus Raine was really a man named Kristof Ragan. We now believe this man killed the real Marcus Raine, stealing his money and his identity. We know about Kristof’s brother, Ivan Ragan, a man with a criminal history, involved with the Albanian and Russian Mob. We suspect Ivan helped his brother in the commission of the crime. According to our research, Ivan Ragan was arrested on unrelated charges, about a week after Marcus Raine disappeared. He was recently released, serving a sentence for gun possession.
“Corresponding with his release, someone caught on that the man everyone knew as Marcus Raine was not who he said he was. So Kristof Ragan started pulling in his lines-cleaning out bank accounts, arranging for equipment to be stolen, then collecting the insurance check, taking money from his brother-in-law. Then he walked out of the life he’d made. A cleanup crew came in, trashed his office and his home, killing witnesses-four people dead so far. They destroyed or removed every possible piece of evidence. With your help.”
Charlie kept his head down, still no eye contact. But Grady watched as a bead of sweat dripped from the old man’s head and fell to the table between them. They’d managed to find some photographs-an Interpol photograph of Ivan Ragan and a picture of the woman Isabel Raine only knew as S from the Services Unlimited Web site.
Jez handed the shots to Grady and he laid them out on the table in front of Charlie Shane. Still he didn’t glance up, didn’t say a word.
“So either you were just a bit player who took a big tip to let in the cleanup crew, in which case you’ll take the line we’re offering here and tell us what you know. Or you know so much that you’re more afraid of them than you are of us, in which case we’re at an impasse and I’ll have to charge you with conspiracy.”
Charlie Shane looked up quickly. Grady suppressed a smile; he didn’t know how much of what he’d said was true-some of it, maybe a lot of it. But he thought it sounded pretty good. He was proud of himself.
“I don’t know anything,” said Shane. “Mr. Raine asked me to let some friends of his in to move some files from his home to his office, and I did that. He gave me a hundred dollars to do so, and not mention it no matter who asked. How was I supposed to know there was anything criminal going on? I’m the doorman. I do what I’m asked.”
“He asked you not to mention it, if asked. Gave you a hundred-dollar tip? That wasn’t a clue that something unsavory was transpiring?”
Shane shrugged.
“Did you know any of the people you let in?”
“Of course not.”
“Can you describe them? Would you recognize them again if you saw them?”
“Don’t you have a video? You know, from those surveillance cameras in the lobby?” He gave Grady a nasty, yellow smile. Grady hadn’t quite expected to fool him with his bit about the cameras; just introduce a shadow of doubt.
“That’s it,” said Jez. She’d been standing in the corner, silent, brooding. In spite of the ice, her eye was started to swell badly. She moved quickly to the table. Grady could see that she was pissed, wanted reason to put her hands on Charlie Shane. He thought he was going to have to intervene. But she backed away, moved toward the door. “Too much conversation. Let’s get the paperwork started.”
“Wait,” said Shane, lifting a hand. Jez paused at the door but didn’t turn around.
“Start with how you knew Camilla Novak,” said Jez.
Grady placed the only picture they had of Camilla, the one he’d found on the Internet, in front of him. Shane shook his head.
“We found her dead body in her apartment today,” Grady said. “She had a stamp on her hand from the Topaz Room, where we found you just a few hours ago. You were the doorman in the building of the man who more than probably killed her boyfriend and stole his identity. You knew her.”
More silence. Jez turned the knob and opened the door.
“I knew her,” he said quickly. “I knew her.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Jez closed the door and turned around.
“More than a few weeks ago-maybe closer to two months-I was covering Teaford’s shift and I heard yelling out on the street. It was after midnight. A woman, screaming.”
He released a deep breath, rubbed at his temples.
“I left my post and went out to the street and saw Miss Novak yelling at Mr. Raine.”