“I do have a few questions,” Stone said.
“And I’ll answer them for you. One: The girl got away from my people across the roof. She apparently has the agility of a cat burglar, which is more than I can say for your boy, Herbie. Two: The four suits who got there first work for a foreign intelligence service, and their country of origin shall remain nameless. Three: They and the cops got there so fast because they were waiting on the landing below, laying for one or both of the people in the apartment. Four: No, I don’t know where the photographs are that Herbie took. Any other questions?”
Stone shook his head. “Thank God Herbie kept my name out of it.”
“Yeah? What makes you think that? He was spilling his guts in the patrol car, up the front steps of the precinct, and into an interview room faster than anybody could write it down, and you were the star of his story.” Dino swept a hand expressively across the table, nearly spilling his beer. “Above-the-title billing!”
The waiter set their food before them.
“I’m going to throw up,” Stone said.
“Well, do it in your hat, pal. I’m eating, here.”
“I can’t eat this,” Stone said, beginning to eat the chili.
“Don’t worry, the detective knows we’re friends; he’ll keep it to himself, and I’ve already scrubbed the interview tape clean.”
“Thank you, Dino.”
“Is that all you can say? You ought to be offering me Carpenter’s sweet body on a platter.”
“Carpenter’s in this, somehow,” Stone said. “I have a feeling she knows the country of origin of the gentlemen present last night. When I told her what happened, she started making phone calls, and when I woke up, she hadn’t slept in the bed.”
“Poor you.”
“I don’t think Herbie’s fall killed Larry Fortescue,” Stone said.
“Well, neither do I,” Dino replied, “but we’ll probably never know.”
“Why not? The medical examiner will figure it out.”
“The ME was poised over the corpse this morning, scalpel raised, when two guys showed up with a federal court order and took the body away in a van.”
“Holy shit.”
“My sentiments, more or less.”
“This whole business is completely out of control,” Stone said.
“Well, completely out of our control,” Dino agreed. “But somebody must know what’s going on. Certainly, nobody in the NYPD does.”
Stone finished his chili. “I do know something you don’t,” Stone said.
“What?”
“I know where the photographs are.”
“I want them now,” Dino said, pushing away from the table.
“Just a minute,” Stone said. “You get one set of prints, I get the negatives and all the others.”
“Deal,” Dino said, standing up.
“And I need them processed by two-thirty, with nobody the wiser. You know somebody who can do that?”
“You bet your ass,” Dino said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Stone threw some money on the table, took a quick swig of his beer, grabbed his burger, and ran after Dino.
10
Stone dove into the cab behind Dino, who sat staring at him.
“You going to tell the driver where to go?” Dino asked.
Stone gave him the address of the building with the skylight, then he took a huge bite of his burger.
“The camera is still in the building?” Dino asked.
“If we’re lucky,” Stone replied through the cheeseburger.
“Nobody from the precinct has been there today,” Dino said. “I checked. The Feds were in on this. I hope to God they haven’t turned it over.”
“Me too,” Stone replied.
The cab screeched to a halt in front of the building. Dino got out.
“Pay the guy,” he called over his shoulder.
Stone paid the cabbie and followed along, still trying to eat his bacon cheeseburger.
Dino was on the stoop, ringing doorbells. The super appeared, chewing his own lunch.
“What d’ya want?” he said, in heavily accented English.
Dino showed him his badge. “Is the sixth-floor apartment locked?” he asked.
“You better believe,” the man said. “FBI guy gave me instructions.”
“Give me the key,” Dino said.
“I’m not fucking with FBI,” the man replied, swallowing food.
“Give me the key now, or I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice and send you back to whatever godforsaken country you came from.”
The man dug into a pocket and gave Dino a key. “Don’t tell nobody,” he said, then went back into his apartment.
They took the elevator to the sixth floor. “There’s the door to the roof,” Dino said, as they got off. He opened the apartment door.
It was dark inside, and Stone found a light switch that turned on a lamp in a corner. The massage table, two of its legs broken, lay on its side in the middle of the floor.
“There’s why it’s dark,” Dino said, pointing upward. The broken skylight had been replaced with sheets of plywood. “Cozy little pad,” Dino said.
“Looks like it was rented furnished,” Stone observed. “Nobody would buy those pictures, except a landlord.”
“Okay, enough of the art lecture,” Dino said. “Where’s the film?”
Stone went to the fireplace and opened the wood box next to it. It was half full of logs made of compressed sawdust. He lifted one and extracted a 35mm camera with a zoom lens attached. Stone rewound the film, popped the case, and put the film cartridge in his pocket. He removed the lens from the camera and put the lens in one inside pocket of his raincoat and the camera body in the other. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“I want to see the roof,” Dino said, striding toward the door. He opened the door and walked outside. Stone followed him. The door closed behind them.
Stone looked around. “I don’t see how that girl got down from here,” he said.
“Well, we’d better figure out how in a hurry,” Dino said.
“How come?”
“Because the Feds will probably be here any minute, and you’ve closed the fucking door and locked us out.”
Stone tried turning the knob. Nothing. “Shit,” he said.
Dino peered over the edge of the roof. “There’s a drainpipe,” he said. “You go first. I want to see if it’ll hold your weight.”
Stone peered over the parapet. “I’m not shinnying down that,” he said. “I’m wearing a good suit. You go down it, then take the elevator back up and open the door.”
“You know, that’s a terrific idea,” Dino said. “Why should both of us have to shinny down the drainpipe?” He pulled out his gun and pointed it at Stone. “Go down the drainpipe, or I’ll shoot you.”
Stone shook his head. “Go ahead and shoot me. It beats falling off a building.”
They were standing there like that when the door opened, and the super stepped out. “The FBI just call,” he said. “You guys got to get out or I get in trouble.”
Dino put his gun away and stepped inside. “Lucky for you,” he said. “I was going to shoot you.”
“No, you weren’t,” Stone said, getting into the elevator.
“Oh, yes I was,” Dino replied. “I wasn’t about to shinny down that drainpipe.”
“Neither was I,” Stone pointed out.
“That’s why I was going to shoot you.”
Downstairs they got into another cab and got out in front of a photo shop on Third Avenue. Dino went inside and walked over to the one-hour processing machine, flashing his badge.