“Being nakedly ambitious becomes you.”
“I also think you’re a certain kind of cop, Beam.”
“The kind you are?”
“Yeah, only much more so. What I think of your kind of cop is that they’re Old Testament cops. Now and again, they play God. You got a reputation for bending the rules, even the law, in the interest of seeing justice done. And as you’re already retired and more or less don’t give a shit, you’ll bend whatever you have to in order to nail this letter J scumbag.”
Beam had to smile. “I’m more used to being called a dinosaur than God.”
Da Vinci shrugged. “God is a dinosaur.”
Beam thought he better not ask what da Vinci meant by that. Didn’t want lightning to strike the booth.
“You do this thing, Beam, and you’ll be on a work-for-hire basis, have a captain’s status, and all the resources of the NYPD at your disposal. And I’ll assign you a team of detectives.”
Da Vinci bolted down the rest of his coffee, making another sour face, then stood up from the booth.
“This where you ask me to think about it?” Beam said.
“Naw. You know I know that you know.”
“That I’ll do it,” Beam said.
Da Vinci smiled. “I’ll have Legal draw up a contract.”
“Nothing in writing,” Beam said.
“That’s not the way it works.”
“That’s the way I work.”
Da Vinci’s grin widened and he shook his head. “Okay. Dinosaurs never had anything in writing.”
“I’ll work this case my way, out of my apartment.”
“Why?”
Beam shrugged. “I’m retired. But I do want access by computer to NYPD data bases.”
“Easy enough. But you’re gonna need those investigators.”
“A couple of good ones,” Beam said. “And some added uniform help if and when I need it.”
“You mean you’re not gonna wrestle this guy to the ground yourself?”
“Let me think on that one,” Beam said.
“Okay, we’ll meet again and I can give you more details.”
Da Vinci grinned, saluted, then turned and strode from the diner. Beam watched him cross the street the other way, toward his illegally parked car. There wasn’t much traffic just then. Da Vinci seemed to wish there were some.
“What was that all about?” Ella asked, standing by the booth and clearing away dishes.
“Extinction,” Beam said.
Beam’s bedside phone that night was insistent, piercing his sleep with its shrill summons, not letting him sink back each time he rose toward the real world.
He reached out in the darkness, noticing that the luminous hands of his wristwatch had edged past midnight, and found the receiver. He drew it to him and mumbled hello. Terrible taste in his mouth.
“Cassie, bro,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “Just thought I’d call and tell you about this dream I had.”
“I wasn’t dreaming,” Beam said, annoyed, “which is rare for me.”
“It was about you.”
“Great.” He wasn’t in the mood for one of Cassie’s hazy prognostications.
“I think it was about you, anyway. Had to do with biblical figures. In a place with tall stone columns, like a temple. I could make out faces. One of them was yours. The dream was about betrayal.”
Beam waited, exhausted. “That’s it?”
“It was vague. Piecemeal. Like most of my dreams. But you were in it. You and someone close to you—I’m not sure who, or if it was a man or woman.”
“Tall stone columns. Maybe Julius Caesar. Brutus is gonna stab me in the back. Kinda thing happens to me all the time.”
“You weren’t Julius Caesar, bro. Biblical, but not Roman.”
“And I’m gonna be betrayed by someone close to me? Like Jesus?”
“No. You were Judas.”
“Terrific.”
“Hey, you know how dreams are, all mixed up. Probably means nothing.”
“Thanks for calling.”
“No problem.”
Try getting back to sleep after that.
5
1987
New York had been leaden-skied, cold, and gloomy all week, and the man who entered the Waldemeyer Hotel looked like a product of the weather.
He was medium height, wearing a dark raincoat spotted from the cool drizzle that had just begun outside. Ignoring the bellhop’s half-hearted attempt to relieve him of the single small suitcase he was carrying, he paused just inside the revolving glass doors, glanced around, then trudged across the lobby toward the desk.
A whiff of mold made everything seem damp. Though small, the Waldemeyer had once been one of New York’s better hotels. It had been in decline for years. People wanted to stay closer to the theater district now, or to upscale shopping or Central Park. Fewer wanted to stay in Tribeca, in a fading small hotel that had once housed celebrities who wanted to visit town incognito. Tribeca was becoming more desirable, but not for the Waldemeyer. The rehabbing and construction in the area would soon catch up with demand, and the struggling hotel would fall even further victim to commerce and skyrocketing real estate prices. The ancient, ten-story Waldemeyer was in too valuable a location to be saved. It would doubtless be razed to make room for something that would generate higher taxes.
Grayer and almost as old as the Waldemeyer, Franklin, behind the desk, watched the man approach, sizing him up. An average looking guy, but there was something about him that drew and held the eye. He hadn’t bothered to unbutton his raincoat, and he seemed oblivious of the faded red carpet, oak paneling that needed waxing, potted palms that had seen better days, marble surfaces that were stained and cracked. His face was composed, his eyes unblinking and sad. He was here, in the Waldemeyer, but his mind seemed to be somewhere else.
It occurred to Franklin that more and more of the hotel’s guests wore distracted looks. Sad was the word that persisted in Franklin’s mind, as the man did a slight dip and put down his suitcase out of sight on the other side of the desk.
“I’ve got a reservation,” he said. “Justice.”
Franklin gave him a smile and checked on the computer. “Yes sir, we’ve got you down for one night.” Something in the man’s eyes kind of spooked Franklin, so what he heard next was no surprise.
“I’m not carrying credit cards, but I can pay cash.”
“Cash is still good here, sir.” Franklin couldn’t help glancing across the lobby, out to the street, thinking maybe there was a woman lurking out there who would soon enter the hotel and nonchalantly make her way upstairs. Justice had the earmarks of a guy on a guilty pleasure trip with the baby sitter or his wife’s best friend. Or maybe it would be a guy. The world had changed since Franklin started as a car parker at the Waldemeyer thirty-five years ago.
“It’ll be in advance,” the man said, pulling an untidy wad of bills from his pocket and peeling off the exact amount of the room rate.
“Best way, sir.” Franklin had him sign a registration card. “Room five-oh-six,” he