Spider - Michael Morley [103]
Jack had brought only one suit with him, the one he’d foolishly slept in. The jacket now looked as though a tramp had borrowed it for an evening out at the Annual Meths Drinkers’ Ball. He left it on the bed and put on a shirt without a tie and a pair of plain black pants.
When he got outside, Howie was flicking the finger at some driver who’d tooted him. Jack climbed into the passenger seat. ‘Great to start the day with some good news. Where we going?’
‘Breakfast in Brooklyn. We’re hooking up with a guy called Pete McCaffrey.’ Howie spun the power steering, floored the accelerator and squealed his way into a gap in the traffic. ‘McCaffrey’s one of the few Internal Affairs people who understands the Job. He isn’t after cops who make mistakes and screw up from time to time, like we all do, he’s got his arrows levelled on the real bad apples.’
‘So help me here,’ said Jack. ‘What’s the exact connection with our girl?’
‘Pete and his partner, Gerry Thomas, got on the tail of a bent cop called George Deaver. Deaver had been getting laid for free by hookers over in the Beach area. He pulled the old scam of having his fun then flashing his badge and saying he wasn’t going to pay.’
‘Hardly major news,’ said Jack.
‘Sure, but it turns out that our friend Deaver has pissed off a Russian gangster called Oleg Smirtin. Now he is major news. Smirtin is one of the big boys in Little Odessa and it seems Deaver has been using Smirtin’s girls for freebies.’
‘Not a bright move,’ Jack said. ‘I suppose your pal McCaffrey got interested all of a sudden because of Smirtin’s involvement?’
‘Exactly. They think the Russki has a few cops on his payroll and they’ve pressured Deaver to be their wire man. Anyway, Deaver comes back to them and says the chick he was balling claims to be a friend of the girl in the video.’
‘Give up a name?’ asked Jack.
‘Didn’t get that far. Fernandez is already over in Brooklyn rounding everyone up. We should be able to see McCaffrey and Deaver together, and then the hooker. If needs be, we can then go visit Smirtin too.’
‘Where’s the meet? We still got the office in Cumberland Street?’
‘Sure have,’ said Howie. ‘That’s where we’re heading and the deli round the corner still does the best breakfasts this side of my mom’s kitchen.’
69
San Quirico D’Orcia, Tuscany
Terry McLeod had been sitting patiently in his ‘hide’ for an hour.
He understood that even at the best of times things never happened quickly in Italy, and in Tuscany on a Sunday, well, events were likely to move slower than an injured snail.
The longer the wait, the sweeter the shot, he told himself.
He sipped bottled water from his rucksack and used the military-issue binoculars to keep a watch on events at the hotel. The King woman looked so happy as she moved around inside the sanctuary of her home.
Make the most of it, he told himself, I’m about to turn your happy little life right upside down.
He sat back and waited for his chance.
Patience was a virtue of McLeod’s; he’d wait all day if he had to.
70
Brooklyn, New York
The six-mile journey from Jack’s hotel to Brooklyn should have taken fifteen to twenty minutes but traffic along Flatbush Avenue was snarled up and didn’t improve much as they headed down Veronica and Erasmus.
Howie called in as they parked up and Fernandez sent out for their breakfast order – juice, coffee, muffins, pancakes and a mix of fruit. The fruit was an afterthought of Jack’s; Howie was solely interested in the pancakes and muffins.
Fernandez was already holed up in a small room with Pete McCaffrey and Gerry Thomas, the two cops from Internal Affairs, and their new best friend, George Deaver. Jack knew who was who without even being introduced. McCaffrey sat on the edge of a big square wooden desk, wearing big square wooden clothes. He was craggy-faced, black tie pulled tight to the top of his plain white shirt, sipping water