Burn (Michael Bennett 7)

Not only that, but I knew that Santanella’s was an up-and-comer in the high-end New York City jewelry biz. It was run by Bruno Santanella, an Italian immigrant and onetime Hollywood hairdresser who now glittered up all the beautiful people at premieres and awards shows and Cannes with gems instead of gel.

I’d been on the job long enough to know that glitzy big-money people could be a big pain in the ass. I had a feeling I’d be earning my pay today and then some.

Across Trinity, past a trio of firemen smoking cigarettes, I found NYPD bomb tech Al Litvak, waist deep in the charred ruin of the dump truck’s still-smoking front end. When he emerged, his pale mustached face and Tyvek suit and arms to the elbow were smeared with black soot.

“What do we got, Al?” I said.

“It’s looking like some kind of accelerant in the engine compartment,” he said. “It was set off by a rinky-dink electric switch wired into the cab. From a model railroad, if I ha

d to guess. Pretty sloppy, actually.”

“Wasn’t there a bomb?” I said.

“Nah, not really,” Al said, bumming a cigarette off one of the firemen and blowing a smoke ring into the cab window of the ravaged truck. “I saw a little blackening in the back of the hop loader there, but it was some half-assed firework or something. Maybe a couple of M-80s. It was just a noisemaker.”

“So the whole thing wasn’t meant to hurt anyone? Just a head fake?” I said.

“Exactly,” Al said. “A lot of sound and fury signifying jack squat.”

I left Al by the truck and stood on the sidewalk, scanning the street. There was a security camera on the building wall beside the jewelry store’s blue awning, so at least we had that. After a second, I walked up to a fit thirty-something First Precinct detective I didn’t know who was standing under the awning talking into a cell phone as he scratched on a clipboard.

“Here’s what we got so far,” Detective Mike Williams told me after he pocketed his phone. “The truck parks. The truck starts smoking. Three white guys in green coveralls and hard hats and sunglasses get out of it and ask the jewelry store guard for help. There’s some kind of a bang, and when the guard opens the door, he’s hit with a stun gun. The three rush in, bust three shots into the ceiling, then smash a bunch of floor cases, scoop the ice, and are out in maybe a minute.”

“You think it was that fast?” I said.

Williams nodded vigorously.

“Three cars and half a dozen foot patrol uniforms on Homeland Security duty two blocks over on Wall Street were here in three minutes from the time the alarm went off. They secured the perimeter in a heartbeat and scoured the area but didn’t see hide nor hair of anybody matching the description. We’re still on the hunt, but it ain’t looking too hot.”

“How’s the guard?” I said.

“They zapped him pretty good, roughed him up a little, plus he’s an older guy, but he’s an ex-cop. A pretty tough old bird. He’ll be OK. EMTs just took him to the Tribeca Medical Center for observation.”

“CSU here yet?” I said.

Williams shook his shaved head.

“Of course not. You know CSU. They were five minutes away about ten minutes ago,” he said.

“Did you grab the security footage on that camera yet?” I said.

“Tried to, but the owner and his wife showed, and they’re irate and not what you’d call cooperative. They’re inside there now, yelling at their staff, if you want to say hello.”

CHAPTER 57

DETECTIVE WILLIAMS WAS RIGHT on the money. Bruno Santanella and his wife, Ellie, were both behind the counter, berating the staff in heated Italian, when I walked through the propped-open door.

Santanella was a tall, middle-aged man with a deep tan and a lot of plastic surgery, wearing a gray chalk-stripe designer suit that was a tad tight around his potbelly. His petite brunette doe-eyed wife, Ellie, was a foot shorter and easily two decades younger. She wore a leather jacket over a cream designer dress and a sparkling diamond bracelet that was as thick as a sweat band on her right wrist.

“Where are my diamonds?” Bruno Santanella said in a thick Italian accent as his orange-tan face went an unhealthy looking beet-red. “Tell me you’ve recovered them!”

“Not yet,” I said. “I know how shook up you guys must be. I’m Detective Bennett. The first thing I’m going to need from you is the footage from that security camera. And a detailed list of everything that’s missing.”

“Do you think I care what your name is?” Santanella said, suddenly clutching at the sides of his neatly coiffed gray head. “What do you need the footage for? I’ve already told five of you there were three men, two large men and a smaller man. They were wearing green coveralls and yellow hard hats. They distracted my guard and came in here and let off a gun into the ceiling. Then they smashed all my display cases.”

He waved his hands around helplessly like he was swatting at flies.

“Can’t you see here what they’ve done?” he said. “Look what they’ve done to my beautiful store!”