Fade Away (Myron Bolitar 3)

“Hey, Krinsky,” Myron said.

Krinsky barely nodded. Mr. Loquacious.

Myron looked over at Dimonte. “I still don’t see how a shipping garage camera could have gotten the killer on tape.”

“One of the cameras is by the truck entrance,” Dimonte explained. “Just to make sure nothing falls off the truck as it’s leaving, if you know what I mean. The camera catches part of the sidewalk. You can see people walking by.” He leaned up against the wall and motioned Myron to sit in a chair. “You’ll see what I mean.”

Myron sat. Krinsky hit the play button. Black and white again. No sound again. But this time the shot was from above. Myron saw the front end of a truck and behind it, a glimpse of the sidewalk. Not many people walked by; the ones that did were barely more than distant silhouettes.

“How did you come up with this?” Myron asked.

“With what?”

“This tape.”

“I always check for this stuff,” Dimonte said, hitching up his pants by belt loops. “Parking garages, storage houses, any of those places. They all have surveillance cameras nowadays.”

Myron nodded. “Good work, Rolly. I’m impressed.”

“Wow,” Dimonte said, “now I can die happy.”

Everyone’s a wiseass. Myron turned his attention back to the screen. “So how long is each tape?”

“Twelve hours,” Dimonte replied. “They change them at nine A.M. and P.M. Eight camera set-up. They keep each tape for three weeks. Then they tape over them.” He pointed his fingers. “Here she comes now. Krinsky.”

Krinsky pressed a button and the tape froze.

“The woman who just entered the picture. On the right. Heading south, which would be away from the scene.”

Myron saw a blurry image. He couldn’t see a face or even gather much about her height. She wore high heels and a long overcoat with a frilly neck. Hard to tell much about her weight either. The hair however was familiar. He kept his tone neutral. “Yeah, I see her.”

“Look at her right hand,” he said.

Myron did. There was something dark and long in it. “I can’t make it out.”

“We got it blown up. Krinsky.”

Krinsky handed Myron two large black and white photographs. The woman’s head was enlarged in the first one, but you still couldn’t see any facial features. In the second picture, the long dark object in her hand was clearer.

“We think it’s a plastic garbage bag wrapped around something,” Dimonte said. “Kind of an odd shape, wouldn’t you say?”

Myron looked at the photo and nodded. “You figure it’s covering up a baseball bat.”

“Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Myron said.

“We found plastic garbage bags just like that one in Gorman’s kitchen.”

“And probably half the kitchens in New York City,” Myron added.

“True enough. Now look at the date and time on the screen.”

On the top left-hand side of the screen, a digital clock read 02:12.32 A.M. The date was early Sunday morning. Just hours after Liz Gorman had been at the Swiss Chalet bar with Greg Downing.

“Did the camera get her coming the other way?” Myron asked.

“Yeah, but it’s not too clear. Krinsky.”

Krinsky hit the rewind button. Several seconds later, he stopped and the picture came back on. The time now read 01:41.12. A little more than thirty minutes earlier.

“Coming now,” Dimonte said.

The image almost flew past. Myron only recognized the woman by the long overcoat with the frilly neck. This time, she was carrying nothing in her hand. Myron said, “Let me see the other part again. All the way through.”

Dimonte nodded at Krinsky. Krinsky found it and hit play. While Myron still couldn’t see the woman’s face, her walk was another matter. And a person’s walk could be fairly distinctive. Myron felt his heart crawl up into his throat.

Dimonte was studying him through squinting eyes. “You recognize her, Bolitar?”

Myron shook his head. “No,” he lied.

Chapter 32

Esperanza liked to make lists.

With the Raven Brigade file in front of her, she jotted down the three most important factors in chronological order:

1) The Raven Brigade robs a bank in Tucson.

2) Within days, at least one of the Ravens (Liz Gorman) was in Manhattan.

3) Soon after, Liz Gorman made contact with a high-profile professional basketball player.

It didn’t flow.

She opened the file and briefly scanned the “brigade’s” history. In 1975 the Ravens had kidnapped Hunt Flootworth, the twenty-two-year-old son of publishing giant Cooper Flootworth. Hunt had been a classmate at San Francisco State of several of the Ravens, including both Cole Whiteman and Liz Gorman. The famous Cooper Flootworth, never one to sit around idly and let others handle his affairs, hired mercenaries to rescue his son. During their raid, young Hunt was shot at point-blank range in the head by one of the Ravens. No one knew which one. Of all the brigade members at the scene, four managed to escape.

Big Cyndi skipped into the office. The vibrations rolled Esperanza’s pens off the desk.

“Sorry,” Cyndi said.

“It’s okay.”

“Timmy called me,” Cyndi said. “We’re going out Friday night.”

Esperanza made a face. “His name is Timmy?”

“Yeah,” Cyndi said. “Isn’t that sweet?”

“Adorable.”

“I’ll be in the conference room,” Cyndi said.

Esperanza turned back to the file. She flipped ahead to the Tucson bank heist—the group’s first in more than five years. The robbery took place as the bank was closing. The feds believed one of the security guards was in on it, but so far they had nothing more than the guard’s left-leaning background. About $15,000 in cash was taken, but the robbers took the time to blow the safe deposit boxes. Risky. The feds theorized that the Ravens had somehow found out that drug money was stored there. The bank cameras showed two people dressed head to toe in black with black ski masks. No fingerprints or hairs or fibers. Nada.

Esperanza read through the file again, but nothing new exploded from the pages. She tried to imagine what the past twenty years had been like for the surviving Ravens, constantly on the run, never sleeping in the same place very long, leaving and reentering the country, relying on old sympathizers you were never sure you could completely trust. She grabbed her piece of paper and made some more notes: