Chapter Twenty
DAVEY BUCCOLA PACED HIS HOTEL ROOM like a caged tiger. His suite at the Paramount on Times Square was luxurious. Frette bed linen, sleek modern furniture, $500 cashmere blankets draped casually over the back of the armchair. Davey thought, This'd be an impressive place to bring a woman.
Unfortunately, he wasn't with a woman. He was with a bunch of cops. And they were starting to make him nervous.
"Stand still, please, Mr. Buccola. We need to check your wire."
Davey lit a cigarette, his third in as many minutes.
"Again?"
"Yes. Again." Mitch Connors was in a pissy mood. "You want to see that two hundred grand, Mr. Buccola, I suggest you cooperate."
Davey thought, He's probably nervous, too. Doesn't want anything to go wrong.
Davey felt bad, doing the dirty on Grace Brookstein. He'd always liked her. What's more, he was convinced she was innocent of the crimes she'd been convicted of. But $200,000...two hundred thousand... He tried to rationalize the decision to himself. He was protecting Grace. This way she would be captured unharmed. He hadn't told Connors or any of the cops about the information he'd uncovered, either. Later, once Grace was safe, he'd use it to launch an appeal against her conviction and reopen the inquest into Lenny's death. Either that or sell it. What would Vanity Fair pay for a scoop like this? If he was lucky, he might double his reward money!
Of course, deep down, Davey Buccola knew the truth. He was betraying an innocent woman for money, the same way everybody else had betrayed her. It wasn't $200,000. It was thirty pieces of silver.
"Mr. Buccola. Are you with us?"
Davey looked up, startled. Mitch Connors was shouting at him again.
"We only have an hour. Let's run through the plan one more time."
GRACE DIPPED HER DOUGHNUT INTO THE hot black coffee and took a big, satisfying bite.
Delicious.
She and Lenny used to have the finest chefs on staff at all their homes, ready to prepare lobster Thermidor or whip up a Gruyere souffle at any hour of the day or night. But not until this week had Grace tasted a Dunkin' Donut. She couldn't imagine how she'd ever lived without them.
The week had been full of new experiences. The familiarity she felt when she first came back to New York had been replaced by a sort of delighted wonder. It was the same city she'd lived in, on and off, for her entire life. And yet it was completely different. This New York, the New York of the ordinary people, of the poor, was like another planet to Grace, with its subway trains, its dirty buses, its doughnut shops, its walk-ups and shared bathrooms and television sets with wire coat hangers jammed into the top. Lenny had always told Grace it was terrible to be poor. "Poverty is the most degrading, most soul-destroying state into which the human soul can sink." Grace disagreed. True, she had never been poor before, but then Lenny had never been to prison. Grace had. She knew what "soul-destroying" meant. She knew what it was to be degraded, to be robbed of one's humanity. Poverty didn't come close.
By all objective standards, the hotel in Queens where Grace had been staying was a dump - dirty, cramped, with depressing mustard-colored walls and linoleum floors. But Grace had come to enjoy the smells of fried onions wafting up from the hot-dog stand outside her window, and the ridiculous arguments between the couple across the hall. It made her feel less alone. As if she were part of something.
Getting dressed this morning, preparing for her meeting with Davey, she actually thought, I'll be sorry to leave here. But she knew she couldn't stay. For one thing, it wasn't safe. She had to keep moving. More important, the time had come to begin her mission. Armed with Davey's information, she could at last begin her journey. Today, her vengeance would take flight.
She had dressed simply for their rendezvous. Jeans, sneakers, a black polo-neck sweater and a down jacket, her beanie hat pulled low over her newly darkened hair. The jeans already felt a little tighter on the waist than they had in Richardsville. Grace was gaining weight, a side effect of her newfound doughnut addiction. Swallowing the dregs of her coffee, she looked at her watch. Eleven o'clock.
She headed for the subway.
MITCH CONNORS HADN'T SLEPT. THE PLAN was simple. Davey had arranged to meet Grace at noon exactly, in front of Toys "R" Us on Times Square. At that time of day the New York landmark should be crawling with shoppers looking for a bargain in the winter sales, as well as the usual backpack-laden hordes of tourists. Mitch had positioned two men behind Davey, inside the store, another two at the entrance to the subway and six more scattered throughout the crowd. All ten would be in plainclothes, wired and armed. Mitch wasn't expecting any trouble, but after the way Grace had dealt with that scumbag Tommy Burns, he wasn't taking any chances. As soon as Davey saw Grace in the crowd, he would use his hidden mike to alert the cops, who would close in around her. Once she reached Davey and shook his hand, that was the signal to move in and grab her. Easy.
Mitch himself would be watching the proceedings from the Paramount Hotel. His face had been all over the news for weeks. If Grace saw him, she'd know something was up.
Davey Buccola lit another cigarette. Eleven forty-five. Time to go downstairs. Davey looked on in alarm as one of the cops checked his gun before slipping it back into the holster under his jacket.
"What's that for? You aren't going to hurt her, are you?"
The cop looked at Davey like something he'd just scraped off of his shoe. He'd given them good information but he was a snitch. Nobody liked a snitch. "I'm sure Mrs. Brookstein would be touched by your concern. Are you ready?"
Davey nodded. Two hundred grand. My own place.
"I'm ready. Let's go."
TEN TO TWELVE.
"Do you see her?"
Davey Buccola stamped his feet against the cold. Resisting the urge to put his hand to his ear - he hated wires - he murmured, "Negative. Not yet."
Times Square was even more crowded than he'd expected. Toys "R" Us was jammed. Half of New York was out of work, but people would rather starve than see their kids go without the latest Hannah Montana doll or Special Agent Oso flashlight. Sad, really, Davey reflected.
THE WOMAN OPPOSITE GRACE WAS STARING. Grace felt her stomach flip over.
"Hey."
The train was crowded, but no one was talking. The woman's voice rang out like a foghorn.
"Hey! I'm talking to you."
Grace looked up. She felt the blood rush to her face. She recognizes me. Oh God. She's going to say something. They'll turn on me. The whole train will turn on me, they'll rip me to shreds!
"You done with your paper?"
Paper? Grace looked down. There was a New York Post in her lap. She had no idea how it had gotten there. Wordlessly, she handed it over.
"Thanks."
Suddenly the train jerked to a halt. The lights flickered, then went out. Everybody groaned. The lights came on again. Grace looked at her watch. Five to twelve.
"Forget it," the man next to her said genially. "Wherever you're going, you're going to be late."
A voice came over the address system. "We apologize for the inconvenience. Due to some electrical problems, we expect a short delay."
No! Not today. Why today?
Grace took a deep breath. She couldn't draw attention to herself by appearing jittery. Besides, it was okay. They said a short delay. Davey would wait.
AS HE STARED OUT OF THE window Mitch's heart sank.
She's not coming.
He'd been so sure this was it. So certain. The clock on the wall taunted him. Ten after twelve. What could have gone wrong? Had Buccola had a change of heart and tipped her off? Had Grace realized she couldn't trust him? Or maybe it was worse than that. Maybe something had happened to her. An accident. Someone had recognized her and taken the law into his own hands.
"I think I see her."
Buccola's voice sounded crackly in Mitch's earpiece.
"You think? Don't you know?"
Buccola didn't answer.
"Well, where?" Mitch couldn't hide his excitement.
"She just came out of the subway. I didn't get a good look at her face. It might not be her."
"Danny, Luca. Did you guys see anything?"
Two of Mitch's men were right outside the subway, checking out every woman who emerged.
"Nope."
"Nothing."
Jesus. "What was she wearing, Davey?"
"Jeans. Dark coat. A hat...I think. Shit."