Puppets Read online

  PUPPETS

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Skull Session

  The Babel Effect

  City of Masks: A Cree Black Novel

  Land of Echoes: A Cree Black Novel

  PUPPETS

  A NOVEL

  DANIEL HECHT

  BLOOMSBURY

  Copyright © 2000 by Daniel Hecht

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury Publishing, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, New York and London

  Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers

  All papers used by Bloomsbury Publishing are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.

  eISBN: 978-1-59691-800-9

  First published in the united Kingdom by Pocket Books in 2001

  First U.S. Edition 2005

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Typeset by Hewer Text Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed in the United States of America

  by Quebecor World Fairfield

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

  A NOTE ON THE TYPE

  1

  MO SPOTTED THE VAN, just by accident, as he and Mike St. Pierre drove past the parking garage on Wilber Street. It was up on the second level of the three-story ramp, a burgundy FordAerostar just pulling up to the concrete barrier wall. Only the top half was visible, license plate out of view, could be somebody else's van. The driver's-side door opened, but then they rolled on past and Mo couldn't see who got out. For a couple of days his pulse had been goosed by every burgundy Ford Aerostar, it was surprising how many there were, but for some reason this one got him jumpier than usual.

  "Think we should check it out?"St. Pierre asked. He slowed down and was craning his neck to keep looking at the van in the side mirror.

  "Yeah, "Mo said.

  They had just been talking to neighbors around the supposed residence of Willard Baker, a strong suspect for the serial rapist who had practically shut down the campuses of all the colleges in southern Westchester County. He was a particularly brutal guy who had left seven victims half-dead, and the psych profilers they'd asked in from Albany said it was only a matter of time until he started leaving them all the way dead. They'd gotten Willard's name from Motor Vehicles after witnesses at two crime scenes reported seeing the Aerostar nearby. It made sense, since the rapes occurred in a vehicle, and vans, particularly reddish or purple vans, seemed to be the vehicle of choice for serious crimes against persons, taking over from the Volkswagen buses that had been in vogue among the murder and rape set twenty years earlier. Working backward from all Aerostars with New York plates to those with two D's on the license, it hadn't taken long to zero in on Willard, whose appearance matched victims' descriptions. Neither Willard nor his van had shown up at his home, but Mo kept having a feeling about this parking ramp, only four blocks from his address.

  "So, what?" St. Pierre said. "We drive up in there, see if it's even the right van. Then what—call White Plains, they can wait for Big Willie to come back?" Willard had earned the nickname because according to his Motor Vehicles records, he was big, six-six and about three hundred pounds. It'd be easy enough to see at a glance if it was Willie: white guy, bald, that size, hard to mistake him for someone else. St. Pierre's tone suggested he wouldn't mind leaving this to the local police.

  True, here in town it really was White Plains PD's job, not theirs. But Mo said, "Take too long. If it is Willie, maybe he's not going home. Maybe he's going to do his thing again. Maybe he's got somebody in the van right now."

  St. Pierre sighed, unenthusiastic but expecting it: He was new to the State Police Major Crimes Unit, but had already observed Mo's preference for the direct approach. "O kay."

  The problem was that the van was parked halfway between the stairwells, two four-story, concrete-and-glass towers over half a block apart. No way to tell which one Willard, if it was Willard, would come down. So they divvied them up. St. Pierre dropped Mo off at the south tower—" Talk to me, Mike, " Mo said, meaning stay close on the two-way—and then made a U, cruised back past the north tower, and pulled over at the corner of Second Avenue.

  It was almost eight o'clock,half-dark, Wilbur Street was deserted, and Mo didn't much like the stairway tower. The ramp was recently built, Bauhaus-influenced modernesque, and the towers had tall, narrow windows above each flight of stairs. Heavy concrete planters ribbed each floor, now filled with dead vegetation and trash. As Mo approached the door, he saw movement in one of the windows, someone coming quickly down, and not wanting to run into a big guy like Willard without some equalization, he drew his Glock.

  He had barely stepped into the ground-level doorway when something hit him like an anvil dropping from above. It drove him into the left-hand wall, knocked his head hard on the concrete. Willard, it was Willard, was like a wall himself, the biggest human being Mo had ever been this close to, three hundred pounds of marbled beef, muscle and fat. Stunned, Mo lost the Glock as he fell, and though he leapt up only an instant later, Willard had gotten the gun and was pointing it at him. In the small space, the explosion hurt his ears worse than the bullet hurt his shoulder, where it tore through the shoulder pad of his jacket before taking out a chunk of the wall. Willard bounded up the stairs again, a huge bald guy with Mo's gun gripped in a fist the size of a head of cabbage.

  Talk about losing the element of surprise, Mo thought vaguely.

  It was funny how your mind worked at moments like this. He looked down at his jacket shoulder, seeing his skin through the shreds of fabric and padding, hardly any blood there, just a scratch. He felt irrationally angry at Willard for wrecking this suit, which was new and represented a considerable investment on a cop's salary. Homicide investigators were famous for their lousy taste in clothes, a running joke, grown men dressing like clowns in mixed plaids and checks, lime-green shirts, ties made of vomit-patterned upholstery fabric chosen because it hid the soup stains. In one of the homicide
workshops Mo had taken, an instructor had told them to get a grip on their couture, to dress for success: dark gray suits, white shirts, power ties. This guy had a Ph.D. in social psychology and had memorized statistics from RJJND Corporation apparel studies and chided the class, "You guys, the only way you know you're ready for a new suit is when the ass of your trousers gets so shiny your partner asks you to bend over so he can shave in it." That got an uncomfortable laugh. Mo had taken it to heart and had kept up with his clothes. He had bought this suit only two weeks ago for four hundred dollars, and now Big Willie had ruined it.

  His two-way crackled and made tinny noises that would be St. Pierre talking, but Mo was afraid to answer, Willard would hear what he was saying. His ears were still ringing from the shot, but he thought he heard the scrape of a shoe on concrete above him. Which meant that Big Willie was still up there, probably crouched on the second-floor landing, wondering whether to run for the van or try some other way out. From that position, Willie would have a good view of the street in both directions and the choice of going up or down or out into the ramp itself. Good for him, bad for Mo: no way for Mo to leave without being seen.

  The element of surprise, Mo thought. Hard to tell what St. Pierre would be doing, going up in the other tower and wondering why Mo wasn't answering. Mo had only worked with him for a few weeks, not long enough to anticipate how he made decisions. So he undipped the two-way from his belt and set it on the floor in the far corner of the stairwell foyer. Then he eased just far enough out the door to look up the outside wall of the stairwell tower, the planters at each level, the windows already lit from inside by mercury-vapor light seven though it was still pretty light outside. At the end of the second-floor window, he briefly saw a big shadow move.

  Mo took off his shoes and set them next to the door—shoes would make too much noise on the stuccoed concrete. He climbed up on a wall-mounted hydrant and from there leapt up to catch the first planter He pulled himself over the saw-toothed lip, scraping his hands and chest and trying to tell himself not to worry, the suit was fucked anyway. He stood and perched on the planter for a moment, catching his breath and listening. Presumably Big Willie would also be pretty deaf from the gunshot, but hopefully not so deaf he wouldn't hear the crackle of St. Pierre's voice on the two-way in the foyer below, and think that Mo was still with the radio. The element of surprise.

  Up one more planter and now it was getting scary, balancing on a two-foot-wide shelf, sixteen feet off the ground. One more, another grueling kip and scrape over the stuccoed rim to land face-first in dead plants and litter, then getting on his feet on the third level. He edged sideways along the planter to the wall of the ramp, then vaulted up and over the third-floor railing. Only a couple of cars scattered on the slanted slab, the sky going dark now, the door to the stairwell throwing a rectangle of light on the asphalt. Mo crept to the open door and crouched just inside, listening.

  For a moment he didn't hear anything but the distant crackle of the two-way echoing up, St. Pierre over in the other tower or at the van and wondering what the hell. Then he heard the little shift, somebody large moving slightly, waiting. Big Willie was still undecided, hesitating in the second-floor landing.

  Mo edged forward until he could see down the stairs: blue, tube-steel banister railing going down a short flight and turning to the right at the halfway landing and then down another short flight to the second level. Where he could just see the shoulder and hip of Big Willie, a massive mound of pink skin in a white wife-beater T-shirt, black jeans over a thigh like a tree trunk. Directly below. Also crouched at the railing and looking down to the first floor.

  There were other options, Mo reminded himself. Run in his stockinged feet down to the other tower, find the car, call in backup. Or stay here on the assumption that Willard thought Mo was still waiting on the first floor and figured someone else would be Anthe second floor where the van was, in which case he might come up here to get away. But Mo didn't like the idea of leaving Willard there—someone could come at any moment, some hapless parking garage customer walking blithely up the stairwell until Willard shot him dead. Or St. Pierre could come down the ramp to find out what was going on and walk right in on big, mean, scared Willie, already primed for action and carrying a nine-millimeter automatic.

  Mo didn't really have to think about it. He looked down at the uneasy mass of Big Willie's body, then unbuckled his belt. A new belt, too, thirty bucks' worth of prime cowhide, double-stitched, quality work but a little too long for a thirty-three waist. He pulled it slowly out of his pants and looped it through the buckle again, then doubled the other end around his fist. Keeping well away from the railing, he crept down the left wall of the stairs. When he got as far down as he could without being seen, he stepped quickly to the railing, leaned over, dropped the noose around Big Willie's bald head, and yanked.

  It worked perfectly for half a second, until Willard felt it and reared back and nearly jerked Mo's arm out of its socket. He held on, trying to get a leg around the lower rail, until Big Willie fell back so hard he pulled Mo between the railings, down right onto three hundred pounds of angry bull bucking and wheeling in the concrete box of the landing. Mo cracked both shins on the second-floor banister, then fell on his side, an elbows mashing the floor. But the fall was broken mainly by Willard, and he'd been lucky enough to end up behind him. They were both down on the concrete now. Big Willie had lost the gun, and Mo's one thought was to keep the pressure on the belt, the taut band of leather between his hands and Willard's neck. Cut off carotid flow until he blacked out, maybe twenty seconds. Willard whaled backward a couple of times with one thick arm, and the elbow caught Mo's jaw, but still he held on, using the momentary slack to double the belt around his other hand. Then Big Willie made the mistake of groping at his own neck, giving in to the primal instinct to loosen the constriction there. The big body writhed and rolled, but Mo was able to bring his knees up against the slab of back and arch away, increasing the tension. Like wrestling a refrigerator. Within seconds Willie stopped fighting. For a moment he just clawed at the belt sunk in the meat of his neck. Then he went still.

  Mo waited another few seconds, then let the tension off. He pried the belt loose and watched for the color to change on Big Willie's hairless face. But it stayed a blackish purple. Mo got up achingly, wondering what the fuck was going on. The big body didn't move, no breath, and when he put his hand on the neck he couldn't feel a pulse. He slapped the loose cheeks, rolled the head back and forth on the limp neck, moved the jaw up and down. Willie's weight shifted hugely and he rolled onto his back like a big sack of potatoes, but he still didn't breathe. Still dazed from the fall, Mo stared at him, trying to figure what was going on.

  "Hey, Willie, " Mo called."Hey, come on. Willard!" He prodded him with his stockinged foot, got no response. It took him another half minute to notice the glint of gold in one of the creases on Willard's neck, and he dug in his fingers to find a heavy chain buried there, a necklace that had gotten snarled in the fight and that had stayed tight far too long.

  He had clawed it loose and was kneeling on the floor giving Willard mouth-to-mouth when Mike St. Pierre burst through the second-floor doorway, his gunleveled.

  "Jesus, "Mike said, taking in the situation. Then he said, "I didn't mean to intrude," thinking he was funny.

  Mo took his mouth off Willie's. "Ambulance," he panted. And then back to the sour, hammy taste of Willie's slack lips.

  St. Pierre called in, but then he hunkered down next to Mo to put two fingers on Willard's neck. "You might as well quit, Mo. Guy's gone. Jesus, what happened here? You look like you got hit by a truck." He frowned and added, "How come you're not wearing your shoes?"

  Three ambulances and an array of White Plains and State Police cars came, lighting up the parking ramp and the street with flashers of different colors. Like a giant mirrored disco ball, only nobody was dancing. Gawkers stopped their cars and came out of apartments to look at the show from the street. Mo's b
oss at Major Crimes, Senior Investigator Marsden, came from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, along with a lieutenant and a captain all the way from Poughkeepsie and as allow-looking jerk from Internal Affairs. Even Richard K. Flannery, Westchester County's super-officious DA, put in an appearance. Flannery's attendance at this gala made it good odds it was going to turn into a shit heap. The whole sequence of events was hard to explain. When Mo told it, the episode seemed stranger than it had been at the time, when everything was happening so fast and it all fell into place with the inevitable logic of necessity. His shoes still stood side by side next to the ground-floor entrance, that was great, he'd never realized what a psychological disadvantage you're at when you're wearing only socks outside in the city at night. Flannery gave him ugly looks, told him to keep his mouth shut, and made some perfunctory statement to the press, a big, square-shouldered, cue-ball-bald guy hogging the cameras and pretending he didn't enjoy it. A News3 helicopter thumped away overhead, bathing the whole area in a searing white spotlight and making so much noise that after Mo had retrieved his gun from the stairwell he was tempted to shoot it.

  Every bone, every muscle, every inch of skin, everything hurt. He would have been sore just from that first short scrap with Willard on the ground floor, but being pulled through the railing and having to wrestle with the guy had just about done him in. His shinbones felt broken, he'd sprained muscles in both shoulders, his elbow needed an X-ray, his head was covered with bumps, it felt as if he'd pulled a ligament in his groin. His suit was in rags and he was wearing only socks. His belt had been bagged as evidence. He was exhausted but he knew there'd be hours of incident reports and debriefings to go through before he could go home, and there'd be all kinds of departmental repercussions. It was the shits.

  And then to have St. Pierre come up to him and ask him for his gun.