“Why isn’t Strubb hiding out?” Viz wondered aloud as he pulled to the curb across the street and half a block away from the Jupiter Club at the edge of downtown Albany.
“Because if the police could’ve made him for the murder of Gilbert,” Gage said, “they would’ve already.”
Viz looked over at Gage. “I hope his apartment manager didn’t drop a dime on us and tell him we came looking for him.”
Gage stared ahead at the broken neon sign tacked to the brick façade of the bar, the J burned out and “upiter” flashing in red.
“He probably didn’t,” Gage said. “There’s too many people coming by looking for Strubb—probation officers and parole agents and cops—that he doesn’t bother anymore.”
Two leather-chapped men walked into the recessed entrance. Muted light flooded the shadow as they opened the door and was eclipsed as it swung closed behind them.
Opening the SUV door, Gage said, “I’ll go around to the back of the building just in case he tries to slip out that way.” He stepped down in the slush mounding up from the street and over the curb and then looked back into the cab. “On second thought, if you’re getting a raise, maybe you should be the one to chill your bones out here instead of me.”
“That’s fine with me. I’d rather do that than what you have in mind for me.” Viz smiled. “If he doesn’t come out of there in the next half hour, you’re gonna want me to go inside and dance with somebody.”
“Shoot,” Gage said, smiling back. “I was going to make that a surprise.”
Viz reached into his jacket and pulled out Hennessy’s SIM and memory card, then said, “I’ll try to do some work on these while we’re waiting.”
Gage closed the door, made his way down the sidewalk, turned left at a corner store, and then looped around to the alley. The far streetlight backlit two men smoking next to a dumpster by the rear door to the Jupiter Club. They stamped their feet as they smoked, their wool-capped heads clouded in gray swirls. Even in puff jackets they seemed too thin to be Strubb, and although wearing motorcycle boots, they seemed too short. One after the other, they flicked their cigarettes in high arcs like single streams of fireworks that exploded when they hit the rear wall of the building across the alley.
Just after the men reentered the bar, Gage angled to the other side, then worked his way along the trash cans and delivery trucks until he obtained a straight-on view of the back door through the muck-splattered passenger and driver’s windows of a cargo van.
A man came out alone, lit up, and then reached for his cell phone and made a call.
“Hey. It’s me… I’m out in the back. It’s dead as dead can be except for Eddie.” The man laughed. “He thinks he’s gonna hook up with Strubb and Pike, but there’s no fucking way that’s gonna happen… That’s what I told him.” The man laughed again. “Three-way Eddie will be going it alone tonight… No, his phone got turned off. You want to talk to him?… I’ll get him.”
The man opened the back door and yelled inside.
“Strubb. My buddy wants to talk to you.”
Strubb filled the doorway ten seconds later. He held a beer bottle in one hand and a pool cue in the other. He traded the cue for the phone and stepped outside.
“Who’s this?” Strubb asked, then listened for a few seconds. “Yeah, I’m kinda between jobs. The last one went sour so I’m not working with Davey no more. Guy’s an asshole. Stiffed me. He shows up here again, I’m gonna kick his butt back to NYC… Sure. What’s the gig?… Yeah. I can do that… I’m good. Only had one beer. Pick me up out front in ten minutes.”
Gage reached for his cell phone as soon as the door closed behind Strubb.
“He’ll be coming out in a couple of minutes,” Gage told Viz. “Waiting for someone to pick him up. Blue jacket. Jeans. Work boots. The voice recorder is cued up to the right spot. Come up on him from the east. Soon as you reach him, I’ll head in from the west.”
Gage worked his way back to the corner market and waited until Strubb appeared. He watched Viz step out of the SUV, and then stroll up the block and stop next to Strubb. Viz set himself so that Strubb’s back would be facing Gage as he walked up.
Ten feet away, Gage heard his own voice on the recorder:
No reason to get yourself kicked in the head for something I’ll find out anyway. Then Strubb’s.
Gilbert. Tony Gilbert. Works out of New York City. Strubb backed away from Viz. Then Gage’s voice again.
This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to tell Gilbert and his pals to stay away from me.
Strubb spun and took a step. He jerked to a stop when he spotted Gage, who grabbed his jacket front and took him down to the sidewalk. Viz locked down Strubb’s legs before he could start kicking, then Gage froze him with a wrist lock and they pulled him to his feet.
“Say anything and I’ll break your arm,” Gage said to Strubb, and then looked at his watch and said to Viz, “His pal will be here in a minute or two.”
Gage and Viz marched Strubb across the street and down the block to the SUV. Viz frisked him, then they waited in its shadow as a pickup truck pulled to a stop in front of the bar. It waited a minute, then the driver honked twice, then leaned on the horn for a long one. Finally the driver walked inside the bar. He came out thirty seconds later.
Gage pulled up on Strubb’s arm, a reminder.
The driver looked up and down the street, braced his hands on his waist, then kicked at the slush and climbed back into the cab of the truck and drove off.
Gage watched him fishtail around the corner, then pushed Strubb against a storefront.
Gage wasn’t too worried about traffic passing by. The storefronts along the blocks heading toward downtown were empty except for yellowing “Going Out of Business” signs and dusty counters. And the bungalows and apartments in the opposite direction were more boards than windows, more bare wood than paint, and more cracks than concrete covering the driveways. It was a neighborhood that commuters sped through during the day and in which night drivers feared stoplights that set them up for carjackers. It was also one in which curious residents had learned not to stay curious for long.
“Remember what you said to me last time?” Gage asked.
“Fucking asshole,” Strubb answered over his shoulder, his cheek pressed against the glass. “What did I say to you?”
“You said just stay cool. If everything checks out, we’ll be on our way in a couple of minutes. We’ll just call it no harm, no foul.”
“And I was pissing blood for a week.”
Gage pressed against Strubb’s ribs. Strubb winced.
“Good,” Gage said. “It’ll be easy to hit the same spot again.”
“Just tell me what you want.”
“I want to know who hired Anthony Gilbert.”
“How the fuck should I know? I told him what you said and he paid me off and we went our separate ways.”
“You went your separate ways all right, but you left Gilbert laying dead in a dumpster.”
Strubb rocked his face against the glass, trying to shake his head. “It wasn’t me. It was some guys from the bar. He was calling us fags and stuff and they went after him.”
Gage looked over toward Viz and asked, “You think this and the recording is good enough for a murder conspiracy conviction?”
“People have gotten themselves into a bunk on death row for less,” Viz said. “But then again, I’m not a lawyer.”
Gage heard a car slow down in the slush behind them. Viz crossed the sidewalk to the curb and flashed his old DEA ID. The car sped away.
“Let me paint a picture,” Gage said. “You don’t need to say anything until I get to the end, and then you can fill in the blank.”
Strubb shrugged.
“You and some guys took Gilbert somewhere,” Gage said. “Gilbert has no way to fight back except by trying to threaten you. But what’s he got to threaten you with?”
Strubb turned his head toward Gage. “That’s not—”
Gage pushed his head back. “I told you it’s fill-in-the-blank, not question-and-answer.”
Strubb nodded.
“All Gilbert’s got to threaten you with is somebody bigger than him. Somebody he’d be terrified of if he was you.”
Strubb nodded again.
“So Gilbert says: You lay a hand on me and my boss is gonna hunt you down and blow your head off. And you ask: Who’s your boss? And Gilbert says…”
Gage twisted Strubb’s wrist and yanked up on his arm.
“Wycovsky. Shit, man. Ease up. He said the guy’s name was Wycovsky.”
Strubb pushed himself up on his toes to relieve the pressure on his wrist and elbow.
“I didn’t know who that was and I didn’t stay around to ask him neither. I swear.”
Gage eased up in the arm, then said. “Did you find out later?”
“Yeah. I went through Gilbert’s cell phone. Wycovsky’s at a law firm in the city. Him and another guy named Arndt.”
“That’s it?” Gage said. “He just threatened you with a lawyer?” Gage forced a laugh. “Like he was going to sue you?”
“Not Wycovsky, dumb ass. Whoever hired him. Gilbert said they had a lot of reach. World-fucking-wide. And no, he didn’t say who that was. I don’t think he even knew. People say shit when they’re scared.”
“Like you?”
“I’ve met tougher guys than you.” “I’m not surprised,” Gage said. “Where’s the phone now?”
“After I found out what those guys did to Gilbert, I tossed it in the Hudson.”
Gage released Strubb’s wrist and turned him around.
“I tell you what I’m going to do,” Gage said. “I’m releasing you on your good behavior. Kind of like on parole.” Gage smiled. “You know how that works. You behave and we’ve got no problem. You misbehave, and I’ll yank the leash and deliver you and the recording to Albany homicide.”
“What good behavior?”
“Keeping your mouth shut.” Gage looked hard at Strubb. “Can you do that?” Strubb shrugged.
Gage glanced at Viz. “I’ve got to get back to New York. Can you take him down to the police sta—”
“Okay. I’ll keep my damn mouth shut.”
Gage stepped aside and pointed toward the Jupiter Club. “Why don’t you go back inside and play with your friends.”