Saturday
It was six-thirty in the morning, and we were both awake.
My brain was fogged over with that thick haze that comes from a night spent ingesting too much coffee while thinking too much about terrible things that would keep you up under normal circumstances.
Curt’s eyes were open, too, but they were more aware, less troubled. He seemed less like someone running on fumes, like I was, and more like a hawk poised to strike.
Waiting for that moment when his prey poked its head from the shadows. And at six-thirty, that’s when our prey,
Theodore Goggins, poked his head out from his uptown apartment.
“Right there,” I said.
“I see him.” Curt quickly combed his hair, opened the mirror above the windshield to get rid of the whole “I stayed up all night in a car” look. Whether that kind of makeover could be done without trained professionals and Heidi Klum, I wasn’t sure.
“Same drill,” Curt said. “I follow our man to his destination, then I call you. We’re not going to have a ton of time because I have no idea where this guy is headed. Just be on alert.”
“I’m going to head over to the West Side Highway,” I said. “Better to have access to a faster road. Just in case.”
“Good thinking, Parker. I’ll call you when Goggins takes me…wherever,” Curt said. “And Henry?”
“Yeah, Curt?”
“Be careful. I don’t know how this day is going to unwind.”
I nodded, didn’t need to say anything. Curt knew I was game.
“Okay, let’s get this party started.”
“Some party. Six in the morning.”
“Can it, buddy. Stay focused.”
“Good luck, Curt.”
He exited the car, walked over to a sidewalk newspaper salesman and bought a copy of the Gazette. At least he was supporting my paper.
Theodore Goggins left his apartment wearing a different suit, this one straight black, with shiny shoes and another sparkling blue tie. He headed south on Columbus, right toward where Curt was standing reading the paper.
When Goggins passed him, Curt waited thirty seconds before starting his tail. After they’d both disappeared, I started the car and headed west on 110th Street. The morning sun was rising above the trees as I drove on the south side of Morningside Park. The lush green foliage was such a stark contrast to the brick and stone just south across the street.
Suddenly I realized that the West Side Highway had just two entrances near my location: one on 125th Street and the other on Ninety-sixth. They were a mile and a half apart from each other, and given Manhattan traffic it could be fifteen minutes easily from one exit to the other. If I chose the wrong one, I could miss Curt and Goggins entirely.
I slowed down briefly approaching Riverside Drive, then made a decision and turned south toward Ninetysixth. I figured Goggins went south; best guess was that his pick-up point was south of our location.
I pulled the car over on Ninety-sixth and waited for
Curt to call.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long.
My phone rang less than fifteen minutes later. It was
Curt. He was breathless, panting.
“I almost lost him,” Curt said. “Stupid MetroCard was out of cash. Anyway, get your ass downtown to the meatpacking district.”
“On the way,” I said, putting the car into Drive and easing onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. “Where to?”
“You know the Kitten Club?”
“Um…yeah. Unfortunately. Why?”
“Our friend Theodore Goggins just walked inside.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said. “I knew Shawn Kensbrook was dirty, but he’s got his hands full in the mud.”
“You think this is the new depot where the lackeys get their refills?”
“It would make sense,” I said. “I’ve been to the Kitten
Club and that place has more unexplored territory than the Jonas Brothers. Plus it doesn’t fill up until late at night, so nobody’s there during the day to watch it.”
“Given the history of this place,” Curt said, “it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain when you get down here. Meet me on the southeast corner of Washington and Little West Twelfth
Street.”
“Will do. I’ll be down there right away.”
I exited my spot and pulled Curt’s car onto the Hudson
River Drive south. The traffic wasn’t bad, rush hour still an hour or so from reaching its apex. The sun cast a brilliant glow on the water, the shores of New Jersey visible, the highway directly across from Port Imperial Marina.
I took the Fourteenth Street exit and made my way south on Tenth Avenue toward the Kitten Club. There were plenty of spots available, so I pulled up on the corner of Washington and Twelfth and rang Curt’s cell phone.
He didn’t answer, but then I saw him walking toward me.
Hanging up the phone, I unlocked the passenger side door. Curt slipped in and stretched out.
There were massive bags under his eyes, and his clothes were rumpled. Plus he smelled kind of funky.
Not the Curt Sheffield I was used to hanging out with.
“How was your night?” I said. “I feel like we bonded a bit.” I jokingly punched Curt in the arm.
“Let’s not go there. You know for a chunky guy,
Goggins has a motor that would make Jeff Gordon piss his pants.”
Across the street, we could both see the entrance to the
Kitten Club. I’d been there twice. Once to cover a murder, the second to rescue Amanda when I felt she might be in danger. I was getting a little tired of this place.
“You said something about the club not surprising you,” I said. “What did you mean by that?”
“You’re not a native New Yorker,” Curt said, “so you wouldn’t remember. For about ten years during the midseventies and eighties, the space the Kitten Club currently occupies was a different club called Mineshaft.”
“Sounds hot.”
“You have no idea. While it was open, Mineshaft was one of the most popular gay bars in the city. They had dungeons, cages, S and M, bondage, you name it. Then the city shut the club down in eighty-five, claiming that all the rampant sexual activity was helping to spread the
AIDS virus.”
“Holy crap, are you serious?”
“Yessir. Apparently Mineshaft-and a number of other clubs-had back rooms and basements where club-goers could partake in, let’s just say, activities that did not require clothing. Rumors had it that the club was actually
Mafia owned and operated. The mob started losing money hand over fist, and the lunkheads figured people just weren’t spending money, but the sad truth is they were losing a lot of their clientele to the virus. After it was shut down, the club was a ghost lot for almost twenty years and was basically nothing more than an abandoned warehouse. It was supposed to be torn down until somebody-guess who-bought the lot.”
“Shawn Kensbrook.”
“Bingo. This place is all sorts of bad news. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if an entrepreneur like Kensbrook was padding his wallet by giving some of those hidden rooms to 718 Enterprises.”
As we watched the club, a young man wearing a suit turned the corner and entered the front door.
“You saw that?” I said.
“Sure did.”
“So what do we do now?” I said. “You want to call for backup?”
“Not yet. Right now we have no probable cause. I didn’t see Goggins enter with any drugs and we haven’t seen anybody leave with them. We go charging in now without a warrant, the whole thing gets thrown out.”
“Come on, Curt, we have to do someth-”
And then I stopped talking.
“There,” I said, pointing out the object of my curiosity to Sheffield. “We follow that.”
Curt focused his eyes on what I was staring at. It was a shipping truck, and it was parked around the back entrance of the Kitten Club. On the side were written the words Sam’s Fresh Fish! The slogan was accompanied by a cute illustration of a live fish standing on a plate smiling while holding a sign that read, I’m Fresh!
And standing behind the truck were two men, unloading boxes and carrying them inside the club.
“This place serves dinner,” Curt said. “And those little hors d’oeuvres with salmon on toast points. It’s a fine attempt, Parker, but you’re reaching.”
I turned to Curt. “Fish isn’t delivered on Sundays.”
He cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”
“The markets are closed on Sundays. That’s why when you order fish on a Sunday, you’re getting food that’s been on ice over the weekend.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, sir. I did a piece on the South Street Seaport a few months ago. Took seven showers to wash that smell off me. And one thing I learned is that there are no fish deliveries on Sundays in this city.”
“So if that truck isn’t delivering fish,” Curt said, “then…”
“Then we follow the truck.”
“The truck?”
“This place is a refilling station. My guess is they don’t keep more than a few days’ supply in here. Wherever the Darkness is coming from, it’s not here. But I have a feeling Sam the fisherman might have an idea.”
“Lead the way.”
But I couldn’t lead the way. That was up to the employees of Sam’s, or whatever front the Sam’s truck was used for, and they took their sweet time. The men unloaded at least a dozen large boxes, which they carefully brought inside the Kitten Club. Curt and I sat there and watched in silence, trying to figure out just how much the merchandise inside those boxes was worth, where it came from, and where it was being manufactured.
Finally, at about eight-thirty, just as the New York streets were beginning to clog up, one of the men climbed into the driver’s side and churned the ignition. He slowly pulled away from the club, turning south onto Ninth
Avenue and then right on Fourteenth Street heading east.
Fourteenth was one of the major Manhattan arteries, so going crosstown took some time. The driver of the truck didn’t seem in a particular hurry, never honking or making any maneuvers that would have gotten him noticed.
When we got to Third Avenue, the truck headed north, and then took a right at Thirty-sixth.
“Is he headed to the tunnel?” Curt said.
The truck seemed to answer that question for us as it merged left on Thirty-sixth into the Midtown Tunnel, heading out toward Queens.
“What the hell is in Queens?” Curt asked again.
“I hope you’re just thinking out loud and not expecting me to answer,” I said, “because I’m as confused as you are.”
Once through the tunnel, the truck stayed on 495-East, not going a single mile over the speed limit. After about seven miles, the truck merged onto the Grand Central Expressway, then took the Van Wyck south. I was now thoroughly confused, and I could tell from Curt’s expression he was, too.
As we neared the Briarwood section of Queens, the truck abruptly turned off of the Van Wyck, still keeping legal speed, and continued south until it began to slow.
At this point I slowed the car as well; traffic was easing up, making us more noticeable. We were still two cars behind the truck, and I was hoping that driving a big rig made it a little harder for the driver to spot us.
Then, a mile down the road, the truck made another right and disappeared.
“This isn’t good,” I said, slowing down and pulling over to the side of the road.
Running at least half a mile was a fence made of chicken wire, the top lined with sharp barbs. We were a good few miles from any sort of body of water. “My guess is they don’t ship fish here,” I said. “What do we do now?”
Curt sat there, shaking his head. “We don’t have
PC,” he said.
“Screw probable cause, Curt. We go in there, I’ll bet my father’s eyes we’ll find it within thirty seconds.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We don’t even know what we’d be walking into.”
“You’re a cop and I’m a reporter at one of the biggest papers in the city,” I said. “They can’t just kill us.”
As I said that, suddenly we whipped around as something rapped at the passenger side door. There was a man standing there leaning over, gently knocking his knuckles against the window.
I felt a lump rise in my throat. What the hell was he doing here?
Curt immediately lowered his window and said, “Detective Makhoulian, I… How did you get here?”
Detective Sevay Makhoulian, wearing a light brown jacket that fluttered in the wind, nodded, gesturing across the front seat toward my window.
We turned around to find another man there. This one
I’d never met before, but I knew him right away. He was in his early forties, with wavy blond hair and an ear that looked like a bad science experiment.
It was Rex Malloy, and he was smiling as he aimed a gun at my head.