Red Alert(NYPD Red #5)(70)

“Madam Mayor,” Kylie said, “we know for a fact that the DA will do all he can to keep those tapes from seeing the light of day.”

“Oh, I’m sure Mick Wilson can get a judge to rule them inadmissible at trial,” Sykes said. “But once the press becomes aware of their existence, they will stop at nothing to get their hands on them. Or at the very least get the name of every man who got caught with his pants around his ankles. To an investigative reporter, those videos are a Pulitzer waiting to happen.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my job it’s this: never get in the way of a person who outranks you when they’re blowing off steam. Kylie and I didn’t say a word.

“Where are you on finding this mad bomber, Segura?” the mayor asked.

“We’ve got thirty-five thousand cops out there looking for him,” Kylie said.

“And I’ve got eight and a half million people looking over their shoulder, wondering if he’s going to cuff an exploding briefcase to their wrist,” the mayor said. “Find him. Fast.”

She turned and started to walk away. Then she stopped and came back. “One more thing,” she said.

It was bullshit. She didn’t have one more thing. This was the only thing. The mayor of the city of New York doesn’t drive over to East 67th Street to congratulate two cops on closing one case and bitch at them for not cracking another. She came because she needed something. But instead of straight out saying “I’m here because I need a favor,” she decided to make it look like it was an afterthought to our little heart-to-heart chat.

“When was the last time either of you spoke to Princeton Wells?” she said.

“I called him from Thailand to give him a heads-up about Segura,” Kylie said. “I think it was Sunday night New York time, so it’s been about three days.”

“I’ve been trying to get hold of him, but he seems to be off the grid.”

“Considering what happened to his partners, that kind of makes sense,” Kylie said.

“Remember that little black-tie dinner at The Pierre hotel?” the mayor said. “A lot of powerful people donated a lot of money to build permanent housing for the homeless. Tremont Gardens is important to those donors and to this administration. We’re scheduled to break ground in two weeks, and I can’t get in touch with the man who is supposed to make it all happen. Someone has to tell Princeton Wells that just because the podium exploded doesn’t mean the entire project gets blown up with it.”

“Would you like us to reach out on your behalf?” Kylie said.

“Excellent idea, Detective. Just don’t make it sound like I have NYPD running political errands for me. He’s holed up at his place. Pay him a visit. Reassure him that you’re close to catching Segura. Offer him police protection. Tell him we have to go back to business as usual, or the terrorists win. I don’t care what you say to him—just get him to call me.”

This time she turned and left. She got what she came for and made it sound like it was Kylie’s idea to help.

“I guess we’re going to Wells’s place,” I said. “You ready?”

“I just need a minute to update my résumé,” Kylie said. “I’m going to add ‘Personal flunky to the mayor.’”





CHAPTER 67



Geraldo Segura smiled as he watched Carlotta step out of the front door of Princeton Wells’s mansion on Central Park West. He didn’t have to look at his watch to know exactly what time it was: 4:30 p.m. On the dot. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later. Carlotta was a creature of habit.

Her key ring was already in her hand, and she double-locked the front door with a practiced twist, tossed the keys in her purse, and zipped it up.

He raised the binoculars to his eyes. She had aged well over the years. She was in her sixties now. Her face was rounder, fuller, but her dark eyes were just as alert and intense as ever as she lifted the flap on the keypad at the front door and carefully punched in the security code.

He trained his gaze on her fingers. Eight. One. One. Seven. Five. Gracias, Carlotta.

He knew where she was going. She’d follow the same path she took every day, five days a week, for thirty-six years: a block and a half to the subway station at 72nd Street, catch the uptown C train, take it ten stops to West 155th Street, and walk another block and a half to her apartment on St. Nicholas Avenue.

He and Carlotta had bonded from the very first day he set foot in Princeton Wells’s house. She was Salvadoran; he was Guatemalan. They had an almost identical coppery skin tone, a shared culture, and a mutual distrust of rich white people.

He remembered asking her once why she didn’t ask Princeton’s mother to have the family chauffeur drive her home, or at least pay for a cab.

“Mrs. Wells, she offered,” Carlotta said. “But I say ‘No thank you very much.’”

“Why would you turn down a ride in a limo?” he asked.

“A ride in a limo is wonderful,” she said. “But getting out of a limo in my neighborhood is not so smart. When you take the subway, nobody notices you.”

And Carlotta definitely did not want to be noticed. Thanks to the Wells family, she was a permanent legal resident of the United States, but her husband, Milton, his two brothers, and three of her cousins were not.