Strip Page 3

  But Kapak knew his luck wasn’t that good. This guy Carver was an unknown. The man had simply appeared beside Kapak one night wearing a ski mask, stuck a gun against his head, and said he would pull the trigger if Kapak didn’t drop the bank deposit pouch and stand with his hands on the wall of the bank for five minutes while he disappeared. At first Kapak had almost laughed. He had considered saying it out loud: “You really don’t want the one you rob to be me.”

  But small-time characters were the most likely to panic and shoot somebody. There was no point in incurring that risk. For five minutes Kapak could be silent and stand there. After that it would be different. It would be his turn. It still seemed perfectly fair to Kapak. He had been robbed of cash receipts, so he had asked around about new people with a lot of cash and come up with the name Joe Carver. Kapak had never seen or heard of the robber before, and he had never seen or heard of Joe Carver, so it seemed like a match. It had to be somebody new if he didn’t know who Kapak was.

  He had to admit to himself in the solitude of his guesthouse shower that he had probably been overconfident in being satisfied with Joe Carver as the robber. The truth was that he had not really considered it absolutely essential that he catch and punish the right man. It was essential that he find and punish some man and get his money back, if only so that everybody knew he had done it. If he had the wrong man, it wasn’t the end of the world. These things had happened to people before. Carver could either put up with the loss or go find the real thief and get the money back from him.

  Kapak dried off and walked naked back up the path toward the big house. He was sure the girl would be gone by now, and he could get dressed for the police interview in peace. The tedium of these interviews was their most striking quality, and this made it difficult to maintain the level of concentration he would need to avoid their purpose, which was entrapment. The cops obviously knew something was up, and the two cars registered to his company proved he was somehow connected with whatever had happened, and they needed to wear him down so they could fool him into incriminating himself. Actually, the process was more like being nagged than fooled.

  Kapak came into the house through the sliding door into the living room and padded along barefoot on the polished hardwood floor for five paces before his eye caught the unfamiliar shape and identified it as a man.

  The man was about forty, with a short beard that looked as though he hadn’t had a chance to shave. He wore a pair of black jeans and a T-shirt with a long-sleeved cotton shirt open over it like a jacket. He was standing absolutely still near the fireplace.

  Kapak was naked and unarmed, and there was no way to retreat unnoticed, so he resorted to bluster. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Joe Carver.”

  “You’re …”

  “Yes. I came this morning because I wanted you to get a chance to look at me. Now you know that I’m somebody you never saw before. I never held you up.”

  Manco Kapak’s mind was stalled, caught up in the contemplation of details. It was absolutely undeniable that this Joe Carver did not seem to be the man who had stuck a gun against his head a month ago. He hadn’t seen the man’s face, but the voice seemed different, and the shape of the body. But had Carver forgotten he’d been wearing a ski mask? Kapak tried to follow these thoughts to some kind of conclusion but was distracted by the feeling that he was exceptionally vulnerable.

  At the same time, he couldn’t help thinking that this situation was likely to change radically within ten or twenty minutes. Spence would return, perceive instantly that there was an intruder in the house, and probably shoot him. Or a couple of survivors of last night’s debacle would show up to tell Kapak all about it, recognize Joe Carver, and take revenge for whatever he’d done last night. And, if nothing else happened, the police lieutenant would probably send a patrol car out at 9:01 to drag Kapak to headquarters. They’d bang on the door, get no answer, and then kick it in. Not only would Kapak’s immediate problem be solved, but so would the larger question of what to do about Joe Carver. The courts would put him away for a home invasion and for the sheer weirdness of keeping a naked man prisoner. Kapak had to stall until one of these things came to pass.

  “Look,” he said. “I can see you’re a sensible, reasonable man. You didn’t come in here talking nasty and waving metal around. I’d love to talk to you about this and come up with some sort of mutually satisfactory arrangement.”

  “That’s exactly what I want.”

  “Good, good,” Kapak said, nodding his head. “Since we’re both civilized and neither of us is crazy, I’d like to get dressed before we do that. I feel at a loss here, standing around like this. It’s hard to concentrate.”

  “That’s okay,” Carver said. “This doesn’t need to take a lot of your time. Now that you know I’m not the one you’ve been looking for, I’ll just go. You and I don’t have a problem.” He turned and moved toward the back door.

  That wasn’t satisfactory. It would allow Carver to slip out into the yard and probably through the tall grove of bamboo on that side of the yard and over the fence. It wouldn’t bring him into a collision with Spence or the Gaffney brothers or the police.

  “Wait” said Kapak.

  Carver stopped and turned to face Kapak. For a moment Kapak endured Carver’s stare and tried to hold his eyes on Carver’s. The expression on Carver’s face changed to disappointment—not, Kapak reflected, anger or fright. “Sorry. Got to go.”

  Kapak persisted. “It’s all well and good that you didn’t take my money. But what if you did something to my guys, or my cars? Is everything supposed to be even because you didn’t do one thing, but did five worse things?”

  “If I could do five worse, I could do ten worse. It’s best to be forgiving.”

  “But is that fair to me?”

  Carver slid the window open on the other side of the room and sat on the sill. He swung one leg out. “Be satisfied with peace. I could have hurt you today”

  “I’m just saying…”

  But Carver’s other leg swung over the sill and he slid off. Kapak heard him drop to the grass below, then heard him begin to run. Kapak had already begun moving, sidestepping closer to the master bedroom suite. Now he ran toward it. His bare feet gave him good traction on the slippery floors, and he made it to his bedroom quickly.

  Spence or the girl had opened the curtains, so he could see Carver trotting toward the tall, graceful bamboo stalks that swayed in the breeze another hundred feet ahead of him.

  Kapak dived onto the bed and rolled to his side to tug open the drawer of his nightstand. He grasped his pistol, nudged the safety off with his right thumb, then did two rolls in the other direction so he would arrive at the window-side of the bed. He swung his legs to get his feet on the floor. Carver was still visible through the nearest of the twelve-foot double-pane windows, and still in possible range. Kapak sprang to his feet and reached for the window latch, but was overcome by a wave of dizziness from all the rolling. He leaned against the wall to steady himself. He knew there wasn’t enough time left to get the big window open, so he took aim at Carver’s back through the glass and fired as Carver disappeared among the twenty-foot bamboo stalks.

  Kapak watched as the hole he had blown through his bedroom window seemed to move. His vision wavered a little as cracks shot upward to the top of the window frame and big shards of glass dropped toward the floor.

  Kapak stepped back just before the first shards hit the sill and the floor and shattered into a large number of sharp splinters and fragments. Tiny bits of glass flew, spinning in the morning sunlight to flash rainbows and explosions of reflected brightness as their sharp edges stung his face, neck, chest, belly, penis, testicles, thighs. A few little daggers of glass arced upward off the sill, turning to slash at his shins on the way to the tops of his feet.

  “Holy shit,” he muttered.

  He heard a noise and painfully half-turned to see Spence shoulder the door inward and drop to his knees beyond t
he bed, sighting down the barrel of a gun at the tortured flesh of Kapak’s glittering chest.

  Kapak dropped his gun on the bed and stood still.

  “What the fuck?” Spence seemed to intend it as a question.

  Kapak looked in the full-length mirror near the head of the bed. His fat, bulbous body was pocked with single droplets of bright red blood. In the sunlight, he could see his skin was powdered with tiny bits of glass from scalp to toenails. “Look what that son of a bitch did.”

  Spence stood up, put his gun in his belt, and approached cautiously. “We’d better get you cleaned up. You’ve got to be at that cop’s office in, like, thirty-five minutes.” He plucked a few shards out of Kapak’s bushy eyebrows. “Maybe you can go into the shower again and try to spray the little bits of glass off you with the heavy jets.”

  “Good idea. While I’m in there lay out some clothes for me. But keep your eye on that bamboo grove. I don’t want the bastard coming back just because he heard a gun go off” He waddled carefully toward the master bath. “That’s the way he thinks—like everything’s got to be even.” He went inside, closed the door, and locked it.

  Spence looked out at the bamboo grove and saw nothing, then hurried to the closet and collected some clothes for Kapak. On the way back he noticed that there was a trail of small blood spots on the carpet. Kapak must have stepped on a sharp piece of glass and not noticed it yet. He set the clothes on the other side of the bed and went to find the first-aid kit.

  3

  LIEUTENANT SLOSSER WAS IMPATIENT. Ever since his phone call to Manco Kapak, he’d had a peculiar feeling about this. He was almost sure that he was the first person to mention to Kapak that whoever had been driving his two Hummers last night had gotten into trouble in a construction site downtown. It had been the silences, the first indrawn breath, and then the pauses while the man tried to figure out what to say.

  Slosser was not sure whether he had made a mistake in telling Kapak so much. Maybe he should have told Kapak to come to the station for a conversation, and then let the news explode in Kapak’s face so he could watch the reaction. It was Slosser’s job to find out all he could about what was going on in the city, and any insight about something as odd as the ruined Hummers might be a big break.

  There was nothing Slosser could do about surprising Kapak now, so he concentrated on what he should do next. He had already awakened Kapak, and Kapak was on his way. Slosser had to keep him off-balance. If he wasn’t here by 9:15, Slosser would dispatch three cars to pick him up. No, make that two. Part of the problem with many of the small-time crime bosses in this city was that they began to think they were important. Make that one car to pick him up, and one to wait a block away unseen, not to move in unless there was resistance.

  Slosser was surprised that that the Hummers belonged to Kapak. He had always assumed that Kapak was a crook, but not the ugly, violent kind. He had seemed to be the sort who skimmed cash and understated his income. He seemed like someone who would someday find himself owning a club that wasn’t profitable anymore and would set fire to it for the insurance. He didn’t seem to be the sort who would send people to a construction site after midnight. The only two reasons that seemed to make sense were large-scale theft and extortion, and both seemed to be somewhere outside Kapak’s universe—too gritty and risky for a strip club owner. Slosser had never seen evidence that there was any enmity between Kapak’s company and Veruda Construction. It didn’t seem likely. The Coventry Towers project was a billion-dollar development, and it was only one of about five projects that Veruda had going. They were a herd of elephants, and Kapak was a gnat.

  Slosser looked at his watch and felt frustration. It was 8:50, only five minutes since the last time he had looked. He had hoped Kapak would get here early so he could make him wait.

  Slosser kept himself from looking at his watch again, and in a few minutes he heard footsteps outside his office door. Owens, his assistant, slapped his palm against the doorjamb once in a military knock and then opened the door. “Lieutenant, Mr. Kapak is here.” He added, “He brought his attorney.”

  Slosser kept himself from swearing, but he was aware after a second that his jaw was working, and he was grinding his teeth again. He stood and watched the two men step into his office. The first, he knew, was Kapak. He was a big man in his sixties, with broad shoulders, the thick neck of a fighter, but a paunch that hung over his thin black belt. His hair was still a coal black that made Slosser suspect it was dyed. He had a sour, almost pained look on his face. The second was the attorney, a slight man in his forties with a sallow complexion, pale eyes, and thin, spidery hands that kept fiddling with his Blackberry as he stepped in with his briefcase on his wrist.

  “Gentlemen. Right on time.” Slosser turned to Owens. “We’ll use Room Six.” To the others he said, “Follow me.” He set off down the hall, threading his way past the people in the hallway. He got to Room Six and opened the door to let the others in. He was mildly surprised that Kapak had brought his lawyer. In one way it was a gift. It meant he was scared of Slosser, and that meant he was guilty of something.

  There was a quiet understanding in the world of police and criminals. When you first pulled them in, you would have a conversation. The suspect would use the time to rat out his enemies, try to strike a bargain, and listen for clues as to how much the police knew. The cop would use the time to try various stratagems—say somebody else had named them as the perpetrator already, or that cops had found the gun, or tested their DNA, or some other lie. Lying was a privilege that had been upheld a hundred times in a hundred court cases. When the suspect got tired of the discussion, he would ask for an attorney. That was the signal he was done talking, and it was time to end the interrogation. Cops seldom asked a question after the subject of attorneys came up, and the suspect tended not to answer any. Slosser looked at the attorney.

  “I’m Lieutenant Nicholas Slosser. And you are…?”

  “I’m Gerald Ospinsky, Mr. Kapak’s attorney.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember the name from Mr. Kapak’s files.”

  “Ahh. What files would those be?”

  “As you know, Mr. Kapak has a couple of business licenses and liquor licenses, and you filed the papers for him. He’s also been cited for several violations of zoning, parking, nuisance, and noise codes. You responded to several of the complaints. Any other questions before we begin?”

  “No”

  “Mr. Kapak, could you state your full name, please?”

  “Claudiu Vidor Kapak”

  “Manco Kapak is a nickname, right?”

  “Of course. The first king of the Incas. And the last was named that too.” Kapak shifted in his seat. He looked sick. He seemed to have some kind of skin rash. There were tiny red spots on his cheeks and forehead. He began to lean forward and put his elbows on the table, but stopped himself abruptly as though he had set off a pain. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “You have two sport utility vehicles registered as property of Kapak Enterprises, correct? Two Hummers?”

  “Yes. My staff use them to transport people and supplies.”

  “What people and supplies?”

  “All kinds.”

  “Can you give me one example?”

  “Some of the time, one will be used to pick up a visiting artist at her hotel and bring her to one of the clubs for a show.”

  “You’re talking about your strip clubs, so it’s strippers?”

  “Gentlemen’s clubs. The entertainers are exotic dancers, yes.”

  “Got it. Why Hummers?”

  “They’re big, they’re high, and they attract the attention of potential customers. They look as though you’re delivering something valuable. It’s like having an armored car pull up at the front door. People look to see what comes out.”

  “Why do your vehicles have armor?”

  As Kapak paused for a moment, Ospinsky interrupted. “Who said they had armor?”

  “They both have steel pl
ates welded to the insides of the doors. They have bulletproof glass on the side windows. Why do they?”

  “It’s not illegal,” Ospinsky said to Kapak. “You don’t have to answer.”

  “It’s all right, Jerry.” Kapak said to Slosser, “Do you know I got robbed just about a month ago right outside the Bank of America? I was there with the night deposit. It was probably because I drove there alone in my Mercedes.”

  “I read the police report.”

  “Then you can see the kind of things a businessman has to worry about. I would have been better off driving to the bank in a bulletproof Hummer with a couple of bodyguards.”

  “Who did the robbery?”

  “If I knew, I’d have told you already”

  “I understand the North Hollywood division is investigating. Maybe they’ll be able to tell us both soon. But I was going to ask about the Hummers. Do you know where they are now?”

  “Since you say it like that, I guess you have them”

  “You’re right. They’re in our impound lot. Here are some photographs of them I got this morning.” He set them on the table in a row in front of Kapak.

  He stared down at them for a few seconds. It was hard to imagine what had happened to his two vehicles to make them look that way. They appeared to have been pounded on all sides by a giant hammer. He became aware of Ospinsky leaning against his shoulder so he could get the best view of the pictures without craning his neck too much. His breath was horrible, a noxious vapor being rhythmically pumped into Kapak’s face. He shrugged Ospinsky off, then looked up at Slosser.

  Slosser said, “What happened to your cars?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I think a few of your guys drove your Hummers to the Coventry Towers building site, trying to cause some trouble. The chain that secured the gate had been broken, so they weren’t invited.”

  “Who are you accusing?”