CHAPTER 54

Scott Damiano stepped out of the towering Aloha International Hotel on Saratoga Road, walked across the street, and hopped into the passenger seat of my Jeep.

“No problem,” he said.

“No problem?” Gavin Dengler lived in the penthouse suite, and to get there you needed a special key for the elevator. That, in my mind, constituted a problem.

But apparently not in Scott’s. “Ever hear of Gene ‘Piss Pie’ Spinelli?”

“The wiseguy who owned a bakery on Long Island?”

“Yeah, him. Know why they called him Piss Pie?”

“I can hazard a guess.”

“Right,” Scott said. “Anyway, you know how he died?”

“Fell down an elevator shaft in Queens.”

“Not so. That’s what it said in the papers. See, the fucking feds were trying to get us to talk about it, so they fed that bullshit to the Post, hoping one of us would say, ‘Whoa, that’s not how he died!’ on a tapped phone.”

A moment of silence as we watched a pair of bikinis cross the street.

“So anyway,” Scott said, “Piss Pie didn’t fall down no elevator shaft. The whole fucking elevator car went down, twelve floors over the course of a few seconds.”

“How do you know?”

Scott shrugged as though I were being obtuse. “’Cause my brother, Chris, and I rigged the fucking thing.”

“Your point?”

“My point is, Chris and I didn’t learn how to rig an elevator overnight. We went to elevator school.”

“Elevator school?”

“Well, not elevator school, but we took on an apprenticeship, all right? With this company that installed and repaired Alto elevators.”

“And the elevator across the street…?”

“It’s an Alto.”

“So we don’t need a key?”

“We don’t need a key. I just need a few minutes alone with the elevator.”

*   *   *

Scott got his few minutes alone with the elevator when a fire alarm went off across the street. Nothing pulls people away from whatever they’re doing like the possibility of witnessing death firsthand. Or at least serious injury. But the alarm’s going off was my doing, so in a strange, warped way I felt like a bit of a tease.

Twelve minutes later we were cruising up forty-two floors to the penthouse suite.

“Nice elevator,” I said.

“Alto does good work,” Scott agreed.

“No music, I like that.”

“I disconnected it when I rigged it to work without the key.”

“Really. Think you can do that at my office building?”

“No problem.”

When we reached floor thirty-nine, Scott started sniffing the air.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing.”

The elevator doors opened right onto the suite, a massive space appointed with the most luxurious of everything, from furniture to appliances to tapestry.

But what Scott sniffed from the elevator wasn’t nothing. It was far from nothing. I covered my nose and mouth with my tie to try to help block out the stench. But it wasn’t working.

The body on the floor was a bloated green-black, with blood vessels and blisters rising out of its rotting flesh. Most of the dead man’s blond hair had retreated to the hardwood, and his nails had vacated the tips of his puffed-up fingers.

“This guy has to have been dead a week,” I said, still holding my tie over my nose.

“Don’t be so sure. We’re in the tropics. Heat speeds up the process of decay.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Of course it’s right,” Scott said, lowering himself to his haunches in front of the body. “That’s why back East, whenever you can, you wait until winter to do somebody.”

I stood behind him and watched over his shoulder as he examined the corpse.

“Humidity or not,” I said, “I still say this guy’s been gone five or six days.”

“You never know,” Scott said, shaking his head. “Could be due to sepsis.”

“Sepsis?”

“A blood infection that accelerates the decay process. Can easily make a day-old body look like a week-old corpse. Only way to really tell is to open him up and examine the internal organs.”

“Well, we’re going leave that to Charlie Tong.”

“Who’s that?”

“The new ME.” I stared into Gavin Dengler’s protruding eyes. “You think he was poisoned?”

“Not unless you mean lead poisoning.” Scott pointed to a hole on the right side of Dengler’s head, just over the ear. “Execution-style. Point-blank from behind. This fucker was on his knees with a gun pointed to his head and he knew it was coming.”

I glanced around the room as I removed a set of latex gloves from my suit jacket. I slapped them on and tossed a pair to Scott. “Let’s take a look around because I don’t think Gavin Dengler’s going to be doing much talking.”

“What are we looking for?”

I began in the living area, checking shelves and opening drawers. “A photograph of Orlando Masonet with his name under it would be nice. Maybe his address and telephone number on the back.”

After inspecting the main area, I moved from bedroom to bedroom, while Scott checked out the kitchen.

“This fucker eats a lot of steaks,” Scott called out.

“Not anymore,” I mumbled.

I met him back in the living room ten minutes later.

“Nothing,” I said. “Not a laptop, address book, day planner…”

“I could have told you that. This was a professional. Professionals don’t leave any of that shit behind.”

“Check his pockets for a cell phone.”

Meanwhile I checked the caller ID and speed-dial buttons on his landline. Nothing.

“No cell,” Scott said.

“Let’s go. We’ll call it in from a paypho—”

The landline suddenly rang so loudly I felt it in my chest. When I finally recovered from my initial reaction, I glanced at the caller ID. “Restricted.”

“Answer it.”

I hesitated. Something about answering a dead man’s phone didn’t sit well with me. Still wearing my gloves, I lifted the receiver and didn’t say anything.

“Mr. Corvelli,” an accented female voice said hurriedly.

My stomach sank like an ice cube in wine as soon as I heard my name.

“I need your help. I saw you enter the hotel and I knew you were there to visit Dengler.”

I steadied my voice as best I could. “You’ve been watching the place?”

“Yes. Ever since the murder. Days ago I came to visit Dengler, to bring him money, when I saw someone else punch in the penthouse floor in the elevator. Whoever he was, he had a key. So I punched a different floor and didn’t try to return until later. When I did, Dengler was dead.”

My mind raced with excitement at the thought of a material witness. “So you saw the killer.”

“Yes, Mr. Corvelli.” She paused. “But worse, I think the killer saw me.”

“Where are you now?”

“Just outside the hotel, hiding between some hanging surfboards on the beach.”

“Stay there. We’ll come and collect you. What’s your name?”

“It’s me, Mr. Corvelli. Iryna Kupchenko. Oksana Sutin’s friend.”