Chapter 20

Ortiz sits on a metal chair in Grand Central Market. It’s a little after eight in the morning, and the place is stirring to life. His scowl is aimed and cocked. He lights a cigarette, daring someone to tell him to put it out, and watches lawyers, city workers, tourists from Denmark, and a bunch of squat, hunched men, a few in cowboy hats, a few in hard hats, eating noodles and drinking Budweiser at the China Café counter. The hipsters have yet to descend. A chill blows through the big, open doors where, years ago, trucks delivered produce from the north, driving past gangbangers and homeless and fleeing before sunset. It is not the same city it was then.

“Every time I come here, something’s different,” says Ortiz. “You know, when I was a kid, it was all Latino vendors. Cheap too, man. And there was this little guy, a Chilean if I recall, selling beer and whiskey over there in the far corner, near Broadway. It’s gone, man. Look at it. Went fancy. Neon. Grass-fed hamburgers, eleven-dollar falafels—that’s chickpeas, man. Eleven bucks for a pita full of chickpeas. Jesus. Look over there. Oysters on the half shell and white wine. What the fuck.”

“It’s the Ren—”

“Don’t say it. I hate that word.”

“How about ‘rebirth,’ then,” I say, teasing him. “Rejuvenation. Reinvention. Renewal. Before it was a market, this was the Ville de Paris. Best department store in the city. No kidding. Back in the eighteen-hundreds. It’s changing back to what it was. Like in the Bible, everything has a season.” Ortiz looks at me, makes a fist, reels up his middle finger. “You look skeptical. Don’t worry. You can still get a taco for three bucks.”

“They’ll push them out too. Just wait. Where did you come up with this Ville de whatever?”

“It’s on the plaque outside.”

He fidgets with his mustache, looks tired.

“That Salvadoran’s joint’s doing well,” I say. “So is the nut seller by the watch-repair guy.”

“Who wears a watch anymore? That guy won’t last. Something new comes; something old’s gotta die. I miss the grit and the lack of pretension. It’s gone, and for what? Bitter coffee sold by some bearded wastrel calling it Ethiopian and charging you four bucks. Christ.” He shakes his head, scratches his face. “You ever have one of those sandwiches from Egg Slut? You see the lines around that place? Bet it’s a two-hour wait to get an egg-and-cheese sandwich. And they all stand there, iPhones out, taking selfies, making a show of it. Doesn’t the world have important stuff to do? Who can stand that long in line for an egg sandwich? I’m lost.”

“I like the beer over there,” I say, nodding to the left.

“Never figured you for a craft guy.”

“Every now and then, I like a hoppier taste. A bite.”

“Jesus, you’re just like them. I thought you hung out at the place over on Fifth.”

“The Little Easy’s my go-to.”

“That looks sufficiently gritty. Used to be something else. I can’t remember what. A dry cleaner’s, maybe. Had a murder there way back when I was starting out.”

“It’s got a beat-up charm. Like Budapest.”

“I like something a little beat-up and worn out. Real, you know. But Budapest? What’s that got to do with it? I’m assuming you mean the city, right? It’s not an apt analogy. Kind of off the wall. ’Cause ‘Little Easy’ would naturally make one think of New Orleans.”

“First thing that came to mind.”

“You’re weird. You do that a lot, you know. Drop in off-the-wall references. I’ve noticed. You can be an opaque fucker.”

“You mean hard to follow?”

“Pain in the ass, more like.”

“I don’t see myself that way.”

“No. You see yourself as sensitive. Smart and aloof too. You have this smart thing going.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s annoying.”

Ortiz and I chat away about useless shit. We don’t want to talk about what we’re here to talk about. The video. I can’t stop seeing it in my head. What they did to her. I’ve seen a lot of degradation over the years, but something about her, in that mask, her body, long, flimsy, dead to the world, hands on her, moving her like a puppet, setting her in positions, and the whole time, the mask not changing expression, showing neither fear nor pain, nor anything at all. It had a knowing look to it, as if it had glimpsed centuries and deciphered secrets. Her body, her nakedness, drew you to her. You wanted to cover her, but at the same time, you couldn’t turn away. The strange loveliness of a victim. It happens from time to time. A victim of a sex crime can draw out your darker places, even as you weep for her. It makes you ashamed of what’s inside you.

“This one bothers me,” says Ortiz. “Young woman like that. It’s not even that so much as the perverse staging of it. How old you think that tape is? Gallagher and Jamieson look young.”

“Crime lab’s working on it. Maybe eight, ten years.”

“What was the opera in the background?”

“Così fan tutte, by Mozart.”

“Not on my playlist,” says Ortiz, no smile.

“Jamieson was a classics guy. Architecture, music. I told you about the paintings in his office and the statue by his pool.”

“The rape of somebody by Zeus, right?”

“Rape of Proserpina. Pluto kidnaps a maiden to the underworld. Greek mythology. You ever get into it? I was addicted to it as a kid. Bernini did the statue in Rome.”

“Whatever. You find anything on the escort service Jamieson used? He rough up a lot of girls? More videos?”

“That’s the only one we’ve got.”

“I can’t stop thinking about that mask. Sick fucks. Sick rich guys thinking they run the world.”

“Not anymore—at least two of them, anyway.”

“But they knew they were gonna. You could see it. Brazen contempt. Looking right at the camera. Glad they got wasted.” He fidgets with his mustache and sighs. “So what are you thinking?”

“The doer’s that woman. Probably never knew what happened that night, could never be sure, and then somehow, sometime, she comes across the video. Maybe she’s the one who hacked Gallagher’s computer a couple years ago. Remember, he threw it in the ocean. Jamieson’s kept his files on a flash drive. She must have a copy too.”

“She planned it?”

“Vengeance.”

“Who is she? The mask never comes off.”

“They never mention her name. No reference to her at all. We don’t know who she is.”

“Or even if she’s the doer.” Ortiz sighs. “They could have killed her. We don’t know what happened after the video ended. Killer could be someone else—not likely, but I wouldn’t completely rule out the possibility. Could be a boyfriend or husband who found out. Could be a bunch of people. Could still be some turf battle between architectural firms—again, not likely, I know, but a lot of money at stake in these contracts.”

“But we have surveillance video of a woman in a fedora coming out of the Grand Street building the night Jamieson was killed. We know she went into his apartment. We have a witness who saw her on the sidewalk. Earle something, the barber-bookie I told you about.”

“The guy who thought she was up there on a movie shoot?”

“Yes. And now we have the rape video.”

“I don’t know,” says Ortiz, moving pieces in his mind. “How about this. Hear me out before you say anything. How about Jensen as the doer, or at least, he has a connection to the doer. He didn’t want to be there that night. He didn’t want to do it. Not really. He was young and drunk and scared. Jamieson and Gallagher are threatening him. Egging him on. Guy was scared of them. He didn’t have a mask; you could see the disgust on his face.”

“But he does it. He rapes her.”

“I said let me finish. Yeah, he does. He’s pretty aggressive too, once he gets going. I just think he broke. Snapped. He wanted it to be over fast, and he did it as hard as he could. He hated those guys. Didn’t you say Jensen’s wife …”

“Wanita.”

“Didn’t you say she and Jamieson’s boss, that old architect, the guy with the tailored suits, told you about a falling-out between Jensen and the other two? Didn’t you say Jamieson told you the same thing at Gallagher’s funeral and was real cagey about it? Gallagher’s wife also said something happened between them, right? Here’s what I’m thinking. Jensen and this woman somehow come across the video. They reconcile and make a plan. The video’s bad for both of them. They want to destroy the two who made it.”

“That’s a stretch. Why would she do that? He raped her.”

“She’s seen the video. She knows he didn’t want to. Maybe he wants revenge too.”

“I don’t know, Ortiz. I don’t buy it. Besides, he never saw her. Jensen got there and the mask was on. We saw him rush out of the house while Gallagher and Jamieson still had her naked.”

“They told him who she was later. Could be.”

“Doubt it. They didn’t want him to know. It was Jamieson and Gallagher’s schoolboy secret. Jensen was the weak one. They wanted to keep him guessing. Toy with him. They had him on video. He doesn’t know her identity. He can’t confess, contact her. They have him. He wasn’t going to talk, but he breaks from them. And they say fine, screw him, and time goes by.”

“Then, where is he?”

“Wife says Montana. He often goes off the grid.”

“Pretty convenient, wouldn’t you say?” says Ortiz, lighting another cigarette, yawning. “He’s the doer. If not, he’s dead and she, or whoever, has a trifecta.”

“No body. We found the other two quick. Jensen disappeared days ago.”

Ortiz runs a hand through his hair, leans back in his chair, uncomfortable, edgy.

“The shit that goes on inside people, huh?” he says. “The shit we do to one another.”

“Who you telling about the video?”

“Nobody.”

“Mayor’s office?”

“Nope. Can’t afford a leak. That video gets out, and boom, it’s viral. You know what kind of shit comes with that. I’ll tell the chief we’ve got a significant lead. Getting close.”

“Are we?”

“Better be.”

“This one’s getting to me,” I say, looking away a second and then back to Ortiz. “I feel a pull, you know. When I saw her on the surveillance video in that raincoat and hat, she’s this woman disappearing into the night. The way she walked away and vanished. Then the sex tape. Is it the same person? What happened to her between then and now? How do you go on? How do you look at yourself and not think back? Where do you put that horrific experience? Every time someone touches you, a burn, a memory. You think that?”

“Jesus, Carver. You got a thing for this woman? Listen, man, we get over shit. No matter how bad. It’s what people do. Get on. Put it in a box. How else you gonna make it? You got over your father; I got over stuff; we all do.”

“This is a different kind of box. I don’t know if this one did. You kill like that, you didn’t get over much.”

“Maybe this is how she gets over it. What do they say in yoga? A cleansing breath.”

“Didn’t know you did yoga.”

“Tried it once. Didn’t take,” says Ortiz, standing and finishing his coffee.

A girl in cutoffs and black boots kisses a bearded guy wearing an earring. He hands her an iPad and tells her she’s got to read an article on vacationing in the Galapagos Islands. She smiles and twirls and kisses him again. She holds up the screen and slides under his arm. They walk toward the neon and the steam rising from the Pupusa Stand, and a woman in a ponytail selling artisanal bread and sea salt.

“Hey,” says Ortiz. “For the hell of it, let’s try one of those egg sandwiches. The line’s not too long. I’m buying.”