Joe Brenner felt his feet shuffling down Bowery. For five years, his meetings with Kendra had been easy money. In theory, she could have tried to turn the tables on him, but she never had. Not once. She was too afraid. She had the money and would continue paying. Easy.
But today, Kendra suddenly had surprises up her sleeve. She had played him, and now a television show with millions of viewers had him on tape—probably on camera based on the looks of the roof mount on that van. He replayed the conversation in his head, knowing how bad it was.
He had denied killing Martin Bell—of course he had—but he had told Kendra to keep her mouth shut, an obvious sign that he was hiding something. And he had said something about the next payment. They’d have him locked and loaded for extortion. He’d lose his license and have to go to prison.
That was not going to happen.
He needed someone with power to shut this entire thing down. He knew exactly what to do. He pulled out his burner phone to make the call. The voice that answered was nervous, the usual reaction when he rang.
“It’s me,” he said. “You’re going to do something for me.”
“How much this time?”
“Not money,” he said. “A favor. And then you’ll never hear from me again.”
“What kind of favor?” More fear in that quivering voice.
“Not on the phone,” he said, paranoid after that stunt Kendra pulled with the television producer. He needed to clear his head. He needed open space, away from the city. “Meet me at Randall’s Island, in the parking lot by Field 9.” Sometimes Brenner drove there for no reason at all other than to be surrounded by green grass.
There was a long pause, then the voice on the other end of the line said, “I’ll leave right now.”