“SO WHAT DID YOU WANT to see me about?”
District Attorney Olivia Stone sat back in her chair and waited for Tommy Monroe to tell her why he’d called in a panic, saying they needed to talk “immediately.” She’d never liked him much, found him to be crude and unattractive, with a bad habit of fixating on her cleavage when they talked. Early on in their relationship, when she was an underpaid Legal Aid attorney trying to get a cushy job with the union, she’d used her physical assets to her advantage. But after she got the position, and established herself as more valuable in their mutual quest for power and money, she’d made it clear that he needed to keep his hands and eyes to himself.
A few months after she was hired, they’d gone on a trip to Las Vegas for a convention of teachers unions, and after buying her numerous drinks had tried putting the moves on her. That’s when she’d spelled it out. “It’s not part of the deal.” She’d expected him to respond with anger, but instead he’d laughed and said, “That’s okay, sweet cheeks, I can get sex anytime; finding a smart, crooked lawyer is a little tougher.”
Every once in a while he’d say something to let her know that he was still entertaining amorous thoughts. But as district attorney, she’d been even more unambiguous that the power dynamic had changed; she was the power now.
Yet, it wasn’t just his oafish leers or suggestive remarks that formed her low opinion of him. While he could be clever in his dishonesty, and certainly knew how to wield power to achieve their shared goals, the years of being the top dog of a politically powerful organization had made him arrogant and careless. As she continued to set her aspirations at ever higher levels, such as a seat on the federal bench, or even governor, she’d worried that he was becoming a liability. However, she still needed the backing of his union, and so for the time being their fates were tied together.
Monroe leaned forward in his seat across from her and tossed a computer flash drive onto her desk. “This,” he said.
“What is it?”
“A copy of the video taken by security cameras at headquarters about three a.m. There was a break-in.”
“A break-in? Who breaks into a teachers union office?”
Monroe pointed to the flash drive. “Take a look.”
Frowning, Stone picked up the flash drive and inserted it into the USB port on her computer. Grainy video feeds from four security cameras popped up in the quadrants on her screen. At first there was nothing; then two men appeared in the upper left-hand quadrant that showed the glass front doors of the building. They were all wearing black balaclava masks and gloves, except for one of the men, who appeared to have something white around one of his hands.
The men knew what they were doing, quickly gaining entry and then disappearing from that camera’s view. They showed up again in the next frame, racing through a semi-dark hallway; then in a third in front of a door Stone knew led to Monroe’s office. Again the lock wasn’t an obstacle.
This time, however, when the men entered the office, one of them pulled out a can of spray paint and used it on the security camera lens. “What’s that on his hand?” Stone asked as the screen turned black.
“Looks like a bandage,” Monroe said.
The recording stopped. “That’s it?” Stone asked.
“Got ’em leaving, too, about five minutes later, but basically that’s it.”
“So what were they doing? You keep a lot of cash around?”
Monroe shook his head. “There was some petty cash in a drawer, but they left it,” he said, then hesitated.
“Well?”
“Well, it looks like they were after my computer.”
“They stole your computer?” Stone asked incredulously.
“No, they didn’t steal it,” Monroe replied. “I think they were looking for information.”
Stone felt her stomach contract and the muscles of her face tighten. This was not going well. “What were they looking for?”
“I can’t be sure.”
“Why not?”
“They wiped the history for everything after I shut it off when I left the office yesterday.”
Stone eyed the dagger-like letter opener on her desk and imagined sticking it in Monroe’s throat. “Well, what might they have been after?” she asked, her voice icy and her anger barely under control.
Monroe licked his lips nervously. “I don’t think they could have got into my computer. But there are some records on there . . .”
“What records?”
The big man tilted his head to the side. He let out a long breath. “There’s one folder in there with some account information and real estate documents that, uh, we’d rather not go anywhere else.”
“We’d?” Stone glanced at the letter opener again. “What do you mean ‘we’d rather not go anywhere else’? What in the hell did you have on that computer?”
Monroe squirmed in the chair. “Pretty much everything.”
“What!” Stone’s response wasn’t loud but it was hard as a brick to the head. “You fucking idiot.”
“Your name’s not on any of it,” Monroe said. “At least not your real name. It’s mostly dummy corporations and surrogates on the leases and documents, and all of it’s encrypted.”
“Yeah? And in the wrong hands how long do you figure it might take someone to break the code and track some of that down? Maybe lead them back to us? I can’t believe you’re so stupid.”
This time Monroe frowned as his face flushed with anger. “Don’t tell me you don’t have ‘records’ that could incriminate me stashed away somewhere.”
Stone’s eyes blazed. “Not anywhere anyone else could find.” She glared at her partner in crime a moment longer, then took a deep breath and let it out. She’d always believed that she was smarter than everyone around her—that she deserved whatever she wanted because of her superiority—and she hadn’t made it this far by panicking when things weren’t going right.
“So who do you think was behind this?” she said as she pulled the flash drive out of her computer and put it in the middle drawer of her desk. “The charter school association?”
Monroe looked thoughtful. “Could be. Maybe somebody with his nuts in a twist because of that stupid car bomb.”
Stone got the jab. He’d been uncomfortable with the assassination plan even though she’d argued that the timing would be perfect because of threats Rose Lubinsky had been getting from neo-Nazis. Then the thugs had cooperated by showing up to demonstrate. “But don’t they have a suspect in custody?”
Monroe shrugged. “My sources in the NYPD don’t know much. And I have no ins at the New York District Attorney’s Office.”
When Monroe hesitated again, Stone knew more bad news was on the way. “What is it? You got somebody in mind?”
The union president nodded. “I don’t know who the shorter guy with the bandaged hand is, but I think the other one is Micah Gallo.”
“Well, that’s just fucking great,” Stone exclaimed. “We should have destroyed him and left it that way.”
“I believe you were the one who said, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,’ ” Monroe pointed out. “You thought it would be useful to corrupt him and use him against the charter schools.”
“I believe Sun Tzu said that, but it doesn’t matter now. If it’s him, what’s his game? Blackmail?”
“Could be. Maybe he’s been playing us all along, waiting for a chance,” Monroe said. “Or maybe revenge?”
“Revenge. He’s up to his eyeballs in our little side business. He takes us down, he goes with us.”
Monroe shook his head. “I’m not talking about revenge for what we did to him.”
“What then?”
“This car bomb stunt,” Monroe replied. “He was close to Lubinsky. It might have pushed him over the edge.”
“What makes you think that? I mean, with those Nazis there, what connects us?”
“Well, he was supposed to show up at the Jay Street Bar precisely at eight,” Monroe explained, “but he was closer to nine. Said he’d been in the city, meeting an old friend. But he was pretty nervous about it. Then when the news came on about what happened, he was real shook up. Took off about as soon as he could get out of there.”
Stone didn’t answer right away so Monroe used the gap in the conversation to get in another dig. “It was a mistake to have your ‘friend’ in your office the other night.”
“You were early.”
“Yeah, early enough to hear all the bumping and grinding. What the hell are you doing fucking that guy anyway? Talk about playing with dynamite.”
Stone shot up from her seat and grabbed the letter opener. “How dare you!” she yelled.
Monroe snorted. “What? You going to stab me now because you’re playing hide the monkey with a sociopath? That will look good in the papers.”
The letter opener clattered to the top of the desk as Stone sat down with a groan. She was quiet for a moment, then looked up at Monroe. “Do you know for sure if they were able to get into that file folder?”
Monroe shook his head. “No. They wouldn’t have known what to look for either. It’s named ‘Family Album’ and I’ve never showed it to Gallo. And like I said, even if they got into it, it would have just been a bunch of symbols. I’ve got a computer forensics guy looking at my machine to see if he can tell what they accessed and maybe the history they erased.”
“Good. Have you tried to reach him?”
“Who? Gallo? Yeah, I’ve called him a couple of times, but all I get is his answering machine. I haven’t said anything about the break-in.”
“What about the police? Did you report it?”
“Are you kidding me? Last thing I need is the cops nosing around.”
Stone nodded. “Okay, maybe it won’t matter.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Don’t know yet,” she replied. “Think about it. Let me know what your computer guy finds out and if you hear from Gallo. Now I’ve got to get back to work.”
After Monroe left her office, Stone sat thinking for a few minutes before calling up her email account and opening a new message. In the subject line she typed: “Need to meet asap. Coney Island. Two jobs.” She then hit the Send button.
The next five minutes seemed to take forever. Then a message popped into her inbox. “One hour” was all it said. After reading it, she erased both her message and the answer before pressing the intercom button.
“Tony, I’ve had something come up and need to go out,” she said to her office administrator. “Cancel my appointments and send any calls through to the answering service. I’ll see you in the morning.”