Badge of Evil Read online

  He bounded down the steps to where his car was waiting.

  “Let’s swing by headquarters,” he said to his driver, “and pick up Oz. Then we’ll go get some lunch. I could eat a fuckin’ elephant.”

  3

  FRANK BISHOP WAS sitting on a black leather couch in a dimly lit room with red carpeting and a ceiling painted to look like a nighttime sky. In front of him there was a mirrored wall and a silver bucket with a $600 bottle of Beau Joie Champagne in it. Bishop, a thickly muscled, deeply tanned, thirty-six-year-old private investigator, couldn’t imagine being much happier than he was at this moment. He could even see a little snippet of the broad smile on his face in the mirror.

  Partially blocking his view were two large, perfectly shaped breasts that belonged to a “dancer” named Christina, hanging irresistibly in all their unencumbered naked beauty only a few inches from his face. Christina, who had been dancing for Bishop, was now on the couch straddling him and still moving rhythmically, but very slowly, to the background music.

  “Sweetheart,” Bishop said to her, “I could spend the rest of my life right here in this exact position looking at you. You’re amazing.”

  Bishop was at V, the hottest strip club in New York, a place the city’s tabloids still referred to (even though the line had long ago lost its clever ring) as “New York’s mammary mecca.” As strip clubs went, V was the high end of the genre, with shinier brass, softer leather, and thicker velvet than the competition. More important, it had the best-looking dancers, at least by stripper standards, which were different from conventional standards. Stripper beautiful is to normal beautiful as a bodybuilder’s physique is to a gym-toned body—it’s an aggressive exaggeration that screams its intended message loud and clear. Huge gravity-defying sculpted breasts; even bigger, usually blond, hair; collagen lips; cheek implants; big false eyelashes; and makeup that often looked like it was applied with a paintbrush and a putty knife. The club was huge, with a dining area where you could actually eat dinner, two small stages next to the bar, a large main stage, and a VIP deck. In addition to the businessmen who brought their clients in, celebrities and athletes were a regular part of the late-night mix.

  So was Frank Bishop. Some guys go to the golf club; he preferred the strip club. It was his place, a hangout where he felt comfortable, entertained, and, above all else, important. A couple of hours at V could easily run several thousand dollars between money for the girls and drinks. Bishop, however, never paid what he called the sucker’s rate. Since he often brought in wealthy clients, and occasionally a celebrity or two, his visits were usually comped.

  On this night, Bishop was in one of the club’s private rooms with Christina, another dancer named Chelsea, and one of his clients—a beautiful wannabe socialite named Elisabeth Merrill Bickers. Their little secret was that Bickers herself had once been a dancer at V. Fifteen years ago, she’d met Quentin Merrill Bickers, an equity manager and partner at Goldman Sachs, while dancing, and got to know him a little better in one of these private rooms. Within a couple of months, she’d given up dancing.

  Two kids, two dogs, and too many infidelities to count later, she had reached the end of her rope with the marriage. She’d hired Bishop to get dirt on her husband so she could get the maximum financial settlement. At the moment, however, Bishop and Bickers were getting side-by-side lap dances. On the floor, in between them, was a manila envelope with Bishop’s preliminary surveillance report and some photos. Christina moved over to join her friend on Bickers’s lap as the two women began to make out with each other. Unoccupied for a moment, Bishop poured himself a glass of Beau Joie.

  Just as he took his first sip, his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID—Victoria Cannel. Fuck, he thought, I’d better take this. “Vic,” he said with an enormous amount of false enthusiasm. “What’s going on?”

  “Let me guess, Frankie, you’re at a titty bar, right? Don’t bullshit me. I hear the awful music.”

  “C’mon, Vic, gimme a break. It’s Friday night.”

  “I don’t care if it’s your fuckin’ birthday. Lose the hard-on, put the little guy—and I do mean little—back in your pants, and meet me at Bell’s, now. I got the kind of case you’re gonna have to spend the rest of your cheesy life thanking me for. Are you leaving yet? I don’t hear any movement. Tell Misty or Savannah or whichever Rhodes Scholar is rubbing her tits in your face to put the Champagne and her implants on ice. You gotta boogie.”

  “No wonder you’re a defense attorney, Vic. All that compassion, all that obvious humanity and raging desire to help people. And don’t worry, my hard-on looked like a frightened turtle retreating into its shell the moment I heard your voice. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  Bishop hung up and looked wistfully at the scene in front of him. Both strippers were kissing and fondling Bickers, whose dress was now half open, while she was putting the occasional hundred-dollar bill in their G-strings. He looked at the phone, he looked at them, and then he sighed heavily. He told them he had to leave for about an hour. Nobody paid attention.

  He got up, went to the door, and said to Bickers loudly before opening it, “You okay with the bill?”

  “No problem,” she said, smiling. “I gave the waitress my black Amex.”

  “Aren’t you worried your husband will see you were here?”

  “Fuck him,” Bickers said. “This is payback. And I’m only getting started. If you don’t make it back tonight, let’s have dinner next week so we can talk about my case,” she said with a wink, turning her attention to the strippers.

  “Trust me, sweetheart, I’m coming back.”

  • • •

  Bishop had been drinking vodka at V (he never actually got a chance to have the Beau Joie), and when he walked into Bell’s, it was on something less than rock-solid legs. The place was, as always, crowded and noisy. After thirty-plus years, and many premature pronouncements of its death, Bell’s was still a solid, if somewhat tired, late-night hangout that continued to draw a reasonable number of the city’s B- and C-list boldfaced names. It wasn’t hip, it certainly wasn’t hot—no chance anyone would confuse it with the rooftop at The Standard—and there was little to say that was positive about its look or the food. Still, it remained, for a certain class of privileged New Yorkers, a real saloon, in the best sense of the word—no blaring music, no annoying downtown wannabes or hipsters who thought they were too cool for the room, and no gawkers. It was a comfortable hangout for celebrities, journalists, attorneys, and cops.

  Smiling and shaking hands, Bishop slowly tried to make his way past the high-visibility tables in the front along the wall opposite the bar. This was the gold coast, the best real estate in the joint, reserved for the regulars and the celebrated. “Frank, hey, Frank.” Bishop heard his name being called through the din. It was Bell, sitting at a table with Sylvester Stallone and Alex Rodriguez. While making small talk with them, he spotted Victoria Cannel at a table farther back, with three people he didn’t recognize and her assistant.

  Bishop could see that she was telling a story and the people at the table were hanging on every word. Without missing a beat, she looked directly at Bishop and opened her big brown eyes a little wider in a why-aren’t-you-on-your-way-over-here gesture. He gave her a slight nod of recognition and apologized to Bell, Stallone, and Rodriguez for not sitting down. “I’m actually working,” he said, excusing himself a little sheepishly.

  When he finally reached Cannel’s table, she dismissed everyone except her assistant. “The usual, Mr. Bishop?” a waiter asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Cannel said before the PI could respond. “Bring him green tea. He’s gotta get up early tomorrow.”

  “Well, you heard the lady. I guess I’ll have green tea,” Bishop said with a little wink. “So I guess we’re on the clock starting now, right, Vic?” he said, looking at his watch.

  “I need you awake and at your fucking best,” Cannel said, ignoring his sarcasm. “You’re meeting me at eight
thirty sharp tomorrow morning at Bellevue. This is a real score, Frankie . . .”

  “Vic, what the hell are you—”

  “I got the kid, Ayad Jafaari—”

  “The fucking terrorist? The guy Brock shot?”

  “You mean the unfortunate kid who was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time?” Cannel said with a straight face. “You mean the dutiful son and brother, the honor student who worked part-time to put himself through school and help support his family? The kid who was wrongfully, horribly wounded by overzealous, trigger-happy cops? Yes, the kid Brock shot.”

  “Whoa, Victoria. Slow down. Slow way, way down. You’re gonna defend some motherfuckin’ Arab fanatic who wanted to blow shit up and kill people in my city? Our city? And you’re gonna go up against Lawrence Brock, the red-blooded, all-American hero of the moment? And you want me to help? I’m not the smartest guy in the room, but I’m not that fuckin’ stupid.”

  Bishop was quickly sobering up. He noticed a Page Six reporter from the Post sitting close by with a midlevel fashion designer. Both of them appeared to be trying to overhear what he and the lawyer were saying. Cannel, of course, had picked this up much earlier and was discreetly but purposefully playing to her audience. She wanted to see this in the paper, but now that she’d finished saying what she had to say for public consumption, she sent her assistant over to the reporter’s table to buy her a drink and distract her.

  She leaned in now to get close to Bishop, wrinkling her nose at the cheap stripper perfume that still clung to him. “Listen, Frank. This town is on fire. Brock’s raid has the entire country focused on what’s happening here. Talk about an opportunity. I want the terrorist scumbags eliminated as much as anyone. I’m just not willing to sacrifice the right to due process and the sacred concept that someone is innocent until proven guilty. And there’s no fuckin’ way I’m gonna cede those constitutional guarantees to that mouth-breathing Neanderthal Lawrence Brock. I got a big problem with Brock turning the NYPD into his private army. Where was the Joint Terrorism Task Force? Where were the Feds? That cretinous fucker did this without telling anyone and led the goddamned assault himself.”

  “Who hired you?” Bishop asked, trying to process his thoughts and figure out what to do. He’d been involved in his share of big cases, but nothing like this. Not because of the publicity this would attract, but because it was so one-sided. No one was going to sympathize with the kid.

  “His mother, who’s American, by the way. Don’t be a pussy, Frank. Show some guts. This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of case, a case that’ll make your career. The kid has no history of violence, no record, nothing. Help me find out what really happened last night. Help me—”

  “Victoria, put away the talking-head bullshit for a moment and let’s at least be honest. You’re talking to me now. This case is about the front page of the New York Times, 60 Minutes, and People fucking magazine. Don’t wave the Constitution and the flag in my—”

  “Of course it’s about that. And it’ll be about that for you too. But it’s also about truth—”

  “Justice, and the American way,” Bishop said, finishing her sentence. “Yeah, yeah. I watched Superman on TV when I was a kid too. You wanna talk about injustice, less than an hour ago I had the world’s most incredible pair of tits dangling in my face and three women making out in front of me . . .”

  “Sometimes I really think you’re hopeless. Like you’re the same kid I met years ago with no direction, no skills, and no clue how the world worked. Back then at least you had ambition, you had balls, you were willing to take chances. This is the opportunity of a lifetime and all you wanna talk about’s an easy pair of fake tits. I don’t have the patience for this tonight. Are you in or not, tough guy?” Cannel asked.

  “What do I need to know?”

  “Meet me in the main lobby at Bellevue tomorrow at . . . let’s make it eight fifteen. Wear one of your TV suits. We’re having a press conference after we talk to the mother.”

  4

  THE NEXT MORNING, when Bishop stepped into an elevator at Bellevue Hospital, he was not a happy boy. He’d only gotten about three hours’ sleep, his head was killing him, and his stomach was fluttering wildly. He’d already had two cups of coffee, half a container of orange juice, and a bottle of water, and he still felt like he’d been licking talcum powder off the sidewalk. He must’ve had more to drink at V than he’d realized. And now he had to go interview some scumbag terrorist’s mother. Great, just what he wanted to do. Victoria left a message on his cell that the hospital had offered the use of a conference room on the third floor and he should meet them there.

  Bishop was wearing a navy-blue chalk-stripe suit, a light blue shirt, and a platinum tie. But even in the expensive, nicely tailored uniform of a successful executive, he still looked like a bouncer at a strip club. His skin was too brown from the tanning booth, his belt buckle was too big and too silver, and his shoes were too . . . well, his shoes were just wrong. But even if his skin tone had been normal, and the belt and shoes had been appropriate, his body would’ve given him away. No corporate clone or hedge-fund wizard was ever built like this.

  In truth, Bishop looked only marginally more respectable in a conservative $2,000 suit than he did in his usual getup of Seven jeans, tight Armani T-shirt, lizard cowboy boots, and a blazer—to cover the holster on his waist. His shoulders, chest, and upper arms were so beefy with muscle that even though the suit jacket fit him properly, the expensive worsted fabric looked like it was about to split open whenever he moved; like he was in the first stage of that explosive transformation the Incredible Hulk goes through when his muscles start to bulge and all his clothes start to tear.

  Bishop had brought along two of his investigators. Paul was a just-retired lieutenant from the South Bronx with thirty-two years on the street. Like someone who can play a musical instrument by ear, Paul was a natural, a brilliant investigator with an acute intuitive sense. The younger investigator, Eddie, was the son and grandson of cops but had forsaken the NYPD for the allure of Hollywood. Along with acting, taking film school classes, and writing screenplays, he worked for Bishop to pay his rent—and maybe gather material for his writing. Bishop liked Eddie. He thought he had a lot of energy and the potential to be a good investigator. But mostly he kept him on because of his skill with a surveillance camera.

  The conference room was at the end of a gauntlet of small, identical administrative offices occupied by people who stared at computer screens all day, keeping track of things like patient bills and insurance payments. Victoria, her assistant, and Mrs. Andrea Jafaari and her sixteen-year-old daughter were already there when Bishop and his crew walked in.

  “I’m sorry,” the private eye said as soon as he entered the room, “I hope we’re not late.”

  “Actually, you’re right on time,” Victoria said. “We got here a little early to go over a few things. Frank Bishop, this is Andrea Jafaari and her daughter, Mary.”

  As the rest of the introductions were made, Bishop was a little confused. Andrea? Mary? What the hell was that about? He knew going in that the suspect’s mother was American, but he never thought she’d be quite this American. He expected an older, dowdier woman in Middle Eastern dress, perhaps wearing the traditional Islamic head covering. Instead, Jafaari, who appeared to be in her midforties, was completely unexceptional, an average, modestly dressed woman you’d never look at twice. Nothing about her was even remotely Arabic. And the daughter, meanwhile, was wearing Lululemon yoga pants and a necklace that said, PRINCESS.

  Sensing his confusion, Victoria said, “We just got some terrific news from the doctors. Ayad was taken off the respirator this morning, he’s breathing on his own, and they believe he’s gonna pull through. He hasn’t regained consciousness yet, but he’s definitely turned the corner.”

  “That’s great,” Bishop said with considerably less enthusiasm than he wanted to muster.

  “Why don’t we get going since we have a lot of ground to co
ver?” Victoria said quickly, in the hope that no one else had noticed Bishop’s lackluster response.

  “I’m going to ask you a lot of questions, Mrs. Jafaari,” Bishop said. “In order to help your son, I need to know what kind of kid he is, who he hangs out with, where he spends his time, what he’s into. I need you to be completely honest with me. Even if there’s bad stuff. I’m on your side here. The more I know about him and your family, the easier it’ll be for us to conduct our investigation and hopefully help him.”

  The suspect’s mother spoke softly, but she was articulate and direct. She was a fifth-grade teacher who lived in an apartment in Astoria, Queens, a neighborhood where there was a large Greek population and a growing Muslim community. When she was twenty-two she had met and married an Egyptian named Ibrahim Ayad Jafaari against the wishes of her parents. He was, she said, elegant and mysterious, and it was all very exciting. It became a lot less exciting, however, once they were married.

  Ibrahim turned out to be moody, secretive, and intolerant. He was verbally abusive to her and their son, Ayad. He even smacked her once, hard, across the face. He had trouble adjusting to America, and when Ayad was not quite six years old, Ibrahim packed up and left. Just walked out one day with no warning, barely a good-bye and no forwarding address. He returned to Egypt and she never saw him or heard from him again. She was seven months pregnant when he abandoned her and Ayad, and she named her daughter Mary, the most American, Christian name she could think of, to spite him.