Hooked

anything, and he knew what to search for. Whoever installed the camera did a fine job if it escaped his discovery.
    This was the moment of reckoning. Although the main man kept a low profile, Martell knew who he was. Benny Cooper was betting that rather than expose himself as a murderer, Martell would shut up and pay. He calculated the risks on both sides of the equation, the same way he calculated numbers. They had underestimated him. He was logical, tactical. A member of the fucking Russo Family.
    “You didn’t report the crime,” Martell said. “Why not?”
    “We thought we’d give you a chance to get away with it. For a price.”
    Martell felt blood flush hot through his body like a raging river, heating his neck and cheeks, soaking his two-hundred-dollar shirt. He hated that. His hands shook, and he bet his pressure shot up beyond threatening to critical.
    “How noble of you,” he managed to say. “Now, let me get this straight. Someone committed a murder in your establishment. The medical examiner would determine the time of death to be sometime last evening. But you never reported it, did you? If you had, you wouldn’t be calling to offer a cover-up.”
    Silence.
    “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Martell continued, “but my guess is you’ve already disposed of the body, which means no corpus delicti . Now if you expose me, you’re exposing yourself as an accessory after the fact, and all to s ave me from a murder charge? I’ve got this right, haven’t I?”
    Again, silence.
    “And you’re going to accuse me of murder? Fuck off, asshole. You don’t want to fool with me. I’ll take a hit from my boss―a reprimand at best, but I’ll make sure the NYPD knows a bout your operation. You guys will be out of business and facing prostitution charges. But that will be the least of your problems. Your one witness to the murder was out cold, your doorman won’t know his own name, but I’ll have a dozen people swear I was somewhere else. And when they find Baby Cindi, if they find her, remember that accessory after the fact business? To keep her taut little ass out of prison, pretty Miss Melody with the glorious knockers will throw you under the bus so fast you won’t feel the wheels turn you into pastry dough.”
    Martell was starting to shake big time now. “Anything else?”
    Silence.
    He slammed down the phone with the force of four hundred and fifty pounds. He heaved himself to his feet and stomped to the bar in his office. So what if it wasn’t five o’clock? Hell, it wasn’t even noon. He needed a drink. He may be only an accountant, but he was an accountant for goddamn organized crime. He knew the ropes, and he knew he had to come clean to the main man. He didn’t want to call attention to himself, but in his case honesty would be the best policy. Martell chuckled at that one.
    He had to think. And he had to get to the toilet fast before he shit his pants.

Chapter Ten
    Deal at the Deli

    T awny took a limo from the airport into the city. The driver tried to barter the fare for a date. When she told him what a date with her would cost, he paled, dropped her at her apartment in SoHo without another word, and drove off with the fare and a nice tip.
    She undressed, showered, and put on a pair of jeans and a Brown University T-shirt. Then she plopped on the bed, tired and stressed and not looking forward to her meeting with Benny Cooper.
    When the phone woke her, rain was pouring down in sheets from a menacing sky. A quick peek at the bedside clock told her it was seven thirty, and for a moment she questioned whether it was morning or night until she saw the p.m. light on its face. She’d slept the entire afternoon.
    “You get home okay?”
    She recognized the voice, and her heart popped like a crackling fireplace. “Fine. No problems.”
    “Thought I’d check.”
    “Thanks.” The line sounded like it had gone dead, and then he spoke.
    “I’ll call you when we know something.”
    “Okay.”
    “Good night, Tawny.”
    “Good night, Walsh.”
    She set the receiver into the base and sat upright on the bed. “That was the most banal exchange I’ve ever experienced in my life,” she said aloud.
    * * * * *
    A fter working a couple of sexual abuse cases and nailing a serial pedophile over the weekend, Linc got the go-ahead call that Cooper was on his way into the city. He’d stayed in New York Friday night, the day before Linc returned from Myrtle Beach , and his chauffeur drove him