Break Read online

  He brewed the coffee, poured it into cups, arranged the cookies on a plate and took the serving tray out. He handed over their cups and settled himself next to Arnedra.

  ‘I saw you on TV yesterday,’ Carmel Ward said as she played with a loose thread on her cuff. ‘You said you’re a Fixer. What does that mean?’

  ‘Cutter helps people, Ms. Ward,’ Arnedra cut in smoothly. ‘In whatever way he can. Companies come to him for security advice. Someone gets kidnapped, the cops aren’t able to do much, they come here. Those kinds of problems. Not domestic disputes. No family matters. No spying on husbands, wives, partners. Cheating, affairs, that isn’t what he does.’

  ‘Like a private investigator? Is that who you are?’ Romaine checked out the office carefully.

  ‘You could say that, but I’m not licensed.’ Cutter observed them, automatically taking them in. The brother was in a dark uniform, a hotel’s name embroidered on his chest. That’s a couple of blocks away. Neat place. He could read people quickly. It’s not the brother. That’s not why they’re here. It’s her who’s got the problem.

  Strands of silver in her hair. Lines of age and experience around her eyes and mouth. Smartly dressed in a dark suit. Polished suit. Neatly cut nails. She felt his eyes and fidgeted.

  ‘Carmel. Please call me that. I work in a law firm on Grand. Jamieson Partners. I’m a legal clerk there.’

  He waited.

  ‘I have a son. Darrell. I think he’s hanging out with a street gang. I discovered weed in his room.’ The words came out in a rush, as fast as she could speak, as if a dam had broken inside her and they could no longer be contained.

  ‘That’s not the kind of work I do,’ Cutter said gently when she had finished.

  ‘I told you!’ Romaine glared at him and then at his sister. ‘Why would he help us?’

  ‘Why don’t you go to the cops?’

  ‘Cops!’ the brother sneered. ‘They would arrest Darrell. What good would that do?’

  ‘They’re more likely to question him. Get details of who he hangs out with and let him off with a stern warning. They’re taking a softer approach these days.’

  ‘You live in a different world,’ Romaine snapped. ‘You watch the news, dude? You got any idea how cops treat people like us?’

  Cutter made a hand gesture when Arnedra made to speak. He knew what she would say. She’ll defend me.

  He was pushing their visitors’ buttons deliberately. To see how they’d react. Some of his clients had ulterior motives in coming to him. Don’t need those kinds. On top of that, clients sometimes found they had bitten off more than they could chew, after engaging him. An early assessment helped in identifying how far clients were willing to go. It looked like Carmel was a mom in distress. Nothing more.

  ‘You could talk to the school. They have a duty to investigate drug dealing on their premises.’

  Romaine shook his head incredulously and got to his feet. ‘Come on, sis. We’ve wasted enough time.’

  Carmel Ward didn’t move. She looked at Cutter searchingly and then her shoulders slumped. Defeat etched on her face, swiftly replaced by a hard expression. She made to rise too, her mouth set tightly.

  ‘Please sit.’ He stopped them. ‘I think you should talk to your son—’ he raised his hand to stop Romaine’s retort. ‘However, let me check the school out. See if I can find out who his friends are. We can then decide how to proceed. Going to the school or the cops might be the best move, but we can make that call later.’

  He winced inwardly at the look on Carmel Ward’s face. Don’t want to give her false hope.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, ‘I may not be able to help much. I’ll have to find out.’

  ‘I have money.’ Her lips trembled. ‘We can discuss fees—’

  ‘Later. Once I know what we’re dealing with.’

  ‘Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me. I haven’t been able to sleep—’ She stopped herself. Regained control. When she stood up, her voice was businesslike, professional. ‘You’ll let us know.’

  ‘I will, ma’am.’

  * * *

  Arnedra side-eyed Carmel Ward as she led them out. She had no kids, but she could relate to the mother. She’s alone, too. Just like me. I know that feeling of helplessness.

  Romaine stopped in the reception area. Sneered at her. ‘Is this like a white knight thing for him?’ He jerked his head toward the inside office.

  She stared at him.

  Cutter’s father had been an alcoholic, a bystander who was killed in a gang shootout in Brooklyn. His mother had fallen into depression and had turned to drugs. ACS, Administration for Children’s Services, had taken him away when he was four years old. She overdosed and killed herself.

  His childhood memories were of being bounced from one foster family to another. Years later, when he was in the military, he traced his roots as far as they would go.

  Sierra Leone, Native American, Irish, Italian, French Canadian … his genes were from all over. ‘I represent the United Nations,’ he had told Arnedra, chuckling, in one of their early meetings. He had changed his surname to his mother’s: Grogan. No one recollected who had given him his first name, but it fit.

  ‘White knight?’ Arnedra repeated. She ignored Romaine and turned to Carmel. ‘If you believe that, call it off.’

  ‘No.’ The mother shook her head decisively. ‘We’re good. We’ll wait for Mr. Grogan’s finding.’

  ‘Cutter,’ Arnedra corrected her. ‘We don’t do formality here.’

  Perhaps one day they would learn who he was. It wouldn’t be from her, however. It’s not my story to tell.

  * * *

  ‘What was that about?’ Cutter asked when she returned.

  ‘Nothing. Small talk. She’s distressed.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘We can help her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘If it’s school kids messing around, sure. If it’s an organized crime gang …’

  ‘You’ve taken those on, too.’

  ‘Let me do a surveillance run.’

  ‘We need to look her up as well.’

  Standard practice, checking into who their clients were. Not just to see whether they could pay, but also to make sure there was no shady past.

  I have enough of that in my background. He grinned to himself. Don’t need any more.

  He went to his screen and began typing. Stopped. He had access to several databases and had sources within the NYPD. Heck, he knew Bruce Rolando, the Commissioner. They had good history.

  But there was an easier way to do a background check.

  ‘I need some information,’ he said when his call connected.

  ‘What do you think we are?’ Beth Petersen snapped from the Columbus Avenue office. ‘Your personal assistants?’

  7

  Carmel Ward’s employer occupied the sixth floor of a red-brick building. Lamar Jamieson, founder, headed the firm and worked with five other partners. Class action, property disputes, complaints against the city, housing. No criminal or divorce cases. The firm usually represented the less privileged, and while it wasn’t the biggest in the city, had a good reputation.

  ‘Clean,’ Beth had told him.

  Cutter grinned as he sipped a drink and checked out the front of the building.

  She and her twin, Meghan, worked in the Agency, a covert US intelligence outfit that carried out counter-terrorism operations around the world. Its lead operative, Zeb Carter, was a good friend, as were the rest of the agents.

  The sisters were the glue in the firm and provided Arnedra and him with an endless supply of coffee and cookies.

  And intel. They had access to databases all over the world, and more connections than he had. The twins griped whenever he called, but he knew it was for show. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for them.

  Cutter finished his drink and hung around for a few more hours, but nothing aroused his interest. He checked his watch.
Getting to Darrell’s high school would take half an hour. He’ll be in classes. He would time it so that he arrived when the teenager finished for the day.

  He got out of his car and fed the meter. Loped down the street to where his favorite food truck was parked. It served Turkish food, and the aroma, as he got closer, made his mouth water.

  ‘Fahid,’ he greeted the owner, who nodded and began preparing Cutter’s lunch. Lahmacun, a pizza kind of dish, with vegetable toppings instead of the usual meat, with a generous splash of olive oil.

  He took the food, went to an upturned barrel and munched slowly as New York passed him by.

  He was midway through his food when he grew aware of it: Two women at the next barrel. A burly man and his friend eyeing them. Making audible comments. Not that loud that Fahid or the other customers could make them out.

  He studied them. Both had short hair; the large one had a tattoo on his neck—a snake spitting at a pack of cards. Both were in Tees and jeans. Sneakers. No briefcases or bags, just them, making lewd comments.

  Cutter glanced at the women, who were Asian-looking. One with glasses, the other with short, black hair. Both stylishly dressed and, judging by the cameras around their necks and the maps on the barrel, tourists. They had their heads down and were eating as fast as possible, clearly uncomfortable.

  He waited a beat. Fahid could easily deal with unruly customers. Don’t need to get involved. Besides, they might not want his intervention.

  One of the women raised her head, met his eyes, a look of embarrassment and pleading, before ducking down again.

  ‘Can I join you?’ he asked in English and repeated it in Mandarin.

  Surprise on their faces. Tentative smiles.

  ‘Yes,’ they replied in the same language.

  Cutter took his paper plate and went to their barrel. Turned to the men and eyed them.

  ‘If you keep doing that,’ he told them coldly, ‘I will break your jaws, then your fingers, and dislocate your knees. You won’t walk for a month; you won’t eat that kind of food for a long time. You’ll have to be fed through a tube.’

  Everyone around him froze. Shocked glances his way. The men looked startled. Then, a red flush spread over their faces.

  ‘Don’t,’ he warned them. ‘You won’t win. You won’t even hurt me.’

  He knew how he looked. Utterly confident of carrying out his promise, of wreaking intense violence.

  ‘Cutter,’ Fahid called from his van, ‘are those two a problem?’

  ‘They were. Not anymore. They’re leaving.’

  The men read the mood. The big one cursed under his breath and slunk away, followed by his companion.

  ‘Thank you,’ the one with glasses said, breathing a sigh of relief. ‘They were rude.’

  ‘Yeah. I heard them.’

  They peppered him with questions as he ate. Asked how he knew Mandarin. “Several business visits,” he replied. They were from Shanghai, he learned, ran a boutique clothing outlet and were visiting the US for the first time. He gave them directions to their next site, his number. And when they were out of sight, went to the counter.

  ‘Those men, they’re regulars?’

  ‘Nope,’ Fahid replied. ‘I know what they look like, now.’ He nodded at the discreetly mounted cameras under the awning of his truck. ‘I won’t be serving them.’

  It was when Cutter was driving to Brownsville that it came to him. It was the big thug who had jogged his memory. That tattoo on his neck reminded him of another one he had seen.

  Balaclava had one. The gunman who had accosted Lin Shun and him at the bodega. It had looked like a lion’s head, red, but he couldn’t be sure. Only a small part of it had been showing above the man’s shirt. Chang’s CCTV hadn’t shown it. Wrong angle.

  He searched his pockets; yeah, the detective’s card was there.

  He dialed her number one-handed.

  ‘Difiore, NYPD.’ Flat tone. No greeting.

  ‘Cutter Grogan.’ He gave her a moment to place him.

  ‘Yeah, the Fixer. How can I help you, Grogan?’

  ‘Those men, what happened to them?’

  ‘All three got bailed.’

  A car honked angrily from behind when he instinctively jammed on the brakes. It overtook as the driver flipped him the finger.

  ‘Bailed? How the heck is that poss—’

  ‘Their lawyer, yeah, one slick dude representing all of them, made a good argument. That it was a holdup, nothing more, and they didn’t start the shooting. Besides, none of them have priors. Judge set it high and let them go. They’re tagged. We know where they are at any point.’

  ‘Those men I shot? They were let go, too?’

  ‘All of them. Injuries not serious. You placed well. No vital organs damaged.’ Staccato bursts of words. No emotion. Dry recital.

  ‘Any gang affiliations?’

  ‘Nope. All of them unemployed. Families are middle-class. Pillars of the community kind.’

  ‘Their being white had nothing to do with bail, I guess.’

  ‘I’m not the judge.’

  ‘Why did they pick that bodega?’

  ‘Randomly. The idea was a dare among their friends. Came up during a drinking session with friends. We’re questioning them. Guns belonged to their fathers.’

  ‘You have their names?

  ‘Sheely Boyce, the one closest to you.’

  Balaclava. Cutter nodded unconsciously.

  ‘Travis Pupius, first man you shot.’ Grey Mask. ‘Chad Tuttle, the second gunman.’ Bandana.

  ‘Why are you sharing so much?’

  A long silence. Only the sounds of his tires humming and the surrounding traffic.

  ‘Because they’re out.’

  ‘You’ll let me know how the investigation goes?’

  ‘No.’ She hung up.

  Cutter took the Manhattan Bridge as he pondered Difiore’s revelations. Sighed, finally. She’s not at fault. The detective had to deal with the system, like anyone else. They’ll go to trial and get convicted for sure.

  It was when he was parked near Darrell’s high school that he remembered.

  I didn’t ask her about the tattoo.

  8

  Darrell’s school was on Pitkin Avenue. A half-hour walk from Carmel’s apartment. Cutter parked his car in a vacant space on Saratoga Avenue and strolled the same route that the mother said her son took.

  At three pm, he was lounging against a wall of an office building, ball cap jammed low over his head, shades over his eyes, waiting as if he was one of the several parents who had come to pick their kids up.

  A tiny camera in the buttonhole of his jacket was feeding images to his cell phone, which relayed the feed to the cloud. All in high definition.

  Teenagers surged out of the school. The street was filled with their clamor and the honks of vehicles forced to move slower.

  Darrell was one of the last to emerge, with a bunch of similar-age teenagers. Different ethnicities, no girls.

  He high-fived many of them, slung his backpack over his shoulder and joined three boys, all taller than him.

  They walked down the avenue, laughing, shouting, kicking at an empty soda can. One of them broke out a bag of chips and shared it. No sign of drugs or weapons.

  Cutter shadowed them down East New York Avenue, moving with the flow of other pedestrians, using cover wherever it was available, urban following coming to him as naturally as stealth movement in the jungles of the Congo.

  None of the students looked back, however.

  At the intersection to Eastern Parkway, Darrell broke away. More high-fives as he left the group and ran across a patch of green. He brought out his phone, appeared to message someone, and went to an apartment building on Park Place.

  Cutter sprawled on a bench, found a discarded newspaper and engrossed himself.

  Darrell emerged at eight pm. Looked neither left nor right. Headed towards Saratoga Avenue and went inside his building without stopping or making any more
calls.

  A bedroom window lit. His shadow moved across the curtain. The light turned off, but he didn’t emerge.

  Cutter bought a hot dog from a street stand and wolfed it down in his car. Living it up.

  A shadow moved at ten pm. Slow. Head bowed. Weary. Carmel Ward. She entered the building and another street-facing window lit up minutes later.

  Cutter gunned his engine and drove back to Manhattan. To his apartment, which was on the same street as his office.

  He showered, turned off the lights, sat on the windowsill and watched as the city slept.

  9

  Carmel invited Arnedra and him for dinner the next day, when he checked in and reported nothing alarming had happened.

  ‘Don’t you get back late?’

  ‘I’ll come early.’

  ‘Will Darrell be there?’

  ‘I hope.’

  Cutter hung up and rocked in his chair. Might be useful to see the inside of their home. Get a feel for how Darrell lives.

  ‘We’re going for dinner,’ he said, going to the outer office.

  ‘Lord!’ His partner made a show of fluffing her hair. ‘It took you this long to ask me out.’

  He rolled his eyes. Beth. Meghan. Arnedra. They loved to yank his strings.

  * * *

  The house was warm and cozy when they arrived at seven pm. Carmel graciously accepted their bottle of wine and ushered them into the living room. Went to the kitchen and returned with a tray of appetisers and glasses of wine.

  ‘Cutter doesn’t drink. He’ll take whatever juice you might have, though.’

  ‘You quit?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I never started.’

  She laughed and returned with a glass of orange juice. He thanked her and checked out the books on a shelf while the women talked. Philosophy, some fiction. Academic texts.

  ‘Darrell used to read. A lot,’ Carmel said from behind.

  Cutter nodded, noting the past tense. He wandered to the window. Yep, that was the one with the street view. Three stories above ground level.