Tongue tied ds-8 Page 10

  Charm was looking even more worried. "Do you think we'll need a lawyer?"

  "That might be wise," I said.

  "Shit. I'll have to call Dad in Nimes. He's going to be spitting afterbirth."

  On that vivid note, I advised Charm, Pheromone, and Edward to stay put in the Berkshires. I told them that flight from official investigators would be inadvisable. I suggested they tell Kurt Zinsser what they had done and to say that he should expect the police to show up shortly. The three of them took all of this in sullenly, but they all seemed to get my drift and they didn't argue.

  Back outside, Thad was just returning to the car. He told me he had given the main house, the barn and the other Stankewitz outbuildings an apparently undetected quick scouring, inside and out, and he could find no trace of Leo Moyle or any other person. He said all the Stankewitz locks were old and simple and "a piece of cake."

  Inside the car, though, Timmy was itching to give us his own amazing report. He had been monitoring WCBS all-news radio from New York, and moments earlier he had heard that Leo Moyle had just been released by the FFF largely unharmed. But now Jay Plankton himself had been abducted.

  Chapter 15

  "It was a beautiful operation," Lyle Barner was telling me. "It could have been carried out by the finest SWAT team in the country, or maybe by the Mossad. Here, this guy's got some of the best security in the city, outside of the Secret Service when Clinton's in town, and these people move in and snatch Plankton up like he's a calzone at Sbarro, and just like that-kapooey!-the J-Bird is up in smoke."

  This was said in a Chinese restaurant on Sixty-fifth Street, not far from Jay Plankton's apartment building, at the entrance to which he had been abducted seven hours earlier. Thad and I had dropped Timmy off back in Albany and driven to the city in Thad's truck. Thad and I agreed that for the time being he should steer clear of Barner, so he said he would go spend the night with an old Lancaster County friend in Brooklyn. I had asked him if there was an Amish ethnic enclave in one of the outer boroughs, like the Polish in Greenpoint or the Indians in Jackson Heights, but he said no.

  "It was like they'd rehearsed it a hundred times," Barner went on. "At least fourteen people saw the whole thing, and they all said it happened so fast that nobody really knew what had gone down, until Moyle started yelling that he was Leo Moyle of the Jay Plankton Show, and he'd been kidnapped and let go and somebody should summon an officer."

  The switch-Moyle for Plankton-had indeed been deft, Barner told me. As the security-service Bronco carrying Plankton pulled up at the entrance to the apartment building and Plankton stepped out with his two armed guards, a second SUV, a green Lincoln Navigator, came up from behind. Two men in black jeans, black turtlenecks and gas masks emerged and fired pepper spray at Plankton and his protectors and at the Bronco's driver. It sounded to me like the feds swooping in and snatching little Elian Gonzalez in Miami, overpowering Donato-the-fisherman-slash-cleaning-service-operator, and gassing the praying grandmothers in front of the house. I wondered, Did I detect the fine hand of Janet Reno here? Much as the Clinton administration must have loathed the J-Bird, an abduction by Justice Department paramilitaries didn't sound like the answer.

  An NYPD patrol car arrived at the scene within two minutes of Moyle's release and the J-Bird's capture, Barner said, but the Navigator had made a clean getaway. By the time a description of the vehicle went out, the kidnappers had apparently switched cars. For the Lincoln was soon spotted abandoned under the FDR Drive near Thirty-eighth Street. The car had been stolen earlier that morning, police soon discovered, from in front of a real estate office in New Rochelle. One potential witness thought she had seen the switch from the Navigator to a gray, brown or light blue van, but the description was too vague to be of any help.

  Moyle, Barner told me, was taken by patrol car to Lenox Hill Hospital, where he was examined and found to be exhausted but not physically harmed in any serious way. His mental state, however, was described as precarious. This was owing in part to the fearful ordeal overall, but in particular to his two newly acquired tattoos, one on each upper arm. They were both large, still fresh, and a little sore. One pictured big red lips and said, "Kiss Me, Elton". The other said, " I love Ricky Martin".

  The tattoos had been applied to Moyle involuntarily while he was tied down, blindfolded, and had a gun held to his head, he told police. He pleaded that word of his new body art not be made public. But Barner, who arrived on the scene twenty minutes after the first patrol car, had to break it to Moyle that the news would almost certainly leak out, probably via hospital employees. Anyway, the issue was soon moot, for the kidnappers-or their friends or cocon-spirators-dropped off digital photos of Moyle's new look at the lobbies of the Times, the Post and the Daily News.

  This suggested to Barner, and to me, that more than a few people were involved in whatever was going on here. No ransom note had yet been received by anyone the police knew of. So far, the tattoos were the only message.

  Barner said he didn't know much about tattoos, and he asked me, "Can tattoos be removed, or are people stuck with them for the rest of their lives?"

  "I don't know," I told him, "but in Massachusetts I ran into a guy who had a tattoo on his arm that said 'Robert Forever', and Robert had turned out to be less than forever.

  But the tattoo was still there, so maybe they're hard to shed."

  Barner and I were set to meet with Moyle in an hour or so, after his release from Lenox Hill, and tattoo removal seemed to both of us a subject Moyle would be eager to discuss.

  I said to Barner, "The tabloids are going to have a lot of fun with this. They undoubtedly adore Moyle at the Post, but public humiliation of a C-list celeb is their meat, and the festering tattoo work sounds to me like surefire page-one stuff. I'm sure that at this very moment the Post has a reporter assigned to getting a quote from Ricky Martin."

  Barner looked up from his egg-drop soup. "Moyle's an asshole, yeah, I know. But I really feel kind of sorry for him."

  "Why?"

  "You know-just what he went through."

  "I agree that terrorizing the guy is going way too far," I said. "Moyle must have feared for his life. But as for the tattoos… that's a nice, droll touch. The raging homophobe forced to go around with the brand of Oscar Wilde."

  Barner peered at me glumly. "Jesus, Strachey, you're merciless. How would you like it if somebody snatched you and tattooed you with 'Strachey's Hot for Pamela Anderson'?"

  "I haven't made a career of denigrating straight women, so the chances of that happening are slight. If it did happen, it wouldn't be rough justice. It would just be absurdist."

  "You can call it whatever weird crap you want to," Barner said, "but getting forcibly tattooed like that would make anybody feel like shit. That's all I'm saying. Moyle is an asshole, but he's also a human being."

  "Lyle, if Moyle knew you were gay, and it was you who got embroidered-let's say,

  'Lyle Is Hot for Al D'Amato'- how sympathetic do you think Moyle would be? Can't you imagine him and Plankton and the fun they'd have on the air with news of a gay NYPD detective involuntarily tattooed?"

  "Yeah, that's so. But still… anyway, what would your boyfriend say about it? Didn't you tell me one time he was some kind of priest who forgot to go to seminary or something? He sounds like a much nicer person than you are, Strachey."

  "He is," I said, without having to think about that one. "And I'm sure Timothy will share your opinion on this subject, Lyle."

  "And what about Thad-the-Amishman that you're cheating on your boyfriend with?

  He brags about how he never hurt anybody when he was in the FVV. What do you think Thad's going to say about somebody committing battery on Leo Moyle? Is Thad, the man of peace, gonna just laugh it off, like you?"

  I decided to ignore most of this-probably confirming my guilt and duplicity in Barner's mind-and said only, "Yes, Thad's opinion of the tattooing will be closer to yours and Timmy's than to mine. That's true, Lyle. We'll ju
st have to agree to disagree."

  This last sounded like some namby-pamby remark from a hack pol on "Sam and Cokie," and Barner had me on the edge of feeling guilty all over again over the way I treated him. But then Barner said this: "I know Diefendor-fcr was with you in Albany and Massachusetts. So, what have you got going, a threesome? Normally I'm too square for that type of kinky stuff. Just ask Dave. But with you and Thad, maybe I could start to act more with it. Timothy (lallahan is a very, very lucky man, in my opinion."

  I peered at Barner for a long moment. "You had someone-what? Watching me?

  Following me?"

  Barner colored just perceptibly but looked at me levelly. "I guess you got to know Diefendorfer quite intimately, Strachey. But maybe you didn't get to know him intimately enough."

  "Wait a minute, Lyle. We'll come back to that. Just answer my question. Did you or did you not put a tail on me when I traveled to Albany and Massachusetts yesterday and today?"

  The waiter arrived and removed our soup dishes. Then he was back within seconds, and he set down a large dish of rice along with Barner's General Tso's chicken-who was this warrior with a taste for sweet, sticky fowl, anyway?- and my shrimp with mushrooms and snow peas.

  When the waiter was gone, Barner said, "Why don't you tell me first, Strachey, did you or didn't you forget to let me in on the fact that your partner working on this case was going to be not myself but somebody else, not even a professional investigator, and that person would be the humpy Dutchman, Thad Diefendorfer? As I understood it, we would be working together, one of the reasons I brought you onto the case. And now-I guess you can tell, because I'm making myself pretty fucking crystal clear-I am all stressed out about this, and I am feeling royally fucked over."

  So there I was. I had chosen not to let Barner in on Diefendorfer's involvement in the investigation because I knew that if he knew about it, Lyle would act like a child- i.e., jealous, resentful, distracted, suspicious and petulant. How had I let myself become entangled in this miasma? Oh, right. Barner had once saved my life. Why couldn't it have been somebody else that violent summer night in Albany fifteen years earlier who had bailed me out of a desperate fix-Rex the Wonder Horse, or Miss Marple?

  I said to Barner, "Thad was tagging along with me, yes, to be helpful if he could. But you were… you were spying on me. I have to say, Lyle, that I am at this moment disgusted with you."

  My strained tactic of displaying moral outrage that might trump Barner's moral outrage did not impress him. For which I was grateful, because I was growing bored with each of us acting morally superior to the other for no very good reason.

  Barner said simply, "I had two officers tail you, yeah. It was partly to keep me informed, and it was also to drag your ass out of the smoke and flames if that was to become necessary. Like I did on the Millpond case back in Albany. These two young officers did a nice job, too. You never had a clue." He grinned and dug into his gooey chicken.

  I said, "Are they still up there, these two young officers? Are they the ones checking out Charm and her gang, and Kurt Zinsser-who, by the way, no law-enforcement agency would ever have known about had it not been for me?"

  "No, my officers tailed you and the Amish eggplant stud back to the city. I sent another detective up to work with the state police detectives out of Springfield to talk to the cheese-farm vandals. I should have a report from them later tonight."

  I said, "You mentioned that it was your opinion, Lyle, that I had not come to know Thad Diefendorfer intimately enough. First, let's get it straight that I have not been physically intimate with Thad. Neither has Timmy, heaven for-fend. It's a nice scene to contemplate, but the stars of Timmy's and my zodiac are not so aligned at present. So why don't you just get all the sex stuff involving me, and Thad, and you out of your head? Let's all proceed not in the realm of fantasy but with our feet on the ground in the real world."

  Barner sniffed. He was sure I was lying through my teeth. It was sad.

  I went on. "But you seemed to be suggesting, Lyle, that intimate knowledge of Thad's behavior-as opposed to, say, intimate knowledge of his nice butt-would be important for me to obtain. What did you mean by that?"

  Barner paused for dramatic effect-Fritz Lang must once have taught a course at the police academy-and said, "After Diefendorfer dropped you off at the J-Bird's place, my team followed him over to Brooklyn. He parked his pickup truck on Lorimer Street in Williamsburg and entered a nearby apartment building. The super was in the lobby when Diefendorfer went in, and my officers were able to determine that the subject-that would be your buddy Thaddie-was admitted to a second-floor apartment whose tenant's name meant something to me when I heard it.

  "While you were up in Massachusetts, Strachey, I went over the FBI file on the old FFF.

  One of Mr. Diefendorfer's cohorts in 1975-76 was a man by the name of Sam Day. The lessee of the Lorimer Street apartment is Sam Day. Sam Day, the super told my officers, is the leader of some type of organization, with people coming and going from that apartment at all hours of the day and night, especially night. I don't think Jay Plankton is being held there. The super says the apartment is small, only one bedroom.

  But as a precaution I've got the place under twenty-four-hour surveillance. So what do you think of them apples, Detective Strachey?"

  Damned if I knew. Barner was now sounding almost borderline-deranged. But it was funny that Thad had not mentioned to me that the "Lancaster County" friend he was visiting in Brooklyn was his onetime boyfriend in the FFF.

  Chapter 16

  Moyle lived in a sixties-era white-brick high-rise on Seventy-fourth near Third, and that's where Barner and I met him. He had been spirited out of Lenox Hill Hospital in an ambulance past a mob of reporters and television news vans, then transferred to an NYPD patrol car three blocks away. With the private security force guarding Jay Plankton having screwed up grandly, Moyle was now under the protection of the police.

  Jerry Jeris had joined us in Moyle's living room for his second debriefing of the day, the feds having had a go at Moyle at Lenox Hill. Jurisdiction was unclear at this point-had either abductee actually been transported across a state line?-but while Moyle was a relatively minor player in the nation's cultural life, J-Bird Plankton was a man who had twice appeared on the cover of People. As such, any crime against his person was almost by definition a federal offense, if only honorary, and automatically triggered the involvement of the FBI, if not the Department of Defense.

  "For fuck's sake," Moyle was saying as soon as he lit up a cigar, "this is my first smoke in thirty-six hours. These terrorists, not only did they deprive me of a single decent meal-the meatball sub they fed me last night was for shit-the bastards wouldn't even buy me a cheap smoke, and here I'm afraid for my very life and I'm going into frig-gin' nicotine withdrawal on top if it."

  "What sadists," Jeris said, and lit up too.

  The black-glass coffee table had three ashtrays lined up on it, each the size of a meteorite crater but not as clean. The beige leather couch and chairs to match faced a television set that could have been used for the return of Cinerama, though thankfully it was turned off. Moyle was sucking up his rehabilitative smoke, but apparently he was not going to insist that our questioning of him be conducted while ESPN played reassuringly in the background. On other cases, I had seen that happen.

  "Anyway," Moyle said to Jeris, "a fat lot of help you and Glodt were while I'm locked in some toxic dump in Jersey or someplace with no smokes, and sawdust for meatballs, and these deranged fags mutilating me and threatening to eat my pancreas for lunch if I don't do what they tell me. I heard what the reward was from Steve-a niggerly six-five-and J. Pukingham Christ, I couldn't fucking believe my ears.

  Except, of course, knowing Steve, I sure as shit could believe it, and did. Steve the big spender. Steve the bleeding heart. Steve the Brooke Astor of New York AM radio."

  "At first it was five," Jeris said. "But Jay and I pleaded with Steve, we were practically kissin
g his skinny butt, and he said okay, then six-five. For Steve, that's not small.

  He says he's gonna have to raise the national ad rates in October to get his money back if anybody claims the reward."

  I said, "Leo, why did you think you might have been taken to New Jersey? You told the officers who picked you up outside Jay Plankton's apartment this afternoon that you had been blindfolded while you were in transit. But now you say you might have been held in New Jersey. Why is that?"

  Moyle was only vaguely aware of who I was. He knew that I was a private investigator who had once had contacts with the FFF, that I had been hired by Jeris and Plankton, and that I was working with NYPD. He peered over at me with his small gray eyes and said, "We were either in Jersey or Queens because we went through a tunnel going, and we came through a tunnel coming back. It sounded like traffic in a tunnel, and my ears popped."

  Jeris said, "Hey, Leo, they popped your ears, but at least they didn't pop your cherry."

  Jeris chuckled, while Moyle considered this somberly and didn't chuckle back. He wasn't ready to get back into the old J-Bird routine just yet.

  Barner said, "Yeah, Jersey or Queens, maybe. Lincoln, Holland, Queens Midtown.

  What about Brooklyn Battery? Could it've been Brooklyn?"

  "Could've been Brooklyn, yeah," Moyle said. "I couldn't tell. I'm so freakin' scared, I'm not exactly playing 'Name that Tunnel.' But going out, we go through the tunnel, then we drive for maybe an hour, maybe two, I don't know. It's on expressways, though, with some slowing down and speeding up, and no stop-and-go till we're almost where we're going. The same coming back, except in reverse.

  "What kind of vehicle, I don't know, as I told the feds. At first it's some Bronco, or like that, that I was shoved into. But then after a couple of minutes they switched-this is before the tunnel, still in the city-and I don't know what I'm in. I'm on the floor of some van or delivery truck, blindfolded, tape over my mouth, and trussed up tighter than Steve Glodt's account at Brooklyn Dime."