Fanatics Read online

  Fanatics is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  2015 Alibi eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2015 by Richard Hilary Weber

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN 9780553393804

  Cover design: Caroline Teagle

  Cover images: © Lynn Saville/Getty Images (street scene), © piranka/Getty Images (figure)

  readalibi.com

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Wednesday

  Gratitude

  City Hall

  Double-A Defense

  Victim ID

  Crime Scene

  Lover

  Target

  Rearraignment

  Celebrity

  Other Women

  New DA

  Thursday

  Media

  The Grateful Living

  The Committee

  Friday

  Igor & Co.

  PS 107

  Brooklyn Heights

  Rockaway

  Saturday

  Sunday

  By Richard Hilary Weber

  About the Author

  And God created the world, but the Devil keeps it going.

  —Tristan Bernard, Bons Mots

  Wednesday

  Gratitude

  3:30 A.M.

  A lone man in a long, dark denim coat, Converse Chuck Taylor black sneakers, black woolen baseball cap, and black leather gloves walked briskly up the steps of the F-train subway stop at Seventh Avenue and Ninth Street in the heart of fashionable Park Slope, Brooklyn.

  He left the subway station and emerged on Seventh Avenue, sauntering along the shopping thoroughfare past stores and restaurants closed for the night. When he reached Twelfth Street and the Ansonia Court loft condos, a converted nineteenth-century factory, he picked up his pace.

  Although he had no idea of the gloomy building’s history, he had an excellent mental image of its layout, a five-story brick sprawl more than a half block square.

  This was his fourth late-night visit in a week to the neighborhood, and only the week before he’d walked around the old Ansonia factory block twice a day, up Twelfth Street and down Thirteenth, morning and afternoon for seven days.

  A nineteenth-century cobblestone courtyard, entered from the middle of Twelfth Street, held his attention.

  Night, and the early November air was cold, calm, redolent of familiar New York scents, gasoline and asphalt, old newspapers and garbage stuffed in plastic sacks.

  Windows on both sides of the street were dark, the night, silent, the only sound his Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers padding steadily on the sidewalk.

  During the subway ride to Seventh Avenue, he’d experienced anxiety, but now he felt calm and confident, his thoughts drifting into song lyrics, the cadence of rap music matching his steps…

  Walkin’ tall

  Not feelin’ small,

  I’m all ballz

  When killin’ callz…

  He’d tried his own hand at writing lyrics, with disappointing results. He had some good slams, but the record people were scumbags…no contract, no time for him, no nothing.

  Brothers?

  Horseshit.

  It’s falling out their ass.

  Ripping off his ideas. He heard songs on the radio on Hot 97, and he sure as shit knew they were his compositions. No question, flat-out stolen. But all that bad stuff, that was over now.

  Finished.

  He’d had enough. So did some other people, and the way he saw it, they’d soon be extremely grateful to him for what he was about to do. Never again would his life be a waste of space.

  The 48 Laws, he read them all. Over and over. And like a lot of people he knew, he also memorized the laws…

  Destroy your enemy.

  Totally.

  Law number…

  …whatever the fuck it was.

  As the man walked up Twelfth Street toward the Ansonia courtyard in the middle of the block, he kept his right hand gripped on the end of a solid steel bar, a foot and a half long and tucked up the sleeve of his long coat.

  As he drew close to the courtyard entrance, he grew more cautious, his movements more alert.

  He saw no one. He was hoping that, as on other nights at this small hour, no one would appear before he reached his destination.

  And no one did.

  He turned quickly into the courtyard entrance, stepping behind a brick pillar. From here, completely in shadow, he could observe the entire enclosed space, the two doorways leading into staircases up to the loft apartments, and next to him the street entrance, the only route in or out. Good location, best he could hope for on this job. He’d hear any car driving up the street. The space in the shadows was narrow, only wide enough for him to step in, slip out. Doing his duty.

  As soon as he felt secure, comfortable enough waiting here in the dark, he slid the steel bar down out of the right sleeve of his long coat and held it at his side.

  The bar was still warm from the heat of his arm.

  Now, if tonight was like all those other nights, he wouldn’t have to wait around in the dark much longer. Still, just in case, if it took a little more time than he had planned, he had a black silk scarf in his coat pocket and he’d pull it out and keep his neck warm. Couldn’t afford to get laryngitis. No fucking way. Not after tonight. Two new pairs of black wool socks on, too, he couldn’t risk catching cold, not from now on, not with his ambitions; after tonight he could forget about ever freezing his ass off again. He’d be collecting gratitude.

  He was feeling pretty good about himself. Contented at last. Almost warm. Soon some people were going to be deeply obliged for the priceless favor he was about to do them. He could feel their love already, and he intended to collect his due from every one of them, badass men and sweet-ass women. They had to make all this shit worth his time and effort.

  Finally, the moment was now. Right this sorry second.

  Go for it…

  …here’s our boy.

  He heard the car drive up Twelfth Street and stop in front of the courtyard entrance.

  He checked his watch.

  Yo, bro, quarter to four. This mother was disciplined, always right on schedule. No wonder he scored so big.

  The car door opened; the car door slammed closed. A loud noise at this late hour.

  Leather heels clicked on the pavement, that scumbag and his custom-made shoes.

  All by himself this evening.

  No posse, no circle.

  No witnesses.

  Asshole didn’t need an audience, not for dicking his side piece of pussy at four a.m. And won’t she be glad and grateful soon enough. She’ll be showing killer here some serious gratitude.

  Gratitude. Gratitude.

  You got to have gratitude,

  Gratitude…

  Think about it. The payoffs would set him straight for the rest of his long, long life.

  The car drove off up Twelfth, turning left onto Eighth Avenue, exactly as the motherfucker passed through the courtyard entrance.

  Behind the pillar, the lone assassin in his Converse Chuck Taylor black sneakers rose up onto the balls of his feet. Moments like this and he realized he was totally alive.

  Your time’s up now, cock
sucker…You and your fur fucking coat, fur hat, Ervin top-dollar mink-and-chinchilla collar. Look at that prick, he’s wobbling, weaving, swaying all over the place. It’s all that good shit you’re drinking and snorting since dinner, it’s catching up on you, dickhead, fifty-year-old Cognac and fresh-off-the-boat coke crawling up your ass.

  The killer’s target moved unsteadily into the courtyard.

  The lone man—steel bar in hand, hatred pumping his disgust, all his years of loathing coming to a head, stoking his hunger for admiration and gratitude, for the rewards he knew would surely be his due—stepped out from his dark spot, two quick steps up behind the target, steel bar raised, and with the full force of his revulsion, the whole hurricane of his grievances, split the motherfucker’s skull with a single, solid shot.

  The body slumped frontward, collapsing to the cobblestones facedown, forehead thumping the ground. The fur hat, that Ervin custom-made special lid, rolled a foot or two.

  The killer picked up the hat and rubbed the fur against his cheek—Giorgio cologne, nice and sweet—and he dropped it on the victim’s smashed head.

  Disgusting…

  Good thing it wasn’t daylight, and he didn’t have to look at brains and blood and bone splinters all over the cobblestones.

  Adiós, bro, you sorry-ass piece of shit.

  Goods delivered, mission accomplished. And now some people owed him way humongous big-time.

  Gratitude. Gratitude.

  You got to have gratitude,

  Gratitude.

  The killer wiped the steel bar clean on the dead man’s mink and chinchilla, then stuck the weapon back up the right sleeve of his long denim coat.

  He left the courtyard, striding decisively up Twelfth Street.

  He didn’t look around.

  Out of the corners of his eyes, he sensed rows of darkened windows in the factory condos above him and in the four-story apartment houses across the street, every window a blank observing eye tracking his march up the block.

  The burger-and-beer joint on the corner was closed, as was the 12th Street Bar & Grill on the other side of the avenue.

  He kept walking straight up the next block to Prospect Park West, where he slipped into the park at the Eleventh Street entrance.

  He crossed the playground, the road, and continued into the meadow past the baseball diamonds on his right, no one popping up flies out there at four-ten in the morning.

  No crazy-ass motherfucking Haitians either, doing their zombie shit with chickens and goat heads in the old Quaker graveyard up the hill. All that voodoo-hoodoo jive ended a couple of hours ago.

  He reached what was once the pedal-boat pond. Confidently, deliberately, he bent over a sewer grate.

  He could hear the water running several yards below. He removed the steel bar from his sleeve, inserted it into the grate, and let go.

  Splash.

  Then nothing.

  He’d hear no more crapola now. Not after all this shit’s gone down. All he wanted to hear from tomorrow on were sounds of appreciation. Payoffs for the rest of his good long life.

  Their common enemy destroyed. Totally.

  Adiós forever, asshole…

  Should’ve moved your butt out of Brooklyn and over to Alpine and the New Jersey Palisades a long time ago, dude. I sure as shit will, with all the goodies I got coming my way for this big-bucks favor. Huge mother house I’m buying, get my own sound studio in there, and soak up those Manhattan skyline views. Who loses, who wins, who’s in, who’s out. Now you know, bro.

  Yeah, all your bad. And yo’ momma, she gonna cry and cry.

  Mwah mwah…

  You can bet your sad busted head, my man, I’m laughing all the way to the bank. Some happy people gonna show me their thanks. Golden days forever from this moment on.

  And failure to pay is no option for all the sorry individuals you crapped on and who hated you for every turd you tossed their way and called caviar.

  They’re gonna be loving my bad ass now.

  I’m their man.

  They owe me big-time for this one and they will know it.

  Every one of my accomplices, who are here but not really here with me tonight.

  Count ’em, dude.

  All my partners in vengeance…they’re your true memorial.

  City Hall

  7:04 A.M.

  The mayor of New York City grinned.

  Winked.

  Rolled his eyes.

  Patted his four guests on the back as they entered his office.

  And before they sat down, he awarded each a two-fisted handshake and a singsong personal greeting.

  “Glad to see you, Cecil. And again, my heartfelt congratulations…Senator.”

  And: “Commissioner, why so glum? C’mon, smile.”

  And: “Welcome, Lieutenant, long time no see.”

  Then for his final grin: “Sergeant, how you doin’—looks like you’re losing weight.”

  Homicide detective Lieutenant Florence Ott knew the mayor of New York often rationed with assiduous thrift his frat-boy charm and neon smiles of Times Square intensity, the two-handed grip and back pats. He reserved all of his full-fire charm offensive for four-figures-and-up donors, and for the president of the United States, for Hollywood celebs, for luminary newshounds from more-favored media like the New York Post, and of course for any television station no matter how small, including foreign crews. This mayor’s motto had to be “Never say no” to appearing on TV, or for a chance to grab some sex on the side, M or F or both simultaneously, or so the many rumors had it.

  Detective Lieutenant Flo Ott wasn’t returning the mayor’s smile as she was well aware neither she nor her colleague, homicide detective Sergeant Frank Murphy, fit comfortably into a mayoral preference category.

  A smile from the mayor only meant trouble for them.

  But one of the mayor’s morning visitors returned a toothy, glow-in-the-dark marquee grin. And Flo would concede that Brooklyn District Attorney Cecil King had a great deal to beam about, recently elected the first African American senator from New York, trouncing hizzonah da mare—59 percent to 41 percent—in an upset victory that shocked the city, suburbs, and upstate, almost as much as the Knicks winning all their games last month after many losing seasons.

  Waiting for the mayor to explain exactly why he called this morning’s meeting, Senator-elect Cecil King couldn’t stop grinning or, as the New York Post might have said, gloating.

  The police commissioner, a Queens County Golden Gloves champion at age nineteen, sat rubbing his long-ago broken nose, his expression permanently pugilistic.

  Homicide detective Sergeant Frank Murphy blew his nose.

  And homicide detective Lieutenant Flo Ott tapped her right foot impatiently. Seven in the morning was the mayor’s favorite hour for calling emergency meetings, at which homicide detectives were a distinct rarity. She was hoping for breakfast but wasn’t surprised to find only coffee on offer, a help-yourself, cafeteria-style steel urn in the corner. Cardboard cups, powdered milk, packets of Sweet’N Low.

  That the mayor already had his breakfast came as no surprise, not after a recent Page Six gossip column in the New York Post informed New Yorkers that…

  His Honor, a no-nonsense, highly disciplined manager, tucks into his daily steak-and-eggs breakfast—mustard rubbed sirloin rare, fertilized eggs lightly scrambled—at six a.m. sharp in the Gracie Mansion dining room…scouring his morning newspapers at the table and finishing his reading with his personal advance copy of this newspaper…saving for last, he tells us, his favorite Page Six and your humble reporter’s column, a spirit booster for his speed-of-light limo ride downtown, a siren celebration, rooftop red light spinning, a soul-stirring sight all the way down the East River Drive straight to city hall…

  The sort of less-than-imperfect commentary aimed at the half million or so readers whom the Post each day aimed to make as happy as if they’d seen a murder themselves.

  This morning, Flo noted, the m
ayor was displaying his more magnanimous and resilient qualities. Next to the coffee urn, pretzels were also on offer, leftovers from a five boroughs spelling bee awards ceremony the afternoon before.

  Senator-elect Cecil King, bouncy and benign, rose and filled coffee cups for the others. Flo enjoyed this small dig of noblesse oblige at the mayor’s expense. She harbored little respect for the city hall chief and only admiration for the district attorney, an indefatigable prosecutor who was, by any politician’s lights, an honest guy, the second African American to hold the office of Brooklyn DA. The best in the office, since all those years ago DA Liz Holtzman had her senate race sabotaged by a near-dead senator who insisted on running one miserable last time and, with his final breath and on a third-party ticket, split the Jewish vote to ensure Liz Holtzman’s defeat, even though the dying man himself had absolutely no chance of reelection.

  A young assistant district attorney at the time and recent Fordham Law grad, Flo quit the DA’s office for the police force and criminal investigations, hoping for a politics-free career in law enforcement.

  After the holidays, Cecil King was leaving Brooklyn for Washington, and the mayor would be certain to appoint a lickspittle loyalist to fill in as Brooklyn DA until the next election.

  Settling into her chair in the mayor’s office, facing a less-than-joyous future, Flo felt depressed. No matter how dark the prospect of a new boss in the Brooklyn prosecutor’s office, it paled as the meeting’s purpose—so far unclear, unstated, unexpected—was gradually clarified.

  “I got a response from the president,” the mayor began. “And of course he’s very understanding, Cecil, totally sympathetic, completely on your side…”

  …on your side.

  The smile disappeared from Cecil King’s face. If ever there was a kiss of doom, it was having this president on your side, a gift as promising as finding a cobra stoked on crystal meth curled up under your pillow.