AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She nodded and gave him a spectacular smile. She stuck out her hand like a confident real estate agent. Martin shook it, then slipped onto the stool next to her.
We had reached our first goal: verifying that the phone line that had called the service belonged to Perry Martin.
I listened to their small talk and realized I was bothered by a number of issues. I didn’t mean to be a prude, but a married man with two little kids at home, dating a girl who looked like she was in college, made me angry. That’s right, cops are allowed to feel emotion. Maybe it was because I had my own daughters, but I wouldn’t appreciate a guy like Martin bothering them at a bar.
The more I considered him the killer of Suzanne Morton, Estella Abreu, and Emma Schrade, the angrier I became. It just didn’t seem right that he should feel so comfortable walking into a bar in New York and talking to a girl like Allie.
He showed no reticence or concern. Allie kept quiet and just let him talk. He tried to ask her questions, but she was smart and came back to him with her own questions. Questions designed to boost his ego. “Do you work out?” “Is everything tight on you?” The questions kept the football coach on his heels and stopped him from asking Allie too much.
In an abundance of caution, I had also given Allie an emergency pager. It had a GPS signal that would go to an app on all our phones. If things went really bad, and she couldn’t see us, all she had to do was hit that button and we’d be able to find her fast.
The way things were going, I doubted she’d need that. The bar had people in it but wasn’t packed tight. We had a good line of sight. I had cops I trusted watching the outside of the building. And Terri Hernandez was sitting next to me. You couldn’t ask for a steadier partner.
I heard Martin use the wordcomfortseveral times and realized what he was saying. Maybe that was the new word for sex people were using. I hadn’t heard it phrased like that before.
On the transmitter, I heard Martin say, “Maybe we could find a hotel close by. Then you could give me some comfort. I really need to be able to focus tomorrow, and you could help me tonight.”
Allie asked a really good question. “Did you have any girls from The Girlfriend Experience that you particularly liked?”
Martin said, “I’ve never been disappointed with anyone from your agency.”
I heard some raised voices and turned to look toward the front door.
The manager was trying to keep someone from coming inside. I saw a group of four or five men arguing with the manager. One of them was trying to push his way into the bar. Then I saw they were all wearing Jets jerseys.
That was never a good sign.
Chapter97
I KEPT ANeye on the growing argument at the front door. I didn’t want some loudmouths screwing up our investigation.
The manager, a woman in her early forties, tried to reason with the men. They kept yammering about coming in to see a Thursday night NFL game featuring the Jets. It sounded like they’d been kicked out of the bar last week and told not to come back.
One of the men said in a loud Brooklyn accent, “This is America. You can’t keep us out of a bar. Not on a Thursday night with the NFL on.”
The manager was professional and didn’t sink to their level. She kept an even tone. “I’m afraid none of you are welcome here. Please leave.”
That almost did the trick, until the bartender, the one who’d flirted with Allie, needed to prove his manhood. He shouted from the edge of the bar, fifteen feet away, “You heard her, scumbags. Hit the road.”
A skinny dude with a mullet haircut shouted, “What did you just call us?”
Before the manager could turn around and calm down the bartender, all five Jets fans pushed into the bar. The bartender ran out from behind the bar and barreled into them.
Every single eye in the place was glued to the front door. Green Jets jerseys flew all over the entry. The bartender shoved one of the loudmouths so hard he took down two more with him as he hit the industrial-grade tile on the floor like a bowling ball with a goatee.
One of the other Jets fans took a wild swing, which the bartender simply ducked. He countered with a hard punch directly into the Jets fan’s face. The man’s head snapped violently and he stumbled back two steps. Then he fell over his friends on the ground. The last Jets fan darted out the front door. Apparently, common sense can come to anyone given the right motivation.
I heard on my left earpiece, “This is Tac One. There’s some kind of disturbance at the front door of the bar.”
Terri used her covert radio transmitter to tell the team it had nothing to do with us and to stay in position. I knew why she’d addedstay in position. It’s tough for cops to sit idly by when violence breaks out. Their instinct is to intervene and try to stop whatever’s going on. But this case was too big to risk on a barroom brawl.
Patrons of the bar were standing and moving toward the front door to get a better view of the scuffle.
I could hear something in my right earbud. It was Perry Martin’s voice saying, “This is crazy.” I turned to get a look at him and Allie at the bar. There were too many people now crowded around my table, cheering on the fight. I couldn’t see anything.
I looked at Terri and said, “Can you see Allie and Martin?”
She stood up, but as soon as I saw her crane her neck, I knew something was wrong. I sprang to my feet, where my height helped me easily see over the people crowded around us.
