The Tower of Songs

Book 3: Duck Darley Novel

by Casey Barrett

Genres: Private Investigators; Crime Fiction; Mystery

Synopsis

Embracing an improbable stretch of sobriety, unlicensed P.I. Duck Darley has proven himself stronger than the temptations that loom in the shadows of New York City. But the familiar pull of self-destruction lingers like garbage in July when Layla Soto, a sharp-tongued Park Avenue teenager with a family as screwed up as his own, presents a twisted missing-persons case he can’t refuse . . .
 
Layla saw video evidence of her billionaire father being abducted from their home—at the top of the tallest residential tower on earth. She suspects her grandmother, a Chinese social climber on husband number three, orchestrated the act to silence her only son. Duck agrees to investigate the hedge funder’s disappearance, if only for the rush of a new thrill—and an excuse to reconcile with Cass Kimball, his leather-clad sometime partner who nearly got him killed . . .
 
As the unlikely duo become immersed in a high-stakes ransom linked to the international drug trade and the delicate relations between the two most powerful nations on earth, survival means trusting no one. Because when confronting absolute power, certain forces will stop at nothing to bury the truth.

Release date: August 27, 2019

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

It was the worst of July heat and I was taking a beating. I was getting tossed around the mat by a beefy young cop named Kingsley. He was a bright, ambitious kid from Lagos, Nigeria. Kings was bound for big things in the department, an NYPD poster boy for enlightened, diverse policing. There were more and more cops around the dojo these days, encouraged by superiors to learn a martial art in lieu of potential lethal force, when scared, overwhelmed officers reach for their pieces at crucial moments. My black-belted abilities were still eroded, and Kings had about fifty pounds of muscle on me. Every throw I attempted was swatted away. Aikido is supposed to equalize any opponent, but whatever the color my belt, I was still a joke to a guy like Kings. The beating felt good, just what I needed.

Afterwards, I hit my vape, exhaling as I stepped out into a blazing afternoon. My face burst with sweat, my t-shirt was sticky against my back, but it wasn’t like the booze seeps. There was nothing to release but endorphins. My dojo, New York Aikikai, was over in Chelsea on West 18th Street, a short walk east to my apartment. On a day like this any outdoor movement was offensive. Manhattan in summer is for suckers, for those without the means or the control over careers to escape for more reasonable climates. Count me among them; I’d done a poor job saving what little I had after my latest breakup.

Newly single, another predictable bender had followed. Six weeks devoted to coke and whiskey and regrettable four a.m. decisions. Now, I was off the booze and riding the weed-only wagon. It seemed to be a trend among reluctant alkies these days. There are those out there, a great many, who will always have the need to feel something; a buzz-free life of total clarity is not an option. Light drinkers who’d never consider another substance, folks who can take it or leave it . . . who are these people? But whether it was whiskey or wine or just the maintenance beers, I could no longer deny the effect the alcohol was having. My liver needed a break.

I wasn’t kidding myself that the change was permanent. I knew I would drink again, someday, but I was fit and energized in a way I hadn’t been in years. In addition to my morning workouts at the pool, I had also returned to the dojo.

I’d received the proverbial call to wake up in a literal way, accompanied by a kick to the ribs. In the darkness after closing time, I’d passed out on my front stoop. Coherent enough to find my way home, but, somehow, I’d been unable to unlock my door and fall through it. I’d spent the early morning hours sprawled on my steps like a bum, unconscious in the February cold. Then it was half past eight and the sidewalks were full of the stroller brigades, moms pushing little sons and daughters off to preschool.

My new landlord-in-waiting was standing over me, disgusted and ready to deliver another swing of his loafer. His name was Kent, a real cunt, and evidently Mr. Petit’s only heir. The owner of my brownstone was in his eighties and running out of whatever borrowed time he had left. For almost fifteen years, Gerald Petit had rented me his garden apartment for a song. I couldn’t remember when he last renewed my lease. At this point I suppose I had squatter’s rights. But ever since his hospitalization in the fall, his nephew Kent had been making regular trips from Jersey into the city. Sniffing around the property he lusted to inherit, like he’d ever cared about his bachelor uncle. He wanted me out. The moment the will was read I knew he intended to sell it for a few million. He’d turn off my heat, if necessary, and maybe try to buy me out for a few bucks. After I vacated like a rodent in the basement, a buyer would gut the place, strip it of every touch of period charm. Yeah, I’d seen that movie, been disgusted every time it aired.

The irony was that I was responsible for Mr. Petit still being alive. If I hadn’t been coked up one morning at six a.m. last October, I wouldn’t have heard him fall. He took a tumble down the stairs and broke his hip. I responded, called 911, the paramedics were there in minutes. After he returned home, now with a live-in nurse, I made a habit of visiting him in his parlor a few days a week. We’d never been close, but faced with imminent expulsion from my longtime home I started to ask him about my father. They’d been colleagues, before my dad’s disgrace and imprisonment, and I suppose I wanted to learn what I could before he spoke no more. Of course, Kent the cunt took my visits as a cynical too-late ploy to ingratiate myself into the will.

It wasn’t Kent’s kick on the stoop that morning that put me on the wagon. It was the witnesses that accompanied it. My first sight as I regained consciousness was a young mother pushing a double-seated stroller. Her kids were maybe three, twins, a girl and a boy. The mother looked weary, like she’d slept about as well as I had. She was dressed in sweatpants, UGGs, and a puffer coat. The twins were bound up like a pair of bloated Easter eggs.

“What’s the matter with that man?” asked the girl.

“Not everyone has a home,” said the mom. “Not everyone is as lucky as you two.”

She patted their heads and wheeled around us. Mistaken for the homeless, in front of my own home. If I believed in rock bottom, that might have qualified. Kent leered at me. You will be soon enough, his look seemed to say. I averted my eyes, offered no apologies, and unlocked my door. Then I emptied my apartment of all alcohol.

I braced for the withdrawal. Without professional help, I knew going cold turkey off the booze could kill. I accepted the risk. Made sure I had a refill of Xanax ready to soften the shakes and the dread. To my surprise, the first few days were rather pleasant. There was a certain joy in feeling my face un-puff; in the morning there was clarity, a weird sense of well-being. I was reminded of that old Sinatra line, how he felt sorry for people who didn’t drink—when they woke it was the best they were going to feel all day. Old Frank might have been right, but I’d been waking with doom and shame for a long time. By the fourth day I was feeling smug about shaking off my habit without the terrors and seizures they warn you about.

A week in I wasn’t so cocky. The whiskey whispers started and grew to a roar by my tenth sober day. I curled up on the couch, popped one Xanie after another, and binge-watched Bosch and Jack Taylor and Wallander. The shows didn’t compare to the books, but I was in no position to indulge in the cliché when I couldn’t focus on the page. When I managed to sleep, I dreamt of amber and hops and the sounds of loud barroom chatter.

It turned out my old friend, Page Six reporter extraordinaire, Roy Perry, was coming through his own bout of drying out. Coke was more his issue, but there’s no such thing as a cokehead who’s not also an alcoholic. He suggested I try smoking my way through. He said pot was the only way he’d managed to stay sober.

I called his guy, bought a few strains he recommended—Girl Scout Cookies, Gorilla Glue, Trainwreck. Times had changed since I dealt. Back when I was hustling around the city, before I got busted, I never knew a thing about Indicas or Sativas or THC content—pot was pot. It looked fresh, or it wasn’t. Now each canister came with descriptions of the high and treatment suggestions, like a mobile pharmacy of greens. It all seemed too precious but fuck me if they didn’t work as directed. It seemed I’d come full circle, a druggy journey home, back to the substance that got me started.

A few months later I was getting stronger by the day. I’d shed fifteen pounds. The definition was coming back to my chest and abs. My face had shape again, the whiskey bloat no longer. So what if I was dependent on the weed and the Xanies? I was rather proud of myself.

My workload increased. Perhaps word of my reformed habits got around. I was getting referral upon referral for divorce cases, averaging one per month, lining them up and knocking them down. I’d noticed a curious twist to my standard catch-the-cheating-bastard assignments. It used to be that I gathered evidence for the wronged wife, so she could divorce him and score the highest settlement possible. Now, more and more wives weren’t after a divorce—they were determined to scare off the mistress. The New Yorker even ran a story about this burgeoning cottage industry. They called it “The Mistress Dispellers,” reporting that it was now standard practice in China. A fine piece, though it failed to investigate its own backyard. This was not something limited to the Chinese and their tai-tai class. It was also common practice on the Upper East Side and in other pockets of our city with more money than love.

My latest assignment wrapped two days before. The client in question was a Belgian beauty named Kimberley; a former model married for a dozen years to a trust fund kid turned pseudo real estate developer. She had a four-bedroom loft on Bond Street, two kids in private school nearby, a staff of nannies and help, and an ironclad prenup that would have left her with ten million, should the marriage end for any reason. It had once seemed like a lot. Her husband, Cody, once seemed like a good man. Now he had a twenty-two-year-old girlfriend, an English tart who looked depressingly like Kim two decades earlier.

The girlfriend’s name was Katie. She did a bit of modeling, but mostly aspired to influence people on Instagram. Kim was prepared to pay her off, but I convinced her it wouldn’t be necessary. Katie just needed someone more tempting—cooler, richer, whatever—than her current married sugar daddy. With the help of Roy Perry’s club connections, I managed to get her in front of Ian Kahn, a nightlife and hotel magnate, divorced and looking. He had a thing for blondes with a posh accent, if two of his four ex-wives were any indication. One night at Libra in the West Village we made sure he spotted her. He didn’t stop looking until she looked back. Sometimes cupid’s job is rather easy. Roy placed the item in Page Six: Ian “Killer” Kahn’s newest hot young thing . . . Old playboy Cody was yesterday’s news. Consider Kim’s marriage saved, if not full of unbroken vows. She told me to stay in touch, adding that her husband was going on a golf trip soon, and her kids would be away at camp. If not with me, Kim would be exacting her revenge sex with someone soon, and she’d also keep the lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed. Maybe she’d ask her husband what he thought of Ian Kahn sometime, just to see him squirm.

Sin in the city, it seemed my job was recession-proof. As long as I stayed clean-ish and stuck with the impersonal cases involving affairs of the heartless.

But what fun is that?

I saw her waiting by my stoop and knew by the troubled look on her fresh face that this was about more than a marriage. She was somewhere in that discomforting range between late high school and early college, full of precocious arrogance and useless facts. She stood there in an expensive-looking red sundress, her black hair swept back in a high ponytail, her wide eyes peering over sunglasses that tipped at the point of a button nose. She straightened up as I approached.

“Mr. Darley?” she asked.

“That’s right. Do I know you?”

I tried to step around her, down the steps to my apartment. She moved with me, blocked my entrance.

“No, you don’t, my name is Layla Soto,” she said. “I think you’ve met my father, Danny Soto, a few years back.”

“Don’t think so.”

“He was Charlie McKay’s boss,” she said, “at Soto Capital, my dad’s fund.”

The name was not one I liked to hear. Charlie McKay, my old teammate, an Olympic swimming champion turned millionaire trader with a soul sold to Satan. The association had almost killed me on more than one occasion. It had also given me my fifteen minutes as an investigator, a D-list, days-long brush with fame.

“I think I talked to your dad once,” I told her. “But I don’t really remember, sorry.”

Of course, I remembered him. He was a toxic presence, a supercilious snake of a man dressed in black. I recalled how Charlie McKay had lusted for his approval after a profitable day in the markets.

“I also know Steven Cohen,” she said. “He goes to my school.”

If invoking the McKay name was a punch to the gut, mentioning Stevie Cohen next was a left hook to the jaw. I staggered and set a hand on my gate.

My ex, Juliette Cohen, had a son, Stevie. I still missed him, but Juls and I agreed that it was best for me to stay away. His therapy was not going well; the night terrors had not subsided. Thanks to a case I pulled them into, then eight-year-old Stevie killed a man. It was an act of astonishing bravery, saving my life and that of another, but it would take time for him to recover from the psychological scarring.

He may never.

“You’re calling out the greatest hits. How’s Stevie doing?”

She shrugged. “He’s in fourth grade, I’m going to be a senior. I only know him because he’s sort of famous at school, because of . . .”

“Because he killed somebody.”

“I guess. He was out for a few months. Everyone was talking about it when he came back.”

“So, what is it I can do for you, Layla? You writing a story for your school paper or something?”

She motioned toward my front door. “Would you mind if we talked for a few minutes?”

No way was I letting her inside my place. I was notorious enough around the neighborhood. No one was going to witness me leading an underage girl into my home, no matter how innocent or business-oriented the meeting.

“I’ll give you five minutes,” I said, “but not here. Why don’t we walk over to Piccolo around the corner? You can tell me about your dad over a coffee.”

She glanced over my shoulder, then turned and scanned the street behind her. Her eyes were quick and mistrusting and full of worry. She covered them with her sunglasses.

“We need to speak in private,” she said. “My father is missing. I think he’s been abducted. I know it. He’s been taken. Please, I think my whole family is in danger.”

I should have sent the kid on her way. Nothing positive could come of hearing her out. If someone snatched her billionaire dad, what was I supposed to do about it? Call in the feds? The best I could offer was false hope and bad advice.

We agreed on a walk around the block. She refused to speak inside any establishment where anyone might eavesdrop, and I wouldn’t let her inside my apartment.

“I’m sure your family has security,” I said. “Everyone at your father’s level has it. Even if you don’t see them . . .”

“Of course we have security,” she said. “I’ve had an armed driver taking me to school since I was ten. If I could trust them I wouldn’t be talking to you, obviously.”

Obviously, says the exasperated teenager.

“What about the cops, Layla? That seems like a pretty obvious place to go.”

She gave me the sort of withering look that only a sharp teenage girl can pull off. “That is the last place I would go,” she said.

“And why’s that?”

“Because whoever took my dad has a lot more power than the NYPD. There’s nothing they could do. Besides make things worse.”

“But you think I’ll be able to make things better? Listen, just because you’ve heard of two cases . . .”

“No, I don’t think you’ll be able to make anything better,” she said, stopping at the corner. “I think my dad is probably dead. I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.”

She spoke with a cold certainty that was disconcerting.

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you to find out why. Because I think I know who’s behind it.”

“Who’s that?”

“His mom. My grandmother, Eileen.”

I didn’t have anything for that. Layla lowered her head and continued walking the block. The heat didn’t seem to bother her. I looked at the back of her dress—dry as can be. I was sweating like a hostage. My blood was not made for these climates. My t-shirt was drenched, my forehead dripping. I thought quitting drinking would help with my perspiration issues. Not as many toxins to sweat out and whatnot. That wasn’t it. Behind her back I snuck another hit off the vape, waited for her to continue. We circled Third Avenue and approached my building. She stopped, looked back at me.

“My family is seriously fucked up,” she said. “That’s why I think you’ll help me. Because you understand that part.”

No argument there, kiddo.

She’d done her homework. In the twisted family sweepstakes, mine was hard to top. A father who might have become as rich as hers, until it emerged that his fortune was built on a half-bright Ponzi scheme. The only impressive part was how long he’d been able to maintain the charade. Now he was serving life in federal prison down in North Carolina. A mother who drowned drunk in a bathtub a few years later, then the only son, yours truly, a convicted felon . . . and that was before all the madness of my unlicensed investigative practice began. The Darley clan knew their way around fucked-up-ness. So, fine, I was listening. I knew I should have turned my back on her, gone inside and answered my next divorce inquiry, dispelled another mistress, but that comment had me standing at her attention.

“Will you help me?” she asked.

“I doubt I’d be able to.”

“But you’ll try?”

“You’ll be wasting your money.”

“It’s mine to spend,” she said.

“You worked hard for it, huh?”

“I’ve done nothing for it, but it’s still mine.”

“For now.”

“My dad might be missing, but he’s not a crook,” she said. “I think my trust fund’s pretty safe.”

“So did I.”

Sweating on the sidewalk, bickering with a rich teenager, so much for dignity.

“Look, you’ll be well paid,” she said. “Just help me out, okay?”

“For a few days, no promises.”

“Really?”

“I’ve done worse for less.”

She smiled at that. “Not to worry, Soto Capital treats its employees well.”

“Only as long as they keep performing.”

“True. You do remember my dad, don’t you?”

“‘There is no try, only do or do not,’” I said, recalling my only conversation with the man. “ ‘And you will do it until it is done.’ ”

“Knew it. Dad loves his Star Wars. That’s his favorite Yoda line. He used it on you?”

“He might have.”

We returned to my stoop and stopped together. She glanced up and down the block, hugged her bare arms around her body as if she were cold, then looked up into my eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “I knew you’d say yes.”

She turned and began to walk west toward Union Square.

“Hold up,” I called. “I’m going to need some more information.” I didn’t add and money, though that was a rather motivating factor as well.

“Check your email,” she replied.

I watched her hurry down the block before she turned right on Third Avenue and disappeared from view. I considered our encounter, wondered what I’d just agreed upon. I hadn’t taken much persuading. It would be a nice check for not much work. I didn’t intend to expend much effort. But not for the first time, I wondered about my latent death wish, the pull of self-destruction that was always there, lurking just beyond conscious thought. Over the last several months, off the booze, life had taken a turn for the better. I was strong and healthy and not quite as haunted. I was having success with my cases. Word-of-mouth was picking up. Now I could feel all that stability receding. It was as if the sidewalk was opening under my feet. The beast that resides beneath this cursed island was stirring again. Ready to pull me down once more into the murk.

The devil comes in many forms, most of them attractive. The well-dressed gentleman with a smirk and a promise—that was an old favorite. But sometimes he shape-shifts. Sometimes he—or she—may appear as a teenage girl, dressed in red, who speaks without emotion when discussing her surety that her father is dead. And what to make of her belief that it was her grandmother behind it, Danny Soto’s own mother?

Check your email, she said, as if her visit to me was just a formality.

I unlocked my door and stepped inside the apartment, breathing in the stillness. I missed Elvis. The hound had been dead over a year now. I knew it was almost time to return to a shelter and adopt a new guy, but I still couldn’t bring myself to do it. I doubted whether I was fit to parent even a pup. Yet the silence of an empty apartment without a pet felt unnatural. It would never feel like home without an animal to greet you.

Alas, no dog, no booze, none of the creature comforts I’d loved for so long. I didn’t get the itch to drink too often these days, but my meeting with Layla Soto left me thirsty. That should have been a sign in itself. I opened a sparkling water from the fridge, thought about packing the one-hitter. Before opening my laptop and checking that email, I turned on some music. Leonard Cohen. Since that baritone bard died I had become rather obsessed. His deathbed album, You Want It Darker, might be the finest self-composed eulogy ever written. It was something close to religion for the faithless. It put me in the proper frame of mind for whatever was waiting in Layla Soto’s email.

It was sent from an encrypted account. The sender was listed as “Mirrasoft—LS,” the subject line read SEE BELOW. I clicked the email open. It read:


There were two attachments. The first was a screen shot of a previous email, also sent from an encrypted account, addressed to [email protected], presumably Danny’s wife. This one read:


The note was unsigned. I clicked on the next attachment. A video file appeared on my screen. Crisp black-and-white security footage, the camera looked down on an opulent high-ceiled lobby. I watched as elevator doors opened in the back of the frame. Two women emerged, each pushing one arm of a wheelchair. Seated between them was a slumped man dressed in black. His limbs were loose. There was a hood pulled over his head, which lolled forward, his chin to his chest. As they approached the camera, the women stopped and made eye contact with the lens. One of them reached down and removed the hood. The other grabbed the man by the hair and pulled up his head so the camera could capture his face. They posed for a moment, then pulled the hood back on and wheeled him away. It had been a few years since we met, but the face was unmistakable. It was Danny Soto.

The entire video was twenty-seven seconds. I played it again, pausing on the faces, noting the empty lobby desk behind them. The women looked like Tarantino ninjas, as if they were in costume. Tight black fatigues, shoulder holsters, black hair cut in crisp bangs across their foreheads. They were Asian and very tall, both beautiful in a severe and scary way.

They brought to mind my former partner, Cassandra Kimball, sought-after dominatrix when she wasn’t assisting my investigations. She had that same look. There had been a time when I considered her my closest friend. She knew more about me than anyone else. She was my confessor, my protector. The one person I trusted above all.

That is, until she lied to me, used me, and let me down. It was Cass who pulled me into that case with Stevie Cohen. Ultimately, it was her fault that the kid would be a haunted, scarred mess for the rest of his boyhood, and perhaps beyond. She wasn’t present when he pulled the trigger and saved my ass from a vengeful meth-head white supremacist. In fact, she’d been in prison, suspected of the crimes that hateful psychotic committed. But she set it all in motion—by bringing me into her troubled love life and lying about the true nature of things. I was there when she was released from Rikers, but found I couldn’t forgive, not yet anyway. She told me she was resettling in the city, after h. . .