EVERYONE FEARS SOMETHING. EVEN the most battle-hardened military commanders, men who’ve sent other men to die again and again, who’ve seen the dismembered bodies of human beings in bomb craters, in instant ponds, bits of legs and arms lying thirty feet from limbless torsos, who’ve seen all these things and then sat down to a meal in the midst of the carnage, have that one special point of fear, usually kept hidden from the scrutiny of peers, that forces them to acknowledge the fact of their own mortality.
Stanley Moodrow was no exception. He, too, had his point of vulnerability, but, oddly enough, it had nothing to do with the inherent dangers of being a New York City cop. It was not the crazed killer lunging suddenly through the doorway, ten-inch butcher knife descending rapidly, that set him off. Nor was it the black ghetto revolutionary with mini-machine gun pouring round after round into his unmoving body. Even tenement fires, sudden and violent, requiring policemen to evacuate residents, usually nightmare situations for cops unable to judge how fast a fire is likely to spread, didn’t give Moodrow a second thought. He’d been in dozens, been burnt a few times, though never badly, and would not hesitate to go in again.
No, fortunately for his peace of mind, Moodrow’s fears did not revolve about his duties as a police officer. Like most of us, Moodrow was able to keep his fears at a safe distance. However, also like most of us, he occasionally had to confront them. Occasionally, as for instance, when ordered by his captain to chase after an out-of-town fugitive. Moodrow, it seems, hated to fly. It wasn’t while he was in the air that his problem surfaced, nor on the landing. Though he disliked landing, he was always prepared. His problem came along at the beginning of his flight, during the final moments before takeoff. As the plane swung into its approach and the engines revved to a deafening pitch, Stanley Moodrow, all six foot five inches of him, was transformed from a human being into a living fountain, pouring out sweat until the black stains showed plainly on his dark brown suit. Then, as the plane suddenly lurched forward, the sergeant would try his level best to leave all ten fingerprints in the armrest, for he knew that, without fail, seconds after the tires lifted off the ground, the aircraft would bank steeply toward whatever side he happened to be sitting on, while at the same time rattling like dice in the palm of a degenerate gambler. This undoubtedly explained why Moodrow spent the hour before his flight to Vermont in the airport lounge as a prelude to even more serious drinking on the plane. It also explained his headache and his utter lack of enthusiasm at being confronted in Brattleboro police headquarters by Captain Joshua MacDougall, patriarch of Brattleboro Police Headquarters, a fiftyish man, thin as a rail with translucent skin stretched taut across the fragile bones of his face. He sat, Captain MacDougall, legs crossed at the knees, the picture of New England elegance. Marshalling all the resources of his distaste for New York and New Yorkers, he allowed a slight smile to stretch the corners of his thin, white mouth.
“Yes, Cap… Excuse me, Lieutenant Moodrow. What can I do for you?”
“Sergeant Moodrow.” Moodrow sat quietly, too drunk to react.
Captain MacDougall shuffled the papers on his desk briefly, then looked into Moodrow’s bloodshot eyes. “Quite correct. Sergeant Moodrow. What can I do for you?”
“Didn’t Captain Epstein call ahead? He said he was going to make all the arrangements. About Frankie Baumann.”
“Oh, yes, I recall the conversation. He wanted me to allow Mr. Baumann to be extradited to New York.”
“Yeah. We’re gonna bury him.”
“Bury?”
“Sure, we’ve got the fucker dead. He’ll max out to thirty-five plus.” Moodrow, unsure of how much Epstein had confided to MacDougall, deliberately kept any talk of deal out of the conversation.
MacDougall leaned forward, greedily, like a derelict about to suck on his bottle. “It appears we have a problem, Sergeant. We also want to punish Mr. Baumann.”
“For what? For a couple grams of coke? What’s the point?” Moodrow was sobering rapidly.
“A couple of grams of cocaine,” the captain chuckled. “Well, I’m sure that’s not very much in New York City, but we take it very seriously in Brattleboro.”
Moodrow shifted in his chair, eyes riveted on MacDougall, who sat motionless. The sergeant was trying to figure out what the Vermont detective wanted, if anything. “So what’ll he get in Vermont?”
“Get?” MacDougall spat it out.
“How much time?” Moodrow’s voice rose, in spite of his efforts at self-control. “How much time in Vermont for a couple of grams of coke?”
“Oh, I see. I would guess about two years served.”
“Two years. I could put that prick away forever.”
“You’ll certainly have an opportunity. As soon as he’s released from a Vermont penitentiary.”
“Bullshit,” Moodrow exploded, half-rising. “Come two years from now there won’t be any witnesses left, no evidence. You might as well let the scumbag off right now.” For several seconds he couldn’t talk at all, then it poured out. “You know what he did? Do you? He thought his old lady was gonna sell him out to the Feds, which she wasn’t. So he goes into the Circle X bar on 6th Street and starts slicin’. Doesn’t say anything. Not one fucking word. Like fifty times. Small cuts, with the tip, but you know how those things add up when you stick to them. Did the deed in front of fifteen witnesses, too. Now you can imagine that these witnesses are just a little reluctant to point him out in an open courtroom, what with his friends and all, but I got enough persuasions, I could get a few on the stand. But not three years from now. Then it’s dead, and you want to hear something else? I was in that bar a few days ago. It’s an old bar and the floorboards don’t have any varnish left on ’em so the blood soaked right in. All his pals hang out there, and they don’t let anybody stand on the stain. They want to preserve it for future generations.”
MacDougall sat calmly through Moodrow’s tirade, still stiffly erect. “Very moving, Sergeant. Would that you had managed to apprehend him before he came to our city. In any event, we intend to try Mr. Baumann in Vermont.”
“What kind of cop are you?”
“I don’t have to sit for your impertinence, predictable as it is. This interview is concluded.”
“Can I at least see him?”
MacDougall grinned. “You’re sure you won’t abduct him?”
“Cut the crap.”
“We’ll have him ready before you get to the jail.”
Moodrow left without another word. MacDougall was right. Arguing was fruitless. Later he would phone Epstein and let the lawyers straighten it out. In the meantime, he would try to soften Baumann up, just in case the state of Vermont decided to release him. Still, even though resigned to the situation, Moodrow was not in the best of moods as he walked across the two hundred yards of the macadam parking lot between MacDougall’s office and the Brattleboro city jail, nor was his mood improved by the sight of Frankie Baumann’s partner, Angelo Parisi, bent over the trunk of a ‘62 Pontiac Grand Prix, struggling to extract the spare tire. What followed, however, proved to be just the mood elevator the policeman needed to make the afternoon bearable for, as Moodrow passed, Angelo Parisi, stoned out of his mind on Quaaludes, looked up from his flat tire and recognized the sergeant.
“Well, well,” he said, from the very depths of his euphoria, “lookee what we got here, the chiefest piggy on the Lower East Side.”
Moodrow stopped for a second to absorb two pieces of information. First, Baumann could no longer be turned because having seen Moodrow on his way to question Baumann (and he could be in Brattleboro for no other reason), Angelo would spread the word and Baumann would no longer be trusted by the Golden Nomads. Second, Moodrow realized that as far as Brattleboro was concerned, he was not a cop, but a private citizen and subject to the same laws as anyone else. Nevertheless, grinning with malice, he swung face to face with the very stoned Angelo Parisi.
“Hey,” Angelo cried, realizing his mistake. “Youse can’t do nothin’ ta me. This ain’t New Yawk.”
Casually, with utter contempt, Moodrow slapped both palms into Angelo’s chest, sending the young hoodlum reeling backwards into the side of the Pontiac.
Angelo, not so stupid as to try to fight back, put his hands in front of himself defensively. “Whatta ya gonna do? Whatta ya gonna do?” was the best he could come up with.
“Get in the trunk, Angelo.”
“What?”
“Get in the trunk.” Moodrow’s voice was calm and even, as if he’d made the most reasonable request imaginable.
“I ain’t gettin in no fuckin’ trunk.”
Once again, Moodrow slapped both palms against Angelo’s chest and once again Angelo slammed into the side of the car. “Get in the trunk.”
Very slowly, as if he was being pushed against his will by a powerful wind, Angelo Parisi began to move toward the back of the car, Moodrow echoing every step. Just as they reached the open trunk, Angelo looked inside, seeing the tire iron and contemplating the feel of it in his hands as it crashed into Moodrow’s skull. Then he heard the low rumble of the detective’s laughter and, like Paco Baquili, he began to cry even as he stepped inside.
“You got no right, you motherfucker. You got no right.” He kept up the chant, each syllable widening the smile on Moodrow’s face, until he heard the snap of the trunk lock closing. Then, as Moodrow, the keys to the Pontiac in his pocket, walked toward the jailhouse, Angelo began to kick and shout for freedom.
Once inside, Moodrow paused to consider his situation. There was no hope of turning Baumann, so his original objective was dead, though he was sure the New York district attorney’s office would press for extradition. There was a moment when he considered not speaking to Baumann at all, of simply returning to the airport after a quick call to Captain Epstein, but then, on a whim, he decided to see Baumann, to chat for a few moments about Ronald Jefferson Chadwick and a Greek named Johnny Katanos.
Under most conditions, cops and robbers are deadly enemies, even when the robber is a snitch. They simply hate each other. But on occasion, when neither has anything to gain or lose, they relate to one another like corporate adversaries, salesmen for competing firms meeting unexpectedly in a hotel bar and pausing to talk shop. This was Moodrow’s position, though not Frankie Baumann’s, as they first encountered each other in the small, green room that served Brattleboro as an interrogation cell.
“I am not about to turn rat, Sergeant,” Frankie Baumann, taller than Moodrow, but thin, almost spectral, said in his slow, southern drawl. “It is simply not in my nature.”
“So who asked you?” Moodrow replied, taking a seat across from Baumann. “I just thought I’d drop in for a little talk. You know, you shouldn’t have cut up your wife like that. She wasn’t ratting on you. Now she’s dead and you’re going bye-bye forever. Man, it’ll be box time before you hit the streets again.”
“Well, I guess that is just the fate God had in store for me. See this here?” He pointed to a jailhouse tattoo on his forearm which read Born to Lose. “I guess I have known the truth of this for a long time. I have no regrets.”
“I could see that. I could see you’re a tough guy. I wouldn’t even bother trying. By the way, you got a little piece of luck going here. Vermont doesn’t want to give you up.”
Baumann’s face, previously grave, crept up into a smile.
“But,” Moodrow continued, “we’re not quitting yet.”
“No surprise there, Sergeant.”
“I gotta say, though, the neighborhood’s been very quiet since you been gone. I think the last real blast we had was when Chadwick bought it.”
“Oh, yes, I do recall the incident. Always wondered about that one. Hurt me, too. Mr. Chadwick was an old rival of ours. Fact is, we were planning a little action. Only problem being, we didn’t know exactly when the man was going to be heavy. No sense killing folks if there is no reward forthcoming.”
Moodrow leaned forward. “But some asshole must have known the inside, because they took Chadwick for a heavy piece. Least that’s the way I heard it.”
Baumann, caught up in the gossip, joined eagerly. “Word on the street is only one gentleman responsible. Greek fella name of Zorba.”
“You mean Johnny Katanos?”
“Heard that was his real name. But we all called him Zorba.”
“Yeah? You think it’s possible? I mean one fucking guy.”
“Well, now, I can’t say for sure, but I must admit that fella Zorba was about as bad as a man can be. Why, one day I saw him tear apart the biggest damn nigger in the whole city. And he did not pick that fight. Fact is, the boy tried to step aside, but when he was faced down, he ‘bout killed the coon. Never thought I would feel sympathy for a nigger, but this one took just the worst beating, and right out where the whole street could see. The most amazing thing about it is just how cool that Greek boy made himself. When I get down to a real fight I pretty near go crazy, but not that Zorba. It was like a stroll down St. Mark’s Place for all he showed. Shoot, I am just glad I never had to tangle with him myself.”
“Sounds like a man after my own heart,” Moodrow responded. “I tried like hell to run that prick down, but I couldn’t find him. Like he just rolled off the edge of the Earth.”
Baumann smiled, knowing Moodrow was probing, but willing to go along. “Now I do believe that boy hailed from out in the boroughs. Queens comes first to mind. We were hoping to recruit him to our cause at one point, but he turned us down. Did a little investigating, though we never did pick up the exact on his home. Just Queens, somewhere.”
A chilly afternoon for late March, crisp and clear; Johnny Katanos with Muzzafer alongside him, parked the van across from 426 West 10th Street, in Manhattan, the home of A&B Oxygen Supply.
“What time is it?” Johnny asked.
“One o’clock.”
“We’re early.” Johnny settled himself in the driver’s seat, stretched his legs underneath the steering wheel. “We got a good half hour before he comes out. He’s having lunch now.”
“How do you know what he’s doing?” Muzzafer rolled the side window down a couple of inches, trying to keep it from fogging.
“I’ve seen him. When it’s warmer, the men eat out in the yard.” He started the car and flicked on the rear window defogger. “Say, Muzzafer, you know what I always wanted to ask you? What’s it like inside an Arab jail? You were in jail what? Six months?”
“Seven.”
“But who’s counting, right?” Johnny smiled, taking his time. “So what’s it like in an Arab jail? They tough or what?
Muzzafer unzipped his jacket. The defroster blew all the heat up to the top of van. His hair was sweaty, his feet cold. “There are two kinds of jails in most countries. In most civilized countries. Even in Russia there are two kinds. We were political prisoners. Criminals were kept away from us.”
“You mean, so they wouldn’t hurt you?”
“I expected you to say that, but you’re completely wrong. If anyone in that prison hurt one of us, he hurt all of us. We have a reputation for getting even. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it.” He looked straight at Katanos, a thin smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “The thing about criminals, their limitation, is that they aren’t prepared to die. As revolutionaries, we expected an early death. We embraced the idea. All of our heroes were dead. Many of our contemporaries, as well. We sang in the mornings. Right after we prayed on our knees to Allah, we sang of our willingness to sacrifice our lives. We held seminars, taught ballistics, organization, forgery, smuggling. Most of our jailers supported us. They gave us food, cigarettes, newspapers. I met revolutionaries from every continent but Antarctica. I met Germans, Irish, Afghans, Colombians, South Africans. We’d all been living in Amman, in Jordan, thinking we were protected. Then one day Hussein’s secret police rounded us up like cattle, held us while he drove all the Palestinians out of his country, then let us go. The funny part is that while we were in jail, we made associations that still hold up today. You can see it in our own project. A Libyan operation armed by Cubans with American ordnance smuggled by Colombians. Learning how to set that up was what jail was like for me. The criminals, I think, had it a lot tougher.”
Though he read the implied threat, Johnny listened without changing expression. He wore a quilted down vest and a loose, wool shirt tucked into black, corduroy pants. Reaching into his shirt pocket for a roll of Life Savers, he smiled innocently before he began to speak. “Man, that sounds more like paradise than prison. If American jails were like that, you’d have to lock the poor people out. How old were you when you went inside?”
“Seventeen.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was getting at. Kid joints are worse than regular jails. Every day I had to fight and I wasn’t even in there for a crime. I was just there because I was between foster families. Like for almost four years. And all those kids ever did was play sports and fight and fuck each other.” Johnny passed the Life Savers over to Muzzafer. “Know why I think they used to fight so much? It’s because they were so horny. When I was fifteen years old I had a hard-on almost all the time. I woke up hard, walked around hard, and went to sleep hard. And I wasn’t the only one. The niggers were desperate horny. Them guys would jerk off under the bench in shop class. Race to see who would come first. God help the kid who couldn’t fight.”
“Wait a minute.” Muzzafer waved his arm in Johnny’s face. “That him?” He gestured to a truck pulling out of the yard.
“What’s the number on the hood?”
“Eight.”
“And what number are we looking for?”
Johnny struggled to keep his voice relatively neutral. The way Muzzafer had answered his question about jail, cool and unafraid, made him wary. The bastard wasn’t scared of him and that, in itself, was intriguing. In Johnny’s world, prior to meeting Theresa, little guys like Muzzafer, if they weren’t actually holding a weapon, were always afraid.
“What time is it?” Johnny asked again. Suddenly he realized that Muzzafer might try to kill him. Not here and not in the near future, but it was possible the Arab would kill him for breaking up the project. That’s why Muzzafer wasn’t afraid. Because he knew that he could do it.
“One twenty-three.” Muzzafer kept his eyes on the entrance to the yard. The Greek’s patronizing tone was becoming more and more irritating. Under ordinary circumstances, he would slap the man who dared to challenge him, but these circumstances were far from ordinary. Through his superiors, any project leader could arrange for the ultimate lesson to be administered to rebellious soldiers and these same soldiers all knew it, but in New York, under the conditions which he himself had created, there was no higher authority. What could he do? Hit Johnny Katanos? Shoot him? There wouldn’t be any Army without him and the oddest thing was that Johnny never challenged Muzzafer when the whole group was together. Never embarrassed him in front of the women. For a moment, Muzzafer tried to imagine himself explaining why he’d had to kill Johnny Katanos. Theresa would tear him to pieces.
They sat in silence, watching the traffic on 10th Street, until Johnny, deadpan, asked for the time.
“It’s one twenty-eight,” Muzzafer replied.
“Crystal ball time, man. I say in exactly two minutes, right when the lunch whistle blows, truck number 4 is gonna come rumbling out of the yard The guy driving it’ll go east to Sixth Avenue, then north, into midtown traffic. Guess where he’s actually headed.”
“The Bronx.” Muzzafer meant it as a joke.
“How the fuck you know that?” For a moment Johnny was taken aback, the first time Muzzafer had ever seen him even slightly out of control.
“I was kidding.” Muzzafer explained.
“Yeah?” He looked at Muzzafer closely for a moment, then flashed his biggest smile. “Well, you win the grand prize, little buddy, ’cause that’s exactly where he’s going. Most days he takes the New Jersey run, but two afternoons a week he services whatever accounts number 3 can’t handle.”
“So why does he use Sixth Avenue? How come he doesn’t take the West Side Highway or Tenth Avenue and go around the traffic?”
“OK, this is really beautiful. He takes Sixth Avenue because of a little pizza shop at 32nd and Sixth, Gino’s Genuine, where they sprinkle their pizza with dope instead of cheese. No shit. Every time he stops there, the counterman passes him a small bag, a slice of pizza and no change for his twenty. I figure it’s probably coke, but who gives a fuck? As long as he goes there.”
At 1:30 the sound of an air horn interrupted their conversation and a GMC with an open stake body and the number 4 painted on the hood, pulled out of the yard and headed east on 10th Street, with Johnny and Muzzafer in pursuit. They followed it through heavy traffic to Sixth Avenue between 31st and 32nd, where, as predicted, the driver double-parked next to a stretch limo and ran into Gino’s Genuine.
“Son of a bitch,” Muzzafer said. “You were right.”
“This is some fucking town, partner. I mean these guys are more wide open than a transvestite’s cheeks.”
Muzzafer ignored the comment. The scenario was perfect for their needs. Manufacturers are forbidden to carry compressed gas in closed trucks in New York and the slats on number 4’s stake body offered easy access to the chained cylinders of oxygen and acetylene. Muzzafer could feel the blood rising. This was midtown Manhattan, not Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Every street was crowded and the further north truck number 4 drove, the more crowded it would get.
“Take a count,” Johnny said. “Count the cylinders.”
“Forget it,” Muzzafer responded. “That’s the first thing I did. There’s twenty oxygen and eighteen acetylene. Let’s get out of here.”
As they drove toward the Midtown Tunnel, and Muzzafer began to consider the situation, to formulate a plan for the execution of the project, Johnny watched him closely, trying to sense the moment when Muzzafer would be least prepared to hear what he was going to say. For Johnny, it was a kind of stalking, of waiting for the prey to relax before he began moving forward. He would never allow himself to become as lost in his thoughts as Muzzafer. No situation was safe enough for that.
“Hey, Muzzafer, you’re not gonna believe this. Guess what happened yesterday afternoon? Guess?”
Muzzafer looked up, startled. “What?”
“I got Janey. I popped her good, man.”
“What?” He couldn’t believe he’d heard it right.
“I humped little Janey. Humped the shit out of her.”
“Are you serious?” Muzzafer felt the news drop over him like a wet snowfall. If Effie found out… “Does Effie know?” he asked frantically. “Why did you do that? I ought to kill you for that.”
“Relax, Effie doesn’t know anything.” Johnny laid his hand on Muzzafer’s leg, tapping the smaller man’s knee. “And Theresa doesn’t know, either. And don’t look at me like it was my fault. We were down in the laundry room and she got all over me. I mean it’s obvious the bitch hasn’t seen a cock in a long time and she’s tired of plastic.” He stopped for a moment, to give Muzzafer a chance to respond, but Muzzafer was too angry to open his mouth and Johnny, quick to seize advantage, leaned close, whispering in his best “buddy to buddy” voice. “But lemme tell you exactly what happened. And don’t let me forget about the freckles.” He pushed his elbow into Muzzafer’s ribs and for the first time, Muzzafer recognized that this whole project, the choice of targets, the location, the method, was entirely in Johnny Katanos’ hands. “She’s got freckles on her fucking tits, man. They’re exactly the same color as her nipples. And real blonde pussy hair that’s blonder than the hair on her head, and that’s the first time I ever saw that. Would you believe she said if I go down on her, she’s gonna kick me in the balls? She said she’s had enough tongue to last her into the next century.”
Try to imagine your worst nightmare come to life. Imagine you’ve been having the same dream for fifteen years, at least twice per week, that each time you awaken in a panic and that your dream is so intensely private it cannot be shared with priest or psychiatrist. And then, one sunny afternoon, it jumps out of hiding in the form of two FBI agents and grabs you, Julio Ramirez, immigrant, barber, spy, and whisks you away to a small office in Queens.
If you have a strong imagination, you are shaking the way Julio Ramirez shook, his right knee jerking uncontrollably as he sat in a straight-backed chair across from a smiling George Bradley and scowling Leonora Higgins. For the third time, Bradley repeated his position quietly.
“Mr. Ramirez, we know you delivered a vanload of ordnance to the American Red Army. We know you picked up the van at a garage in Bay Ridge and drove it to 31st Street in Astoria. We know you passed it on to an active member of the Red Army. Why are you wasting our time?”
Julio coughed up the last remaining bits of his courage. “If you know so good, you tell me who tell you?”
“Can’t do that, Julio.”
“Let’s stop the bullshit,” Leonora broke in, her voice hard and firm. “Let’s just bury the asshole.”
“Don’t be so hasty, Leonora. Let’s give him a chance to come around.”
“If you got me,” Julio said, “how come you don’t arrest me? What you gonna do in court if you can’t say who tell you this about me.”
“Court?” Leonora broke into laughter, then snapped it off abruptly. “Asshole, the one thing you don’t have to worry about is jail. You’ll wish you were in jail. Do you happen to know the Havana Moon Bar on Kennedy Boulevard in Union City? Do you know Esteban Perez, the owner?”
Julio shook so badly the coins in his pockets began to jingle. Esteban Perez was known in the Cuban community as the public head of the anti-Castro Cubans in the United States. There were others, of course, whose jobs were to carry out the directives of public figures like Perez, but these names were not well known, and although the FBI had a few in their files, Leonora, in mentioning the name of Perez, was able to scare the hell out of Julio Ramirez without giving anything away. At that point, she was not yet aware of how innocuous and expendable Ramirez was.
“Suppose,” Leonora continued, “we mention, in the course of general conversation, that a certain barber, Julio Ramirez, is really a spy who reports to the Cuban Mission every month? Do you think he’ll ask for proof? No? What do you think will happen to you when he finds out? What do you think will happen to your family? Do you have children, Julio?”
A long silence followed. The two FBI agents could sense that Ramirez was about to break, but they were totally unprepared for the mixed torrent of tears and words that poured from the hapless spy. No, he did not want to be a spy. He was not a Communist. It had all been a mistake, but how could he get out of it? Now he wanted only to serve his country. He wanted to be an American, like his neighbors. Would the FBI please help him and his family?
They worked him over for the next three hours. He readily named his contact at the Cuban Mission, a man they already knew. He recalled every detail of his delivery of the weapons, except for the description of the man who met him in Astoria. He had been afraid of this man, afraid to look too closely. And it had been dark underneath the el. He wanted to help them, he sincerely wanted to, but this was all he knew.
Finally, it sunk in. Almost at the same time, Leonora Higgins and George Bradley concluded that they were not going to get any closer to Muzzafer and his army by using Julio Ramirez, that they had wasted their time, that they were back at the same dead end. Bradley spoke first.
“OK, Ramirez, out of here.”
Ramirez stood up quickly, but remained by his chair. “What do you want me to do? Do you want to use me? What do you want?”
“I want you to get out of here.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Jesus Christ, man, will you just go?” Bradley’s frustration finally pushed the Cuban into action and he was out the door without another word.
“I never saw a man open up so easily,” Leonora remarked.
“Right,” Bradley agreed, his voice tinged with irony. “Why is it only the ones with nothing to tell are willing to tell? Leonora, the bureau’s crawling up my back on this one and I just don’t have a clue about what to do next.”
Leonora shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not like we’ve left anything undone. Do they think we’re spending our time on the beach?”
“They don’t care. They want results.”
“How about Julio?”
“He’s not results.”
“Still, what are you planning to do about him? Do you want to use him?”
“Oh, I’m going to use him all right.” For the first time, Bradley smiled. “I owe Esteban Perez a favor and I think that favor is going to be Julio Ramirez.”
Leonora sat bolt upright. “You can’t do that.”
Bradley looked across at her, surprised by the conviction in her voice. “Why not?”
“They’ll kill him.”
“So? He’s a spy.”
“He gave us all he had. You can’t just execute him. It’s not right.”
Bradley began to laugh. “Not right? He’s perfect. We have no use for him whatsoever, but he’ll make those crazy Cubans very happy. Perez’ll take credit and build his own reputation. Then, instead of me owing him a favor, he’ll owe me. I like my ledger unbalanced on the credit side.”
“But…”
“Enough, Leonora, that’s the way it’s done. Ramirez was never a player. He was a pawn from the first day. Not even a pawn. A fiftieth of a pawn. No one will miss him.”
“How about his wife and kids?”