According to what Tonya hears, Walter loves spilling tea about the Ritz behind his back. To keep his cover, Walter is still going to work every day at Vojczek Management, and then detouring from his nightly trip to the tavern to meet for an hour or two with Ingram and other agents at another off-site, in the North End.
Even to those who have known him for decades, the Ritz, according to Walter, is ‘fuckin strange.’ While he was on the job in Kindle County, he met Jewell Green, a civilian employee, legendary beautiful and just divorced from a doctor who ran around on her. Jewell’s mom was white and her father was Black, and because of the dad, Ritz’s mother wouldn’t even be in the same room with Jewell. Ritz married Jewell anyway and supposedly never spoke again to his mother, who he described as ‘mean as a stick.’ According to Walter, Jewell was the Ritz’s true better half—warm and gracious as a diplomat, unlike Ritz, who is almost always sullen and uncommunicative, with that sinister vibe. Just before the Ritz left the Kindle County Unified Police Force, Jewell and he split. Walter says there are many stories about why, and no one knows the truth. Some heard the Ritz brought home an STD. Several say it was because Jewell wanted children. A few people claim they saw Jewell with bruises. And many others, adding two and two, think Jewell DQ’d Vojczek because he’d started using. Walter still has no idea what actually broke them up. Jewell subsequently had one child, a son born during her brief relationship with an officer named Harris. The kid is solid and reportedly can’t stand the Ritz.
Despite their breakup, the Ritz and Jewell never divorced and remain in close touch. He hasn’t lived with her for roughly two decades, but he still has dinner at Jewell’s every Sunday night in a big McMansion on the West Bank that he supposedly bought for her after they separated. Walter says they speak by phone every day.
For a while the Ritz had a Chinese girlfriend who had started out as his language tutor, but as his drug habit has become more regular, he seems to have lost interest in women. Years ago, Ritz used to say he knew how to tame the dragon by chipping—reducing his doses over the course of a week—but Walter hasn’t heard him make that claim in years. Instead, Ritz seems to live the junkie’s dream of infinite supply. He tends to spend his nights alone in the penthouse of a Trump-branded high-rise on the other side of the river, which Ritz owns and runs. According to the Chinese girlfriend, who was bitter when Ritz dropped her, he reads about whatever esoteric subject he’s currently studying—recently Walter says there are books around the apartment about the architecture of Pompeii—while listening to jazz, until he fixes for the last time that day and drifts into a nod.
Because it’s all need-to-know around the Ritz, Walter can’t say what Sid DeGrassi is up to. Even Primo is in the dark. Sid is totally close-mouthed about what he does at the plant. Walter’s guess is that Sid’s main job is to act dumb and see nothing, responsibilities for which he possesses great natural aptitude.
Tonya, however, has gotten more insight about what’s happening when Sid is on duty. After a week of rotating in and out of FBI surveillances, she has seen Sid let an after-hours cleaning crew into the VVM building every night about eight p.m. The company, Vojczek Sanitary, is another subsidiary that does the end-of-lease or storm cleanups in the Vojczek buildings around Highland Isle and Kindle County. Yet there is also a regular janitorial crew that works during the days at VVM. The cleaners who show up at Vox VetMeds put in a full shift there and, according to the agents who have tailed them, never clean any other building. When the Bureau finally ID’d one of the guys, he turned out, no surprise, to have a master’s in chemistry.
Aside from Sid DeGrassi and the cleaners, there is no other visible connection between Vox VetMeds and the Ritz, with one further exception. In VVM’s annual report in Delaware, they list the names of their three board members. One, Yolanda Green—also VVM’s general counsel—is a lawyer in her thirties who practices in a small firm in Kindle County. Based on photos on her Facebook feed and info from Ancestry.com, both of which the Bureau keeps an eye on, she is believed to be related to Jewell, Ritz’s ex, on her father’s side and is probably Jewell’s niece. When I share this with Rik, he laughs in a snorty disbelieving way.
“The Ritz seems as clever as they say. He’s got privilege insulating everything. Yolanda can’t be forced to disclose her communications with Jewell—or Vojczek—because of the attorney-client privilege, and Jewell will never have to testify about the Ritz, because she can still claim marital privilege. Our friends in the US Attorney’s Office have got their work cut out for them.”
Moses and Feld, however, seem to have a plan, although they don’t share much of it when Rik and I bring the Chief to meet with them and Ingram. Pops has always described Moses as methodical, and from the bits and pieces I hear, Moses’s attitude seems to be that Vojczek is into so much bad shit that they will eventually get him for something. Feld at one point remarked that the Ritz is the guy they dreamed up the RICO statute for—a one-person crime wave.
Toy has also been in touch with DEA about Vox VetMeds. Carfentanil is legally available in the US these days only as a compounding drug, meaning a made-to-order prescription for a single customer. About eight months ago, Vox was granted a registration as a controlled substance manufacturer in order to compound a generic form of carfentanil for the Kindle County Zoo. The zoo has made two compounding requests, both of which VVM reported to DEA. What is important is that the registration gives VVM a reason to acquire the chemicals needed to formulate the stuff and to keep them on hand.
From the start, all the Feds seriously love my idea of running the Chief in on the Ritz. Even if it doesn’t work, it won’t blow Walter, and Lucy is, of course, the last person in the world Vojczek expects to hear from. By now, with a non-subject letter Rik got her from Moses, which protects the Chief if she tells everything, the Feds have learned the whole story about her and the Ritz and the picture. And Feld, who has the kind of conniving imagination that makes you glad he chose law enforcement instead of crime, has come up with a scenario that everyone thinks has a good chance to get the Ritz talking.
To lay the groundwork, at Feld’s instruction, Rik asks Marc Hess to inform the press that the commission has required testimony from the Chief. Marc took the request as part of our press strategy to get ahead of the story. After the articles go up saying she will testify next week, the Chief phones Ritz’s cell—a number she got from Walter—when surveillance puts him in his office in downtown Highland Isle. She makes the call from the Greenwood field office, with six of us listening.
“It’s Lucy, Ritz.”
Long silence, before Vojczek says, “Where the fuck did you get this number?”
“I’m the police, remember? The phone companies bark and sit when we call. You and I have to talk.”
“Fuck we do,” he answers.
“We need to have a word, Ritz. And I don’t want to do it on the phone.” That was Ingram’s idea, to come on as if the Chief is wary of surveillance.
“We have zero to talk about, you and me.”
“I have to testify next week, Ritz.”
“So it goes.”
“Well, you’re going to be hearing your name now and then. I want to give you a little preview. For both our sakes. You just tell me where and when we get together.”
He hangs up with no goodbye.
There is silence over the weekend, and then on Monday, midday, Ritz tells Walter that he needs him in his car Tuesday morning. He doesn’t say why, but when Walter asks around the office, he hears that Ritz is getting ready for some kind of meeting tomorrow. It’s just a guess that the Ritz is about to set up something with the Chief, but the Bureau calls a late-night conference on Monday at an off-site to get the Chief ready, just in case. Naturally, both Rik and I are invited to attend.