Nothing had been said for thirty minutes. Luke was leaning against the windowframe, looking out at the horizon line, watching the play of wind across the surface of the lake. Grizzly was puffing on a cheroot he had borrowed from Rico Groza. Rico was reading a copy of The Pentacle and sipping a mug of coffee. The door at the far end of the long room opened up, and Walt Rich came in, carrying a sheaf of fax papers and a fax copy of a color photograph. He dropped the papers in front of Rico, and Luke came over to look at it over his shoulder. There was a crest on the header of each fax paper, a circle of laurels under a crown.
ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE
IN RESPONSE TO YOUR QUERY, KINGSTON DETACHMENT CONFIRMS SUBJECT CROSSED INTO CANADA AT THE CORNWALL BORDER STATION 2113 HOURS SUNDAY JANUARY 22 SUBJECT ID VIRGINIA DRIVER’S LICENSE IN THE NAME OF LUCIO GARCIA 1553 JEFFERSON AVE RICHMOND VIRGINIA / SUBJECT VEHICLE ALAMO RENTAL 1995 WHITE MERCURY SABLE NEW YORK MARKER DRM 575. NO WANTS NO WARRANTS ON CPIC OR PIRS CANADA-WIDE. AS PER INSTRUCTIONS WE CONFIRM SUBJECT HEADED WESTBOUND ON HIGHWAY 401 OPP DETACHMENTS AT KINGSTON BELLEVILLE OSHAWA CONFIRM SUBJECT CAR PASSED UNITS OPP MILTON AND CAMBRIDGE DO NOT REPORT SUBJECT CAR. METRO TORONTO POLICE AND NIAGARA REGIONAL POLICE REPORT SUBJECT VEHICLE SOUTHBOUND QUEEN ELIZABETH HIGHWAY LAST KNOWN 10-20 BURLINGTON BAY SKYWAY EASTBOUND 1114 HOURS 01/23/95 PLEASE ADVISE IF FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED / DETACHMENT CO EASTERN ONTARIO REGION / 1320 HOURS
The next fax was a short incident report from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment assigned to the federal duty of border security in the Niagara Falls region.
RCMP BORDER SECURITY NIAGARA UNITED STATES MARSHAL SERVICE
OPP AND NIAGARA REGION FORCES CONFIRM WHITE MERCURY SABLE NEW YORK DRM 575 FOUND IN EATON CENTRE PARKING LOT ST CATHARINES ONTARIO UNIT ALPHA NINETEEN NIAGARA REGIONAL POLICE TIME MARKER 1232 HOURS 01/23/95 CONFIRM NO SIGHTING OF SUBJECT GARCIA, LUCIO VEHICLE FOUND EMPTY KEYS IN IGNITION NO SIGN OF FOUL PLAY / ACCOMPANYING PHOTO ID RELAYED CORNWALL IMMIGRATION INSPECTION STATION 2113 HOURS 01/22/95 ADVISE IF FURTHER ACTION OUR SIDE? OIC INSP O DIV TORONTO / SPECIAL I
Underneath this fax was a high-resolution color-photo fax showing a Hispanic-looking male with a long ponytail, wearing an expensive-looking linen jacket and a T-shirt, his ponytail contained by a black unmarked ball cap. The man was standing at the counter of a Customs and Immigration checkpoint, talking to a man wearing a dark blue sweater and a peaked cap. A Canadian flag was visible in the background, and the shot carried a time-marker in the lower right-hand corner—21:13:48 / 1/22/95.
The man was big, easily over six feet, barrel chested, and broad shouldered. His hands were spread out on the counter, and he was leaning forward slightly, his head cocked to the left, as if he had a hearing problem and was trying to understand what the immigration officer was saying to him. As a consequence, his face was slightly obscured by the angle of the shot and by the bill of his ball cap, which cast a shadow over his features. A section of his right cheek was highlighted. The high-resolution image showed a pocked surface and a distinct yellowish tint. Luke studied the image for a while.
“That’s him,” he said.
Walt Rich was shaking his head. “You can’t be sure. But if you are, why not get the Canadians to scoop him for you? They’ve been tracking him all the way from Kingston.”
Luke snorted. “Screw them! Those numb-nuts hung on to Charles Ng for five years, all in a tizzy because California had the death penalty and they might execute the slimeball. The Canadians don’t have a justice system, they have a rehab farm for overworked criminals. I want Quijunque here, in America!”
Walt nodded. “Okay, well, I called the immigration guy in Kingston. They remembered him because he was deaf. Guy was friendly, talked very little, knew a lot about Richmond, though, because the Canadian guy had just come back from there, so they spoke a little about it, about that hotel in the Fan District, where they have that big staircase they used in Gone With the Wind.”
Grizzly sighed and leaned forward onto the table, reaching for the sheets. “Luke, you really think this is him? Because if you do, he was within thirty miles of the border less than an hour ago. If you’re gonna put a marker on him for the border guys, now’s the time.”
“I’ve already done that,” said Walt. “Now what?”
Luke was looking at Rico.
“Your party,” said Rico, his features unreadable.
“No,” said Luke, sitting down and leaning back in one of the boardroom chairs. “It’s been your party for quite a while.”
Someone knocked at the door.
Walt went over, opened it, and said something to the person outside. Then he closed the door and locked it. He came back and sat down beside Rico. Grizzly and Luke were on the far side of the table. Rico lit a cheroot and leaned over to light Luke’s Kool.
“Yeah,” Rico said, after a long pull, the smoke clouding his features momentarily. He waved it away. “I guess you’re right.”
Grizzly sat back again, folded his arms. Rico looked at each of them in turn, showed them a slightly chilly, humorless grin, and puffed on his cigar. They waited.
“Fiertag,” he said, finally.
Luke nodded.
“He’s sick of Liaison. Sick of 600 Army Navy. The CO’s been trying to get him bounced out of there for over a year. Not out, but off to some other agency. Fiertag wants to move up to Justice HQ full time. Be seen in the halls. Get all snuggly with Janet Reno. Reed Endicott told Fiertag if he could help out with a very big Treasury thing, then Endicott could mention his name in all the right offices. Endicott had a brief from the Treasury people—they really were looking for that Syrian shit, those counterfeit hundreds out of the Bekaa Valley. Story ran, the money was being cycled and laundered through the help of the cartels. That’s a cash-intensive business too—”
“Like running a fink?” said Luke, smiling a little.
Rico nodded. “And Treasury—Secret Service—had a big lead on a related operation working out of Atlanta. You ever heard of Guillermo Barra?”
They all nodded. Guillermo Barra was an extremely wealthy Central American entrepreneur. His businesses ranged from bauxite and copper mines in Guyana and Salvador to real estate and land development operations in Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Argentina. Through some Miami-based subsidiaries, he was funding a lot of Hispanic-related developments in south Florida, even parts of Georgia. Billions of dollars were involved.
“Barra went partners—silent partners—with another Hispanic, a U.S. citizen, named—”
“Dio Mojica, Jo-Jo’s kid,” said Luke. “That’s what that DOI surveillance tape was all about, Jo-Jo talking about his kid not being embarrassed, right?”
Rico smiled.
“Yeah. Dio had a lot of Daddy’s money in a company called Chesapeake Realty. They were also working legitimate operations in D.C., Baltimore, Richmond—a bunch of places. What the RICO people in Justice suspected, what they wanted to know, was how much Syrian money was … infecting … these legitimate Hispanic businesses. But they had to be cool. You go around saying there’s cartel money in all sorts of Hispanic businesses, you’re going to hear from civil liberties, civic groups—”
“Henry Cisneros,” said Walt, getting a general laugh.
Rico wasn’t smiling.
“Not funny, Walt. That’s exactly what we’re talking about. These are high-profile people, and they swing a lot of votes. Look at south Florida, Texas, parts of California. The cartels know this too. They also know that the fat years for the cocaine trade are over, that the U.S. can screw up all sorts of foreign investment opportunities, legitimate opportunities, safe ones, for South American businessmen. South American businesses are some of the most powerful in the world now, that’s why Free Trade was so critical—it was one of the best ways to put pressure on the South American governments, get them to help wipe out the cartels. Now the floodgates are open, and a lot of South American investment money can flow north, into Mexico and the U.S. and Canada. Trouble is, a lot of that money is dirty, coke money. Reed Endicott and Bolton Canaday are part of the answer.”
“Why Paolo Rona?” asked Luke.
Rico shrugged. “One of many, Luke. Plus he had a lot of motivation. He knew that you—”
“We,” said Grizzly.
“We … were on his case. He’s bright, he’s tricky, and best of all, he grew up in the South Bronx. One of his boyhood buddies is now real tight with Manny Obregon. Manny Obregon works for Jo-Jo Mojica. The thing was, Rona had been stuffed in Ossining for a long time, and now he was out. Mojica and Obregon were suspicious about him.”
“Whose idea was the escape?” asked Walt. His pale Irish features were stony.
Rico shook his head. “His own. He saw daylight and went for it. What he did to Aurora Powys, that was his style. He’s a very bad guy. Hates women, especially women in uniforms. What he did, that was his alone. Once he was on the run, he knew he was toast with the Marshals. He went to Treasury on the run. He had already made contact with Manny Obregon in the Bronx. He took that connection to Treasury, made a deal. He’d fink out Obregon in return for a stay on the assault thing. Canaday swears he was never going to let him walk on that, that he was going to hand him over as soon as their operation was finished. But they needed him. So they panicked. You scared them all. It’s a trade-off, it always is, Luke.”
“Trade-offs, hah? Which one was I?”
“Chasing him the way you were, that makes a big impression. The right people hear that Luke Zitto is after Paolo Rona, then they think, okay, he’s no snitch, he’s got a good reason to be running. Now he looks legitimate.”
“So you and Fiertag decided to make me part of this schmuck’s cover story. That makes me feel a little crummy, Rico. Just a little crummy. How’s it make you feel?”
Rico puffed his cigar, and then shrugged. “It’s just business, Luke. Nothing personal.”
“It’s all personal, Rico. I was being run, like some kind of snitch. Fiertag used me like a kitchen match. When I got difficult, the service burned me.”
Rico was looking down at the smoke rising from his cigar. Without looking up, he spoke through the cloud.
“First of all, nobody burned you, Luke. The CO wasn’t in the loop, as I hear it. The CO stepped in after the fact, pried Fiertag off your butt, and backed Justice down. He stood for you, Luke. He saved your ass. Anyway, national interests were involved, man. No one wanted you to get hurt. We all work for the same thing … Sometimes you have to do things you don’t—that you have to carry with you. That’s all.”
“The national interest. Sure. Okay, then what?”
“Like I said, you scared everybody. You got onto him. Nobody could figure out how. They knew you had an RTA on his name. Fiertag knew your personal reasons, as well. Treasury wasn’t all that worried, though, because they figured you’d never actually reach him. And Fiertag was watching all of Doc’s registered informants. They figured, if you got close, they’d just tip him, or pull him. Then you and Doc come blowing into the picture, and everybody wets his pants. Apparently not all of Doc’s finks are on the books?”
Luke said nothing.
Rico smiled at that, puffed on his cigar. “Well, you shook the hell out of them, and they panicked. You have a big rep. Especially in the Hispanic community. In the Bronx they call you the Snake, you know that? For the Sarpente thing?”
Luke’s face remained blank. He said nothing.
“Stonehenge, hah? Okay. I don’t know all the details. I think it’s likely that Rona spent the night pissing himself in some rathole, then he called in the cavalry. Fiertag’s not telling me anything, but I’d say that bonehead stunt about Rona being dead, that was Reed Endicott’s idea. Certainly Bolton Canaday has more respect for you than that, but he’s a cop.”
Walt Rich shrugged. “He’s an Irish cop. They don’t have a lot of respect for anyone who isn’t Irish. Trust me, I’ve been one.”
“How’d Rona get to New York?”
“Treasury wanted to run their own op here in New York, but the DOI already had a file open on Mojica, so they told Treasury that the only way Treasury was gonna run a snitch against Mojica was if the DOI had personal custody of him. The DOI guys have had a bellyful of federal ops running on their turf, and when the roll-up comes, the city gets left with dick. It was that way or no way. So the DOI got Rona away from Endicott, in return for some wiretap help and a promise to share whatever they got against Mojica with Treasury.”
Luke lit another Kool, checked his watch.
“We don’t have a lot of time, Rico. This Ernesto Quijunque, what’s the story there?”
Rico shrugged, tapped his cigar ash, leaned back. “I think you can figure that out. I think you already have.”
“From what Mojica was saying on the boat, I’d say Obregon never trusted Rona, right? When Rona called him, he figured he had two choices. Tell him to bugger off, in which case he’d never know where Rona was or what he was doing—”
Grizzly was puzzled. “I see that, Luke. Or say, yeah, he’d take him in, just so’s he’d know where the guy was. But why not just whack him right there? Solve his problem the old-fashioned way, with a machete?”
Rico shrugged again. “No idea. He was one of their guys, from the old days. Those Latinos, they’re a sentimental crowd.”
Luke stood up, reached for his suit jacket, slipped it on. He came back to Rico’s side and stood looking down at him.
“I don’t think you believe that. I think Mojica got orders from somebody farther up the food chain, told him, momentito, pal, we’re sending one of our best guys. See that he gets a chance to talk to Rona personally, so we can find out how much this fink knows. Damage control. That’s why Canaday and Endicott had Rona tied up in that tiger trap on North Capitol Street. They figured, if they could bag Ernesto, they could use him to … or did they actually think they could trade up?”
Rico had stopped puffing on his cheroot, and his face was closed, rocky. Luke laughed, once, and shook his head.
“Was that it? If they get a man like Ernesto—everything he knows, he’s their inquisitor, for God’s sake, the man who gets the answers—why would Treasury need a little shit like Rona? Christ—Wendy’s right, I am a moron—Rona was just a lure! It was all about Ernesto Quijunque! I’m right, hah, Rico?”
Rico was grinning, that same wolfish revelation of bad teeth, the glitter of a hard man’s humorless smile.
“You’re like slow glass, Luke. Sooner or later the light comes through. Yeah, it was all about Quijunque. Chess games. Finks are like pieces, you sacrifice to win.”
Grizzly was pushing the chairs back into order and cleaning up the ashtrays. He glanced up, suddenly. “Rico?”
“Yeah?”
“How the hell did this Ernesto guy get a hold of that phony driver’s license? I thought Rona had that. Or maybe the Treasury guys. How did he get it?”
“In New York. Manny Obregon told Rona to come up with it, hand it over, as a good-faith thing. Canaday went along, let him do it. I guess Luke here worked that out on his own, right, Luke?”
“It wasn’t hard. If he wants to run, he needs good ID. This way, Treasury knows what ID he’s likely to use. They’d go to some trouble to convince the guy it was still good.”
“I have one last question,” said Walt. “Luke, maybe you can answer it for me?”
“I’ll try,” said Luke.
“Why La Luna Negra? If Florida was only giving Rona a place to work because Manny Obregon told him to, then why did the guy go in there, bust up his whole family? Makes no sense.”
Grizzly laughed outright, a bitter bark. “Sense, Walt?” he said. “These guys are animals. They don’t think.”
“Wrong,” said Luke. “Everything this guy has done, he’s careful, he’s a pro. There was a reason for that butchery.”
Rico stood up too.
“You’re right. Rona’s obsessed with his own dick. He thinks with it. That’s his entertainment. I think he was coming on to somebody in Florida’s family, and Florida was getting ready to snitch him out. That’s bigtime disobedience.”
“That’s exactly what it was,” said Luke. “Wendy Ma and Jerry Boynton went through all of Florida’s phone calls, at his house as well as at the office. He made three calls to the New York Port Authority and two to the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the ten days before he died.”
“That’d do it,” said Grizzly.
Rico had his suit jacket on now, getting ready to leave. He leaned over the table and stubbed his cigar out in an ashtray. “Speaking of Wendy Ma, Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“I got a call from Fiertag in my hotel room the other night?”
“Yeah? Well, that must have been a new experience, hah? And what did Fiertag have to say Rico?”
“Some guy phoned Lucinda Miijas, that’s Manny Obregon’s lawyer, calls from a pay phone on Webster, says he’s Roderigo Gardena, and he asks for Ernesto Quijunque, right?”
“I’m following.”
“Of course, Treasury has a tap on all of Obregon’s people. Naturally, these two names send up a big flare. Reed Endicott popped an artery and got on to the DOI guys, demanded to know who the hell was letting Rona wander around making goddamn phone calls. DOI says, what the fuck are you talking about, Rona’s right where he’s supposed to be, sitting in a room at some fancy hotel on the East Side with a couple of keepers from Emergency Services. A few minutes later, a Four-Eight detective named Wendy Ma reaches the same number, and now she wants to know the whereabouts of a dark green Jeep with a Virginia plate that’s linked to a Mojica company down there. Says the driver—a large Indian male—fits the description of a guy wanted for three homicides in the South Bronx. Lucinda Miijas goes all pale and shaky, of course. Now, Luke, here’s the cute bit.”
Luke waited, but a certain stillness seemed to have come over him.
“About six hours later, guess who shows up at the hotel? Gold Shield Detective Jerome Boynton and Detective Sergeant Wendy Ma, of the 48th Detective Area Task Force. Know what they do? They take Paolo Rona into custody—I mean, they scoop him—on charges of being an accessory in a homicide investigation up in the South Bronx, specifically the murders of three people at La Luna Negra Delivery and Storage, Timpson Place at 144th Street. The DOI guys bleat and fart, but they have no comeback, and now Paolo Rona is sitting in a secure lockup, and the Bronx DA is telling the DOI and Treasury that he doesn’t give a rat’s kidney what kind of clever stunt they were trying to pull, that he isn’t going to let an escaped rapist and felon wander around in his town, and he doesn’t care if Janet Reno shows up personally to go bail for the little shit. Fiertag says it’s gonna take a month to sort out the jurisdictions.”
“And your question would be …?”
“My question would be, who the hell tipped Wendy Ma off about Rona and the DOI?”
Luke pursed his lips, pretended to consider it.
“I’d say she has good connections with the DOI, Rico. Somebody talked somewhere. Loose lips sink snitches, I guess. I mean, you never know who is talking to who, do you, Rico?”
There was a prolonged and difficult silence.
Finally, Walt Rich spoke up.
“Whom,” he said. “Not who. If we’re gonna have a gunfight here, at least let’s respect the English language. Are we gonna have a gunfight—guys?”
Rico and Luke looked at each other, and then Rico turned away and walked to the door. Reaching it, he turned and looked at the other men.
“Luke, I’m sorry about D.C. I had nothing to do with that. I hope you know that. About keeping an eye on you for Fiertag, I had orders, Luke. Orders. And to tell you the truth, I think you’re a guy who needs a watcher. You chase real well, but you play your own game. You did all this just to make life easier for—”
Luke came on point but did not move. He waited.
“Okay … for a friend. You blew a whole federal operation away just to get at an enemy. I know we’ll never prove it. I’m certainly not going to say anything to Fiertag or the CO. Fiertag’s gonna be history as far as we’re concerned. Gone from 600 Army Navy. Probably not getting callbacks from Endicott either. So forget him. But I’d like to hear why you think your blood feuds are more important than the national interest. Got an answer … Luke?”
“No,” he said. “I have a question, though. Why is it that ‘the national interest’ always seems to work out to be whatever is good for a bunch of suits in D.C.? How come ‘the national interest’ doesn’t include one raped woman and two dead kids in the South Bronx? Who’s looking out for them? Who’s looking out for all the victims of all the snitches and finks we run, the snitches we pay off, the snitches who get to order room service at a hotel while their victims get to drink themselves into a blue ruin down in the rec room? Or rot in a shallow grave? Got an answer for that?”
Rico looked at him for a long time. Finally he shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I don’t. But I will share something with you. Rona? Now get this—his throat’s been bugging him for months. Guess what? The little fuck has throat cancer. Inoperable. Wild, hah?”
Then he was gone.