In the pre-dawn darkness, Chouza Khalid watched his men load the material into the Daoud bread truck. There were four large wooden crates marked in Arabic, French, and English as industrial ceramics, with the appropriate customs tags and seal still affixed to them, and one long tan fiberglass shipping cylinder, marked as a compressor unit carrying the logo of a French firm. The men grunted as they lifted the cylinder into the truck, which was fortunately low to the curb. Khalid had men with radios posted on the surrounding streets. They reported no sign that the house in Park Slope was under observation.
Ibn-Salemeh had ordered the move immediately upon hearing Khalid’s report that the Palm coffee house had been under observation, and at the same time he also instituted what he called Beirut rules governing communication and the movement of people and supplies. Beirut rules meant coded telephone and radio communications and elaborate route-changing and car-switching routines. Chouza grumbled at this, for like most professional criminals he was lazy and ill-disciplined, but he grumbled inwardly and carried out the orders. He was afraid of Ibn-Salemeh, which was not something he could say about any other man he had met. Fortunately, their connection would not last much longer. The other man would have his victory here in New York, and Khalid would be gone, with a good deal of money, provided he could extricate himself safely. Ibn-Salemeh controlled the papers and the preplanned escape routes, and Khalid was cognizant of the possibility that he himself might be as dispensable as the young Walid. It was like holding a jewel and a scorpion in the same hand; the trick was to get rid of the scorpion without losing the jewel, and without being stung.
That was, however, a thought for tomorrow. Tonight all he had to do was to transfer the goods to a warehouse in Manhattan that he had leased in the name of one of his dummy corporations. He would drive the truck himself, with Bashar and Ahmed to help unload. Bashar and Ahmed were, of course, Ibn-Salemeh’s boys, but that could not be helped. The man was not going to let him drive off with his goods without them along. The four of them were the only ones who were supposed to know the location of the drop.
When the truck was loaded, Khalid drove off, and during the ride he naturally paid exquisite attention to all the traffic regulations. Weaving around the truck, sometimes passing, sometimes hanging back (Beirut rules), were three other cars full of their men, checking for followers. In this way they proceeded northwest, avoiding the elevated highway, sticking with the surface streets, which gleamed wet and nearly deserted at this hour. At the Brooklyn Bridge each of the escort drivers informed him that they were unobserved, and Chouza sent them away, proceeding up the west side of Manhattan, under the shadow of the old highway with only Bashar and Ahmed for company. This was a district of old industrial buildings and warehouses around what remained of the great rail-freight-handling district that used to cover much of the middle west coast of Manhattan. It was undergoing redevelopment, and Khalid had gotten a good deal on the lease of a depot scheduled for demolition. He arrived at the building, a four-story concrete structure with an enclosed loading dock secured by a corrugated steel door. They unloaded without incident. After that they drove back to Brooklyn and returned the truck to Walid, who had been waiting, impatient and confused, in a back room at the Palm. Walid received the grateful thanks of his comrades, together with many assurances that “after his training” he would be allowed to take a more active part in operations, and he was sent off. Then Khalid and his associates prepared coffee and sat down to plan how they would determine the identity and the resources of whoever was spying on them.
“That’s one hell of a story,” said the district attorney after a long, thoughtful silence. Karp had just finished relating to the D.A. what had transpired around his dining room table the previous night, and thought he might actually light the long green cigar he habitually played with, but while he did not do that, he appeared more worried than he had ever been in Karp’s long connection with the man. Karp agreed that it was one hell of a story, and the D.A. said, “You think it’s wise to keep it close like you’re doing?”
“Shit, I don’t know, Jack. I don’t know if it’s wise or not. We’re not set up to make decisions like this. What I want Clay to come back with is something like, oh, yeah, the Feebs have this covered up to the nostrils, go back to sleep, girls. Failing that”—here Karp made a helpless gesture—“I await your orders, sir.”
“I could go holler to the police commissioner,” said the D.A. speculatively, “and he would crank out the Red Squad.”
“I don’t think they call it the Red Squad anymore, Jack.”
Keegan rolled his eyes. “I know that, wiseass.” He leaned back in his big chair, creaking, and sighted up at the ceiling along the length of his unlit cigar, as if watching the rise of smoke. He said, “You know what I do not love? I do not love the district attorney who goes on crusades where the interests of important constituencies are concerned. Do you know a fellow named Zwiller?”
“I met with him. He’s Lowenstein’s guy. Why, has he called you?”
“Persistently. I told Marcie to refer him to you. Why’s he trying for an end run? Aren’t you keeping him happy, bless his little Semitic heart?”
“I thought I was,” said Karp. “Unless he heard I met with the opposition and he thinks I’m ready to sell out my people for Arab gold.”
“Well, go stroke his balls for him, but we definitely don’t want Lowenstein hearing about this business, not until we get it sorted out. As to that … did your mysterious Arab gentleman make any indication as to the urgency of his warning? Any date mentioned?”
“No, it was all very general.”
“None of that ‘there’s not a moment to lose, the bomb is ticking under Fifth Avenue’ kind of thing?”
Karp shook his head, and Keegan put the cigar down, drumming his fingers on his desk, which Karp knew was an indication that he had come to a decision. “Okay, that being the case, and since I have no intention of going off half-cocked, we’ll leave it at least until Fulton gets back to you, and should our pals at the federal level not have an operation going, we will investigate so as to either uncover a prosecutable conspiracy, or let our minds rest that there isn’t one. In the meantime I will slip a discreet word into the ear of our friends down the street, just so we’re covered.”
That meant the cops, or rather the police commissioner, their political head. Karp thought this was a reasonably good idea.
“Meanwhile, where does Roland sit in all this?” asked Keegan.
Karp had been waiting for this one, and answered uncomfortably, “I haven’t actually brought him into it yet. I figured he had enough to worry about, just the cases and running the bureau, and until I had it more solid. …” He trailed off. Keegan’s eye did not miss his discomfort. He did not press the issue, but let Karp off the hook by saying, “Well, why don’t you let me fill him in?” Karp assented, feeling grateful. They understood one another very well. The staffer must convey information to the boss, but if the staffer routinely rats out his friends, he will soon have no information to convey, because no one will talk to him. Thus between a staffer and the very rare boss who knows how to handle staff there develops a nuanced set of signals as complex as a pas de deux. Keegan changed the subject a little. “Speaking of Roland, how’s the other festering boil?”
Here Karp could be blunter, because he knew more, and because he had already expressed his doubts about the case. “Sometimes even scumbags tell the truth,” he said, “and this is one of those times. The Obregons came in with brown heroin, major weight. They claim they got ripped off, and sure enough, the town is flooded with Mexican brown, but most of it hit the streets only after they were arrested. There’s no real evidence Detective Morilla was chasing the Obregons. He was chasing someone else—who we don’t know, but the name Lucky comes up a lot.”
“Lucky? You can’t be serious?”
“Yeah, me too, but it’s all pretty vague at this point. Netski, the cop in the case, backs up the party line pretty good, and we’ve got the right gun. The only real question is, Can you believe a conscious, planned frame against a couple of out-of-town nogoodniks? Roland and I have a difference of opinion over that, as you probably know already.”
“I do,” said the D.A., “and I don’t like it, but I can’t walk these cocksuckers until I have something to put in its place.”
“I understand that and I’m not suggesting it,” said Karp, “but there’s another angle. Roland’s been getting letters, death-threat-type letters, about the Obregons. They’re innocent, if you don’t let them go you die, Yankee dog, that kind of thing. Not what you would expect from a couple of guys who didn’t do it.”
Keegan’s face clouded. “I hope Roland’s taking this seriously.”
“No, he’s not, as a matter of fact. I was hoping you’d mention it.”
“I’ll do that.” A moment later, “Why isn’t he? His famous macho image?”
Karp had given the matter some thought, and he replied, “That, but it’s mainly that none of us have much experience with a criminal class that operates against law enforcement authorities directly. The wise guys never do that here, although the Sicilian Mafia does it all the time, and it’s practically the national sport in Mexico, bribe ’em or kill ’em.”
“You’re thinking some segment of our colorful immigrant community is bringing in those kinds of customs?”
“I don’t know, but it’s probably safe to say it’s not all knishes, pizza, and shish kebabs. Face it, I just got finished talking about people who might be planning to blow up something in New York to make a point over in the Middle East. Threatening a prosecutor seems like spare change compared to that. And we know somebody executed a police officer.”
“Something else to talk with my friends down the street about,” said Keegan, rapping his knuckles lightly on the desk. “Meanwhile, keep doing what you’re doing and keep me informed.” He picked up the cigar again, twirled it, replaced it carefully on the desk. That part of the conversation was over. Karp waited for the next shoe to drop, but the D.A. only leaned back, smiled, and asked, “So, who do you like in the playoffs?”
Marlene sat upright in bed, instantly awake, her heart pounding, her stomach clenched, in the sort of dreadful rising that occurs when we have overslept an appointment, or fallen asleep at the switch, or suffer from a bad conscience. She wiped her eyes, which were blurred with tears shed during sleep, an evil sign. It was full morning, and the loft was silent but for the whisper of the heat-pump fan and the noises filtering up from the street. She got out of bed, groaning as the events of the previous night re-occupied her mind and she distinguished them from her unhappy dreams. She checked the bedside clock, which bore the unlikely message that it was ten forty-five. Throwing on a silk robe—her whore’s robe, as she thought of it, a wrapper printed with green leaves and pink flamingoes—she stomped out of the bedroom.
Complete silence: no clattering of utensils in the kitchen, no baby voices, no TV, no Posie singing or talking to herself or to the boys, nothing. In the kitchen, which was spotless, the breakfast dishes put away, the counters wiped, she found the notes. One from her husband read, “Sleep in, Tiger. I’ll bring Chinese home. Love, B.” The other was in Posie’s third-grade dyslexic scrawl: “Took the boyes to the zoo. Buctch siad OK,” signed with a little heart with a curly P in it.
Marlene sat down at the table and fingered both notes. Had she been a certain type of woman, familiar from the movies, she would have clutched them to her breast and wailed tears of gratitude. Instead she dragged the somewhat grubby sleeve of her robe across her face a couple of times to stem a certain dampness, loaded the espresso maker, showered, washed her hair, dried it, and lolled about with her mind more or less blank, as the sages of the Orient advise, until the enticing odor of the finished coffee brought her back to the kitchen, where she had two big cups of jet fuel with plenty of warm milk in them, with (her secret vice) a couple of sticks of the boys’ zwieback, which she dipped biscotti-style into the brew, and a single cigarette smoked free of poisoning-her-children guilt and thus superbly delightful.
She then strolled down to her little home office and called Bello & Ciampi, where she found all in order, the miraculous Tran having covered her neglected responsibilities of the morning, and the messages not that urgent. Sym reminded her that she had an appointment at one at Osborne uptown.
Ah, yes, Osborne. She walked back to her bedroom and threw open the doors of her wardrobe closet. She noticed the heap of black rip-stop nylon she had worn the night before and, wrinkling her nose, tossed it and the underwear that went with it into the hamper. No terror clothes for Osborne, she thought. No, instead she would give him the full KL, see what he was missing and eat his liver out. She took down her one genuine Karl Lagerfeld suit, an item that must have cost five grand new, but which clever little Marlene had picked up for $450 in a consignment shop belonging to a woman whose persistent ex Marlene had discouraged, and who had given her the first crack at it. It was made of wool mixed with cashmere, had a hand like a baby’s kiss, and was colored the darkest possible shade of plum. The jacket was cut lush too, with wide shoulders, which meant the pistol didn’t break its line, probably not something old Karl had in mind, but welcome. The $250 perfectly matching fuck-me pumps that Marlene had bought new to celebrate this bargain and an ecru silk blouse completed the outfit. She did her face and hair, popped in the glassie, checked her image in the full-length mirror, declared it not bad for an aging, one-eyed, mother-of-three felon, and, lusting after the now unobtainable noir look, wished she had a black mink and one of those little velvet hats that sat cocked on one’s head like a bird, with a half veil. It was while unashamedly primping in this manner that the solution to her problem with Harry popped into her mind, as if the diversion of cerebral blood to the fashion lobes had somehow released a blockage in the region of sneaky creativity, something that may happen more frequently than neuroscientists suspect. Grinning and chuckling, she grabbed up her beloved trench coat, one of the old Burberrys, from before they changed the color, and her gun, and left.
El Chivato waited for the phone to ring three times before he leaned over and picked it up. The woman was watching him. He glared at her and made a shooing gesture, and she went immediately into the other room. It was the elder Obregon brother on the phone, as arranged by Connie during her recent jail visit. The conversation lasted the full ten minutes allowed by the jail authorities and was not pleasant for either party. El Chivato put, as he thought, the very sensible case for modifying the contract, since the man Lucky was guarded in such a way as to make capture and subsequent modification of his attitudes impossible. As an alternative, El Chivato would be happy to simply kill the man and his associates and, if desired, the mysteriously unbribeable prosecutor, but in any case, the business had to be finished before the end of the month, as he had pressing business back in Mexico. But this plan Obregon absolutely rejected, as it would not accomplish his main purpose, which was to win release from jail. Lucky had to be captured and made to confess. Here Jodón Obregon made the tactical error of suggesting that El Chivato’s talents were overrated, that perhaps he was losing his nerve. El Chivato objected in the strongest terms to this analysis, hinting also about how relatively easy it was to get at people who were incarcerated. Jodón withdrew his comment. In the last few minutes of the call they cooked together a compromise: El Chivato would make one last attempt to snatch Lucky, and failing that, he would directly approach the blond prosecutor and use his justly famous skills to win an appreciation of the innocence of the Obregon brothers, all by the end of the month, of course.
When El Chivato hung up, he was in a fury, not only because of the conversation and the insulting remarks (which he would remember) but also because, for the first time, he was experiencing a vague feeling that things were going on that he did not quite get. The way his quarry was being guarded was remarkable. He had, naturally, studied the various methods of bodyguarding available to him thus far, as a cheetah may be said to study the herding patterns of antelope, but he had never before experienced a system so elaborate, so multi-ringed and impenetrable. There were never, for example, any free parking places in front of the Palm café, and there was always a car full of men double-parked outside. He had spotted any number of lookouts on the streets surrounding the place, although these were changed in a pattern that he had not yet been able to figure out. Lucky arrived and departed according to no fixed schedule, and when he left it was in one of never less than three vehicles. Several times El Chivato had tried to follow one of these cars, and each time it had led him in a meaningless loop, at the end of which a different set of men would emerge than had entered it at the origin of the ride. He was, in fact, competing against a system designed to foil the most aggressive and efficient counterintelligence operation in the world, bringing to his mission only what he had learned in rural Mexico, where the authorities were well bribed and lax. He was out of his league, and the growing apprehension that this was so was making him crazy, or to be precise, more crazy than he already was, which was crazy indeed.
El Chivato cursed, picked up a straight chair, smashed a table lamp with it, then battered the chair into sticks against a door frame. Holding a chair leg in his hand like a club, he kicked open the door of the bedroom through which the woman had passed, but Connie, being familiar enough with the behavior of men conforming to El Chivato’s type when they were angry, had silently slipped away. The young man smashed one of the bedroom lamps and beat the cosmetics and perfumes laid out on the dresser into a mash of glass and scented mud. Ticking like a bomb, he threw on his gun-heavy canvas coat and went out.
“Karp, you complete shit!”
“Good morning, Roland,” said Karp brightly into the phone. He had been expecting this call since his meeting with the D.A., and while he had not looked forward to it, he was, in the event, glad that it was a telephone call and not a red-faced, jaw-tightening in-person visit.
“You bastard, how could you rat me out like that!”
“I didn’t rat you out at all, Roland, unless you’re referring to the threat letters. That’s not ratting, that’s reporting the commission of a crime, perpetrator unknown. I’m supposed to do that.” And you too, schmuck, was the implication, but Hrcany, if he caught it at all, was off on another grievance.
“And what’s all this crap about the terrorists? You’re running your own little private investigation and you don’t see fit to tell me? How the fuck do you think that makes me look?”
“Probably like someone who has problems listening to advice. If you recall, I discussed the possibility of a wider conspiracy in Shilkes, and you pissed all over me. So did Raney and Camera, as I recall, and you pissed on them too.”
“Oh, yeah, if I didn’t have the facts, what the fuck was I supposed to do?” was Hrcany’s response to this, inane but very loud. Karp moved the phone some inches away from his ear and let the screaming issue into the air for a moment or two. When he brought the earpiece close again, he heard, “… balls in an uproar! All of a sudden, because the great Butch Karp has fucking concerns about my case, Keegan thinks I don’t know what I’m doing. Well, I’ll tell you something, buddy—”
“What did he tell you to do?” Karp interrupted.
“Oh, like you don’t know.”
“I don’t know. Jack just said he’d talk to you, period. On a personal note, I hope he told you to take the threat business more seriously.”
“Oh, fuck that! I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah, right, but are you going to get the cops in on it?”
“Yeah, shit, I’ll get Ray Netski to check it out. I’m telling you, you’re both acting like a couple of old ladies on this thing—”
“Netski?” said Karp without thinking, and then, a second later, realized why: that the very last policeman to send to investigate something Roland did not consider important was Ray Netski, who lived to confirm Roland’s suppositions.
“Yeah, Netski. Something wrong with him? Or are you taking over all the fucking investigations in this bureau?”
Karp sighed. “No, Roland, he’s fine, great. How are you going to proceed on the Arab thing?”
“I’ll let the district attorney know if I find anything,” snapped Hrcany, and hung up.
While Karp was mulling over this conversation, and wondering how many more friends his job was going to cost him, the phone rang again, and it was Aaron Zwiller, speaking in what seemed an unusual tone for him, nervous and confidential. He had heard some disturbing things, which he would not like to relate over the telephone. Would he like to come in to the office here? No. Karp volunteered to drive out to Williamsburg. No again. Zwiller mentioned the name of a dairy restaurant on Second: could Karp meet him there at one on Sunday afternoon? He could. After that Zwiller seemed anxious to end the call, but Karp asked, “Could you give me some idea of what this is all about, sir?”
“Terrible things, Mr. Karp. Such terrible times we live in, I would not have believed it. They have forgotten pikua nefesh.”
“Pardon?”
“The most important principle in the Torah, Mr. Karp: pikua nefesh—the preservation of human life. I’ll see you Sunday, at one on the dot.”
The Osborne Group was housed in a new building on Third, in the high Sixties, just slightly out of the posh-most district of Midtown, but still an acceptable place for a Beautiful Person to visit without losing caste. In the suite itself, of the two acceptable upwardly mobile decors, they had opted for the Starship Enterprise rather than Ye Olde Cozy English Barrister. What was not glass and chrome was matte, all in colors that ended in the letter e: taupe, mauve, beige. The magazines on the glass-chrome coffee table in the reception area were either upscale or security-trade rags. The receptionist was the usual sort of decorative young person in crisp linen (beige) who offered coffee or Coke (declined) and a seat (taken). Marlene read the company brochure and learned that the principal had guarded the president of the United States for nearly twenty-five years, and had lost only one of his clients, and that he staffed largely with ex-Secret Service. After that she amused herself with an article on the relative merits of night-vision equipment in the latest Industrial Security and had just about decided to go with the Meyers Dark Invader 3000 when Osborne’s secretary (non-decorative, chunky, fortyish, frosted flip, black pants suit) came out and led her to the boss’s office for her appointment.
Osborne had gone for oak, red leather, and the oriental rug as a way of differentiating the captain’s quarters from the rest of the interstellar vessel. Both he and Harry Bello rose when she entered, and she shook Osborne’s hand. Osborne was a tall, well-set-up man with a rugged pink face, blue eyes sharp and cool, and a remarkable thick crop of snow-white hair, which he wore en brosse in the manner once favored by Chancellor Bismarck. He was wearing navy blue suit trousers, white shirt, blue and gold rep tie, and dark blue suspenders, which she was glad to see were unadorned by any cute little devices indicating his profession, tiny eyes perhaps. This disposed her well toward him.
Marlene was ushered to a comfortable red leather Windsor chair, the two men sitting in similar chairs across a low table, coffee was offered again and declined, pleasantries were exchanged, and then, smoothly, Osborne began his pitch. The Group (as he called it) worked mainly for corporations and non-governmental organizations of a certain size, specializing in large-meeting security. They offered a complete package, including venue inspection, travel arrangements for the officers, and operations during the event, whether convention or corporate annual meeting. In this work they often used local security firms—Osborne believed in keeping a small central staff and contracting out much of the grunt work. The system had worked well, and he expected major growth in the next few years, but he also wanted to extend his business into celebrity personal security, which was why he had contacted Harry. Bello & Ciampi would, if they agreed, become a subsidiary of the Osborne Group. The parent firm would handle the business paperwork, billing, bonding, personnel, record keeping, and supply expertise and hardware for specific jobs. Osborne had the numbers prepared on paper, in slick plastic binders, which he presented to both of them.
Marlene flipped through the pages, not really reading. She understood that the deal was a good one, with many advantages for both her and Harry, but she was starting to resent the smooth tone of the pitch, as if it was already a done deal. She cleared her throat and said, “Mr. Osborne, one thing I didn’t hear you mention is what Osborne gets out of the association. I mean, why us?”
“Oh, I would’ve thought that it was obvious,” he said, smiling. “You’re good, we’re buying your rep on stalking cases, and, frankly, it doesn’t hurt with female clients. I mean you personally.”
“Uh-huh. And this is notwithstanding my approach to stalking cases?”
Osborne cocked his head slightly in inquiry. “Your approach?”
“Yeah. You know the standard security book says, harden the target. Throw up a screen, use the courts, report the perp to the cops, and so on. In heavy cases, where you don’t have a public figure, you move the client, make her vanish, and so on. I have problems with that approach.”
“Oh?”
Marlene spared a glance for Harry, whose face was unreadable; at least he was not rolling his eyes and squirming. “Yes, my position is that after you’ve done the legal, and the client is still being harassed, you have to go after the stalker, the harasser. You have to make them cut it out.”
“And how do you do that?”
Marlene shrugged. “Harsh words. Powerful arguments …”
“She beats them up,” said Harry. Osborne started to grin, believing this to be a light remark, but then he saw that Harry was not joking.
“That’s right, I do,” said Marlene. “I do what I can to make their lives more hell than they’ve made their victims’, and when that doesn’t work and they use deadly force, then I take them out, or I make it possible for my clients to do so. Let me be straight with you, Mr. Osborne—”
“Please, it’s Lou.”
“… Lou, frankly, I tend to pinch the law a good deal. I take the risks when I think it’s right to. You may not, your bonding and insurance people may not, be comfortable with that. But I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and so let me make this counter proposal. You go absorb Bello & Ciampi and cut me in for a piece. I’ll meanwhile set up a separate d.b.a. for the work I want to do on my own. I’ll make myself available on an as-needed basis, consulting, individual contracts, showing my lovely face to the famous clients, whatever. Strictly cash and carry, and when I work for the Group, I’ll play it your way straight up, no horsing around. Harry will supervise me; he’s been dying to do that for years anyway. So—that’s the best I can do. That do you any good?”
Osborne pursed his lips and stared at nothing for about ten seconds. Gradually, he started nodding his head and then said, “Okay, okay. It could work. I’ll have to let the legal eagles mess with it, but we can at least start moving forward under the setup you described. In fact, I sort of like it. Harry?”
Harry said, “I told you she was smart.”
By the time El Chivato got down to his car, his anger had largely dissipated; this was how he was, his emotions, even the most violent ones, no more than squalls on a very shallow sea. He drove in his usual careful fashion down the FDR and across the Brooklyn Bridge to Atlantic Avenue. There he resumed his watch on the Palm. He parked around the corner on Tompkins and walked past the café several times on the opposite side of the street. Lucky was in there, with his associates and guards. There were two more of the guards on foot, and there was the ever-present ready car, a blue Ford LTD, double-parked. At a little past five, a white Mercury Montego pulled up in front of the ready car and waited there, its motor running. El Chivato walked quickly to his Firebird, cranked it up, and raced around the block, coming out on Atlantic in time to see his man enter the Mercury with another man and the driver, and pull away, followed closely by the LTD. El Chivato followed both cars west on Atlantic and over the Brooklyn Bridge, up the Bowery to Canal, left on Canal and down to the waterfront. The traffic was fairly heavy, but El Chivato had no trouble keeping a few car lengths behind the white car and its companion. At Varick Street, to his surprise, the LTD cut away and vanished, leaving the Mercury alone. That was all right. He had actually seen the man get into the white Mercury. That meant that when they got to where they were going, he would only have to get rid of two men to be at last alone with the bastard.
They turned left on Washington Street and wove in and out among a maze of narrow streets among low-built brick buildings, the remains of the old meat-packing district, deserted this late in the day. El Chivato moved his car closer; he no longer cared whether they saw him or not—ah, they had seen him. The Mercury roared and sped away, tires screeching, and cut right down a narrow street. El Chivato tromped on his own gas pedal and followed the turn. To his surprise, the white car had vanished. He slowed to a crawl, peering down each of the many service alleys that led off the street.
Suddenly, he heard the roar of several engines and the squeal of accelerating tires. In the street in front of him a Buick sedan and a gray van with Jersey plates had appeared, running side by side, blocking the street. He instantly threw the Firebird into reverse, but when he checked the rearview, there was the LTD slewing across the roadway to block his path. Men boiled out of all three vehicles and closed in on his car, pointing a variety of firearms at his head. Ahmed, a big, flat-faced man with a shaved skull, yanked the Firebird’s door open and dragged him out.
Two men threw him up against the car and stripped the weapons from his coat, exclaiming in a tongue he didn’t understand. Ahmed knocked him to the ground with a blow from the flat of his pistol. The hail of blows and kicks that followed was interrupted by the blare of a car horn. They dragged El Chivato to his feet, and he found himself looking at the man he knew as Lucky through a haze of blood and pain.
The big man looked at him curiously and without apparent anger. He said something to the men around him and got a laugh.
“Who are you and why are you following me?” Khalid asked in English, still smiling.
“I am Fernando Zedillo,” said El Chivato. “I was hired to find you.”
“And you are a Mexican, yes? So you were hired by those Mexicans, the … what were their names?”
“The Obregons,” said El Chivato.
“Yes. The Obregons. And what were you going to do once you found me, little man?”
“I was to get you to confess to the killing of the policeman, and also to give the Obregons back the drugs that you stole from them, or the money.”
This information and the calm, matter-of-fact way in which it was delivered brought forth more and heartier laughter from the Arabs.
“And why,” Khalid asked, “would I do something like that?”
El Chivato shrugged. “Perhaps I would make you see that it was the smart thing to do.”
“How, by the offer of your sweet little ass?” More laughter. Khalid resumed on a more serious note: “So where are the others?”
“There are no others,” said El Chivato. He seemed bored with the conversation. “I work alone.”
Khalid smacked him across the face, leaving a livid mark on the smooth tan cheek.
“Don’t lie to me, little girl! You see this big man who’s got you? He’s going to ask you some questions, and if you lie to him you’ll get worse than a smack on the face.”
Khalid beckoned to Bashar and drew him away from the others. “Listen,” he said, “this boy is clearly nothing but a throwaway, testing our security. He probably knows nothing, but get as much out of him as he has and then get rid of him.”
“The water?”
“No, no …” said Khalid quickly, thinking of the floating Ali. “Take him to the warehouse, get some lime and concrete—you know what to do.”
“The warehouse—are you sure, effendi?” It had been deeply impressed upon Bashar that only four people were to know the location of that place and what was in it.
“Yes—look, we don’t have time to secure another location and I don’t want this boy found until afterward, so it’s better we don’t dump him. Besides, it’s isolated and it has thick walls. He’s going to scream like a baby.”
Bashar nodded and looked grave. He understood the necessity, but still he was glad that Ahmed was the expert in that department.
Ahmed tossed El Chivato into the trunk of the LTD. They were less than a quarter of a mile from their destination. Bashar drove the car up to the loading dock, and Ahmed raised the steel door. They opened the trunk and frog-marched the young man up a flight of steel stairs into a vast, dark, chilly hall. Bashar threw a switch, and a row of fluorescent fixtures high above came on. Many of the tubes were out, however, and the light seemed swallowed by the great, dust-speckled volume of the room. El Chivato could make out receding lines of thick concrete pillars and a concrete floor littered by industrial trash, piles of steel pipe, tangles of wire, broken glass, stacks of old wooden pallets and, in a far corner, an angular mass covered by tarps.
Ahmed had hold of El Chivato by the collar of his canvas coat and by his right arm, which was hammer-locked behind the Mexican’s back. He leaned over and said caressingly, “You’re going to tell us all about your friends, but first we’re going to have some fun, yes? I’m going to split your little girl’s ass like a peach. How about that, little faggot?”
El Chivato said, “I told you I work alone, you ape.”
Ahmed snapped his arms out and threw the youth against a pillar, hard. El Chivato took the impact on his shoulder and crumpled at the base of the pillar.
‘Take your clothes off!” ordered Ahmed. Bashar walked a few steps away and sat on a convenient stack of pallets, first brushing the dust off with his handkerchief. He lit a cigarette and watched. The boy took off one of his fancy boots, then the other. He rose, staggering slightly, and Bashar thought he saw him extend his arm, as if to reach out to Ahmed for support.
There was a sharp pop. To Bashar’s immense surprise, Ahmed fell down. Blood was gushing from a wound in the top of his skull. The boy turned toward Bashar. Something small shone in his hand. Bashar sprang to his feet and reached inside his coat for his pistol. He saw a flash and heard another pop. He felt a hard blow strike him in the chest. He touched the place and looked stupidly at his hand; the fingers were tipped with blood. He had his pistol out now and pointed it at the boy, but the boy was no longer there.
Bashar took a few steps forward. He could not catch his breath, and his vision was going gray. He looked down at Ahmed. The blood had stopped spurting from the wound in his head. Bashar noticed the hole above his upper lip. The boy had pulled a small gun from his boot, that was it—it had all happened so fast! Bashar felt his knees soften, and he leaned against the pillar for support. He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and tried to bring his pistol around to face it, but now everything was too slow, as in a dream. He fired once, and then a steel pipe hit him square across the temple.
When he came back to consciousness, he was naked, spread out on a pallet, tied with lengths of electrical wire. The kid was kneeling by his side. He had stripped to his undershorts, which seemed to be half white and half red. He wore around his neck several gold chains, from which depended a large cross, a gold medallion, and a small enamel portrait of a saint, and also a leather thong holding a small square canvas pouch, much stained. From this the young man took a roughly S-shaped shiny object, somewhat smaller than a playing card. It had a wooden handle along the base of the S and a curved and pointed razor-sharp blade on the upper limb of the S: a skinning knife.
Bashar had been tortured by the Israeli Shin Bet and beaten by the Syrian police in Lebanon and he thought that he was pretty tough, but he had never been skinned alive by an expert. In the interminable hour before he died, he told El Chivato everything El Chivato wanted to know, about the house in Park Slope, about the details of Khalid’s security arrangements, about Ibn-Salemeh’s plan, about what was in the crates under the tarpaulin in the corner of the warehouse.