Agent Doyle paces back and forth in the interrogation room in the shadows cast by the fluorescent light that’s hanging over me as I sit handcuffed at the table. His steps are slow. Painfully slow.
The agent and I go way back. He’s been keeping tabs on the Union Club since we first got started. I’ve had my suspicions that he had a hand in busting the union up in the first place, or at least that he saw some of the money that got spread around after the bust. Maybe it was planned from the start, or maybe some cash was pushed his way to make sure the bosses had the government’s support in the fallout, but whatever the case may be, Agent Charles Doyle seems to take special pleasure in putting the twist on all of us.
“You can keep quiet as long as you like, Mr. Volkov, that’s well within your rights, but that’s only going to make it look worse for you when I present our evidence in court, you know.”
I just stare him down, my face unmoving. I know he’s just trying to goad me into saying something stupid and incriminating. He’s got a file on me six inches thick back up in Washington, and he knows how to press my buttons.
More importantly, I know for a fact he’s got nothing on me. We didn’t leave a trace of our presence at the scene—Eva made sure of that. And there’s not a scrap of DNA they’ll be able to pick up on at the scene.
“Now, I don’t know what you’re doing to ‘inspire’ those supposedly loyal lackeys of yours running around on overpriced scooters, but that big bearded guy you call your Sergeant at Arms? We’ve already placed him at the scene, and when we showed him what we’ve got on him, he started spilling his guts for a deal. We can offer you the same, you know.”
A lie. Even as Doyle takes a seat on the table with one leg, peering at me with those still, eerie eyes of his, I can see the lie in them as plain as day. But Doyle isn’t the kind of guy to lie out of his ass, so I humor him a little.
“He’s not much of a talker on a good day.”
“No, but he didn’t need to. The mud caked on his bike pedals did most of the talking for him.”
I keep a stony face, pretending to be disconcerted, but it’s at best a circumstantial piece of evidence. Bayonne’s a muddy place.
“Big guy like Gennedy comes in handy moving people around quickly, I’d bet,” Doyle says, flipping through a few files in his hands with a smile. “Did he come in handy when you paid Mr. Mickey Lamar a visit and shot one of his immigrant workers, too?”
Doyle very badly wants me to defend myself by pointing out that it was Mickey’s gun that was fired; that would make it easy as cake to implicate me as having knowledge that one of the immigrants was going to get shot that day. But I’m not going to let him have that satisfaction.
Doyle looks at me for a long time, as if trying to pry into my mind and take the words from my mouth.
“Stare at me as long as you want, Chuckie, but I don’t think all that time behind a cushy desk in Washington is doing much for your psychic powers. Or are you trying to have an intimate moment with me?” I grin, but Doyle’s face is immobile. He just stares for another moment before standing up and walking away from me, flipping through those folders again.
“Mr. Enrique Medina was his name. He’s on his way to a full recovery, since your first aid made sure it didn’t end with a witness to a murder—very nice thinking, by the way. But I wonder, when you went to go terrorize Mickey Lamar at his place of business, before Miss Cherry LaBeau happened to stumble in on the scene as an accomplice, did you mean to kill off the immigrant workers to free up the job for locals—white locals, I should add—or were you not willing to kill two birds with one stone just yet?”
There’s not a chance in hell I’m going to say a word in response to that loaded question. Doyle’s a shrewd man with an arsenal of verbal traps. There’s no winning when answering his questions. I made sure the whole crew was drilled on that the moment I heard he was in town.
“Did I hit a nerve, Mr. Volkov? Or is that just something in your eye?”
I hadn’t even realized it, but my fists had clenched at the mention of Cherry’s name. I quietly pray he doesn’t notice that the thought of her getting dragged into this is what set me off.
“In any case, if you’re insisting on being so reticent, I won’t mind bringing the ACLU into the investigation as well? They like to keep abreast of reports of white supremacist biker gangs, you know.”
It takes every ounce of strength in me not to respond to that by kicking the table into that pencil-necked paper pusher as hard as I can.
“The ACLU and our club has a history of cooperation,” I say in a guarded tone, “and we’ve supported justice in Bayonne for years.”
“Really?” Doyle retorts without missing a beat, “because the seventeen dead Mexicans in the ground and the one in the hospital seem to tell a different story.”
I don’t breathe a word of the fact that the worker at the liquor store knows why we really came to the store that day. If they knew that poor worker could testify in our favor, there’d be no way he’d survive his treatment. But the threat of white supremacist accusations could be lethal to all of us, and Doyle knows it. It’s a low blow. Not only would it turn the black and Mexican clubs from neighboring areas against us, but the publicity Doyle would see to would turn the public against us. I’m not giving him any ammunition for that, so I hold my tongue.
After a few long, drawn-out moments, Doyle clicks his tongue and sighs. “You’re digging your own grave with your silence, Mr. Volkov. And as long as she’s supporting you in all this, Miss LaBeau is digging her career’s grave, too.”
I can’t help but clench my jaw, and I glare daggers at Doyle. He seems bemused. He’s lucky I’m restrained.
“What, you didn’t think I’d look into her, too? Upstart journalist living in the city, Bayonne native, comes down to help out some old friends cover their tracks during what’s quickly becoming a large-scale murder investigation? That doesn’t sound suspicious in the least to you? I’m sure it will to a jury, that’s for sure.”
“She’s an outsider. She isn’t involved with any of this.”
“Oh? And could you clarify what ‘this’ is, precisely? It’s looking more and more like a hate crime by the minute.”
I’ve said too much already, and Doyle’s snide smile tells me he knows it. He’s gotten under my skin, but he still doesn’t have anything hard. He’s just trying to bait me. That’s what I have to tell myself to keep the fire in my heart in check.
“In any case, being a suspected accomplice to a bunch of white supremacists is a nail in the coffin of any journalist trying to make it in New York City, of all places,” he says with an insufferable laugh. “But you know, if she goes down, it’s just another tragic casualty to keep your gang of, ah, motorcycle enthusiasts. All for the crew, right? I mean, like you said, she’s an outsider.” He grins, and I just narrow my eyes at him. “But it’s not as though that’s the only thing that woman could run into to put her career in the grave in a town like this.
“Those lines are starting to sound a lot like threats, Charlifer.”
“Goaded so easily, Mr. Volkov? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize she was that close to you.”
“Let’s quit beating around the bush, Doyle, you and I know each other a little too well to act like this is a first date. I got word that you were in town a few days before anyone reported anything about either the victims at that plot of land or whatever disturbances Mr. Lamar says went down at the liquor store. What’s a Washington hotshot like you doing in our little dried-up dock town? Can’t imagine you were here investigating reports that hadn’t happened yet. Unless I was wrong about that ‘psychic’ thing.” I raise my eyebrows and tilt my head in as though that’s a very real possibility.
“Keeping tabs on me, are you?” Doyle retorts with a smile, sitting down in the chair across from me and folding his hands on the table. “Now that’s very interesting. I’ll answer that if you tell me if you were watching out for law enforcement before or after you started burying dead immigrants in an unoccupied lot?”
He’s gotten sharper since the last time we met.
“Funny thing is,” I go on, leaning back, “some of the bosses around town got real bold when word spread that you were around. In fact, word spread pretty quick. I always thought the FBI liked to keep quiet when they were stretching out the long arm of the law.”
Doyle chews on his cheek, giving me a thoughtful look. “When someone announces themselves, Mr. Volkov, I’d guess it’s usually to send a message. I think that much is clear, don’t you?”
“Crystal,” I say, unfazed. “But after all these years, Chungles, I guess I’m just bitter I still don’t know why, when you’ve got your nice and fancy office in Washington and tons of bigger fish than us to fry, you’re still so goddamn insistent on trying to strangle our little slice of New Jersey ‘till you feel its last breath of life fogging up those new glasses of yours?”
The agent’s eyes are unreadable for a moment. “I’m not here to ruin your little vanity project of a town, Mr. Volkov,” he says in a low tone. “If you weren’t busy riding bikes around all day, you might notice that it’s already ruined.” He leans in with an expression as placid as the docks at night.
“I’m just here to put a bullet in its head so the rest of us can move on with our business.”