Chapter 66

 

 

About mid-morning on Tuesday Mr. Goldberg calls Mickey with the information he requested and he then calls his sister Cheryl and asks her to get a court order to freeze the accounts at the credit union. “Cheryl, if you can get the court order, I’ll have cut these guys off from all of their cash both here and abroad. With the Fed’s help, I’ve found out that these creeps keep most of their money in accounts with Credit Suisse in Zurich and the Fed persuaded the Swiss Central Bank to get Credit Suisse to freeze those accounts.”

 

“Boy, big brother has been a busy little beaver hasn’t he. You know, Mickey, desperation can make people do some very bad things. If Feldman and Kadden get frustrated enough, they might decide to go down with a big bang instead of a whimper and figure they have nothing to lose by making the law regret ever going after them by shooting innocent people.”

 

“Chuck has given me the same warning, but I have to keep the pressure on and run these guys to ground. I have no other choice. I’ll do my damndest to keep the collateral damage to a minimum, but if they flip out and start killing people willy-nilly all the blame belongs to them not law enforcement. We’re just doing our jobs trying to put the bad guys where they belong, in prison or in the ground.”

 

“Just be careful, Mickey. These guys aren’t your run of the mill punks.”

 

“I will, sis. We’re zeroing in on them now. We have good reason to believe they’ve split up with one headed for El Paso and the other for San Diego. Law enforcement in those areas has been alerted and I’ll have plenty of help when they’re cornered. I’ll fill you in on the details when this is a done deal.”

 

An hour later the court order is sitting on his desk and a half hour after that the credit union accounts are frozen. Now Mickey’s back in the wait and see what happens mode and he knows that’s not one of his strong points so he calls Chuck and gets him to join him for lunch and an update on what’s going on with the manhunt.

 

They meet up at a Puerto Rican restaurant not far from Chuck’s office and quickly get lost in the aroma and tastes of the food they’ve ordered. After about twenty minutes of this, Chuck’s curiosity gets the better of him and he says, “Okay, give. What’s going on with our two new celebrities?”

 

Mickey gives him all the details of what has happened since they last talked and Chuck reacts with a curt, “They’re headed for Mexico. Once there, they can take off to a lot of places in Central or South America. It will be a lot easier for them to do that from Mexico than from the U. S.”

 

“I agree, but these guys have been using a lot of phony ID and I can’t see them changing their MO now. I think they’ll stay on this side of the border until they have the docs they need to get where they want to go. How long that will take, I don’t have any idea. I just hope it’s long enough to be spotted and arrested. What’s up with Pierre Lavelle? Do you still have men on him?”

 

“I’ve still got a round the clock tail on him, but so far he’s been behaving himself. He’s sticking pretty close to home these days. He was able to talk his way out of trouble with the gendarmes only because they had no tangible proof to use against him, but he’s no dummy. He knows they aren’t buying his innocent act for one minute and will use any excuse to haul his ass in again for another round of twenty questions.”

 

“I think his behavior is going to be changing real soon. When Feldman and Kadden find out their bank accounts are frozen, the first thing they’ll think of is converting the ruby they stole to cash ASAP and they know Pierre is the guy they can trust to do that for them. These guys aren’t going to want to take time to look for someone, some fence to deal with in El Paso or San Diego, knowing that they’ll probably be getting short changed on the deal and be putting themselves in danger in the process. Hell, they might have already sent the ruby to him without knowing about the freeze on their accounts. From the phone call your people listened in on, we know that was their original intention. I think they’ll stay with their original game plan and Pierre will be the man of the hour.”

 

“I agree. I’ll call my people in Paris and alert them to the likelihood of Pierre getting active again real soon.”

 

“We’ve got them on the run, Chuck, and they’re starting to make mistakes like talking too much, like telling people where they’re going when they didn’t have to. Their nerves are already working over time trying to act normal and that’s going to be their one way ticket to catastrophe.”

 

“Then let’s hope they become blabbermouths real soon.”