by Chris Knopf
IT WASN’T the first time I’d paid a visit to the FBI’s Manhattan field office, so Jackie drove and I navigated. On the way, Jackie and I went over what we knew, what we guessed, and where we didn’t have a clue.
I asked her why we didn’t just turn over all the stuff I’d swiped from Bellingham, along with my own computer and tablet. She said the first reason was it could land me in jail, though it would be a long and complicated prosecution, given the jurisdictional inconveniences of Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom. They might not think it was worth the effort, assuming Bellingham was the international criminal we thought she was. We were convinced we had the evidence to prove it, though it would be inadmissible in court, since boosting it after belting a few security people did not constitute a lawful search and seizure.
“Really? Pretty picky.”
“However,” said Jackie, “the FBI won’t need it if they go looking themselves. They have ways. We just need to point them in the right direction. Which is the last reason we need to keep that information as long as possible.”
“What’s that?”
“Leverage.”
JUDY PAOLINI’S admin made it clear that Jackie should be very grateful to get on the assistant director’s incredibly busy schedule on such short notice. Jackie told me she expressed her gratitude with an enthusiasm that bordered on obsequiousness, which almost made her wretch up breakfast. I asked if she really did want to speak with us, and Jackie said absolutely.
“She really does have an incredibly busy schedule and there are dozens of other agents in her office who would normally handle this kind of thing. By the way, thanks for being presentable, without me even having to tell you.”
I was wearing my lightweight, grey dress pants and blue blazer combination, with tie and light blue shirt, and a pair of shoes that had been polished sometime within the last decade. I said it made me look trustworthy.
“You look like a lawyer,” she said. “Decide for yourself.”
We timed the trip and our appointment to perfectly coincide with the commuters trying to get into Manhattan from Long Island, so there was plenty of time to kick around all these considerations, though we mostly sat there and bitched about the traffic, since there wasn’t much point in speculating that much before hearing what Judy had to say, something back at the company we used to call “pooling our ignorance.”
It took a while to get through security as the guards had the experience of seeing just how much crap a woman can cram into a bulging leather briefcase and giant handbag. I had to hand over my Swiss Army Knife.
“Take care of that thing,” I said. “It’s been through a lot.”
He dropped it in a drawer nearly filled with knives just like it.
Judy’s admin had a low center of gravity and lousy eyesight. And little sense of humor, though I didn’t give her much of a chance. She brought us to the same conference room I’d visited the last time, the only change being the portrait of the latest FBI director, who looked even more flinty and determined than the last one.
She didn’t offer coffee and I didn’t ask.
Judy was a lot taller than her admin and eyeglass-free. Thin as a broom handle and even more sensibly dressed than me. She brought along a carbon copy of Carson and Darrow, likely from a cloning operation they had in the basement. He had a yellow legal pad and pen and she didn’t introduce him.
Judy sat with her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” she said.
“Neither do we,” said Jackie, a fiction I didn’t correct. She put the search warrant on the table which only the clone looked at, carefully. “I allowed the search to go forward even though the probable cause noted in the warrant was egregiously insufficient. We’re here to understand why and learn everything we can about this cited investigation.”
“Which won’t be very much,” said Judy. I liked her voice. It was low and satiny, like a late-night DJ’s. “The particulars are extremely sensitive and require the highest levels of confidentiality. All the files are sealed at the request of the US attorney and the grand jury is proceeding ex parte. Would you like me to explain further?”
Jackie barely blanched, but I’d known her long enough to see her mini blanches, and knew an insult when I heard one.
“I did catch that class in law school,” she said. “Can we expect my client to be charged?”
“Mr. Acquillo?” she asked, as if I wasn’t sitting there. “That’s to be determined. Withholding evidence is a serious crime. As is lying to the FBI.”
I tried to see what the clone was writing on his pad, but he caught me and moved it farther away.
“So there’s nothing you can tell me,” said Jackie.
“You requested the meeting,” said Judy. “What do you have to tell me?”
“That we’re out of here. You can go back to your more important work.”
She stood up the way she does that seems to create a mighty updraft, dragging nearby objects and other meeting goers aloft in its wake. Judy held her seat.
“Please, counselor,” she said. “Sit back down.”
She did. I was still on my butt, so it was easy for me.
“You understand that federal investigations cannot succeed without the type of rigid rules of confidentiality we’ve put in place,” said Judy. “The stakes are too high and the risks too great.”
Jackie squeezed her eyes shut and I could almost hear the mustering of equipoise and self-control leaking out of her pores.
“Assistant Director Paolini,” she said, “I perfectly understand the restrictions under which you have to operate. But I also understand that in many of these investigations, choices are made between preserving the reputations and welfare of individuals caught up in the proceedings, and success with the case overall. In more blunt terms, you pick who goes down, but also who gets screwed along the way. I am here to tell you, make sure you write this down,” she added to the clone, “that I will not permit any of the people I represent, and who by the way, deeply admire, to be harmed by your disregard for fairness and common decency.”
Judy gave up a tiny sigh. Of frustration or consonance, it was hard to tell.
“The information your client has in his possession . . .” she started to say.
“Allegedly,” said Jackie.
“Allegedly, would be of value to our ongoing investigation. If he would relinquish it, that would be the end of the matter.”
“Full immunity, in writing,” said Jackie. “For both of us. And the deal doesn’t include Sam’s personal data. Not relevant to the case.”
Judy made some semblance of a smile, though it wasn’t one I’d seen that often outside pressure-cooker negotiations. Something between a grin and a snarl.
“Agreed,” said Judy. “Write it up,” she added to the clone, without looking at him. Then she looked at Jackie. “Contingent on us receiving the material in a very prompt fashion.”
“One more thing,” I said, causing Jackie to jerk in her chair. “Keep it quiet that you have the material. Don’t tell anybody except people who absolutely have to know. No cops or field agents. Just give it a week.”
“Care to tell me why?” asked Judy.
“You got your secrets, I’ve got mine,” I said. “But I’m on your side. You won’t be sorry.”
She mulled it for a moment, then nodded.
“Very well,” she said, “but only the immunity is specified in writing.”
“Okay with me.”
“We’ll wait,” said Jackie.
And wait we did, for about two hours, I think designed to amp up our already sky-high anxiety. At least for Jackie. I was fine looking out the window at the big buildings all around us, something I never tire of doing when trapped in a New York City office tower. Jackie had to tell me to stop humming an Ellington tune, something I also liked to do, though unconsciously.
The clone came in with two pieces of paper that Jackie read as if trying to see t
hough the print to secret writing underneath. I waited for her to sign, then signed myself in the designated spot. The clone took the papers and pen he’d given us to use and left, saying the little admin troll would be by shortly to chase us out of the building.
Jackie stuffed our copy in her briefcase, put her finger up to her lips, and looked around the room before I had a chance to say anything. I nodded and made a little zipped lip gesture.
It wasn’t until we got back in Jackie’s Volvo that she let out a big gush of air.
“I don’t want to go through that again anytime soon,” she said.
“You did great. Right?”
“I did. And you gave me the rare gift of not fucking it up. Though I thought you were about to.”
“My pleasure, I think.”
“More importantly,” she said. “How did they know you had that material? They didn’t learn from Burton, or Sullivan, certainly not Hodges. Bellingham wouldn’t call Scotland Yard and complain that a Yank just stole her computer full of incriminating evidence.”
“Neither would any of Bellingham’s buddies back in New York.”
“No, they would just come straight for you,” she said.
“Which they’re going to do. That’s why I bought the week.”
“Making you bait,” she said.
“I already am, but at least this way I’ve got some leverage. It worked with the FBI.”
“Though we still don’t know who killed Elton Darby. You might want to think about that now that you aren’t under federal indictment.”
“Sure. I wonder if Hodges has left for New Hampshire.”
“Oh, Christ.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I had to drive all the way to Bellows Falls, Vermont, to pick up the backpack. Hodges claimed that was halfway to where he was hunting, and I didn’t argue, since he was the one doing me the favor. It was a lot cooler up there than on Long Island, and the light richer, making all the greenery seem that much more green.
He was wearing his lightweight camouflage outfit and a bigger-than-usual froggy grin, proving the trip really was overdue and predictably salubrious.
“Shot anything yet?” I asked.
“No, but that’s hardly the point. Just need to suck in all that moldering, insect-laden, New England mountain air. You should try it sometime.”
“Insects give me welts.”
“Women’s skin lotion keeps ’em away,” he said. “Not sure what to make of it.”
“Just don’t tell me how you know that.”
When I got back to Southampton, I dropped off my tablet and hard drive at the cottage and took the backpack over to Jackie’s office. She told me she’d be giving it to another attorney, who would give it to the FBI, for reasons she tried to explain, but it was all too arcane for me. I just asked her to put the stuff in a box and give me my backpack, since I’d had it for a while and didn’t see the need to add it to the FBI storage room.
“Probably doesn’t break the chain of custody,” she said.
She’d wheeled in a giant whiteboard kept in her bedroom in the apartment next door. It was covered in diagrams and comments covering the night of Darby’s death, delineating what we knew, and what we didn’t, with names, times, and actions taken. We both took a long time staring at it.
I told her I used to do the same thing when trying to turn crude oil and natural gas into salable products. She asked me which was more difficult.
“This.”
Having said that, I was delighted by her initiative. I loved nothing more than boxes and arrows, what-ifs and if-thens. It was even more my world than shop tools and architectural drawings, a world I’d spent decades navigating, conquering giant, pressurized steel vessels and convoluted piping filled with explosive admixtures that had to follow a perfectly circumscribed path, or result in exactly that. An explosion.
“We don’t know enough,” I said. “We never do.”
“Back to basics, buddy,” she said.
“You stay on Burton,” I said. “I’ll take the others. If you agree, boss.”
“Oh, please.”
I took a photo of her whiteboard and went back to Burton’s, where all I did was slip into bed with Amanda and scrunch around Eddie’s neck until we all fell asleep, content to let the next day sort itself out.
NOT SURPRISINGLY, Mikolaj Galecki called me when I was about to eat breakfast with the gang at Burton’s.
“You have some things that belong to people I work for,” he said.
“I do. What of it?”
“I want them back.”
“Really,” I said. “Maybe I could do that. With provisos.”
“I assumed.”
“Stay away from my friends and family. If anything happens to anyone I know, or to me for that matter, the stuff will be in the hands of the FBI in a New York nanosecond.”
“Then you’ll go down with us,” he said.
“I don’t care. It’ll be worth it.”
“Not to you,” he said. “You’ll be dead before they get you in cuffs. Along with all your friends and family.”
“This isn’t that hard. We never meant to mess around with the Loventeers. We stumbled into all this trying to mount a defense for Burton Lewis. It isn’t relevant to our case, and in fact, it’s too much of a distraction. You’ll get your stuff, we get free of you, and you’ll be free of us. I’ll tell you when and where to pick up the stuff.”
“You’re not telling me anything,” he said. “This number disappears as soon as I hang up. I’m invisible.”
“Don’t count on it. And no more soldiers sent out to Oak Point.”
“Those two boys were my cousins,” he said. “Third cousins, but still family.”
“I was just defending myself,” I said.
“You and the woman. Brave girl. I will enjoy getting to know her better.”
A pall settled over me like a wet quilt, unwelcomed, exhausting.
“We didn’t start this fight,” I said.
“I know. But it probably won’t end so well for you.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “Sub specie aeternitatis.”
“Spinoza. Not applicable here.”
“Don’t count on it. I’ll take your Spinoza and raise you a pair of Kants.”
“There’s no free will,” said Galecki. “It’s all deterministic. All of us succumb to that reality eventually.”
“How about this reality. Go fuck yourself.”
It wasn’t a very erudite thing to say, but it felt good to say it.
“I almost hope you don’t deliver the goods, Acquillo. It’d be a real pleasure to break your neck.”
“Adversus solem ne loquitor,” I said, essentially I’m not arguing with any more of your bullshit, and hung up on him, realizing that rhetorical thugs were the same everywhere. Boringly rhetorical.
ONCE AGAIN I was packing my duffel bag, unhappily, given all the fun cabinet work, snuggling with Amanda, and goofing around with Eddie Van Halen I was leaving behind.
I told everyone I’d be gone for a few days, and only Amanda let me go without a lot of irritating questions. I asked her to stick close to Sullivan and MacGregor and try to keep that impulsivity under control.
“That might be too much to ask,” she said. “I’ve been holding back an urge to chase rabbits in Malta.”
“Go for it. I’ll catch up with you.”
In addition to a few changes of clothes, I stopped at the cottage to pick up my backpack filled with the laptop, tablet, and semiautomatic, and the Harmon Killebrew baseball bat, because, who knew. I threw it all in the old Jeep and headed for Brooklyn. On the way, I called Bill Fenton and asked him who was the borough’s most notorious Polish criminal.
“That’d be Janko Kowalski, though I’m not sure I should be telling you that. What do you have in mind, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Biting off the head of the snake.”
“I’d advise against that.”
“I know.
Just stay tuned and let your brothers in Brooklyn know I’m on the side of the righteous,” I said.
“You know they shoot first and check religious credentials afterward.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You sure as shit are.”
The upward mobility of Brooklyn had taken off like a rocket, and I didn’t see any reason not to take advantage of that. I paused on a street corner and located a four-star hotel with a view of the East River and the Manhattan skyline. All they had available was a two-bedroom suite, which I took, assuming I wouldn’t live long enough to pay off the credit card.
I self-parked the Jeep in the basement garage and hauled my stuff up to the room. Then I started making phone calls until I tracked down an old acquaintance I’d met around the same time as Bill Fenton, only this guy worked the other side of the legal divide. He had a successful excavation business with a sideline running one of New York’s traditional mob families. We’d exchanged favors, so we were even, which is what you want with mob bosses.
“Sam Acquillo,” he said on the phone. “So you haven’t gotten yourself killed yet.”
“Still a work in progress. How do you feel about the Polish mob?”
“I feel fine as long as they stay in Brooklyn and out of the Bronx.”
I explained I was looking for one of them, an outsider from Europe, who I guessed would have to be in contact with the locals. As a courtesy if nothing else.
“That’s likely,” he said. “You’d have to clear things with Janko Kowalski. He’s very particular about who plays around in his neighborhood.”
“You know Janko?”
“I do, good enough to nod to and share an understanding. There’re not people to mess around with, the Polish. They’re smart and do a lot of subcontracting with the Russians, who have very exacting standards.”
“Where would I find him?” I asked.
He gave me the address of a club in Greenpoint, at the north end of Brooklyn.
“You’re not planning to do anything stupid over there, are you, Sam?”
“Not if it would offend you.”
He chuckled.
“No sweat off my back,” he said. “Like I said, long as it stays in Brooklyn.”