by Robert Greer
Carmen rose and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Stay strong.”
“You, too,” said Blue.
“I’ll be in touch as soon as you’re processed at Fort Carson,” said Julie.
Blue shook Julie’s hand. “Thanks. And thank CJ and his people for me, too.”
“I will.”
The two MPs walked briskly into the room as the cop ushered Julie and Carmen out.
“Sergeant Langston F. Blue?” said one of the MPs, who now stood directly in front of Blue.
“Yes.”
“You are now under the control of the U.S. Army.”
Chapter 31
Carmen stood in CJ’s office, looking fascinated as Flora Jean pointed toward the last row of a photo gallery of the more than ninety bond jumpers CJ had delivered to justice during his years as a bail bondsman and reluctant bounty hunter. The gallery included a few photographs of him.
Unaware that CJ had walked in, Flora Jean said, “Hard to believe that CJ’s hair was once black.”
CJ, dressed in Levi’s, a blue chambray shirt, and his trademark riverboat gambler’s vest, rolled an unlit cheroot from side to side in his mouth. Tossing a large manila envelope onto his desk, he said, “Maybe I should start with the temples, get rid of the gray, fit in with the girls.”
Startled, Carmen took a step backward, but Flora Jean remained unperturbed. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you get yourself a tutu?”
“Because my partner saved them all for herself.”
The banter continued until smiling, Flora Jean said, “Have you been to check on Mavis?”
“Yes.” CJ’s tone was edgy. “Right after I met with Ginny Kearnes. But Mavis wasn’t home. I checked the restaurant, logged in with Willis, and even went by Rosie’s to see if she’d been by there. Nothing.”
Flora Jean looked at Carmen. “What time did you leave Mavis’s, sugar?”
“About 11.”
“How was she doin’?” CJ asked.
“Fine.”
Eyeing the new bandage on CJ’s arm, Flora Jean said, “She’s a big girl; she ain’t gone far. See you got yourself a fresh wrap. Henry Bales do you up?”
“Who else? Says I’m healing just fine.”
“You’re too ornery not to. But you’re a step behind Mavis. She got rid of that head wrap of hers last night. Her forehead’s still a little swollen and her left eye’s still puffy, but she’s way past where she was three days ago.”
“Sounds like she’s on her way back to being a beauty queen,” said CJ, feeling a bit less on edge. “Did you turn up anything during your motorcycle excursion last night?”
Flora Jean winked at Carmen. “We danced the two-step with Jimmy Moc.”
“Who led?”
“Who else?”
“Get anything to connect Moc to the Margolin killing?”
“No. But we did find out somethin’. Go ahead, sugar,” said Flora Jean, nodding at Carmen. “Paint CJ the picture.”
“Okay. That place we followed Moc to—the China Bay club—turned out to be a hangout for Vietnamese Amerasians. Everybody in the place looked like me. Seemed eerie.”
“No different from being down on the Points any night of the week. Black folks everywhere. Like the lady in New York Harbor says, give me your tired, your poor, your whatever,” said CJ.
“There’s more,” said Flora Jean. “I ran a few things by Alden just before you came in. Also let him know that a couple of MPs from Fort Carson were truckin’ Carmen’s daddy down to Colorado Springs.”
“And what did your general say?”
“Plenty! Enough to tell me we may’a been workin’ the wrong angle on this Song Ve thing. We been workin’ on the assumption that Blue’s Star 1 team ran across a school full of pint-sized Vietcong freedom fighters when all hell broke lose.”
“That’s been the take.”
“But what if them kids weren’t Vietcong trainees at all?” Flora Jean glanced at Carmen. “What did I say Alden called ’em?” She eyed Carmen for help.
“The dust of life,” Carmen said hesitantly. Her eyes welled up. “Half-breed my den trash. People like me.”
Flora Jean nodded and continued. “Alden said that in March 1968, the official communist newspaper, Nhân Dân, announced a new security decree. One that included the death penalty for a bushel-basket full of counter-revolutionary offenses. Twenty-one in all, includin’ everythin’ from your standard aidin’ and abettin’ the enemy, to failin’ to faithfully honor party doctrine. Now, here’s the kicker. Alden says that U.S. intelligence sources always claimed there was a twenty-second offense. One that was never published but still an offense that everybody on both sides knew about. The crime of bein’ a half-breed.”
“The offense of being my den,” Carmen said softly.
“Heavy stuff,” said CJ, shaking his head and lighting the cheroot.
“Alden says the North Vietnamese spent half the war tryin’ to find ways to get rid of their ethnic-minority problems. Everybody knows about the Khmer Rouge and the Hmong, but the my den issue never surfaced. Eliminatin’ an embarrassin’ population of South Vietnamese American-sired my den children would’ve been right up their alley.”
“Sounds plausible, but where does Blue’s Star 1 team fit in?”
“That’s the part Alden couldn’t nail down, but you can bet a month’s pay on this. The commies couldn’t have started their ethnic cleansin’ operation, without nailin’ down two important things: a way to assemble a bunch of my den kids in one place and—now, here’s the hairy part—either American political or military compliance.”
CJ shook his head in disbelief. “Le Quan and Margolin’s team.”
“We’re on the same page, sugar. And I’m bettin’ if them two cooked up some kind of ethnic cleansin’ deal, there was somethin’ else involved—money.”
“But do you think Margolin would risk treason?” asked Carmen.
“Bigger fish than him have risked it,” said Flora Jean. “Why not?”
CJ nodded. “It fits.”
“So, that’s my story,” said Flora Jean, with a grin. “Whatta you got?”
“Just like you, plenty. Turns out that seventy-five-million-dollar high-rise project Margolin was honchoing had financial backing from Ginny Kearnes, the squirrelly state Republican Party chairman Elliott Cole, and guess who else—our friend and former Vietnamese communist youth organizer Le Quan.”
“Strange threesome,” said Carmen.
“Yeah,” said Flora Jean. “Kearnes I get, but Quan and Cole?”
“Turns out Cole was Margolin’s Star 1 team commander. In fact, he’s the one who stuck Margolin with the Song Ve assignment.”
Flora Jean shook her head and took a seat. “Birds of a feather. Looks like we’ve got a hell of a lot more here than some thirty-five-year-old commando mission goin’ south. Maybe I should get back to Alden—tell him what we’ve got. If he knows anything else and it ain’t classified, he’ll ante up. Meantime, what’s next?”
“I’m going on a paper chase,” said CJ.
Flora Jean frowned. “What?”
“I’m headed to see Mario Satoni, that old Italian guy in North Denver. The one who keeps his eye out for antique license plates for me.”
“The one everybody in Five Points claims used to be a mobster?”
CJ smiled. “Hearsay, Flora Jean. Hearsay.” A sly grin crept across CJ’s face.
“How’s he gonna help us?”
CJ retrieved the envelope he’d tossed on his desk and opened it. “I ran across something else of Margolin’s.” He slipped two of the newspaper clippings and two of the blank sheets of paper that he’d found at Margolin’s out of the envelope. “Found them in a strongbox in his attic. Kearnes has a matching set.” He handed the press clippings to Carmen, the blank sheets to Flora Jean. “Take a good look, Carmen, and start with the paper-clipped ones.”
Halfway through the article about Vietnamese boat people settling in the Unite
d States, Carmen said, “It’s pretty much on target.”
“Keep reading.”
Seconds later, Carmen shouted, “Moc!” and handed the press clipping to Flora Jean.
“Hell, if it ain’t a story about sweet young Jimmy Moc and his mother. So what’s the kicker?” Flora Jean asked.
“This. Kearnes and I found the press clippings, the blank sheets of paper, and a quit claim deed giving Le Quan what amounts to more than a two-million-dollar stake in Margolin’s building tucked in that strongbox.”
“Serious money,” said Flora Jean, examining one of the blank sheets under CJ’s desk lamp. “Find any of these with printin’ on ’em?”
“Nope. Just four blank sheets.”
A look of recognition spread across Carmen’s face as she watched Flora Jean scrutinize the paper. “Hold on while I go get something from the Indian.” She raced from the office, returning moments later with the citation exonerating her father. Out of breath she handed it to CJ and said, “Take a look.”
CJ placed the document on his desk and read it before sliding one of the blank sheets next to it. “Same size. Same weight,” he said, hefting the sheets separately. “I’d say they’re at least kissing cousins.”
“What are you thinkin’?” Flora Jean asked.
“Originally I thought that maybe I’d stumbled onto a counterfeiting scam. There was close to four thousand dollars, all in new twenties, in that strongbox. That’s why I was going to see Mario.” CJ extracted three crisp twenty-dollar bills from his vest pocket and laid them on the desk. “Now I’m not so sure. Why would anyone running a counterfeiting scam waste good paper stock printing up citations?”
“You would if it was the only thing handy,” said Flora Jean. “Besides, who says they had to be counterfeitin’ American money?”
CJ looked unconvinced. “Maybe. How’d your father get that citation?” he asked Carmen.
“He told Julie and me that it came from Cortez. Margolin and Cortez probably used it to convince him that if their backwoods relocation plan ever went sour, he’d have something tangible to prove he wasn’t really a deserter.”
“The thing’s worthless.”
“I know that, and you know that,” Carmen said defensively. “But in case you missed it, my father’s a little slow.”
Looking embarrassed, CJ said, “Sorry.”
“What matters is the damn thing’s important,” Flora Jean interjected. “Even so, I wouldn’t scrub the counterfeitin’ angle, not yet.”
“So, I’ll still go see Mario,” said CJ. “And you go back to tailing Moc, Le Quan, and that dragon-lady daughter of his. See if you can’t sniff out the truth behind Moc’s Amerasian connection.”
“Fine, but it’ll have to wait ’til tomorrow. Got somethin’ planned for tonight.”
CJ smiled. “And when you see the general, make sure to ask him if we’re missing something.”
“I’ll do that,” said Flora Jean. “Whatta you got goin’, sugar?” she asked Carmen.
“You wouldn’t like it.”
“Try me.”
“I’m going dirt-bike riding. I need a diversion.”
“You’re right. Now I see why you and Rios connected. You’re both daredevils.”
“Gotta do something,” said CJ. “Or else you’ll wilt.”
A woman’s voice rose from the doorway behind him. “That’s right!”
Suddenly all eyes were on Mavis. She was dressed in a stylish hunter-green pantsuit, with a hand-painted silk scarf wrapped strategically around her injured forehead. Walking across the room, she smiled at Carmen and gave Flora Jean a wink before her gaze stopped on CJ. “Brought you something,” she said, placing the cake dish she was carrying on CJ’s desk.
“What is it?” asked CJ.
“Take the lid off and see.”
CJ raised the frosted lid slowly to find a still warm sweet-potato pie.
“Like you said, gotta do somethin’,” said Mavis, touching two fingers to her lips and then to CJ’s.
Realizing that Mavis was on the mend, Flora Jean burst into a wheezy snicker, winked at her, and said, “Sugar, ain’t it the truth!”
Chapter 32
CJ’s only connection to what remained of Denver’s once powerful organized crime family was eighty-year-old curmudgeon Mario Satoni who ran a secondhand furniture store in North Denver and smoked the foulest-smelling cheap cigars CJ had ever run up against. Satoni lived in a mustard-colored bungalow in the middle of an industrial park, where, over the years, he’d managed to stash a cellar full of Western collectibles, including boxes of mint-condition license plates that made a collector like CJ drool.
The drive from his office to Satoni’s took CJ fifteen minutes. He’d called ahead to make sure Satoni was home, though he knew the call really wasn’t needed since the Colorado Rockies were playing the Dodgers, a night game, and Dodgers fanatic that he was, Mario would be parked in front of his big-screen TV giving the Rockies hell.
It was nearly dark when CJ pulled into Satoni’s driveway, got out of the Bel Air, and headed for the old man’s back entrance. “I don’t like people lookin’ at who or what I’ve got comin’ and goin’—always use the back,” Satoni had told CJ after their first business transaction.
Manila envelope in hand, CJ knocked lightly four times on the back door, then knocked twice, waited a few seconds, and gave the door three solid raps.
Close to a minute later, Satoni, after eyeing CJ through a peephole, swung the door open. Shoeless, he was dressed in what he always wore in the summer, faded khaki Bermuda shorts, a muscle T-shirt, and a Dodgers baseball cap. Adjusting his glasses and bringing CJ into focus, he smiled and said, “Calvin.”
No one but Ike and Mavis had ever called CJ by his given name—Ike when he’d been either mad or drunk and Mavis when she had a point to make. But Satoni, who’d demanded to know CJ’s full name the first time they’d met, stuck to Calvin, saying to CJ’s chagrin, “It’s the name you’ll have to give at the pearly gates, so get used to it.”
CJ said, “How’s it goin’, Mario?” He eyed Satoni’s ghostly-white spindly legs.
“About half, but it’s goin’, and at eighty, that’s all that matters. Come on in and watch your Rockies get their asses kicked. While you’re at it, you can tell me a bit more about what brings a huntin’ dog like you out on a night like this.”
CJ followed Satoni through a spotlessly clean kitchen, down a hallway filled with photographs of mobsters and Colorado movers and shakers from another era, and into a dingy little room that was all refrigerator and TV.
“Score’s 9 to 7, Dodgers, top of the eighth.” Satoni eased into his favorite russet-colored La-Z-Boy, puckered with age. Switching glasses, he nodded for CJ to take a seat as he zeroed in on the TV screen. “Get you a beer?”
“Nope, I’m good,” said CJ, taking a seat in a matching avocado green La-Z-Boy.
Satoni edged forward in his seat at the loud crack of a bat. “Son of a bitch! And with two men on,” he barked at the screen as the Rockies player who’d just parked the ball in the center-field upper deck touched first base on his round trip home. “Fuckin’ Rockies ain’t shit. It’s the goddamn ownership. They’re too damn cheap. But they’re about to win this one.” Satoni reached for the remote, turned down the sound, and looked at CJ. “I need a break from this bullshit. Good thing you came by. Wanna have a look at some license plates?”
CJ shook his head. “I’m here on different business than usual, Mario.”
Satoni’s eyes narrowed. “Hope it ain’t got nothin’ to do with the kind of business that asshole nephew of mine swears I was once in.”
“Afraid so.”
“Damn, Calvin. You know the rules. I don’t speak ill of the dead or talk about what I did in the past.”
“I know the rules, Mario. I just need a little guidance.”
Satoni eyed CJ from head to toe, ultimately focusing on the bandage on CJ’s arm.
“Got anything to do wit
h that bandage you got wrapped around your biceps?”
“No. That’s a whole different problem.”
Satoni smiled, aware that CJ also had rules, which included never complaining and treating him with dignity. “You’re a complex man, Calvin Floyd. Complex indeed. So tell me about this guidance you need and I’ll give you some straight up, or let you know if you’re pushin’ a little too close to the edge.”
Getting straight to the point, CJ said, “I need to know a little about counterfeiting, Mario.”
“That’s pressin’ it, Calvin.”
CJ laid the envelope he’d been holding on the coffee table between them. “No particulars, Mario, just a little something about the paper counterfeiters use.”
Satoni frowned and peered over his glasses. “And what makes you think I’d know a damn thing about that?”
CJ smiled, “You wouldn’t, of course. Why would someone in the furniture business know anything about counterfeiting? But it’s always possible for a businessperson to know someone who knows someone.”
Mario stared at the envelope. “It’s possible.”
CJ retrieved the envelope, opened it, and took out the two blank sheets of paper and one of the twenties from Margolin’s along with Langston Blue’s citation. Handing them to Satoni, he said, “I need to know two things about the papers and the bill. Are they all the same kind of stock? And is there any chance that the paper could’ve been used for counterfeiting?”
Satoni whistled. It was a loud, long whistle, the kind he reserved for amazing Dodgers comebacks and game-winning grand slams. “That’s a tall task, Calvin, and one that assumes that I’d know people in the paper-hanging business.”
“Nope, it just assumes, like we said before, that you might know someone who knows someone.”
Satoni flexed the papers one by one. “They seem a little heavy for currency stock to me. The twenty looks real.” He switched glasses and read the citation. “This Langston Blue fellow your client?”
“Yes.”
Satoni stroked his chin. “Could be the answer to Mr. Blue’s problem lies with this citation.”