by Gary Haynes
Gabriel accepted that he had to leave it there, for now at least. ‘You’ll go before a federal magistrate for a preliminary hearing. If probable cause is made out, you’ll most likely be kept in prison. You won’t have to testify.’
‘How can they find probable cause?’
‘As you know now, the Watson family claim that an associate of yours told his girlfriend that you did it. She told them. They told the FBI. Potential probable cause.’
‘That isn’t probable cause. It’s grade A bullshit.’ Hockey shook his head.
Gabriel rubbed his palm over his opposite wrist. He said, ‘It’s called hearsay twice removed and on its own, you’d likely walk. But Jed Watson’s print was on the DVD. It might be enough to have you bound over to a grand jury for a federal charge.’ He saw hate in Hockey’s eyes. ‘Someone got a grudge against you, Johnny?’
‘A grudge? Are you fucking shittin’ me? As you pointed out, I got the death’s head and twin sig runes of the SS tattooed on my body, and you’re asking if someone’s got a grudge against me?’ He frowned. ‘That doesn’t fill me with confidence, Mr Gabriel Hall I teach part-time at Yale.’
Ignoring the contempt, Gabriel said, ‘I don’t mean someone who strongly opposes what they think you believe in. But a friend. An associate, as was proffered. The person who gave you the DVD could’ve done so purposely to frame you. They could’ve killed the Watsons.’
‘Could’ve, yeah. But whoever that might be, they’d better have started running.’
‘You part of an organized group?’
‘That’s it for now. You get to work on the preliminary hearing. We’ll talk again.’
‘Sure.’ Gabriel stood up, straightened his shirtsleeves beneath his suit jacket by jerking on walnut cufflinks.
‘Are you a homosexual?’
‘No,’ Gabriel said as he turned to leave. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
As Gabriel reached the door, Hockey spoke again.
‘Wait. Could you give someone a message?’
Turning back around, Gabriel said, ‘OK.’
‘You’ll find him at a bar called Club 88 this afternoon. It’s in Queens. In Far Rockaway.’
‘I know the area.’
‘His name’s Jim Saunders.’
‘How will I know him?’
Hockey pointed towards his throat with the V of two of his fingers ‘He has tarantulas tattooed on either side of his neck.’
Gabriel pursed his lips. ‘What’s the message?’
‘Tell him I need to speak with my father.’
‘I thought your father was dead, Johnny.’
‘Tell him anyways.’
*
Johnny Hockey’s lips cracked a sardonic grin when Gabriel had left the prison interview room. But it drained from his face now, when he thought about the abuse of little blonde Aryan girls. Why the hell did anyone want a DVD like that? He couldn’t fathom it. Maybe it was one of the victim’s parents, looking for revenge. Maybe the DVD could be useful in finding the filthy perpetrator. Maybe.
He’d stolen it, but he hadn’t a clue what was on it.
The black officer came in, looking peaceful. He said, ‘Forgetting the little outburst with the FBI agent, I figure you’ve earned an hour in the sun. You wanna work out?’
Hockey nodded.
‘Then come on, son.’
In that moment, Hockey knew that the officer was trying to destress him in the hope that he wouldn’t do something stupid, although he had no intention of doing such a thing.
‘I ain’t gonna lose it, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Hockey said.
The black officer nodded knowingly, like some ancient sage.
*
Three hours later, Carla, wearing aviator shades in her stationary SUV, watched Gabriel Hall walk into a bar called Club 88 in Far Rockaway, Queens. She’d seen his interview on a TV news channel, as she’d admitted to him. She’d called a lawyer friend and had gotten some rudimentary facts about him. After the incident at the federal prison, she’d decided to follow him. The alternative had been to return to the motel she’d checked into, and spend the early evening playing a trite video game on her tablet before driving back to DC in the morning.
Following Gabriel was an unorthodox move, but there was something about him that wasn’t right. A hunch, no more than that. Besides, a man like Gabriel Hall didn’t do pro bono, at least not for the likes of Johnny Hockey. She didn’t buy the rumour that he craved the limelight, even though she’d accused him of it. He acted for rich creeps that shunned publicity. He taught their imperious sons and daughters at Yale, too.
Now the lawyer was visiting a beat-up backstreet bar frequented by the Nazi Lowriders, a 3,000-strong white supremacist motorcycle gang and sworn enemies of the Black Guerrilla Family. She’d first heard about them in a lecture given by a field agent in her rookie days. The 88 in Club 88, she knew, referred to the eighth letter of the alphabet, namely H, and so 88 was a reference to HH, which in the gang’s circles was an acronym for Heil Hitler. Known as the Ride, the Lowriders specialized in extortion and prostitution. But there was no way they’d be involved in anything like the DVD. They weren’t averse to killing, but not in the manner she’d seen in the photos at the FBI building.
A couple of minutes later, she watched Gabriel Hall emerge from a side exit. He walked around the Harley Davidson choppers parked in the alley, their polished chrome gleaming in the sunshine beyond the shadow. He said something to a huge tattooed man who was smoking outside, dressed in a leather jacket and a denim vest. The man stared at him before Hall walked off.
She decided to find out what was motivating him.
19
Two days later, Gabriel left Centre Street in lower Manhattan and walked between two black metal security bollards. He sprinted up the broad granite steps of the Thurgood Marshall Federal Courthouse in Foley Square, a few blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge. Stopping at the top, he put his hand against one of the Corinthian columns of the portico, composing himself before entering the marble-floored main hall.
Hockey was there for his preliminary hearing, which had to take place no later than ten days after his initial appearance. Gabriel guessed that the US attorney’s office was under pressure from the mayor and the Department of Justice to expedite the case, not least due to the level of media coverage. It was still regular news on the major networks.
A photo of Gabriel had been shown on a couple of occasions, with statements that he was a Yale professor, a title by which all members of the senior teaching staff were known. He’d thought the images made him look overly hollow-cheeked, his expression harried. He wasn’t the only one that had been on TV. Hockey had been taken on a so-called perp walk after his detention hearing, handcuffed and in prison garb, to enable the press to shoot footage. It was a humiliating experience for those who were innocent, but was allowed in the hope of prompting witnesses to come forward.
In contrast to the wood-panelled courtrooms, with their fluted pilasters, the interview room was a dreary space, with a lingering odour of stale tobacco and sweat. Gabriel and Hockey were sitting on metal chairs at a scratch-ridden table. Hockey was dressed in a dark-green jumpsuit, his hands handcuffed in front of him, although the leg irons had been dispensed with. The public defender had gone for a leak. Two armed officers flanked the door outside. One was grey-haired and moustachioed, the other prematurely balding and chunky.
Seeing that Hockey appeared a little tense, Gabriel said, ‘It’ll be fine in there.’
‘You think?’ Hockey replied.
‘Sure.’
Gabriel thought that Hockey was displaying a trait he’d seen in many tough guys before entering a courtroom. They might have shoved a broken bottle into someone’s face a week before, but when faced with the prospect of a judge, most became as soft and pliable as dough. Maybe Hockey was no different. Maybe he was still being a chameleon. What difference does it make? he thought.
Hockey grinned, seemed
to relax. ‘So, you really think I’ll beat this?’
‘I do. But don’t get your hopes up about today.’
Hockey’s face betrayed a hint of misery.
‘I’m just telling you the truth in case someone else doesn’t.’
‘The public defender?’
Gabriel nodded.
Hockey placed his shackled hands on the table, his expression serious. ‘Did you give the message to Jim Saunders?’
‘I did.’
Hockey nodded, his eyes calculating.
Then there was a knock at the door, it opened, and the middle-aged officer stuck his hairy face in. ‘You’re on,’ he said.
‘It was just a test,’ Hockey said. ‘But you knew that, didn’t you?’
*
The sun was at four o’clock, a few grey pigeons pecking in the shade. A middle-aged cop dressed in a dark tie and sports jacket walked past Gabriel, the blue enamel badge visible on his belt. Gabriel thought he heard him say something under his breath, but shrugged it off.
Gabriel descended the court steps nimbly; the hearing had gone well enough, given the circumstances. The federal prosecutor, an assistant US attorney for the district, had exquisite red hair that had accentuated the pallor of her skin and if one looked past the porcelain veneers and the make-up applied with calligraphic precision, there’d been an undeniable, old-money assuredness. In contrast, the public defender was a bearded and somewhat dishevelled-looking political idealist named Victor Beal. He had a sibilant voice, a slight lisp such that he hissed a little after each sentence, and halfway through any that were particularly long. Beal had said the federal prosecutor was just biding her time until she got the opportunity to run for political office. The word ‘office’ had lasted a full two seconds.
But despite her obvious oratorical abilities, Jed Watson’s print on the DVD remained the sole physical evidence. As for the hearsay from the girlfriend of a purported Hockey associate, Gabriel had prompted Beal to protest that it was inadmissible. He knew the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allowed hearsay at this stage of proceedings, although it hadn’t been taken on-board by the magistrate judge, due to agreement that it was too flimsy, especially as the un-named woman was still at large. But the DVD was something else, and Beal had had to concede that he wasn’t claiming it had been an illegal seizure, even though that too could’ve still been admitted at this stage of the proceedings.
Gabriel stopped to tie his shoelace. He noticed that the dark-haired federal agent, the one who had been at the prison the day he’d first interviewed Hockey, was also leaving the courthouse. She registered his presence at the bottom of the steps, and he watched her veer off to the right, as if she was embarrassed. He’d seen her at the back of the court for the duration.
He’d passed numerous scribbled notes to Beal, that had caught the prosecutor off balance. Hockey had smiled at him on several occasions and had even given him the thumbs up. If the magistrate judge hadn’t been such a wily individual, he felt sure he would’ve gotten Hockey off a finding of probable cause. But, due to the fingerprint, he’d been bound over to a federal grand jury for indictment, which would take place in the next couple of weeks. The indictment, if successful, would state the exact charges, though neither he nor Hockey would be part of that process.
He watched the FBI agent walk across the street to the Metropolitan Correctional Center. In the shadow of the stones, he wondered what she made of him.
20
The ghost house, near Berlin, the same day.
The old man was sitting in the passenger seat of an eight-year-old station wagon as César Vezzani drove him through the dark lanes to a pine forest situated twenty-three miles east of Berlin. He was still troubled by the events in the US and had decided to visit the ghost house sooner rather than later.
The car was just one of the ways in which he didn’t stand out. Something that was important to him. He gave acceptable donations to charities and the local Lutheran church, as if he was a model citizen. He paid his taxes in respect of his legitimate businesses. He’d invested in warehouses in Europe and the US for years and was now worth close to 35,000,000 euro. Not a fortune by the standards of the day, he knew, but enough not to have to worry about decent health care, or, well, anything at all really. At least, not about anything that money could buy.
He’d taken a nap earlier, after strolling around the villa’s garden, the only exercise his worn-out body allowed. He’d woken up with a start, saliva dripping from his downturned mouth, as it did so often these days. Fleetingly, he’d seen his numerous female victims suspended, wisp-like, above him. He’d let out a prolonged gasp, the reaction any person would make if they were visited by a shimmering angel or benevolent alien. There’d been nothing distraught about it. These apparent spectral visitations had been happening more frequently, too.
The vehicle stopped outside an isolated and reinforced concrete structure, the size and shape of a pillbox. It was set in a half-acre clearing, the smattering of other buildings unused. Vezzani switched off the headlights. The old man kept his DVDs there, packed in a padlocked metal trunk beneath moveable slabs of granite, three feet down. It was as good a place as any, he’d decided. The contents of safety deposit boxes could be stolen, residences searched on court orders, and isolated farmland excavated without notice. Besides, the ghost house had a sophisticated security system, like the villa, centring on passive infrared beams that sent silent alerts to wireless receptors. The old man watched as Vezzani deactivated them remotely.
But one DVD had gone missing and he’d found out later that the Chechen — a pornographer, opiate addict and near alcoholic — had stolen it. It was his one lapse, a one-off weakness. Vezzani had vouched for the fellow ex-Legionnaire and the old man had allowed him to stay, at both the villa and a nearby farm that he owned, just for a few days. They’d all gotten drunk, and the Chechen had started to boast about his experiences in the Bosnian War in the early 1990s. Of how he’d made the Serbs pay for the atrocities they had visited upon his fellow Muslims, the rapes and tortures, the establishment of concentration camps, the enforced starvations.
These stories had resonated with the old man, and he’d given in to the Chechen’s request for a viewing, after Vezzani had hinted at the DVDs’ content. He had never told Vezzani why he periodically did the things he did, and Vezzani had never asked the old man. He’d just said that it was necessary. The Chechen had watched quietly, his mouth agape.
It was uncharacteristic for the old man to acquiesce in a viewing, vainglorious even, something his many years on the earth had taught him may prove to be a catalyst for something else, something unexpected and personally devastating. But it was done. Vezzani had been distraught, afterwards. The old man had patted him on the shoulder but said: ‘They would have shot you in the neck for vouching for that Chechen thief, in the old days.’
Later, the Chechen had confessed on the telephone that he’d stolen the DVD, in the hope it wouldn’t be missed. Vezzani had made it known among other veterans that the Chechen had done a terrible thing for which he would kill him. It was obvious the Chechen hadn’t known the old man viewed the DVDs regularly. He was sorry. It was an unforgivable act after the hospitality he’d been shown, he’d added. He would compensate the old man.
The old man hadn’t been able to track the Chechen down until a month ago, and then he’d had to do a deal, sparing the Chechen’s life in exchange for the whereabouts of the DVD, and his assurance that it hadn’t been copied. The Chechen had gone for it, had assured him that he hadn’t copied it.
When questioned by the old man, he’d said that Watson’s addiction had begun a few years ago, after his participation in peer-to-peer networks accessed via the dark web. Watson had paid for the DVD with an untraceable transfer into an offshore bank account via the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and a spurious trust fund. There wouldn’t be any comeback. The old man had believed him and had said that someone had to die in his place, so it would be Jed Watson. H
e couldn’t afford for the situation to be replicated.
The old man took out a portable DVD player from a briefcase, together with a set of keys. ‘There’s a Thermos in the glove compartment,’ he said to Vezzani.
He got out and headed for the structure’s rusted metal door, daubed with the graffiti that he’d ordered to be spray canned there. The clearing was dappled with moonlight, but he took out a slim torch to ensure he wouldn’t trip on something in the grass. He knew that a fall at his age could debilitate him for months, if not precipitate something far worse.
*
An hour later he walked back to the car. He’d counted the DVDs. He’d selected a few randomly and had checked that none could incriminate him, even though he knew them by heart. They followed the same pattern. The stolen one was the same too, of course.
I am old, he thought. I shouldn’t question what I already know to be true. But the fact that they were still all there had made the journey worthwhile, or so he convinced himself.
Although he didn’t believe in spectres, he did believe in chain reactions. Watson had been the second link. If only he’d agreed to give it back to the Chechen, all this could have been avoided, he thought. He would have still had Watson killed, but it would have been a clean cut. The man had been addicted to it, he’d decided. It happened, he knew. Besides, Vezzani had said the US Securities Enforcement Division was snooping around, that Watson may have been involved in fraudulent acts. His apartment could be searched. The DVD could be found.
This was the real reason Hockey had killed Watson. The extraction of the DVD had meant to be obscured by the theft of the other expensive items, which had been dumped soon afterwards in the East River. That hadn’t gone to plan, and Mrs Watson had been killed, the old man knew, by Hockey’s associate, Billy Joe Anderson, in what Hockey had regarded to be a wanton act of unnecessary bloodletting, given that both he and Anderson had been unrecognizable. It was all so unfortunate.