“All the way from L.A.?”
“Well, I used to live here. I haven’t found a doctor I like in Los Angeles yet.”
That was quick thinking, White.
He watched me in polite wonder. “Hmm. All the way from L.A.”
The second man returned and handed me back my license, his eyes constantly searching.
“Now, you have a nice day, and don’t have such a heavy foot if you want to stay alive.”
They turned and walked back to their car. Something was wrong. Why didn’t they give me a ticket? They had me—no doubt about it. I didn’t even try to talk myself out of it. I was baffled. I could understand if I were doing seventy miles per hour, but a hundred and two?
Ah . . . they weren’t policemen at all. Don’t exit at Solana Beach; just keep on going.
They followed me for a few miles and exited. When I was sure they were gone, I jammed on the accelerator and got lost in my thoughts on the two-hour journey back to L.A.
I arrived home at three o’clock, checking the neighborhood for signs of Steve before going in. The light on my answering machine was flashing. I pressed the rewind button and opened the refrigerator door. A horrified scream escaped from my throat. A dead rat lay next to a loaf of bread.
“STEVE!”
The tape playing in the background consisted of one hang-up after another, and then: “Hi, Georgia. This is your buddy Nelson from the FBI. Now, that wasn’t real smart of you. I thought we could trust you. Maybe you’re right about us. Maybe we do have an IQ three points below plant life. Anyway, we’re still looking out for you. It would be a real waste if anything happened to you. Be careful. We’ll be seeing you. . . .” Dial tone.
For the next three weeks they followed me everywhere. They weren’t even trying to be discreet. If they were, they weren’t doing a very good job of it. I was sure my telephone was tapped. Secretly I felt safe, knowing Steve was still out there waiting for his chance to take me out, and knowing that Joe couldn’t revert to violence with the FBI watching. Nevertheless, the surveillance played heavily on my nerves, forcing me to recall all the illegal activities I could be linked to. I even began to feel paranoid not making a full stop at an intersection. I had dealt with rogue cops before—justice is what they decide it is. If they wanted to get me, they would not be above fabricating evidence.
What the FBI knew for sure was that I was telling the truth about Steve. They knew they had to work quickly. The time and money put into this case could all be lost. They took a chance by exposing me to the knowledge that they were onto Joe and his friends. It backfired, leaving them with no alternative but to move fast, before they had all the pieces to the puzzle. Now they were hell-bent on getting the person whose name did not end in a vowel.
The phone rang. “Hi, Georgia. Nelson here. We think we can help you get rid of your little problem with Steve. Let’s talk.”
The secret meetings began. My code name became “the Black Widow.” The gatherings took place at the Sunset Plaza Hotel—not as nice as the Bonaventure. Guess they were a little short of money. Wonder why.
“Before we get into this, gentlemen,” I said, “I want to make sure we are all clear on one thing. I’m here to help you get Steve. Don’t ask me anything about Joe or I’m out of here.”
They glanced at one another briefly, then all nodded in agreement. They were sly, though, having some hidden agenda, but I played the game. It was my only alternative. As Al had said, Either you get him, or eventually he’ll get you. My instincts told me not to trust them, but they were serving a purpose for the time being.
The mind games were boggling. Who was screwing with whose head? I was going to have to mess with Steve’s, and that was not exactly a smart thing to do with a person as off-the-wall as he was. Were they messing with mine? No trust was present with anyone involved in this intricate plot . . . a plot to get whom?
“Do you know where he’s staying?” one of the agents asked.
“No, but he calls twenty times a day. You have my phone tapped—can’t you find out?”
No reply.
“The next time he calls, tell him you’ll meet with him. Make sure it’s a place that is heavily populated. You don’t want to be alone with him,” Nelson warned.
“I think I’m more aware of that than you are,” I replied.
“A suggestion. Nate and Al’s on Beverly Drive would be a good spot. You may not have the choice, so use your head. Tell him you’re afraid. Let him think we’ve leaked to the other side that you’re cooperating with us.”
“How do I know you haven’t? As I remember, you said that was an alternative if I didn’t collaborate.”
“You’re just going to have to trust us, Georgia. As we see it, you don’t have a choice. Everything you told us about this fanatic is true. He is a danger to society, but the immediate danger is to you. We have our own reasons for wanting him—that’s true. He cost us a few hundred thousand when he blew our entire investigation. In addition, of course, he made us look like fools in the process. But our first concern here is your safety.”
“My safety, Nelson? Is that your first concern? You were ready to throw me to the wolves when I wouldn’t answer your questions. Now you want to save my life. Why do I find that so hard to believe?”
“Look, we’re doing each other a favor. You don’t have a choice, lady, unless, of course, you want to give Al a call—and spend the rest of your life behind bars. That is, if you live that long.”
He was right; I didn’t have a choice. If I did not cooperate, I would die by the hand of Steve Zamett. At this point, they were my only saviors. As long as the price tag did not include my cooperation in other matters, I had nothing to lose.
“Okay, so what’s the plan?” I asked, placing my destiny in their hands.
“Convince him there’s a contract out on both of you. Let him think you’re in this together.”
“This had better work, Nelson. I’m putting myself in a very vulnerable position with this maniac.”
“We know that, Georgia. We won’t let you down. We will keep you within our sight at all times. Just meet with him in places where people always surround you and you will not be in any jeopardy. We will do everything in our power to protect you. You have a gun—always carry it with you.”
“How do you know I have a gun?”
“Because my IQ is only two points below plant life, not three. Do you know how to use it?” asked Nelson.
“Yeah, point and pull the trigger.”
“Don’t think we’re giving you a license to kill. We want the pleasure of that ourselves,” he said, half kidding. “But if you should find yourself in a life-threatening situation, you’ll have some protection.”
I was getting more nervous by the second. “Do you think it may come to that?” I asked.
“We’ll be there for you, Georgia. It’s just a precaution.”
“I hope your presence won’t be as obvious to Steve as it was to me.”
“I think you have a little more experience in these things than Mr. Zamett.”
“No, I think you guys are just masters of the mind.”
“Be careful,” Nelson warned. “That statement puts us well above plant level.”
“I take it back,” I joked.
“Too late, it’s already on the record. But I’ll tell you one thing,” Nelson said. He paused, putting his hands in his pockets and looking toward the ceiling, searching for the least embarrassing way to phrase his next words. “I’ve been in the FBI for more years than I care to count, and this jerk . . . Christ, I still can’t believe it. This jerk even conned me. We actually put him up in the Bonaventure Hotel, paid all his expenses, including a $600 telephone bill. He had us going—but he won’t get away with it.”
No, I don’t believe he will. When these people want somebody, they get him, one way or another.
“Was he in the Bonaventure when you took me there?” I asked.
“Yes, he was in the room next to us. Here’s something
else.” Nelson paused, and then continued. “Remember when he asked you to meet him at the bank?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember the banker?”
“Yeah?”
“He was one of us. Where did you think Steve got the money he showed you in the vault that day?”
“I didn’t know, and I cared even less.”
“We gave him that money. We were convinced that once you saw the money and realized there was a way out for you, that you two could escape to Europe, you would talk to us. That money was yours—still is, if you talk to us.”
I knew there had to be a catch. I stood up and walked to the door.
“Wait a minute,” Nelson said, blocking the door. “Okay, I promised. I won’t bring that subject up again.” I hesitated, throwing him a distrusting look, and then sat back down. “Anyway,” he continued, “we drove over to where Steve was hiding out. It was somewhere off Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. He pulled a gun on us. We should have taken the sucker out then, now that I think of it. I still don’t know if he was really afraid for his life or if it was just another con game. He was pretty badly bruised, just got out of the hospital. At the time, I believed he was terrified of being taken out by some of your friends,” he said, looking at me with an arched eyebrow.
“Nelson, what choice did I have?” I said, trying to conjure up an expression of innocence. It worked.
“As a matter of fact,” he continued, “he was so shaken he asked our man to drive his car. We followed behind in our vehicle. Later we found out our FBI man was driving a stolen car. Jesus, this guy has balls,” Nelson exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief.
I started to laugh. The FBI was now pulled into the same tragicomedy of errors I had dealt with, except that they had the power to act on their frustrations when this jerk went too far.
“I’m glad you shared that with me, Nelson. If the FBI can be deceived on the scale that you were, then I guess I’m not as gullible as I was beginning to think.”
“That’s precisely why I’m telling you this little story. He got us pretty good. We want him as badly as you do.”
“How did he contact you in the first place?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s another story. He didn’t actually come to us directly. He contacted the IRS. Said he knew about all this Mob money from New York going into MB Financial which, as you know, is Joe Bello’s company. He wanted to make the ten percent of whatever they came up with based on his information. Just so happened the IRS agent was one of the guys we had working with us on our investigation. The agent called us. Wanted to know if we would like to talk to Joe Lamendola’s wife. We couldn’t believe the break! Out of nowhere!
“As I said, Steve had us believing you were terrified for your life. He said you would talk if you could be convinced that you and he could get safely out of the country. This was just what we needed to fit in the final pieces. Basically, if he could make it work, he’d get ten percent of God knows how many hundreds of thousands—plus the nice little pot we were prepared to part with, and you, all to himself. What more could a guy ask for?”
“You’d be surprised,” I said, still trying to absorb it all.
“We were so close. . . .” Nelson said, his gaze drifting out the window and his voice trailing off. “Then of course, the rest is history.”
“I told you he was good. You wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Okay, you don’t need to rub it in. Let’s concentrate on how we’re going to handle this. This isn’t a game we’re playing.”
“No shit. Am I going to be wired?”
“No. We’ve learned not to underestimate this guy. He’s too shrewd. He will be skeptical of your sudden change of heart, but more than anything he wants you. He’ll want to believe you. We trust that you can handle that, or we wouldn’t put you in this position. You’re a survivor; we know that about you. You have been around some pretty tough characters in some interesting situations, some we know about, some we don’t—and you’re still around. You can do this. By the time this is over, you will have earned your code name. And, Georgia, it will be over; you can bet on it.
“You have to trust us, so I’ll be straight with you. Yes, we want you to talk to us about other matters, but that is not a condition for helping you rid yourself of Mr. Zamett. We want him too. Our reasons are as personal as your own. I think you understand that now. So let’s start with a clean slate and get this guy, okay?”
Sounds convincing, but be careful. . . .
It didn’t take long to hear that familiar ring in my apartment.
“Don’t hang up! Please, just let me talk to you.”
“Okay, Steve, talk.”
Shocked that he had my attention, he was almost at a loss for words. “Uh . . . I’m sorry I talked to the FBI. I was angry and hurt. I love you, George.”
“Sorry isn’t good enough, you asshole. Don’t you see what you’ve done?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve stepped in shit you know nothing about, and because of it, we’re both going to die.”
“What are you talking about?” he shouted in a panic.
“Steve, you messed with the big boys. They know I was picked up for questioning. I wouldn’t talk, but those FBI bastards put the word out on the street that I cooperated with them. They know you were the one who brought the FBI down on them in the first place. You’re an expert at digging your own grave, but now you’ve dug mine, too. There’s a contract out on both of us. You should be happy—we can be together for eternity now. It’s out of Joe’s hands; he’s powerless to help me. All he could do is warn me to get the hell out of town. I should’ve let Al kill you, you worthless piece of shit!” I slammed the phone down.
The telephone rang immediately. I picked it up and placed it back on the receiver without bothering to say hello. That charade went on for the next ten minutes. After about the eighth or ninth time, I finally spoke.
“What?!” I screamed.
His breathing was fast; he swallowed with a gulp. “George, Christ, talk to me. What do you mean, there’s a contract on us?”
“Is it that hard to understand, Steve? Bang, bang, we’re dead—asshole!”
Click.
Ring, ring, ring, ring. I didn’t answer. I had him now. This man was just as stupid as he was smart. I knew his mind was running wild with thoughts of how he would meet his death. I avoided answering the telephone for two days. He didn’t trust me enough to venture to my door. I reveled in his terror.
I’ll teach you to screw with her, you low-life scumbag.
“Good job, Georgia,” Nelson said over his car phone. “Guess you know how to push this character’s buttons.”
“Yeah, I have a way with mentally deranged people.”
“I tend to agree with you. What is it with you anyway? How do you attract these nuts?”
Good question, White. You ought to give that some thought.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m too softhearted, but that’s changing.”
“I think it’s time to take his next call,” Nelson said.
“Do you know where he is yet?” I asked.
“No, you don’t stay on the line long enough. And I want to speak to you about your language, young lady. Where did you learn some of those words that came out of your mouth? If I were Steve, I’d never call you again.”
“Well, you’re not Steve.”
“You certainly have an Italian temper. I wouldn’t want to be married to you,” he kidded.
“Fuck you, Nelson.”
He cracked up. “That’s what I like about you, your gentle reserve.”
He’s getting a little too friendly, White. Keep your distance.
To my surprise, the telephone did not ring again. I went about my days, trying to find some normalcy in them, not quite sure what normal was. I missed my daughter, but she was better off where she was. This would soon be over and we could be together again.
When the p
hone rang, I was sure Steve’s voice would greet me.
“Hi, sweetie,” said my agent, Janette. “Can you make an audition today? I know it’s short notice, but they asked to see you specifically.”
“Really? Sure, Janette. Where is it?”
“The Holiday Inn at Sunset and the 405 freeway. You know, the circular-shaped building right at the Sunset Boulevard exit.”
“Yeah, I know the place. What time?”
“Six o’clock. It’s five now. You’d better get out the door soon if you’re going to make it in time with traffic.”
“Okay, Janette. What’s the look?”
“Hmm . . . They didn’t say. Just go casual.”
“All right, I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Oh, and sweetie, they said you should park in the back.”
“Okay, Janette, I’d better run if I’m going to make it.”
“This one’s got your name on it, sweetie. Good luck!”
I dashed out the door after quickly checking the mirror and grabbing what had been salvaged from my portfolio. I raced through the heavy traffic, my thoughts on landing the job. I really needed a break soon. My credit cards were maxed out and the rent was due again.
I pulled into the parking lot with ten minutes to spare. I had one leg out the door when suddenly my passenger door flew open and Steve was inside the car. He yanked me back inside with one hand and held a gun to my head with the other.
I struggled, knocking the gun from his hand. Still clutching my arm, he bent to pick it up. His grip on me loosened and I was able to break free. I bolted from the car and ran across the nearly deserted parking lot to the hotel lobby. Finding a pay phone, I punched in the emergency number for the FBI. With my foot tapping impatiently and my eyes glued to the entry, I waited. What is taking so long?
An eternity passed before it was answered, or it seemed. “Put Nelson on the phone immediately!”
“Who’s calling?”
“The Black Widow. Hurry! Please . . .”
“Nelson here.”
“Nelson, where the hell are your men? Steve just put a gun to my head!”
“Calm down, where are you?”
“I’m at the Holiday Inn at the 405 and Sunset. He got in my car in the parking—Oh my God. He’s in the hotel now!”
The Company She Keeps Page 29