by Todd Merer
Sailboat. The word resonated, but I kept a straight face. Same as to Jilly sleeping with Borg, though that really bothered me.
“I drove out to the house Jilly and Sholty lived in. Big place between the mountains and the ocean. One way in, one way out . . . by land. From the restaurant where Jilly was eating lunch at the time of the crime, you can see the house and dock across the bay, maybe two miles away.”
I remembered Jilly talking about the view. “You ask the sheriff about the weather on the day of the murder?”
“Foggy. Pea-soup foggy.”
No way she could have seen her house across the water, then. A small lie, which meant there’d been larger ones. “The sailboat?”
“It docked in Ozelle the day before the murder and left the day after. Despite what the family claimed, no one actually recalled seeing the sailor with Jilly. A sailboat and a sailor on a foggy day. Heh-heh . . .”
I was thinking the same dirty thought as Traum: on the day Jilly’s husband had been murdered, she was belowdecks with the sailor. Who, for whatever reason he was sailing the northwest Pacific, was Joaquin Bolivar. Now I understood why she’d shelled out a million to defend him. The same reason why she’d offered to spread her legs for me: to ensnare me into making her a paralegal so she could visit him.
“My expenses were five grand,” Traum said. “I flew first class.”
I didn’t want Traum bulling around my life. “I didn’t ask you to go,” I said. “I’ll write you a check, but that’s it.”
I wrote the check and handed it to him. He lit the cigar, blew smoke. Crossed to the door, paused. “The sailboat had a smaller boat in tow. One of them rubber Zodiacs with an outboard, fast like nobody’s business.”
He winked as he closed the door behind him. I sat there, thinking.
Fast enough to cross the harbor unseen in the fog. Fast enough for the sailor to kill Sholty. Fast enough to do it and return in half an hour. Fast like nobody’s business . . .
Ah, Jilly. A true beauty destined to become entwined with big money and crime. Were you also the beautiful beach girl who ditched a septuagenarian billionaire for the company of the dashing sailor Joaquin Bolivar? Didn’t matter, although if not you, another girl much like you. Normally, I’d shake my head and say it was none of my damn business.
But it was my business now.
CHAPTER 56
I was pondering Jilly’s role—or lack thereof—in her husband’s murder when AUSA Barnett Robinson called. His tone was serious. “Benn, Rigo has been diagnosed with a serious ailment. All I know is that he’s been moved to FMC Prattsville.”
“Where’s that?”
“West Virginia. Federal medical centers are weird about visits, even from lawyers. I took the liberty of cutting red tape, and you’re cleared to see him.”
On a human level, I couldn’t care less about Rigo’s health. As an attorney, I had no need to see him at this time. “Don’t think I can fit a visit into my schedule, Barnett.”
“I’m told his condition is critical.”
I realized my speaking to Rigo was a major part of Robinson’s agenda. Too bad. I was done wasting time on a deadbeat.
“Speak to him while he’s still cogent, Benn.”
“Barnett? Please take no for an answer.”
“I can’t do that, Benn. I’m not free to explain anything. Just know that a lot of people need for you to speak to Rigo. Get a written statement.”
“Which people?”
“Rigo. The government. You.”
“Me? I don’t think so.”
“Benn, please—”
“There’s no reason for me to go.”
His voice lowered as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “It has nothing to do with your investigation in the Eastern District.”
Whoa. I hadn’t seen that coming. Of course my seeing Rigo had nothing to do with my investigation, so why would he say . . .
Then I got it: Robinson was insinuating he could make Kandi’s investigation go away. He’d deny any quid quo pro to the heavens, but it was pure and simple blackmail. It seemed incredible he could reach across districts, not unless it was sanctioned by Main Justice in DC.
“I’ll move some things around,” I said.
“Tell me soon as,” Robinson said.
I rummaged through a drawer until I found a certain special pen. I slipped it into my breast pocket. Then I went on the BOP website and found FMC—Federal Medical Center—Prattsville. It was in West Virginia. As the crow flies, three or four hundred miles from New York. No air or train connections, so the trip would be by car. No fun but no choice. The upside was that I needed to clear my head.
Early the next morning, the Mini growled out from the Lincoln Tunnel. The city skyline soon faded in the rearview mirror, and ahead the Jersey Turnpike unspooled into a countryside I knew only by flying over.
I drove southwest, past smokestack industries and suburban sprawl. I passed three cop stops on the northbound lane. Black and Hispanic faces with hands in plain sight atop steering wheels, burly troopers wearing visor caps and tall lace-ups. An agent once told me that one in six turnpike stops comes up positive for drugs.
The stops were outrageously blatant racial profiling, but I was all for them. Not because I’m a bigot or fire-breathing law-and-order person. My opinion boils down to three words. Fuck them all. The scumbag criminals whose rights were violated and the scumbag cops who did the violating. My approval of the turnpike stops was fact based: the more drug arrests, the more rats whose tongues loosen, ultimately threatening the guys at the very top, aka my kinds of clients.
Life was ugly.
As the Philly exits fell behind, I stopped thinking about work, turned on the radar detector, got off the interstate and onto a state road, and stepped on the gas. I felt the stress drain from me as my senses opened to another world.
I’m loaded with opinions about the state of the nation, but in truth, all I know is hearsay filtered by media distortions. But now that I was out in the countryside, navigating a two-lane blacktop that wound between hills and skirted small towns, my preconceptions were whittled down to a one-word feeling:
Freedom.
From my side of the windshield, this was Norman Rockwell’s America of hills and dales and modest homes, inhabited by decent, hardworking folks.
Or so it seemed.
Eventually, the roadway narrowed as it crossed a steel span above a rushing stream, and on the other side was a main street veined by lanes meandering up the hillsides. There was one traffic light, and while waiting for it to turn green, I verified through GPS that this indeed was Prattsville, West Virginia, although there was neither sign nor sight of the FMC.
There was a gas station where I stopped to ask for directions. Outside the neighboring diner, many of the parked vehicles had federal plates and BOP markings. The station and diner appeared to be Prattsville’s downtown. People were about. Most all wore FBOP parkas or caps, and most all were grossly overweight. I caught a particularly fat guy’s eye and asked which way to the FMC.
He took in my city-slicker suit, eyed my cute toy car with New York plates, emitted a phlegmy laugh of the type that requires a weekly carton of nonfiltered Camels to maintain, and said, “Checking in, are you?”
His pals grinned. One popped a can of Bud in a brown bag.
I keep a Maglite in the glove compartment. I felt like using it to bash the guy’s head in. But instead I just said, “Checking in to work. I’m from the surgeon general’s office.”
The grins faded, and the Bud disappeared. Federal employees have a healthy fear of those above their pay grade. Like government doctors.
“That’d be the next right, sir,” said the fat guy, pointing.
I followed his pudgy finger to a ridge, where a ring of barbed wire glinted in the sun. I allowed a small nod, got back in the Mini, and took the next right up a road that made me think of Dylan’s Highway 61, the road of contradictions.
Where have all the
good people gone?
The view was good, though. Judging from the cleared hilltops, Prattsville must once have been a farming burg. Now it was a company town and the company was BOP, and the company store was now a Walmart. Sad. Despite my earlier sense of America the ever-beautiful, an unconscionable number of small communities have changed for the worse, becoming correctional-institution towns. Jail burgs. Another way the war against drugs has dumbed down the populace. At one time, Prattsville probably had its own newspaper and movie theater, but now all the news that fit was Fox on the boob tube, and entertainment meant reality TV shows. During the Civil War, when citizens fought and died for their beliefs, West Virginia split from Old Virginny and opted to stay in the Union rather than sing along with Dixie. But now our armies were bought body and soul, and West Virginia was red, fat, and ignorant.
I had a thought that made me laugh out loud.
Rigo, Colombian drug kingpin, here.
CHAPTER 57
FMC Prattsville was pristine. White-coated doctors, green-smocked nurses. Immaculate corridors lined with CT-scan rooms, labs, ICUs. The cost of building and running such an institution was mind boggling. Crazy. Law-abiding citizens were arguing the virtues of health-care reform while fortunes were being spent caring for prisoners, the majority of which were drugsters like Rigo.
There were two signs on the door to his private room: one a warning that visits must not exceed fifteen minutes; the second, a yellow-and-black logo similar to those seen in radiology units.
Once inside, I realized Rigo was extremely ill. Tethered to an IV, wired to a monitor, leashed to a bed rail by steel cuffs, his free hand heavily bandaged. A blue vein pulsed in his paper-white temple. His dark eyes were rheumy; the only light in them reflected fluorescence.
What can you say to a guy who looks as if he’s circling the drain? Nothing. I sat down and waited for him to speak. A tear leaked from the corner of his eye and ran down his cheek. He swallowed hard, wet his lips, whispered: “Puta . . . killed my family . . . killed Estefania . . .”
“Who are you taking about? What puta?”
“Sombra.”
I’d feared Rigo’s cooperation would create a conflict precluding my representing Sombra. Now I realized there would be no conflict because Sombra would be the only man left standing.
“The video,” he rasped. “You gave the prosecutor the video of the bribe?”
“Yes.”
“You told him that it’s Sombra there with me?”
“You and Uvalde were on the video—”
“Understand, the video was six years ago. Sombra’s organization was just starting. Personal attendance was necessary. You must make the prosecutor believe this.”
“I’ll try.” I had zero sympathy for this murdering thief.
His eyes brimmed with tears. “How stupid I’ve been.”
One of your many poor traits, I thought.
A monitor began beeping. He tried to sit up, only to be jerked back by his cuff. The monitor began beeping faster. “Mondragon . . . killed me.”
A nurse appeared. “Sir, you need to leave. Now.”
Rigo was running on fumes, but he seemed desperate to speak to me. “Mondragon, he shook my hand. After, it felt like an insect bit me.”
Another nurse appeared and elbowed me aside. I left the room.
In the corridor, I stopped at the desk. The young nurse behind it was plump and pretty. I put on my best smile. “Hello.”
“Hello,” she said.
“I was just visiting my client.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I was wondering what his illness is.”
“Sir, we can’t divulge medical information without a formal request. If you go on the BOP website, you’ll find the appropriate form.”
“Thank you so much for telling me.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“I’m going to go on the website, but I’m from New York, and by the time I get home . . . what I’m trying to say? His family is very concerned.”
“Oh, I can understand.”
“They’re waiting to hear from me. I feel as if I need to tell them something now. Nothing major, I respect the BOP rules. Just something. Like, I noticed his hand was all bandaged. I’m sure that’s not his major problem, but I was wondering why it’s bandaged?”
She glanced around. Leaned toward me, spoke quietly. “I’m not supposed to . . . actually, his hand is the problem. It’s very infected, so much so that the infection has spread to his body.”
“Infected? How?”
“That’s the problem. The doctors don’t really understand how, or by what. They said it was almost if he’d been bitten.”
“Bitten?”
“Like by an insect, but not—”
“Sir, leave now,” a male attendant said, taking my elbow.
I turned on him. “Don’t put your hands on me.”
Out of nowhere, two more attendants appeared. Big guys.
I stepped out of their way and out the door of the unit.
I left the facility thinking I’d solved one puzzle.
Problem was, there were others.
CHAPTER 58
Once in the Mini, I took out the pen tucked in my pocket and clicked the cap. The pen emitted a whirring sound, then played my conversation with Rigo. Why had I recorded it? On a hunch that it might prove useful. I doubted it now. Rigo’s words were the demented ravings of a dying man. A wasted trip.
I sped toward home on autopilot, my thoughts racing faster . . .
Supposing Sombra had been present at the bribe? Even before Rigo was sick, he’d said the same thing . . . and both Robinson and Agent Gus Romero seemed to think so, too, for they had hammered Rigo about who else had been present when he’d bribed Uvalde. And Fercho had pointedly asked if I was sure no one else was in the video.
Only Uvalde and Rigo were there. I’d seen them . . .
But had I understood what I’d seen? What if . . . General Uvalde was Sombra? Come to think of it, how perfect a scam would that be? No one would ever—
Stop! Stop thinking, and follow your nose.
Rigo had referred to an insect bite, although I suspected something deadlier. The sign outside his room door was a yellow-and-black trefoil, the universal warning of hazardous radioactivity.
That explained why at the top of the case Mondragon had visited Rigo so often: to accomplish the assassination that had failed at the cathedral. Mondragon’s delivery device could have been quite simple—a pin, probably plastic to evade the metal detectors, bearing polonium or whatever deadly isotope was in fashion among assassins these days. Cupped in his palm when shaking Rigo’s hand, it would have delivered a tiny dose that eventually poisoned Rigo fatally.
Confirming still again that Mondragon was either working for Sombra, or working for someone who shared the same goals as Sombra.
Rigo had known this all along. He’d appeared at the cathedral without Mondragon to make sure he was still alive when the agents got there.
Just past the West Virginia–Maryland state line, I pulled into a rest stop. I hit the men’s room, splashed water on my face, drank black coffee. Over a second cup, I opened my device and viewed the video Mondragon had given me to forward to Robinson.
It was as I’d remembered: just Uvalde and Rigo. I zoomed in on the image and thought I saw a shadow in the corner of the room. Another man? Maybe.
I continued toward home with the radio on, a twenty-four-hour news station blathering bad news: the Middle East was aflame, the Far East was simmering, the north and south poles were melting, climate change, doom . . .
I shut the radio and made a phone call.
Raul Rincon picked up on the first ring. Figured. He saw my number and deduced I’d be calling about money. Colombian criminal lawyers were a hungry lot, and Raul was the hungriest one I knew.
“What can I do for you, my dear friend Benn?”
“I’m angling for a client. A very big client, whose fee can
make us both happy. Problem is, a Colombian lawyer is trying to steal the client. Felipe Mondragon.”
“A greedy bastard.”
“It’s not just Mondragon I’m fighting. It’s someone with him who influences the client. If I knew who the person was, I’d be able to make the client understand why I’m his man. There’d be something for you, of course.”
“Mmm. Trouble is, Mondragon knows everyone. But there is one man Mondragon is close to. A lawyer. I’ve heard they work together.”
“The lawyer’s name?”
“From what I understand, the lawyer is obsessive about maintaining his privacy. His practice is limited to a few special clients, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes. The name?”
“Just between us?”
“You have my word.”
“Actually, I don’t know his first name. Just his last. If in fact it’s his real last name, you know how it is—”
“Jesus, Rincon. The name?”
“Paz.”
CHAPTER 59
Paz. Except Paz was dead, and I felt as if I were on my last legs as well. Traffic had thickened, and it was raining as I neared New York. Four hours working my brain in my little steel cocoon had left me tired and confused.
I garaged the Mini and walked toward home, dreaming of a Bison Grass and a long, hot shower and a couple of blue Valiums and a deep sleep. With that in mind, I began to relax. The rain had dwindled to a fine mist, and in the side streets off Madison, candles flickered beneath bistro awnings. There were women there. I spotted a pair of crossed legs to die for . . .
Which got me thinking that I hadn’t been with a woman for a long time. Too long a time. Not good. I was, literally, bottled up. Maybe instead of calling it a night, I should phone—
My own phone rang. Unknown caller. I answered.
“Benn, Barnett. You saw Rigo?”
“I did. He’s not in good shape.”
“But you did speak?
“Barnett, I’m wondering . . . Rigo arrived here healthy as a pig, and all of a sudden, he’s in extremis. What kind of infection does that?”