Once a Thief (Gentleman Jack Burdette Book 3)

by Dale M. Nelson

  Carter shot his wrist out so the watch was exposed and then made a show of flashing the watch as he looked at it again, just to make sure everyone in the room knew that time was a factor. Like they said at the draft, You’re on the clock, Janelle.

  Carter sat down at the other head of the table.

  “What’s this about,” Carter said. “I’ve got places to be.” Negotiations were won and lost by taking the initiative, and that was something Carter LeMothe never ceded.

  “Carter, this is Special Agent Fuery and Special Agent Reaves of the FBI,” Janelle said.

  She motioned to each of them, but Carter wasn’t paying attention. He couldn’t get that line from Die Hard out of his head. The one about the two “Agent Johnsons.”

  “Mr. LeMothe,” the Black one said. “Can I call you Carter?”

  “That depends. If you’re selling me something, I prefer Mr. LeMothe.”

  “Carter, I’ll cut to the chase. You’re in deep shit.” The agent opened a folder that Carter now noticed was sitting in front of him next to a yellow legal pad. “We have transcripts of your phone calls going back six months.”

  “Wait, you’re tapping my phone? That’s fucking illegal.”

  “No, Carter, it isn’t.” And he produced three pages that were stapled together and handed it to his partner, who slid it halfway down the table. Carter didn’t touch it, wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction, but he saw the word WARRANT across the top in big, bold type. “We’ve had a wire up on you for some time, and I have to say, Carter, for someone with as much to lose as you do, you don’t cover your tracks very well.”

  A cold and sick feeling washed over Carter. If Ashton Kutcher or Pauly Shore or some other washed-up asshole with a microphone was going to jump out and yell, “Surprise!” now would be the time.

  The Black agent continued, and Carter now wished he’d taken time to learn the guy’s name.

  “You’ve been defrauding the government for some time with this scheme of yours, but the ‘consulting fees’ that you’ve been taking have been unreported income. By our estimation, you owe the federal government at least two million dollars in taxes.”

  “So, I’ll write a check to the IRS. Are we done here?”

  “Not by a long shot, pal.”

  “Carter,” the other agent, the white guy, said. His voice was still stern but slightly softer than his partner’s. If Carter hadn’t been scared shitless, he’d have eye-rolled the “good cop” routine. “We believe the diamonds that you arranged to sell to your contact in Hong Kong, LGK, are stolen.”

  “No one just shows up at your doorstep, Carter,” the other one broke in, “and offers to sell you clean diamonds sight unseen.”

  “We don’t have any record of a Mr. Reginald Burton or a Mr. Vito De Angeles being registered diamond brokers, and their company,” the agent paused for effect and then looked down at a paper in front of him, “Endeavor Diamonds and Metals appears to be owned by a holding company registered in the Caymans. That’s just what we’ve been able to dig up over the last twenty-four hours.”

  Carter didn’t see what the big deal was and didn’t understand why these guys were wasting his time. Burton and De Angeles ran a small operation and Carter didn’t care if the company was a shell, and he didn’t particularly care if the diamonds were bought on the gray market—he was getting an incredible deal on them. He realized his mistake now. Janelle was pissed that he was selling on the side to LGK rather than through A.G. Barret.

  “Gentlemen,” Carter said and put his hands on the table. It was time to end this. He was going to have Janelle’s job over this and probably these two agents too. “This has been really interesting, and my attorney is certainly going to have some words with you about tapping my phone. I’m guessing you don’t have any understanding of this business or you’d know that half of these companies are registered in the Caymans or the Bahamas or Ireland or wherever the hell to avoid paying taxes in the US because you guys are so insistent on killing businesses. Janelle, I apologize for teeing this up for a colleague instead of buying them here, but I knew you wouldn’t authorize it.” Carter’s blood was flowing now. He just needed to retake the initiative. “And Janelle, you can believe we’re going to have a conversation with Masterson about this.” Carter stood.

  “Carter, please sit down. You’re in a lot of trouble,” Janelle said and tried to sound concerned.

  “I don’t think so,” Carter said. “You want a tax check. Fine. I’ll write that.”

  “Carter, trafficking in stolen diamonds is a felony. Based on what you purchased from Burton and De Angeles alone, a judge can give you fifteen years. You’re looking at another five for the tax evasion. And that’s just this week.” He slid a piece of paper across the table, and a fast glance told Carter it was a transcript of his conversation with Lau. “But eighty million dollars, Carter, that puts you in jail for the rest of your goddamn life. Now, sit down and stop playing hard-ass. The only reason I don’t arrest you now is I want to catch Burton and De Angeles.”

  The blood drained out of Carter’s face, felt as though it drained out of his entire body, and he did sit back down.

  “What Special Agent Fuery is trying to tell you,” that was the white guy talking, which made him Reaves, “is that you have an opportunity to help yourself. To help your family. We’re going to give you a chance to stay out of prison by helping us apprehend these two.”

  Carter looked out the window. The building faced west, and he saw Fourth Street and beyond that the 110. There was too much smog and haze today, but on a clear one you could sometimes see the ocean from here.

  “All right,” Carter said in a voice that had lost all of its verve. “Let me hear it.”

  Fuery walked him through it.

  These feds were like goddamn pushers the moment they realized you were a full-on junkie. He could already tell. You do a thing for them and it’s never enough.

  Carter was going to call Burton and tell him that he’d spoken to his contact in Hong Kong and they wanted in. The FBI was going to set up a fake office in a building somewhere that they would have wired up, and that’s where the meeting would take place. Carter would tell Burton that his Chinese buyer had a US office and that’s where the buy would be. He’d facilitate the sale. The buyer would be an undercover FBI agent. They would arrest Burton and De Angeles and Carter would be free to go. Well, not exactly “free”—they were still serving him up to the IRS for tax evasion. That wasn’t part of their deal, and Janelle said he was terminated immediately.

  What was he going to tell Amanda?

  She didn’t have to know that they’d threatened him with jail time. All she needed to know was he was helping the FBI with a case and he was leaving A.G. Barret because fuck Janelle, right?

  He’d figure the IRS thing out later. He’d make something up. His fraternity brother Todd Weyland was an attorney, Stanford JD, he’d help with that end.

  Carter had met with Burton and De Angeles two days ago and the FBI already had this sting set up. That seemed pretty fast to him. Maybe this was bullshit after all? “How did you get this together so quickly?” Carter asked. “I just met with them two days ago.”

  Reaves spoke first this time. “Like we said, we’ve been monitoring your phones for some time. But we have playbooks for this sort of thing. Not our first rodeo, pal.”

  Carter hated that phrase.

  “Something funny?” Fuery asked. Carter realized he was smirking and dropped it. He was imagining what Fuery and Reaves would look like in their first rodeo.

  “No, sorry. It’s just strange to me that you’d be able to put this together so fast.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re implying, Carter,” Reaves said, “but generally, yes, these things do take time. As I said, we have playbooks for operations like this, and we have an asset from another investigation that we can divert for this. The Bureau can move quickly when it needs to.”

  “Whatever you’re trying here,
Carter, do yourself a favor and knock it off. Playing the hard-ass is not what you want to do in this situation,” Fuery said. “You’re going to want to make that phone call to Burton, and you’re going to be convincing. Now, I’ve been listening in on your phone calls for the last year, so I know you know how to bullshit. So you’re going to do that now and you’re going to bring your A-game. If you tip Burton off in any way, if I think for a second that you aren’t pitch perfect on this, the deal is off. We will arrest you, you will get at least ten years, and your kid will get to watch her daddy get shipped off to prison.” Fuery paused a moment and then leveled a hard stare at Carter. “You know what the conviction rate is at federal trials? It’s ninety-nine percent. Think on that as you’re weighing your options. Because I’ve dug deep on you over the last year and, Carter LeMothe, I’m here to tell you that you are not a one percenter.”

  “Should we get this over with,” Carter said. He’d make the call just to end Fuery’s speech. Reaves pushed another piece of paper down the table.

  “This has all of the details of your contact, his name, where his office is, company, everything. I doubt that Burton is going to do a check on them, but if he does, it’ll appear as a perfectly legitimate company.”

  Carter reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his iPhone. He opened it and scrolled through the contacts until he found Burton’s number.

  “Put it on speaker,” Fuery said.

  “Then it’ll sound like someone’s in the room,” Carter said.

  “I don’t care. Tell him it’s your secretary.”

  Reaves took Janelle and Levitt out of the conference room. Carter tapped the speaker feature and dialed.

  Carter flipped the switch.

  “Reg, hey. I’ve got good news, buddy.”

  “I could use some good news,” Reginald said. Carter didn’t know the man, but his voice sounded stressed. “How about I come to your office and you tell me?”

  “No need for all that.” Carter had a flash of panic. Burton was cagey and probably these diamonds weren’t totally legal, so there was a good chance he was too smart to do this over the phone. If he insisted on doing this in person, Carter had to imagine that would fuck things up. He talked fast. “So, I spoke to my friend in Hong Kong, and he’s in. I actually caught him while he was here in LA. They’ve got an office in Inglewood near LAX.”

  “That’s convenient,” Reginald said.

  “Yeah. Anyway, they’re interested.”

  “For how much?”

  Carter felt an intense relief wash over him. Sorry, pal, but better you than me.

  “Originally, he only said he’d go forty-five, but I told him we had other buyers lined up. I knew he was just trying to hardball me. I got him to go for the full amount.”

  “You serious?”

  “Right? So, minus the seven million that I bought from you directly, you’ll get about seventy-three from him.”

  “How is it paid?”

  “They’ll do a bank wire to any account you name.”

  “Okay, sounds good. When do we meet?”

  “I need about three days to get everything together. That work for you?”

  “That works.”

  “Great. Listen, I’ll be in touch with the exact time.”

  18

  Jack watched the sun fall off the edge of the world.

  This was a bad idea.

  He was in Santa Monica, on the beach about a block up from where the meeting was supposed to take place.

  Vito had called him earlier that day, said he wanted to talk things out. He wouldn’t say much on the phone; as it was, Vito spoke in rushed tones and hasty words. Like he was a man without much time to talk. And scared.

  Jack rolled that thought over in his mind.

  The sky was turning dark. It looked like a day-old bruise but for the ribbons of fire on the horizon and the carnival lights of the pier that lit up the evening sky. Jack was supposed to be in position now, but he’d already decided that he was going to be late. Give the son of a bitch a few minutes to twist, wonder if he’d been set up. Wonder if the script had finally been flipped.

  Jack wanted nothing more than to run. To go back to Sonoma and forget about all of this, to deal with the very real threat to his livelihood and the people he cared about, but he knew his enemies would never let him. This was in motion now. Even if he walked away tonight, Reginald would still come for him to make sure that Jack could never threaten him again. There were no assurances Jack could give that Reginald would believe. There was also the spite.

  And Bartolo would do the same.

  So, instead of running, Jack was here in the growing darkness creeping just above the Santa Monica Pier, walking into what was certainly a trap.

  “I’m in position,” Enzo said in Jack’s ear. They hadn’t had much time to prep, that was probably the point to the last-minute call, but they’d purchased two-way radios for this job. The thick, rubber-covered antenna were difficult to hide, but at least the thing fit in his pocket. There was a clear earpiece that wrapped around the back of his ear. Anyone looking at him closely would probably think Jack was an undercover cop.

  He had debated telling the others that he’d gotten the call today. Not because Jack didn’t trust them but because he was afraid of what Rusty might do when he found out that Vito called asking for a meet.

  “I’m in position,” Rusty said. “No sign yet.”

  Rusty’s voice was calm, though admittedly it was hard to discern stress on a radio.

  They were both positioned within visual distance of where Vito asked to meet.

  Vito had called Jack that evening, maybe two hours ago, and said he wanted to talk. Jack told him to go to hell, but Vito persisted. He said that he had information Jack wanted, would make it worth his time. Of course it was bullshit and almost certainly a setup, but Jack agreed. If nothing else, he wanted to look Vito in the eyes after these long months and tell him with absolute certainty that they would be stealing their diamonds back.

  That Vito could call him at all was a sign that Jack’s tradecraft was slipping. He should have dropped that phone after Rome, but he didn’t.

  Rusty was calm when Jack told him.

  Jack didn’t know what he expected from the exchange. He realized that he’d only ever seen Rusty under strain twice in all the years they’d worked together. The first he didn’t even “see” because it was over the phone and Rusty was telling Jack that he was running, that Jack should do the same because Special Agent Danzig had figured out who he was and had loosed the Diplomatic Security Service on him. The second time was after Vito shot him in Rome.

  So, Jack didn’t quite know how Rusty was going to react.

  Getting shot was a funny thing. He knew plenty of thieves that just accepted that as an occupational hazard, took their stitches and moved on with it. There were others, though, that reacted poorly. They internalized it, personalized it, and they thought of little more than the get-back. But Rusty wasn’t a thief. Sure, he was a criminal in the classic sense in that he made a living doing illegal things, but he wasn’t a thief. He was brought up with a different code.

  He’d been a cop once, and they tended to be a little less forgiving.

  “Vito wants a meet,” Jack said when he’d hung up the phone. “Says this thing has gotten out of control and he wants to talk it out.”

  “Vito and Reginald?” Enzo asked.

  “Just Vito,” Jack said.

  “It’s probably bullshit,” Rusty said.

  “It’s almost certainly bullshit,” Jack countered, “but I want to hear him out.”

  “I agree with Rusty,” Enzo said. “Vito wants to talk, he can do it on the phone.”

  “I said it was bullshit. I didn’t say we shouldn’t go,” Rusty said with an anger in his voice that, while subtle, was definitely there.

  Vito was lean on the details, said he couldn’t talk long. Told Jack he’d meet him at the Santa Monica Pier. He’d be sitting in a g
azebo in the parking lot, the second one in on the shore, facing the pier. Vito said he’d be alone and asked Jack to do the same. “If I see the others, I walk. I’ll only talk to you. I know you’re reasonable.” In other words, I’m afraid of Rusty.

  So, Vito wanted to deal. Or at least he wanted Jack to think he did.

  Jack dressed, uncharacteristically, like a tourist.

  He wore a loose fitting, off-white camp shirt over light gray golf pants and canvas sneakers. He could run in these clothes if he had to, and the shirt covered up most of the radio’s bulk. It also hid the pistol Jack had in the concealed holster on his waist.

  “I’m approaching,” Jack said into the mic. He walked south toward the pier along the concrete footpath parallel with PCH. The pier was lit up like a circus, and the sound washed over him, as did the smell of confections mixing with the pungency of the ocean. Jack hit a large square parking lot that was now about half-full. Wispy tendrils of sand washed across it in random places. Traffic was heavy on PCH, which ran immediately along the beach, as well as on Ocean Avenue beyond it. In Vito’s mind, this would be his version of a locked room meeting. If Jack couldn’t escape easily, Vito would reason, it would make it much less likely that Jack would try to double-cross him.

  Jack walked across the parking lot, and the sounds of the pier intensified. It was a nice night, warm, and the rains hadn’t started yet. People were out enjoying the night. That was a good sign. Santa Monica also was one of the few parts of California that wasn’t on fire, it seemed. Jack spotted the first building in the row on the pier, the aquarium. It was a large pink building with gray trim and the circus-tent roof. There was a small space, no bigger than an alley, between that building and the long, low one next to it that held smaller shops and a few restaurants. Jack walked through that space. It was lit, but both buildings cast long shadows. Jack entered the parking lot on the other side and spotted the Victorian-style gazebo on the far side.