by Ted Galdi
The prosthetic tucked under one arm, he stuffs his other through a star-shaped space in the window, opens the door, and heaves the driver onto the pavement.
Glen jumps in his seat. A bullet crashes into the trunk hatch. He pounds the gas. Turns a corner at about fifty miles per hour, the SUV almost tipping. And zips out the gangster’s sight.
Twenty-Five
Tommy’s Chevy Cruze pulls in front of a firehouse in Clyde’s neighborhood. With a fresh, white facade and large lawn of palm trees, it’s a departure from the old brick building on the tight city street where Tommy worked in Queens. Yet also has similarities. The same gleam on the polished fire trucks. The same American flag out front. The same relaxed readiness of the men walking around.
Tommy wanders through the garage door, says to the first passing fireman, “Excuse me.”
“What’s up?”
“I did the job in New York for a few years.”
The fireman grins, extends his hand. “Drew.”
“Tommy.” He shakes it. “When I’m on vacation, I like picking up gear from local ladder companies. You guys sell shirts and stuff?”
“Yeah man. What’re you, a large?”
“That should fly.”
“Red or blue?”
“Blue.”
The fireman disappears through a doorway. Returns with a blue City of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department tee shirt, a price tag of twenty-five dollars.
“Sweet,” Tommy says. He pays in cash. “Be good, Drew.”
The fireman waves.
Tommy returns to his car, removes his shirt, and slips into his new one, tucking it into his jeans. He slides his phone from his pocket, downloads an app for web-based phone calls, and dials Clyde’s cell, the app assigning a local number to the caller.
“Agent Gabor,” Clyde says. “Who is this?”
Tommy puts on the voice of Clyde’s neighbor and says, “Sorry to bother you at work. It’s Peter. Next door. I was working on my garden and noticed something in your lawn. It’s getting worse every couple minutes. Had to let you know.”
“What’s getting worse?”
“It’s like a green goo. Smoke coming off it.”
“A smoking green goo?”
“I guess that’s how I’d describe it. I’ve never really seen anything quite like it.”
“Jesus. How much is there?”
“Oh, hmm. Maybe a bathtub’s worth.”
“A sewage leak?”
“Hard to tell. I don’t want to go near it of course. Seems toxic. I’m getting another call. I need to go. You should—”
“Wait. What’s—”
“Sorry, this is important. My doctor. You should really come home and check it out yourself. Bye Clyde.”
Tommy hangs up. Then makes another call from a local number. A receptionist says, “FBI San Diego field office. How can I assist you?”
Tommy, mimicking Clyde’s voice, says, “This is Agent Gabor. I’m having issues with the wires connected to my computer. They’ve been sparking up for some reason. The fire department is sending a guy over to check things out. Let him right up to four when he gets here. About ten, fifteen minutes.”
The receptionist confirms. Tommy drives five or so miles to the FBI office, a contemporary compound with plenty of glass and right angles. He grabs the clipboard he took from Clyde’s study, the sheet of basketball plays that were on it replaced with a fire-inspection checklist he printed from the internet.
He walks into the building. On the wall of the high-ceilinged lobby is a large FBI seal, the words “Fidelity,” “Bravery,” and “Integrity” at its center. He signs in at the front desk with a fake name, weaves his way among a bustle of bodies to an elevator, and presses the “4” button.
He steps out onto Clyde’s level, filled with dozens of cubicles, and paces toward the southwest corner. On the computer screens in his periphery are all sorts of charts and lists. He figures his name is on ones just like these. Thomas Dapino, felon forever ingrained in America’s official record.
His feet slow as he scans the placards on cubicles. Special Agent Clyde Gabor, empty desk. A woman with heavy blue eye shadow who sits next to Clyde asks, “Can I help you?”
“Hey there. Routine inspection for electrical hazards. An agent named…” He pretends to read something on his clipboard. “Clyde Gabor made the report. I was told he sits here. Is that accurate?”
“Yes. But he had some emergency at home, had to run out. He should hopefully be back in a bit.”
The two agents across Clyde’s desk in the four-person cubicle pod are behind a divider. They should be fine. But the woman with the blue eye shadow has too clear a view. She needs to leave.
“It’s better he’s away,” Tommy says. “I need to run a couple tests. For safety reasons, when I do, he shouldn’t be near any wires. Due to proximity, it seems your workstation could be affected as well. Would you mind taking a quick break? Get a cup of coffee or something.”
“Oh. Jeez. How long?”
“Fifteen minutes max, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” She grins. “I don’t look that old, do I?”
“Not a day over…thirty?”
The woman, at least forty-five, blushes. Then walks away. Tommy crawls under Clyde’s desk. Lakers529 was his home-computer password, Tommy assuming it’s his work one too. He enters it on the keyboard. And receives a message back saying, “Sorry, wrong password.”
He clenches his fist. A high-security institution like the FBI may require password refreshes every few months, Lakers529 possibly Clyde’s once, now replaced with something else. If so, keeping mental track of all those passwords would be confusing. Tommy recalls the Post-its in Clyde’s study.
He slides open the top drawer of the filing cabinet. Binders, notebooks, folders. Nothing indicative of a password. Similar items in the cabinet’s second drawer. But on the third’s inner wall, a Post-it. He peels it off, reads a sequence of pen-drawn letters, numbers, and symbols. And inputs them into the password field. The screen unlocks.
“Hell yes,” he whispers to himself.
With Clyde’s mouse, he clicks on the email-app window, eyeballs the inbox. At 3:12 AM a message came in with no subject from a sender named Gary Flim. Tommy opens it. No content in the body. Attached are three files, one titled “VM,” the other “SMS,” the third, “Log.” Tommy forwards the message to his email address, arranges the windows on Clyde’s desktop as they were, and relocks the screen.
He walks to the elevators. Rides to the first floor. The lobby is denser with employees than it was earlier, probably due to the start of lunch hour. He works his way to the exit. When he’s about a dozen feet away, he hears, “Tommy?”
He stops, glances over his shoulder toward the female voice. Standing in the crowd, a “Happy Greens” to-go bag in her hand, is Jordana. He smiles. “Jordana. Hey.”
“Agent Gabor said you were going back to New York. I was…well, I was hoping to say goodbye. Glad I ran into you. What…what’re you doing here?”
“Clyde forgot something at the house. Just doing him a favor, dropping it off.”
Her gaze angles to the City of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department logo on his chest, then the clipboard in his grip. He presses it to his hip to hide the inspection checklist. Her eyes narrow in suspicion.
“That doesn’t sound like him,” she says. “Not very forgetful. What’d he leave behind?”
“Oh, just…vitamins.”
“He made you drive all the way over here to bring him vitamins?”
“It was my idea. I saw his baggy of pills left behind on the kitchen counter. He’s letting me crash by him and all. Figured I owed him one.”
“I didn’t realize he was such a health nut.”
“According to his wife, the vitamin thing is a new habit. Wouldn’t want him to break it while he was just getting started. Well…glad I ran into you too. Good luck with the rest of the case. Bye.”
“All right. Bye.”
He conti
nues to the glass door. It opens from the other side. A woman holding a Starbucks cup. Tommy glances at her face. Clyde’s cubicle mate with the blue eye shadow.
“Oh, hi,” she says. “Did you figure out what was wrong?”
“Easy fix. You guys are all set.”
“Wow. You really…took care of business up there.”
Jordana paces over, says to the woman, “Hey Patricia.”
“Quick.”
“You know him?”
“I…just met him before. Why…do you know him?”
“Well, I…where do you know him from?”
“If he’s your boyfriend or something, I’m not trying—”
“No. He’s not my boyfriend.”
“He’s a fire inspector. Was working on Agent Gabor’s desk.”
Jordana turns to Tommy, concern in her expression, then back to the woman. “Can you give us a minute?”
“Of course.” She merges with the lobby crowd.
Jordana says to him, “I didn’t know the fire department recently branched out into vitamin delivery.”
He considers lies. None would work.
She says, “Whatever this is, is a bad idea. Please…step away, let us do our job.”
“I want you to do your job. I just want to…help. Same as I did in Mexico. What’s wrong with that?”
“A lot. I have to tell Gabor about this. Whatever the hell it is. He’s my partner.” She taps her phone, says into it, “Dapino is…Ah, you knew…Okay…Lobby…Yeah.” She ends the call.
His eyes shift to the window.
“You can leave before he gets here,” she says. “But that won’t make this go away.”
He cracks his neck.
A couple minutes pass. Then he hears from behind, “My Goddamn wife?”
Tommy faces a livid Clyde marching toward him. Startled employees clear a path. “You spent the morning bullshitting her? And my neighbor? Who do you think you are?”
“Mrs. Gabor is a…she’s great. I didn’t mean any disrespect. I just needed to know where you sat.”
“Why?”
“Did you really think I was going to just…quit?”
“There’s nothing for you to even quit. This isn’t a team you’re on. Me and Quick, we’re a team. And you…you need to go back to New York.”
“I deserved to see what was on that phone. You know I did.”
“You don’t deserve anything. You’re lucky I didn’t have you charged for interfering with a federal investigation.”
Tommy laughs. “I’m the best thing that happened to this investigation.”
Clyde looks around. People watch. He quiets his voice, says, “Not here. Let’s talk about this at my house later. Can you—”
“Why not here? Don’t want me to embarrass you in front of your coworkers?”
“Keep your voice down. Let’s at least go outside.”
“Nah. I’m fine here.”
Clyde grasps his forearm. “Outside, now.”
Tommy rips his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Let’s just go outside where—”
Tommy says loud enough for the observers to hear, “Where we can talk about everything I did last night? How you sat in the car while I got my hands dirty in the junkyard? How I risked my life to help your failing case? How you want to pretend it never happened? Is that what you want to talk about outside?”
Clyde’s eyes jump to the faces of the surrounding employees, then settle back on Tommy. “You stupid son of a bitch.”
Twenty-Six
Tommy, Clyde, and Jordana sit in a row of chairs in an office on the top floor of the FBI building. Etched on the frosted glass of the closed door is “Helga Wichita – Special Agent in Charge.”
Wichita, a late-forties woman in similar business attire as Jordana, but a much larger size, paces at the head of the room. She must be into bodybuilding, with each step her quadriceps bulging like supermarket turkeys under her skirt.
“Okay,” she says into her phone. Her eyes zero in on Clyde’s. “He’s here right now…You bet I will…Thanks…You too.”
She hangs up, sits at her desk. Behind her are half a dozen plaques showcasing newspaper pages with mug shots of criminals and headlines about their capture, hanging high on the wall like a hunter’s prized busts.
“That was the FBI’s liaison in Mexico City,” she says. “What the hell happened in Tijuana?”
“We worked with his team to identify the suspect,” Clyde says. “Then we interrogated him. Exactly as planned.”
“Then what?”
“Unfortunately, the suspect didn’t provide much in the interrogation. But I’m confident we can get around that. Give me until the end of the day, I’ll piece something together.”
“The federales found your suspect dead last night. Skull cracked open. Not long after you talked to him. From what they gathered, potentially some mix-up with the Italian mafia.”
Clyde fakes a surprised expression. “I…we…know nothing about that. The man is…was…a gangster. A feud with another organized-crime syndicate isn’t surprising I suppose.”
“One based in Mexico, sure. But one based three thousand miles away in New York…come on.”
“What’re you suggesting?”
She nods at Tommy. “Your new friend here is from New York, isn’t he?”
“He’s not my friend. And he’s not in the Italian mafia. Look him up in—”
“I already did. He may not be in the mob, but he’s still a felon. And he’s involved in some type of dirty work here. Did you hire him as a contractor? Couldn’t handle Mexico without outside help?”
“I have no business arrangement with him. We—”
“That’s not what the agents who heard you two screaming at each other downstairs seem to think. The FBI has thirty-five thousand employees. I could’ve sent reinforcements if you asked. What would motivate you to call on some ex-con?”
“He’s not just some ex-con. He’s one of the victims’ brothers.”
“Fine. I still don’t see how that changes anything. I sent you to Mexico to do a job on behalf of the federal government. And you outsourced a chunk of it to someone the federal government wouldn’t go anywhere near.”
“He went down to Tijuana on his own. With his own agenda. We just happened to cross paths.”
“And then the lead suspect just happened to get his head split like a coconut, huh?”
“That was unrelated—”
“Save it.” She peers at Jordana. “If Agent Gabor didn’t partner with this wannabe vigilante, I’m assuming you did. You were the only two—”
“She had nothing to do with any of this,” Clyde says. “I’m the lead agent on the case, ma’am. If anything didn’t unfold according to…proper procedure, I take full responsibility.”
“This load of responsibility is heavy. And it reeks of shit. Glad you’re dumping it on your own shoulders. Sounds like you deserve it.”
“Let me know how I can make this right.”
“You can’t. Not only did this felon do whatever the hell he did in Mexico yesterday, but stormed into the office today. Tampered with your workstation according to Patricia Volmes. Which houses a computer packed with sensitive information. Then made a scene in my lobby. He embarrassed the FBI. He embarrassed me. And more than anyone, he embarrassed you.”
“I apologize.”
“I don’t care. You’re suspended, Gabor. Effective immediately.”
Clyde stands. “Miss Wichita, that would be detrimental to the case. We’ve made progress. Removing me would set us back and—”
Wichita stands. “Effective immediately. Badge and gun.”
A loud exhale from Clyde’s nostrils. He glares at Tommy, sets his badge and gun on the desk.
“Quick,” Wichita says. “You’re the new lead. Is that something you can handle?”
A pause. “Yes ma’am.”
Wichita points at Tommy. “And you. If I see you near this building again,
if I see you near this investigation again, if I see you near me again, I’m going to throw you in a federal prison so despicable Attica is going to seem like Barbados.”
Clyde stomps out. Slams the door. Tommy follows him into the hallway. “Clyde, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I was just—”
“Shut up.” Though Clyde is in a work suit, inside a work building, Tommy doesn’t see him as Clyde the FBI agent right now, but Clyde the person. The one from Cannonball Bar & Grill, from home. Pugsy’s best friend, Val’s husband.
Clyde turns around. His shoes clack on the marble floor as he distances down the hallway. He vanishes into an elevator.
“What were you thinking?” Jordana asks.
“The burner data. I had a right to see—”
“Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Either way, this wasn’t the way to get it. Did you even consider the consequences for Gabor and me? If he didn’t take the fall like the class-act guy he is, I would’ve been in just as much trouble.”
“I didn’t have bad intentions. For either of you.”
“I believe that. You just weren’t thinking about us at all. You were only thinking about yourself. Which is just as bad as having bad intentions.”
“Whatever. I’ve got to go.”
“Where?”
“It’s probably best if I kept you out of this. Don’t want to get you on the naughty list like I did to him.”
“You’re not done yet?”
“I’ve endured a lot worse in life than an angry speech. None of it’s stopped me. Neither will this.”
“Wichita can swing around a lot more than anger. She has serious pull, at the highest levels of the federal government. And now she has a grudge against you. If she sees you poking around, she’ll nail you for what we didn’t. Interfering with a federal investigation. You will end up back in prison.”
“I’m a felon. Maybe I belong in prison. But I’m finishing this first.”
“You don’t belong in prison. Let me…help you.”
“With what?”
She looks around, a few employees conversing nearby, then leads Tommy into a conference room, the sun shimmering through its big window. She closes the door. “I probably should be talking you out of this. But I know you wouldn’t listen. If you’re going to pursue the leader, let me at least keep you off the FBI’s radar.”