Leader of the Pack (Andy Carpenter)

by David Rosenfelt

  “You ready for bed?” Laurie asks. It is a question I simply never get tired of hearing, and on the list of questions I root for every day, it ranks just above “What will you do with your lottery winnings?”

  “I’ll race you to the bedroom,” I say.

  “You think you’re going to get lucky?”

  “Hey, babe, there’s no luck involved.”

  She smiles and takes my hand, leading me toward the stairs. “We don’t need to race. We can take it slow.”

  I’m about to reply with some banter, but force myself to be quiet. The only way I can blow this is by saying something stupid, so I clench my teeth as hard as I can, to prevent my mouth from opening. Then I say, “Mmmm,” because that’s all I can manage.

  We go upstairs, and as we approach the bed, the phone rings. “Don’t get it,” I say. “People shouldn’t be calling at this hour.”

  “It’s nine-thirty,” she points out.

  “East Coast time,” I counter, seeking refuge in a non sequitur. “In France it’s four o’clock in the morning.”

  Laurie doesn’t seem moved by this logic, and she answers the phone with “Hello?”

  “Get to the point,” I say, but she’s not listening.

  Laurie engages in some more chitchat, then says, “Hold on, he’s right here.”

  She hands me the phone, and it turns out to be Cindy. “I’ve got some information for you,” she says.

  “Can I call you back in the morning?” I ask.

  “I need to make an appointment to do you a favor?”

  “I’m a high-powered attorney,” I say. “My calendar is booked solid.”

  “OK. How about a year from Thursday?”

  “Actually, I just had a cancellation. So now works.”

  “Good,” she says. “And just so we’re clear, if you reveal where you got this information, your life will have a cancellation.”

  “You’re a cold woman.”

  “It’s part of my charm. Homeland Security was investigating Richard Solarno around the time that he was killed.”

  Laurie is undressed and under the covers already, so I want to move this along, but what Cindy is saying is crucial. They didn’t cover this dilemma in law school.

  “For arms dealing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t they intervene at Joey’s trial?”

  “Come on, Andy. Trial intervening is not their specialty, you know that. And there was nothing to indicate that the murders were related to anything they were investigating.”

  “What specifically did they think he was doing?”

  “Using at least one of his fishing boats to bring in mostly small arms, and possibly shoulder-fired missiles.”

  “Did they know where it was going?” I ask.

  “Montana. And probably elsewhere.”

  “Militia?”

  “Land of the free, home of the brave. Montana State Police could be your source on the other end. If you call my office in the morning, I’ll give you a contact name there.”

  Laurie seems to be about to doze off, inducing a wave of panic in me. But I need to finish talking to Cindy.

  “Can I use this?”

  “Make an application through Freedom of Information. You’ll get it. In the meantime, you can use it.”

  “This is great, Cindy. Thanks. Gotta go.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me talk to Laurie.”

  “LAURIE?” I scream it into the phone, hoping it will wake Laurie up from the beginnings of sleep. “Laurie took Tara for a walk.”

  “Andy,” Cindy says, “you’ve got mental problems.”

  It didn’t work; Laurie is asleep. “Mental problems are the least of it,” I say, before hanging up.

  Now my dilemma is how to wake Laurie up without making it look like I’m intentionally doing so. It’s got to be handled with some subtlety.

  I pretend to stub my toe on the foot of the bed, and I scream in pain. Torture victims have screamed less loudly than I do, and when that doesn’t work, I do it again. She doesn’t wake up, but neighbors up and down the street are probably calling 911.

  I scream again, figuring if she hasn’t woken up yet, then as far as she knows, it’s the initial scream. Her eyes finally open, and she looks at me. “Why are you pretending to be in pain?” she asks.

  “So you’ll wake up.”

  “A gentle, loving nudge would have done the trick.”

  I nod. “I’ll try that next time. I’m going to Montana.”

  “Tonight?”

  “No.”

  “Then get into bed,” she says, raising one side of the covers so I can do so.

  “If you insist,” I say.

  I decide to call Edna in to work. I break the news to her over the phone.

  “You’ve got a client?” she asks, the surprise evident in her voice.

  “We’ve got a client” is how I correct her.

  “Who?”

  “Joey Desimone.”

  “Again?”

  She agrees to come in this morning, not a major concession since she has to pick up her check anyway. But I’m going to need Edna to woman the phones and coordinate communication among the team members while I’m in Montana.

  I’ve called a meeting of the team, such as it is, this morning. It includes Sam, Edna, Laurie, Hike, Willie Miller, and myself. As teams go, it’s not exactly the ’27 Yankees, but we get the job done.

  Willie, my former client and partner in the Tara Foundation, our dog rescue operation, is almost as rich as I am, since we won a big civil case after he was wrongly imprisoned for seven years. So he and his wife, Sondra, work at the foundation full-time, while I just show up when I can. I feel guilty about it, but not as a result of anything they say or do. For them it’s a labor of love. I feel the same way, except for the labor part.

  Willie likes to be involved in our investigations whenever he can, I think primarily because he feels protective of me. As protectors go, he’s pretty good at it, holding a black belt in karate and a fearlessness that’s a perfect complement to my fearfulness.

  Before the meeting starts, Sam comes over to me and tells me that the name of the person Alex Solarno called after I left his home was Richard Atkins. It was his cell phone.

  “But he’s a fake also, Andy. The name and address he gave the phone company aren’t real. But I’m still working on it.”

  Rather than being upset by the information, I’m heartened. It confirms my belief that Solarno was worried about me, and that he has something to hide. It also reinforces my general belief that we’re on the right track.

  I start updating everyone on where we stand with the case when the door opens and Marcus Clark comes in. Rooms always become instantly quiet when Marcus enters; everything stops, including breathing.

  Marcus is a talented investigator I sometimes use as a bodyguard when Marine battalions aren’t available. He barely talks, never smiles to anyone other than Laurie, and is willing to inflict pain and death with no apparent conscience.

  He’s not a guy you’d hire to entertain at your son’s bar mitzvah.

  Suffice it to say I’m glad he’s on our side, though I have no idea what he’s doing here today.

  I call a pause to the meeting, and ask to speak to Laurie in the other room. “What is Marcus doing here?” I ask.

  “He’s going to Montana with you,” she says.

  “No, he’s not.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  This conversation is not heading toward a quick resolution, so I try to move it along. “Why?”

  “Because you’re going to confirm that weapons were sent there. Which means you might run into people who possess and are willing to use those weapons. Which means you need Marcus. Are you following my logic so far?”

  “You don’t think I can handle myself with dangerous people.”

  “If that is a statement, it’s a correct one. If it’s a question, then the answer is, no, I don’t.”

  “That�
�s because you haven’t seen me angry,” I say. “You haven’t gotten on my bad side. You don’t want to get on my bad side.”

  “I tremble at the mere thought of it,” she says.

  I’m not thrilled by the prospect of Marcus accompanying me to Montana. I’ve traveled with him before, and he makes me uncomfortable. It’s not a big deal; I’m just constantly afraid that I will accidentally say something which will make him kill me. Marcus’s bad side is something I may not quite be equipped to handle.

  On the other hand, he likes me, which means he will stop other people from killing me. I do have a tendency to annoy people, and in this case the annoyed might have guns.

  “OK, Marcus is in for the Montana trip. But don’t you think we should call and warn the governor?”

  In the desolation of Central Peru, the warehouse attracted absolutely no attention. This would have been true even if there was someone around to notice it, but this was not an area that had a lot of passersby. There was no one living within twenty miles of the place, and pretty much no reason for anyone to change that. You wouldn’t want to be a real estate agent there.

  On this day, like all other days at this time of year, it was hot and dry, the terrain browned by months without precipitation. That would change when the rainy season came, and the dust would turn to mud. When the changeover was taking effect, there might even be a day or two when the area seemed inhabitable.

  The nearest town, Canalin, was more than three hours away to the east, with only dirt roads to connect to it. To the west, the closest town was almost nine hours away, but the roads were better.

  The trucks came from the west that night.

  Just as they came every night.

  A crew of seven men lived inside the warehouse, never venturing outside. Because the windows were blackened, they never even saw the sunlight, not for the months they had been there. The only times they got to experience any fresh air at all were during the nights, when they opened the door for the incoming trucks.

  Between the men on the trucks and those in the warehouse, there were at least fifteen people each night. Yet if a single word was ever spoken, it was unusual. Everybody knew their job, and no one wanted to call any attention to themselves.

  This was the most important thing they would ever be involved in, and it would make each of them more money than they had seen in their lifetimes.

  It was a difficult existence to endure, at least for those assigned to the warehouse. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and no one was complaining. They didn’t know when the end day would be—that was a decision well out of their control. But the men sensed that it would be weeks, rather than months, because the warehouse was filling up.

  Their sole focus was on doing their job, and doing it well, because that would mean great wealth.

  The opposite meant death.

  I leave at 6:30 A.M. to pick up Marcus. The early departure means I only get to do an abbreviated walk with Tara, though Laurie promises to take her on a longer one later.

  Our flight isn’t until ten forty-five, but Marcus says that he’ll be at a diner in Oakland, which is north of Paterson off Route 208, putting it in the opposite direction from JFK Airport.

  Marcus is standing in front of the diner, holding a small duffel bag, when I arrive. I’m not sure what he’s doing there, although a place of residence is one of the many things I am in the dark about concerning Marcus. His cell phone is a 646 area code, which is Manhattan, so I always assumed that’s where he lived. But maybe not.

  “Unhh,” he says, when he gets in the car, which is likely to sum up the quality of the conversation for the rest of the trip.

  I offer a “good morning,” but that either isn’t worthy of a response or “Unhh” is Marcus-ese for an early-morning greeting.

  “Is your car here?” I ask.

  “Nunh.”

  And we’re on our way.

  Route 208 is fairly empty at this time of the morning. It never gets very crowded, but the peak will be in an hour or so when people start their daily commuting trek into the city.

  Marcus changes the station on the radio to classical music. I’ve driven with him before, so I’m not surprised by either his musical preference or his sense of entitlement regarding the radio. I have a tendency to indulge Marcus.

  We’re passing near Wyckoff when I detect Marcus sitting up slightly and seeming to grow more alert. He also seems to be looking at the passenger-side mirror.

  “Something wrong?” I ask, but I don’t get a response. There is no doubt he’s staring at the mirror. I look in the rearview mirror, but nothing seems amiss.

  “Marcus?”

  Still nothing; it’s as if I’m not here.

  We’re in the left-hand lane, going about seventy in a sixty-five-mile-per-hour zone. I notice a car approaching from behind on our right. It’s probably going seventy-five or so, and is therefore steadily gaining on us. And Marcus hasn’t taken his eyes off the mirror.

  The trailing car is about two car lengths behind us, when I notice with horror that there is a gun in Marcus’s left hand. “Marcus! What the hell is going on?”

  No answer from Mr. Chitchat, but that is to be expected. What is not expected is that the car on the right has inched slightly ahead of us, and is slowly drifting toward our lane. The trunk of the other car is even with the front of our car.

  My horror at the gun in Marcus’s hand pales next to the realization that we are approaching a small tunnel, with large concrete stanchions on each side. If the car moves much closer to our lane, cutting us off, I will have no way to move to the left, because of the stanchions.

  “Marcus, he’s cutting us off!”

  The other car can’t be more than a few inches to our right, and I have no breathing room at all. If he so much as nudges us, we’re going to crash head-on into the concrete.

  The gun, which was in Marcus’s left hand, resting on his lap, is suddenly in his right hand at the window, and is firing, I think twice. It looks like he is aiming low, at the tires, but I can’t tell if he hit anything, because my attention is drawn back to Marcus’s left hand, which violently grabs the steering wheel and yanks it to the right.

  We smash into the car on our right, and send it spinning away from us, toward the right shoulder of the road. Suddenly that shoulder is no longer there, as we have reached the stanchions, and the other car crashes into it in the largest, most fiery collision I have ever seen, in real life or the movies.

  But we’re not out of the woods yet, going into a spin of our own, through the length of the tunnel and out the other side. Marcus still has his hand on the wheel, and he is desperately trying to maintain control of the car. I have been reduced to a passenger in the driver’s seat.

  I have no idea how far we travel like this; it’s hard for me to simultaneously estimate distance and prepare for death. But finally we start to slow down, and we wind up along the side of the road, scraping against a railing.

  “Holy shit” is all I can manage, when we are stopped and all is quiet. My heart is beating so loudly that it seems like we’re listening to a drum solo on the radio.

  “Yunh,” Marcus says.

  You can say that again.

  My first call when we come to a stop is to Pete Stanton. There are going to be a lot of uncomfortable questions asked when officers on the scene realize that Marcus fired at the other car, and I want Pete here to intervene. He knows us, and he knows we don’t go around randomly taking potshots at other drivers.

  He promises to get here right away. I’m feeling shaky, and my voice must reflect it, because he goes the entire call without insulting me.

  My second call is to Laurie. When she hears about this, I want it to be from me, so she’ll know that I’m OK. She gets upset, which makes me even more upset, but we manage to calm each other down.

  “I think Marcus coming along might have been a good idea,” I say, and she refrains from responding with an “I told you so.” Instead she s
ays, “I love you, Andy,” which is definitely preferable.

  My third call is to Vince Sanders. Vince hasn’t run the story yet; he hasn’t even agreed to run it at all. This makes that story a hell of a lot more interesting. Vince also says that he’s on the way.

  I don’t bother calling 911, because I’m sure that other motorists and witnesses must have already done that. Something about a car crashing and exploding attracts attention.

  I tell Marcus to let me do the talking when the police arrive, which is sort of comical on its face. It has to be the first time in his life that Marcus has been asked not to talk. He doesn’t bother to answer me, a sure sign that he’s down with the “not talking” approach.

  We are not anywhere near the burning car, since after it crashed we went through the small tunnel and wound up much farther up the highway. I feel no need to drive back there; the arriving cops will eventually make their way to us. It will give Pete more time to get here, so that we can deal with him first.

  I can see flashing lights through the tunnel as the cops reach the scene, and they start to close off the highway in both directions. Pete shows up maybe three minutes later, and comes straight to where I told him we’d be.

  He takes one look at the car, which has been damaged from hitting a railing a few times. “Any injuries? You guys need medical treatment?”

  Weirdly, I haven’t even thought much about that. “Nothing hurts. Marcus?”

  “Nunh.”

  “We’re OK. Can we give you our statement?”

  “Not yet. But you can tell me what happened.”

  I detail all that happened, and his eyebrows raise when I get to the part about Marcus shooting at the tires.

  He turns to Marcus. “Did you hit the tires?”

  Marcus just gives him a look which silently says, “I’m Marcus Clark; if I shot at the tires, I hit the damn tires.”

  “Did either of you recognize the driver?” Pete asks.

  “I didn’t see his face,” I say, and Marcus just shrugs.

  Pete asks a few more questions, and then says, “Let’s get you out of here and down to the precinct, so you can sign your statement.”