“I see,” said Valdez. “And now, with remnants of the Chicago mob trying to get their hands on the money, some very important people, who stand to lose their shirts if this ever came out, are becom ing nervous.”
“You’ve got it,” said Hanley. “Very important people. Most of them spending a good portion of their year in Washington.”
“There’s one more thing,” said Valdez.
“What’s that?”
“Exactly who funneled the money and the drugs to the Gianetti family?”
Hanley smiled more broadly, then turned toward the dark win dow. After a moment, he turned back to Valdez, nodded, stood with a grimace, and walked slowly toward the back of the plane.
“Time for a pit stop,” said Hanley, before sliding the divider shut.
When Hanley came back from his “pit stop” he settled into his chair and continued where he had left off.
“The money,” said Hanley, “had been set aside over a period of years. It came from special investigation budgets that somehow man aged to go under budget at the agency.”
“What about the drugs?” asked Valdez. “Where did that come from?”
“During the seventies, the drugs had been confiscated from flights originating in South America and the Far East. Coincidently, and conveniently, the drugs in question were warehoused for many years outside Chicago. Officially, the confiscated shipments were recorded as having been destroyed.”
Hanley took his glass and downed the remainder of the melted cubes. After putting the glass down he reclined his chair.
“That’s all there is to it?” asked Valdez.
“Pretty much so,” said Hanley. “In short, you and I have been as signed to close down the search for the money and to make sure no one else knows how any of this originated. The hoods are in it now.
They’ve taken out our first contact and our second contact is floun dering. The agency needs to be certain that, in the process of going after the money, the hoods don’t, as they used to say in mob parlance, upset the apple cart.”
“So they send in two old men,” said Valdez.
“Yep,” said Hanley. “It’s better not to involve more people who might begin to wonder how this thing originated.”
Valdez smiled. “Two old farts with not much to lose.”
“You’ve got a point there,” said Hanley. “But look at it this way. Who better to be seen at a rehabilitation facility than two old farts?”
“What makes you think the hoods will go back there?”
“They have to because the detective holds the key to what they’re after. Or at least they think he holds the key.”
“Should we see about our number one contact when we get to Chicago?” asked Valdez.
“No,” said Hanley. “I’m told he won’t be able to help. But we might run into the young and lovely Maria. She’s been told to return to the rehabilitation facility to watch the detective. A babe watching a Babe.”
Hanley’s smile irritated Valdez. Hanley continued.
“By the way, did someone from Langley send you the photographs of the hoods?”
“They did,” said Valdez.
“And you committed them to memory so we’ll know who’s who?”
“I did.”
“Good. So did I.”
Valdez turned back to the starboard window beside his chair. The cloud cover had cleared somewhat and in the distance, at the horizon beyond the wing, he saw the lights of a city. Depending on the route the Learjet had taken, it could be Knoxville or Winston-Salem.
As he stared out at the lights on the horizon, Valdez recalled the photographs of Max Lamberti and his cronies, but he also recalled the photograph he’d seen at the Miami office of the contact named Maria. A slender young woman with dark hair and eyes. A young woman who could pass for a college student or a nurse or the daughter of a stroke patient. A young Hispanic woman who could have been his daughter if he and his wife had had children.
He glanced away from the window and saw across the aisle that Hanley had closed his eyes. Judging from the smile on Hanley’s face, Valdez assumed he, too, was envisioning the young woman. A girl, really. A girl whose photograph reminded Valdez so much of his wife years earlier when they first met.
With memories of his wife at various ages playing back in his mind, Valdez turned back to his window and looked out. Only now he envisioned another woman. A more mature Maria, whom he had met several times at Hanley’s house in Naples. Maria, the woman who had made her way into his dreams of late, pushing the image of his late wife aside.
Valdez felt his eyes grow moist. He took out his handkerchief, wiped at his eyes, then leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and rested.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
FOUR
The brightly lit ??-hour convenience store located at one end of a newly-constructed strip mall in the far southwestern sub urbs was busy because housing developments in the area had spread as fast as the corn once grown in these wet fields. Some customers had left their engines running and the wagging fingers of windshield wip ers swept back and forth. The customers came out of the convenience store carrying lottery tickets, soft drinks, cigarettes, candy, and eve ning editions of Chicago newspapers.
The strip mall was new enough that most of its promised “Prime Business Locations” were dark and vacant. In fact, the only business being transacted seemed to be at the far ends of the mall. The con venience store doing its brisk business at one end, while at the other end, a self-serve car wash not doing such a brisk business because of the weather. Only one vehicle was inside the car wash, a full-size van being sprayed by what appeared to be a legless man in a wheelchair. Some patrons of the convenience store commented on this strange sight as they drove out of the parking lot toward their split levels and multistory homes.
From the back seat: “Daddy, that guy’s got no legs.”
From the front seat: “Yeah, no brain either.”
Also from the front seat: “Honey.”
“How come he’s got no brain, Daddy?”
“Mom’s right. I didn’t mean he doesn’t have a brain. It’s just that it’s raining and when he’s done washing his van it’ll simply get dirty again. But if it makes him happy …”
“He’s kind of roly-poly, isn’t he?”
Laughter from the front seat. “Yes, dear. But I think your father would agree we wouldn’t say that to him if we met him.”
From the back seat, head twisting to look out the back window. “No, I guess we wouldn’t, ‘cause that would be mean.”
Her thighs stung where they had been burned, the dampness of her slacks chilled her, her mouth felt raw where the tape had been, and she smelled like coffee gone stale.
Dino leaned forward in the seat beside her, his elbows resting on his knees. He stared at her with narrowed eyes, never letting a slight grin leave his face. His voice was matter-of-fact but loud enough so he could be heard above the sound of the pump and the blast of the high-pressure spray against the side of the van.
“We know all about you, Mrs. Babe. We know your husband was a private detective and before that a member of the Chicago Po lice Department. Both you and your husband were close to Marjorie Gianetti. Although she had a stroke, she and your husband spoke of things, and your husband told you about these things.”
He paused, letting this sink in while he cleaned his teeth with his tongue. He did not glance toward the front of the van when the spray began on the windshield.
“We have a golden opportunity for you, Mrs. Babe. The oppor tunity to go home and, eventually, go back to visiting your husband and helping him on his road to recovery. It’s an opportunity that gives both of you a chance to have a normal life.
“You went to see Tony Gianetti today. After leaving, you didn’t follow him, yet you showed up at the bank. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t tell us everything you know. Who could it hurt? Marjorie Gianetti’s dead, so no matter what you say, she won’t be hurt.
Her son was just killed in that terrible accident, so he can’t be hurt. It’s a win-win situation, Mrs. Babe. You know where we should go next because you were at the first location. Marjorie Gianetti revealed something that led you to that bank.”
He paused again, this time glancing toward the front where the driver was still spraying the windshield. When she glanced there, she could see only the distorted shape of the driver’s knit cap through the spray pounding the windshield. The driver was down low, and the imagined image of the legless man circling the van was bizarre.
“Mrs. Babe, whatever opinion you might have had of Marjorie Gianetti and her son, it must be obvious to you by now that they’ve been hiding something. Before his death some time ago, the senior Tony Gianetti misappropriated a large sum of money which did not belong to him.”
Dino gestured toward his chest with both hands. “It was our money, Mrs. Babe. Everybody has family. We’re a big family. All we’re doing is trying to get our money back.”
He reached down to the floor between him and the side of the van. He showed her a bulky manila envelope. He held the envelope by the top between two fingers and shook it. She could hear the jangle of metal. If there were coins inside, they were large coins.
“Do you know what’s in here, Mrs. Babe?”
Keys. Steve had said Marjorie was obsessed with some kind of keys kept secret within the Gianetti family. Jan could only assume the keys had been in the safe deposit box at the bank, and that the men in knit caps—perhaps one of them had been Dino—had retrieved the keys from the wreckage of Tony Gianetti’s Prius. Perhaps the keys be longed to other safe deposit boxes at other locations, locations pointed to by the litany of U.S. routes. She did not answer.
Dino’s pushed the envelope closer to her face. “I asked you a question.”
“I … I don’t know what’s in there.”
He pulled the envelope back, held it in his lap, and carefully emp tied the contents into one hand. He held his hand out for her to see. “Keys, Mrs. Babe. You knew that. Your husband told you.”
“No. He never said anything. Marjorie and I talked about things sometimes, but I could never make sense of it. The only thing she did say once was that I should go to this bank.”
“She told you to go to the bank?”
“Yes.”
He returned the keys to the envelope and placed the envelope back on the floor. “Why did she tell you to go to that particular bank?”
“She said it was a good place to do business and that I …”
He slapped her hard, jolting her head to the side. The sound of the car wash sprayer went away for a moment, and when she heard it again she felt Dino’s hot breath on her face.
“You were at that bank today while Gianetti was there! With out following him, you knew he would be there! We want to know how you knew! If we don’t get it out of you, we’ll get it out of your husband!”
He held her blouse, twisting it and shouting into her face. “Don’t fuck with this! It’s a family matter and if you fuck with it, there’s no way you or your husband will survive!”
When he let go of her blouse, he made a show of straightening it and smiling. She stared at Dino, her face stinging where he’d hit her.
“You have to understand, Mrs. Babe, we’re in business. Like any business that’s going to survive these days, we’ve become a little leaner and meaner. I’ve got a boss to answer to. That’s the down side of the business, but here’s the up side. When you tell us everything you know, which, as I said, does nothing to hurt you or your husband or anyone else, you’ll not only go back to your husband, but you’ll never have to worry about money again for the rest of your lives. Think about it, Mrs. Babe. Never worrying about money for the rest of your lives no matter how many specialists your husband needs. You’ll be able to hire private nurses. You’ll be able to bring him home. And if you’re worried about this business ever coming back and biting you, don’t. We know you have friends in the Chicago Police Department who sometimes do favors for you. But we also have friends in the De partment. No matter what you tell us, we can guarantee it will never come back on you.”
He reached out and touched her cheek. “It’s a tough world. Some times we do things we’d rather not do. We have the keys. We own the keys. All we need from you is where we should go with those keys.”
He held up the envelope again and shook it. “These are all keys to safe deposit boxes, Mrs. Babe. All we need now is to figure out where to go with them. What’s in those boxes belongs to us. If you help us, we’ll help you. If you don’t help us …”
He shrugged his shoulders, stared at her and waited some time before continuing.
“Perhaps I can offer some encouragement,” he said, leaning for ward a little as he stared at her. “You don’t know the details, but you do know things we’d like to know. Perhaps if you simply start talking about your visits with Marjorie Gianetti something will come out that will help. So why not try? It won’t hurt anyone to try, will it?”
She recalled her visit to the library that might just as well have been years ago instead of earlier the same day. She recalled the news paper articles about the Gianetti family. Tony Gianetti, the behind the-times mobster who ended up in the trunk of his Lincoln in 1986, allegedly killed for giving organized crime a bad name. Tony Gianetti, who valued his private life with Marjorie and Tony Junior and main tained a low profile in the years prior to his death.
Then there was Max Lamberti, who had demonstrated at Marjo rie’s funeral he was the boss Dino referred to. Had this been Max’s plan all along? To grab her because she knew something that could help him settle a drug-bust feud he had with Gianetti? Max Lamber ti, the “fly in the ointment.” Max Lamberti, the “black sheep” of the family. Max Lamberti, admitting in the video at the library that his Uncle Tony was in the mob.
And now there was Dino, the man sitting beside her, the man star ing at her. The same man as the younger Dino in the video cruising out of Burnham Harbor on Lamberti’s motor yacht. Dino Justice, who had changed his name from Deveno after his encounter years earlier with Steve at the produce market. Dino Justice, whose father dropped out of organized crime after the 280-million-dollar drug bust in 1980. Were these men related to the rise in deaths Steve had told her about? An increase in deaths among Chicago detectives that took place following the drug bust?
Then she recalled another piece of information she’d come across at the library, something that just might get Dino off the track, some thing to make him think she’d been searching for information that had nothing at all to do with Max Lamberti.
“I … I’ll try to help,” she said, doing her best to look defeated. “Before his stroke, Steve was working on a case that had to do with health care brokers. Something about people who put pressure on big companies to make deals with their own insurance companies. I never knew much about the case except that families and friends of the ones running the scam were sometimes put on the insurance rolls of the companies for nothing. Steve was looking into it for a client when he had his stroke and I was trying to help jog his memory.”
Dino continued staring at her, no sign of anger on his face, simply mild interest. So she continued.
“When I discovered who Marjorie’s husband was, I asked her a few questions. But she never seemed to know what I was talking about. The only thing she mentioned was that she didn’t like to talk about her husband’s business. Once, she mentioned her nephew Max, say ing he was in the kind of business her husband had been in, but that was the extent of it.”
When she finished her speech, Dino stared at her a few more sec onds, reached down to the floor and came up with the wide roll of tape. He tore off a fresh piece of tape and slapped it across her mouth, press ing so hard the tape pushed between her lips and against her teeth.
The car wash pump shut off and the spray on the van stopped. Beyond the windshield outside the forward exit door of the car wash it was still raining, the drops slanting through the ligh
ts shining down on the puddled asphalt.
The next stop was somewhere dark. They had driven only a few min utes from the car wash before the lights faded and the road became
bumpy. At first she thought they might be back in the field at the end of the road where they had caught her. But then she heard something scrape along the side of the van and caught a glimpse of wet leaves.
When the van stopped and the lights went out, Dino made his way forward, going between the front seats. Although she could barely see him, she could tell from shadowed movements and sounds that he was in the front passenger seat. As she stared toward the front of the van, she saw the shadows of both the driver’s and Dino’s heads against the scarcely perceptible light coming in through the windshield. The sky was overcast, and below the sky she could see the outline of bare tree tops that looked like thin arms appealing to God for help.
Dino spoke softly to the driver in his deep voice.
“You still hungry?”
“I’m always hungry,” said the driver, his voice phlegmy.
“Eating all that fatty food’s not good. You should have more fiber.”
“I get enough of that at home.”
“Vegetables and grains?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, then, I guess you’ll live a long and healthy life.”
“Yeah. I only eat junk food when we’re out like this. Instant en ergy, I guess.”
“You don’t need that much energy to drive.”
“I know, but I might need it for something else.”
“Could be. But if you don’t, be sure to go to the gym in the morn ing and burn off some of that cholesterol. You don’t want to have a stroke and screw up your retirement. That’s what happens to lots of guys. They work like dogs all their lives, and when they finally get into position for that golden parachute, wham, blood clot in the brain.”
Final Stroke Page 29