by Andy Straka
I handed over my ID and did my best, and eventually it did some good. The agent released Toronto’s two big shipping containers into his custody and the TSA agent cleared out to watchdog duty somewhere else.
“How are you holding up?” Toronto asked in the car a few minutes later.
“Not so good,” I said. “No sleep. I didn’t think having something like this happen to Nicole would put me over the edge, but maybe it has.”
He nodded. “Hey, you’re human.”
“Right.”
“You got a plan?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He crossed his arms and leaned his head against the car window, closing his eyes.
“Speaking of sleep, how much have you had?”
“An hour just now on the plane. I had a lot of prep to do once I got your call.”
I glanced at his weathered fatigue pants and battered leather jacket, the new lines that had begun to gather on his face. “It’s good to have you back in the saddle, buddy.”
“Feels good to be back.”
We drove on in silence for a few minutes.
In the middle of the bridge on the way back into Manhattan he blurted, “So I hear we may be tangling with some remnants of Sudanese militias.”
“What? You just got here,” I said. “How do you know that?”
He opened his eyes and sat up straight again. “After I talked to you, I made a couple of phone calls.”
“At three in the morning?”
He shrugged. “No one you’d know, trust me. But these people are connected to the street, especially in Harlem and around the north end of the park.”
“Yeah, well maybe you’d better pass on this info to the NYPD.”
“Don’t worry. They’ll find out soon enough, if they haven’t already.”
“No one said anything in the meeting at the precinct I just came from.”
He shrugged. “You know how it goes in the belly of the beast.”
“By the time they figure how they really want to attack this thing, it could be game over.”
“So how do you plan to go after these people?”
“Two pronged approach,” I said. “First, we sit on Watisi.”
“Okay. He dirty?”
“Somehow. He’s definitely connected. The cops have figured that out by now too. Problem is, he’s lawyered up and it’s going to take them too long to shake anything loose from him.”
“Sure.”
I looked at my watch. “He’s probably still being questioned at the station house in Central Park with his attorney. My guess is they’re going to have to let him go.”
“Which is when we’ll move in for another round of questioning.”
“Yes, but we’ll need to be careful. NYPD will have someone keeping tabs on him.”
“A discreet round of questioning then,” Toronto said.
* * * * *
Stepping out of the precinct in Central Park, Dominic Watisi was accompanied by his attorney, a fat middle-aged gentleman with sagging cheeks, a receding hairline, and a two thousand dollar suit. They crossed the roadway to a parking lot where a dark blue limousine waited.
Through the binoculars I was able to pick out the NYPD surveillance too. A guy sporting a full beard, muscle t-shirt, and a backpack was climbing onto a bicycle and either speaking softly to the other side of his schizophrenic personality or into a hidden microphone that went along with the earpiece he was wearing.
“Okay,” I said. “We’re on the move.”
I fired up the Chevy, which we’d managed to tuck between a panel van and a city maintenance vehicle on the far side of the lot. Toronto stirred from another nap.
“All right then,” he said. “Let’s do it.” Not a moment’s hesitation in his voice, as if he’d been sleeping with one eye open.
“We’ve got a bicyclist on observation, probably in touch with a mobile unit a block or two away.”
“Goodie.”
“I’ll stay well back of them. The Limo should be easy enough to pick out. Probably headed back uptown to Watisi’s office anyway. Once we get the indication they’re headed that way, we’ll cut across 125th Street and try to beat them there.”
“How do we get out without being seen after we talk to him?”
“Somehow,” I said.
“Good plan,” he said.
It worked out almost as well as I had hoped. The limo was indeed headed back to Watisi’s office and with a little fancy maneuvering we managed to arrive there, stash the car semi-legally between a dumpster and a blocked off section of street construction, and slip into the office reception area before the boss returned. A secretary, not Watisi’s wife, looked up at us as we walked in.
“May I help you gentlemen?”
She was younger, about Nicole’s age, brown skin, a diamond stud earring protruding garishly but not entirely unattractively from one side of her petite nose. I flashed my VA Investigator ID, hoping she wouldn’t take the time to examine it, which she didn’t.
“Internal Revenue,” I said. “We’re here to see Mr. Watisi.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, but he isn’t in at the moment.”
“But he’s expected back soon.”
“I don’t know, I?”
“We’ll just wait in his office. We’ve been here before. His wife knows us.”
“She does? Maybe that’s okay then, although I’m not sure?”
“Listen, he’s going to be here any minute with his lawyer. We just talked with them on the phone. They told us to wait inside and help ourselves to the club soda.”
“Club soda?”
“Federal agents, miss. No drinking on the job.”
“Okay.”
If she said anything else, I didn’t hear it because Toronto and I had already slipped through the door down the hall and into Watisi’s office.
“Man with the clipboard,” Toronto said.
“What’s that?” I was busy making sure the door stayed closed behind us.
“Man with the clipboard. They say if you carry a clipboard, especially if you’re Caucasian and look official enough, you can walk into almost any warehouse in America. You just demonstrated it again. I wonder what the federal prison term is for impersonating an IRS agent?”
“We haven’t got much time.” I took a look around. Everything was the same as I remembered it. “You think our kingpin developer keeps anything important in his office, like financial records or anything that might of help to us?”
Toronto was scanning the room too. “Best bet’s the laptop,” he said.
There was a black laptop computer perched on the developer’s desk, its screen propped open but dark. I followed Toronto over to it.
“Probably in sleep mode,” he said. He punched a couple of keys and the machine flickered to life.
“I’ll watch the door,” I said.
“What am I looking for?”
“Easy. Anything marked illegal employees, racketeering, extortion?that sort of thing,” I said, slipping back to the closed door and putting my ear up to wood.
“You are not a funny man.”
“It’s either that or lose it completely,” I said.
He simply nodded.
The hallway was clear. The secretary must have gone back to her work. Either that or went to call for help.
Toronto worked the laptop, searching. After three or four minutes of admiring the rest of Watisi’s office, I said, “Anything?”
“Maybe. We have a printer in here?”
I spotted one on the side table behind the desk.
“There.” I pointed.
Toronto spun around in his chair and stood to lean over and pull a cable out from behind the printer. He snaked it across to the laptop and plugged it into the back of the computer. Turned it on and it began to spit out the pages.
“Just need one more minute.”
I kept my ear to the door, straining to hear any sound. “That may be all we’re going to get.”
When Dominic Watisi burst into the room exactly two and a half minutes later, with his storm troopers and attorney in tow, Toronto and I had already taken up stations on the couch in the seating area across from the desk. We acted as though were making casual conversation and had been waiting there all along.
The laptop, printer, and cable, of course, had been set back in their original position. And unless Watisi was into fingerprinting on the spot or counting the number of blank sheets in his printer tray, we were going to be okay. The summary list of each of the companies in which he had an interest rested securely in my jacket pocket.
“You again.” Watisi’s eyes grew small and hard upon seeing me there. “What kind of ruse are you trying to pull with my secretary?”
“Really sorry about that,” I said. “We had to get into the building quickly. Didn’t want to run the risk of being seen.”
“Seen? Seen by whom?”
“Who do you think? NYPD’s keeping tabs on you.”
“This is unacceptable,” the lawyer said to his client.
“Mr. Watisi. We can take care of this.” The security team this time included my old friend flanked by another young cretin, who looked equally narrow-eyed and hungry. Both had flinched and held back at the first sight of Toronto, but they seemed to have recovered from their initial trepidation.
“A horse that can’t wait to leave the gate usually runs out of gas before the finish,” Toronto said, staring at the security types but not stirring from his seat on the couch.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Watisi held out his arm for the two bodyguards to back down.
“Who are these men?” the attorney asked.
“One of them,” he said, indicating me, “is a private detective. The other one, I’m not so sure.” He cast a curious eye on Toronto.
“Private detective? Did you hire him, Dominic?”
“No. He’s the one whose daughter is missing. They’re working with the other investigator, the woman who was shot.”
“Is he the one who broke in to your estate up in Westchester?”
Watisi looked at me.
I shrugged.
The lawyer’s eyes lasered into mine as he put on his game face. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave these premises immediately. We’ll be asking the police to file criminal charges against—”
Watisi held up his hand again. “It’s all right, Harry. I believe we can deal with these men.” He looked at me. “In fact, Mr. Pavlicek, I think you and I may have something in common.”
“Oh?” I said. “What’s that?”
The developer had been standing in the doorway with Harry, but now walked over and took the seat behind his big desk. We were about fifteen away from him. He motioned for his attorney to join us in one of the chairs in the sitting area. “We’re both missing something,” he said.
“Well what do you know? But no fair, you already have a handle on my dilemma.”
“Exactly. Children are the rarest of jewels.”
This guy was either as full of hot air as a political spin doctor or up to something.
“You must know something about my daughter’s disappearance then.”
He shrugged and held up his hand again. “I wish I did. That might make all of our tasks a little easier.”
The admission appeared genuine. I glanced at Toronto to see if he concurred, but my old buddy seemed to be more interested in picking something out from under his fingernail at the moment.
Watisi followed my gaze and glanced again at Toronto.
“But we all haven’t been introduced. This is my lawyer, Harry Smith,” he said, indicating the balding man who now sat rigidly still opposite us. “And your new friend is?”
“Jake Toronto. He’s my former partner.”
“I see.” He looked at Toronto. “And just what is it you do now, Mr. Toronto?”
Toronto looked up and bore into him with a slight smile. “I work for my friends,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Of course. Let’s hope we can all be friends,” Watisi said.
“Just what exactly are you missing, Mr. Watisi?” I asked.
“Something not so precious as your daughter, Mr. Pavlicek. But something rare, and precious nonetheless. A Book.”
I stared at him for a moment. “Book of the Mews,” I said.
Toronto looked interested all of a sudden. “Say what?”
Watisi’s face broke into a smile of admiration. “You’re a thorough investigator.”
“Actually you can chalk that one up to my daughter,” I said.
“But you do know of this book.”
“You bought it in a private sale a few years ago from a dealer here in Manhattan.”
“Very good.”
“Let’s cut the crap here. What are you really hiding?” I said.
“Hiding?”
“Didn’t you send someone to try intimidate Darla Barnes at the airport? We saw the dormitories. We saw the security.”
Watisi’s brow furrowed. Smith, standing off to the side in the corner, crossed his arms and began to say something, but Watisi cut him off.
“What do you think I’m hiding, Mr. Pavlicek?”
“I haven’t quite figured it out yet. Probably something to do with illegal immigrants and some plans that got out of hand.”
Watisi looked incredulously at his lawyer. “Illegal immigrants? What in the world would I have to do with illegal immigrants?”
“You telling me you don’t have some working for you at all these buildings you own?”
“All documented and legal émigrés if not citizens like myself. If any one of my employees is not, it’s news to me.”
I thought about that for a moment. I looked at the lawyer, who nodded.
“You believe these people who took your daughter are illegals?” Watisi asked.
“They aren’t from around here, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t know who they are.”
“But what about the dorms we saw?”
Watisi seemed to be thinking something over for a moment before motioning to his attorney.
“No.” Harry Smith’s eyes grew wide as he stepped forward, speaking in low tones to his client. “I have to counsel against this, Dominic.”
“Yes,” Watisi said. “We have to trust some people sometimes, and this is one of those times.”
Toronto looked at me, puzzled. I had no idea what they were talking about either, but decided it was best to wait them out.
Smith stepped forward and spoke in a clear even tone. Watisi looked away from him and us at his room full of books.
“Gentlemen, my client has asked me to inform you of something that heretofore has been kept under attorney/client privilege. I must demand, in no uncertain terms, that what you are about to hear remain strictly confidential.”
“That’s why it says ‘private’ on my card,” I said. “Unless you’re about to tell us you two are working on a serious criminal enterprise.”
“No, of course not. Nothing of the sort.” Smith looked at his client for one last opportunity to have his apparently imminent revelation stopped, but seeing none, pushed on. “Mr. Watisi has, for some time, been engaged in helping people who have recently come to this country. Mostly legally, but sometimes illegally.”
“Okay.” Now we were getting somewhere.
“His activities have been clandestine, mainly because he doesn’t wish to be brought into any kind of spotlight over this. He has a network of people with whom he is in contact. Nothing on paper. No records of any kind. Each situation is different and sometimes discretion is required.”
“Which is why this whole affair with the missing pets, the protests and the spectacle in the courtroom are bad for business.”
“Yes,” Smith said.
“And you’ve told the cops all of this.”
“No. Otherwise, Mr. Watisi risks losing his anonymity in his efforts. He is only trying to help
others enjoy the same kind of opportunity he himself has been able to take advantage of.”
“So you folks are people smugglers,” I said.
“Absolutely not. Mr. Watisi has had to fight against people like that from time to time. You have to understand, my client knows virtually nothing about the missing pets, the threat against Ms. Barnes at the airport, the shootings in the park, or, for that matter, the strange young people who unfortunately absconded with your daughter.”
“Virtually nothing.”
Dominic Watisi put down the volume on the history of the revolutionary war he’d been examining. His eyes met mine as he turned. “The truth is,” he said, “I am as interested as you gentlemen in finding out where these young people from the park are hiding. I’m afraid they may be fleeing from some individuals who mean them harm. I’m afraid they may not be alone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Several months ago a container ship from East Africa arrived somewhere here in the New York Metropolitan area. My sources tell me that it contained human cargo along with the actual cargo. This is nothing new, of course. It still goes on, although somewhat sporadically since the events of 9/11.”
“Go on.”
“I didn’t report it to the police at that time, and still haven’t, because I’ve had no specifics to give them, but I had recently been given at least a couple of tantalizing clues.”
“Which are?”
“First, there were a number of smuggled African adults on board, but apparently a number of young women as well.”
“Families?”
“No. Not families. These girls are orphans. And unlike most of the adults, they weren’t paying extortion money for their safe passage.”
I immediately flashed back to the image of the young girl bearing the owl on her cuff; the empty eyes, the hunger. “So they were brought in here to work.”
“No, not exactly. These are teenage girls. They were told they would be working as nannies or in restaurants, but the truth, I’m afraid, is much darker.”
“They were going to be pimped into prostitution,” I said.
“Of course. What else?”
A lot was falling into place at once.
“What if those kids who took Nicole were just afraid?” said Toronto, who had probably seen enough in the past few months to fill a lifetime of such stories.