by Dick Wolf
So you had to stay on your toes, always looking for opportunities.
Two days earlier Brendan had gotten a call from a guy who said he had a special treat he wanted to show him. A Mexican guy, said he’d be in New York for one day only with a fresh catch of almeja negras, a rare clam from Mexico.
Here was the thing: Brendan’s dickhead uncle Raphael kept telling him he was going to give him more responsibility with the business. But it seemed like when the crunch time came, Uncle Raphael just wanted Brendan to be a gofer, driving one of the delivery vans around the city. Using Brendan as a glorified intern. Finding a new variety of clam, something the company could potentially sell for big bucks to select high-end restaurants in Manhattan, that might get Uncle Raphael to see that Brendan was good for more than just driving.
“Here is the situation,” the man had said, his accent thick, though not hard to understand. “I represent a fishing cooperative of Yucatec Mayan fishermen. They got a special monopoly on this particular location based on Mexican law respecting Native Peoples. I’m bringing in half a pound of oysters by air, packed in dry ice. Four hours from the docks in Ciudad del Carmen, seven hours from the ocean. At this point in time, I’ll be straight up with you, I have no permits, no paperwork, no nothing. Okay? I’m not gonna sell them to you, we not gonna do any sort of transaction that could make problems for you with Customs, Department of Fish and Wildlife, none of those guys. We meet in a parking lot over in Hunts Point, you taste the merchandise. You like the freshness, the firmness, the consistency . . . we gonna work out all the permits, the importation, make it legal going forward. You don’t like the merchandise? You don’t like the price? Hey, no hard feelings, my friend. That is how confident I am. Everything starts and ends with the fish, I know you agree. If I don’t deliver a great product, we have nothing to talk about, am I right?”
The way the guy talked, Brendan Teixeira could tell the man had some background in the wholesale seafood business. It didn’t matter what you sold—shark, tuna, mussels, octopus—in the business it was all “fish.”
Brendan wasn’t wild about rendezvousing with some Mexican dude he’d never met in a parking lot away from home. But what was the downside? Sometimes Customs would indeed run a sting on people in the fish business, try to sell them smuggled fish, entrap them. Or the New York State Department of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources would sometimes try to sell you endangered species or whatever. Big fines for that, even jail time.
But if there was no transaction, some guy just handing you a fish saying, “Here you go, taste this . . .”—nah, there was no bust in that. And since Brendan wasn’t carrying cash, there was no worry about a heist. Brendan had told him that on the phone. “I don’t carry cash to meetings, I just want you to understand that up front. No cash, and no merchandise in the truck.”
The guy reassured him and seemed to have no concerns. A taste test, he insisted. Brendan could not see any downside for him.
The point was, you did not get to be the leading shellfish wholesaler in America by tiptoeing around worrying about shit all the time. Boldness paid off. If a guy wanted to meet you in a parking lot with a piece of smuggled fish, you had to be flexible. Everybody’s got to start somewhere. He would see where things went.
BRENDAN DROVE HIS FORD ECONOLINE VAN through the parking lot on the north side of the Co-op terminal, out into another parking lot. At the far end, over near the piers jutting out into the East River, he saw a man leaning against a Mercedes. A short guy, trim, compact, wearing a Yankees cap. Arms crossed. A wide smile on his face.
Brendan was not so wild about the other guy there behind him, leaning against the hood of their car: he was a big guy with a gut, wearing a Cuban-style shirt, untucked, hanging off his waist.
“You didn’t tell me there was gonna be another guy,” Brendan said.
“How are you, Mr. Teixeira?” the man said. He introduced himself as Ray. “This gentleman here, I told you about the Indian tribe I’m representing? I did not think I needed to inform you that I would be bringing them. Don’t worry, he’s a very good man. He speaks very little English, and understands not much more, so I will do the talking. Oscar here is the head of this fishing cooperative I talked about. He’s the head of the tribe, Yucatec Maya. I front for them. As I told you on the phone, they have certain exclusive monopoly rights based on Mexican law, which allows them to control this species one hundred percent. Very interesting opportunity, in fact, what these people—”
“Yeah,” Brendan said, not liking this as much as he did when it was a voice on the phone with an opportunity. “I’m not trying to be an asshole, but can I see the fish? I get calls like this all the time. End of the day, like you said on the phone, if the fish ain’t there we’re just three guys wasting time in a parking lot.”
“You are correct, absolutely correct,” the Mexican said. Then he turned and said something in Spanish to the guy with the gut.
Brendan had seen shows on Discovery Channel about the Mayans, these guys in the jungle down in Mexico, El Salvador, wherever the hell it was. Those men didn’t even vaguely look like the guy with the big gut. They were little guys, with distinctive hooky-looking noses. This guy, he looked nothing like that. More like a football player from Texas. Plus, something about him seemed vaguely threatening. His eyes, that was what it was, they had a dead look that made Brendan nervous.
But then he supposed being an Indian in Mexico was probably like being in one of these tribes that ran casinos in the United States, a bunch of scam artists, blond guys from the suburbs in Connecticut, cashing in on the fact they had one sixty-fourth part Narragansett Indian blood or whatever.
The only weapon Brendan had was his shucking knife, which he carried at all times, day or night, in a little holster on his belt.
“Oscar is the fish expert, you understand. Head of the fishing cooperative. His people have been eating these oysters for a thousand generations, and yet never sold a single one of them. They have some sort of religious significance to his people, whatever it is. Recently, though, Oscar here came up with his own way of farming them. Suddenly they had many more of these things than the locals could eat. He decided he would cash in. That is where my involvement began. The point is, Oscar is very protective of the fish.”
“I can see how that’d be,” Brendan said. “You gonna show me or not?”
“Come around the trunk here. I know you will be very impressed. I have been in the fish business for a long time, and I have never tasted anything like this.”
Ray went over and opened the trunk, leaning in to pick something up. Oscar, the tribesman with the gut, was just standing off at the front of the car, looking out at the river, not even paying attention to what was going on. Which made Brendan feel better. The guy didn’t seem nervous or worked up. He was just waiting, looking like he was ready to go home for the night, sleep in his own bed.
“Here,” said Ray.
Then he put his hand out. But instead of an oyster, he had a small black plastic thing with two shiny points protruding from it.
The shiny points flew out and struck Brendan in the chest. A wave of electric agony ran through his body. Suddenly he was lying on the ground, his arms crooked and stiff, legs straight out, his body a shivering spasm of pain.
He had been hit with a bolt of electricity from a Taser.
He stared up in the air, his vision filled by the side of his family’s van. TEIXEIRA BROS. SHELLFISH—NEW YORK’S FINEST SINCE 1921. Big gold letters edged in blue, ornately scrolled. Brendan saw Oscar cross from his vehicle to Brendan’s truck, yanking open the sliding door.
Sometimes trucks got heisted. A truck full of albacore could be worth eighty, a hundred grand.
But his truck was dead empty. He’d told the guy on the phone, very specific about it, he was bringing zero merchandise, zero cash to the meeting.
So why, he wondered, would these guys go to all this trouble to steal an empty truck?
Then he saw Ray, his
eyes shadowed by the brim of his Yankees cap, standing over him, staring down. The look on his face was one of curiosity, not menace.
Brendan could not do anything, neither move nor scream.
The man lifted his foot, a cowboy boot with a scuffed heel.
He brought it stomping down on Brendan’s head . . . and everything went black.
CHAPTER 27
Detective Kiser returned Fisk’s call within ten minutes, catching him before he got in to work.
“Detective Fisk,” said Kiser. “You calling again about the case you don’t have any interest in?”
“Exactly right,” said Fisk. The details had been gnawing at Fisk all night. “Thanks for the call back. I know you’re busy, so give me the one-minute download.”
“No identifications yet. Working on the tattoos, going through the database. Fingerprint on the cigarette butt is a true partial, and I’m told it might not be enough to help us pull it up through latents. The ‘friction ridge analysis’ is inconclusive, but could be enough to tie a perp to the scene, just not vice versa. There’s not enough to reliably put through the system. They are going to run some tests on how specific the partial is, but it doesn’t look great.”
“Okay,” said Fisk.
“We’re canvassing stores based on the bottling code on the Jarritos. We don’t have any outstanding missing persons reports that match our headless beachgoers.”
Fisk said, “Probably illegals then. More afraid of the police than trusting.”
“Yup,” said Kiser. “And we have no faces to put out on the news. There’s some internal debate about going out with the tats, but that seems like a desperation play to me. I don’t think we’ll get that far. Somebody’s going to come forward . . . if we don’t match up one of these bodies first.”
“Where are the bodies now?”
“Queens morgue. I don’t think they’re cutting them. Cause of death is self-evident.”
Fisk said, “They may want to know if they were dead before they were beheaded.”
“Maybe so,” said Kiser. “Thankfully, we’re getting out of my area of expertise there. Now give me the one-minute download on what this means to you.”
Fisk smiled. He didn’t know how to answer that exactly. The beep on his phone told him he didn’t have to. A second call coming in, this one from the office. “I’ve got another call I have to take.”
“No, you don’t,” said Kiser. “I need to know what I might be looking at—”
Fisk dumped him, switching over to the other call. “Fisk.”
“Where are you?” It was his boss, Dubin.
“Almost there,” said Fisk. This did not sound good.
Dubin read him an address in Bushwick. “Eight-three Precinct is on scene. They’ve got one DOA in a car in a cemetery.”
Fisk frowned, wondering how this mattered to him. “And?”
“The car is registered to the Mexican consulate.”
Fisk’s pulse rate jumped. Comandante Garza. “Is it a female?”
Dubin said, after a pause to read his alert, “I don’t have that.”
Fisk said, “Give me the address again.”
CHAPTER 28
Bushwick was a neighborhood in Brooklyn, just on the edge of Queens. After a very rough end of the twentieth century, which saw a spike in the drug trade and violent crime, the “Bushwick Initiative” and a concerted effort from the local precinct’s Narcotics Control Unit had started to revitalize the neighborhood. It was ethnically diverse, made up of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Salvadorans, but the fastest-growing group in the area was Mexicans.
Fisk badged his way through the police tape at the main gate of the Evergreens. The westernmost corner of the cemetery was right on the border of Queens. For Fisk, it was a long walk back to the crime scene, and he was moving quickly. The side gate the vehicle had entered through—the area that was geographically still in Bushwick, in the Eighty-third Precinct—was closed for crime scene processing. The lanes along the graves were hilly and well groomed. He passed a towering monument of a winged angel, came to the top of a rise, and saw the black vehicle in the distance.
The incident had drawn a nice crowd. As he drew closer, he recognized a captain, an assistant chief, two Secret Service agents, a gaggle of cops and crime scene techs, and a trio of Mexican bodyguards who looked ready to kill somebody.
Fisk was some thirty yards away when he spotted Garza, her black hair jumping out among the greenery and the gray headstones. Fisk’s pace slowed a bit. Not her. He felt a small measure of relief that he dismissed as simply a result of having met her the day before, and not wanting some harm to come to a person to whom he could put a name and face.
She was getting into it with the deputy inspector from the Eighty-third. It looked like a good squabble. The captain had six inches on her, but she was more than holding her own.
Fisk came up behind the captain, and when Garza saw him she paused just a moment, a distracted beat, before continuing. “This vehicle has diplomatic plates and is the property of the Mexican government.”
“This is a New York Police Department crime scene,” said the deputy inspector, a black man wearing rimless eyeglasses. “A homicide. That trumps any claims you or your government might have—”
“Not so, sir,” said Garza. “The homicide occurred within the vehicle, which is Mexican property, and we, as Mexican law enforcement officers, are authorized to investigate this crime. We will call on you for assistance, as needed.”
“Assistance?” This word was spat out by the imposing plainclothes woman standing shoulder to shoulder with the deputy inspector. She was a homicide detective in the Eighty-third. “We don’t assist in these matters, Officer . . . ?”
“Colonel Garza,” said the comandante, giving the American equivalent of her rank. “Mexican Federal Police, under assignment to President Umberto Vargas’s security detail. I have phone calls in to the Mexican ambassador in Washington, D.C., who is contacting the State Department.”
The tall homicide detective turned to her deputy inspector. “Sir, this smells to me like a goddamn cover-up.”
The deputy inspector wisely—and gently—forearmed the detective back and away. She looked mystified at the treatment, but then Fisk stepped up beside her.
“Stand down, not your fight,” he said.
She looked at him, saw the badge on his belt. “Not my fight? It’s my job.”
Fisk nodded to her confidentially, leading her back a few more steps. “It’s a fight the Eight-three is going to lose. I know that pisses you off.” He was referring to the three Mexican bodyguards standing near the vehicle. The NYPD was not used to being muscled. “Can you catch me up? Fisk, Intel Division.”
She gave her name as Sue Escher. Leading him toward the car, she couldn’t help but seize upon his being an Intel cop as a way to get back into the case. “They’re trampling all over my crime scene.”
The car was a black sedan. The rear license plate was bordered in blue on top, red on the bottom. Inside the red field were the words ISSUED BY AND PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
“Right there,” said Escher. “Property of the United States!”
“That’s just the plate,” Fisk explained to her, smiling at her earnest tenacity.
The Mexican bodyguards—more likely plainclothes EMP agents—moved near them in an attempt to cut them off. Fisk shook his head at the nearest one. “We can look, partner.”
The Mexican said nothing, his eyes hidden behind Oakley shades.
“We have a problem?” asked Fisk.
Again, no response.
“Good,” said Fisk.
The body lay lengthwise in the front seat, keeled over from behind the steering wheel. A male in his thirties or late twenties, Fisk guessed, with close-cropped black hair, wearing blue jeans and a thin, hooded sweatshirt.
Blood spray was splashed against the interior of the windshield, probably arterial. There was blood on the man’s cheek,
his hands, and the seat beneath his body.
Fisk did not recognize the man, only knowing that it was not the other man he had seen with Garza and General de Aguilar the day before, the man known as Virgilio.
“Knife wounds,” said Escher. “Could be as many as ten or twelve. Gate was chained, links snapped by bolt cutters. We’re confirming with the groundskeeper, but looks like no cameras on the gate, none in the cemetery.”
Fisk nodded. “Good place to dump a body.”
“I’m thinking he was forced to drive in here. Not a lot to go on in terms of tire tracks and footprints, but he didn’t clip the chain and drive himself in here with multiple stab wounds. There’s no blood outside the car at all. The engine was cool, the car ignition turned off.”
“Wallet? ID?”
“Nothing in his pockets. Glove compartment is clean. Wears a shoulder holster. It’s empty.”
Fisk shook his head. “Not good.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say he’s one of these guys here.” She thumbed at the Mexican plainclothes bodyguards. “Somebody attached to the Mexican contingent. It stinks to high heaven, Fisk.”
Fisk nodded. “Something’s going down. No knife found, I’m assuming.”
“You assume right. Nothing found yet. We were about to remove the body and work the vehicle when this shit fight started.”
Fisk looked around. “Did you call the Mexicans or did they happen to show up?”
“No, we called. Not me, the deputy inspector. Called Intel. Your people went to the Mexicans. Then little miss Colonel Bitch showed up.”