by Ridge King
He stood up in front of her, almost a head taller, and she felt slightly intimidated by him.
“I’ve never pulled any punches with you, honey. I’ve got a marriage and a pretty happy one at that, and I don’t intend giving it up for anything. You’ve always known what we’re doing here.”
She couldn’t restrain the bottled-up emotion exploding within her.
“I’m not asking you to marry me, Neil!” she screamed at him, stepping back a couple of steps as she did so. He just looked at her with disbelieving eyes. He could understand her being a little sulky—she was often that, it just made her more alluring—but this yelling? He’d never seen her like this. He stooped and picked up his drink. He held his other hand out to her, shaking his head.
“Now, I don’t know what’s the matter with you, Patricia. If you’ve got something on your mind, go ahead and talk about it. I’ll be glad to listen.” He took a sip from his glass.
Not knowing what to do with the feelings inside her, she began instinctively to focus them on his remarks, and her retort came out with loathing contempt.
“I wouldn’t want to trouble you, Neil. My feelings haven’t really been your department, have they?”
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked hotly, looking at her as if he’d never seen her before.
Her anger was gone in a flash, dissipated by his helplessness. She knew he couldn’t help her. He didn’t love her and only love could help. She walked over to him and laid a flat palm on his chest, looking down.
“I’m sorry, Neil. I didn’t mean to blame you.”
She looked up at him. His face was softer, a little more compassionate, but she recognized the element of pity in his look and hated herself even more for causing this in him. I will not be pitied, she told herself. She pulled her hand away and snatched her raincoat from the armchair as she made for the door, suddenly becoming aware of the sound of pounding rain outside.
“What are you doing?” he said to her. The rain seemed to cascade through her soul, filling her body, her brain and ears. She slipped on the raincoat and turned to him, lifting the collar up around her lusty head of brown hair.
“It’s over, Neil. We won’t see each other again. Don’t try to call me, I warn you. You’ll only stir things up and people will notice. You and Annie come to the party Thanksgiving. We can’t let her suspect anything now.”
He came rushing over to her, leaving his drink hastily on the coffee table. She thought she might have felt better if he’d thrown it down on the carpet, but Neil was much too neat for such histrionics. He took her by the arms.
“What did I do? What’s the matter?” he asked.
The old Patricia Vaughan came out. She raised her left eyebrow coldly. She might have been at one of her parties.
“Nothing, Neil. I just don’t want you anymore. That’s all.”
She turned and opened the door, admitting the rushing sound of falling rain, and left. On the small front porch of the townhouse she felt the tears deep down. It was a strange feeling for her, usually so reserved, so much in control of her emotions. The feeling was so new to her, this feeling of wanting to cry and cry and cry. She rushed to her car and got in before letting out the tears. She knew she would cry all the way back to Prospect Road.
She had years of crying to catch up on.
When Patricia Vaughan touched the light switch of her car, a Secret Service agent sitting in a nondescript car across the street jotted down the illuminated license number on the rear plate. Patricia Vaughan drove off crying and trying to see through her tears and the rain, thinking Neil Scott was out of her life forever.
He was.
But she was still in his—a little deeper than would later prove comfortable for the Harvard-educated congressman from Great Falls.
Chapter 6
Coffee at Enriquetta’s
Sean Walsh almost swallowed the toothpick that was as much part of his mouth as his yellowing teeth when without warning Derek Gilbertson’s Jaguar XJ type pulled up suddenly and slid into a parking spot across the street from Enriquetta’s Sandwich Shop at 29th Street and Northwest Second Avenue.
“Bitch!” he muttered.
Frowning, Walsh drove half a block and made a U-turn. He circled the block and found a good place to settle in catty-corner across Second Avenue next to an open-air self car wash that had no customers.
Walsh drove the St. Clair Agency surveillance van, a specially fitted white Ford E-Series. He spoke over his shoulder.
“You got a good angle there, Fredo?”
He could hear his co-worker, Wilfredo Zequiera, adjusting a chair next to the window in the side of the panel van.
“Yeah, ought to be good, Sean.”
Zequiera adjusted the laser microphone toward Derek Gilbertson and a man waiting for him under a clump of palm trees off to the side of Enriquetta’s tiny parking lot by the dumpster.
Meanwhile, Walsh took a few close-ups using his digital Bushnell image view binoculars. As Gilbertson walked up to the man under the trees, the man handed Gilbertson a Styrofoam cup of Cuban coffee. Walsh put on his headphones so he could listen to them talk.
* * *
“So, what’s the latest?” Omer Flores asked Gilbertson.
“Pretty bad news,” said Gilbertson.
“Yeah?”
“Larry’s sub never made it back to Colombia.”
“No way,” said Flores, pausing for a moment. “This is really bad.”
“Not a word from them once they passed Key West.”
“That’s just a few hours after they unloaded.”
“And took on all that cash.”
“No word at all?”
“Nothing.”
“So Larry and the crew went down with the money.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Nothing anybody can do.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No,” Gilbertson agreed. “We’re all just fucked.”
Flores looked up into Gilbertson’s brown eyes. Duarte had been his amigo.
“Not as much as they are.”
Gilbertson cleared his throat.
“Well, no, of course not. Just wanted you to know what I heard. We’ll skim some cash off the next shipment.”
“When’s that?”
“Next month. I’ll fill you in later.”
“OK. You want another coffee?” asked Flores.
“No. I gotta get back.”
“Think I’ll go inside and sit down, have another cup.”
“Yeah. Well, you take it easy. I know you were pretty tight with Larry.”
“That’s right.”
“Be glad it wasn’t you that went down.”
“Yeah.”
* * *
Zequiera put down his laser microphone and crawled up front to sit in the passenger seat next to Walsh.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
“Seems like they were involved with some kind of drug deal involving a boat. Something like that,” said Walsh. “We already knew he was moving dirty money.”
“And the boat sank.”
“Yep.”
“So who’s the guy under the tree?”
“Don’t know,” Walsh said, working the toothpick in his mouth. “We have pics. We’ll find out.”
“Hey, look,” said Zequiera with a nod toward Enriquetta’s. Walsh followed his gaze as the man Gilbertson left behind walked away from the take-out window carrying two more cups of coffee. He returned to the shade of the clump of palm tress and sipped from one of the cups.
A man got out of what looked like a rental car a couple of doors down Second Avenue and walked back up to Enriquetta’s where he went to stand under the palm trees with the first guy. They hugged. Like long lost friends they hugged.
“You better get back there,” said Walsh, slipping his headphones back on.
“Yeah.”
Zequiera rushed back to set up his laser microphone again to record their conversation.
>
* * *
“What the fuck, man?” said Flores after hugging his friend Larry Duarte. “You saw me with Derek?”
“Yeah. I watched from my car like you said till he drove away.”
“Here. Have some coffee.”
“Thanks,” said Duarte.
“He said you went down with the sub.”
“That’s what everybody thinks, bro, not just Derek.”
“Everybody?”
“Everybody. Sinaloa, the bankers, Derek, everybody. Only DEA knows I made it out alive.”
“But you said you didn’t want to meet with Derek. You didn’t want him to know. Why?”
A smirk crawled across his face.
“Because I know where the sub went down.”
There was a pause as Flores absorbed this.
“You know? You fucking know?”
“The exact coordinates.”
“Now I see why you didn’t want to meet with Derek.”
“Hey, Omer, we had a pretty good thing going with Derek. But this is much bigger than anything we would have done with him for years to come. Not to mention all the risk that goes with it.”
“How much was on board?”
“$65 million.”
Flores paused again and then slammed back his coffee.
“$65 million, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Duarte.
“I need another coffee,” said Flores. “We just won the fucking lottery.”
They walked over to Enriquetta’s window, got two more coffees and returned to the shade.
“As long as Derek thinks you’re dead, it’s no problem,” said Flores. “DEA would never tell him anything about you. They’ll set you up as a different person. You’ll disappear.”
“That’s right. I don’t see why we have to include him in this.”
“He did have $20 million on there, didn’t he? On that sub.”
“It wasn’t exactly his money, Omer.”
“No, it wasn’t his money.”
“He won’t look at it that way.”
“No, ’course not.”
“You think we oughta cut him in? He’s not going to help with the recovery.”
“No, he doesn’t do shit except push a pencil, make a few calls, eat lunch with the banker Rothman and take his cut.”
“So, it’s you and me, then?”
“Yeah, you and me, bro.”
They shook hands and hugged.
“Now, tell me what happened on the sub.”
Duarte told Flores in extended detail what happened when the Mirta took on water and everything since.
“Those guys on Fearless: they know your real name, that you’re alive.”
“Yeah, but so what? DEA won’t tell them my new ID.”
“No.”
“But the exec on Fearless, Rafael St. Clair.”
“Yeah, the governor’s son.”
“He was suspicious. Went down, had a good look at the Zodiac, saw the blood.”
“So, what’d he do? What’d he say?”
“Nothing. He just looked suspicious. Tried to get me to talk, just casual like, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“But I didn’t give him shit.”
“No. Never fuckin’ give ’em shit.”
* * *
When the two men wrapped it up and went to their cars, Zequiera made his way back to the front seat, shaking his head.
“I got it all, Sean, I got it all!”
“Somebody else was more interested than we were,” Walsh said, pointing through the windshield across the street.
Zequiera looked up and saw Derek Gilbertson sitting in his car holding a small pair of field glasses watching the two men walk to their cars.
“Oh, shit,” said Zequiera.
“He went around the block and came up from this side. He’s been there ever since they started.”
“He couldn’t hear ’em like we could.”
“No, but he could see ’em. And even if he couldn’t hear what they said, he’s smart enough to know that they’re double-crossing him somehow. Or that’s what he’ll think, not knowing the story the way we do.”
“And what a story! You believe the shit that went down out there?” asked Zequiera.
“It’s like something out of a movie. Narco-sub sinks carrying $65 million in small bills.”
“And salt water is not gong to hurt that money over the next few weeks.”
“Wait till Jack hears what Derek led us to.”
“Yeah,” said Walsh. Now the toothpick rotated wildly.
“Should we call him?”
“Well, let’s put it all together first. He’s up to his neck with Sam’s problems. He’ll have to decide how much of this should go to Ramona Fuentes and how much doesn’t.”
“And to think Rafael was involved bringing this guy back.”
“Yeah.”
They watched Gilbertson drive away, a furious expression on his face, his jaw clenched tight.
* * *
Gilbertson had known something was up. He just didn’t know what. He’d sensed it when he told Flores about the sub sinking along with what had to be his best friend, if people like Omer Flores had best friends. There was a pause, yes, the kind of pause he expected, but it wasn’t followed by any show of surprise or grief or—anything.
This was a warning signal. Gilbertson was convinced that very second Flores knew something that he didn’t. Something about the sub. Something about Larry Duarte. Something.
So he made the decision to follow Flores to see where he went next. Gilbertson was interested to see what Flores thought should to be his next stop after such an important meeting. When he circled the block and found a safe place behind some low-slung hibiscus plants, he waited for Flores to leave. But he didn’t leave. He went to the take-out window and got two cups of coffee. When a man approached him under the palm trees, Gilbertson reached for the pair of Bausch & Lomb binoculars he kept in the glove box, and took a look.
He’d already been able to tell by the man’s gait that it was Larry Duarte walking up to meet Omer. The binoculars just verified what he already knew.
So now he was confronted with a very interesting scenario involving a very much alive Larry Duarte. His presence in Miami brought with it a host of new questions.
Did the sub actually go down with all hands? (Or all hands but one?)
Had the sub been hidden somewhere and his money (not to mention the Cartel’s) stolen?
What were Duarte and Flores planning?
The next few weeks were going to be busy ones, Gilbertson knew, and the first thing he had to do was to put together some kind of crew to follow these guys so he could find out what was going on.
And then be in a position to spring a little surprise of his own.
Chapter 7
Mr. Vaughan
In the days that followed, Patricia’s life was listless and empty. She began to feel that it had always been that way but she was just now seeing it for what it was. She was not a heavy drinker, but she began to drink a lot of Grey Goose each day.
About the time Slanetti was placing his call to St. Clair, Jonathan Vaughan’s secretary in New York was placing a call to Mrs. Vaughan in Washington. She was duly informed that, “Mr. Vaughan will arrive in Washington tomorrow to attend the Society dinner and ball.” Patricia wanted to tell the secretary, who was always openly snotty to her on the phone, to go fuck herself, but she didn’t.
Instead, after the one-sided conversation, she went to her room and threw herself on the bed, sobbing unrestrainedly, all her anger with herself, the hurt and frustration, the pain and agony she felt, seeming to rip apart her insides. She knew she’d have to get hold of herself before he arrived. Her pain came to her in sharp stabs in the stomach, making her feel she was alone in the world, that no one really cared for her, and no one cared what happened to her.
It was the unending loneliness of the past few days that wore on her more than anything else
, the loneliness of the unloved. She thought it would be easier to bear if she’d been loved at least once in her life—freely, joyously, gloriously loved.
She and Jonathan always attended purely formal functions together, the kind you didn’t “get out of.” Only Washington’s social elite would attend the dinner and dance coming up: members of the Congress, the higher-ups in the government, the diplomatic corps, New York businessmen. It was an annual affair given by the prestigious National Geographic Society to honor the current President of the United States. This would be Norwalk’s last time on the platform. In the few years since his wife died, he usually escorted a dead senator’s widow or some other equally non-controversial lady, and it gave the society editors all over the country copy for several days.
Jonathan would come to town the day before such an event and leave immediately the day after. When in Washington otherwise, he never stayed at Horizon, but usually at the W Hotel. He’d be home tomorrow. She searched her tortured mind as she lay crying on the bed—an empty bed, she thought. All Washington knew it. Even her invitations to parties were snickered at. They always read, “Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Vaughan request …” but everyone knew that Mr. Vaughan was just as likely not to be there, and that Mrs. Vaughan would have one of her handy reasons on tap to excuse him. The society columns would make her seem independently glamorous, and there would be speculation what one Vaughan was up to while the other one was “away.”
She knew Jonathan would be outwardly cordial and pleasant. She only renewed her passionate sobbing at the thought of him coming through Horizon’s front door, taking off his hat and handing it to the maid. He’d smile as if he were entering a board meeting, maybe kiss her on the cheek (sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t), and then order a drink, a gin and tonic, from Simkins, who would bring it and then leave them alone to chat about the general stupid things they talked about whenever he had to come home: had she seen Mr. So-and-So or Mrs. So-and-So, what she had been doing, where lately he had been abroad, etc. He would dress in his own bedroom for the dinner and dance and she would do the same in hers. They would be driven in the long Mercedes limousine to the Society’s headquarters at M and 17th Street where they would dine, listen to the platform speakers, chat with the gaggle of lawmakers and their wives who would be seated at a large table with them, dance and return home. He would drop her off and go to the W to spend the night with his boyfriend. The next morning he would leave, as he did every year after the Society ball, for Palm Beach. He hated New York in the winter, she suddenly thought, almost reacting as a wife would to her husband’s likes and dislikes.