Widows-in-Law

by Michele W. Miller

  The assistant manager nodded. “I’ll leave you. I should get back to the desk. If you need anything or want to take it, tell the guard outside and we’ll have the bellman bring it out front for you.”

  When the door closed behind the woman, Lauren knelt on the floor next to the suitcase, while Jessica and Emily stared, transfixed. “It’s in bad shape.” She unzipped with difficulty, the teeth catching. She had to work it open, pushing and pulling. “But if there’s a key in here, it will be in better shape than the ones at the police station.” She slid her palm through the suitcase pockets first. “Nothing.”

  She let the top flap fall open to the floor, exposing a moldy mass of clothing. Emily knelt next to her, sniffling, weeping a bit. Emily pulled out a pair of pants and began checking pockets. Lauren did the same. They piled the clothes between them on the carpet.

  Jessica finally knelt, too, and carefully pulled a stained polo shirt from the mess. She put it aside, then lifted out a pair of khaki shorts. “Brian’s favorites,” she groaned. “How can I flip from hating him to missing him so fast?” She put her fingers inside the pockets.

  Emily picked up a small jar of Vaseline, a hairbrush, and a safety razor, put them next to the pile. She checked the pockets of a sweat jacket. “Nothing.”

  “His watch and wallet haven’t shown up either,” Jessica said. “So many missing pieces to the puzzle …”

  “Okay, let’s try to think like Brian.”

  Jessica shook her head, angrily. “I didn’t know him.”

  Emily chewed on her lip. “Maybe it’s in his plane.”

  “His plane is still at the airport here,” Lauren said. “But he wouldn’t leave something in the plane if he needed it. I’m sure he didn’t want to be seen extra times at the airport.”

  “Oh,” Emily looked down at the pile of clothes then picked up the Vaseline. “Wait a minute. Hold up.”

  “What?” Lauren asked.

  “Something I heard in jail. How they smuggle drugs into jail. They put them in a balloon inside …” Emily held the jar up to the light. “Yes,” she cheered. “There’s something here.”

  Lauren saw it, too. A black mass at the center of the petroleum jelly. She took the jar from Emily and opened it. She fished around inside with two fingers until she’d grasped what could only be a key. She pulled out the goo-covered key, in perfect shape.

  “Unbelievable.” Lauren hugged Emily. “You’re something else.”

  Emily beamed.

  Jessica looked at the key. “Number 276. Jansen-White’s number. Do you think we can really get in there?”

  “We’ve gotten this far.” Lauren dumped the clothes back in the suitcase. She stood and brushed her sooty palms against each other. “Let’s just do it before I get some sense.”

  “We can tell the manager to throw the suitcase out,” Jessica said. “There’s nothing to save here.”

  ***

  After a stop in the hotel bathroom to wash the smell of smoke from their hands, Jessica, Lauren, and Emily headed to Miami’s downtown commercial district. Tall office buildings clustered on the horizon as they approached. The women left Emily happily eating tacos in a Chipotle at the base of one of the tall buildings. The sidewalks were empty, not many pedestrians out in the lung-sucking afternoon heat. Jessica and Lauren turned a corner and approached an office high-rise.

  “These operations are probably designed to avoid questions,” Lauren said. “I’m sure the company doesn’t want to know whether we’re the people who rented the box, as long as we have a PIN and key. I bet people even do drug deals, passing drugs and money by using burner phones, lieutenants, and safe-deposit boxes.”

  “You have a much better criminal mind than I do.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself. You were practically the bullpen enforcer.”

  Jessica smiled, pleased that Lauren kept mentioning how she’d protected Emily. It was possibly the best thing she’d ever done. “Yeah, well, I was scared then, and I’m scared now. And I am so damn pissed at Brian I could spit.”

  “Join the club. I’m scared, and I’ve been pissed at Brian for years.”

  Jessica glanced at her, then stared straight ahead, feeling a blast of self-loathing. “At me, too. You hated me. I can’t feel sorry for myself about that, all things considered.”

  “It’s a funny thing. I never really thought I was angry at you for what happened. I tried to tell myself I was above that, and it was Brian who violated his commitment to me. It’s only since I’ve stopped being angry that I’ve noticed its absence.”

  “I didn’t know you then, and ignorance was bliss for me. Ironically, I never intended for things to get serious with Brian or to break up your marriage.”

  “Really?”

  “I was stunned how it turned out. I picked a married guy who lived thousands of miles away. You couldn’t pick a more unavailable man. That’s what I thought I wanted.”

  Lauren seemed to ponder that for a moment before speaking. “At some level, I must have wanted an unavailable man, too. Brian could have won a prize for unavailability, even if you were married to him. They say it’s no accident when you pick someone like that.”

  “But it was ugly, what I did. Brian had a wife and kid … a really special wife and kid.”

  Lauren held Jessica’s arm for a moment. “It’s ancient history now.”

  Jessica felt Lauren’s forgiveness physically, a warmth inside her and a lightness, as if gravity had let up a notch. “Thank you.”

  “And for the record, in my humble opinion, nothing you did was so bad that you deserved this. What Brian did was above and beyond.”

  They reached the building.

  “We’re crossing a line here, Jessica. We haven’t really done anything illegal—at least not to further the conspiracy—until now. Once we touch the bonds, if we find them, it’s a whole different thing.”

  Scared to death, Jessica pulled open the lobby door. “I’m already so far across the line, there’s nowhere to go but forward.”

  They walked through a modern lobby to an office fronted by reinforced glass. Etched onto the glass were the elegantly scripted letters: jansen-white, inc. Inside, a woman in a tailored black uniform sat at a lacquer desk, her black hair tied back into a sleek bun like the Russian spies in a James Bond movie. Jessica followed Lauren through the glass door and down a couple of carpeted steps to the reception area.

  The woman watched them approach. “May I help you?”

  “Box number 276,” Lauren said, as if she’d been here a million times.

  Jessica tried to breathe naturally, worried her mounting nervousness would screw up the great job Lauren was doing. The dark-haired woman brought out a small black box like the ones banks used to set up PIN numbers at customer service desks. “Enter your code name or PIN here.”

  Jessica took a quick look up at video cameras trained on them, probably belonging to an armed guard stationed on the premises.

  Lauren keyed in the letters, H-a-z-e-l-N-u-k-e, the insultingly homey code name, of all things for Brian to think about while risking everything.

  The dark-haired woman swiped the screen of a tablet, typed, and turned it toward them. She handed Lauren a stylus. “Just initial this.”

  Without pause, at a time when Jessica’s hand would have been quivering, Lauren calmly scribbled and slid the tablet back across the desk.

  The woman’s eyes flicked to the screen, barely looking. She picked up the phone and pressed an intercom button. “Larry, we have a client for box 276.”

  A moment later, a door on the left side of the room opened and the woman signaled toward it. “Right in there.”

  Jessica and Lauren walked toward a man who waited inside the doorway. He had a shaved head and the demeanor of a police detective. It had been too easy, Jessica thought with panic, imagining an ambush of poli
ce waiting inside.

  “This way.” The man turned back down a hallway and the women followed him to a door.

  They entered a room full of silver safe-deposit boxes, built into three walls. On the last wall, side by side, two more doors stood ajar. Two small rooms each contained a couple of chairs and a small table where people could sit to go through the contents of their safe-deposit boxes.

  The man took them to box number 276 and turned back. “Insert your key here.” He pointed to the top lock.

  Lauren stepped forward, inserted the key, and turned.

  The man turned his key and opened the door. He pulled out a bulky metal box and led them to one of the little rooms, where he placed the box on the table. He signaled to a button next to the door. “When you’re finished, just ring this bell and I’ll come get you.”

  He closed the door behind him, and the women were alone.

  Lauren looked at Jessica. “Do you want to do it?”

  “Open it? Not in the least.”

  “Okay. Here we go.” Lauren opened the long metal lid. They leaned forward. A leather case was inside. It looked full.

  Lauren lifted it out, opened its flap, and unzipped. She pulled out a thick manila file and put it on the table next to the box. She opened the file and they both stared at what looked like diplomas or award certificates. In blue letters, the top certificate said the issuer would pay fifty thousand dollars to the bearer. Cross Hair, Inc., was the issuing corporation.

  “Crosshairs is right,” Lauren said. “Thanks, Brian.”

  Jessica brushed her fingertips across the raised corporate seal on the first certificate. “Is this really worth fifty thousand dollars?”

  “They’re trying to get them badly enough.” Lauren looked at the second certificate in the pile. It also said it was worth fifty thousand. Lauren thumbed through. “If there’s twelve million, that means there are two hundred and forty of these here.” Lauren handed Jessica half the pile. “We might as well count them now.”

  Five minutes later, they exited Jansen-White, Inc. Lauren carried her own soft leather attaché on her shoulder. They left Brian’s empty satchel inside the safe-deposit box. They didn’t want to leave with anything that looked different than what they’d brought in with them.

  They walked to the front of the lobby and into the thick tropical air. Keeping a measured pace, they headed down the block to pick up Emily at the restaurant. Jessica glanced at Lauren. Despite her nonchalant expression and casual gait, Jessica couldn’t help but notice how Lauren was white-knuckling her shoulder strap now that it was worth twelve million dollars.

  CHAPTER 35

  There was a buzz in the antiseptic air of the Federal Building’s sixteenth floor by the time Carl arrived, midafternoon. Bright florescent lights speared through his dark sunglasses; but it wasn’t Carl’s headache or fatigue that made him feel a step behind everyone the moment he got off the elevator. It was the unmistakable energy that picked up the pace of the whole staff—from agents to the mailroom—before a big bust.

  Rick rushed from their office into the hallway, nearly plowing Carl down. “Goddamn, what happened to you?”

  A female agent brushed past. “Some girl finally got hip to the innocent act.”

  Carl felt a momentary surge of adrenaline: They all know.

  “Come on, tell me on the way,” Rick said, continuing to double-time it down the carpeted hallway with Carl at his side.

  “It was nothing. I took an elbow in a pickup game at Chelsea Piers.”

  Rick shook his head. “Damn. What happened to the other guy?”

  “Nothing. It was an accident.”

  “That’s rough.” Rick seemed satisfied.

  Carl felt a flush of relief. “Where are we going?”

  “The briefing room. A lot has happened. We’re a go on Arena. There’s a meet-up set for tomorrow between Arena and Xi Wen’s people. We’ll have a dozen squads to host them.”

  “All on what CB said?”

  “No. We picked up audio from Lucho again. He said the documents are coming in. Straight-up code for money. Plus, Interpol believes the weapons are due into Calabria, Italy, traveling on a Chinese-flagged ship. Interpol is tracking that, and Homeland Security says there’s been an uptick in communication from the African group that’s supposed to be buying the weapons. It’s confirmed that they’re holding Arena’s nephew hostage. Arena is the point person. An ATF agent in deep cover on the Tong side heard Arena’s name, too. He thinks the Mott Street Tong killed one of Arena’s men in retaliation for Lucho Arena hitting one of theirs. But that won’t stop the deal from going forward. The Tong are Xi Wen’s agents in New York. They won’t sacrifice that payday for hard feelings. But if Arena doesn’t get the money to the Tong, he’s in for a shitload of trouble. He’s apparently a week late already.”

  “Is Jorge Arena still using his phone?” Carl asked.

  “No. It’s gone. He probably drowned it. He’s a careful guy, smarter than your average thug.”

  The two men walked into the briefing room, packed with squad leaders from their division, plus ATF and Homeland Security agents called in due to the weapons and international dimensions of the case.

  The ASAC stood in front of the room and ran down the information Rick had told Carl. “The guns will never reach the States, but we’ll have them all on conspiracy. For insurance, we’re going to bust Arena’s small-time bookies, a slew of new defendants dying to cooperate. We’re not giving up on the bet-fixing, internet gambling, and extortion of the gambling websites, but what was previously the core of our case may end up just a wedge to get cooperation on the weapons conspiracy.”

  An agent raised his hand. “Are we depending on CB to lead us to the meet-up with the Tong?”

  “Jorge asked CB to go,” Carl said. “Arena trusts him.”

  “We’ve got CB and Lucho Arena,” the ASAC added. “CB’s at the Home Game. Lucho’s home now. Lucho’s phone is pinging away. He will hopefully keep it with him.

  “Lucho’s less disciplined than Jorge,” Carl added.

  Carl tried to act self-assured when agents addressed questions to him. Carl had gotten lucky, landing the informant and the bar that both panned out. Now he and Rick were in the thick of things, meeting with the big boys, all of them listening avidly to Carl and Rick’s opinions on how the bust should go down. It could be the turning point of their careers. But Carl was too tense to enjoy a moment of it.

  After an afternoon of briefings, Carl’s face throbbed, he was sick of the constant ribbing about it, and he worried more every minute about what might go wrong. Worst of all, he worried that CB was right about them having a loose cannon—the widows—poised to screw up the works. He’d give himself less than even odds on coming out of this with his career intact. And that was the least of his worries.

  ***

  At Kennedy International Airport, tourists flowed from the arrival gate. Gray and tense, Lauren, Jessica, and Emily stood out within the tanned crowd that exited the flight from Miami. With a force of will, Lauren kept her hand from clutching the shoulder strap of her attaché. They’d made it through the risky part, departure from Miami, the attaché passing through NSA screening without a blink from the agents. The bonds looked like innocuous documents, no reason to raise any red flags. But law enforcement didn’t necessarily tell you when you were caught. Lauren envisioned hidden airport security, scores of cameras following their every step as the three turned down a corridor toward the exit sign instead of following the crowd to the luggage carousel. Lauren resisted the impulse to glance around for the cameras.

  She spoke softly to Jessica, “She’s going to my aunt’s.”

  Emily leaned in. “You need me, Mom. I’ll be safe.”

  “She can handle it, Lauren,” Jessica said. “It will be easier for Arena to do things our way than deal with the attention if they
hurt us.”

  “Face it, Jessica, if we were so sure of that, we’d just hand Arena the twelve million and count on a polite goodbye. She’s going to my aunt on Long Island.”

  Outside, they walked the wide, curving sidewalk past a series of Third World airlines housed in a long terminal building. Jessica and Lauren walked quickly, Emily keeping up, not straggling and texting as she usually did. She was growing up before Lauren’s eyes. Lauren would never have imagined that Emily having her life threatened, going to jail, and engaging in family criminal activities would be the thing to straighten her out. Maybe Lauren should patent it and do an infomercial: Hey, parents! Are your kids cutting school, talking back, doing drugs? Well, have I got a cure for you! Still, Lauren knew Emily was only a kid. It seemed like just yesterday when she taught Emily to cross the street. As far as Lauren was concerned, getting past airport security was the last risk Emily would take.

  “Mom, I don’t even know my aunt.”

  “You’ve met her, your grandfather’s sister.”

  “I never even met my grandfather.”

  “We need Emily,” Jessica said.

  “Why? We put half the bonds in a safe-deposit box, bring the other half for goodwill, and set the terms for a safe drop-off of the key.”

  “You want to mail the key to ourselves? Come on, that would drag things out for two more days. They’d probably hold us hostage while they waited.”

  The thought drop-kicked Lauren.

  “I wouldn’t trust my life to the US Post Office,” Emily said, the coup de grâce.

  Lauren’s breath hitched. Emily was right. So was Jessica. Lauren’s idea for the drop-off made no sense.

  “I would think that once they see the first six million,” Jessica piled on, “we’d need to make it easy for them to get the other half of the bonds, fast. Otherwise we’ll just piss them off.”

  They reached the parking garage and found Jessica’s car. They drove the looping airport road toward a sign for Van Wyck Expressway.

  “Okay, okay,” Lauren said, anxiety thinning her voice as a plan began to map itself out in her mind. “I think I’ve got a way, one that should keep Emily safe.” Lauren’s eyes watered up. The idea of Emily taking any risk was beyond what Lauren could stand. She felt on the verge of sobs. The tables had turned, and Lauren was now the emotional mess.