Reluctant Smuggler

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  “You?” Her eyes widened, and she sank against the mattress.

  “Standish’s—er, Myles’s employer is the faceless El Jaguar. The gang leader sent his pet bomber after me in retaliation for the death of his girlfriend during that raid on the pier.”

  “Standish told the FBI all this?”

  “Most crooks clam up when they’re caught, but a few won’t shut up. Standish is the latter kind. Polanski says he’s having a ball recounting his exploits. Seems to think he’s impressive.”

  “Did he say what he did with my medallion?”

  “He took it as a gift for his employer, thoughtful soul that he is.”

  Desi sighed. “I could have figured that out if my brain were firing on all cylinders. Say—” she stiffened—”if he’s such a jabber box, why hasn’t he given you the identity of the Jaguar?”

  “Standish has never met him, only dealt with him through senior underlings. Now, I’ve strained the limit of what I can tell you without trespassing on case confidentiality.”

  Desi grimaced.

  “Are you in pain?”

  A great weariness of soul gazed at him. “No… Yes! But I don’t want to talk about what hurts. And I don’t want to move in with Max or take over Mama Gina’s house. I want to be your wife and live with you.” She gripped the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Pastor Grange was here before you came. He’d perform the ceremony in a heartbeat.”

  “After what happened, don’t you want to postpone—?”

  “Tony, you’re the only one I’ve got left.” She buried her race in the pillow.

  “Hey, hey, hey.” He stroked her hair, the sable strands soft except for singed and brittle ends. “Max, my mother, and a few other people might object to that statement.”

  She lifted her head and scowled. “Don’t nitpick. You know what I meant.”

  “You deserve a beautiful church wedding. We can’t allow a criminal act to steal that.”

  She balled her fist around the sheet. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t so blasted sensible.”

  “At the moment, I’m at a loss.”

  “You are? What about?”

  Tony stuffed his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. “Right before you ladies burst in on me yesterday, I was going through my e-mail and found a message from one of those California Lucanos—that bunch Mom went to visit.”

  Desi’s brows went up. “What did the person want?”

  Tony grinned on the inside. A little distraction—just what the doctor ordered. “Hes ten years old, and his parents would ‘kill him’ if they found out he was e-mailing a non-Catholic Lucano, but hes determined to be an FBI agent. He wants me to tell him how to go about it.”

  “What’s the problem? You can give him the inside scoop. The kids gutsy and smart to grab on to a connection with a real agent.”

  Tony frowned. “I wish it were that simple. Jasons in a wheelchair. There’s no way he can pass the physical fitness requirements, but I don’t know how to tell him.”

  “Poor guy. Aren’t there ancillary services he could apply for?”

  “Jason wants to be a special agent. Nothing else will do.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “I understand the focus.”

  “Is there any chance Jason will walk again?”

  “Mom says he’s in the chair from a head injury. He’s making progress in therapy, but the doctors say it’ll be a miracle if he graduates beyond crutches. But Mom said, ‘What do doctors know?’ and put Jason on her prayer chain. They’re believing for total healing.” Tony stared at his tennis shoes. “I’m all for that, but I don’t want to feed the kid false hope either.”

  “You do have a dilemma.” She reached for his hand.

  The door whooshed open, and Max, Lana, and Tony’s mother trooped through. Tony’d seen that look on women’s feces before. They were on a mission—a strong cue that the lone male should leave before he got roped into something. He rose.

  “Not so fast, giovanotto.” His mother poked a finger in his direction.

  Tony groaned out loud. When Mom called him “young man,” that meant either a scolding or an assignment that he was pretty sure not to like. She grinned. No doubt reading him like he was still Jason’s age and trying to wiggle out of his chores.

  “We have the perfect solution.” She spread her arms. “Steve Crane will move in with you. While he helps you train for your fitness tests, you can mentor him in the faith. And Desiree and I will live in my house until the wedding so she will not be alone. Is this not brilliant?”

  “Not!”

  The three women glared at him as if he’d just rammed his fist through a work of art.

  A gurgle sounded, followed by a giggle. Everyone stared at Desi.

  “Priceless! The look on your face.” She flapped a hand at Tony. “Get out of here. Run!”

  He fled. Oh, great! Steve Crane strode toward him up the hall.

  “Don’t go in there, Stevo.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Max, Lana, and my mom are plotting.”

  Crane grunted. “That’s clear as mud.”

  “Lets go grab some java and I’ll explain.”

  “No time. I’m here to get last-minute instructions from Desi before I leave. If Lana’s here too, I won’t need to make an extra stop to say good-bye.”

  “Leave?”

  “Desi didn’t tell you? I’m HJ Securities’ new part-time private eye. First assignment, check into the Greybecks. Their headquarters is in New York.” He glanced at his watch. “My plane leaves in two and a half hours.”

  “Whew! That short-circuits plans to turn you and me into roommates.”

  “They want you to move in with me?”

  “No, you’re supposed to move in with me. It’s part of this big scheme where everyone’s got appropriate supervision. My mother’s fingerprints are all over the deal.”

  Crane chuckled. “Quite a lady.”

  “She means well.”

  “When I get back, we can work something out.”

  “Over my dead body!”

  Crane put his face in Tony’s. “That could become a true statement. You may be in the clear for a while until this gangsta figures out a new approach, but you shouldn’t go it alone in your condition. And you sure don’t want the women in harms way.”

  “Keep those thoughts between us, Stevo. Desi wanted to get married right away. I stalled her back to the original plan, but that only gives us eight weeks to bust this gang wide open, or there may be no wedding. I hate that I’m starting to know firsthand why my father walked out on us when a gangster made a target out of him.” Tony gusted a breath. “We’ll talk again when you get back from New York.”

  “You’re on, roommate.”

  “Don’t push it, Stevo.”

  Nineteen

  Desi snuggled against Tony on the sofa. Two days home from the hospital. Or not home. Tony’s town house. She swallowed a lump down into the heaviness that lived in the pit of her stomach.

  Tony’s warm breath fanned her scalp. He claimed he loved her new short hairdo. Maybe he was telling the truth. Soon she’d have the right to stay with him instead of heading back to Mama Gina’s when the woman returned from her evening out with her Red Hat ladies.

  The news had started on television. “Wars and rumors of wars,” Tony murmured. “Sometimes I wonder why I watch this stuff Nothing changes.”

  “It’ll get worse…until the right Person returns to take charge.”

  Tony chuckled. “I wonder what the top stories will be when Jesus calls the shots?”

  “Mobs Rejoice in the Streets. World Leaders Make Peace Pact. Hunger Eliminated.”

  “Law Enforcement Becomes Benevolence Administration.” Tony laughed. “I like this game. It’s—”

  He hissed in a breath. Desi followed his gaze toward the television set.

  “We’re not there yet, babe. That’s gang work. No question.”

  A black Mercedes riddled with bullet holes, windows shattered,
filled center screen behind a line of yellow crime scene tape. The vehicle’s front end sat up on the curb, and splotches of red marked dirty snow in the gutter. Knots of onlookers dotted the perimeter of the camera shot that must have been filmed hours ago when it was still daylight.

  A commentator stood to one side, microphone to his lips. “Dead at the scene this afternoon on New York’s Madison Avenue are Randolph and Wilson Greybeck, two of the three owners of the well-known security company Greybeck and Sons.”

  Desi sat bolt upright, tender skin on her back stinging. Randolph and Wilson dead? But why? And where was Clayton?

  “…but the identity of the third fatality turned this local tragedy into an international incident. Ramon Sanchez, cultural affairs director for the Mexican state of Yucatán, was driving this rental car when five men tattooed with insignias of the violent Fraternidad de la Garra gang rushed the car at a stoplight and sprayed it with bullets. The gunmen escaped in the panic, but witnesses are being interviewed by the FBI.”

  Desi sagged, and her bandages pulled tight. “Oh, no, not Ramon! It’s my fault.”

  “Des.” Tony gripped her shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

  “I told Ramon about a connection between his wife, Pilar, and the Greybecks. He must have discovered something disturbing. Why else would he have sought them out in New York?”

  “You don’t know that’s what happened, hon.” He frowned. “Wonder where Stevo was when this went down? He was supposed to be on the Greybecks’ trail. And why hasn’t he called? He’d better have a great excuse for not cluing us in before we heard it on the—”

  Tony’s house phone rang. Neither of them moved. The tape from New York ended, and the commentator in the studio came back on.

  “Authorities are seeking Clayton Greybeck, the remaining owner of Greybeck and Sons, but he has yet to return from a business trip to Mexico. His exact whereabouts are unknown.”

  The phone rang a second time, and Steve’s cell phone number popped up on the caller ID routed through the television. Tony eased off the couch and went for the kitchen extension.

  Desi followed on his heels but could make little sense of the conversation from Tony’s end. “Give it to me straight… You all right?… Why’d you do that?… Well, that’s interesting… Got it… See you soon.”

  He cradled the phone and stared with that light-years-distant agent look.

  “What?”

  “That was Steve. He was close enough to the action to get winged by a stray bullet.”

  Desi gasped. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s got a new crease in his side, but they sewed him up in the ER. Since then, he’s been under the bright lights explaining his interest in the Greybecks and why he happened to be carrying a gun purchased under the table at a New York pawnshop—the dumb cluck. If he weren’t ex-FBI, he’d be facing more than confiscation and a chewing out. They released him a little while ago, and he’s on his way to the airport to catch a red-eye flight home.”

  “Why buy a gun? Doesn’t he have one?”

  “Sure, but it’s registered in Massachusetts. Major hassle to take a weapon on a plane if you’re not active law enforcement. Stevo probably figured he wouldn’t need one for a few days of snooping in the Big Apple.”

  Desi leaned against the kitchen peninsula. “So what happened to change his mind?”

  “He noticed someone else paying attention to the Greybecks movements, and the other guy was packing. Stevo didn’t figure he had six months to wait for a license to buy one legally.”

  “Why didn’t he report the man to the police?”

  “One tail reporting the other tail? Explanations didn’t seem worth the hassle until he figured out what the guy was up to.”

  “Who else was watching the Greybecks? The Fraternidad?”

  “Steve doesn’t know, but he was Hispanic and had unusual hands.”

  Desi’s breath caught. “As in the index fingers longer than the middle fingers?”

  Tony crossed his arms. “You knew this how?”

  “Guess that’s a detail I left out of my adventures in Mexico.” She plunked down on a stool and told him about the thug from the street chase and about Albon Guerrera’s hands.

  Tony’s brows drew together. “The elder Guerrera could be the brains with a younger relative to do the dirty work. The bureaus going to need cooperation from Mexico on this. I’ll get your information to Polanski so she can take it to Cooke and get the ball rolling.” He snatched the phone.

  “Let me call President Montoya. He just lost a member of his government. He’ll open doors fast.”

  “Go for it.” Tony handed her the phone.

  Desi looked up the number in her Palm Pilot and punched it in.

  “Buenas tardes, residencia Montoya,” a crisp female voice answered.

  “This is Desiree Jacobs calling from the United States. I need to speak with President Montoya, por favor.”

  “I’m sorry.” The tone was cold. “El Presidente is unavailable.”

  “Tell him Desiree Jacobs has important information about the Sanchez murder.”

  A breath sucked in. “Un momento, por favor.”

  Tony poured them glasses of water. She took hers and swallowed gratefully.

  “What have you got for me, Ms. Jacobs?” Montoya’s voice came on in English.

  She launched into her story.

  “Guerrera? ¡Ay, caramba!” Montoya added more angry words in his native tongue. “Why did you not share this information sooner?”

  Extreme reaction from the dignified president. Desi’s pulse fluttered. “I had no reason to believe these details had anything to do with my assignment for your government or with Señor Sanchez’s struggles with the Fraternidad.”

  “Sí, sí, my apologies, señorita. Your encounters have greater significance than you could have known. New evidence has come to light in the murder of Esteban’s wife.”

  “Esteban? Oh, yes, Señor Corona. But what—?”

  “I, along with others inside the investigation, believe he was—how do you put it in America? Ah, yes, framed for his wife’s murder, but what were we to do with the evidence against him except arrest him? Then today forensic results came back indicating the presence of another person at the scene of the tragedy—a blood relation to a convicted felon.”

  “Albon Guerrera.”

  “You were aware that Guerrera had been in prison? My sources say he kept this a secret.”

  “My father was instrumental in his capture and conviction for fencing stolen antiquities.”

  “Ha! Then perhaps the leopard has not changed his spots. Indeed, this Albon Guerrera and his unknown male relative are of great interest to us…if we could find them. The elder Guerrera has not been seen for days at his home or shop.”

  Tony paced, face cop-tight. He’d probably trade a limb to enter the conversation.

  “Señor Presidente, could Tony, my FBI fiancé, join us on another extension?”

  “He is there? By all means, put him on.”

  She nodded at Tony. He grinned and half-loped, half-limped toward the bedroom.

  Desi tugged fingers through hair much shorter than it should be. Did she have the bombing attack to blame on the Guerreras too? The antiquities dealer would take pleasure in hurting the daughter of Hiram Jacobs, and if he could kill Tony at the same time… “Albon’s disappearance supports Tony’s theory that the senior Guerrera could be the man in charge. But in charge of what? Antiquities theft? That would be Albon’s specialty. The Fraternidad? The mystery Guerrera was present when Señor Coronas wife was murdered and at the attack in New York. What could be the connection between antiquities theft and the drug and slave trade in the United States? And why kill Señor Coronas wife?”

  A soft click. “Hello, Mr. President, Tony Lucano here.”

  “Good evening, Señor Lucano. Your fiancée has asked pertinent questions. I am about to answer them with information that your bureau may find valuable.”
<
br />   “I’m all ears.”

  Montoya chuckled. “Another Americanism I must remember.” He cleared his throat. “My aide Esteban was in charge of a confidential investigation into the disappearance of our national treasures. With him in jail, that investigation is effectively stopped. I am certain this was the motive behind his wife’s murder. In the case of Ramon Sanchez, he was a target, certainly, but I ask myself, why wait to carry out an attack until he was in New York?”

  “The Greybecks were targets too,” Tony said.

  “A logical conclusion.”

  Desi pinched the bridge of her nose. How did she get her mind around that development? “Then we have to wonder if the Greybecks played a role in the antiquities thefts and were eliminated as loose ends. They would have made fabulous consultants on how to get around safeguards on cultural property.”

  “You are sharp indeed, señorita.” The president laughed without humor. “Art for drugs. Have you heard this phrase?”

  “Certainly. It’s the theory that stolen art and antiquities are used as collateral in deals for drugs and other contraband.”

  “I believe we have fact, not theory. El Jaguar is a middleman for heroin producers in Colombia and slave traffickers in Brazil. The antiquities save him cash outlay up front if he can use them as collateral until he collects his money from the distributors in the United States.”

  “With due respect, Señor Presidente, if you knew a deadly gang was involved in stealing your national treasures, why did you hire me to find them?”

  “You almost got her killed.” Tony’s snarl would have put a man-eating tiger to shame.

  “Unwittingly, I assure you. I did not have this insight until after your unfortunate incidents in Mérida, Señorita Jacobs. Ramon and I began to communicate and compare notes. We came to the conclusion I just shared, and now he is dead.”

  Sorrow squeezed Desi’s heart. “Yes, and the world is the poorer.”

  “Agreed.”

  “But what sent him to New York to meet with the Greybecks?”

  Montoya sighed. “Unfortunately, Ramon did not inform me. This is the mystery that perhaps our odd-fingered man can solve for us. We must find him.”