Black River

by G. M. Ford

  “Donald didn’t need the truck. He was locked up in a downtown hotel.” Corso reached into his inside coat pocket. Pulled out the list of jury expenses and threw it on the coffee table. “Ordering T-bone steaks and drinking buttermilk every night with his dinner.”

  “Get out,” she said.

  Corso turned on his heel and started for the door. Stopped with his hand on the knob. “I’ll leave,” he said. “I’m not in the business of terrifying people. But we need to get something straight here.” She seemed to be paying attention, so he went on. “A couple of innocent people are dead because you sold your silence.” He waved a finger at the woman. “So I’m putting you on notice, Marie Hall. As of tomorrow morning, I’m aiming every information source I own at you. In a week, I’m going to know things about you and your life even you probably don’t remember. I’m going to be more intimate with you than your parents or your lovers.” He waggled the finger again. “And if I find out you had anything to do, directly or indirectly, with letting Nicholas Balagula go free? I’m not only going to go public with it, I’m also going directly to the authorities with whatever I have.”

  He made a good show of it, closing the door with a bang and stomping down the stairs. He’d just arrived at the lower landing when the upstairs door opened.

  “Please,” she said, in a strangled voice. “I have so little.”

  She began to hiccup and then to sob. Before Corso could process the data, she disappeared into the apartment, leaving the door wide open.

  Corso stood at the bottom of the stairs. He recognized the feeling, the odd mixture of triumph and revulsion he always felt at moments like this, when he’d managed to poke a hole in the nest of truths, half-truths, and outright lies that we all, over time, come to swear is the story of our lives.

  He took his time walking back up. Stepped into the apartment and looked around.

  She hadn’t gotten the bathroom door closed. At the far end, she knelt in front of the toilet. The sound of her retching scratched the air like sandpaper.

  Corso wandered into the living room, moving over by the stereo, where she was no longer visible. The sound followed him like a stray dog. He picked among her CDs. Heart. Barry Manilow. Barbra Streisand. All kinds of easy listening. Ricky Martin was in the player, Sarah McLachlan nearby.

  When he looked up, she was standing in the hall with a towel pressed to her mouth.

  “Tell me what happened,” Corso said.

  “It wasn’t me!” she blubbered.

  “I know. Just tell me what happened.”

  “They came one night. Maybe two days into the trial.”

  Corso stopped her. “You sure it was that early?”

  “Positive,” she said. “It was the first Wednesday night.”

  “Who came?”

  “Three men.”

  “What did they look like?”

  She described all three men. An older guy with a European accent and a couple of Hispanic guys. One tall, one short. Older European guy giving the orders. From the descriptions, Corso figured it had to be Mikhail Ivanov, accompanied by the dear departed Gerardo Limón and Ramón Javier.

  “So what happened?”

  “They pushed their way in.” She was starting to blubber again.

  “Take it easy,” Corso said. “Just tell me the story.”

  She stuck her face into the towel and wept for several moments.

  “They made me call Donald at the hotel,” she said, when she’d recovered.

  “You could call your husband?”

  “Every night between seven-thirty and eight-thirty.”

  “Directly?”

  “Oh, no. You had to go through a policeman first, who made sure who was calling. They had caller ID, and after a while—you know—you kind of got to know them and they kind of got to know you.”

  “So you called your husband. What happened then?”

  She looked like she was going to cry again. “I don’t know,” she said, her lip trembling. “They put a gun to my head. They took me in the bedroom while the older guy talked to Donald.”

  “Then what?”

  “After a while, the guy came in and said Donald wanted to talk to me.” She wiped her mouth with the towel and then threw it over the back of a chair. “Donald said I shouldn’t tell anybody that the men had come. Said it was super important. Said our whole lives depended on it.”

  “And you went along for the ride?”

  She nodded miserably.

  “It was probably for the best,” Corso said.

  Big tears ran down her cheeks. “I should have—”

  “If either you or Donald had refused, they’d have killed you right there and then. Donald had never seen them. You were the only eyewitness. They had nothing to lose. If Donald goes to the cops, they get a mistrial and somebody finds your body.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “If you’re right about the date, they had the list of potential jurors from the very beginning. They went looking for a weak link, and Donald was it. He was a fanatic about his son’s education. He was behind in his payments to Harvard. They were making noises about asking the kid to leave. He’d applied for a loan and been turned down. Donald was exactly what they were looking for.”

  “About a month later, I found the receipt in the mail.”

  “From?”

  “Harvard.” She looked sheepish. “I steamed it open.”

  “He’d paid it all.”

  “Forty-two thousand dollars.”

  “And you put two and two together.”

  She squared her shoulders. “No matter what you might think, Mr. Corso, I’m not stupid. Of course I figured it out.” She stared at Corso as if daring him to disagree. “You know what he tried to tell me?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “He tried to tell me the money he sent to Harvard was all of it. That he was broke again.”

  “And you said?”

  “I said the bill to Harvard was for forty-two thousand and the bill for my silence was going to be the same.”

  “And he ponied up?”

  “I should have asked for more.”

  “You ever find out exactly how much he got?”

  She shook her head and began to cry again. “What’s going to happen to me?” she said between sniffles. “I’m going to go to jail, aren’t I?”

  “You’re an accessory before and after the fact in both bribery and jury tampering. They want to get nasty, they can charge you with interfering with a murder investigation and filing a false statement.”

  “It’s not fair!” she cried. “I earned every dime of that money! Living with him all those years, doing without. I had a right…. I only took what was mine.”

  “You’ll get off a lot lighter than Donald did.”

  She looked up from her self-pity party. “I don’t understand. It was all over. Why did they kill Donald after everything was all done?”

  “I think he was killed because he tried to go to the well again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “His son needed money to go into private practice. I’ll probably never be able to prove it, but I think Donald Barth looked up one day and saw that Balagula was coming back to Seattle for another trial and decided to put the bite on him again.” Corso shook his head sadly. “Which with a guy like Balagula was a very, very bad idea.”

  She steeled herself. “I won’t testify,” she said, in a voice that made Corso a believer. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in fear, looking back over my shoulder, waiting for something to strike. I couldn’t stand that. I’ll go to jail first.”

  It took everything Corso had not to smile. It was like Renee Rogers said. First you scare the shit out of them and then you offer them a way out.

  “What if I told you there was a way you could avoid testifying against Balagula and maybe stay out of jail at the same time?”

  Hope flickered on and off in her eyes. “Oh, please,” she sobbed.

  “You’ll
have to do what I tell you.”

  “I will.”

  “You’ll have to be a good actress.”

  She sat up straight like she was in school. Straightened her nightgown. “What do I have to do? Just tell me. I can do it.”

  “All you have to do is make one phone call,” Corso said with a smile.

  39

  Tuesday, October 24

  9:11 a.m.

  The pages fluttered slightly as the book arched across the room and hit Corso in the chest. “Who told you to pay my bill?” Dougherty demanded. She was sitting up in bed wearing scrubs, makeup, and a frown. Joe Bocco slid down in the chair, hiding a smile behind his hand.

  “Goddammit, Corso, if I want your help I’ll ask for it.” She looked around for something else to throw but couldn’t find anything that wasn’t connected to the bed.

  Corso bent and picked up the book. “Any good?” he inquired.

  “Dark,” she said, then pointed a long manicured finger. “Don’t change the subject.”

  Bocco got to his feet. “You kids don’t mind,” he said with a smirk, “I’ll wait out in the hall while you work this out.”

  He crossed to the door, pulled it open, and allowed himself a final shake of the head before disappearing from view.

  Corso walked over to the bed and dropped the book in her lap. “You seem to be feeling quite a bit better.”

  “I was doing just fine until I inquired about the state of my hospital bill, and next thing I know they send in this Crispy character who gives me a smarmy little smile and tells me everything is taken care of.”

  “Edward Crispin,” Corso corrected.

  “Whatever.” She reached for the book again.

  Corso took a step back. “I didn’t want to lose you,” Corso said.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I didn’t want to lose you.”

  “I don’t need a goddamn sugar daddy. I’m a functioning, self-supporting adult. If I want—” She stopped. The frown disappeared. “Oh, Jesus, Corso, don’t get soupy on me here. You’ll ruin your image.”

  “It’s only money,” he said.

  “You’ve got no respect for money, Corso.”

  “Money’s not important unless you don’t have any.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.”

  “I felt the same way when I was broke. Nothing was ever about the money.” He waved a hand. “Way I see it, I’m just a conduit through which money passes.”

  The movement of his right hand in the air pulled her eyes to his left hand, which was pushed deep into his pants pocket. “What’s with the hand in the pocket?” she asked.

  “What? A guy can’t stand with his hand in his pocket?”

  “That’s not Frank Corso body language at all,” she said. “What’s the deal?” Corso didn’t answer. “And that fruity shirt. You look like a bad foreign film.”

  With great care, Corso slid the bandaged hand from his pocket. “I had a little cooking accident,” he said.

  “A cooking accident,” she repeated.

  “Yeah.”

  “Come here,” she ordered. Corso stood still. “Come on,” she prodded.

  This time, Corso wandered over to the bedside. She looked him over, then reached up and pulled the turtleneck aside. She winced. “Damn, Corso. That’s nasty. Looks like whatever you were cooking tried to cook you back.”

  “I’m taking Joe with me when I go,” he said.

  She eased the material back over the welt. “Looks like you need him more than I do.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’re going to stop over in finance and tell Crispy Critters the bill is on me, right?”

  “Sure.”

  She looked him over. “You liar. You’ve got no intention of doing any such thing, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Get out of here, then,” she said. “If you’re not going to show me any respect, you can leave.”

  Corso eased his damaged hand into his jacket pocket and silently left the room. Joe Bocco leaned against the wall in the corridor. “You kids get your spat worked out?”

  Corso ignored him. “I don’t need you here anymore,” he said.

  “So our friends…”

  “Won’t be back,” Corso finished.

  Corso watched the wheels turning in Bocco’s head. “Then, way I figure it, I owe you a refund of—”

  “I’m going to need you tonight. Marvin too.”

  “What’s the gig?”

  Corso laid it out for him.

  “You’re saying this guy’s a pro?”

  “For sure.”

  “Sounds to me like we could use an extra pair of hands.”

  “You got a pair in mind?”

  “Got a woman I worked with a few times. She’ll make good cover.”

  “Get her.”

  “What time?”

  “I’m thinking we’ll schedule the drop for eleven.”

  “If this guy’s careful, we’re going to need to be in place early.”

  “This guy’s very careful,” Corso said. “And very dangerous.”

  “This is gonna cost ya,” Joe Bocco said.

  “What else is new?”

  Tuesday, October 24

  9:22 a.m.

  Mikhail Ivanov took a deep breath and coughed into his hand. His voice must not betray him. He knew it would be a mistake to underestimate Ramón and Gerardo. They complemented one another well. The strengths of one masked the weaknesses of the other. Ramón was smart but a bit too introspective for a man in his line of work. Whatever Gerardo lacked in intelligence and sophistication, he made up for with the kind of animal instinct that senses earthquakes days in advance.

  He’d thought it over earlier and decided that the final disposition of Gerardo and Ramón would take place after they returned to the Bay Area, making today’s contact a mere holding action, ostensibly paying them for services rendered while he worked out a suitable scenario for their permanent removal.

  He dialed. The phone began to ring. And ring. Ivanov stood with the phone pressed to his head for a full two minutes, before using his thumb to break the connection. He couldn’t recall a time when they hadn’t answered their phone. Thinking he must have misdialed, he tried again and got the same result.

  Mikhail Ivanov was troubled as he pulled open the door and stepped out into the hall. The sight that greeted him did little to lift the pall.

  The guy was there in the hallway, the sex peddler. Sixty feet away, knocking on Nico’s door. “May I help you?” Ivanov asked the man evenly, as he started up the corridor toward him.

  “Goddamn right,” the man blurted.

  Ivanov’s practiced eye noticed how his right arm was tense, as if holding a great weight. Ivanov moved that way, approaching the man obliquely. “What can I do for you?”

  The craggy, creased face was more haggard than usual. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for a couple of days. “He messed the boy up.”

  “You’ve been paid for your services,” Ivanov offered.

  “Inside,” the guy said. “He’s all screwed up.”

  “You better go,” Ivanov said.

  The guy’s face flushed. “Didn’t you hear me, mother-fucker? The docs are telling me—”

  When he began to pull his hand from his pocket, Mikhail Ivanov was ready. He clamped an iron grip onto the wrist and used the man’s own momentum to lift the arm high into the air. A silver stiletto flashed beneath the lights. When the man looked up at his weapon, Ivanov kneed him once in the balls and then, when he bent in agony, again in the face. In an instant, the flesh peddler was on his back in the hotel corridor while Ivanov stood above him, patting his suit back into place and inspecting the knife.

  Between gasps, the flesh peddler tried to speak. “I’ll get you…I’ll…”

  Ivanov dropped one knee onto the man’s chest, driving the air from his body. As the man watched in horror, he slipped the blade of the knife between the man’s lips, into h
is mouth. “What you are going to do, my friend, is ride that elevator back to the lobby and then run, just as fast as your little legs will carry you, back to whatever rat-infested sty a piece of shit like you lives in, and when you get there”—he rattled the knife blade around the guy’s teeth—“you will give thanks that I let you leave here alive.”

  Ivanov’s wrist twitched twice. The man emitted a piteous howl. Ivanov got to his feet. The guy sounded like he was gargling as he brought his hands to his mouth. He stared at his bloody palms for a disbelieving moment and then clamped them back over his ruined mouth. As he struggled to his feet, droplets of blood from the sliced corners of his mouth fell onto the thick wine-red carpet and disappeared.

  Blood seeped between his fingers, as he waited for an elevator to arrive. He was rocking on his feet now, emitting a low keening wail and moving back and forth, as if dancing to a rhythm unheard.

  Ivanov carefully wiped the knife clean on the carpet and stuck it in his pocket. When he looked down the hall toward the elevator, the flesh peddler was gone.

  Tuesday, October 24

  10:02 a.m.

  The sky was layered gray: lighter to the west out over Elliott Bay, where Bainbridge Island was little more than a smudge on the mist; darker and more menacing to the east as it tightened its coils around the buildings on Beacon Hill.

  Corso stood on the corner of Second Avenue and Royal Brougham Way. He’d chosen the spot because it was directly in between Safeco Field and the new football palace that Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen was building out of pocket, two blocks to the north. In this neighborhood, limos were commonplace, twenty-four/seven.

  When the gleaming Cadillac slid soundlessly to a stop a foot from his shins, the door seemed to open on its own. Renee Rogers sat in the jump seat, facing the rear, her briefcase clutched in her lap, her expression bland and ultraprofessional.

  Corso got in and closed the door. At the other end of the opulent brocade seat sat the Attorney General of the United States. She looked more like a kindly aunt or a small-town librarian than the chief law enforcement officer for the most powerful nation in the world. The car started up Royal Brougham Way.

  She looked Corso over. “I saw you once on Good Morning America. I didn’t realize you were so tall.”