by James Lepore
Agents went quickly to the condo at Royal Palm Plantation, but Isabel had fled. A week later, she brazenly turns up in Jersey, and a few days later Dan Del Colliano is dead and Isabel is nowhere to be found. Last week, a civilian named Bill Davis was killed in Newark after it was reported in a New Jersey newspaper that he had seen two young Mexican men in Del Colliano’s apartment and identified them to the FBI. The killers—of Bryce and Kate Powers, Del Colliano, and Davis—were believed to be brothers named Edgardo and Jose Feria, Mexicans believed to be in the employ of Herman Santaria. Grainy, eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs of them were also in the manila folder.
Shaw finished reading, stared intently at the photographs for a few seconds, then looked over at Kendall, sitting across the table. Kendall had finished as well.
“I’ll settle for nailing these two scumbags,” said Shaw, placing the pictures on the table.
“I’m with you,” Kendall replied. “Does he really think he can bring down the attorney general of Mexico?”
At that moment, the door swung open and Markey walked in, followed by Voynik, Ted Stevens, and Phil Gatti. Introductions were made, and Markey, sitting at the head of the table, began.
“Have you read the memo?” he asked.
Shaw and Kendall nodded.
“Our immediate targets are the people who killed our agents in Guadalajara last year. We’re pretty sure it’s the Felix cartel, but they’re deep in the hills of the Sierra Madre in Jalisco, and the Mexican government won’t act. We now have what we feel is great leverage: We think we can prove that Herman Santaria, Lazaro Santaria, and Rafael de Leon, the chief domestic advisor to the president of Mexico, are not only protecting drug cartels, but dealing drugs themselves. If we nail them, one of the first things we’ll do is get authority to launch a small army on the Felix stronghold in the mountains.
“There are two paths to the Santarias and de Leon. One is via Isabel Perez. Certainly she can give us Herman Santaria, but we think whatever it is Bryce Powers gave her—it’s probably documents of some kind—will directly involve Lazaro and Rafael de Leon and, because he’s so close to the guy, possibly the president of Mexico. We’re pretty sure Isabel’s in hiding here in Miami, in Little Havana. We don’t want to go in there overtly because those people don’t talk to police. They’d probably tip her off, and she’d flee. That’s why we’ve asked for the Miami PD’s help. I’ve talked to Officer Ramirez. He’s Cuban, he’s smart, and he’s got balls. I’d like a cover put together, a good one, and I’d like him in there as soon as possible, tomorrow or Sunday at the latest. Can you do that Lieutenant Shaw?”
“I can do it,” Shaw answered, “but I’ll need help with documents, people to back up his story, that kind of thing. We can have him coming down from Jersey—there’s a big Cuban community in one of those towns near the city.”
“Whatever you need,” said Markey. “Get together with Voynik. If we get Miss Perez, we’ve struck gold. Through her, we can bring down the whole fucking banana republic government down there.”
“And the other path?” said Jack Kendall.
“The other path,” Markey replied, “is through our New Jersey lawyer friend, Jay Cassio.”
“Who’s he?” Kendall asked.
“He’s a friend of Del Colliano. He was representing Kate Powers in the divorce. He got Bill Davis’s name in the paper, which got the guy killed.”
“He couldn’t have known the guy would be killed,” said Shaw.
“Cassio was seen in the building on the night Davis was murdered.”
“You don’t think he helped kill the guy, do you, Chris?” said Kendall.
“No, I don’t. But he’s a wise guy. He skipped town right after Davis was killed. When we searched his house, we found two bloody towels. We think one of the Feria boys clipped him. Then I talked to one of the Powers daughters—he was banging her, by the way—and she told me her mother wrote Cassio a bunch of letters accusing her husband of all kinds of bad things. I subpoenaed Cassio’s divorce file, and there were no letters in it. I could arrest him for obstruction of justice right now.”
“Why don’t you?” Shaw asked.
“I’ve got something better in mind,” said Markey. “He’s in Miami Beach. I’m going over to talk to him tonight. But I’m not going to arrest him. I’m planting an article in the Miami Herald tomorrow, with his picture—‘Witness to New Jersey Murder Located in Miami.’ We’ll put a tail on him starting early in the morning.”
“To draw out the Feria brothers?” Kendall asked.
“Yes.”
“What if Cassio won’t go along with it?” Shaw asked.
“He won’t know about it,” Markey answered, closing his folder.
32.
5:00 PM, December 17, 2004, Miami
After the team meeting, Gary Shaw, Jack Kendall, and Officer Ramirez had an hour’s sit-down with Agent Voynik to talk about what was required in order to put Ramirez safely undercover in Little Havana. They established an identity and a simple history for Ramirez, and agreed to meet again at nine p.m. to pound the story into the young policeman’s head and set up communication procedures between him and Shaw. In the interim, Voynik would have his people produce the necessary false papers to back up Ramirez’s new identity.
Shaw drove Kendall back to the homicide bureau, and then headed out to Hialeah to try to catch the last race or two. As he drove, Naomi Teller called on his cell phone to tell him that the jury had come back with a guilty verdict in the State v. Taylor trial. He made a mental note to call Liz Siegal in the morning to congratulate her. She had already said that she would seek the death penalty, and Shaw had no doubt that Lambert would impose it. Of course it would be fifteen years before William Taylor was executed, fifteen years in which Taylor would have three meals a day, watch a lot of television, and probably have some young punk around to suck him off whenever he felt like it. There was something wrong with that picture, but Shaw was way beyond trying to rearrange it. He was just happy that Taylor had been convicted.
He got to the track twenty minutes before the ninth race went off. There would be a tenth race, too, at five fifteen. Both were trifectas, which accounted for the crowd of addicts milling around the betting concourse and the grand-stand, where he liked to sit, near the finish line. The infield and the grounds around the track were green and handsome under a clear, blue sky. He picked up a Racing Form—there were plenty laying around at this time of the day—and sat in a section of seats shaded by the tier of stands above to read it. As he studied the past performances of the eleven horses in the ninth race—a ten thousand dollar claiming race, loaded with the working stiffs of the sport of kings—his meeting that afternoon with Chris Markey, et al, replayed in his mind, sticking each time, like a broken record, at the part where Agent Markey made Shaw, by his silence, a member of a conspiracy to set up Jay Cassio to be executed.
Shaw was not a true gambler. The most he bet was ten dollars, and he never doubled his bets to catch up. If he lost, he lost. What attracted him was the circus maximus atmosphere of the track, the great heart and athleticism of the jockeys and horses, and the satisfaction of successfully handicapping a race. In the twenty minutes before the ninth race, he decided on his bets for it and the tenth: a trifecta in each, the favorite in the ninth, and a fifty-to-one shot in the tenth, across the board. After the ninth race, which the favorite won, he collected his winnings, placed his bets on the tenth, and went to an open-air bar to drink a beer.
The horses for the tenth race were approaching the starting gate, and Shaw decided to watch it on the closed-circuit television at the bar. The jockey on his horse, a Hialeah veteran named Victor Huerta, had already won three races that day, which had been the deciding factor in making the bet. The guy was hot. When the horse, a chestnut gelding named Sonny’s Dream, was led into his stall, he stiffened and balked, and the jockey was almost thrown, striking his shoulder hard against a metal cross brace before righting himself. “Christ,”
Shaw said to himself, “that must have hurt.”
Sonny’s Dream broke strong, and Shaw was happy to see Huerta rein him in forcefully, his shoulder apparently okay. The horse’s problem in its last three races had been early speed, with not enough left at the end. Huerta stayed in the middle of the pack until he reached the far turn, where he made a great move, overtaking the two leaders in the middle of the stretch. Sonny’s Dream tired at the end, and was beaten by a nose by the favorite, but he would pay around fifty dollars to place, a nice win for Shaw, who had the horse five times.
Outside the track, on the way to his car, Shaw stopped at a pay phone and called El Pulpo. Angelo was not there, but Maria told him that he was expected soon. Shaw told her that he would stop by.
33.
4:00 PM, December 17, 2004, Miami
Jay and Dunn made it back to their hotel from West Palm at four. Dunn went to his room for a nap, and Jay again went to the beach. This time he swam for thirty minutes, out past the breakers, then parallel to the beach, back and forth in hundred yard reaches. Afterward, exhausted, he fell asleep for an hour on his towel. Back at his room, he showered and put on khaki slacks and a faded denim shirt. He thought briefly of calling his office, but rejected the idea. Cheryl would be gone by now—it was seven p.m.—and, although he had only been away for five days, practicing law seemed like something he had done in another lifetime. He had no desire to hear, and respond to, the usual messages left by clients, adversaries, and judges’ chambers, and wondered if he ever would again. He had not shaved since he arrived in Florida, and it felt good not to. He was meeting Dunn in the lobby at seven thirty for the drive to El Pulpo, and decided to have a drink in the adjacent lounge while waiting for him.
The lounge was not busy, and he was served his scotch on the rocks quickly. He took his first, short sip, and was putting his glass down when he saw Agent Markey standing at the arched entrance to the bar. Markey spotted him, walked over, and sat down across from him at the small drinks table he had taken along one side of the room.
“Cassio.”
“Agent Markey.”
“I’ll get to the point.”
“You want a drink first? I’m buying.”
“No.”
Jay said nothing. Markey, in his regulation dark suit, seemed more intense than he had at their last meeting, if that was possible.
“I spoke to Melissa Powers,” said Markey. “She said her mother wrote you some letters. There were no letters in your file.”
“I forgot all about them. They’re in a safe-deposit box. Cheryl can get them tomorrow morning. You can have someone pick them up at my office.”
“You must have thought they were important.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m investigating the murder of your friend,” Markey replied, “but there’s more to it than that.”
“There was a lot of babble,” Jay said, “but she basically accused Bryce of being in bed with drug kingpins and corrupt officials in Mexico. They lived there for five years.”
“Did you keep anything else back?”
“I didn’t keep the letters back.”
“All of the financial records were intact?”
“Of course.”
“How many letters are there?”
“Around fifty.”
“You’re lucky I don’t charge you with obstructing justice.”
“You scared the hell out of my secretary, but you don’t scare me.”
“If you’re down here to investigate the Del Colliano killing and I find out about it, then I will have you arrested. You and your friend Dunn. I see he’s registered here, too.”
“He’s on vacation.”
“It must be a long one. Al Garland told me he got a letter of resignation from Dunn yesterday.”
“You spoke with Melissa Powers knowing she was represented by counsel.”
“What?”
“Did you read her her rights? She’s a target, isn’t she?”
“Are you telling me how to do my job?”
“You’ve heard of the exclusionary rule, I’m sure.”
Jay was surprised to see Markey bridling at this remark. What kind of nerve had he touched? He was trying to think of something to say that would touch it again, but before he could come up with anything, Frank Dunn appeared at the table.
“Gentlemen,” Dunn said.
“You must be Mr. Dunn,” said Markey.
“I am,” said Dunn.
“Chris Markey, FBI.”
There was no handshake.
Dunn motioned to the waiter as he sat down.
“I was just leaving,” said Markey.
“Have a drink,” said Dunn, his eyes twinkling.
Markey shook his head, then said to Dunn, “I spoke to Al Garland today. He wants your badge and ID.”
“I’ll make sure I stop by the post office tomorrow.”
“I hope for your sake you haven’t been using them down here.”
“Are you sure you won’t have a drink?” said Dunn. “You look like you could use it.”
“Make that call,” Markey said to Jay, and he left.
34.
5:00 PM, December 17, 2004, Miami
Angelo was seated at his regular banquette in the corner, a club soda with a wedge of lemon in front of him. Maria kissed him hello and sat down to his left.
“You’re early,” she said. “And not smiling.”
“No.”
“Talk to me.”
“It turns out the woman we’re looking for knew Alvie Diaz.”
“Alvie’s dead,” she said. Alvaro Diaz had died in his sleep in September, Maria recalled.
“I know, but they’ll come looking for her. The FBI just got his name last week.”
“You mean the Donna Kelly woman.”
“Right.”
In bed last night Maria had asked Angelo about his business with Frank Dunn and Jay Cassio. Sometimes he would tell her what he was doing in a case, and sometimes not. He told her about the killing of Dan Del Colliano, the alleged murder-suicide of Kate and Bryce Powers, and the promise of help he had made to Dunn back in September. He told her not to worry, but of course she did. Showing a picture around of a person who had been tortured and executed by a drug cartel was a dangerous thing to do. Word could pass from mouth to mouth, and Angelo, an ordinary citizen, would not be hard to find, or to kill.
“What does she look like?” Maria asked. “Tell me again.”
“Mid-twenties, long black hair, well developed, as we used to say in Brooklyn.”
“Cuban?”
“We don’t know, possibly. Probably Hispanic of some kind.”
Maria looked around the restaurant. The place was quiet, the tables in the dining room pristinely set after the lunch cleanup. She didn’t expect to see anybody and did not. Turning back to Angelo, she said, “Alvie brought me Isabel.”
“I know.”
They looked at each other.
A few days before he died, Alvaro Diaz, who lived only a block away, had appeared at the restaurant with a pale, thin young woman, who he introduced as Isabel Sanchez. She was a friend, he said, who needed a job and a place to stay. Requests of this kind were routine to Maria, whose work as a volunteer at the Cuban Cultural Center on Eighth Street often brought her face-to-face with immigrants, legal and illegal, desperate for help. Isabel had a strange look in her eyes, and a bad haircut, but Maria had seen much worse. She might have been sick, or pregnant, or running from a husband, or trying to get clean of drugs or alcohol. She wasn’t even Cuban. It didn’t matter. Alvaro Diaz was a sweet man, and one of Sam Perna’s best friends. Sam gave the girl a job as a waitress, and let her live in the small apartment above the restaurant. A week later, he cried like a child and closed El Pulpo for the three days it took to wake and bury Alvie.
“It could be her,” Angelo said.
“Alvie wouldn’t dump someone bad on
us.”
“Not knowingly.”
“Tell me again what this woman did,” said Maria.
“She had a half million dollars in cash in an airport locker in Jersey. She claimed she worked for Powers, that he gave her the money. She hired Del Colliano to bring it to Florida for her. He does. Two days later he’s dead. The girl’s gone, the money’s gone.”
“When was this?”
“September.”
“How do you know this?”
“Frank and Jay went to Royal Palm today, where Alvie worked. Two Mexicans were there a couple of days ago asking about their sister—Isabel Perez—who lived there but who was missing. They wanted to know who her friends were. Alvie was mentioned. The next day the office was broken into, probably to get Alvie’s address.”
“I’ll go talk to her,” said Maria. “She’s upstairs right now.”
“What time does she start work?”
“Five.”
“Wait until she comes in, and then sit with her someplace where I can see you.”
“No. I’m going up there now.”
“Maria.”
“Yes, senor?”
“Take my gun.”
“No.”
“Well, listen to me, then.”
Maria had gotten to her feet, and now sat down again.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“The FBI knows about the Alvie connection, too. They’re probably working Little Havana right now. These two Mexicans sound like trouble. Then there’s Cassio. She might have had a hand in killing his friend. I’m supposed to be helping him. She’s running out of options. She’ll want to run. Tonight, probably. I don’t blame her. Before she goes anyplace, she has to talk to me.”
“You can’t turn her in, Angel.”
“I won’t if you don’t want me to.”
“I don’t.”
“I’ll wait right here.”