by Neil Russell
I gestured toward the door where I’d seen the photographer. “I see you’re down to only one vulture.”
“And not even an important one. The old paps send the pussies here to break them in.”
“I’ll see if I can do something to get you back on the A-List.”
“And I’ll see that there’s ground glass in your ravioli. Come, sit. I have a recent addition to my wine collection. And cigars.”
“I thought they took smoking away in Bev Hills.”
“You ever hear of anything so stupido? Even the cops roll their eyes. There’s one old broad in the condos next door who complains, so I send her a sfogliatelle every night, and she straps on a gas mask and goes to bed.”
We were on the patio and well into our second bottle of something very dark and very rich, and I was wondering how much it was going to cost to have one of the waiters drive me home when my cell went off. Tacitus usually doesn’t allow phones in the restaurant, so I asked permission. “I can step out to the sidewalk.”
He threw up both palms. “Please, go ahead. I have to check with the kitchen about tomorrow’s antelope entree. Can you believe it, I’ve got a vegan chef, and somebody else has to cut the chops.”
Coggan was laughing. “If you can believe it, we’re on our way back down the hill with a plate of Maxine Crowe’s ham sandwiches. Well, the plate anyway. Fuckin’ Wal-Mart doesn’t share.”
“Sounds like it wasn’t as difficult as I expected.”
“Little rocky at the outset, but after half an hour of Oklahoma drills, we found common ground. Did you know Wes played a little running back up at Fresno State?”
I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. An Oklahoma drill is basically three-man football: a blocker, a running back and a tackler. The back gets handed the ball-by a quarterback or coach, and while the blocker occupies the D, the back tries to run past him. The only rule is that everybody has to stay within narrow boundaries.
On its face, it’s a simple exercise. In practice, it’s Gladiator without the compassion. It’s only trotted out when everyone’s blood is up—often to punish some miscreant for something serious, like an untied shoe. And the longer it goes on, the more fury is unleashed. Some of the great humanitarians among coaches have special cages built so the runner can’t get wide on the tackier, and I’ve personally heard collisions from several blocks away. I was also present when some of my fellow Delta operators nearly killed three Fayetteville townies by introducing it in a bar after way too many shots of tequila. It wasn’t something a cop in his forties would have volunteered for.
“Where did this all this fun take place?”
“Wes’s office. Little cluttered, but that made it more interesting. You should have seen Wal-Mart. I don’t think he missed a tackle. Course, blocking was never my strong suit.”
The mental picture of the three of them crashing around Wes’s private retreat made me smile. “So can you give me the CliffsNotes version?”
“I can. Crowe claims he didn’t have anything to do with Chuck’s and Lucille’s murders, and I believe him. We can get into the details later, but I think he had a thing for Lucille. Maybe they didn’t do anything about it, and maybe they did. Cops are gone a lot, and restless wives have been known to find somebody to keep them warm.”
I was inclined to agree on the murders. Not because I liked Wes Crowe but because it would have been a cleaner job with a chief dick involved. At the very least, a cop wouldn’t have left a chunk of forearm behind. As for an affair, I gave up my illusions about husbands and wives when my mother took her first boyfriend. “What about the late Donnie Two Knives?”
“Enter Cheater Crowe. He and Knife-boy heard that the Brandos were personally paying some kind of added extortion the Chinese were demanding to release kids. And naturally, they got it in their heads there was a pile of cash in the house. Down South, we see this all the time. Couple of dim bulbs who never heard of a wire transfer kill an entire family looking for a stash that isn’t there.
“The place was supposed to be empty, and Donnie went in while Cheater waited down the road in Wes’s car—which he borrowed without asking. Only Chuck and Lucille were just up at the Pullman and came back while Donnie was crashing around inside. Then, instead of doing the smart thing and beating feet, Donnie grabbed Lucille and held a knife on her while he called Cheater on the phone to come help.
“Cheater said no fuckin’ way, and while they were arguing, Chuck took Donnie down. I guess in the process, Lucille got cut a little, and Chuck lost it. Tied the little fucker to a chair and jammed the guy’s blades in his ears. Afterward, he set him out on the lawn under a floodlight. Then he hit redial and told Cheater to come take a look. Cheater didn’t, but later, Wes did. He got Chuck settled down, and they buried him together.”
Surprise. Cops looking out for cops—and cops’ brothers. Not to mention Lucille getting cut. No wonder she wanted out.
“There’s another body too. Some Chinese CPA in LA. The guy was handling cash for Chuck and got whacked by his partner on some unrelated matter. Chuck had to clean up the mess before it got too far into the system.”
“Grand jury gets hold of you, you might as well buy a house out here.”
“Not me, partner. Too many clearances. They’d send in the A.G. first.”
“Okay, the tigers.”
“It’s a radio auction, like the one Old Man Crowe bought Wes in. Wes runs it from his place, with Kingdom sitting right beside him. For security purposes, the boss doesn’t speak. Neither do the principals. They’re all present at their respective locations, but they have stand-ins to do the bidding.”
“Makes sense. Somebody wants to run tape, all they got is a bunch of no-names probably talking in code.”
“Correct. What’s different this time is that because of this zodiac thing, Kingdom’s insisted on a live event. He thinks the bidding will be more ferocious if the buyers have to be there in person. The only people excluded are the ones who’ve had their passports lifted. They’ll still be on the radio, but if Kingdom doesn’t hear their actual voices, their bid will be ignored.”
“Greedy prick, but very, very smart.”
“He’s been on a tear with tigers too. Normally, every couple of years, he moves one or two. The word is that the Hu-Meng have stockpiled nine for the big event, which in this day and age is probably the monetary equivalent of a railcar of gold bars.”
“Are you kidding? Nine animals and two dozen guys with nothing but money. There isn’t an equivalent.”
“We’ll soon find out. Vuku Island, one week from today. I think there’s a ship there you’re familiar with.”
“Which makes even less sense after tonight.”
“Not really. Wes tipped Lucille the auction was coming. Pillow talk, would be my guess. Right afterward, she leased the boat. He thinks she was planning to ask you to use it to rescue the tigers. I think he’s right.”
I didn’t. “What you’re talking about takes months to plan.”
“Then explain the notation in her appointment book for the day after she and Chuck were killed. ‘Call Rail. Finally! He HAS to do it! There’s NOBODY else!’”
“Somebody’s bullshitting you.”
“Then he’s bullshitting my eyes too, because Wes grabbed her book before the LAPD got it—probably because he was worried about what was in there about him. I saw it myself. She jotted down her feelings with every appointment. Even the goddamn hairdresser: ‘Tell Sue she has the cutest smile and to get back in circulation. Divorce doesn’t end your life.’ And it would take a team of experts to fake her handwriting. All kinds of curlicues and loops and hearts dotting the i’s. The entry didn’t mean anything to Wes until he met you. Then all he did was put two and two together.”
“I still think he came up with seven.”
“Get a grip, Rail. Your learning curve on something like this would be next to zero. But if she told you too soon, you’d find a way to stop it or talk her out of it. The safe thing
to do was wait until the train was pulling out of the station. And frankly, I think she read it just right. She just didn’t expect to be dead.”
I thought about Jake’s wiseass remark. Looks like they left you a mandate and the means. Now, all you’re looking for is a mission. “There might be a way,” I said, “but it isn’t what Lucille had in mind. How are you with a camera?”
“Still or movie?”
“Movie. Something light and digital that’ll handle one of those super high-res government lenses that they won’t let civilians buy.”
He laughed. “Stop hanging out on the conspiracy Web sites. But yes, on all counts. What’s your thought?”
“I think it’s time to make Markus Kingdom a star.”
“Why not. Cameras are the new guns. Who needs assassination when you can ruin somebody’s life. Count me in on this guy.”
“I want two views. Wide and close. How about Wal-Mart?”
“Give me a few hours with him, and he’ll be Jim Cameron. Minus the third-grader dialogue.”
“What’re you going to do about Wes?”
“He’s coming to work for my think tank. Once we got on the same page, we liked each other, and his shortwave knowledge is something we don’t have. Oxford’s also about a tenth as expensive as California. But the deal I made with him is he stays on the job until the auction’s over.”
“Have him record it. I want a sound track. What about his wife?”
“Maxine feels like a lot of women who grew up with an asshole older brother. There’s not a grave deep enough. Plus she’s had it up to here with cops. She thinks she might want to go back to school.”
“I guess I should say, nice work.”
“Thanks, but I struck out one place. Wes was a blank on Parkinson-Lowe.”
“I’ve got a little more on that, but not enough yet. I’ll fill in Fat Cat, and you handle the others. Tell Jody to get a flight plan together for anyplace within boat range of Vuku. We’ll leave late tomorrow.”
“I’ll get the lenses.”
As I got off, Tacitus was returning. “Good call?” he asked.
I raised my wine. “To sfogliatelle and Oklahoma drills.”
He didn’t get it, but he drank anyway.
Vanda, Tacitus’s accountant and chief assistant came around the corner with her usual look of disdain. I used to think it was me, but she’s just one of those people who couldn’t work the front of the house at a graveyard. I love her eyes, but that’s all. “Excuse me, Mr. Gambelli, but a man called looking for Mr. Black.”
“I’m right here,” I said.
She ignored me. “I told him he was here, and he said not to leave.”
Ten minutes later, Nick came through the front gate. “Cedars helipad,” he said. “I take care of their docs, and they take care of me.” But his voice wasn’t cool. It was cold, and in guys like Nick, there’s a difference. “It’s Birdy.”
Not wanting it to be something worse, I took it my own direction. “If you flew all the way here to tell me she’s sleeping with Hassie, I already figured that out.”
“What the fuck’s wrong with you? That girl’s head over heels. And it ain’t for some golf bum with an eye tuck and a bad line of bullshit. She didn’t show up at the ranch yesterday. Or today. When I got around to checking, Bronis and Judita hadn’t seen her either. And the Hyundai was missing. I figured she might have gotten homesick, so I called Santa Anita, but no dice there either.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. “Spare me the journey. What’s the destination?”
“I sent two of my guys out to look for the car, and they found it around five this afternoon. It was in a ditch ten miles from any road she needed to be on. With four blown tires. You know how hard it is to blow a tire anymore?”
I did, and I was getting sick to my stomach. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I also knew who to ask.
* * * *
Despite what some Pentagon popes with a case of Senate Hearing Room Shakes would have you believe, there is no debate. Torture works. One of my instructors at Delta had a saying: Asking a general about the dirty side of war is like asking your ex-wife what she thinks about your girlfriend’s tit job. Why bother?
Civilians equate generals with bravery and brilliance. While it’s true some were once very brave, and most can recite Napoleon’s moves at Austerlitz, to attain flag rank, you have to be more like Ted Kennedy than John.
As with all promotions of commissioned officers, to wear a star, your superiors and the president must nominate you. Then the Senate must confirm you. No one outside the military pays the slightest attention to promotion lists—until it comes to general officers. Then, senators go over each name like crazy girlfriends checking your text messages. Naturally, this sends candidates into a wild frenzy of ass-kissing.
And so flag officers enter their new jobs compromised and beholden. Because what can be bestoweth, can be unbestoweth. And only the Senate determines which generals retire with three or four stars. It’s not that much difference in pay, but it matters when you’re calling for a tee time.
This civilian wedgie on generals is part of checks and balances, and in theory, it’s a fine idea. But downstream, the guys who get dirt under their nails are never comfortable that some squeamish chair-warmer could blow a secret mission because he can’t hold his water in front of a microphone. So, whenever possible, nobody tells a general anything.
Colonels—and navy captains—run the military. No one in the outside world knows who they are, and they’re usually the best officers in the ranks. To put it another way: You might show off a general at your birthday party, but if you needed somebody to protect your back in a bar fight, you’d call a colonel. So ask one. Torture absolutely works. All kinds.
But you have to know how to apply it.
Waterboarding is excellent for long-term interrogations. It turns even the baddest of the bad into babbling schoolgirls. The downside is that you get so much information it requires months to evaluate and prioritize. Extreme distress changes brain chemistry, and waterboarded intelligence comes in such a rush that it often gets jumbled with aborted plans, misinformation, even dreams. That’s what the generals who keep getting quoted in the New York Times are trying to say without saying it. What they don’t mention is that it’s not pain that gets you what you want, it’s the absence of it.
Interrogation professionals love the William Goldman masterpiece, Marathon Man. In it, Laurence Olivier does masterful work on Dustin Hoffman’s molars with a set of dental tools. But he doesn’t get down to serious questioning until he applies oil of clove to the exposed nerve. That’s because during the pain-creating process, people will say anything to make it stop. The critical step to getting what you want is lowering your subject’s adrenaline level so the brain can begin working rationally again. Then, all things are possible.
But beyond technique, the essence of Olivier’s interrogation is that he’s only interested in the answer to one question. No long exchanges about historical inequities, no justification for past crimes, just a simple yes or no to three words: “Is it safe?”
In the business, this is called a 220-Interrogation, or just a 220. The name is derived from the number of beats per minute at which the human heart fails, and if you’re assigned one, it means the situation is so dire the guy needs to be broken in minutes, not hours. Unfortunately, on occasion, the bad guy will hit 220 before he talks, but that’s the price of eggs when you’re saving lives.
I was always very good at 220s. I was about to find out if I still had what it took.
Major was beginning to come around. While he’d been out, I’d moved him to his office, secured him to the banker’s chair with knots that tightened if you fought them and gagged him with a baseball-sized wad of plastic packaging tape. Then I went shopping in the store.
When I returned, he was trying to push the tape out with his tongue while he fought against the restraints and wasn’t having much success with either. His eyes focuse
d in on me, and he stopped struggling.
While I set up, he watched intently and tried to communicate with some indecipherable grunts. I ignored him. A few minutes later, I placed a pair of professional headphones over his ears and ran several loops of tape around his head to hold them in place. He tried to make it difficult, so I jabbed him in the throat, and he choked a little, then settled down.
You hear a lot about breaking terrorists with heavy metal music, but since I didn’t have to report back to the Justice Department, I decided to skip Black Sabbath. I worked the dial of a top-of-the-line international radio receiver until I found a nicely shrill squeal not unlike amplifier feedback at a rock concert. When I was satisfied I had just the right pitch, I plugged in the headphones and dialed up the volume as far as it would go.