by Todd Merer
Additionally, Fercho would be screwed out of nailing Uvalde, and in turn I’d be screwed out of Fercho’s bonus. No way I could give the evidence to Fercho, but just maybe Fercho could, ah . . . piggyback on it.
Hmmm.
A free ride. Why not? I tell Fercho about the video—not that I have it, only that I saw it—and Fercho then tells the INB chief he personally observed Rigo bribe Uvalde . . . in fact, he himself had shot the video. After Fercho conveyed that tidbit, I’d give the evidence to Barnett Robinson on Rigo’s behalf after he paid me. Ergo, Rigo gets his deal, and Fercho gets cooperation corroboration brownie points.
Not bad. It could work . . .
No. It wouldn’t fly.
The geniuses in the SDNY attorney’s office wouldn’t buy it. I could picture their eyes rolling over Benn Bluestone’s miraculous coincidence. Two for the price of one.
Find another way.
At the very least, I had to tell Fercho that Rigo had beaten him to the punch. Of course, it was unethical for me to tell him, but I owed the guy that much . . .
But did I really?
Fercho wasn’t my blood, or my friend. I owed him honest work for his money, but no more than that. My first commandment was “Thou shalt not cross lines,” aka “Step on a crack, break your back.” So fuck Rigo and Fercho. Fuck them all. I uncapped a mini.
Drank it in one swallow.
Had another . . .
The last thing I recall before passing out was leaving a message for Sonia to book me on the morning flight to Miami.
CHAPTER 23
An hour after touching down in Miami, I was in a doctor’s office—a medical doctor, not a lawyer. His practice was concierge: no insurance, all cash. He was a tax gonif. Not that I didn’t live in the same glass house. Anyway, Doc Concierge was well worth it: no waiting time, and scripts for all the Valium I desired.
He usually dispensed the script by phone, but I saw him sporadically, whenever my problem trio acted up: knee, back, hip. All three were barking now, ever since I’d stumbled approaching the man who might be Sombra.
Self-inflicted wounds. Story of my life. Years ago, while playing hide-the-blow from my then-wife, I’d torn a meniscus retrieving a gram that rolled beneath a couch. Arthroscopic helped, but over time the knee became wobbly, and one bone rubbed another until my hip was declared replaceable—which I’d been putting off for years. Favoring the hip led to lumbar problems, which also require surgery—which I’d likewise avoided.
My temporary solution was steroid injections that alleviated pain. Until they wore off. Which was when I saw Doc Concierge. I’d asked if it were true that too many steroid boosts could have serious consequences.
He’d inserted a hypodermic into my knee and said, “Life has serious consequences. We start aging the moment we’re born, and eventually, we circle the drain and disappear. If it’s not steroids that do you in, something else will. So stop worrying and enjoy.”
This time he said, “Something serious we need to discuss.”
Serious? Not good, coming from my doctor.
“My fee has increased,” he said. “Doubled.”
“No problem. So long as I feel better.”
“For now,” he said. “But no one gets out alive.”
With those words ringing, I went to seek sex. My mission was soon accomplished, but it felt far from satisfying. I didn’t know how my sex partner felt because I left her place immediately afterward.
I kept a hidey-hole in my Miami pad. I emptied it—two hundred thou, exactly the number I owed Foto for the Bolivar referral. Then I bought a throwaway phone, dialed a certain number, and made arrangements to be at a certain place. The scenario was a dead drop. After it went down, I texted Foto a question mark. He replied with a smiley face.
Then I went to visit Fercho.
For whatever reason, the powers that be had released Fercho from the SHU into general population. While I was waiting for him to come down, a drug lawyer named Dreidel paused at my table.
“Been down south lately?” he asked.
I bit my lip to keep from telling him to mind his own business. Dreidel was a kiss-up, kick-down type who had spent most of his working life as an AUSA. He had been a two-faced prick as a prosecutor and as a defense lawyer was a prick of many faces. But he was a lucky prick. His turnaround from cops to robbers gained him publicity he amplified doing media interviews about how he’d jumped the ship of state because he could no longer bear the human tragedy bobbing in its wake. Despite the fact that he’d been a top-ten-most-cruel inquisitor, the sanctimonious jerk actually picked up a few extradition cases.
“How you doing with Rigo?” he asked when I didn’t answer.
The bad aspect of PACER was that it was easy for lawyers to know what their legal brethren were doing. I shot him a look that meant buzz off. But instead he buzzed closer.
“Reason I’m mentioning it?” he said. “I got a nibble about representing a Los Hachos guy.”
My gut churned, but I kept a poker face. If Dreidel were talking truth, then Rigo’s DTO was seeking other counsel, and they really were playing games with my fee.
I spotted Fercho and blew Dreidel off.
Fercho sat. “I don’t like that lawyer.”
“He says one of Rigo’s people contacted him.”
Fercho nodded. “Word is that there’s problems in Los Hachos. General Uvalde’s on the hunt, and people are scattering.”
I recalled what Dave the DEA agent had told me outside the embassy in Bogotá: that Uvalde had decimated Rigo’s DTO to prove his cojones with the Americans. Undoubtedly, it was a double score for the general: getting praised by the gringos and paid for the operation by Rigo’s enemies to boot. Were the enemies Fercho’s people? Maybe.
“Aldo the Barracuda?” said Fercho. “He met with Sombra.”
The thought that an inept lawyer like Aldo had stolen my Biggy hurt.
But wait. Fercho’s knowing look was a reveal: he knew I’d been flirting with Sombra. But how? That couldn’t have been on the grapevine. Could it have?
I shrugged. “I hear the man’s met with lots of lawyers.”
“Aldo’s saying Sombra is his. Don’t worry. You still got a shot at Sombra.”
I looked at him, waiting for more.
“Just saying,” he said. “Another thing. It’s strange Mondragon put you into Rigo’s case, since he works with the Cuban lawyers. The other day, he came with Aldo to see a client.”
“They’ve done lots of cases together. Maybe it was one from back when.”
“No. The guy they came to see was just now extradited.”
That reopened the question of why Mondragon had referred Rigo to me rather than to one of his usual cronies. Another reason to believe I was getting screwed.
“I gave the DEA the parasitic-torpedo coordinates,” I said.
“Good,” said Fercho. “What’s up otherwise?”
I figured otherwise meant Uvalde. I wondered if somehow Fercho knew about Rigo giving up Uvalde. Yet Fercho’s expression was as guileless as a choirboy’s.
I’m a snoopy kind of guy. My business is other people’s secrets. Come to Fercho, though, it was give-and-take. So I fed him a morsel. “There’s a video of Uvalde being bribed by Rigo.”
Got him! His eyes had narrowed. “You have this video?”
“Mondragon is relaying it to the government. It goes without saying, you didn’t hear this from me.”
“Who’s on the video?”
“Just them.”
“Interesting.”
“You’re not disappointed Rigo beat you to Uvalde?”
“What can you do? Where did the bribe take place?”
“A hotel room, far as I could see.”
“That’s your trouble, Benn.”
“What is?”
“How far you see.”
CHAPTER 24
When I got back to New York, I phoned Barnett Robinson and told him about the video.
“Sound
s good,” he said. “Gus Romero mentioned Rigo was working on something along those lines. When do I see it?”
“I’m e-mailing it as we speak.”
“Thank you, Benn.”
I thought Robinson seemed rather cavalier given the seriousness of the subject matter. I e-mailed him the video, expecting a quick response. But the week passed, and he didn’t call. Nor did I get a visit from Mr. Green, so I visited Rigo.
Instead of coming down to the visit room, he sent a message that he wasn’t feeling well. Avoidance was a bad sign. I tried calling Mondragon but got a recorded voice saying his mailbox was full.
I received notice that Joaquin Bolivar had a reserved seat on the next extradition flight from Bogotá. That lifted my spirits. Action at last. Just for a change of pace, instead of going from my pad to my office along Madison, I walked down Fifth Avenue.
Beyond the bare treetops on the far side of Central Park, a tall building glinted in the sun like a needle—the Kursk Needle—which got me thinking of Jilly again.
As I lowered my gaze from the Needle, I noticed a pretty young woman on the other side of Fifth. She stood there, either waiting to cross or waiting for a taxi. She seemed familiar. After a moment, I realized she was Rigo’s paramour, Stefania. I wondered what she was doing in New York—
A man came up behind her. He was small, slightly shorter than she. Enano? Before I could process that thought, he’d put an arm around her. They stood like that a moment and then he lowered her to the sidewalk, snatched her shoulder bag, and quick-walked away.
A lot of people were passing, but none noticed, or at least none wanted to notice. Then a woman screamed, and all at once people rushed to Stefania. A pool of blood spread from beneath her throat: her face was ashen, eyes staring.
I felt an urge to join the crowd but knew she was beyond help. And why put myself on a witness stand? I went to my office and poured myself a stiff one, the liquor tamping down my shock and allowing my mind’s gears to mesh.
Enano, Sombra’s sicario, who had tried and failed to murder Rigo in Antigua, had just murdered Stefania. This was in keeping with Sombra’s vendetta against Rigo. But something troubled me: Enano had also taken Stefania’s bag. Why? What was in it?
Forget that for now. More importantly: Why had Stefania been on Fifth? On her way to see me? Or on her way to the Kursk Needle?
Ping!
A CORRLINKS message: Rigo complaining that he wasn’t receiving medical attention. Poor Rigo. The whining pig who’d dragged a girl into the bloody chaos of his existence wasn’t feeling well. But for the sake of maintaining a paper trail, I e-mailed the jail and requested Rigo be examined.
The jail didn’t reply. Figured. So I went to see Rigo. Again, I was told Rigo was too sick to see me. I tried reaching out to Mondragon. Another useless exercise.
A few days later, Barnett Robinson called. He was ready to proffer Rigo. We set the date for the following week. I figured by then Rigo would be okay. I was done trying to reason with him. Let the hardhead walk into a proffer cold without my prepping him; he’d emerge worrying that he’d get no cooperation agreement at all.
As if summoned by my uncharitable thoughts, a Mr. Green visited, lugging many bricks of US currency—at a glance, enough to pay all or most of Rigo’s fee.
“Dr. Mondragon sends regards,” Mr. Green said.
When he was gone, I bent to inspect my treasure—
“Oh my God,” a woman said.
Mr. Green hadn’t closed the office door properly. It had swung partially open. My neighbor, the fine-art dealer Gracie Loeb, was staring . . .
At me. On my hands and knees. As if worshiping a pile of money.
I mumbled something about nothing and closed the door securely. Then went back to the suitcase and—
Damn! The money was small bills. Fives and tens in $5,000 bricks. Ten lousy bricks of filthy street lucre. Fifty thou. I was still short nine hundred grand. I tried calling Mondragon. He was not available.
I simmered. They want to play games? Fine. Soon enough the case would heat up—What do we do now, Doctor?—and I’d leverage the answer to get my fee.
I hid ten in the steel safe set in a faux supporting column, then went home and stashed ten in the safe faced like a wall oven, then deposited twenty in my legal account.
I noted the transactions in PARANOID.FLOYD, then lingered over the bottom-line numbers. Not counting the Miami condo, I figured I was worth about three mil. I would neither starve nor run out my days idly rich. But I’d need a lot more to live in the style I was accustomed to.
I’d whiffed on Sombra, but I’d score a Biggy. I had to. One way or another. Aboveboard was fine. Below board was no problem. Catch me if you can. I’m a survivor. All these years, and I’m still standing.
Little did I know I was about to be floored.
CHAPTER 25
I was in my office when the street bell rang. Anticipating my lunch delivery, I buzzed the visitor in. A minute later, a knock came at my door. I opened the door.
A woman stood there. I knew her well. Very well. She was the woman whose face I’d sketched on the flight from Puerto Rico.
The same woman I’d watched throwing water at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Viejo San Juan; the same woman I’d watched hug a handsome, silver-haired man.
The same woman named Madaleina Andaluz, before and after she was Mrs. Bennjamin T. Bluestone. My ex-wife.
“Hello, Benn.”
“Hello, Mady.”
My voice sounded far away. Maybe because it was lost beneath the strings of my heart, zinging. For those who can’t read electrocardiographs, here’s what Mady looks like:
Large eyes, strong nose, wide lips, firm jaw. One-of-a-kind impossibly gorgeous: slender yet full-bodied, perfect butt, long legs. Light-olive skin, light-brown eyes, light-brown hair with an undertone of auburn. Her habit was to let her hair hang free, but when working, she pinned it up. She had it pinned up now.
“Please, sit,” I said, pointing at a chair near mine.
She sat but on the other side of my desk. She wore a wildly overpriced cashmere coat I’d bought for her during a weekend in Paris. “No matter what,” I said, “we’ll always have Paris.”
Her smile was pure sunshine. “It’s the only warm coat I own. This is the first time I’ve been out of Puerto Rico in years.”
It occurred to me that Mady had seen me skulking on New Year’s Eve. So, in addition to being back in her sight, apparently I was also back in her mind. Be still my heart.
“You were there over the holidays,” she said. “You should have called.”
“I didn’t want to intrude. I saw you had, ah, company . . .”
She looked puzzled. “You saw me? I didn’t see you. Diego told me you were there.”
Diego? Ah, right. The Convento bellhop had seen me after all. “So, how’s it going?” I asked, lamely.
“Really great. You?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
She looked around, as if doubting this. Made sense. Last I’d seen Mady, I was in my old Midtown offices, a plush suite populated by my employees. I said, “Big change, but for the better. I’m no longer in the defense-lawyer business, at least not the way I was.”
“I was wondering about that. The sign downstairs says ‘Extraditions.’ Meaning?”
I wanted her to know the things that had kept us apart were no more. “I only do two or three cases a year. One of them pays as much as I made in a year, back when I worked nights and weekends.”
“I’m glad for you, Benn.”
“Not only are my hours normal; I’ve crossed the aisle and enlisted in Team America. I’m with the good guys now. What I mean . . . I’ve come to see the error of my ways, so to speak. Morality-wise. The thing is, you were right, and I was wrong.”
Mady simply nodded. She always was a cool reactor, one of her many qualities I’d loved so much for so long.
“What I’m trying to say,” I said, “is that I’m no longer l
iving and breathing ways to beat the system. I work with the agents and prosecutors now, not against them. And you know what?”
“What?”
“I sleep better knowing I’m on the right side of the law.”
“Sort of like what you tried to do with Max.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m glad you’ve found your way, Benn.”
Right back into your loving arms, baby, I wanted to say but didn’t. Better not to come on too strong. Better that Mady come to me in her own good time.
“Benn, I’ve been thinking . . .”
I nodded sympathetically, realizing it must be hard on Mady, humbling herself by coming to me. From her bag, she took a paper and set it on my desk.
A legal document. A quitclaim deed conveying the house I’d seen her emerge from on New Year’s Eve. I looked at the deed, remembering the night we met.
We’d walked the cobblestoned streets of Viejo San Juan for hours, holding hands, nuzzling, talking. At two in the morning, with the city dark beneath a crescent moon that shone like a silver blade above the black bay, we sat on the ramparts of the city wall. Behind us stood a lovely old house, one that since she was a little girl she’d wanted to live in. Casita Azul, she called it: Little Blue House.
The next day, I bought the house from its reluctant-to-sell owner, price be damned. How I loved making Mady happy. We weren’t married yet, so I put the house in my name so I could write it off as a business expense for doing cases in PR. We shared some wonderful times there, and when things turned not-so-good, Mady lived there alone. When we divorced, I was tailspinning into one of my nutty periods, and to avoid confrontations, I gave her everything in both our names I hadn’t yet depleted: what was left of the bank accounts, stock, and art.
I meant for her to have Casita Azul as well, but I was in dire need of deductions to minimize my taxes. I thought when my tax liabilities stabilized, I’d sign the house over to her. But the next year I put it off, and by the following year, I deemed it unimportant. Mady’d said she wanted to live in Casita Azul for the rest of her life, and since I had no desire to live there, or sell the place, I left her my share in my will, so it would be her home forever.