by Todd Merer
“Um, like, a week ago?”
I glanced at the mail stacked atop my desk. Sure enough, there was an envelope whose return was EDNY US Attorney, with her name inked below. There was a teensy circle atop the i in Kandi.
“So you did,” I said. “How about, say, three days?”
“How about, say, two days? Day after tomorrow?”
I agreed and got to work. There wasn’t much in the discovery envelope. An intake sheet detailing the extradition of Joaquin Bolivar. A copy of a hand-drawn map signed by Special Agent Charles Scally: a wavy line indicating a shoreline; an x marked House; an x marked Sailboat.
There were also several photographs:
A shot of a black sailboat at anchor. Bolivar’s Swan, I assumed.
Bales of weed stacked in a hold.
A cabin with a bed, sheets askew. On a table a candle burned alongside two empty wineglasses, on one rim a smear of lipstick. An apple someone had taken a bite out of.
The envelope also included a CD and an accompanying transcript of four recorded conversations that were exactly as I’d expected: four UMs—unidentified males—each phoning another and drawing them into agreeing to accept payment of an old debt, for monies advanced in “the venture we tried up there six years ago.” The final call was to Bolivar.
That was it.
What wasn’t there verified what I’d already thought: that, apart from the seized weed, the sole evidence against Bolivar was testimonial. The only question was whether the cooperating crew members were believable. Since they’d be telling the truth, they’d be difficult to shake, but I’d done so before, and blessed with a little luck, I might work my old blue magic again—
My phone rang.
Again I grabbed it, hoping it was Foto. Again I was disappointed. The caller was Natty Grable’s sidekick, Andrey. “Is our friend going to court soon?”
Andrey was close to the people—Jilly and Natty—facilitating Bolivar’s fee, but that didn’t give them dibs on knowing about the case. Especially since Bolivar’s next trip from jail wasn’t to court but to proffer, which meant he was cooperating. But refusing to answer Andrey would raise suspicion. Best to keep things vague.
“Day after tomorrow,” I said.
“What time?”
I hesitated. They might, as they’d pretended to do with Jilly, send someone to observe the proceedings. Okay: Kandi’s habit was to meet cooperators early. Therefore: Bolivar would proffer until early afternoon.
“Probably late afternoon,” I said.
“We appreciate your assistance.”
I wondered: What assistance?
CHAPTER 45
The next morning, I went to MDC Brooklyn. I offered my right hand to be stamped.
“Left hand today,” Bonesy said.
I got stamped and went through the metal detector and put my left hand beneath CONTROL’S black light. The daily password was a fluorescent green smear; illegible, but apparently the jail didn’t give a shit. Neither did I.
“Enter.”
While waiting for Bolivar, I hit the vending machine for an espresso. Not bad, considering. And the coffee smell killed the disinfectant stink permeating the visit room.
While sipping, I noticed the last visit room, the big one, was now completely filled with cartons, rows of them, stacked floor to ceiling. Between the rows a couple of inmates and some flunky lawyers associated with Morty Plitkin were gabbing.
Bolivar showed up in the visit room looking as if he’d dropped a few pounds, and his hair was longer since I’d seen him last. We went into a room, sat facing each other.
“What’s the word, Benn?”
“You proffer tomorrow.”
“I’m ready for Freddie.”
“Lose the jailhouse banter. You’re not ready. I’ve changed my mind about our approach. The prosecutor’s too eager to proffer you. My guess is, she knows the weed was a prelude to bigger things. She’s going to expect you to tell her who else was involved on the cocaine end.”
“Let’s stick with Plan A,” he said. “It was in my mind only.”
“I don’t think she’ll buy it.”
“Why not?”
A question I preferred not answering. Although certain Bolivar would prevaricate, I’d arranged the proffer hoping it would be a meet and greet; Kandi would admonish and threaten Bolivar with trial and its consequences if he didn’t truthfully cooperate, after which he would do so. Maybe. In truth, I half hoped we’d go to trial.
“She just won’t,” I said.
“So, I’ll tell her what I was really up to.”
“Not enough. Successful cooperation doesn’t mean giving yourself up. It means giving other people up.”
“Let’s see how it goes tomorrow.”
“Don’t nonchalant this, Joaquin.”
“I have faith. You’re an ace.”
I was sure he’d flunk the proffer. Then again, Kandi would probably allow him a second try for the gold ring. Actually, it wasn’t a bad strategy: even a failed proffer might result in the government tipping its hand.
“A woman scratched you? I hope she was worth it.”
“I don’t scratch and tell,” I said.
CHAPTER 46
Kandi arrived with her usual pomp and circumstance: carrying a tin of home-baked cookies, wearing a tight-fitting blouse and skirt, streaked hair blow-dried just so, lips perfectly glossed. Her face was smooth and plump, but her neck resembled snakeskin.
She offered Bolivar the cookie tin. He chose a chocolate chip, shyly murmured thanks.
Kandi smiled. “May I call you Joaquin?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Joaquin, your lawyer has explained the proffer rules?”
“He has.”
“Excellent. Why don’t you start by telling us about the marijuana you attempted to bring into the United States?”
Bolivar immediately went into the narrative. He said that six years ago, he’d assembled a crew. Four Americans. They’d anchored a sailboat off Colombia’s Guajira Peninsula, where they loaded their vessel with three tons of weed purchased from growers in the Sierra Nevada coastal range.
Scally asked, “Indians?”
Bolivar nodded. “Everything went smoothly. We took our time sailing northward and dropped anchor off Long Island. It was an area of vacation homes, so we thought there’d be no Coast Guard patrols. We made sure to arrive two days before the guys who’d be buying the weed so we could scope the scene. The first night I took the Zodiac ashore. The area was very posh, big mansions far apart. On the beach in front of one, there was a party going on. I wandered into it and met this girl. We smoked a J and took a walk. All of a sudden, fireworks went off—I didn’t realize until then it was July Fourth—and in their light, she saw the sailboat. When I told her it was mine, she wanted to go out to it. I wanted to go, too, away from where the guy who owned the mansion might find us.”
“Understandable,” Scally said.
Joaquin smiled boyishly. “The guy who owned the mansion, some ancient playboy, thought he was her boyfriend. So when she went missing, someone told him about me and her smoking a J and taking off in the Zodiac. He went ballistic. Called the local cops. They didn’t think it was so important, but he was a big shot, so they sent an off-duty cop who lived in the next town—Hampton Bays, as I recall—to find us and roust me.”
Kandi and Scally exchanged glances. “Please continue,” she said.
“The cop wasn’t happy about holiday duty and took his own sweet time getting there. For company, he took his dog along. Didn’t take long for him to follow our footprints in the sand, to where the Zodiac had been ashore. Naturally, they spotted the sailboat, and the mansion guy offered his speedboat for the cop to go there. The cop was reluctant, but the rich guy was making noise that the girl had been kidnapped, so the cop and his dog went out to the sailboat. Turned out the dog was a K-9, or whatever they call it, and when they neared the sailboat, the dog started sniffing and went nuts.”
“The cop realized he was onto something big and went back ashore and notified his boss. They were just village police, and this was a potentially armed target, but because it was a holiday, no state cops were available in the vicinity. But it turned out some federal agents were on duty in Hampton Bays, and a couple hours later, they showed up—”
“Stop,” Kandi said. She nodded at Scally.
“Everything you say is true,” Scally said. “What’s bothering us is how you know what happened before me and my partner went out to the sailboat.”
“Afterward, I hired a lawyer, a local guy, to find out.”
“How’d a lawyer know about private police communications?”
Bolivar shrugged. “I had the impression he was friendly with the local cops.”
“What’s the lawyer’s name?” Kandi said.
“I honestly don’t recall,” Bolivar said. “Anyway, we never saw the cop in the first boat. But it was getting light when the feds came out. My crew spotted them first and took off in the Zodiac. Last I saw, they were going like a bat out of hell, heading who knows where. Me, I was belowdecks with the girl, but when I heard the commotion, I split. Jumped, swam ashore, and made tracks.”
“Who was the woman?” Kandi said.
“Don’t recall her name, either.”
From a file, Scally took a mug shot. “Recognize this guy?”
“Looks like my first mate, Rocky. Hard to tell. He got old.”
“You recognized his voice pretty good, though.”
Bolivar nodded ruefully, and I guessed Rocky was the UM whose recorded call had revived the conspiracy. Rocky wasn’t the only crew member prepared to testify against Bolivar. Scally showed Bolivar three more mug shots, which he identified as Fuji, Teddy, and JD.
Scally said, “Forget about the weed. What else you want to tell us?”
Bolivar seemed puzzled. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d have bought it.
“Joaquin, we know certain other things about you?” Kandi said.
Scally set down two more photographs: one of the sailboat and one of its cabin, both of which had been in the discovery. His index finger tapped the sailboat. “You don’t make money running small loads of weed. Who was your partner for the cocaine run you had planned after the weed route was secure?”
Bolivar looked at the photograph. “The Swan . . . if that boat was a woman, I’d have married her . . .”
The same line he’d fed me. I remembered an adage an old-time trial lawyer told me when I was starting out: When a story is word-for-word pat, there’s a plan behind it. I wondered what Bolivar was plotting.
Kandi tapped her red nails on the tabletop, waiting.
“No cocaine run was planned,” said Bolivar.
I drew a breath. Goddamn, it was really happening: I was going to trial against Kandi.
Scally’s finger moved to the second photograph, pointing at the wineglass whose rim bore lipstick. “Again, who was the girl?”
“Remember the body, not the name,” Bolivar said, wistfully.
“Remembering when your life was good?” Scally snarled. “Too bad you ain’t going back to it. Because you’re full of shit.”
“Joaquin,” Kandi said gently, “you must be truthful about all your criminal activities, okay? We want to know about your partner, and what was planned after the marijuana import.”
Scally said, “Also about the woman whose lipstick is on the glass.”
“I don’t know any of these things,” Bolivar said.
“We’re going to take a break,” Kandi said. “During it, confer with your lawyer.”
Kandi and Scally left the room. Nelson Cano took a cookie; then he, too, left. The door shut, leaving us alone.
“So now decide,” I said. “Give her what she wants, or the proffer’s over.”
“Tell them I need to think about it. Tell them I need an hour, whatever. In the meantime, it would be good if someone could get me lunch from the cafeteria.”
Kandi and her cops and marshals were in the corridor. She was talking and texting. She paused and looked at me.
“He wants to think about it a couple minutes, have some lunch,” I said. “Then I think he’ll be ready to talk truth.”
Scally snorted. “This fucking guy doesn’t set our timetable.”
Kandi shrugged. “We’ll give him time. Like, two days?”
I went back inside and told Bolivar.
He frowned. “What time is it?”
“Eleven thirty.”
“Tell them I’ll talk now.”
I went back out, but Kandi was gone. Scally and Cano went into the room and cuffed Bolivar. As I walked off, I heard Bolivar asking Scally to call Kandi and say he was ready to tell the truth. Scally demurred. All of which left me doubly troubled:
What was behind Bolivar’s sudden turnaround?
And why was Scally so interested in the woman?
CHAPTER 47
When I got into the Flex, it smelled of home cooking. Val was about to dig into a dish Sonia had prepared. “Sorry, Mr. Benn. I thought you’d be gone longer. Where to now?”
Good question. I had no idea. It was a sunny day in big-sky Brooklyn, and I didn’t feel like heading back into shadowed Manhattan. I looked at the lawn of Cadman Plaza Park, the trees on the verge of full bloom.
Val picked up on my mood. “My Sonia, she gives me food for two people. Why we should go back to city? Why not we have a picnic?”
Why not, indeed? I nodded, and we drove off.
“I know nice place not far,” Val said.
We drove through brownstone Brooklyn. Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens and Park Slope. I figured we were headed into Prospect Park and perked up at the thought of visiting the greens where I’d played away my boyhood. But the Flex passed the park and entered the Windsor Terrace neighborhood, then slowed as it neared the grandly Gothic entrance of Green-Wood Cemetery.
“Val—”
“Trust Valery, Mr. Benn. Gonna show you very nice place for picnic. Relax and enjoy view while we go to top of hill. Meanwhile, tell me, what song is this?” Val hummed a vaguely familiar tune.
“I don’t know. What?”
“‘Whatever Lola Wants.’”
“Right. Lola gets.”
“The Lola of the song? Lola Montez, she buried over there.”
“Really?” I looked around, slightly stunned at what a lovely place this cemetery was: attended greenery and grand old trees, studded with lavish vaults and mausoleums, all on a cone-shaped hill in the middle of flat Brooklyn. I must’ve driven past Green-Wood a thousand times but never imagined what it was like.
“Over there,” said Val like a bona fide tour guide, “is grave of Governor DeWitt Clinton, who builds Erie Canal. Over there is newspaperman Horace Greely, who tells young men go west. History of America, this place. Top is called Battle Hill, where English killed four hundred Maryland soldiers, but delay allowed General Washington to save rest of army, and eventually US of A is born, thank you, God.”
The Flex rounded a curve and stopped. Val got out and set Sonia’s lunch down on a stone bench. We ate in silence. It was a clear day with a forever view. Birds chirped, and insects hummed amid the young flower beds. Incredible that such a place existed in the middle of the big city.
I looked at Val, chewing contentedly. “You come here a lot?”
“I like here very much. I come here while waiting for you in MCC. That mausoleum there?”
I followed his gaze to a white-marble vault shaped like a pyramid. I supposed it was intended to be a grandly magificent structure, but it resembled a Hollywood set. Maybe because it looked new. On the lintel above its sealed door were gilded rudimentary images resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics. Birds. Soldiers. Maidservants. A reposing queen. And a name.
I squinted to make it out but couldn’t in the glare of day.
“I went there,” Val s
aid. “It say letters. F-I-L-L-Y.”
I felt as if an unmarked box were being opened.
“Last time I here?” Val said. “Car I know parks in front of it. Big gray stretch with front like dog. Same stretch that bring Jilly lady to court. Remember, when she pretends she meets you by accident?”
I remembered.
CHAPTER 48
When I got home that evening, Traum called.
“Turn on the news.”
When I did, an on-the-scene reporter was breathlessly relating a story about a violent encounter. Even before I comprehended the subject matter, I recognized the crime scene behind the reporter: in the foreground, a dreary cobblestone street where police vehicles were haphazardly parked around a bullet-riddled white van, seagulls wheeling above piers, and green harbor water. In the distance was a large building whose unadorned facade was lined with slit windows.
MCC Brooklyn.
The reporter said, “Federal authorities are not disclosing any details about the incident, which apparently was an attempt to liberate one or more inmates on the late-afternoon bus carrying them from court back to the jail where they were incarcerated—”
“You watching?” Traum growled in my ear.
“Yes.”
My voice sounded far away, or maybe my heart was pounding so hard, I could hardly hear it. But the reporter’s voice was loud and clear enough. Too loud and clear:
“The Bureau of Prisons has not yet stated whether any of the inmates escaped. All that is certain is that the two correctional officers on the bus are dead, as is one of the attackers.”
The screen cut back to the studio.
“See you soon.” Traum hung up.
I hardly recalled walking to the office; that’s how totally distracted I was. Now I understood why Joaquin Bolivar had pressed for an unwinnable bail attempt, then abruptly decided to cooperate, then deliberately stalled. Every move was designed to generate extra trips from the MCC to the courthouse and back. Each round trip confirmed the route and procedure. They were rehearsals, just as the Swan’s weed run had been a rehearsal for a cocaine run. The cocaine route had not worked out, but had Bolivar been successful this time?