Deadly Odds

by Allen Wyler

  The screen was filled with a cropped headshot of Firouz. The amount of background compression and blurring indicated the original picture had been shot through a high-powered telephoto lens, enlarged and cropped. Making it impossible to know if it had been taken indoors or outside. Arnold suspected the latter, not that it made a damn bit of difference. The chill in his gut quickly segued into the dull ache of earlier. He tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry to produce anything to swallow. His hands started trembling and the more he tried masking it, the worse the tremors became. Without saying a word he handed the tablet back to Fisher and glanced at Davidson to answer for him.

  Davidson asks, “Who is it you’re asking about?”

  Fisher flicked his finger across the tablet screen, changing the picture. “The name on his passport is Firouz Jahandar. He works at a Las Vegas casino.” Fisher let the statement hang, as if there was more to it.

  Davidson tilted back his chair, began tapping his fingertips together. “Interesting.” He too let the words hang, the interaction reminding Arnold of two professional tennis players lobbing volleys across the net, waiting for an opportunistic kill shot.

  Fisher smiled at Davidson. “I’m waiting for an answer.”

  “I fail to see how this relates to my client.”

  The pain in Arnold’s gut grew more intense. Here it comes.

  “It has a lot to do with him.” Fisher turned toward Arnold. “I believe Mr. Gold has more information about the homicide last night than his statement to the Seattle police indicates.”

  Arnold watched Davidson’s expression. Damn, must be a killer poker player.

  Davidson remained tilted back in the chair, still tapping his fingertips together, looking down his nose at the FBI agent. “Huh! Interesting assumption. What makes you believe that?”

  Fisher continued to address Davidson, as if Arnold was nothing more than a ventriloquist’s dummy. “Fine, then let’s cut to the chase. Your client got himself into some very serious shit. Dangerous shit. He needs help, and we can give it to him providing he’s cooperative.”

  Arnold’s heart accelerated, his breath seemed to lack oxygen, certainly not enough to satisfy his air-hunger. As a distraction, he stopped looking at Fisher and let his eyes wander the room at random, willing himself to remain still and act calm. How would this meeting end? Better yet, would it?

  Fisher turned to Arnold. “Mind explaining why you registered at the Bellagio under a false name?”

  Boom! Just like that.

  Fisher’s bluntness startled him. Or had he heard wrong?

  Before he could open his mouth, Davidson interjected, “Is that an opinion, or do you have supporting proof of that allegation?”

  Fisher shook his head woefully. “Lawyers! Jesus. You guys.”

  Arnold swore Fisher had intended to say, “Fucking lawyers.”

  Fisher passed the tablet back to them, this time displaying a picture of Arnold and Breeze window-shopping in the Bellagio Arcade, side by side, inspection a display of women’s purses. The memory as vivid as the display.

  “You were under surveillance the majority of time you were with her.”

  Oh my god—

  “So what?” Davidson asked, still poker-faced.

  Having a lawyer looking out for him was worth every cent of whatever this little adventure was costing him, and he realized they had never discussed the fees. Arnold decided to let Davidson do one hundred percent of the talking. Why offer a word?

  Fisher did not appear impressed by Davidson’s aggressiveness. “We have copies of your Bellagio registration under the name Toby Taylor, which we now know is not your legal name.” He cocked an index finger and pointed it at Arnold like a gun. Gotcha. “Anytime a person of interest uses an alias, it perks up our interest. See where I’m headed with this?”

  “So what?” Davidson was beginning to sound like an endless loop. “Guys go to Vegas all the time to get laid. No big mystery.” He raised his eyebrows at Fisher. “Or perhaps that isn’t the case for Federal employees anymore. So it shouldn’t surprise you that the tourist bureau banks on the slogan ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’ That’s the whole point.”

  Apparently, Fisher didn’t find Davidson’s sarcasm humorous. “Yeah? Well this little working girl happens to be Firouz’s wife.”

  Boom! Arnold almost recoiled from shock. Then again, he’d sensed some sort of connection between the two, just didn’t figure… Jesus, how does it feel to know your wife is… he didn’t want to think about it. The silence of the room closed in on him. He looked up to see both Davidson and Fisher staring at him. “What?”

  Fisher asked, “You haven’t answered my question. Do you recognize him?” Referring to the picture of Firouz on the tablet.

  Davidson stood and walked between Fisher and Arnold. “Mind if I have a few moments with my client? In private. Won’t take but a few minutes.”

  17.

  “I don’t believe you. The man must live somewhere.” Firouz glared across the laminate table at Aasif, who was calmly sipping strong black tea. The diner is warm and humid, with the faint smell of Clorox and grease. Firouz also had a cup of tea in front of him but had yet to even sample it. He was too upset to enjoy it and really only ordered it as sufficient reason to be sitting there.

  Aasif calmly set his cup on its saucer and patiently explained yet again, “There is no property record for this man in the city or anywhere in King County. Perhaps he rents or lives with another person. There is no phone record for a Palmer Davidson other than the one you already know of, his office. The one in the Smith Tower.”

  “And Gold?” Karim asked. He was wedged into the booth with Firouz to his right and the wall flush against his left shoulder.

  Both Aasif and Firouz turned to him. “What about him?”

  Karim, apparently annoyed with the question, snapped, “He could be seeing friends.”

  Firouz shook his head. “So what? We are having no idea who they might be.”

  Aasif adds, “He was released under his lawyer’s recognizance with the understanding he would be brought back immediately, so it’s most likely he’s with this lawyer, Davidson.”

  Firouz pushed out of the booth saying, “I want you to keep searching. There must be some way to find them.” He was irritated at Aasif for not finding the answers to his questions, at Karim for making idiotic suggestions, at not being free to visit a mosque so he could pray, at not having the Jew’s secrets yet, at Karim’s stupidity for killing the man in Gold’s house.

  “Where are we going?” Karim was sliding out of the booth after him.

  “To see what Ghayoor is finding on the copy of the Jew’s computer.” Luckily Ghayoor had been smart enough to burn a copy of the hard disk before trying to break through the computer’s firewall.

  This time Davidson didn’t sit calmly in his leather chair, tipped back, arms comfortably at his side. This time he was pacing back and forth on the Persian rug in front of his desk. He stopped to pinch the bridge of his nose before locking into Arnold’s eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not confiding everything to me?”

  Arnold didn’t know what to say. He had no idea what Davidson wanted to know. He wasn’t intentionally withholding any information. “Ask me anything you want. I’ll tell you. I’m not deceiving you and I’m not withholding information. Least not that I know of. Go ahead, ask.”

  For a moment Davidson seemed more intent on his own thoughts than on Arnold’s response. “Just doesn’t feel right, is all. We have an FBI agent out in reception looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. I know damn well he’s only playing with us, seeing if we’ll trip up or he can catch us in a lie, getting ready to unleash a load of government wrath on our heads. He’s setting you up for something. I know he is and I hate that.” He started pacing again.

  Arnold understood his point but still didn’t know what to say that would alleviate the situation. “What can I do to help?”

  Davidson igno
red the question, muttered, “If they knew about your involvement in the bombing he wouldn’t be here asking questions, he’d be here to take you down to their offices for questioning or to arrest you, depending on how much they know. So it has to be something else. What?”

  Davidson stepped over to the window to stare out. He absent-mindedly scratched the crown of his head and asked, “What about the gambling? Anything there I should know about? Like any involvement with organized crime? Anything?”

  Arnold’s stomach felt as if it were floating above his head instead of in his abdominal cavity. “Jesus, not that I know of. I gamble, sure, you know that. That’s it, end of story. What more can I tell you?”

  Davidson shot him a don’t-screw-with-me look. “Anything we need to worry about far as that’s concerned? Any huge debts? Owe someone who might be mobbed up? Any involvement like that you should tell me? Anyone involved in any sort of criminal activity? Anything at all you can think of?”

  What the hell am I missing? His mind drew a blank, which amped the anxiety back into flat-out gut pain. He said, “Look, here’s the situation. If I say anything to him, anything at all, Firouz is going to kill me. Isn’t that enough? Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Christ!” Both eyes clamped tightly shut, he wished somehow he could magically be transported back to a time before Breeze entered his life. Either that or to make this situation miraculously vanish.

  “I don’t think you have much choice, Arnold.” Davidson’s voice grew closer, but Arnold kept his eyes shut. “Look at it this way: by now Firouz probably wants you dead regardless of what you tell anyone, FBI or not. You thought of that part of it?”

  When Arnold didn’t answer, he said, “Why not improve your chances and tell Fisher everything you know about the murder? And I mean everything.”

  And this is my lawyer talking?

  “Because I’ll probably have to end up admitting my involvement in the bombing. Then what happens? I end up in Gitmo or worse?” Arnold kept his eyes clamped shut and a palm pressing hard against each temple. He tried to think but found that his gut pain and anxiety were keeping him from concentrating. Besides, Davidson was asking impossible questions.

  Davidson scoffed. “By continuing to stonewall, you simply incriminate yourself more. Face it, sooner or later he’s going to find out. You need to tell him something, and that’s best done now instead of later. Why not simply admit you hired Breeze for a few nights of sex and let it go at that? If they saw you meet Firouz and Karim, say she just wanted to introduce a friend. What’s the big deal? Gambling and prostitution are fair game in that state.”

  Davidson was right: he saw very few options at this point. “Okay, I’ll tell him, but you screen the questions first. Deal?”

  Davidson reached for the doorknob. “Deal. I’ll have him come back in now.”

  Arnold slumped in the chair, right hand splayed against his abdomen, the left arm at his side feeling strangely useless. He felt wasted, having given Fisher a detailed accounting of every event from the moment he left the pizzeria with the pizza until he ran back inside the place yelling “call 911.” When he reached the part about Karim coming at him from the front room of the house, Fisher stopped him long enough to show him another picture on the tablet, this one of Karim.

  Fisher asked, “This him?”

  Arnold nodded. “It is.”

  Fisher asked, “Just so we’re straight, you saw both Firouz and Karim in the house?”

  Had he said that? Now that he thought about it…

  “No. Come to think of it, I never really saw Firouz. Just recognized his voice when I was in the alley, wedged down between bins, the fence behind me, holding my breath, praying Karim wouldn’t see me.” Jesus, he couldn’t remember having been more scared.

  “But you’re certain it was his voice?”

  As he weighed his answer, another question popped into consciousness, one that had come to mind earlier but had been quickly squashed by other, more pressing thoughts. “How did you know?”

  “Know what?” Fisher asked.

  And now the stomach pain was trumped by a chill of paranoia. He leaned forward to hug his knees so he’d be doing something other than sitting there pressing his gut. He suspected he knew Fisher’s answer but wanted to hear him voice it.

  “You contacted me within, what, six hours of the shooting? How did you know it involved the Iranians?”

  Fisher sucked a tooth for a moment as if weighing his answer. “Wasn’t hard once your name popped up on our computers. Since we had them under surveillance, we knew they came to Seattle. We also knew you live here. Our sources claim Firouz hasn’t been to Seattle before. Not all that difficult to piece together, if you think about it.” He paused a moment, changing tone. “Let me ask you something: you willing to come down to the Federal Building and give a sworn statement covering everything you just told me?”

  Boom.

  Arnold was back to holding his stomach again, wishing for a chug of Maalox or something to lessen the discomfort. He knew Davidson and Fisher were waiting for him to answer, could feel their eyes lasing into him, but he kept staring at the maroon and blue Persian rug, unable to squelch the image of Karim targeting him for a kill, the segment playing over and over again, to the point he couldn’t make a decision.

  Way he saw it, if he signed a statement confirming their involvement in Howard’s murder, he’d be required to testify in person in court sometime in the future. Meaning Firouz and his team would know exactly where he would be and what time he’d be there, making it impossible to hide when he arrived at and left the courthouse. And if they didn’t hit him in Federal court, they could follow him as he left. Unless, of course, the FBI placed him in the witness protection program. In which case he’d still need to physically appear in court. Sure, it might be suicide for the guy sent to hit him, but suicide seemed to be a popular weapon of choice these days for terrorists. And if he didn’t identify them, they’d never know he hadn’t, meaning they would still want him dead. Regardless of any of these issues, they still wanted his system. In essence, it boiled down to no matter what he chose, he was totally and irrevocably screwed.

  “Well?” Fisher asked. “What’s it going to be?”

  Arnold shot a pleading glance at Davidson, handing the decision off to him, hoping his lawyer was smart enough to come up with a reasonable stalling tactic. Whatever that might be.

  Davidson cleared his throat. “My client is under a great deal of duress at the moment. He witnessed his best friend’s savage, senseless murder only to narrowly escape a brutal execution at the hands of alleged terrorists. Since then he’s been under ceaseless interrogation by police and now a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I think the poor young man has been subjected to more than enough for one night, don’t you? Why not allow him to recover and refresh himself so we may discuss this sometime in the future—perhaps tomorrow—once we’re all a bit more rested. I suggest that unless you intend to charge him with a crime, this interview needs to be considered concluded. For the record, my client has willingly answered the majority of your questions, and I am absolutely certain he will be happy to answer more of them at a future, mutually agreed upon, time, but to summarize what he stated tonight, he visited Las Vegas for the sole purpose of obtaining sex and to gamble at the casinos. This concludes his statement.”

  Arnold turned to Fisher, but the man was staring at him, ignoring Davidson’s words. Fisher pointedly asked, “You’re not going to answer my question?”

  Arnold shook his head. “You heard my lawyer. Perhaps another time.”

  “All right, then, we’ll call it a night. But let me warn you that by refusing to provide a signed statement I consider you’re aiding and abetting Firouz Jahandar and his terrorist organization, and this doesn’t leave me much choice other than to make you subject to our ongoing investigation. Understand what I just told you?”

  Not really. He just wanted the damn interview over.

  Firouz
pointed across Second Avenue to a white thirty-eight-story building, its highest section capped with a pyramidal roof. “That should be it, the white one.” He knew nothing about the building other than its name. Odd and old looking, but, knowing nothing about architecture, either, he had no idea what style it would be called, if anything. The tallest segment with his peaked roof reminded him vaguely of a minaret.

  Next to him, shielding his eyes from the streetlights, Karim studied the weird-looking structure, but Firouz wasn’t about to wait for him and started across the deserted street against a red light. Karim hurried to catch up. Firouz inspected the heavy brass and glass front doors for a moment before slipping on leather gloves. Moving next to the glass he peered into the lobby of white marble walls and floors, polished brass elevator doors, large ficus plants at the end of the hall to the elevator banks. More importantly, a small desk partially blocked the entrance to the hall. At the moment it was not manned, but a cup of coffee sat on the left corner and he was sure he could see steam rising. He pulled a door handle but, as suspected, found it locked. Without a word to Karim, he headed down Second to Yesler, east a half block, and was in the alley at the back of the building. Just as he turned into the alley he heard a loud metal bang, stopped, held up a hand for his brother to do likewise, and peered ahead. An older man in gray overalls was lifting a black Hefty bag into a green dumpster, an open back door of the building casting light across litter-strewn asphalt. Job finished, he slammed the lid, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, and lit up.

  Firouz put his lips to Karim’s ear, whispered, “Wait here.” Then he was moving fast, back around the front of the building, north along Second to James, then east again, entering the alley from the north. Slowly now, he moved down the relatively darkened passage, staying as close to the wall as possible until he was directly behind the end of another dumpster. Peering over the top, he was now perhaps ten feet from the janitor. He glanced at the asphalt, saw a discarded Starbucks cup and picked it up and flattened it. Then looked for Karim at the end of the alley but couldn’t see him. A minute later, the workman glanced at his watch, flicked the cigarette against the opposite wall, wheeled his cart back through the door. Firouz was at the doorway just as the metal fire door swung shut. He slipped a flattened cup between jamb and latch only far enough to keep it from locking and prayed to Allah the janitor either didn’t notice or wouldn’t be security-conscious enough to make sure the latch seated.