“Sadri was not one of Bennett’s people,” she points out.
“Which helps explain why he’s dead. He was an ideologue, and an incompetent one at that. Bennett’s people are pros.”
“So where do we go now?”
“Back to the phone.”
For Gharsi, the recent events made a face-to-face meeting essential.
He felt there was just too much going on, coordination was just too crucial, to leave it to any other kind of communication. Bennett and Luther Castle felt otherwise, but realized that Gharsi was not to be dissuaded. Gharsi had the money, so he was calling the shots. At least for the moment.
They met in a home in Woodcliff Lake, one that was recessed into the woods and had no nearby neighbors. The house was inhabited by the mistress of Luther Castle, and her name was on the ownership papers. But Castle owned the house, as he pretty much owned her.
Bennett and Castle were already there when Gharsi arrived, and they seemed considerably less stressed than he was over the latest developments. “What are you drinking?” Bennett asked when they settled into the den.
“We’ll talk first and drink later,” Gharsi said. “Where are my materials?”
“They are in a warehouse, under my control,” Bennett said. “Well guarded, I assure you.”
If Gharsi was assured, he was hiding it well. “Why did this happen?”
“We removed them so they would not be found by the FBI when they executed their search. We made fools of them.”
“Why was there a search at all? Since you are so eager to give me your assurances, why were the materials not completely safe where they were, as you told me they would be?”
“One state police officer got in the way, so we adjusted. We always have a backup plan as effective as the original.”
“This is the man you were unable to kill?” Gharsi asked. “Brock?”
“If it becomes necessary, he will die,” Bennett said. “Killing him now would be counterproductive. He knows nothing.”
“He knew enough to conduct the search.”
Bennett smiled. “And now he is discredited. He is no longer a factor.”
“This is not the first time I’ve heard that,” Gharsi said.
“And it remains true,” Bennett said, a cold edge creeping into his voice. “Now, shall we discuss our next steps?”
“Very well,” Gharsi said.
“The materials will be moved back tomorrow. Then—”
“Back to the building that the police searched?”
Bennett nodded. “Yes. For that very reason it is the safest place to be. It will not be searched again.”
“You are sure?”
Bennett glanced quickly at Castle, who nodded his agreement. “Yes,” Bennett said. “And since the cars are already there, the chance of our attracting unwanted attention will be far less by keeping our plan intact than by improvising.”
Gharsi took some considerable convincing that leaving the base of the operation at the car dealership was the right thing to do. There was no question it was easier, but he believed there would be far more chance of detection. He just did not have sufficient trust in what Bennett was telling him.
Finally, Bennett asked, “Are we agreed?”
Gharsi nodded. “With a condition.”
“And that is?”
“The two of you are with me throughout the preparations.” He smiled. “Call it a test of your confidence.”
“You are not a trusting person,” Bennett said. “It is an unpleasant aspect of your personality.”
“Yet it has served me well. This is not negotiable.”
Bennett glanced quickly at Castle and then nodded. “Agreed. Now let’s discuss the delivery of the money.”
“You are not a trusting person,” Gharsi said, smiling for the first time. “It is an unpleasant aspect of your personality.”
“Yet it has served me well. The money?”
“As agreed, half will be wired when I begin the assembly process. The other half when the soldiers depart with their cargo.”
Bennett stood up. “Good. Now for that drink.”
Gharsi had one drink and then left Bennett and Castle alone. “He is very confident,” Bennett said. “He actually believes this will happen.”
“He is stupid. Killing him will be a pleasure,” Castle said, and then smiled. “And we will be doing the world a service.”
There has been one positive consequence of the debacle at the used car dealership.
Captain Bradley has removed my protective shadow; the police officers assigned to tail me are nowhere to be found. It was getting tiring having them around, and necessitated me taking evasive measures when I wanted to lose them. Not having them with me is sort of freeing.
What I don’t feel is concern that I now might get killed. Part of that is likely due to my risk-taking personality, which everyone seems to agree is something I suffer from. But it’s also a logical reaction to the fact that since that night in the park, no one has come after me.
It certainly wasn’t because of my armed guard; any self-respecting killer could have circumvented them easily. Rather it seems as if Bennett must have decided I’m not worth killing, which both offends and puzzles me. If he was afraid that my memory might return before, why is he no longer fearful? Could it be that he thinks it’s too late for me to stop them, no matter what I might know?
I head down to the hospital to seek Nate’s counsel, to benefit from the insight his years of experience might provide.
“How the hell should I know?” he asks, when I pose the question.
“I knew I could count on you.”
“You can count on me. Just lock yourself in a room until tomorrow, because that’s when I’m out of here. Then you and I will deal with it.”
“The doctors told you you’re okay to be released?”
“No, I’ve still got a fever, and they say I can’t leave until it’s gone for at least forty-eight hours. I’m breaking out.”
“Lying in bed and watching television doesn’t appeal to you?”
“That part ain’t bad, but I’m starving. The food is shit, and there’s not enough of it.”
I stand up. “This meeting has really been helpful for me.”
“Where you going now?” he asks.
“New Jersey State Prison.”
“They’ve got better food there; bring me back some. Why are you going?”
“Because according to my phone’s GPS, I was there not long before I got shot. You got any idea what I was doing there?”
“No, but I doubt it’ll amount to much. We were both at the prison a lot. Part of the job.”
It takes about an hour and a quarter for me to get to the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. I use the GPS to lead me down the turnpike to Route 9, and then into Trenton. Even though I’ve been there many times, I don’t remember any of them, so I’m just trying to avoid getting lost.
The prison houses a little over eighteen hundred inmates, and of course I don’t know which one I was there to see. For all I know I could have been there to talk to one of the corrections officers. Nothing in my life is easy.
There’s a reception/information desk with three people behind it. I walk to the young woman on the left, for the simple reason that the other two people are helping someone else.
As I approach, she looks up and says, “Doug! How are you?”
“I’m good,” I say. “Really good.”
“We’re all so proud of you for what you did at that theater.”
“Thanks.”
“How is that memory thing … Hey, do you even know who I am?”
I might as well be honest, since once I ask her my question, she’ll know the truth anyway. “Not yet; it’ll come to me.”
“Wow,” she says. “That is really amazing. I don’t know if I should be insulted.”
“Don’t be; it has nothing to do with you.”
She leans in toward me and speaks softly. “I’m Ma
ry … McCormick. We went out a few times. Then you stopped calling me.”
“Hard to believe,” I say. Mary joins the list of terrific-looking young women that for some bizarre reason I apparently decided weren’t good enough for me.
“I got married last month,” Mary says, possibly demonstrating that she rebounded quite well from the disappointment of losing me.
“Congratulations. My loss.”
I finally explain to her why I am here. I give her the date and time that the GPS says I was at the prison, and ask her to look up who I was there to see.
“Was it an inmate?” she asks. “Because that’s the only way I would have a record of it.”
“I think so; I hope so.”
Mary taps some keys on the computer, and waits until the information comes up. “Here you are,” she says. “You visited with Oscar Filion, for about forty-five minutes. Oh…”
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“He’s the man who was almost killed in an incident in the yard. He was stabbed.”
“When was that?”
She types some more. “Three days after you were here. He was in the hospital for three weeks, and then put into solitary confinement for his own protection.”
“I need to see him.”
She nods, thinking. “Let’s see what we can do.”
If looks could kill, I would be breathing my last.
The look is on the face of Oscar Filion, and I notice it as soon as he sees me walk into the room. Since Oscar is a convicted murderer, I should be thankful for the limited ability of looks to cause physical harm.
Even though I obviously rejected Mary, she has been nice enough to set up this meeting on basically no notice. Because Oscar is in solitary confinement, we meet in a specially secured room. It’s just Oscar and me, about to have a talk. No matter how much he hates me, hand-to-hand combat seems unlikely, as he is handcuffed to the metal table.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Oscar says in a tone that is pretty much a snarl.
“I need some information.”
“That’s what you said last time, and it almost got me killed. It also got me put into solitary. So thanks a lot, asshole.”
I can’t play around with this guy; he is too pissed off. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you. I got shot by one of Bennett’s people, not long after I was here. It caused a head injury, and there are a lot of things I don’t remember. So I don’t know what it is we talked about.”
“This is a joke, right?” he asks.
“I wish it was. I need your help.”
“Last time I helped you, I got an ice pick in the gut.”
“I’m sorry about that. I don’t know if I had any part in that, but I can promise you I will do nothing to put you in any danger. And maybe I can nail the people who did this to you. I’m going to put Bennett away; next year at this time you’ll be having lunch with him in the prison mess hall.”
He thinks about this for maybe twenty seconds, then shrugs. “Nothing they can do to me now; I’m in solitary. And I’d really like to bury that son of a bitch.”
Once again I have no idea what questions I’m supposed to ask, and less of an idea what I asked last time. “Great … we will. Let’s do it this way: just describe our conversation the last time we met.”
He frowns slightly; this is obviously nothing like any previous conversation he’s ever had with a cop, or with anyone else, for that matter. “You started by asking me a lot of questions about Bennett, trying to figure out if I had information that could help you get him.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Like were there layers between him and me. When I did something, like a hit, did I ever get the order directly from him.”
“And did you?”
He shakes his head. “Nah. He went through Luther Castle, that prick.”
“So you had all your dealings with Castle?”
“Yeah.”
“And you think Bennett knew everything that was going on?”
“Definitely. Castle is with Bennett twenty-four/seven. If Bennett takes a shit, Castle wipes his ass.”
That’s a disturbing image, but I let it go. “So what happened between you and them?”
“They gave me a job, I don’t want to say what it was, but I did it, and they shorted me on the pay.”
“You don’t have to tell me who, but was it a hit?”
He pauses momentarily, and looks around. I’m not his lawyer, so he’s smart enough to know that microphones could be picking up everything he says. “What do you think?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “What happened after they shorted you?”
“I complained, but they didn’t give a shit. Castle told me I could take it or leave it. So I decided to leave it and go elsewhere.”
“To the police?” I ask.
He frowns. “No way. What the hell do you think I am? I went to work for somebody else.”
“You mean another crime family?”
Another frown at my ignorance. “We don’t call it a ‘family’ anymore, but yeah.”
“So they didn’t like that.”
He laughs a short laugh. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it. They didn’t like that. They tried to put out a hit on me, but that didn’t work out so well. So they pulled something else.”
“What is that?”
“They set me up to take a fall; they went to the cops.”
“The police took information from Nicholas Bennett, is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Bennett is wired in ways you wouldn’t believe.”
It’s a little hard to accept what I’m hearing. “So Bennett had knowledge of your crimes, set you up, and they didn’t go after him?”
“You got it.”
“Do you know who the cop was?”
“I know who arrested me, so yeah.”
“What is his name?” I ask, cringing as I wait for the answer.
“It’s Bettis,” he says. “Jerry Bettis.”
I’m stunned and don’t know where to go with this.
I have no doubt Filion was telling the truth as he believed it to be, but that doesn’t make it the actual truth. He could believe it and still be wrong. So before I decide what to do, I need to check the facts.
That is not as easy as it sounds. I don’t know what I did last time with this information, but it might have been enough to almost get Filion killed. Of course, some prison snitch could have seen me and gotten word to Bennett that Filion and I met. Or his assailant could have had a grudge against him unrelated to Bennett. But I cannot assume that either of those things are true.
So at this point I don’t want to talk to anyone about it, but I need some independent corroboration of what Filion said.
I call Nate in the hospital. “Nate, I need to get a look at a trial transcript going back four years.”
“Which one?”
“Doesn’t matter now; I’ll tell you later.” I trust Nate, I just don’t want to take the time to answer the question now, since it would undoubtedly lead to many others. “Who do I know at the county courthouse?”
“Sue Pyles,” he says. “She’s the clerk down there; she’d have access.”
“And I know her?”
“Know her? You went out with her.”
“Any chance she dumped me?” I say, hoping that maybe this will break the pattern.
“No such luck. But I think you let her down easy. She doesn’t hate you as much as the others do.”
I head down to the courthouse, and to Sue Pyle’s office. She greets me warmly; this shouldn’t be a problem. We chat for a while, with me pretending to know what she’s talking about. But she definitely doesn’t hate me—in fact, she tells me that she brags to her friends about having gone out with a “hero.”
I finally get around to telling her that I need to take a look at the trial transcript for Oscar Filion, but that I don’t have the exact date. That doesn’t seem to be m
uch of a problem for her, and within five minutes she finds it.
It’s an electronic version, and Sue sits me in an empty office with a computer terminal. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she says when I sit down. She puts her hand on my left shoulder, and lets it linger there for a short while before leaving. Heroism obviously has its perks.
What would take me hours to find if this transcript were in hard copy takes me all of twenty seconds electronically. All I have to do is type “Bettis” into the search bar, and hit Return.
It’s all there, just as Filion told me. Bettis testified at the trial because he was the arresting officer. He was not on the stand that long, and his claim was that the incriminating evidence initially came in through an anonymous tip.
According to Filion, as related twice to me, the anonymous tipper was named either Nicholas Bennett or Luther Castle.
There is no doubt that the transcript enhances Filion’s credibility, but it does not cement it. It’s possible that he believed Bettis got the information from Castle or Bennett, when in fact it was really an anonymous tip.
Of course, there’s another factor that increases the chances that Filion’s story is correct. He most likely got an ice pick in the stomach for telling it to me. Ice picks carry their own credibility.
There are only two people that I can think of that I trust to share this information with. One is beautiful, smart, and great in bed. The other is six foot, 280, and constantly complaining about lying in a hospital bed. The question of which one I want to talk with is the definition of a no-brainer.
I drive to Jessie’s without calling first, so as to prevent her from telling me not to come over. My fear is that she might have come to view our lovemaking the other night as a momentary weakness, and she might have withdrawn back into her understandably protective shell.
I get to her house and ring the bell. I see the curtains part a bit as she looks to see who is there, and moments later she opens the door. “I really would love a cup of coffee,” I say, because that worked last time.
She takes my hand and pulls me into the house, then kisses me. This coffee scam works really well.
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