Cleopatra Gold

by William Caunitz

  Porges had shown up at the armory around three that afternoon and had spent the rest of the day with him and Mayhew. The three of them had had dinner together. Over dessert and coffee, Alejandro had paid fascinated attention as Mayhew explained the aerodynamics of parachutes.

  Staring off at the twinkling lights that dotted the distant mountainside, he wondered about the kind of people who lived such reclusive lives and decided that they must be as he’d like to be, peaceful and one with nature. Stretching back over the knoll, he breathed deeply, trying to identify the different smells that honeyed the air.

  He looked up at the heavens and traced the constellations, wondering if somewhere out there in the boundless universe, many, many light-years away, Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt, the greatest of all queens, might not be staring down at him, wishing him well in his quest to destroy the evil usurper of her royal name.

  Hearing the crunch of a footstep behind him, he raised his head off the ground to look.

  “Comfortable?” Fiona Lee, the undercover known as Mary Beth, asked, lowering herself onto the grass next to him.

  He shot up into a sitting position. The moon’s reflection caught her face, her eyes bright with its fullness, and revealed her mischievous smile. The air brought her scent to him; he smelled jasmine and juniper. He stared at her, shocked out of his reflections. Who was this woman? he wondered, aware of increasing discomfort.

  Bracing her hands on the ground behind her, she asked, “Are you staff or one of the inmates?” When he did not answer her, she eyed him up and down and said, “An inmate. Tell ya what. This meeting never happened, okay? I need someone from the real world to talk to. I’ve had about all the hut-two-three-four-double-time march I can handle.”

  Scrambling to his feet, he said, “Lady, we shouldn’t even be talking.”

  “Loo-sen up, guy. A hundred years from now our little indiscretion won’t mean diddly.”

  “But it might a week from now,” he said, walking away.

  “How’d you like to go Texas two-steppin’ with me tonight?”

  He spun around, beginning to get angry. Who the hell was she? A security test? Or a gal who liked to break rules? He decided to find out. “How do you propose we get into town?”

  “We use our ingenuity and steal a car from the motor pool.”

  He glanced in the direction of the main house. There was a light on in the second-floor recreation room. An owl hooted, a good sign. He bent, he scooped up blades of grass and tossed them into the air, watching them waft back to the ground. His grandmother used to tell him that it was important to learn how to read the grass because it was Atzel’s way of helping mortals to make correct decisions. The blades pointed to the motor pool. He surprised himself by extending his hand to her and saying, “Let’s go.”

  A neon sign in the shape of cowboy boots glowed on top of Harvey Lee’s Texas Two-Steppin’ Parlor. Alejandro parked the stolen van in the lot behind the dance parlor, and they got out. Looking around, he was surprised not to see Porges leading a detail of Hacienda security guards toward them. He found it hard to believe that they had been able to sneak into the motor pool and get away with a van without being detected. He took Fiona by the hand and led her off across the dirt lot toward the dance hall.

  “What are we going to call each other?” she asked.

  “I’m going to be Jesse James.”

  “I like it. And I’ll be Belle Starr.”

  They shook hands, an unspoken understanding passing between them not to mention their work or their assignments, or to give up anything that might identify them or the Agency. They walked in the lobby and looked around curiously.

  A four-sided video screen hung down over the center of the large dance floor. Hank Williams, Jr., was picking on his guitar and wailin’ ’bout his daddy’s naughty ways. Most of the men inside the dance hall wore cowboy hats and jeans. Many had on boots, some street shoes or sneakers. The women were dressed mostly in jeans, too; some of them had on dresses; and a few wore fringed cowgirl outfits, the backs of their jackets glittering with rhinestones.

  There was a raised area around the floor where people could watch the dancers and the screen. There was also a scattering of pool tables and a horseshoe-shaped bar of knotty pine that was decorated around the top with old wagon wheels. On the inside of the hall, just to the right of the ticket taker, there was a glass display counter where Western crafts were sold and where patrons could have their names cleated into the backs of their belts so prospective dancing partners could know who it was they were approaching. Knowing a person’s name helped break the ice of a first meeting.

  “Let’s get our names put on our belts,” she said, and led him over to the counter. They pulled their belts out of the loops and handed them to the cowgirl.

  As the woman behind the counter slid one of the belts into the stamping machine, the make-believe Belle Starr gave her dancing partner a sidelong glance, quickly recognizing his adorable butt from the time she had seen him at the Hacienda, lugging a parachute off the soccer field.

  Alejandro looked around the dance hall and realized that for the first time in many years he was with ordinary people, doing ordinary things. For a brief period in his life he was just going to be the make-believe Jesse James, and he was going Texas two-steppin’ with a beautiful woman who got off on breaking the rules.

  This was the first time he’d seen her in decent light. Her short hair was auburn, her skin smooth and golden. Her body was slight, but when he first put his hands on her he could feel the coiled strength. Her neck was long and graceful, her mouth at once firm yet impish.

  Dwelling on his various code names and his recently acquired make-believe name, he realized that he was a make-believe person living a make-believe life in a real slime-pool world. He also knew with absolute certainty that the longest trip he was ever going to make in his life was getting from his brain through to his blocked emotions. He ached to be a whole man, to be able to reach deep inside himself and rescue his authentic self.

  “Here they are,” the cowgirl said, handing them back their belts.

  After sliding her belt through her jeans loops, the make-believe Belle Starr took hold of his hand and said, “Let’s go dance, podner.”

  Johnny Cash was singing about Folsom and truckin’ and cheatin’ on a good-hearted woman.

  Jesse James and Belle Starr two-stepped around the floor. She pirouetted under his arm. He reeled her back into his embrace, enjoying the warmth and resilience of her body, aware of some current passing between them.

  She felt his hand at her waist, then was acutely conscious of her own body. Occasionally his hand would glancingly touch her breast; her breath caught involuntarily every time that happened. “You’re a great dancer,” she said, avoiding his eyes.

  “So are you,” he said, feeling strange, unfamiliar stirrings in his chest. Part of him felt like a kid at his first high school prom.

  Ted Porges slipped onto a barstool and motioned to the cowgirl bartender. “Wild Turkey, rocks, water on the side.” Mashing his cigarette into the cartridge case ashtray, he watched his two AWOL students lining up for a quadrille and thought, Look at those assholes making a spectacle of themselves. Sipping the Kentucky straight bourbon, Porges felt the throbbing pulse of gathering rage in his neck and cursed under his breath, trying to decide what he was going to do with them.

  They had just broken the Hacienda’s sacred commandment: Thou shalt not knowingly become acquainted with, associate with, talk to, or above all go to bed with another undercover lest you unwittingly give up yourself and the other undercover during the course of an operation. There were never more than a dozen undercovers at the Hacienda currently undergoing training. Each instructor designed his student’s schedule so that it would not cross with that of any other student. The undercovers ate their meals alone in their rooms or, on rare occasions, with one of their instructors. They were not allowed to talk to any unauthorized person, especially other students.


  He gulped down his drink and motioned for another, studying them as they bowed to each other, laughing. Not for the first time in his career, he admitted to himself that no matter how many he trained, no matter how close he came to feel to them, he could never really appreciate their desperately lonely existence or their consuming need for the love and affection that was denied them. Everyone needed a hug, his wife was fond of telling him in the morning. A touch of kindness brought a glow to most people, but to a deep one, that touch might burst a well-fortified dam of suppressed human emotions that could prove fatal. He’d seen too many of them over the years succumb to emotions that put them on a morgue slab. They looked happy out there dancing around with the civilian types. They looked as though they were one of them.

  Willie was singing “Quierame Mucho.” Chilebean was holding her close, dancing with his eyes closed. Porges gulped down his drink, slapped a twenty on the bar, and left the dance parlor.

  The moon was well down behind the mountains when Alejandro drove into the Hacienda’s motor pool and parked. They remained in their seats, not talking, listening to the sounds of a country morning. He slid his hand across the seat and found hers waiting. “Thanks, Belle Starr. I needed tonight.”

  She chucked open the door, turned, and traced his face with her fingers. “When will you be leaving?”

  He looked out at the misty mountains. “This morning.”

  “Good-bye.”

  Watching her run away across the motor pool, he became aware of the awful burden of loneliness sweeping back to settle on him in a way all too familiar.

  At noon Porges ground the Jeep to a stop alongside a two-engine jet aircraft. Their ride from the house had been made in icy silence. His teacher was not pleased with him, and Alejandro had a good idea why.

  “See ya,” he said, opening the door.

  Porges looked at him. “During the years you’ve been coming here, have you ever seen a guardhouse or a sentry?”

  “No.”

  “Lemme tell you something, ‘Jesse,’ they’re all around. All the roads leading into this place are seeded with cameras; there are camouflaged surveillance platforms manned by people day—and night!”

  Chilebean looked out at the plane.

  “Do you have any idea of the gravity of your security breach?”

  Alejandro faced him, flushing slightly in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I should have known better. It’s been a long time since I felt human.”

  Porges’s knuckles were white around the steering wheel. “You’d damn well better stay battened down if you have any intention of staying alive in this business. You don’t have a personal life.” He breathed hard, trying not to lose it. “You can’t fucking afford a personal life.”

  Alejandro let go a repenting sigh. “I’m sorry, Ted.”

  The whine of the jet’s engines winding up broke the silence between them. The teacher spoke. “Tell me everything you learned about her.”

  “She’s fun to be with, she likes to dance, and I enjoyed her company. That’s all. No names, no memories.”

  “Get outta here. And, Chilebean, last night never happened.”

  16

  When Burke arrived at his office at One Police Plaza on Monday morning, he found Lieutenant Sal Elia, the Whip of Unified Intelligence, sitting in the anteroom flipping through a clipboard of legal bulletins.

  “Morning, Chief,” Elia said, quickly returning the board to its wall hook.

  Too Tall Paulie grunted, “Morning,” and gestured to the lieutenant to follow him into his office.

  Inside, Too Tall Paulie strode into the toilet and came out with a soda bottle full of tapwater. He took it to the windowsill and proceeded to water the plants. While he was doing this, his lead clerical came in, placed a mug of coffee on his desk, and left.

  Done watering, Too Tall Paulie put the bottle on the windowsill, turned and picked up the mug, and stood at the window sipping his coffee, studying the scurrying people nine floors below. “Ever notice how the city’s beat is a little faster on Monday mornings?”

  Opening his accordion folder, Elia said, “Everyone is trying to work up enough steam to get them through the week.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s it.” Turning from the window to face his lieutenant, he asked, “What’s up?”

  Elia went over to the VCR and inserted the surveillance cassette of Che-Che Morales and Hector Pizzaro standing at the water’s edge in Rainey Park. Digital numbers showing the date and the time in hours, minutes, and seconds spun across the bottom of each frame. The dopers’ conversation that had been laser-recorded from inside the mobile surveillance platform had been sequenced into the sound track. When Too Tall Paulie heard Pizzaro say, “We’re going to need a plane and a pilot for this,” he thoughtfully raised his eyes to the ceiling.

  The film played out. Too Tall Paulie snatched the remote module off the top of the VCR and pressed the Rewind button. They watched the film a second and third time.

  “What do you make of it?” Too Tall Paulie asked.

  “I believe that Che-Che is going into the heroin trade, direct and in a big way. I also think that he’s trying to get an exclusive franchise on China White from the Golden Triangle warlords.”

  Burke put both hands to the small of his back, stretched, yawned, and then asked, “You think he’s running the Cleopatra network?”

  “If he’s not, he’s damn close to number one, whoever that is.” Elia got up, dragged the chair over to the side of his boss’s desk, and sat. Leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, he said softly, “Why don’t we fly a few birds into the Colombian camp and have them dump a load of disinformation bullshit on Che-Che? That could rip up a good chunk of the entire network for us. It’d save us a lot of wear and tear.”

  Too Tall Paulie stood up and took off his shirt. He went over to the closet, took out his dance board and his tap shoes. The plates of the shoes were worn and silky-looking.

  Elia got up and went and stared out the window.

  After putting on his tap shoes, Too Tall Paulie stepped onto the board and sprang into four-four jazz time, his hands forming into fists as he reflected on how many times over the years he had leaked disinformation to the other side and ignored the carnage he had caused. He truly believed that was how you fought the drug war—without rules or quarter. I’ve really come to hate the Job, he thought, breaking his time signature and noodling, letting his tapping feet reflect his emotions. “What about this Pizzaro guy?” he asked, slightly out of breath.

  “Our Ghosts definitely make him as the guy they saw walking away from the Levi-DiLeo homicide. More’n likely he was the shooter.”

  “And the Judith they talked about in the video?”

  “Not sure. The only Judith on file is listed as a coyote, with no known pedigree. But this one is obviously part of Che-Che’s crew.”

  “Where do you think Pizzaro will go looking for a pilot?”

  Elia peered past the verticals at a slice of downtown real estate. “Does the name Lyle Caswell do anything for you?”

  Noodling, Too Tall Paulie said, “Agency guy who trained ragheads in how to blow up things. Lured back to the States in a sting operation and sentenced to max time in a federal dungeon. That was sixty or sixty-one.”

  “Sixty,” Elia confirmed. “He’s out on parole; runs a fancy employment agency catering to the drug trade. Guarantees his people aren’t drug users or boozers. He recruits only top talent.”

  “Caswell must be getting up there.”

  “He’s in his early seventies.”

  “Where is his operation?”

  “Right here in New York. Calls his company Executives Unlimited. Pizzaro’s been a customer in the past.”

  “Fancy title for a scumbag operation,” Too Tall Paulie said, still noodling.

  Elia was warming to the idea of putting a disinformation scam on the rails. “Want me to let a pigeon loose?”

  Burke held up a calming hand. “Not so
fast. I think our best bet is to wait until we’re sure of all the players.”

  “And Hector Pizzaro?”

  “One way or the other he’s going to take the long count.” Breaking his time signature, Too Tall Paulie slipped into four-four jazz time, his arms loose and dangly.

  17

  On Tuesday, nine o’clock eastern time, Alejandro waited in front of his Fifth Avenue apartment with two Parapoints stuffed carefully inside nylon suitcases. The homing transmitters were packed away inside his overnight along with a change of underwear, a couple of polo shirts, a toothbrush, hairbrush, after-shave, and a throw-away razor. He had arrived home from the Hacienda around nine Monday night and had gone to sleep. Before dozing off, he’d set the alarm clock for four in the morning and tossed an old sneaker into the middle of the bedroom to remind him to burst a message to Seaver during his five-thirty window of transmission.

  The burst transmission would tell Mother Hen that the demonstration was set for Tuesday—and that he hadn’t a clue where it would take place.

  At nine-forty Tuesday morning a dirty green van drew up at the curb in front of his apartment. Barrios was driving; Pizzaro sat in the passenger seat. The side door slammed open, and two men jumped out and rushed to grab the suitcases. They jumped back into the van with them.

  Alejandro picked up his overnight and climbed into the body of the van, asking, “Where we off to?”

  Nobody bothered to answer his question.

  At eleven-forty that morning a Grumman Gulfstream gathered speed as it hurtled down the five-thousand-foot runway at La Guardia Airport’s Marine Terminal.

  Alejandro, sitting by himself across the aisle from Pizzaro and Barrios, looked out the porthole at the murky waters of Flushing Bay. To his west he could see the razor-wire perimeter of Riker’s Island Penitentiary and South Brother Island. As the private jet reached up into the sky, a spark of concern ignited inside Alejandro. This plane can go for distance, he thought. Where are they taking me? He glanced to his right and saw that Pizzaro and Barrios had their heads together, whispering. The two men who had rushed out of the van to gather up Parapoints were strapped into seats in the rear of the plane.