Cleopatra Gold

by William Caunitz

  They continued walking. She looked up at her son and asked, “Is it true that some apartments in New York rent for as much as ten thousand dollars a month?”

  20

  Headlights pierced the night. A car drew up to a stop on the ocean road in front of Alejandro’s mother’s house. He ran to the window in time to see his sister Maria lean across the passenger seat and kiss the driver. Alejandro went out the rear door and ran up the path, calling, “Maria!”

  She broke free of the embrace, turned, saw her brother, and called out his name as she rushed from the car to his arms.

  The driver of the car got out, leaned over the roof, and said, “I’ll call you tomorrow, Maria.”

  “Juan Carlos, this is my brother, Alejandro.”

  “Hi,” he said nervously, then quickly got into his car and drove away.

  Their mother ran from the house and embraced her family. Tears came to Alejandro as he stood in front of the house, kissing his mother and sister, telling them how much he loved and missed them. The Monahan family was together, and that made him feel human again.

  Juan Carlos sped his car down the ocean road. When he came to the statue of the four dolphins, he turned left and drove down the winding street and parked in front of the police substation across from La Villa del Sol Hotel. He glanced at the police blockhouse, saw all the lights were out, and thought, Our protectors are asleep. He looked up at the antennas on the roof of the police building and reached into his shirt pocket, taking out a pack of Fiesta cigarettes. He shook one out into his mouth, pushed in the lighter, and, holding the package on his lap, pushed in the tiny button concealed on the right side of the package. He pulled out the lighter, lit the cigarette, and said, “The brother’s come home.” His voice message was encoded automatically into a scrambled digital code inside the miniature burst transmitter. After tucking the package of cigarettes back into his shirt pocket, he tilted it toward the antennas on the roof of the blockhouse and pushed the Send button on the top.

  He remained parked for a few minutes, enjoying his smoke. Then he tossed the butt out the window and watched it hit the ground in a shower of sparks. Time to go home and see what was on CNN.

  21

  The row of attached one-story garages strung across the back of Yeshiva Beth Chaim’s schoolyard was in darkness, save for the Special Operations Section Communications Unit that fronted West End Avenue, where a fluorescent ceiling fixture bathed the room in a soft white luminescence. Detective Mary Reddington, a leggy strawberry blonde in her middle thirties, sat at the communications console doing needlepoint. She glanced up at the digital clock in time to see the wheel turn to “0430—Wednesday.” Three and a half hours of her tour remained, and then she and her husband were off on a twelve-day cruise to the Canary Islands. She heard a rustling noise from outside and leaned up out of her swivel chair to look out the window.

  The bread man was making a delivery to the bodega across the street on West End Avenue. Reddington watched him stack the long brown bags inside the doorway and push the squeaky accordion gate closed. Lowering herself back to the worn leather seat of the chair, she noticed that a haze of smog thickened the faint morning glow over the city. She looked back at the clock: 0433. She went back to her needlepoint.

  The night supervisor at the CIA’s Counter-Narcotics Center, sixty miles northeast of Knoxville, Tennessee, read Juan Carlos’s decoded cryptogram.

  “How do you want us to send it?” the cipher clerk asked, glancing out the window at the string of dish antennas.

  Handing the message back to the clerk, the supervisor said, “Coded fax. Get it right out.”

  Detective Reddington pushed the needle through the canvas and glanced up at the clock: 0450. The fax machine began to clatter. Reddington put the canvas and the needle on the ledge of the console. Remaining seated, she walked her chair over to the machine. She tore off the coded fax, switched on the cryptoanalysis machine, fed the message into it, and watched as the jumble of numbers spun across the display window. After reading the decoded message, she wheeled herself over to the computer, inputted the access code for the “Mother Hen Data Bank,” and typed in “Chilebean.” Andy Seaver’s name scrolled across the screen. She telephoned him at home; after getting no answer there, she accessed the “Significant Other” file and typed in Seaver’s name. Wilma Galt’s name and telephone number appeared on the screen, followed by Seaver’s official legend.

  By 0526 that morning, Joey-the-G-Man was losing his private battle as he lit his third cigarette of the day. He looked across the table at Seaver, and asked, “Why the fuck do you suppose they flew him to Zihuatanejo?”

  Seaver shrugged and speculated, “Probably to test Parapoint on their own turf, and to let him know that they know where his mother and sister lived.”

  “If the demonstration went okay, Che-Che’ll want to get right to it. Are the chutes ready?”

  “I’m collecting them from Hansen today.”

  “And the money to pay for them?”

  “It’s already been transferred into Precision Industries’ covert accounts.” Seaver took the cheroot out of his mouth, laced his hands behind his head, and said, “Hansen had a visit from a woman with DEA credentials. They checked out phony. She wanted to know about Alejandro. Hansen said she was a looker, well dressed, with thick black hair and deeply tanned skin.”

  Romano looked very worried. “What did Hansen tell her?”

  “He stuck to the legend Alejandro and him made up.”

  “She buy it?”

  “He thinks she did.”

  Joey-the-G-man took a deep drag on his cigarette, blew the smoke up at the ceiling, and said, “We’d better arrange to give Chilebean’s family more eyes and ears. Can you ask Hicks to have his people down there ready to scoop them up and stash them in an Agency safe house if things start to get messy?”

  “I’ve already taken care of that.”

  “How are you guys going to make contact when he gets back?”

  “Burst transmissions.”

  “And what if he’s in a hurry?”

  “In an emergency he can always call Control. And we’ve developed a few alternate ways for him to pass me information by making contact at night between his performances.”

  The sound of the cipher lock being keyed caused them to look up. Detective Reddington walked inside and closed the door behind her. She handed her boss a decoded fax from CNC that read “Chilebean’s aboard aircraft that entered US airspace 0649 central time this date. Destination per flight plan filed is New York La Guardia.” He put the message on the table, looked up at Reddington, and said, “Have a good cruise, Mary.”

  In another part of Queens, other passengers were deplaning at JFK. John Courtney Carlsen’s suit was wrinkled and his tasseled loafers scuffed when he walked out of Customs and into the crowded airline terminal, carrying his designer carryall. The American Airlines flight from Tortola had stopped in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he had restudied his notes on the Kingscross Bank of Road Town, a brass-plate financial institution without security guards that trafficked in a worldwide network of electronic debits and credits. He had been relieved to see that the real owners of Kingscross were veiled behind an interlocking pyramid of European and Middle Eastern companies and was particularly delighted that many of them were Pakistani and Saudi. This reassured him that Che-Che was laundering money through a perfectly unscrupulous bank free of any CIA or DEA shenanigans.

  Walking out past the bank of frosted-glass doors into the gauntlet of waiting friends and relatives, he spotted a man in a chauffeur’s cap holding up a cardboard sign with his name crayoned across the front. He walked over to the man. “I’m Mr. Carlsen.”

  “I’m saposta drive ya to da Hotel Madison.”

  “And who told you to do that?”

  “Some guy named Leon. He wants ya to call him at his hotel, here’s the number. Ask for room 708,” he said, passing Carlsen a folded slip of paper.

  Carlsen walked
over to the bank of shiny telephones, deposited a quarter, and when he heard the electronic hiccup, dialed. The phone was snapped up on the first ring, and Judith Stern’s gleeful voice came over the line. “Welcome home, darling.”

  “What’s with the Leon routine?”

  “Would you want the help to know you’re about to have an assignation? He’ll drive you to a hotel.”

  He smiled. “Why there and not the apartment?”

  Her voice got serious. “Hector’s been acting strange lately. Why take chances?”

  “I’ll be right over,” he said, and slowly replaced the receiver. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the money warehouses during his trip down to Road Town. All that money, just sitting in some stinking building waiting to be shipped out of the country. He kept asking himself over and over again, Could we really get away with ripping one of them off?

  The Madison was an inconspicuous hotel on Forty-ninth Street, two blocks west of Ninth Avenue. Carlsen walked past the desk clerk and took the elevator up to the seventh floor. The carpet had a faded floral design, and four of the wall sconces that lined the wall were out.

  Judith opened the door the second he knocked on it, pulled him into the room, and threw herself into his arms. Kissing him passionately, she kicked the door closed.

  Finally he stepped back, looking at her. “I missed you,” he said, and hugged her.

  She took him by the hand and tugged him over to the bed. He pulled her down on top of him. “Not so fast, lover,” she insisted. “Business first. Tell me what you found out in Road Town.”

  “I can report that Alejandro’s friend, Franklin Penzer, runs a perfectly dishonest bank. And I can also tell you that Penzer is greedy and has expensive tastes.”

  “And the ownership of the bank?”

  He told her about the financial setup and principals, adding, “Penzer assured me of the bank’s regulatory flexibility, which translates into a bank with little or no regulations, strict confidentiality, and an enlightened money-laundering policy.”

  “No Agency or DEA types lurking around the boardroom?”

  “No.” He sat up, taking her hand in his, and his face grew still as he asked, “Do you really love me, Judith?”

  An expression of dismay washed over her face. “How can you ask me that?”

  An ominous quiet fell between them. He began rubbing her hand. Avoiding her eyes, he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what we talked about before I left.”

  Unnoticed by him, her eyes became cheerless and cold. “What was that, darling?” she asked, curving herself into him and slipping her arm around his shoulder.

  He kissed her head. “Those money warehouses. Do you really think we could get away with it?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, nibbling on his earlobe.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Do you think I’d jeopardize my life or yours if I wasn’t?”

  “I guess not.”

  “It’s only a matter of erasing one of them from a disk, and then arranging it to look as though Hector did it, if the loss should ever be discovered.”

  Mumbling into the curve of her neck, he said, “I love the idea of putting the weight on Hector.”

  She kissed him, cupped his face with her palms, and got up. She went to the dresser and picked up her pocketbook.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  She lowered herself next to him, pocketbook in hand, and said, “To the bathroom, silly. We don’t want any little John Courtneys right now, do we?” She kissed him as her right hand crept into her pocketbook and came out with a .32-caliber Magnum revolver chambered with six hollow-tipped rounds. She brought the barrel up to his temple and fired, exploding the left side of his head in a red mist that splattered chunks of brain and skull across the dirty fleur-de-lis wallpaper. She dropped the revolver back into her bag, looked down at the twitching body, and said, “You failed your security test, John.”

  Dressed only in his underpants, Roberto Barrios worked his bedroom StairMaster as he gazed out his eighth-floor window at the roofs of brownstones clustered along West Ninety-ninth Street. His body still hurt from the fight with Alejandro on the top of that damn mountain. Hector had wanted to put on some real muscle to instill fear into the singer, let him know that he couldn’t count on his friendship with Che-Che to protect him. That Bolivian prick is big on handing object lessons out to others, he thought, increasing the speed of the exercise machine, feeling the sweat trickling down his armpits. Hector had me worried there for a while with my girlfriend from Hopewell Junction. The bitch really had me fooled.

  The doorbell rang, and he stumbled on the treads. He’d only arrived home from Zihuatanejo an hour ago and wasn’t expecting anyone.

  It rang again.

  Switching off the machine, he stepped down, then grabbed his robe from the bed and tossed it around his shoulders as he made for the nightstand. He slid open its drawer and took out a nine-millimeter automatic pistol, pulling back the receiver until he saw the glint of a chambered round. Then, letting the slide snap forward, he picked his way out of the bedroom and padded carefully across the living room to the foyer. Standing to the side of the door, he asked, “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Judith.”

  Weapon in hand, he unlocked the door, slid the chain lock out of its restraining bar, and stepped back. He aimed his weapon at the opening. “Come in, Judith.”

  She stepped inside. He grabbed her pocketbook out of her hand and tossed it across the room, spun her around, and slammed her up against the wall, at the same time kicking the door closed. Pressing her up against the flocked wallpaper, he put the barrel of the automatic to her head and snarled, “I just got back from Mexico, and Hector’s whore pays me an unexpected visit. I gotta think, Why?”

  Careful not to move, she said in an aggrieved tone, “This is not the greeting I expected, Roberto.”

  “Cut the bullshit, and keep your hands flat. How did you get by the doorman?”

  “I walked through the service entrance like I owned the place. We need to talk, Roberto.”

  “Spread your legs, and move back. I want you leaning on your fingertips.”

  She complied with his order, complaining, “This is uncomfortable.”

  “Dead is more uncomfortable,” he snapped, running his hand over her body, searching for concealed weapons. Stepping back, he leveled the nine-millimeter at her and said, “Turn around.”

  She faced him.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  She kicked off her shoes angrily, reached behind and unzipped her dress, and stepped out of it. Glaring at him contemptuously, she asked, “Satisfied?”

  “Everything.”

  Staring at him, she worked off her panty hose, rolling them down one leg at a time, then tossed them aside. Next came her bra and underpants.

  “Turn around slowly,” he ordered, scanning her body for a weapon. “Lift your tits.”

  She complied. Seeing nothing taped to her body, he moved up to her, looked directly into her eyes, ran his hand up between her legs, and thrust a finger inside her body.

  She grimaced from the intrusion and said, “You fucking pig.”

  Stepping back, he motioned her farther inside the living room with his pistol. Four white sofas were set around a glass-topped coffee table on a bamboo frame in the middle of the room. He walked behind one of the sofas and waited for her to sit; then he lowered himself on the one directly across from her. “Tell me why you’re here.”

  Angrily, she snatched up two pillows to try to cover her nakedness. “Your dead girlfriend was an informer for the Drug Enforcement Agency,” she said in a strangely neutral tone of voice. She grabbed two more decorative pillows off the sofa and piled them on her lap.

  Barrios gave her an icy smile. “You’re becoming paranoid like your boyfriend. You both see DEA lurking everywhere.”

  Pushing the pillows against her body, she leaned forward, spitting out her words. “Hector had me
check out her funeral. Her grieving parents were there. So was her DEA handler. Bonnie Haley died from one of your Fink’s Fizzes, which means you knew damn well what she was. Che-Che would order you killed if he knew.”

  “You got no proof of any of that.”

  There was a clear note of fear in his voice, and she picked up on it. “I lied to Hector and told him that she wasn’t working for anyone. I saved your miserable ass, Roberto.”

  Staring at her with open skepticism, he asked, “And why did you do that for me, Judith?”

  She sat back, moving the pillows with her. “Have you ever noticed how most of the people in our business die young?”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “The smart money leaves young and rich.”

  He stared uncertainly at her for a long moment, his pistol loose in his hand. “You’re going to take out a money warehouse.”

  “I can’t do it alone.”

  Barrios looked at her as if she had just offered him a rattlesnake sandwich. “It’s never been done, and the few assholes who’ve tried it have been skinned alive. No, thank you, I think I’ll skip this little dance.”

  “I know most of the access codes to the data banks.”

  “All except the locations of the warehouses. Right?”

  “I’ll have that information soon.”

  “And if you do get it, then what?”

  She told him her plan, the same one she had told Carlsen.

  He leaned back. “Why me?”

  Judith became more confident and pressed her argument. “Because most people in the network know that we don’t like each other, know our natural distrust of each other. So they would figure that there was no way we would work together on anything.”

  “You’re an arrogant bitch, but you’re smart. So I have to figure you just might even be able to pull something like this off.” He looked past her at the wall. “If you did get hold of the locations, what about the guards?”

  “They’re driven there every day by one of Hector’s people. And they’re not assigned to the same warehouses two days in a row. All we’d have to do is eliminate one team of guards from the disk, and no one would be sent to guard it. We’d have it all to ourselves. The problem would be trucking the money out of there.”