Cleopatra Gold
Page 27
Next he entered the names of Cleopatra’s handmaidens, Iras and Charmian, both separately and together, and was denied entry. Her birthday? 69 B.C. PASSWORD REQUIRED.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading about this lady, so think, he thought, frustration gnawing at him. What was the name of the guy who smuggled her into Caesar’s apartment rolled up in a rug? He input the name, Apollodorus. PASSWORD REQUIRED. Think! Damn it, think.
Mark Anthony had written to Octavian that she was a fascinatingly beautiful woman with a prodigious sexual talent, he recalled. The men she loved? He typed in Caesar and Mark Anthony together and separately and was again denied permission to enter.
What other man did she love? Her father. He typed in Ptolemy XII. PASSWORD REQUIRED. Watching the flashing words on the screen, he felt like putting his fist through them. Instead he told himself to think harder and asked himself what her father’s nickname was. He typed in Auletes and was denied entry. Shaking his head with frustration, he thought of what Auletes meant in English and typed in, The Flute Player. The program’s menu scrolled across the screen. He punched the air in satisfaction.
One of the menus listed “Corporation Accounts.” He called it up. The network had a string of expensive clothing boutiques and jewelry stores and restaurants, along with an assortment of wholesale business across the country. Four to six stores formed a corporation that fed into an out-of-state parent corporation. Money was wired to the out-of-state parent companies, where it was wired out of state into the account of another corporation. The money was bounced around the country until it was wired to accounts in Montevideo, Uruguay, or Milan, Italy, where it was again wire-transferred into numbered accounts in Luxembourg and Panama.
On paper all these transactions appeared to be legitimate business activities. There were also invoices for the sale of zircons and lead bars. They would ship zircons that on anything but expert close inspection looked like real diamonds and lead gilded to look like gold bars, listed on phony invoices to justify the transfer of large sums out of the country to pay for the imitation diamonds and gold.
There were also account records showing the smuggling of large sums out of the country and the washing of staggering amounts in Road Town. There was no time to go through the entire program; he had seen enough to know that the Cleopatra network had washed over thirty-five million dollars over an eight-month period.
He switched on the laser printer. When the printer finished, he took the pages of printout and stuffed them into his knapsack. Looking anxiously at the time, he wondered if he should take a look at another data bank.
Don’t get greedy and careless, he told himself. Looking around the office, making sure everything was as he’d found it, he pushed Judith’s chair against the console and left, locking the door behind him.
On Monday morning Alejandro shut off the alarm clock and sat up in bed, looking at the computer printouts spread over the floor. He had spent all day Sunday holed up in his apartment, studying the records.
Friday’s mail had contained a junk ad that had been sent first class in a large beige envelope that informed him that his official entry number may have already been selected to win a new BMW 850i or $100,000 in cash. No purchase was necessary, but he must enter the contest to win. The envelope had a large window across the top containing his entry number: E 3125517M. That number translated into a meet with Mother Hen at a safe house located at 312 East 55th Street, at 1700 Monday.
He popped off the bed and gathered the printouts, rolling up the pages and stashing them in the hidden compartment under the floor of his closet. Then he showered and washed the sleep out of his eyes. He lathered his face, took the throwaway razor out of the soap dish, looked up into the mirror dangling from the shower caddy, and shaved. After dressing and gulping down a cup of coffee, he left. Outside, he hailed a taxi and told the driver to take him to the Thirty-sixth Street loft.
The duffel bags were waiting for him, stacked neatly on one of the long tables. That makes three drops, he thought as he began checking the seams. Seeing that they were okay, he started taking the parachutes off the dolly. It was after two o’clock in the afternoon when he finished repacking the delivery systems. He was lifting the last one onto the dolly when the elevator door clattered open and Pizzaro led three of his crew, including Fiona, into the loft.
“They ready?” Pizzaro asked sharply.
“Just finished,” Alejandro said, noting the fatigue lines around Fiona’s eyes and cheeks. The strain of the repeated round-trip flights, and being out there alone, was beginning to show. She gave him a weak smile and started helping the others spread the tarpaulin over the rigs. When that was done, Pizzaro led them toward the elevator.
Fiona dashed over to Alejandro and gave him a fast kiss on the cheek. “Let’s go, Fiona,” Pizzaro barked impatiently.
Alejandro waited five minutes after they left before locking up the loft and leaving. Walking out of the building, he spied the black sedan parked at the curb. The back window slid down. “Hi,” Judith said.
Climbing into the backseat, Alejandro noticed that her left foot was tapping on the carpeting; something had her all wound up. “You and I have some unfinished business,” she said, sliding her hand in his.
“I’ve been looking forward to it.” Alejandro smiled, thinking, Now she’s looking to cash in her rain check.
Fiona was sitting on the jump seat in the back of the van, daydreaming about that first time she had seen Alejandro, on the soccer field, when the sudden squeal of brakes snapped her back to the here and now. As she leaned up out of her seat to look out the windshield, her stomach turned over in fear.
They were parked in front of the lower Madison Avenue address of Executives Unlimited. Pizzaro jumped out and shoved open a side door. “Let’s you and me go visit an old friend,” he said to her.
She climbed down and walked with him into the dilapidated building, her pulse rapid and her knees shaking.
Executives Unlimited had its dingy office on the fourth floor. Pizzaro let her lead the way along the curving hallway to a door with peeling gold letters. They entered without knocking and stood in a small anteroom with a green plastic sofa and an end table of pressed wood that held a large brown ceramic lamp with a balloon base and black shade. The sound of galloping horses and gunfire came from the inner office. Pizzaro threw open the door.
Lyle Caswell was watching an old western on a portable television on the edge of his desk, sipping coffee from a container; from the smell, the coffee had been spiced liberally with booze. Pizzaro pulled a sour face.
“Hey, Hector, how are you?” Caswell said, looking at Fiona. Caswell was lean and bony with sunken cheeks and deep wrinkles nestled around the corners of his eyes. He didn’t look very happy to see his unexpected visitors.
Pizzaro sat down on the only available chair, leaving Fiona standing. “You remember Fiona?”
“Sure,” he said, opening a side drawer, putting the container inside, and pushing the drawer closed. “How are these guys treating you?”
“Just fine,” she said, trying not to show any nervousness.
Pointing a finger at her, Caswell said, “You be careful of this Hector, he’s a real ladies’ man, always looking to stick it to the bearded clam.”
Looking down at the yellow-and-blue design of the silk tie he was wearing, Pizzaro said, “Some of your friends are wondering how you got your parole.”
“I got my parole by doing hard fucking time,” Caswell said resentfully.
Pizzaro looked away from him at the television. One cowboy leaped onto a horse and went galloping off after another cowboy who was shooting at him. “There are some people who are worried that you might have rolled over in order to get out.”
A vein on the right side of Caswell’s neck began pulsing. “What are you stuffing up your nose, Hector? They cut me loose early because they needed my bunk. Don’t you guys read the newspapers? All the prisons in this country are bursting at the seams.”
Caswell relaxed. “I only send my friends top talent.”
“Did you know she was a cop?”
Caswell’s weak smile turned instantly to an expression of terror. “I checked her out. I swear I did.” His hands came up as if he were praying.
“I’m no cop, you bastard!” Fiona shouted at Pizzaro.
“I checked her; she came up clean,” Caswell pleaded, the unmistakable stink of fear rising from his body.
“I’m no damn cop!” she shouted again.
Pizzaro slid out a .38-caliber S&W Chief from his waistband and shot Caswell in the face. The hollow-tipped bullet plowed in just under the right eye and blew out his skull.
Fiona recoiled in horror. She grabbed Pizzaro by the shoulder and began shaking him. “I’m not a cop!”
“I know that,” he said calmly. “But he wasn’t sure enough, and he should have been sure. That made him a risk.” Jamming the barrel against her stomach, he asked, “You got a problem with any of this?”
She glared at him. “The only problem I have is that my period is two days late.”
His lips smiled; his eyes stayed cold. “I like you.”
“I like you, too. You’re a great humanitarian.”
Pizzaro took out his silk pocket scarf and, walking around the desk, wiped the revolver clean of his fingerprints. Then he planted it in the dead man’s hand.
“You don’t think that the cops’ll fall for that phony suicide routine, do you?” Fiona asked, fighting to keep her voice from shaking.
“Of course they will. They got so many unsolved murders in this city that they jump at any excuse to solve one.”
Leaving the building, Pizzaro said, “Even if you were a cop, it’d make no difference. Now you’re an accessory to murder.”
28
Judith’s ample breasts were soft, her nipples erect. She had hooked one leg over his and was biting his shoulder, none too gently, while he brushed his finger through her thick pubic hair.
“Was I as good as Fiona?” she asked, rolling her eyes to his.
“There was no contest. You’re a woman, she’s a child.”
She took hold of his hand and guided a finger inside her. She groaned in delight and opened her legs wide.
They made love again, then lay on their backs, staring up into their own private spaces. Glancing over her bronzed body, staring at the gold Cleopatra medallion around her neck, he asked, “What’s the story with you and Hector?”
“We have an arrangement; but it’s not an exclusive one.” Rolling over and propping herself on her elbow, she attempted to change the subject of conversation to him.
Eyes showing only contentment under her gaze, he slipped easily into the familiar myths as he told her about his make-believe life and past. He concluded with the true story of how he got his gig at Environment. “Now what about you?” he asked.
She told him that she was an only child and how disappointed her father had been when she’d decided against going into the family business. “I wanted to make it on my own.”
“Where did you meet Hector?”
“We met in Bolivia years ago.”
“And Che-Che?”
“I met him here in New York, about three years ago,” she lied smoothly.
“Where the heck did he ever come up with the name ‘Cleopatra Gold’?”
She arched one brow, surprised he would ask. “I thought you knew that. According to Tarascan myth, Cleopatra escaped from Egypt and sailed all the way to Ixtapa.”
“I heard that story when I was a kid, but I never believed it.”
She rolled off the bed and began gathering up her clothes. She padded into the bathroom and closed the door. When he heard the shower, he leaped up off the bed, picked up his briefs, and stepped into them.
“How did you like being with an older woman?” she called seductively from inside the bathroom.
“Very much,” he called back, realizing as he answered that he really meant it.
She came out of the bathroom dressed, to find him sprawled on the bed.
“Will I see you again?” he asked, getting up and taking her in his arms.
She gave him a long good-bye kiss. “Yes. But not this way. Today was a one-shot deal. I don’t mix my money with my pleasure.”
“What about Hector?”
“That’s different.”
After she was gone, he quickly showered and dressed, reflecting on his time alone with Judith. He concluded that she was probably as big a liar as he was.
Alejandro got out of the taxi at Fifty-seventh Street and Second Avenue. It was the third cab he had taken since leaving his apartment, to insure that he was not being followed. He crossed the avenue to the pizza parlor on the northwest corner and ordered a slice. Standing at the counter, he swept his eyes over the street, searching out any break in the normal rhythm. Students from the High School of Art and Design congregated on the corners. People waited patiently by the bus stop. Women pushed baby carriages; a dog walker led her charges down the street. He tossed the crust of pizza into the plastic-lined garbage basket and left, strolling south on Second Avenue, taking his time window shopping.
The nameplate on the door read “J. McMahon.” Alejandro admitted himself with a key.
“Wanna drink?” Seaver asked, standing at the bar.
“Scotch.” Walking over to the window, Alejandro added, “This is definitely not cool, meeting here while I’m in play.”
“We have to talk,” Seaver said, handing him a glass filled almost to the top.
Peering out the window, Alejandro noticed that the fountain was not working. He turned and handed Seaver a shopping bag containing the printouts from Pizzaro’s office. “Some of their money records. You’d better get them to the accountants.”
Seaver put the shopping bag on the floor without looking at the records. “What does it look like?”
“Like big bucks. They have all these different kinds of stores throughout the country that are nothing more than shells that siphon money from their drug deals. They get it into the banking system by funneling it through phony corporations until it eventually ends up in the accounts of overseas shell companies.” He sipped at his drink. “What did you find out about Judith and Jasmine?”
“Judith’s last name is Stern. She was born on Long Island, June 3, 1942.”
“She’s fifty-one,” Alejandro said, sounding curiously remote.
“Her father built up the family business; he inherited it from his father. They manufacture women’s swimwear. The old man is in a nursing home in Queens now, and the business is run by her brothers. Evidently she wanted into the business, but big daddy said no way, so she told them all to go to hell; and went to work for a competitor. Two years later she was running the damn place. Then all of a sudden she drops out of sight and resurfaces south of the border.” He handed over a transcript of her college records.
Reading it, Alejandro observed, “She’s no dope. She’s got a fucking MBA.”
Seaver continued to read from notes on a piece of paper. “She met Che-Che in Ixtapa, and started working for him. It’s not clear whether or not she was one of his hookers. But she took a collar in Mexico for selling phony time shares to gringo tourists. Che-Che bribed her out of it.” Leaning forward and looking directly at him, Seaver said, “I had Wade Hicks run a check on her passport files. She was in Mexico when your dad was murdered. That does not mean that she was the shooter, or had anything to do with it.”
Alejandro put his glass on the coffee table, dawning comprehension spreading across his face. “They’re partners, Andy. Che-Che had the connections with the major Colombian dopers, and she had the business know-how. They make a good team.”
“And Pizzaro?” Seaver asked.
Alejandro rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “As I see it, Pizzaro is only a hired stone killer w
ith an extra fringe benefit—Judith fucks him so she can keep an eye on him and his ambition. What did you get on Jasmine?”
“Her name is Jasmine Sa Kee.” Seaver was looking again at his notes. “Daddy is one of the world’s biggest heroin dealers. He operates out of the Golden Triangle.”
Alejandro snapped his fingers. “That’s it—that’s where we connect in the China White. Jasmine’s daddy provides the shit, and Che-Che and Judith package and sell it.”
“The question is, does Che-Che or Judith know who Jasmine is?” Seaver said in a low voice.
“What’s your guess?”
“I don’t think they know who she is.”
Alejandro nodded. “I agree. My bet is that Daddy sent Jasmine to the States to learn the retail and wholesale end of the business so he can build his own white interstate across this country. I also think she’s fucking Che-Che!”
Seaver leaned back, his eyes fixed on the thin crack running across the ceiling. “We have a big problem.”
“What?”
“The boss had to go before the Intelligence oversight board and give his semiannual report. He gave them the skinny on this operation. They freaked out when they heard how much heroin we were sitting on. They want arrests made, and the dope seized … or …”
“Or what?” Alejandro growled angrily. “Andy, I didn’t work this network to see these scumbags walk in court. Most of the evidence we have is not admissible, like those financial records. I don’t want to see this bitch Cleopatra get away.”
Seaver held up both hands in a calming gesture. “I agree with you. I wanna see them go down the tubes, too; but we gotta take out that dope.”
Alejandro began to pace around the room, his mind going at full speed. “Why don’t I sneak into the warehouse and destroy it? That would throw them into a panic. I could even plant a cloth bag full of quarters so they’d think one of the Colombian animals did it. The queen just might make a major blunder if all that dope was turned to mush.”