Flesh and Blood
Page 28
“The jungle magic,” Farouk said pointedly.
“Some sort of drug,” Frank said. “Maybe that was her connection to Constanza.”
“And when he was put in prison, she went into business for herself?” Farouk asked.
“Something like that.”
“It’s possible,” Farouk said musingly.
Frank snuffed out his cigarette and began going back through his notebook, reading each page slowly, carefully, while Farouk watched him silently.
“But maybe it was in stages,” he said after a moment, as he looked up from the notebook.
Farouk leaned forward slightly, his large brown eyes squinting through the tumbling smoke. “Stages?”
“Three stages,” Frank said. He flipped back through the notebook. “Listen to this: First Hannah builds a place to find the drug. That’s the beginning. Kincaid says that later she found a place to make it, and that after that, she hired a man to bring the people into it.”
Farouk stared at Frank expressionlessly.
“That’s three stages,” Frank explained.
Farouk nodded slowly. “Yes.”
Frank thought an instant longer, then snapped up his notebook, flipped through the pages, and glanced back up at Farouk. “Kincaid said, ‘I didn’t think it could begin again.’”
“What?”
“And he said that it was ‘such a year for death, for assassination,’” Frank added quickly. “That was the year it began again, a year of death, of assassinations.”
“Which would be?”
“Well, it could be 1968, couldn’t it?” Frank said. He thought a moment. “That’s also the same year Constanza went to prison.”
“1968,” Farouk repeated quietly.
“That would be the ‘year of death’ Kincaid talked about.”
Farouk nodded. “Yes, it could be,” he said. “But suppose he was talking about South America. Which is where he was at the time.”
Frank said nothing.
“Of course, we could check on that,” Farouk added. He seemed to consider his next question carefully. “That man, Riviera,” he said finally, “you know him well?”
“No. Why?”
“Perhaps he might know if this ‘year of death’ refers to South America,” Farouk replied.
“Riviera? Why would he know about it?”
“Because he knows Colombia.”
“How do you know that?” Frank said. “Riviera’s not from Colombia. He’s not even from South America.”
Farouk stared doubtfully at Frank.
“Riviera’s from Spain,” Frank insisted. “He’s a Spanish Jew. Remember? He made that clear right away.”
“Perhaps he is what he claims, a Sephardic Jew,” Farouk said, his eyes narrowing. “But he knows South America. This I can tell you with certainty.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because when he was at your office, he called Hannah’s killer a bicho,” Farouk said. “In Spain, this can only mean ‘bug.’” His eyes seemed to darken slowly. “But in Colombia, it is a word of great contempt. A vulgar word for the penis. In English, you would call it ‘prick.’ This is what he called Kincaid.”
“But he could have picked that up in New York, couldn’t he?”
“It is possible.”
Frank stared intently at Farouk. “But it could also be a lie.”
“A lie, yes,” Farouk said softly. His face grew very concentrated, and for a long time he did not speak. Then suddenly, his eyes brightened. “A lie,” he said. “Which is sometimes where the truth begins.”
30
“There were more lies than one,” Farouk said as he walked up to the park bench where Frank sat waiting for him. He smiled. “But the truth is in the hall of records.”
“What truth?”
“Well, for one thing, that Riviera is a man of property,” Farouk said. “In this country, that is a hard truth to conceal.”
“What kind of property?”
“The Brandon Street Settlement,” Farouk said. “The records show that he owns the building.” He smiled cunningly. “And since he does not rent it, but turns it over for a charitable use, he pays no taxes.”
“When did he buy it?”
“The year of death,” Farouk said. “The spring of 1968.”
Frank took out his notebook. “Go on.”
Farouk lowered himself onto the bench, then turned up the collar of his overcoat. “It’s getting colder. There will be snow tonight, I think.”
“You said something about more lies than one,” Frank said.
Farouk blew into his hands, then rubbed them together rapidly. “He is from Spain, this much is true,” he said. “But other things are wrong with what he told you. For example, he has been to Colombia forty times since 1968.”
Frank wrote it down quickly. “Forty?” he repeated, astonished. “When was the first time?”
“He went there in October of 1968,” Farouk said from memory.
“To Bogotá?” Frank asked.
“That is the interesting thing,” Farouk said. “He did not land in Bogotá. He went instead to the northern part of the country, along the slopes of the Andes.”
“San Jorge?”
“The one airport nearest it, yes,” Farouk said. “He went again in the spring of the next year. Then again in the fall. He has been doing this, two trips a year—one in April, one in October—he has been doing this for twenty years.”
Frank wrote it down. “Why twice a year?” he asked, almost to himself. “Why the spring and the fall?” He thought a moment, his mind moving back through everything he knew, all his cases, his entire past, ranging over all of it in a kind of instantaneous rush. Then, from nowhere, he heard the distant rumble of the old propeller plane, saw the clouds of white powder flow out from beneath its tail, smelted the sickly sweet odor of the poison that drifted down over the gently shifting cotton fields. “Crops,” he said. “The planting and the harvest. “
Farouk smiled. “Yes,” he said immediately.”That could be it. The jungle magic.”
Frank looked at him. “Marijuana?”
“Perhaps,” Farouk said. “It is grown in Colombia.”
“Anything else?”
“The leaves of the coca plant are processed there.”
“Cocaine?”
Farouk nodded.
Frank thought for a moment, then flipped back through his notebook. “Here it is,” he said, when he’d found what he was looking for. “Kincaid said that she, meaning Hannah, that she found a man to make it.”
“Someone to grow the marijuana,” Farouk said. “Or to process the cocaine.”
Frank continued to stare at his notebook. “Maybe Pérez was killed, maybe that man was—”
“Riviera,” Farouk said. “It is possible.” He glanced toward the notebook. “What else did Kincaid say?”
Frank read from his notes. “Someone to bring them in.”
“The shipments,” Farouk said. “Of the drug.” His eyes drifted out toward the bare trees of the courtyard. “But what drug?”
“The growing season should tell us that,” Frank said. “Whatever it is, it has to be planted or harvested in the spring or fall.”
Farouk lifted himself heavily from the bench. “Well,” he said, puffing slightly in the cold air, “this will not be difficult to discover. From Colombia, it could only be marijuana or cocaine.”
Frank stood up beside him. “How do you know?”
“Because Colombia is the homeland of my wife,” Farouk told him. Then he headed off through the small park, his eyes fixed on the subway station at its northern edge.
“Cocaine or marijuana,” Farouk repeated, as he and Frank stood on the wide steps of the New York Public Library. He looked up at the massive marble facade of the building. “All the secrets are here,” he said with a kind of strange awe, “if one knew how to find them.” He headed slowly up the stairs, mounting them one by one while Frank followed at his side.
“What’s in it?”
“Government documents and reports,” Farouk said. “I have spent many hours looking at them. Everything is there. If you look closely at them, they will tell you how everything works.”
“Will they tell us about Colombia?” Frank asked.
“That is the very least they will tell,” Farouk said. He turned quickly to the right and proceeded up the gently curved staircase.
Room 228 was the least imposing of the many rooms they passed on the way to the northern corner of the library. There was a narrow entranceway, with two small rooms on either side. A few modest bookshelves ran along either side of the hallway, but Farouk did not move toward them. Instead, he walked quickly to one of the computer terminals at the front of the room, sat down immediately and began typing. Frank stood above him, his eyes staring at the screen as the words began to flow across it: NATIONAL NARCOTICS INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE REPORT.
The screen flickered slightly, then the call number for the book appeared. Farouk jotted it down on a call slip, then took it into the room at the left and handed it to one of the clerks.
“There will be a short wait,” he said as he turned back to Frank. “We will wait in the other room. The book will be brought to desk number sixty-four.”
It arrived only a few minutes later, a small gray volume of little more than a hundred pages.
“Now we are ready,” Farouk said delightedly. He opened the book first to the table of contents, perused it quickly, then turned to the index.
“Cocaine,” he whispered as he flipped through the pages of the index, found the citation, then turned to it.
Frank leaned over and read what appeared on the page:
Cocaine, a bitter crystalline alkaloid Cl7H21N04. Obtained from the leaves of the coca (Spanish; Quechua, kúku) plant, a shrub grown in South America, genus Erythroxylon, family Erythroxylaceae. The coca plant is grown in the higher elevations of South America. It requires an extended mean temperature of approximately 65 degrees Fahrenheit and is best grown in the hilly terrain along the slopes of the Andes.
Farouk turned the page quickly, his eyes scanning the page with a steadily increasing speed.
“Here it is,” he said after a moment. Then he read aloud in a low whisper. “Cocaine is harvested three times a year. First in the mediados de marzo (March), then in the mediados de San Juan (June), and finally in the mediados todos los santos (November).”
“Those aren’t the right dates for Riviera’s trips,” Frank said when Farouk had finished.
Farouk said nothing. He returned to the index, looked up marijuana, then turned to the indicated page and read the entry slowly, while Frank looked on. “Cannabis, the dried leaves and flowering tops of the pistillate hemp plant, is cultivated year-round, particularly in Colombia, where the leaves are blended with coca paste (cocaine) to produce a third, highly intoxicating drug known locally as bazuco.”
Farouk looked up from the book. “Bazuco,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s the jungle magic.”
“Maybe,” Frank said as he sat down beside him. “But the growing season still isn’t right for Riviera’s trips.”
“No, it isn’t,” Farouk said as he closed the book. “Nothing fits.”
Frank leaned forward slightly, his eyes drawn to the long rows of books which ran along the four walls of the reading room. “He goes every six months,” he said.
“Without fail,” Farouk added. “For the last twenty years, every six months, yes.” He glanced down at the book. “But nothing grows during that time.” He shook his head in exasperation. “Nothing is harvested in April or October.” He slid the book across the table. “Cocaine is harvested three times. But Riviera goes only twice to Colombia. And marijuana is harvested year-round.” He thought a moment longer, then turned to Frank. “It could not be these drugs.”
Frank looked at him. “Maybe it’s some new drug.” In his mind he could see the small yellow seeds that had dotted the floor of Kincaid’s room. He could hear Kincaid’s voice as he spoke again, his voice as dry as the bed of stalks that covered his floor: And later another man came to bring them in. “Or maybe the shipment’s made differently,” he said.
Farouk stared at him. “Differently? How?”
“Kincaid said that a man came down to Colombia to bring them in,” Frank said.
“Them, yes,” Farouk told him, “the shipments.”
“Or people.”
“People?”
“Whatever the drug is, maybe Riviera is just the mule.”
Farouk watched Frank intently. “Meaning what?”
“Maybe Riviera is the one who gets the shipments here,” Frank said. “And maybe he uses people to bring them in.”
“People?” Farouk asked again.
Frank nodded. “That’s right. And these people, maybe he puts them up at the Brandon Street Settlement.”
Farouk’s eyes narrowed, but he did not speak.
“On six-month visas,” Frank added.
“And that would be the cover for the shipments?” Farouk asked immediately. “The people at Brandon Street?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said. But in his mind he could see them as they trudged down the long corridor, their heads bent forward, silent, while the man screamed at them from behind. They seemed to weave together in the white, windless space of the freshly painted hallway, brown like the stalks that covered Kincaid’s floor, a withered human harvest disappearing behind a large gray door.
31
It was early the next morning when Farouk arrived at Frank’s office. For a time, he sat in the shadowy light, waiting for Frank to finish shaving, his eyes moving slowly about the room, while the smoke from his cigarette curled up toward the water-stained ceiling.
“It’s early, yes,” he said as Frank emerged groggily from the small bathroom. “But we must be there before he comes.”
“And we don’t know when that is,” Frank said. He pulled on his jacket, then his long black overcoat. “Does it still look like snow?”
“For tonight, they say it is coming,” Farouk told him. “A big storm from the north.”
“That could make things difficult,” Frank said.
“We will stay close,” Farouk assured him. “Snow or not, we will be near.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Frank said as he buttoned the last button of his coat. He walked to the door, let Farouk pass in front of him, then followed him up the stairs to 49th Street.
“I brought my car,” Farouk said as he guided Frank to the right toward Eighth Avenue. “We cannot do this thing from underground.” He pointed to a battered late-model Chevrolet. “The heater is not working, but that is its only problem.”
“Does Riviera have a car?”
“I don’t know,” Farouk said. “But if he does, we will need one for ourselves.”
They got in quickly, then drove silently down Ninth Avenue, turned left on 34th Street, and headed toward the heart of the Garment District.
“We will park in front,” Farouk said, as he guided the car up the curb just opposite the underground parking garage of Riviera’s building. “If he has a car, we will see him go in.” He reached for the small red-lettered sign which lay on the seat beside him. “This will keep the police away,” he said as he turned the sign toward Frank. It read: NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL BUSINESS.
“Where’d you get that?” Frank asked.
Farouk hooked the sign to his sun visor, then lowered the visor into position. “My cousin, Hassan, owed me a favor. With this, he returned it.”
Frank nodded quickly, then eased himself back into the seat. “This was the part I always hated,” he said.
“You must not think of it as boring,” Farouk told him. “If you do, a stakeout is unbearable.” He shook his head. “Yo
u must think of it as a moment of great anticipation. You must say, ‘What I do not yet have, I anticipate.’” He smiled. “This is the way to see it, as the instant before the panther leaps.”
Frank took out a cigarette and lit it, his eyes lingering on the dark tunnel of the underground garage. “If we don’t see him go in by nine, I’ll call him on the phone. If he’s there, we’ll know he didn’t use a car.”
“Of course,” Farouk said. “And we will abandon ours.”
“We can just park it in that garage.”
“Of course,” Farouk repeated. “You see what freedom we have, my friend? We can take a car, or we can leave it.” He smiled mockingly. “The world is boundless, yes? Beautiful and boundless.”
Frank took a quick draw on the cigarette and watched the crowds as they thickened steadily along the sidewalks. He could feel his own inner time moving at the same darting pace as the people around him, and he began to tap his foot rapidly against the floor of the car.
Farouk eyed him curiously for a moment. “As I once said, you are very restless, Frank.”
“It’s my nature,” Frank said. He took a long draw on the cigarette, then crushed it in the ashtray on the dashboard.
“Perhaps you have some ideas to go with it,” Farouk added.
Frank shook his head.
“Too bad,” Farouk said with a slight, dismissive shrug. “It is good to have ideas about the way you live.”
Frank’s eyes shifted over to him. “What’s yours?”
Farouk took a deep breath. “To do good to the good, and bad to the bad.”
Frank smiled. “You want him, don’t you? You want Riviera.”
“If he is using these people to mule in the drug,” Farouk said, “if this is his way, then yes, I want him.” He shook his head. “A man should get what he wants in life by himself. He should not use others.”
“So that he who grows the fig, should eat it,” Frank told him. “Isn’t that what your father said?”
Farouk smiled broadly. “Yes.”
Frank returned his eyes to the entrance of the underground garage. “It’s getting late,” he said. “Maybe I should make the call. Riviera may already be in his office.”
Farouk nodded. “Yes, he may.”