by Chris Knopf
“Thanks for this,” I said. “It might save a life.”
“Is it worth saving?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a strangely persuasive person, even if you do have a lot of crazy shit going on,” she said.
“I appreciate the favor.”
“It’s not a favor if you’re paying me. It’s a task.”
“So you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. I love crazy shit.”
THE DELI at the end of the block was called Milt and Jerry’s, and not a single person working the place could have possibly been named either Milt or Jerry.
There were about five tables crammed in the back, but from there you had a clear view of people coming in to order from the counter. A sign hung on the wall announcing free WiFi, so I took that as an invitation to sit with my new laptop—purchased the day before—long enough to see Ella’s neighbor swoop into the place.
I snapped the computer shut and brought it with me to stand in line behind the woman. She was ordering bagels, muffins, sandwiches and coffee. She had a pronounced Spanish accent. The guy behind the counter tried to be friendly. The woman was polite, but not engaged.
“ Gracias, Clementina,” said the deli clerk when he slid a paper bag filled with her order across the counter. She nodded, and while she waited to pay at the cashier, I got a free coffee refill.
I followed her out the door, came up close behind, and said, “Perdóneme, Clementina.”
She whipped around, alarm in her face.
“I have a message for Rodrigo,” I said, in Spanish. “It’s extremely important.”
“Who are you?”
“Tell him not to meet with Joselito. It’s a setup. And stay away from him. It could mean Rodrigo’s freedom, or his life.”
“Tell me who you are,” she said.
I stuck a disposable phone in the bag.
“The number’s queued up. Just hit send. Tell him to call from the street. I’m not sure your offices are secure.”
I turned and walked away. After crossing the street, I looked back and saw her standing there watching me.
Ten minutes later, the phone chirped.
“Si. "
“Explain yourself,” said Rodrigo in Spanish.
“She wanted to know who I am,” I answered in English. “Remember an outdoor café on the Calle Dulcinea del Toboso?”
“You should be dead.”
“You keep trying to achieve that and I keep saving your life. Doesn’t seem fair.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I’m looking for information, and you can’t give it to me if you’re dead.”
“What do I get back?”
“The same.”
“I thought you worked for the VG,” he said.
“No, but I might start if you don’t cooperate.”
“I don’t like threats.”
“I know a lot about your organization, but you know nothing about me. That should be threatening enough.”
For a moment or two, he was quiet on the other end of the line.
“What do you want?”
“A meeting. At a place where we both can feel safe.”
“Where would that be?”
“Top of the Rock, 10:00 A.M.,” I said, “It’s a day before you’re supposed to meet Joselito. Consider it a practice run without the hats.” Then I hung up.
IT WAS a cool, windy morning. I was with one of Little Boy’s Bosniak crew, known to me only as Kresimir, on my way up to the top, open-air observation deck of the GE Building at Rockefeller Center. I was wearing a false moustache and wig. Kresimir came as himself.
It was 9:00 A.M., an hour before our meeting with Rodrigo. I would have been very disappointed if he wasn’t already up there.
We’d passed through the metal detectors without a hitch since the Bowie knives we each carried were made of an unbreakable polymer.
There were plenty of people keeping us company on the elevator, and a healthy crowd up on the deck. I quickly spotted Rodrigo with one of his boys, Jueventino. I did a pass around the deck to see if he’d brought another guy along, but saw no one I recognized.
“Welcome to New York,” I said, as we approached Rodrigo.
“I want my money back,” he said.
“What money?” I asked, artlessly, not knowing what else to say.
“The money you withdrew from the bank in the Cayman Islands. It belongs to me.”
“I’m not Joselito.”
“I know you’re not. You were just pretending to be. You’re the man with the Asian woman who is trying to destroy me.”
“I’m not. I just want some information.”
“We are calling you El Timador,” said Rodrigo. “The Trickster. Maybe better El Tonto, The Fool.”
“Why did Florencia Zarandona establish the Caymans account and why did she have a list of your safe houses?”
His grin faded.
“You killed her, you bastard,” he said.
“I didn’t kill her.”
“How else would you know about the account? You killed her and framed other people so you could take the money. You think we’re stupid, Timador?”
“No, but you don’t know the facts.”
“Give me the money and maybe we’ll let you live.”
“Give me what I want to know, and maybe I’ll give you the money.”
“He don’t kill her,” said Kresimir. “I know for sure.”
Rodrigo looked at him.
“There you have it,” I said.
“I have nothing more to say to you,” said Rodrigo, turning and walking away. Jueventino walked backwards at his side, watching us, until they were nearly to the elevator. I watched them go.
“They don’t believe you,” said Kresimir.
Frustration nearly choked off my voice. “I probably wouldn’t either,” I said. “But that can’t matter.”
And that was when the two large men in matching dark blue windbreakers walked up to us. One of them said, “Take a step and you’re both dead.”
CHAPTER 21
Kresimir obviously had trouble following directions. He not only took a step, he butted one of the guys in the head and stuck the edge of his hand in the other guy’s throat. They both went down.
We walked briskly to the elevator, which had just arrived. Kresimir pulled the last few people out and pushed the button.
“Get back,” he told those waiting to board, baring his plastic knife.
We went to the floor below the observation decks and left the elevator. In a few moments, we’d found the stairwell and started down. Ten stories later, we left the stairwell and caught an elevator that served the whole building. We took it down to the parking garage. When the door opened, a security guard was waiting with his gun drawn. Kresimir put his hands up, so I did too.
“Drop the knife,” said the guard as he pulled a radio off his belt.
Kresimir smacked the gun aside and snapped a right jab in the guard’s face. Before the guard hit the ground we were walking quickly into the garage. We moved through the rows of cars until we came to a pickup truck. He pulled me down to the floor.
“Take off your jacket. Ticket’s in the visor. I’ll be in the toolbox. They check, we’re goners.”
He stood up, unlocked the big, diamond-plate box on the left side of the truck, dropped the keys in my lap and somehow managed to fit himself inside. I got in the cab, stripped off the wig and moustache, and my jacket, and started the truck.
Moments later I was in a line at the exit. The NYPD was checking the vehicles as they went through the gate. When it was my turn, a tall white guy chewing gum twirled his finger at the window. I let it down.
“What’s up?” I asked.
He looked at me, then down at a smartphone. Then back at me. I realized he was looking at a photo, or video, zinged over to the cops by the building’s security.
“What’s in the toolboxes?” he asked.
�
�Tools?” I said.
“Did you go up to the top?”
“Of what?”
“The building.”
“You can do that?”
“Can you unlock the boxes?”
I shook my head.
“Nope. It’s a company truck. The boss has the keys.”
He looked at me for a longer time than I would have wished for, then stood back from the window, rapped the side of the truck and waved me on.
I drove around the city for about a half hour, looking for any signs of a tail. Satisfied, I went back downtown to the parking garage close to our hotel. Kresimir looked happy to be free.
“Next time I’m in a box, I better be dead.”
“You saved my ass. I really appreciate it.”
“I know, Mr. G. But with all due respect, I save mine, too.”
“They got you on security cam. Better lay low for a while.”
“No problem. Little Boy send me back to Bijeljina to visit what’s left of my people.”
Out in the daylight, I strolled back to the hotel. I walked past the entrance, scanning the street for anything suspicious. I went into a jewelry store and asked if I could borrow their phone.
“Lost mine, and I got to call my wife. She’ll really be worried.”
The salesperson led me to a small back office, but stood there while I made the call.
“It’s me,” I said. “Everything okay?”
“You mean with my mother?”
“I know your mother is in the best of health. Robust you might say.”
“So, yeah, things are fine here.”
“See you soon.”
The saleslady looked confused, but I got out of there and walked across the street to the hotel. Nobody attacked me in the lobby and I made it up to the room. I knocked on the door using our secret door knock and Natsumi let me in.
“How’s Rodrigo?”
“Homicidal.”
As I threw water on my face and washed off the fake moustache adhesive, I told her what happened at the Top of the Rock.
“Good Lord,” she said, following me out to the room where I lay down on the bed. She sat on the edge. “You know Kresimir lost his whole family in the war.”
“I did. Little Boy told me he’s the only person in the world who scares him.”
“Who were they?”
“They weren’t FBI. They’d send half an army. We’d never get away.”
“Theories?”
“Joselito’s goons. He knew we were meeting.”
“That’s impossible, right?”
I sat up.
“Mariñelarena’s blown. If I could find United Aquitania, so could Joselito Gorrotxategi, or the FBI.”
“The mole,” she said.
“My guess is their rooms in Soho are bugged. No other way they could have known.”
“Now what?”
“I sent a note to Clementina to warn Rodrigo, the son-of-a-bitch who wants to kill me, to get out of Dodge. Then we visit Shelly Gross.”
“You know where he lives?”
“I know where he eats dinner.”
CROSSING THE New York border into Connecticut felt like what it was—a homecoming. Except for college and graduate school, and the brief stint in London, I’d spent my whole life in Stamford. Winding along the leafy Merritt Parkway stirred up so many associations you could almost see them blowing around in our wake. It’s where Florencia and I lived, where she had her insurance agency. It’s where our lives ended. I shared those feelings with Natsumi.
“This is where living in the moment really comes in handy,” she said.
I’d timed the trip so we could catch him at a restaurant called the Powder Keg where he ate every night. A man of remarkably consistent habits, I knew he’d be there. The restaurant was in Old Wethersfield, about an hour and a half north of Stamford.
I parked in the lot of a florist shop that was closed, and we walked about a block to the Powder Keg.
As the name suggested, the restaurant’s ornamental theme revolved around weapons of destruction, specifically of the American Revolution. Muskets and paintings featuring men in blue and red coats shooting each other covered the walls, and a hefty cannon guarded the entrance. It was paneled in dark wood and lit by lamps with red glass shades.
Shelly was in the bar in his usual booth eating a burger and drinking from a mug of beer. He was watching a basketball game on the TV over the bar, a welcome island of modernity amidst the deep eighteenth-century gloom.
We slid into the booth across from him.
“Hi, Shelly,” I said.
“Well, well,” he said. “The man who lives dangerously. And Natsumi Fitzgerald, I presume.”
Shelly was in his late sixties. Lean and athletic, his face resembled a white-haired fox, not inappropriately.
“Did you report the mole?”
He shook his head. “I asked an old friend of mine how well he knew the agents assigned to the United Aquitania team. He asked me why. I told him one of them might be dirty. He told me he’d do some digging. Five minutes later I was being escorted to the door with a warning to stay out of investigations or face arrest.”
“Some friend.”
“A friend of the friend, I’m guessing. Anyway, I’m really out for good now. Unless you want me to drive you to headquarters in New Haven so you can turn yourself in.”
“Dirty is putting it mildly,” I said. “It feels like he’s in operational unison with the Vengadores.”
Shelly shrugged.
“Maybe they all are. United Aquitania is on the list of terrorist organizations. We’d be in operational unison with Lucifer if it helped with the war on terror.”
“Lucifer would be an improvement over these guys,” said Natsumi.
“Who are United Aquitania, anyway?” I asked.
“Basque separatists.”
“ETA?”
“No. A splinter group. They split off when they thought ETA was getting too soft. Hadn’t kept up the appropriate level of killings, bombings and armed robberies. At this point, they’re the last of the violent elements. The worst of the worst. That makes it very bad for you.”
“Why?”
“The Bureau is certain you’re one of them,” he said. “Are you?”
“What do you think?”
“No. If I thought you were, you’d have been nabbed a long time ago.”
“Actually, they’re trying to kill me,” I said.
“Not surprising. You stole their money.”
“Did you share anything you know with anyone outside the United Aquitania team?” I asked. “Except that one time with your friend?”
“No. I never gave them much to begin with. Didn’t trust them. No particular reason, just a gut feeling.”
“Smart gut,” said Natsumi.
He gestured at her with his beer. “You’re supposed to be pretty smart yourself, Ms. Fitzgerald. Why do a stupid thing like take up with this nut case?”
“I like nuts.”
“You’re not in so deep you can’t cut a good deal with the u.S. Attorney. Cooperate a little. Claim coercion.”
“Not a chance.”
“I didn’t think so, but I’m duty bound to ask.”
“Why so open with the information?” I asked, getting attention off Natsumi.
“I’ve been working on two theories about you,” he said. “Sort of a retirement hobby. If one of them is correct, it may be okay to give you a hand. You’re a liar and a cheat, but maybe there’s a reason for it.”
“You want to share your theory?” I asked.
“Nope. I said theories. If the other one turns out to be it, I will definitely spend my remaining years hunting you down.”
“Any chance you’re being shadowed?” I asked.
“Every chance in the world. I’m sure the phone’s bugged and my computer’s crawling with spyware. ”
“We’ll just be leaving through the kitchen.”
We started to slide o
ut of the booth.
“Before you go,” he said. “One question.”
We paused, and before I knew what he was doing, he reached up and snatched off my baseball hat. He looked closely at my bald head, then handed back the hat.
“Good luck,” he said, and went back to his burger.
The guys in the kitchen barely reacted when we walked through. They’d seen it plenty of times before. Usually guys out with their girlfriends avoiding a friend of their wives, or drunks ducking AA buddies. A few Latinos put their heads down and tried to look invisible.
Outside, we walked through the backyards of the retail establishments along the street, all installed in former old houses, until we reached the florist and our car.
Then we glided off into the tranquil Connecticut night.
AFTER THE deeply paranoid experience of walking through the hotel lobby and stepping into our room, I sat down at the computer, and opened up Joselito’s email and started searching.
Earlier I’d read through the whole inbox. This time, I opened up the “deleted“ folder. It was empty. Joselito had set the program to make every deletion permanent. Only he should have known nothing in cyber-land is really permanent.
“Sloppy, sloppy,” I told Joselito, the corporate security expert.
Moments later I had the delete file open and filled to the brim with emails. I started plugging keywords into the search window, which helped organize the effort. I knew he was vigilant about not using traitorous terms and names, but was he perfect?
Hours went by. The night deepened, then slowly turned to morning. I made coffee and kept going. I fed in names and initials, which yielded nothing new. I wasn’t discouraged. I was a researcher. We take a complete lack of results as a sign of encouragement.
After plugging in every name and set of initials I could think of, I sat for a long time trying to relax my mind, to live in the moment, allowing the barriers inside my memory to fall away.
“Eloise,” I said aloud, and typed it in.
The email, written in Spanish, was addressed to eharmon@ gmail.com.
Eloise:
So nice to connect today after so long. Memories of our work in Madrid are never far from my mind. I should have followed you to DC when you were reassigned. But now we’re both here and need to catch up. When are you back in New York?