“I thought people were supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in this country,” she hissed. “But I guess that doesn’t apply to people you don’t like.”
“What do you think this is all about, Emma?” said Ed, shaking his head in frustration. “You think Washington dragged me away from my job—I normally supervise three hundred agents and coordinate all drug enforcement in the entire Southwest, in case you was wondering—you think they go to all the trouble of setting up an entire task force to go after some fella they got mild suspicions about? No, ma’am. Bernal Zuberan is one bad, bad man. He is slick and smart and ruthless, which is why he’s gotten away with it until now. But we are one hundred percent absolutely certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that Bernie Zuberan is moving hundreds of millions of dollars of drug money into legitimate accounts each year, and we aim to nail him. With your help or without it.”
“You son of a bitch,” said Emma, shaking her head. “You suckered me all the way, didn’t you?”
“Now, come on, Emma. If we weren’t such good friends, I’d swear you was trying to hurt my feelings. Hell, I thought you’d be pleased we’re goin’ after Zuberan.”
“Pleased? Why would I be pleased?”
“You don’t get this at all, do you?”
“What’s to get?”
“Don’t you see that Zuberan’s the one who killed your grandpa?”
“You’re crazy,” sputtered Emma in disbelief and turned to leave.
“Look, honey,” said Big Ed, reaching out for her arm. “You gotta calm down. You gotta sit down here, let me explain things from the beginning.”
Emma reluctantly let him guide her over to a hard wooden bench against the wall. It wasn’t until she was seated that Emma realized how tired she was, how upset. For the first time since the events outside of Central Park, her hands began to shake.
“Now that’s better, ain’t it?” asked Ed, smiling his big, dopey smile. A woman went by leading a child who was holding a bloodstained handkerchief to his nose. Two nurses passed, chatting about trading shifts. The corridor smelled of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant.
“What makes you think that Bernal Zuberan had anything to do with Pépé’s death?” said Emma finally.
“Because I don’t believe in coincidence, that’s why.”
“Don’t believe in coincidence? I thought you were the Synchronicity King!”
“Well, I was just sayin’ all that synchronicity stuff to fool you in San Marcos so you wouldn’t get suspicious. Didn’t do me much good either. If I hadn’t put your name on the custom boys’ list, I would still be down there, waiting for you to show up for dinner tonight, wouldn’t I?”
“If you know something about my grandfather’s murder, Ed, just tell me.”
“Okay, okay,” said Ed. “But it’s not that simple. You gotta see this in context. You gotta get the big picture. It all started when your grandpa’s body was found, and the San Francisco police sent the fingerprints off to the FBI for identification—standard procedure with unknown murder victims. What came out of the computer was more than three decades old and didn’t match the name that SFPD had gotten off some credit-card receipt by then. The credit-card company said the dead man was Jacques Passant. The fingerprints said he was Etienne Lalou.”
He stopped and studied Emma for some reaction.
“Go on,” she said, giving him none.
“Now, you gotta understand, Emma,” Big Ed continued, “I been looking for old Etienne Lalou from the moment I took this assignment. You remember how I told you about all them files we got in Washington on Bernal Zuberan?”
“Yes?” said Emma.
“Well, on the very first page of the very first folder is that name. Etienne Lalou. I told you Zuberan’s got no convictions. Fact is, the only time he ever spent more than a few hours in jail, it was for gunrunning with this Etienne Lalou fella, a/k/a your grandpa. Case was eventually dropped for lack of evidence. Somebody bribed it to go away.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Emma defensively. “My grandfather was a decent man.”
“Hell, I know that. The old San Marcos police weren’t mental giants, but even they weren’t fooled by Zuberan. Even as a kid he was involved in all kinds of illegal crap. According to the police records, Etienne Lalou was totally unaware of what Zuberan had been doing with his boat. He was an innocent dupe.”
“But Zuberan told me …”
Emma stopped and bit her lip.
“Don’t worry,” said Big Ed in a gentle voice. “I know you went and saw Zuberan. Hell, when you booked a ticket to San Marcos, I nearly flipped my wig. We had you under surveillance from the minute you stepped onto that island, sometimes even by satellite.”
“Oh, for God’s sakes.”
“Now, I don’t know what that old snake Zuberan told you, Emma honey, but you can be dead certain it wasn’t the truth, the whole truth, and nothin’ but the truth. The man’s a world-class liar. Why, he’s got one of the biggest banks in New York City believing that a certain company in Colombia makes forty million dollars a year cash money selling papaya juice to tourists.”
“Then my grandfather didn’t do anything wrong?”
“Nothing that we know about. His only mistake was trusting this kid, this Bernal Zuberan. Besides smuggling goods on your grandpa’s boat without his knowledge, Zuberan was running prostitutes, extorting money, helping merchants cook their books —you name it, if it was profitable and illegal, he did it. In fact, the San Marcos cops thought Zuberan ran Etienne Lalou off the island just to get his boat. They couldn’t prove anything, though. What we didn’t understand was why, if Zuberan had chased Etienne Lalou away, was he so eager to find him again? Ol’ Bernie’s had a mess of expensive lawyers and private investigators on Lalou’s trail for years, even posted a big reward for any information. Which is why I wanted to talk to Etienne Lalou myself.”
“Mr. Zuberan told me that he just wanted to see my grandfather again to thank him.”
“And you believed that?” Ed laughed. “Let me tell you something, Emma honey. Bernie Zuberan is one hundred and eighty-five percent business. There’s not a sentimental bone in his body. If he invested his cold hard cash to find Etienne Lalou, you can bet your Aunt Edna’s girdle that there was gonna be some kind of monetary return to him at the end of the trail. Something big.”
Emma started to protest again, then stopped. The map. The treasure. If Zuberan had lied to her about who had been smuggling contraband on the Kaito Spirit thirty years ago and why he and her grandfather had been arrested, then what else had he lied to her about?
“See?” said Big Ed triumphantly. “You’re beginning to see how all this fits together, aren’t you? So, anyways, when those Etienne Lalou fingerprints appeared on a dead man in San Francisco after all this time, me and my boys got real interested. We wondered if maybe Zuberan had finally found Lalou after all these years. And killed him. Why he would do that, we had no idea, of course. Until you told Detective Poteet this afternoon about that dragon thing and the treasure ship it came from. And the map in the model boat that got stolen.”
“I don’t really know there was a map in the model,” stammered Emma. “I was just guessing.”
“Well, we think you’re right. We think you’ve hit right on the head Zuberan’s motive for killing Etienne Lalou, alias Jacques Passant.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Now you’re talking,” said Ed with a big smile. “That’s what we’re trying to do here, see? Get the evidence we need to prove our theory. We’ve never been able to come up with a case against Zuberan for his money-laundering shenanigans—at least nothing that any jury could understand. But murder is different. Everybody understands murder—hell, there’s one every few minutes on TV. That’s why I arranged to meet you in Phoenix. I needed to find out more about the victim, needed to get a feel for who this Jacques Passant fella really was, make sure he didn’t go and get himself killed on his own.”
“Wait a second,�
�� said Emma. “What do you mean, you arranged to meet me in Phoenix? I thought you just happened to be there with Lionel when the dog I had booked for my act got sick.”
“Well, not exactly,” said Ed with a sheepish smile. “Actually I was outside your rehearsal room, waiting for you to use the phone, like I knew you would have to, sooner or later. Do you know that that unpatriotic Mrs. Schneiderman wouldn’t agree to let her stupid Saint Bernard take a dive until my boys paid her triple what you were gonna give her?”
“I suppose Lionel isn’t even your real dog,” Emma muttered, dismayed at how easily she had been tricked.
“Oh, he’s mine all right. He likes to go undercover with me on assignments where there’s no danger of anybody getting shot.”
“Where is he tonight?”
Ed flashed a stupid grin, but didn’t say anything.
“If you wanted information about my grandfather, Ed, why couldn’t you have just come to me honestly and asked?”
“Involving a citizen in a complex federal investigation is not something we do at the drop of a hat, Emma,” said the big agent. “That’s the easiest way to get your career nailed up on the front page of the Washington Post. Besides, why spook you if it turned out there was nothing to any of this? You had enough troubles. Hell, after we talked in Phoenix, I saw my dreams of a case against Zuberan melting away. It looked like the Frisco cops were right, that it was just a robbery. That’s what they been telling us all along. Then this Henry-Pierre Caraignac fellow got himself killed and all the pieces began to come together. The way we figure it, Caraignac was Zuberan’s hit man.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Emma, laughing reflexively. “Mr. Zuberan never even heard of Henri-Pierre Caraignac.”
“Oh yeah? Sez who?”
“Says Mr. Zuberan. I mentioned Henri-Pierre when I was in San Marcos, and he didn’t recognize the name.”
“I know you think this man is your friend, Emma,” said Big Ed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it just proves what I was saying to you before, that Bernie Zuberan is a world-class liar. Fact is, he did, too, know Caraignac. After Caraignac’s death we got a court order and went through the records of his antique store. Fact is, Caraignac had made three separate sales to Zuberan over the past two years, according to invoices we found. We’re talking nearly a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise here.”
“That doesn’t prove Mr. Zuberan knew Henri-Pierre,” said Emma, trying to hide her surprise. “Mr. Zuberan collects antiques. His house is packed with them. He’s probably bought things from half the dealers on the planet.”
“I told you I don’t believe in coincidence, Emma. Zuberan moves millions of dollars each month and uses all kinds of fronts to do it, some of them mighty creative. You think a little bit about the antiques business, you realize it’s a money launderer’s dream. You take your cash money from your illegal enterprises and you go and buy antiques and fancy furniture with it. Then you sell the stuff for big legitimate bucks on Madison Avenue. We figure that’s the way it started between these two, changing cash money into antiques and back again. Then somebody realized what a perfect hit man Caraignac would make. He traveled a lot. He was licensed to carry a gun. And it turns out the man was already a trained killer.”
“What do you mean?”
“According to the French military, Henri-Pierre Caraignac served in an elite commando unit from the time he was eighteen until he was twenty-five,” said Big Ed soberly. “He personally killed two terrorists in separate hijacking incidents, and who knows how many others in operations that weren’t made public? The way I figure, Zuberan sent Caraignac to get that treasure map. Remember, Caraignac was in San Francisco the night your grandpa was shot, and he must have taken his gun with him in his luggage because it wasn’t found in his effects in New York.”
“If Henri-Pierre killed my grandfather,” said Emma, “then why did he make me his beneficiary? You must know about that —you seem to know everything else.”
“Yeah, that’s confusing.” Ed nodded. “I thought poor Mr. Poteet was gonna have a stroke when we heard about the Frenchman’s will. But we’ll put it all together, sooner or later. My working theory is that Caraignac wasn’t really a professional killer, just a guy who fell in with the wrong people, and that his conscience started bothering him about what he’d done.” “Then why would he have done it in the first place?”
The big federal agent shrugged his gigantic shoulders.
“Maybe Zuberan threatened to expose him for money laundering if he didn’t make the hit,” he said. “Or maybe Caraignac hoped to find the map and keep it for himself. It doesn’t really matter. Conscience is an unpredictable thing, and a man like Zuberan can’t afford to have people with consciences running around who can tie him to a killing. Probably Zuberan’s men surprised Caraignac in his hotel room, took away the gun he had used on your grandfather, and shot him with it. That would explain why the bullets that killed both men matched.”
Emma started to speak, then stopped.
She had been fighting the conclusion that Henri-Pierre had had something to do with Pépé’s death for so long, she had almost forgotten why. Henri-Pierre’s perfect face suddenly sprang into her mind’s eye.
Once again Emma looked into his cool blue eyes and amused smile. This time, however, she looked behind the surface beauty and saw for the first time what had previously only registered in her unconscious, what the cocktail waitress at the Alhambra had talked about: the sadness, the infinite regret, the despair. It was the face of a man who had done something terribly wrong and suffered tremendously because of it.
“Which brings us to the fella who was following you,” continued the big federal agent, rubbing his huge hands together with evident glee. “Our boy’s name is Paco Quintana, and we’ve been watching him ever since he followed you onto that airplane in San Marcos.”
“He was on the same plane with me?”
“In first class,” said Big Ed. “These drug guys really know how to live, let me tell you, and Paco is Zuberan’s top lieutenant, has worked for him since he was a kid. Up to now Zuberan’s been too smart to give us the opportunity to nab any of his soldiers on U.S. soil. This time, though, we got Paco, and through him we’re going to get Bernie Zuberan. Assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, resisting arrest … yes, sir, we gonna crack that boy open like a lobster.”
“Why would Mr. Zuberan send this man after me?” said Emma, struggling to find some flaw. “If he had wanted to harm me he had plenty of opportunity on San Marcos. I was right there with him on his estate.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Zuberan still wants the treasure, see? Caraignac must not have found the treasure map when he killed your grandpa. Zuberan realized you didn’t have it yet either, but figured that if he put some bee in your bonnet when you were down there and then had you followed, you would eventually lead him to it.”
Emma took a deep breath. It all made a horrible kind of sense. Was the kindly man who had served her coffee and spoken so wistfully of his old friend really such a monster? A horrifying image of Zuberan patting Timoteo on the head, then handing him a syringe and a revolver, sprang into her imagination.
“Now you see why we been so concerned about your safety?” said Big Ed happily.
Before Emma could answer, Charlemagne Moussy emerged from one of the treatment rooms on crutches. His right foot was in a white cast that reached halfway to his knee. He brushed away help from the nurse beside him and hobbled directly to Emma.
“My foot, she is broken in three places,” pronounced Charlemagne with great dignity.
“I am so sorry, Charlemagne,” said Emma.
“No.” The little lawyer sighed. “It is I who am the sorry one. I should know better at my age than to be the hero. I must have had a rock in my head.”
“I’m the one with a rock in my head,” said Emma. “I actually thought you had something to do with all of this. I feel terrible.”
&
nbsp; “Not as bad as me, I assure you.”
“Can you ever forgive me?”
“Of course, ma chérie,” said Charlemagne, bowing at the waist, wincing only slightly as he did so. Then he turned to Big Ed. “But you, monsieur, are another matter. You are a dangerous lunatic. What possible explanation can there be for such reckless behavior on the part of a government agency, leaping out with the drawn guns at innocent people? Are these our tax dollars at work?”
“Come on, Moussy,” said Ed defensively. “Gimme a break. This was a legitimate and highly successful operation. We were just doing our job here, just protecting this girl.”
“Protecting her!”
“That’s right. Just trying to make sure she doesn’t have to live her whole life in fear.”
“It’s a wonderment you did not shoot her in order to make her really safe,” said Charlemagne, limping over to the bench. “I have to sit down. So much idiocy has made me tired. What time is it? I have forgotten to take my pill.”
As the little lawyer eased himself down and examined his watch, the door to the next treatment room down suddenly opened. Emma, Charlemagne, and Big Ed all turned at the same time and watched the man with the heart-shaped scar being led out by four men who looked like IBM salesmen, except for the badges suspended from their suit-coat pockets and the radio receivers embedded in their ears. In addition to a pair of handcuffs, Paco Quintana now wore a large white brace around his neck that held his jaw rigid with steel pins and made him look like something that Dr. Frankenstein had just assembled from parts.
“We got you this time, Paco boy,” said Ed with satisfaction, walking over and staring the prisoner directly in the eye. “I know they Mirandized you and you ain’t gonna say nothing until you get your expensive lawyer, but Bernie Zuberan ain’t gonna be able to help you this time. You remember what I’m telling you, my friend. You gonna go away for a long time unless you cooperate.”
The man known as Paco Quintana regarded Big Ed with apparent uninterest. From what she had seen of Zuberan’s men on San Marcos, Emma was certain he would never tell Big Ed a thing. She was therefore surprised when he began to speak. His voice was soft, and faintly accented. He spoke directly to her.
The Girl Who Remembered the Snow Page 26