The Big Scam

by Paul Lindsay

  “Both.”

  “At occasions like these festivals—digital?”

  “Yes. What difference does that make?”

  “How many computers do you have?”

  “I don’t have any computers.”

  “Digital photography without computers? You know, Eugene, I believe that is the first lie you told here today.”

  “Okay, now we’re back to the part where I say, ‘I want a lawyer.’ ”

  “That’s your right. And when you invoke that right, we have to find another way to get your DNA, and that’s with a search warrant. See, we’ve got some friendly judges we go to, and they never mind if we tack on phrases like ‘along with all computers in the suspect’s possession,’ especially in cases where there’s suspicion of pedophilia.”

  “I don’t molest kids.”

  “There’s a lot of money in child pornography, even if someone’s just the photographer.” Diaz started picking at his nails. “Do you know why there are such stiff penalties for just having those images on your computer? Eugene, look at me. Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  “Because it’s almost impossible to catch the photographer. But when they do…”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll give you my DNA.”

  “ ‘If you had come at me like this first, I’d gladly have given you what you wanted’—sound familiar? I’m afraid I’m now going to need something more.” Kenyon handed him some photos. “These girls are missing. Three of those are your work. Tell me something that will make me believe that you had nothing to do with their disappearance.”

  Diaz shuffled through them and put one on top. “I’ve seen her around.”

  Kenyon glanced at the name on the back. “Maria Vargas. Around where?”

  “Penn Station.”

  “Doing?”

  “There are always kids hanging around hustling the tourists and commuters. I’ve seen some of the kids from the barrio there.”

  “And how do you know that? Do you take a lot of train trips?” Diaz looked down. “Now’s not the time to stop being honest.”

  “Sometimes I need, you know, some photography subjects.”

  “When did you see her there?”

  “Maybe two weeks ago.”

  Kenyon pulled out one of the swabs. “Open wide.”

  Vanko turned to Sheila. “Think he’s telling the truth?”

  “Who knows? He might be trying to buy his way out. But it’s not going to be that easy.” She started scrolling through her cell phone’s stored numbers. “I’ve got some contacts at the Center for Missing and Exploited Children who are going to want to have a little talk with Eugene before he goes anywhere.”

  22

  THE SEARCH FOR DUTCH SCHULTZ’S TREASURE ended with a series of arguments. DeMiglia ordered everybody to meet back at the club, and three hours later they were sitting around the big table eating Thai takeout.

  “Before we start on this,” DeMiglia said, “did you get this place swept like I told you?”

  “The next day,” Parisi said.

  “Okay then. I think the one thing we can agree on is that the map is worthless as far as leading us to the exact spot where it’s buried. Maybe fucking Davy Crockett could find that box with the map, but the last time I checked, he wasn’t a made guy. So unless you’ve got another idea, I think it’s time to move on to something more realistic, like that job I’ve been trying to give you since this all started.” Parisi still hadn’t told his crew what the job was, but they could see from his reaction that it was not in their best interest.

  Tommy Ida said, “Danny, do you mind if I say something?”

  “No, Tommy, jump in here.” He dug his fork into a carton of spicy noodles.

  “While the map probably isn’t going to help us find the treasure, it does pretty much prove that it exists. Your document examiner proved that; the genealogies prove that. Through both of those, we can trace it all the way back to Lulu Rosenkranz.”

  “Okay, so there’s a good chance the box is buried out there, but it’s a big country. Nobody would like to carve up fifty million dollars more than me, but I don’t see how it’s going to happen.”

  “We just have to think of a different way to search.”

  “Like what?” DeMiglia asked.

  Ida hesitated for a second. “Maybe we’re thinking too small.” He looked over at Parisi. “That kid, John-John, you’ve got cleaning up, does he throw out the old newspapers?”

  Remembering where he hid from DeMiglia the day after his arrest, Baldovino said, “I was down in the basement last week. There were stacks of them down there then.”

  “I read something last week in the paper. Let me go see if I can find it.” Ida headed for the stairs.

  As soon as he was out of the room, DeMiglia said, “Again with the fucking reading?” He pushed a forkful of noodles into his mouth.

  Not knowing what Ida had in mind but ready to cling to any delay, Parisi shrugged nonchalantly. “Don’t sell Tommy short, he’s pretty good at thinking on his feet.”

  Manny watched the underboss carefully. Everyone could see the discomfort he was causing their capo. But it wasn’t being caused just by the map. Whatever job DeMiglia was talking about, Baldovino suspected it was traceable to his counterfeit license plate arrest. That was the moment everything seemed to change for the crew. The map had changed everyone’s mood for a while, but now its “good fortune” appeared to be making things worse. Once again, as careful and judicious as Manny had been, he was failing his friends.

  When Ida came back, he was carrying a newspaper. It was folded open, and he handed it to the underboss. DeMiglia glanced at the accompanying photos and handed it back. “Just tell me what it is.”

  “It’s what they call three-D seismic imaging. The oil and gas companies use it to locate deposits under the earth’s surface. It’s fairly simple. They set out sensors that are connected to computers and then they shoot sound waves down into the earth that make these charts of what’s below.” Ida turned the page so DeMiglia could see it and pointed to a drawing in the article. A large cutaway section of the earth’s crust was divided into grids and color-coded to represent the various substances discovered. “It shows the different densities of what’s underground.”

  “What’re you, Mr. Fucking Wizard?”

  “I just think this stuff is interesting.”

  “And you think this little box is going to show up in these humongous chunks of the earth?”

  “The article also says they use it to find things as small as utility lines or connection boxes. So I guess they can adjust the size of the area they’re searching.”

  “Even if this stuff did work, I don’t think any oil company is going to want to help us.”

  “I just thought it was something we should look at, that’s all,” Ida said apologetically. “If that box is out there, metal detectors and shovels aren’t going to find it. All I’m saying is maybe if we try something never used before, we might get lucky.”

  Everyone became quiet, and as they picked at their food, Ida took the article back and glanced at the photos. “They’re not going to want to help us, but they’d help the FBI.”

  “The FBI? What, did you read somewhere that they were going to start helping us now?” DeMiglia chuckled. “Sure, we’ll just give them back the map.”

  “No, the guy who got us the map, we own him, right? Maybe he can figure something out.”

  “Like what?” DeMiglia said.

  Ida shook his head.

  Parisi said, “Hey, Danny, you never know unless you ask, right? The only thing it’s going to cost us to find out is a phone call. You never know. What time is it?”

  “It’s a little after eight,” Manny said.

  “Let me go try to call him.” Parisi went to the back room and closed the door. He dialed the number in New Jersey. A woman answered. “Is Garrett there?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Mike.”

  �
�Mike who?”

  “Just Mike.”

  He could hear her telling Egan that someone rude was calling for him. He came on the line. “Hold on while I go to another room.” He heard a door being shut. “What the fuck is wrong with you calling me here?”

  “Do you want your five percent or not?”

  “Don’t call me here—or anywhere. That’s why I gave you my beeper number.”

  “This is an emergency.” Parisi told him about being unable to find the treasure with the entire map, and then about the seismic imaging.

  “You know, that sounds crazy, but it just might work. I’d have to make some calls to find out. But even if it’s possible, the only people with access to that kind of technology are these international conglomerates. How are you going to get them to help?”

  “I thought maybe you’d have some ideas. You know, get the FBI involved.”

  “You really want to see me go to prison, don’t you?”

  “If you come up with the right scam, that won’t happen.”

  “Oh, so this is all on me,” Egan said. “Well, I’m going to save my own life and pass.”

  “Ten percent…five million dollars.”

  The silence was so long Parisi thought that Egan might have disconnected the line. “Garrett?”

  “Hold on, I’m thinking.” After another minute, he said, “The day I reported to my new squad, someone was talking about one of your guys being arrested, Manny something.”

  “Baldovino.”

  “They set him up so he would roll over on you. So here’s what you do. Have him call the FBI and say he wants to talk, to beat the case.”

  “But what’s he going to talk about?”

  “I have to admit this is a stroke of genius—the Mafia burial ground.”

  “What? There’s nothing like that.”

  “They don’t know that. They’ll go nuts for it. The only thing they’ll be able to see is headlines. Bureau finds Mafia graveyard! There won’t be a rational thought among them. You’ll be able to get anything you want. I guarantee it.”

  “Are they going to believe a guy like Manny has that kind of knowledge?”

  “They did talk about him like he was a lightweight, but look what Joe Valachi did. They teach us in training school that you never know what small-timer is going to break the big one, and Valachi is the example they give to make their point. Besides, they must think Manny knows something. They put a lot of time and money into trying to turn him. Do you think he can pull this off?”

  “He isn’t the smartest guy in the world, but he does have a pretty good line of bullshit.”

  “Okay, just make sure you get his mind right first. You’ll have to invent some reason he knows about this when he isn’t even a made guy. When you think he’s ready, we’ll meet, and I’ll give him a practice interrogation. He knows the area up in Phoenicia, right?”

  “He’s been up there twice.”

  “We have to make sure that when he comes in I’m there so I can suggest the seismic imaging. Then I’ll be directly involved in the whole thing. While he’s getting his story figured out, I’ll make some calls to see if that kind of technology can be used for finding buried bodies, then I can be the in-house expert.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “And Mike…”

  “Yeah?”

  “If this works, don’t try to fuck me.”

  Parisi hung up. He was about to put himself on a very narrow tightrope between DeMiglia and the FBI again. But this time he was going to attempt a complicated fraud against an agency that, over the decades, had become renowned for its prosecution of swindlers far more accomplished than he. The odds of his not ending up dead or in prison were not worth betting on. Half-heartedly, he cursed the don.

  Throwing open the door, he flashed an optimistic grin. He told DeMiglia what Egan had proposed. The other men at the table started leaning back to distance themselves from the anger that invariably accompanied the underboss’s cynical responses to innovation. But he surprised everyone. “I like it. I like it a lot. I want to meet this guy.” He could see they didn’t know how to react, and that pleased him even more.

  “Predictability in this business can be life-threatening.” He pushed what was left of his food into the center of the table. “You don’t get it. If we use this seismic stuff, we might find the Dutchman’s box, but it’s probably even money we won’t. But even if we don’t find it, there’s one thing that’ll happen no matter what—the fucking FBI is going to make clowns of themselves spending all that time and money to find the Mafia graveyard. Either way, I’m going to leak it to the papers. Right now I think I’d rather have that than the fifty million. Boys, we’ve been handed a no-lose situation.” Then DeMiglia’s eyes narrowed. His voice full of warning, he said, “Manny, you do think you can pull this off?”

  “Lie to the Feds? How smart you got to be?” The underboss smiled, and everybody laughed.

  On the third day, work on the Suzie Castillo case had to be abandoned. Lansing called Vanko at home to tell him he was seriously behind schedule and needed to interview at least T. H. Crowe and Dick Zalenski if he was going to finish on time. Vanko saw the change of plans as a blessing in disguise, because he wasn’t sure if there was anything further that they could investigate about the homicide. If Maria Vargas, the girl picked out by the photographer, was a runaway, it lent a little more weight to the idea that Sheila’s case was only a single homicide.

  While Lansing did want to catch up on his interviewing, a more pressing desire was to have people milling around the off-site, increasing the likelihood of overhearing conversations. He had to admit that when the ASAC warned him not to underestimate the agents’ loyalty, he had been right; he had not gotten one bit of derogatory information from any of them. Most frustrating was that he had not been able to find out anything more about the “Dimino scam.” He had checked the name in the office indices and found an open organized crime case on a Paul Michael Dimino. After further inquiries, Lansing learned that Dimino had been placed in the Witness Protection Program, and all inquiries would have to be directed to the U.S. Marshals Service, a notoriously close mouthed group when dealing with the FBI. He didn’t have the time or the excess of self-esteem necessary to charge through the gauntlet of belittling red tape they would surely lay in front of him.

  All he could do now was hope that the vault would eventually give up its potential bounty.

  A knock at the door enlarged the already existing lump in his throat. Without a word, T. H. Crowe walked in and shut the door. “Have a seat,” Lansing offered evenly, as if he had no memory of their last conversation.

  “I see here you’re almost fifty. Thinking about retiring?”

  “No.”

  “Hard-core, huh? Going to stay until fifty-seven?”

  “Haven’t thought about it.”

  Looking down at the file to escape Crowe’s stare, Lansing said, “Looks like your career has had a few bumps along the way.”

  “Yeah, I spent a lot of years being a drunken asshole.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m just an asshole.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “I think you’re very sure that it is true.”

  Lansing fumbled with some papers. “Your performance appraisals since coming to this squad have been excellent, actually almost completely outstanding. What caused the big turnaround, getting off the booze?”

  “Getting sober helped, but I was a dry drunk. Do you know what that is?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then I got shipped out here and Nick explained how ninety percent of the meaningful work in the FBI was done by ten percent of the agents. Up to that point, my time in the Bureau had been spent as part of the other ninety percent. Then he asked me which group did I want to spend the rest of my time in.”

  Lansing decided this was some sort of motivational speech Vanko had devised. As he had discovered during their initial conversations, the
supervisor could be very innovative. “Is that a pep talk he gives everybody reporting here?”

  “I don’t think so. I guess he knows who needs to hear what.”

  “And you believe one-tenth of the Bureau does almost all the work?”

  “Actually, I think it’s more like five to seven percent. But then most people in any organization are in the fat of the curve. I’d rate the majority of agents between a fifty to sixty out of a hundred.”

  “Interesting. How would you rate yourself?”

  “Give or take, an eighty-five.”

  “But I thought you were in that ninetieth percentile.”

  “I have some people problems. So I take off five points.”

  “So you see people as numbers.”

  “It’s just the way my mind works. By training, I’m an accountant.”

  “What good does it do to turn people into numbers?”

  “Isn’t that what inspections are about?” Not wanting to acknowledge the statement, Lansing busied himself writing notes. Crowe smiled. “Unless someone is an eighty-seven or above, I don’t bother with them. It keeps my blood pressure down.”

  “I’m curious, how would you rate your supervisor?”

  “He’s probably the only person I don’t think of in terms of numbers.”

  “I won’t put you on the hot seat and ask you to rate me.” Lansing gave him a wink, still trying to declare a truce.

  “It’s no trouble. Invariably, the only people who have winked at me were trying to bullshit me.”

  23

  SHEILA DIDN’T GET BACK TO THE OFF-SITE UNTIL a little after six-thirty. Vanko had sent her on a photographic surveillance requested by one of the counterterrorism supervisors, thinking the distraction might be the best thing for her. He was beginning to regret involving the squad in her case. It gave weight to her questionable theories. The discovery that another of her “victims” appeared to be a runaway should have discouraged her, but through some convoluted psychological process, it had actually strengthened her resolve.

  Lansing was still there, dictating the results of his interviews with Crowe and Zalenski. The second interview had been no more productive than the first. In fact, it had been the most boring so far. Even the reason for Zalenski’s transfer to the squad had nearly put Lansing to sleep. The young agent had been caught supplementing his income by selling Rolex knockoffs—an inarguable violation of federal copyright and trademark laws—moving in excess of two hundred of them in just three weeks. The biggest disappointment of the interview came when Lansing asked him “off the record” if he had any of the watches left to sell. If such a purchase came to light, he could justify it as an attempt to gain Zalenski’s confidence, or, if that proved too unbelievable, as an effort to gather evidence of a continuing felony as part of his larger investigation. And if he never had to explain how he came to possess the counterfeit item, well, he had always coveted the black-dialed Submariner.