The Warriors

by Paul Batista

  “That’s bullshit. I have a carry permit.” How is it, she wanted to ask but didn’t, that you know what I have in my bag?

  “We can arrest anyone we want. Do you want to spend the night in a cell?”

  Raquel, losing her patience, said, “Show me your IDs.”

  They each took out plastic badges that were attached to the belts under their suit jackets. The movements revealed their weapons in holsters. “Do you have permits for those?” she asked.

  “Ms. Rematti,” the man who had waited for her said, “don’t make this more difficult for yourself.”

  “Where did you get those IDs?” she asked. “Staples?”

  “You’re not helping yourself,” the man who had followed her across the intersection said.

  “Did I inadvertently jaywalk? I try to be careful.”

  “Come on, let’s just walk up to 79th Street. We’ll talk. You can listen or not.”

  “There are laws against stalking,” she said.

  And the other man said, “And there are laws against bribing witnesses. And obstructing justice.”

  As she began to walk uptown, Raquel said, “Were you the guys who broke into my apartment? There are laws against that, too.”

  She knew that, despite all her well-learned self-discipline and self-instilled absence of fear, she was starting to tremble. And she knew, too, that these men recognized that. Clearly, they knew the many subtle arts of intimidation. There was a tremor in her voice.

  One of them—the man who followed her through the intersection—handed her a glossy, oversize picture. Almost against her will, she glanced at it as she walked. It showed her talking, in what looked like a downtown club because there were people dancing in the background under strobe lights, to Lydia Guzman and Hugo Salazar.

  “And,” she asked, “what photo shop did this work for you? Same place as the phony badges? The only time I’ve seen this woman is in court.”

  “And you know the man. He’s Juan Suarez, or Anibal Vaz, or Tony Blair.” The man paused. “Or The Blade of the Hamptons. And whoever he is, he is a slave to Oscar Caliente. But you know that, don’t you? And you know Oscar Caliente is now Robert Calvaro, king of the super PACs and drug lord extraordinaire? Not to mention your client’s current lover.”

  Raquel stopped in front of the brick elementary school on Madison Avenue and 82nd Street. PS 6 occupied the entire block in this area of tasteful small shops and elegant, century-old brownstones. Lush trees covered the strip of land between the wrought-iron fence and the wall of the school.

  She stared defiantly at both men. She dropped the photograph to the sidewalk. “Let me have your business cards,” she said. “Every make-believe FBI agent has a business card. When I have you arrested, the cards will come in handy.”

  They each took cards from their wallets. “Listen to me carefully, Ms. Rematti,” said the man who had been waiting for her when she crossed 72nd Street. “You’re the target of a grand jury investigation. Arranging to carry cash and cocaine to a juror is a big-time crime. It’s not a good idea for you to continue your infatuation with Hugo Salazar. Or is he still Juan Suarez to you? You need to be careful. Protect yourself. We can help. Any time you want to talk to us about the Senator, just call us. Take care of yourself. And, in the process, you can take care of other people who are close to you.”

  Hard-edged, defiant, Raquel stared at them. And one of them said, quietly, “Did you ever, Ms. Rematti, wonder whether Hayes Smith died because he knew you?”

  The words riveted her: Hayes Smith died because he knew me.

  “Do me a favor,” she said tensely, angrily, as she put aside the thought the harsh words provoked. “That phony picture you gave me fell on the sidewalk. It’s yours. It’s against the law to litter. Maybe you should pick it up and put it in the trash can at the corner.”

  As they stood side by side and facing her, she reached into her valise. Her cell phone was in an internal side pocket next to the Ruger. Alerted by her deft movement, both men, suddenly tense, instinctively shifted their hands toward their holsters.

  Raquel waved her cell phone in front of her, displaying the screen to them. “Calm down, gentlemen. It’s just a cell phone. You’re not afraid of cell phones, are you?”

  They looked angry and confused. In that instant of uncertainty, she pressed the picture icon and in three rapid successions took their pictures. She also snapped three pictures of the glossy photograph as it lay faceup on the sidewalk.

  “Have a nice day,” she said.

  * * *

  Disregarding the traffic and pedestrian rules, she hurried across Madison Avenue at mid-block, leaving the two men behind her. She glanced down the upward-sloping avenue to check for traffic. To the south at 79th Street, the lights had just changed and a horde of taxis, cars, buses, and vans was unleashed by the changing light, racing in her direction. Hurrying, she had time enough to reach the western sidewalk.

  Raquel was fairly certain the men wouldn’t follow her: they had delivered their message and that, she was sure, was their mission today. It was the process of incremental fear, the messenger whose job it is to whisper: The cat’s on the roof. Pretty soon the cat will fall off the roof. No more cat.

  She was even more certain that FBI agents, if that was who they were, would never follow her into the small, quaint bookstore. She walked into the Crawford Doyle shop directly across from PS 6. The books arrayed in the Parisian-style windows looked as delicious as pastries. The unvarnished wooden floorboards creaked below her feet as she walked among the shelves of new books and paperbacks. When she had first moved to the city, she’d rented for a year a fourth-floor walk-up studio apartment around the corner from the store. It was then known as Womrath’s and run by one of the happiest, most engaging men she’d ever known, a Truman Capote look-alike who was simply and openly a sweet man. Jerry—she never learned his last name—was also the first person she personally knew who had died of AIDS during the long epidemic. Although the store’s name had changed, the store had not; it was as intimate and pleasantly scented of wood and paper as it had been; and it had retained the flavor, ambience, and charm that Jerry had endowed.

  After three minutes, she looked out the window. The men were gone. It was then that she first looked at their business cards. Curnin and Giordano.

  CHAPTER 27

  RAQUEL REMATTI HAD the rare ability to sleep soundly no matter what had taken place in the waking hours of any day. Insomnia rarely plagued her. Her capacity to plunge into restful sleep was one she learned as a child in the tenement in Lawrence where her mother and father, frustrated by poverty and dirty factory labor, lunged into violent arguments almost every night, as plastic dishes and plastic cups flew like hail through the three rooms of the apartment. Booze, voices, noise, and pain. As a child, she learned the secure refuge was sleep.

  But sleeping was impossible now. Hayes was dead. Willis Jordan had made his frank but ultimately enigmatic call. And the two men who had confronted her on Madison Avenue had deeply unsettled her.

  Raquel had avoided overuse of her iPhone for emailing, texting, or anything else. It had been, however, one of Hayes’ main means of communicating, and over the last few months, she’d become adept at the use of the sleek device. Hayes had used texts to send her love notes, sex notes, and reminders so constantly it was as though he was with her at all times, as if always whispering in her ear. He often sent jokes. Now it was two a.m., and for the first time, she wondered where Hayes Smith’s iPhone was. She had no doubt that it had been in one of the phony oversize ammunition pockets of the silly Beretta flak jacket he was wearing when he was shot. Who now had that phone? And its secrets? She wasn’t certain she wanted it even if she could get it. There might be messages in it that she would prefer not to see, a concealed reservoir of secrets she would not want to read. She wasn’t concerned about secrets of hers that his cell phone might reveal. She had the lingering sense, because she was a complete realist, that she might not have been, de
spite all Hayes promised her, the only woman in his life. She would never really know. She didn’t want to know.

  Except for two or three texts to Hayes when they were apart, Raquel had never sent a text to anyone at two a.m. But she had Hunter Decker’s cell numbers. She had never once called him and certainly never sent him a text message. Life had taught her that it was important to be careful about talking or writing in the middle of the night, when the mind tended to be unmoored, vulnerable, prone to fear, and dwelling on unhinged thoughts.

  Carefully she opened the text screen. She wrote: Can you meet me at 8 this morning in the 8th floor cafeteria? Want to talk. She pressed the Send symbol. The cafeteria was on the eighth floor of the twenty-three-story courthouse. It reopened at eight every morning. At that time, it would be empty except for the early-arriving surly cooks, food service people, and cashiers.

  Exactly one minute after she sent the message, she was surprised when her cell phone vibrated and illuminated itself with an incoming message.

  It was from Hunter Decker. C u then and there. H.D.

  CHAPTER 28

  HUNTER DECKER, APPEARING refreshed and relaxed as he always did, that image of noblesse oblige that his lineage had embedded in his genes in the womb, was waiting for her at one of the big cafeteria-style tables next to the north-facing windows. Carrying a tray with a container of black coffee, a hard-boiled egg on a cardboard saucer, and a glazed donut, Raquel walked briskly toward him. He had only a small cup of water in front of him.

  Always the well-trained prep school boy, he stood as Raquel slid her tray onto the table. “Good morning, Raquel,” he said.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” she answered.

  The early sunlight flooded through the tall windows. Another hot and clear day was starting. Below them, spreading out like an urban fan, were the old, low buildings of Chinatown. Orange, red, ochre roofs glowed. There were several pagoda-style buildings. Farther to the north, the Manhattan skyscrapers began their gradual ascent above 14th Street toward the glittering heights of midtown. The radio tower atop the Empire State Building gleamed like the world’s largest sword.

  “I don’t suppose you’re seeing me because your client wants to plead guilty?” he asked with an ironic laughter.

  “No, Hunter, you and I have had that conversation, and I’ve told you pigs will fly before that happens.”

  Hunter took a delicate sip of water. “Raquel,” he said, “I don’t often get text messages at two in the morning. What do you want to tell me?”

  “Why were you awake?”

  “Why? We don’t know each other that well, do we? I have a six-month-old girl. I was feeding her. My wife doesn’t breastfeed. The baby has an insatiable appetite.”

  “Got it. And here I was thinking you were awake plotting my downfall.”

  “I don’t plot downfalls of people. They tend to fall all on their own accord.”

  “This is about me, Hunter. I don’t believe you want me to fall of my own accord. I think you, or people you work for, want to take me out. This is not about falling. This is about getting taken out.”

  Hunter spoke quietly. “I have nothing but admiration for you, Raquel. I recall years ago, when I was in my third year at Harvard, Alan Dershowitz gave a seminar on cross-examination techniques. The only video he showed was you peeling the skin off a detective in a murder trial in a state court in California. Figuratively, of course. Very instructive.”

  “That was a long time ago. I may have lost a step or two.”

  “Not that I can see.”

  She took a small bite of her glazed donut while sipping her hot coffee. “As you can see, I’m not worried about weight.”

  “You don’t need to be.” He sipped his water again. “But this time you wanted to see me.”

  “I did. I’m persistent. I know we spoke about this before. You said you were concerned about me. I didn’t trust you. I still don’t. And even more so now. You’re being taken for a ride.”

  “Why?”

  “Two guys stopped me on Madison Avenue yesterday. FBI, or so they claimed.”

  “Go on, if you want to.”

  “They said I was the target of a grand jury.”

  “As I said before, I can’t comment on any of that. Not on grand juries, not on wiretaps, not on witnesses. And certainly not about who might be a target of a grand jury. I can’t tell you who I send, or don’t send, anywhere. I’m bound by law to secrecy. Sorry, I still can’t help. I’d have to turn in my license to practice if I did. You know that.”

  “Sure I do.” She gazed intently into his chilly blue eyes. “But, since I’m only human, I’m baffled. The two men gave me their cards. And said if I wanted to talk, I could. If they’re anything, they’re water carriers for you. I don’t talk to water boys. I talk to their managers. And in this case, that’s you. You sent them, or people a layer or two above you.”

  Raquel removed the two business cards the men had given her and placed them on the pink plastic table in front of Decker. “Do you know these men?” she asked.

  Decker briefly fingered the edges of each card. They were the embossed business cards of Special Agents Curnin and Giordano. “I can’t answer that,” he said.

  “Let me show you something else, Hunter,” she said, removing her cell phone from the inner pocket of the linen summer jacket she wore.

  She held the phone aloft with its screen facing him. She said, “These were the two men who gave me their cards yesterday.”

  Hunter’s expression suddenly became thoughtful. “How did you get these pictures?”

  “I took them. Cell phones are a miracle. They were standing side by side. I think they were having a good laugh together because they enjoyed thinking they were frightening a woman. What really struck me—and you can see them in the pictures—are the identical zigzag etchings on their short hair just above the ears.”

  “Didn’t they try to take your cell away? Agents—except the publicity-hungry ones who like to give press conferences—don’t relish being recognized. Anonymity: that’s why they all wear the same suits.”

  “You know, Hunter, my gut tells me they weren’t FBI or any other kind of legitimate agent. Their suits were too nice, although, like all agents, they traveled in pairs. And you’re right: agents like anonymity, so they don’t have tribal markings in their hair.”

  Hunter pushed the business cards toward her. He sat silently for at least a minute as he stared out the window at the grandeur of the steadily sun-filling city. Chinatown’s roofs had turned an even warmer ochre color. Raquel, too, was quiet.

  Hunter at last said, “I shouldn’t tell you this.” The tone of voice was almost confessional, tinged by reluctance. “The business cards are real. There are agents named Curnin and Giordano. But they are not the men in the photographs.”

  “I appreciate that honesty.”

  “Can I ask you to forward those pictures to my cell phone? Curnin and Giordano, in fact, are interested in you in ways you wouldn’t like. Whoever those two men are, they’re impersonating federal agents. That’s illegal. And they’re interested in you, too.”

  “Why are Curnin and Giordano investigating me?”

  “Raquel, we’ve had this conversation. I’ve told you more than I should. I want to be fair to you. There are troubles here for you that are beyond anything you’ve ever experienced or imagined. Your client is more dangerous than any mobster, terrorist, or stock scammer you’ve ever represented.”

  “There is something I have to tell you because I want to help you, too, Hunter. We’re in a deceitful, dubious profession. Listen to me carefully: someone is playing with you. When they had me hemmed in on the sidewalk at PS 6, those blond goons showed me a picture they claimed was of Hugo Salazar, Lydia Guzman, and me talking at an after-hours dance club downtown a week or so ago.”

  Quietly Hunter said, “I know. I’ve seen that picture. It isn’t pretty for you. I don’t have to tell you it’s potentially incriminatory of you.”
>
  “Hunter, listen to me. The picture isn’t pretty because there’s a fatal problem with it. And it’s a problem for you, not me.”

  Staring at her, Hunter didn’t speak.

  “I’m going to give you a little immodest personal history first,” Raquel said. “I’m a famous person. People think the famous are invited everywhere. Not so. For years I’ve found myself spending many nights alone. I don’t like that. It’s a kind of Marilyn Monroe syndrome. Men were afraid to ask her for dates.

  “What I do like is dancing: Salsa, tango, West Coast Swing. Often late at night I do what many women my age do when they are alone and it’s late. I head downtown at two in the morning just to go dancing, to have some human contact, with men or even women who simply want to dance. And I never have trouble passing through the velvet ropes and the bouncers of the downtown after-hours clubs. They call us cougars, unattached women in their forties and fifties. We’re always welcome.”

  Hunter sipped the last of his water. “So now I know you’re not only famous, as I’ve known for a long time, but a cougar who loves to dance. If you’re a cougar, should I be afraid of you?”

  “Let me tell you another secret that, if you take it to heart, might help you see that somebody is setting you up.”

  “Raquel, you’ve tried to send me warnings before. You have to understand. Nothing has ever frightened me. For no reason, I was born into privilege. And wealth. I’ve led an absurdly clean life. Honor after honor. I’m now the youngest United States Attorney in America. I’m a cardinal at a young age in the church of the American justice system. So, Raquel, who is it with the power to set me up? To hurt me? Isn’t there a line in Shakespeare’s Tempest? I and my ministers are alike invulnerable.”

  Raquel said, “Let me make it simple, even to American nobility. That picture of Lydia Guzman, Hugo Salazar, and me is a fake.”

  “How so? There’s Hugo Salazar, Lydia Guzman, and you. In a picture. Together. Taken just a week ago.”