The Warriors

by Paul Batista

  Another old adage now haunted her: In this line of work, your clients are at your feet at first and later at your throat.

  Angelina Baldesteri—always arrogant and always with a sense of entitlement—had never really sat in worship at Raquel’s feet. But now she was at Raquel’s throat, and not about to let go. In Angelina Baldesteri’s world, if anything ever went wrong, someone else had to be sacrificed.

  Snap out of this, Raquel thought, almost speaking the words aloud. Take action.

  * * *

  Michael O’Keefe, even at seventy-eight, was still one of the most attractive men whom Raquel had ever seen. His full head of hair was blond with a sprinkling of white. His face, almost completely unlined, resembled JFK’s but was better structured. His wire-rimmed glasses were barely visible. His suits were all an immaculate deep blue.

  Michael O’Keefe was also in the same rarefied league as Raquel, except that he had entered that league long before Raquel became its informal dean. Fresh out of the Boalt Hall law school at Berkeley, he had been picked by the wily, wild-haired William Kunstler as one of the lawyers representing the defendants at the trial of the Chicago Seven in 1970. Like the defiant, brilliant Kunstler and all the other defense lawyers, Michael had been held in contempt of court by the edgy, bad-tempered, almost insane Julius Hoffman, the Captain Queeg of federal judges. The contempt citation, which could have derailed O’Keefe’s career at its outset, was vacated by the appeals court in Chicago. He was now the last surviving defense lawyer from that legendary trial. The contempt citation had long ago become a badge of honor, the Silver Star of courtroom battles. During his long career he had represented Bobby Seale; Jimmy Carter’s derelict brother; Ivan Boesky; and Michael Milken. He had also been Oliver North’s lead defense lawyer in the Iran-Contra trial of the late 1980s, the trial in which he had added the young Raquel Rematti as one of the defense lawyers.

  Rising from his chair in his office on Fifth Avenue, he gave her a quick, warm embrace as soon as she walked through the door. “My Lord,” he said in that soft, endearing Irish brogue he typically reserved for trials, “you look as beautiful as ever.”

  They hadn’t seen each other since before she had been stricken with cancer. He said, “Let’s sit on the sofa. I don’t want to speak to you over the desk.”

  “Thanks for seeing me, Michael, on such short notice.” She had called him only an hour earlier. She had left her office building through the service elevator and service exit in order to avoid the large group of reporters in the building’s main lobby and on the Park Avenue sidewalk. Just as she had expected, there were reporters at the service exit on 58th Street, but only five or six of them. Some were people from CNN and the New York Post, with whom she had spoken freely and often for years, but not now. Once again, a taxi instantly appeared, as if by prearrangement, and she quickly slipped into the back seat without saying a word. Michael’s office was only four blocks from hers, but she had dreaded walking to Michael’s office with a horde of reporters surrounding her. The readily available taxi had again saved her from that.

  Only two feet separated her from Michael as they settled into the large office sofa. Michael’s ability to put people at ease was astounding.

  “Do you know what’s happening?” she asked.

  “I do, Raquel. It is, unfortunately, all over the news. And reporters have been calling me for comment about the mistrial and you. I’ve said, ‘No comment.’”

  “I need your help,” she said. After a lifetime of self-reliance, she seemed to be asking for help, any help, from others.

  “There’s no one,” Michael answered, “in God’s world I’d rather help.”

  “People have been whispering to me for weeks that I’m the target of a grand jury investigation. You know me; I asked Decker point-blank a week ago if that was true.”

  “And Hunter didn’t answer you. He once briefly worked for me, you know, before he went over to the dark side.”

  “I know.”

  “Who told you about the investigation?”

  “Two men. They said they were FBI agents. They gave me their cards. Curnin and Giordano.”

  “Well, that’s chilling,” Michael said.

  “Even more chilling than you might think. They weren’t Curnin and Giordano. They were the two men who were murdered on the West Side Highway last night.”

  Michael O’Keefe said, “My God, Raquel. You need to tell me everything.”

  Raquel did tell Michael everything, except for the existence of the Ruger. Unburdening herself gave her comfort. Michael was a great listener, and he ended the conversation by saying, “Let me think through all you’ve said, Raquel, and I’ll get back to you with a strategy.”

  He gave her all of his cell phone numbers and email addresses.

  CHAPTER 41

  IT WAS ALMOST midnight. Hugo Salazar had driven deeply into upstate New York, a grim area he had never seen. Dreary farmland, fields, and forests swept by him as he drove steadily on a highway called the Northway. There were miles-long stretches of dark road where he saw no other cars or trucks; it was as though he were driving on the surface of the moon. Occasionally, in the distance to the east and west, there were isolated lights in rundown farmhouses. How, he wondered, could anyone live in places like this?

  When he passed a sign that read “Glens Falls, 2 Miles,” he was relieved to see clusters of lights gradually emerge from the darkness. At first there were gas station signs on extremely tall poles—Exxon, Shell, Sunoco. And then beyond the gas station signs were the huge illuminated symbols of McDonalds, Burger King, and Roy Rogers outlets. The road on which Hugo drove was no longer the four-lane highway divided by a median strip but a strip-mall street, with many stop-and-go lights, that led into downtown Glens Falls.

  It was the ugliest city he had ever seen in the United States. Most of the storefronts were boarded up with plywood and apparently had been for years. There was an abandoned movie theater on whose marquee only the letters M, Z, and A were suspended at awkward angles, an incomprehensible rendering of the title of the theater’s last film. The only people on the Main Street were young men, most wearing loose hoodies, who were gathered, smoking, in front of a bar. They were all white, their shoulders hunched over. Even at night, Hugo saw that they all had tattoos on their scrawny arms.

  He drove into the entryway of a Holiday Inn Express. There were only a few other vehicles scattered through the parking lot, no two side by side, many of them battered and rusting pickup trucks. He continued to the doors that opened into the reception area. When he stood at the registration desk, a brightly smiling local girl, probably not older than eighteen, politely asked, “How long will you all be staying with us, sir?”

  He gave her his ravishing smile. “Just tonight.”

  She asked for his license and credit card. He used the Raul Escribano ones.

  She gave him the key and asked him to park farther down the row of empty parking spaces. In the absolute darkness, he carried every one of the four elegant pieces of luggage from the Chevy into the room.

  An impeccably neat man, Hugo carefully hung the clothes he had been wearing in the open closet with no doors next to the entrance. He examined his sport jacket, white shirt, and slacks. There were no blood splatters on his clothes. He was an expert at knifing, like a matador who never let a charging bull’s horns tear his clothes or cape.

  Exhausted and naked, he sprawled on the bed without disturbing the bed clothes. His last thought was that he would easily reach Canada the next day. And then on to Chile. He had more than enough money for the trip to Chile. A man with his skills could make money anywhere and travel the world.

  * * *

  Hugo Salazar was abruptly awakened at some point in the dark room. He was startled. Regaining his focus almost instantly, he reached to his left for the long knife he had unsheathed before he fell asleep. The knife wasn’t there.

  Only the faint fluorescent light above the door at the entrance was on. Hugo sat up i
n the bed, his feet on the floor. He was completely immobile, still naked. There were at least four men in the room. In Spanish, Hugo asked, “Who the hell are you?”

  In English one of the men—in silhouette, like the others—said, “Shut the fuck up. And stay where you are.”

  Suddenly the door opened and Hugo recognized the slender man who slipped into the room, quickly pulling the door closed behind him and latching it with the silver security chain so fragile and aged that a twelve-year-old could have broken it.

  Robert Calvaro said, in Spanish, “You didn’t really think you’d get away from me, did you?”

  Hugo remained silent. The leather travel bag in which he had placed more knives, a machete, and three handguns was in the small closet to Calvaro’s right. The closet was at least five long paces from where Hugo sat. He would be dead, he knew, as soon as he stood up.

  Calvaro snapped on the bathroom light. It was fluorescent and he stood in the white glare. He was dressed as always in a suit. “Don’t look around the room,” Calvaro said. “I don’t want you to recognize anyone. Seven hours ago, you saw two important men who worked for me. And you killed them. That was a terrible mistake. All they wanted to do was talk to you, to give you instructions from me. What do you think? Do you think I have an endless supply of men? Do you think it’s simple to get two new men to work for me? Two ex-Marines? That costs a lot of money, much more than you do.”

  In a firm voice, Hugo said, “And how could I know that?”

  “You’ve worked for me a long time, my friend. By now you know how I operate. If I wanted you dead then, they would have shot you while you were driving. They trained as sharpshooters. That’s why they cost me so much money. So, since you know me, you should have known they wanted to talk to you. You’re a smart man.”

  Remaining motionless on the bed, Hugo concentrated on Caliente’s soft hands. Hugo didn’t speak.

  “You know, I could have these men cut your balls off.”

  Hugo was utterly calm: he had been in the presence of the prelude to killing many times. He said, “But, Oscar, you’d have to walk out into the hallway. You’re like a little girl. Afraid of blood.”

  Robert Calvaro stepped forward, with the swiftness of a cat. His slender outline was now entirely black against the unnatural white lighting behind him. He slapped Hugo Salazar’s face several times before drawing a thin trace of blood from a small cut above his eyebrow. “See, my friend,” Calvaro said, “blood doesn’t bother me.”

  Hugo laughed. The other men for the first time moved, but just slightly, as if making themselves taut before jumping on him. Hugo was a strategist for moments like this: his plan now was to make an explosive charge at Calvaro, who was six inches shorter than Hugo, and to toss him violently around in the dark room. In the confusion, Hugo envisioned rolling on the floor to the closet in which the leather bag containing the knives, the machete, and the guns was lodged. He calculated he had almost no chance of survival, but in his earliest years, as a street brawler in Mexico, he long ago pledged to himself that he would never die without fighting back.

  At that moment, Calvaro spoke as if reading Hugo’s mind. “Hold onto yourself before you do anything stupid. The two men you killed really were, at least for the time being, going to talk to you. Hugo, my friend, you got edgy. Don’t get edgy now. That’s not like you. And it’s not healthy for you.”

  “I fucked up when Lydia died. You told me to keep her safe.”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  Hugo said nothing. The room slipped into silence except for a hum of the forced hot-air radiator. It was almost completely incapable of warming the room. In the silence, Hugo began to feel cold. But he would never ask for a blanket or some other relief from discomfort. The Mexican years had taught him never to appear grateful. Gratitude was a symbol of weakness.

  Calvaro said, “Do you want to listen to me? Or should I just have them kill you?”

  “All right, Señor Caliente, I’m listening.”

  “And you’ll pay attention?”

  “Always.”

  When Oscar began speaking quietly in Spanish, his voice almost muffled, Hugo noticed for the first time that the other men in the room were blond men who were not likely to understand Spanish even if they could hear the subdued intensity of Oscar’s voice. “I’m going to do something for you I’ve never done for anyone, my friend. You’re getting a second chance. There are two people I want you to kill. And then I never want to see you again.”

  Hugo remained motionless.

  Oscar Caliente, who had made it a habit to punctuate his encounters with people by humiliating them, picked up Hugo’s black, tight-fitting underwear from the floor and tossed it at Hugo’s face. Hugo didn’t flinch. “Get dressed. The two people I want you to get will be easy to find and kill. They know more about Angelina than anyone else in the world. Without them, there will never be another trial for her.”

  “I know who they are,” Hugo said.

  But Oscar continued. “One of them played me for a fool. He lied to me. That’s despicable. He thinks he’s untouchable. It’s a game for him. I can’t allow that.”

  “Just let me know where he lives,” Hugo said.

  “And the other one I just hate. She loves you, and you’ll have no trouble finding her and taking her out.”

  “Doesn’t matter who it is. You know that.”

  Whispering, Oscar said, “That’s what I’ve always liked about you. And it’s why you’re still alive.”

  * * *

  As they walked down the mildew-smelling corridor, Hugo saw that the clumsily concealed, 1980s-style bulky security cameras had already been smashed, probably when Oscar and his crew first entered the revolving lobby door. There were no hidden modern security cameras since the dingy entrance had not been modernized in thirty years.

  While Hugo moved through the carpeted corridor, he noticed for the first time the zigzag symbol etched in the hair of the four men with crew cuts. They were the same markings as the two men who had served him and Lydia on the yacht on the day she died; he had killed those two men. It was obvious to him now that these four men meant to kill him but would not attempt that until after Hugo had carried out Oscar Caliente’s orders.

  Hugo also saw, but was not surprised, by the sight of the youthful, acne-scarred young woman who had eagerly checked him into the motel hours earlier. She was on the floor behind the counter. She was motionless. She was dead.

  CHAPTER 42

  HUNTER DECKER WAS an exceptional swimmer. He was in the Olympic-size pool near the huge Tudor house that he inherited at thirty-three when his father and mother died as their private jet crashed on its approach to their summer home on Nantucket. When Hunter married the beautiful Carolyn Whitehouse two years later, she had supervised the renovation of the manor house’s exterior and interior, restoring them to the original condition of the building as constructed by Hunter’s great-grandfather, who had commissioned McKim, Meade & White to design it. The fifty acres surrounding the mansion were the landscape creation of Frederick Law Olmsted’s talented sons. The older Olmsted had envisioned and created Central Park, and his sons had learned well some of their father’s astounding visionary skills. All the estate’s open grounds had massive, rustling trees like those on the quads of many famous old New England colleges.

  In the midst of all that privacy—and the fact that the house was empty because Carolyn and their live-in nanny had taken the nine-year-old twins and their six-month-old girl to nearby Connecticut for a Little League game on this limpid summer afternoon—Hunter was naked as he swam. How long had it been, he wondered, since his still gorgeous blond wife had been naked in the swimming pool with him? Probably since shortly after the twin boys’ birth almost a decade ago. As the water flowed by his hips, Hunter felt a slight arousal in his groin since this pool had once been the scene of intensely erotic lovemaking with Carolyn.

  Even by this point in their marriage, he believed he loved his wife, althoug
h it troubled him that now he had only memories of sex with her in the pool outside the huge Tudor house. She was passionate then, far less so now. The thought of divorcing her sometimes crossed his mind, but not often enough for him to act on it. For four generations, divorce among the Decker clan was rare, as were affairs. The WASP social circle in which he and Carolyn moved was small enough and closed enough that his wife would soon learn about any affair. Hunter wanted to spare her from that. Her father, whose name was part of an old and highly respected investment firm, had left her mother when Carolyn was only eight. She still bore the strains and resentment her father’s abrupt and highly publicized abandonment of her mother and her had caused. He had died twenty years later, long after Carolyn graduated from Vassar. She had never seen him again, or taken any of his telephone calls, or answered any of his fervent, guilt-ridden letters, or cashed any of the checks he sent her. Hunter didn’t want to hurt her in the same way her father had.

  As he dove under the surface of the pool water near one of its walls and pushed outward from the wall with his legs, his mind wandered to the question of when it was that he started his regular visits to prostitutes. Probably three years earlier, he thought, at about the time he was named United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. There were women for whom he paid two thousand or four thousand in cash for each afternoon they spent with him. There was some chance, he knew, that he might be recognized, unmasked to the public. But not likely, since even as the lead attorney for the United States in New York, he was on television infrequently, usually with six or seven other law-enforcement men and women. He was not a widely known person except in legal circles, and he could feel somewhat secure in his anonymity.