Verona

by Deaver, Jeffery

  Somebody shouted, “Clear, west side.”

  “Clear east and center!”

  The door of the armored vehicle opened and out stepped Detectives Elliott White and Violette Hayes. She was dressed in full combat gear; White wore only a bulletproof vest, as if he simply had to show off his pastel shirt. Tonight, baby blue. They spotted Nagle and walked across the gritty floor, through the faint mist of smoke from the flash-bang stun grenades. He stopped about five feet from Nagle. He didn’t smirk, didn’t smile, didn’t gloat. The cop simply looked him in the eye. “Gotcha.”

  Detective Elliott White’s joints might have been in revolt—that damn leg—but he couldn’t feel a lick of pain. He was high, jubilant. He hadn’t felt this good since he was upped to gold shield at the baby age of thirty-one. He was wearing the same powder-blue shirt tonight that he’d worn that day—so confident was he that tonight would work out.

  As well it had. The two heads of the major syndicates in the city had just been rolled up, Yung for felony drug possession with intent to sell and weapons, and Nagle for weapons and conspiracy to commit murder and battery—sensitive surveillance microphones had recorded him in the alleyway behind the warehouse just ten minutes ago.

  And the girl, sir?

  Kill her.

  White was standing in the middle of the drafty, spacious warehouse, speaking with Violette Hayes.

  “Getaway car got away,” she told him.

  Jimmy Jump Pants . . .

  “We’ll find him.”

  Hayes said, “Wish they still called it an all-points bulletin.”

  “What?” White said.

  “Don’t you watch old TV?”

  “Like?”

  “Dragnet. Highway Patrol.”

  “That’s more old time than me.”

  “Now it’s: ‘Be advised. Ten forty-eight. Homicide suspect driving a black Lincoln Navigator, tag number Alpha Bravo Charlie One Two Three.’ Where’s the fun in that? Saying, ‘all-points bulletin’ is a lot sexier.”

  White was ebullient but not necessarily in the mood for banter. “Let’s go see our friends.”

  As Crime Scene collected weapons and laid the number cards where Nagle and the others had broken into the warehouse, White and Hayes made their way outside through the musty space and next door to the office of the Monmouth & Briggs Storage facility, long closed. He guessed the two thousand bucks being paid for a one-month rental by metro police was the most money the imposing building had made in decades. White and Hayes had themselves discovered it—like location scouts looking for the perfect set for the climax of an action-adventure crime flick. Warehouses being popular final scenes for Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise and Marvel Comics movies.

  White held the door for Hayes and they walked into the warehouse office, where the individuals who’d made the sting a success were sitting. White thanked the suspects’ former minders—now undercover informants and key participants in the takedown—Ki and Max Klempter.

  The slim detective then turned to the other two people in the room. He said a heartfelt “We couldn’t have done it without you.” And formally shook the hands of Andy Nagle and Loi Yung.

  Five

  Monday, May 5

  Two Months before Donald Lark’s Funeral

  The worst? The worst of it, growing up in my family?”

  Loi Yung repeated Andy’s question. She turned over in bed to face him and she felt his firm chest against her breasts, his belly against hers.

  They were in a hotel room in the upscale Riverside area of town, not far from her apartment.

  Loi turned her gaze from his intense eyes, his tousled hair, and looked out the window, lost in thought. “The worst of growing up . . . the depression, I guess.” Memories cascaded. “The meds. All the meds. Try this, try that, up the dosage, lower the dosage, mix this with that . . . Mother wouldn’t take me to the clinic herself. It would look bad. It would be shameful. Our housekeeper drove me. Mother told Elvira to park behind the place and take me in through the back door. I had to wear sunglasses.”

  Loi remembered this clearly.

  “At fifteen, the first suicide attempt. Well, second, but the one at eight didn’t count, the doctors said. The one when I was a freshman in high school, half a bottle of Mother’s pills and a glass of vodka. Wasn’t easy, by the way. My parents didn’t drink. At least that time she took me to the ER in person. When I came to, she was slapping me. The doctor thought she was trying to keep me awake and told her it wasn’t necessary. That wasn’t why she was doing it. She was furious at me. What would people say about a mother whose daughter tried to commit suicide?

  “I was in the psych ward for a few days. My father came to see me. I was so happy, seeing him wearing his best suit, walking into my room. But he never sat down, never unbuttoned his jacket. He leaned down and whispered that if they made me do this ‘therapy stuff’—that’s what he called it—if I had to do therapy and I talked about his job, he’d send me, my grandmother and Mother back to China, where we’d live and die on the street. It didn’t occur to me that he couldn’t do that; Mother and I were citizens and Grandma had a green card. But I was terrified at the thought.”

  As she told Andy the story, Loi noted this about herself: She shared the story without a modicum of an urge to cry, without the slightest tightening of her vocal cords. Her heart was tapping more quickly than in its waiting state—but that was solely because of the presence, flesh to flesh, of the man beside her.

  “I did what he said,” she continued. “Kept quiet. Which made therapy pretty useless. You’re in group and it’s your turn to talk and you’re like, ‘Hi, I’m Loi. Some girls made fun of me at school. I didn’t get asked to the dance. My parents were pissed because I got an A minus in algebra. Boo-hoo. I’m so sad.’ Instead of the truth, ‘Oh, my dad runs hookers and sells drugs and fucking kills people who cross him.’”

  Andy and Loi had known each other just ten days. They’d met at a benefit for a politician who, it turned out, was taking payoffs from both of their fathers. The event had an aboveboard air about it, wholesome, and attendees were encouraged to bring family. Loi had come along, reluctantly, and had been both bored by the chatter and uncomfortable with the creepy old men ogling her. But then she caught the eye of a handsome young man across the banquet room. His face revealed that he was dying.

  Unseen by the parents, the two eased toward each other through the crowd and ducked into a darkened hallway for some private time.

  For her—and him too, she later learned—it was love at first sight. Numbers were exchanged, and a myriad of texts and calls followed. They began furtively dating. This—the Riverside Hotel—was their rendezvous spot. Andy lived at home, where he was always under his father’s prying, paranoid eyes. Loi’s father had her entire apartment bugged.

  She now kissed his forehead and lay back in the Riverside’s sumptuous bed. “And you? The worst part of growing up?”

  Andy didn’t hesitate. “The man in the brown suit.”

  He sat up in bed, as did she, and they tucked sheets about them—not from modesty; the AC was churning hard. He took a sip of wine, handed off the glass. Then told her the story: One day in October, when Andy was ten, his father came to him and said, “Bundle up, Andy. Let’s go take a peek at something. You like brats? Sure you do. They’re tasty. That’saboy.”

  He didn’t know. He’d never had a brat.

  They pulled on coats and gloves and baseball caps—not matching but close in appearance, which made the boy feel just fine. Dad and son.

  They drove to a city park, left the car at the far edge of the crowded lot and plunged into Oktoberfest. You could sample a hundred types of foods and, for the adults, beer and hard cider. The brats were, hands down, the best thing he’d ever eaten. They strolled past the booths, where you could win stuffed toys with hoops and darts and look at old-country Germanic exhibits. A half dozen rides, wimpy ones, sat on the edge of the fest, but his father didn’t want him to go on any, an
d that was okay, even though the Whirl-A-Gig looked fun.

  They had been at the festival for about an hour when his father looked at his watch and said it was time to leave. Andy didn’t want to, of course, but this was more time than he’d spent with the man in months; he didn’t want to spoil the day by asking to stay a bit longer. His father’s temper was always a factor to keep in mind. They walked briskly to the parking lot and began searching for the car. His father said he couldn’t remember where he’d parked.

  “It’s over there,” Andy had said. He remembered explicitly.

  “No, no. There.” His father had trooped off in the opposite direction. Andy didn’t dare disagree so he made a show of looking carefully up and down the rows as they walked. He then realized that his father was no longer in front of him; they’d gotten separated.

  He walked up and down, calling, “Dad, Dad!”

  No response.

  Not from his father, that is. But one man had heard. A tall, slim man, wearing a brown suit. Nobody else at the festival was dressed formally like that, so apparently he had something to do with the operation. He was carrying a briefcase. “Hey, kid,” he called from three rows of cars away, “you lost?”

  “I can’t find my father. Have you seen him? He’s got a blue jacket and hat like mine.”

  “Where was he last?”

  Andy looked up the row he was in and pointed. “About . . .” But his voice faded as he turned back. The man in the brown suit was gone. Vanished completely.

  He stood perplexed, not knowing what to do. But a minute later his father emerged, out of breath. “Andrew. I was looking for you, everywhere,” he snapped. “Where’d you go?”

  The boy hadn’t gone anywhere. He had been in the same row since his father had disappeared. He struggled to control his tears. He said, “I’m . . . I’m sorry. I was . . .”

  “Don’t snivel. The car’s that way,” he muttered and pointed in the direction where Andy knew the Chevy was.

  Andy now said to Loi, “We found the car, we got in, and drove home.”

  She was looking his way with a raised eyebrow.

  Andy said, “The next day there was a story in the news about a murder at the Oktoberfest. A man was killed in the parking lot. He was reportedly an organized-crime figure, a man believed to be shaking down carnival and festival operations. He’d been beaten to death with an iron pipe and robbed of his shakedown money. There were no suspects and the money was never recovered. They showed a picture of him.”

  “And it was the man in the brown suit,” Loi said softly.

  Andy nodded. “Dad had gone there for the hit.”

  After her upbringing, Loi Yung didn’t think anything would shock her. But this did. She laced her fingers through his. She expected them to be trembling but the digits were completely relaxed, if chill. “Your father used you to distract him and then he murdered him. He’d planned it all along.”

  “But that wasn’t really the worst of it. That night I heard my parents arguing. My mother had put together what happened. She knew Dad’s business, she knew we’d been to Oktoberfest, knew about the murder. She was screaming at him. ‘You used him, your own son, how could you?’ And he was screaming back—he has this really bad temper. And I snuck out of my room to watch, and I saw he’d pulled his gun and had it pointed at her head. But it was like she didn’t care. She just kept laying into him and he kept shouting, ‘You keep out of my business!’ Stuff like that.

  “And then he said, ‘You hear me, you fat bitch? You pig!’ And Mom went all quiet. She’d been beautiful when they met. She could’ve been a model. But married to him for a dozen years, abused, depressed, drinking all the time, eating too much . . .” He shrugged.

  Now Loi felt his fingers quiver just a bit.

  “The look on her face,” he went on. “He just destroyed her, saying that. It wasn’t the gun, it wasn’t the threats. It was those words . . . She drank herself to death two years later. So. The worst? The man in the brown suit.”

  She felt his head ease against hers. Not the whole weight, just enough to take comfort in her nearness.

  They sat in silence for a long moment, silence broken only by their breath, the rustle of bedclothes, and the tap of the wineglass landing on the table every few minutes, the pour of more chardonnay from the bottle.

  Finally, Andy leaned away and turned to her. There was a gleam in his eye as he said, “I have this idea.”

  They’d showered and dressed in the hotel’s white, thick terry robes and were now on the couch, in front of a coffee table.

  Andy tucked the lapels of Loi’s robe closer together. Not the time for distractions. She smiled his way and said, “So, an idea, you were saying?”

  “I don’t know if you’re interested. If not, I don’t blame you one bit. But—”

  “Our fathers’re murderous pricks who’ve ruined their family’s lives,” Loi said in a matter-of-fact voice, pushing her cerulean glasses higher on her nose. “You want to bring them both down. I’m in.” She enjoyed his amused look—that she’d deduced so quickly where he was headed.

  “Something I’ve been thinking about for years. Always thought I’d do it solo, but I’d rather have a partner.”

  She took his hand and kissed his fingers. “How?”

  “That’s what we need to figure out.”

  A simple goal. But the means to achieve it would be, of necessity, complex.

  So the lawyer boy and the coding girl used their sharp, twisting minds to cobble together a plan.

  Andy said, “How about we go to that detective who’s always dogging my father. White?”

  She nodded. “Elliott White. He hassles mine too. And his partner. Violette Hayes. Organized Crime Task Force. They were always nice to me. Felt sorry, I guess.”

  “We’ll tell them both we’re sick of the murders and drugs. How they’ve treated us and our mothers and the rest of our families.”

  Loi pointed out, “They’ve put us at risk too. My cousin lost an eye when some gang from the West Side planted a bomb at his wedding. My father was the target.”

  “Two drive-by shootings at our house this year alone. One took out my bedroom window.” He added gravely, “It wasn’t all tragic. The bullet hit a Star Wars poster of Jar Jar Binks.”

  Loi said, “How’s this: We’ll smuggle bugs into their offices and dens or living rooms at home? White can record them making a drug deal or ordering a hit.”

  Andy shook his head. “They’d still need probable cause for a warrant or they can’t use anything they record in court. Anyway, with my father, it wouldn’t do any good.” He explained the man’s paranoia, the impossible security in his office and how he never said an incriminating word outside the place.

  “We need to catch them in the act.”

  He thought for a moment. “Or an act of our own making.”

  “A sting, you mean,” Loi said.

  “Exactly. We convince White to set one up.”

  Her eyes rose to the ceiling. His mind was more attractive to her than his body. Well, it was close. “Good, good . . . But we’d need somebody inside.”

  Andy agreed, but who, he asked.

  “What about recruiting Ki? And Max?”

  Andy stretched. “Maybe. Let me think about it. But let’s assume we can. What kind of sting are we talking about?”

  She sat back, eyes on the ceiling, lips parted. Still, she noted Andy’s eyes sweeping downward from her hairline to her eyes. She almost curled into his lap.

  Concentrate here, she told herself.

  Loi said, “Here’s a thought: My father handles most drug sales himself—he thinks if he isn’t there, his people’ll skim from him. Ki could let us know when he’s going to meet with a buyer or seller. We’ll get your father there at the same time. White and Hayes’ll be waiting. Both of our fathers . . . armed, about to shoot it out. Thousands of dollars of drugs.”

  Andy was doubtful. “But remember: my father’s the opposite of yours. He ne
ver goes anywhere he could get busted.”

  “What if we lured him there?”

  “How?”

  Loi Yung was a coder’s coder. Her mind hashed through strategies in microseconds. “We use you as bait.”

  “Go on.”

  “What if your father thought you’d been kidnapped by my father? He’d come to save you.”

  “He’d have Max deal with it.”

  “Not if Max is out of commission.”

  Hm. “Interesting.” Andy gazed at an ugly landscape print on the far wall. Black and white. Coal country, he guessed. “So Ki tells us about a deal your father’ll be at. We’ll have White find some Asian American cops. They stage my kidnapping and use blanks and fake blood to make it look like Max’s been shot. But we’ll have to make it credible. That paranoia of his.”

  “We could make it seem like I betrayed you. I lured you to the kidnappers.”

  Andy snapped his fingers. “Juliet as Judas! Good. Oh, and here’s another thought: There’s a vet my dad uses for his men who’ve been shot—to avoid reporting gunshots. He’ll play along if White threatens to bust him, but offers immunity. My father’ll go to see Max, who fakes he’s been shot. He tells Dad where I’m being held—the place where the drug deal’s going down.”

  Loi was filled with shivers of enthusiasm. “You know, we play this right, it could work.” She gave a coy smile as she examined his face. “What’re you thinking?”

  Andy said, “There’s just one more piece I’d like to add.”

  Loi said, “And I’d like to hear it.” She decided she could wait no longer, and tilted her arms around his broad shoulders and tugged his head down for a long kiss. She whispered, “But in a minute or two.” Off came the glasses.

  Six

  Friday, July 15

  Present Day

  A week after Brendon Nagle and John Yung had been arrested in the warehouse sting, Andy Nagle was sitting in his father’s office.

  The building was being renovated and would be put on the market soon, though Andy wondered what the demand would be for a building owned by a murderer. He supposed that the residential market would be a problem—who wanted to sleep with ghosts hovering—but commercial developer?