Black Water Transit (37 page)

“You know Frank’s dealership?”

“Yeah. Little toy cars for little toy boys.”

“Who runs it now?”

“Whaddya mean? Frank runs it.”

“I mean the day-to-day, now Frank is sick.”

“Frank isn’t sick, Jackie. Frank is dying. His kid runs it. Tony. The blowfish, the coke boy.”

“Okay. Tony runs the day-to-day, but it’s still Frank’s shop. Would Frank know if something hinky was going
on in the detailing area? Where they clean up the cars for people?”

“I don’t know. Why would he? I been there. It’s a big shop. Whaddya mean by hinky?”

“I had a car in there last Wednesday. A black Shelby Cobra. It was in for detailing. It’s a rare car. Only twenty in the world. I got busted for trying to ship a stolen one down the Hudson. The feds got a tip, they cracked the container. Found the Cobra, also found a trunk full of drug money from Canada. My prints were all over the car, inside and out. Somebody switched the cars on me. Set me up.”

“Canada? What? You mean like Montreal?”

“Yeah. Like Montreal. Why?”

Fabrizio was silent. He turned and looked at the rows and blocks of wooden houses, the shabby apartment towers that studded the flat sweep of the island. The wind whipped at his coat collar and his thin white hair fluttered against his shiny scalp. His eyes were squinted almost shut and his mouth was a thin hard line. He looked at Jack and then turned to face the ocean. The surfers were sliding down a wall of green water. The sun was breaking through and shafts of light were shimmering through the clouds. A surfer arced through a patch of sunlight, his wet suit shining with yellow fire.

“Jackie, you need to watch these kids,” said Fabrizio.

“Why?”

“You turn around now, kid. Watch these mooks.”

They both turned to face the sea. Senza pulled out a little notebook, scratched out some words, held it up so Jack could see it.

Jack read the note. He wasted no time trying to convince himself that Senza was wrong. It made sense. It was the only thing that did. He hadn’t been running at all. He’d been let loose, see where he goes. Now he was bringing the trouble all the way back home.

Up on the roof, Flynn and Bergmann were getting nervous.

“Okay. Now they’ve turned away. I can’t get anything but the damn wave noise.”

Maya adjusted a dial.

“That better?”

“No. It just makes the hissing louder.”

He looked through the telephoto lens. He saw the two men standing side by side, looking out at some kids surfing. Out on the horizon, the sunlight was a wavering screen of shining silk curtains.

“What are they doing?” asked Bergmann.

“I don’t know. Dammit. I can’t get anything.”

Down on the shore, Jack was watching Senza write on his notepaper. Senza’s hand was knotted and he wrote with effort.

Jack read the words, nodded once. He started to walk away, but Senza put out a hand, stopped him.

“Hey, Jackie, you know Montreal? You ever been there?”

“No. Not in a long time.”

“Good food. Great broads. I just come back from there.”

Jack said nothing. He watched Fabrizio’s hands.

“Yeah, I know a guy, goes alla time. Always back and forth. This time he takes me. He needs a driver. For the cars. You follow?”

Jack waited. The wind ruffled the tops of the waves, making the white tips glitter in the sun like shark’s teeth. Fabrizio was writing one last word. The pen moved across the lined page like the needle on a cardiograph, shaky and spiking, the old man’s fingers knotted as tree roots, the little blue plastic pen tiny in his hand.

CREEK

Earl Pike came into the U.S. attorney’s office alone. Valeriana Greco was waiting for him, along with several agents of the ATF. Derry Flynn and Maya Bergmann were still on the Jack Vermillion surveillance. Pike walked into the spacious mahogany-paneled office wearing a navy-blue pinstripe suit by Armani over a sapphire-blue shirt and a sky-blue silk tie held in place with a gold pin through the collar points. He wore shiny black brogues and had a ring on the third finger of his right hand with the insignia of West Point in raised enamel on the bright yellow gold. Greco watched him move across the thick Persian rug from behind a desk the size of Kansas. She was wearing a gray suit and a black silk blouse. Behind her on the wall was a massive carved wooden crest, the eagle of the Department of
Justice. A wide window opened onto a view of Water Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the East River. The other agents, all male, all packed with muscle, all young and angry and wired to the teeth, stirred and tensed as Pike reached the desk and put out a hand. Greco, smiling sweetly, shook it.

“Thank you for coming in, Mr. Pike. We’ve been looking forward to seeing you. Please have a chair. Ben, can you run and get us some fresh coffee? Will coffee be all right, or would you like tea?”

“Coffee would be wonderful, Ms. Greco.”

She nodded at a young man with black curly hair, who jogged out of the room and was back in seconds with a silver tray and a full sterling coffee service. Greco poured out two cups, handed one to Earl Pike, who took it with a gracious comment and sat back, erect in the heavy damask chair, the coffee cup balanced on one knee. Greco took her place and there was a generator hum of power and silence as she leaned forward over the desk.

“You’re sure you don’t want a lawyer present?”

“Am I about to be charged?”

“You’re aware of the interception of your shipment?”

“I am. My colleagues at CCS were very diligent. I got the word last night and flew straight in.”

“Flew? From where?”

“Sioux Falls. I’ve been out there on a job.”

“Sioux Falls? Really? There’s no record on any major carrier that indicates you were a passenger on any domestic flight in the last three days. Last Friday night there was an indication that you were on a private jet out of LaGuardia. You are said to have left at midnight. And you are said to have gone to Harrisburg and not Sioux Falls. The time frame is rather important, since, as you are no doubt aware, there was a confrontation
at Red Hook that same night during which several of my people were taken down by a very skilled sniper. The weapon used was a Barrett Fifty. You know this weapon?”

“Of course. I’m fully checked out on the M-eighty-two-A-one. So are thousands of other ex-army shooters. I read about Red Hook. Terrible thing. I’ve been under fire myself. Such a senseless tragedy.”

“Well, you’d know about such things. We understand from your army records that you yourself are a fully qualified military sniper, that you spent several years doing just that kind of thing for the Special Operations forces in places like Guatemala, Ecuador, the Middle East, the Gulf War. You earned a Bronze Star for what you did in some place called Co Roc, although the record isn’t complete.”

“No, it isn’t. Never will be. But I wasn’t at Red Hook. Sorry.”

“But then we have this discrepancy. As I have pointed out, the clerk at LaGuardia said you had taken a midnight flight to Harrisburg. Not Sioux Falls. This presents us with a conundrum.”

“And I think I can resolve it for you.”

“Really? I’m so pleased for you. This is so exciting for us.”

“I took a Lear to Harrisburg, South Dakota. Not Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.”

There was a long, stunned silence.

Greco showed her teeth.

“You’re being clever, Mr. Pike. I don’t recommend it.”

“Really? You should try it yourself. For example, when one of your agents here pushes a female clerk around at the Slipstream desk at LaGuardia, makes a lot of ugly threats, and generally acts like a Gestapo thug, and the wretched clerk tells your agent where the
plane went—under duress—and the answer is Harrisburg and nothing more, then the
clever
thing to do would be for that young ATF agent to determine which Harrisburg the girl was talking about.”

“The clerk said Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Mr. Pike.”

“I think not. The video camera at the Slipstream flight desk caught the whole incident. The tape is at my lawyer’s office. The clerk simply said Harrisburg. Your agent then smacked the desktop with his fist, said, ‘Was that so hard?’ and as he stalked out of the office the audio recorded his last words. They were ‘stupid cunt.’ ”

“This agent had just lost three men to a sniper. I think we can cut the man a little slack. And we looked into Slipstream Jetways, Mr. Pike. The owner is a man named D’Arcy Pruitt. Mr. Pruitt is also a full partner at Crisis Control Systems. This seems convenient, to say the least.”

“D’Arcy Pruitt is an old friend from the army. And a business partner. Why the hell wouldn’t I use his charter service?”

“And this work you claim you were doing in South Dakota. I take it you were working alone?”

“No. I had two men with me.”

“From CCS, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“And they’ll verify your presence in South Dakota, will they?”

“If you ask them. Please do.”

“You can count on it. And when we crack them open, they’ll be charged and indicted right next to you.”

“Lady, the brutal fact is I really was in Harrisburg and I have people who’ll back me on that. I’m sorry about your agents. From what I can gather, this Vermillion person is some sort of Mafia figure. You want to look for your sniper, start with them. They’re all over the shipping
business. Maybe you stumbled in on something and got your guys killed for it. You forgot to ask which Harrisburg. You got fixated on the wrong man. You have several flunkies here. Be a leader. Burn one and move on.”

Greco could not restrain herself from sending a death ray at one of the ATF men, who received it with a stony face.

She then recovered, smiled thinly at Pike.

“And the purpose of your trip?”

Pike shook his head.

“Can’t tell you. Client confidence.”

“But you were unable to respond to our calls?”

“I didn’t get them. Harrisburg is right on the Iowa border. It’s quite rural. There’s no cell phone service in that region. I was pretty involved. My client is a large landholder in that area. We were trying to be discreet. Now I would like to ask you a question, Ms. Greco.”

“Certainly.”

“What is the status of my collection right now?”

“Kiss it good-bye, Mr. Pike. It has been seized.”

“Has it been destroyed?”

“Not yet. But it will be. You broke the law, Mr. Pike.”

“I do not admit that I broke the law.”

“You attempted to ship prohibited weapons. That’s a felony. Weapons specifically banned under federal legislation of 1994.”

“I can—and will—make the argument that those weapons constituted part of a collection with great historical value and therefore were exempt from that statute.”

“There’s no record of your making such an application for this collection. You attempted to move illegal weapons out of the country and sell them to a foreign national. A military officer in Mexico.”

“I filed an application for exemption with the ATF
last year. I have been waiting patiently for a decision ever since. In the meantime I had every reason to believe that my collection had not been rendered illegal since, according to articles of the firearms act, a collection for which an exemption application has been filed cannot be the subject of a seizure operation until the application has been adjudicated.”

“You claim you made this application … when?”

Pike handed her a sheet of triplicate paper.

“Here’s my receipt. There’s the date.”

She plucked it out of his hand, tossed it to one of the ATF people, who left the room in a hurry.

“We’ll confirm that. I still maintain that an attempt to ship weapons—illegal or not—without a complete disclosure to the ATF is a serious criminal offense.”

“Yes, I fully agree. You are absolutely correct.”

“You do? We are?”

“Without a shadow of doubt. I gather you have already arrested the man. And then I understand you let him get away. Unfortunately, after he killed two guards, I hear.”

“You’re talking about Jack Vermillion?”

“I am. He was the shipper of record. The disclosure responsibility lies with him. I informed him of the contents of that container, and I assumed that he would make all the proper filings. That’s his business, isn’t it? That’s what Black Water Transit does.”

Greco’s makeup was being sorely tested by this.

“You colluded with Mr. Vermillion to disguise—”

“I colluded? You have surveillance tapes? Recordings? The usual grainy telephoto shots you people love to take?”

“We have the testimony of—”

“My word against his. And his word, I understand, is the word of a dealer in stolen cars, a money-laundering
criminal. A Mafia-connected criminal. You said as much yourself. I watched your press conference in a roadhouse yesterday. You were quite persuasive. And this is the witness you’ll bring to court to testify against me?”

Greco’s makeup failed at this point. A sheen of moisture had appeared on her porcelain upper lip. The door opened up and an ATF agent jogged back in with a printout, which he placed on the desk in front of Greco. He backed away quickly while Greco read the sheet.

“Bad news, Ms. Greco?”

“It seems you did file an application to have your collection granted a historical exemption. At least the record suggests it.”

“The record suggests? It’s in your own computer.”

“The process is … these records may have been altered. I—”

“Okay. Now I’m faking records inside the ATF database. You’re sounding a little desperate, lady. I think that’s all the time I have to waste with you people right now, Ms. Greco. Is there anything more? Shall I be off? Shall I … tarry?”