Murder at the Library of Congress (2 page)

Attached to one side of the building was another one-story structure housing a bodega in which an old Cuban, illuminated by overhead fluorescent lights, stood behind a counter talking to a man seated on a stool. They were the only people in the small grocery.

A narrow alley separated the other side of the museum from a two-story apartment building with four units. A woman stared at the rain through a glass door on the ground floor. Aware she was watching them, Munsch led Morrie and Garraga into the bodega. Munsch now saw that the customer talking to the owner wore a tan uniform. A security guard? He didn’t look to Munsch as though he could provide much security for anything or anyone. He was fat, probably in his paunchy fifties, with strands of shiny black hair pulled over the top of his bald head.

The old man behind the counter eyed them as Morrie browsed a magazine rack and Munsch looked at a platter of
coquitos
on the counter, the coconut candies brought in daily from the Caribbean. Garraga stayed by the door. He’d become edgy, moving from foot to foot.

“Cuánto es?”
Munsch asked, pointing to the candies.

“Seventy-five cents,” the bodega owner said.

Munsch threw a dollar on the counter and accepted his change. He took a candy and joined Garraga at the door. “Morrie,” he said sharply. Morrie replaced the men’s magazine and followed the others out to the sidewalk.

“What about the cop drinkin’ coffee in there?” Morrie asked.

“What cop?” Munsch said. “That fat slob with his belly hanging out of his shirt? Forget him. He doesn’t even have a gun.”

They walked along the front of Casa de Seville to
avoid the rain, and stopped at the far end of the building, by the alley. Garraga nonchalantly crossed it to where he could see the glass door leading into the apartment building. The woman was gone. He looked up and down the street, then motioned with his head. The others followed him into the alley to the rear of the museum.

Behind Casa de Seville was a small grassy area bordered by a high chain-link fence and containing two Dumpsters. A red metal door provided rear access to the museum. Above it was a slatted red-and-white metal awning; the pinging sound of raindrops was magnified as the three men huddled beneath it.

“There’s the ladder,” Garraga said, pointing to where one rested against a Dumpster.

“And there’s no guard?” Morrie asked.

“No,” Garraga said. “No guards.”

“Don’t light a goddamn cigarette,” Morrie said to Munsch, who was about to.

Munsch ignored him and lit up.

“There’s just the alarm system,” Garraga said. “No guards, no night watchmen. Reina says there’s no money. They pay him peanuts.”

“All right,” Munsch said, coughing and extinguishing the cigarette with his shoe. “Go on. Let’s get it done.”

Garraga leaned the unfolded stepladder against the wall and started up. He paused once he’d climbed onto the roof’s overhang, looked down and said to Morrie, “Come on.”

Morrie said to Munsch, “Why don’t you go up with him.”

“I have to get the car,” Munsch said. “You don’t drive.”

“I don’t have to.”

“You don’t have to
what
?”

“Drive.”

Another cigarette went to Munsch’s lips. “It doesn’t matter why you don’t drive, Morrie. Get up there and help Garraga, like we planned.”

Garraga scrambled higher onto the roof and waited for Morrie to reach the top of the ladder. Morrie took Garraga’s extended hand and clumsily joined him. They crouched low as they made their way to the skylight, Morrie muttering under his breath about pain in his knees. Garraga pulled a penlight from his jeans pocket and directed its beam on the skylight. “There it is,” he said, “the alarm wires, just like Reina said.” Two small sheathed wires protruded from where one edge of the skylight made contact with the roof.

Garraga withdrew a pocketknife and a small roll of black electrician’s tape from his jeans and handed the flashlight to Morrie. “Hold it steady,” the Cuban said. “I have to splice these to kill the alarm lead to the skylight.”

“Why didn’t your guy just cut it?” Morrie asked.

“Because, Morrie, that would have shown up on the alarm panel, a break in the system. Just shut up, huh, and hold the goddamn light.”

“You’ll get electrocuted in this rain,” Morrie grumbled, keeping the penlight’s beam squarely on Garraga’s hands.

“Okay,” Garraga said, slipping the knife back in his pocket. “Grab that edge of the skylight and lift. It’s not attached.”

Morrie slid his fingers beneath the skylight’s metal lip and tried to lift it. “It’s stuck,” he said.

“Just gunk Reina put on it for a seal. Come on, lift, it’ll come free.”

It did, with a sucking sound, and they slid the skylight away from the opening.

“The rain’ll mess up the floor down there,” Morrie said.

“So what?” Garraga said.

Morrie handed the penlight back to Garraga, who directed its beam down into the gallery. Morrie peered over the edge. “That’s a hell of a drop,” he said.

“Yeah, well,
you
don’t have to worry about that, Morrie.”

Garraga dangled his legs through the opening, lowered himself until his elbows on the roof supported him, then continued his descent until he hung by both hands. He let go, the sound of his contact with the floor joined by a Spanish obscenity.

Morrie trained the light on Garraga as he got to his feet, looked around the gallery, and limped to the wall on which the Fernando Reyes painting of Columbus offering up his Book of Privileges hung. Morrie shifted the light to the painting. That’s what we’re supposed to steal? he thought. Must be worth plenty for what Munsch said they’d be paid once the painting was delivered.

Garraga expected the painting to be firmly anchored to the wall, but it was attached only by two brackets at the top. Some gentle back-and-forth movement caused them to eventually pull free of the wall, leaving the large framed canvas in Garraga’s hands. He leaned it against the wall and went to a supply room in which Reina said there would be another stepladder. Garraga positioned it beneath the opening in the roof, brought the painting to it, climbed the ladder until he was close to the ceiling, and pulled the painting up behind him. Morrie positioned himself to receive it.

“It’s too big,” Garraga said as he tried to wedge the painting through the opening.

“Try it on an angle,” Morrie suggested.

“I did. It’s too big. Can’t you see that?”

“Take the frame off. Munsch said to get the painting, not the frame.”

Garraga returned to the floor, opened his jackknife,
and began to cut the canvas away from the simple wood frame, staying as close to the perimeter as possible. That task finished, he rolled the canvas, went up the ladder, and pushed it through to Morrie. He hoisted himself up to the roof: “We got to put the skylight back.”

They did, the painting was dropped to Munsch, and Garraga and Morrie joined him on the ground. Garraga tossed the ladder in a Dumpster and they turned to leave the area, Munsch in the lead. As he turned to start down the alley, he stopped abruptly. Morrie and Garraga came to his side. Coming toward them was the fat man in the tan uniform they’d seen in the bodega.

“Hey, what are you doing back there?” he asked, continuing to waddle in their direction.

“Who the hell are you?” Munsch asked.

“What’a you got there?” he asked, still narrowing the gap.

“Come on,” Munsch said, starting to lead his colleagues up the alley again.

The guard placed himself squarely in their path.

Munsch and the others now saw that the guard was carrying something in his right hand.

“He’s got a piece,” Garraga said, his voice rising.

“Stop!” the guard ordered.

Garraga answered by pulling a small Saturday night special from the waistband of his jeans, pointing it at the guard, and pulling the trigger. The shot struck him in the stomach.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Morrie asked.

“Stupid,” Munsch said. “Let’s get out of here.”

They ran past the guard, moaning and writhing on the ground, his stubby fingers pressed to the wound. The “piece” he’d held in his right hand was lying next to him. It was a cell phone. Morrie started to bend over the guard but Munsch grabbed his collar and pulled him upright.

“Leave him,” Munsch said.

“I think he’s dead,” Morrie said.

“He ain’t dead,” Garraga said. “All that fat stopped the bullet.”

The three men reached the street and continued running to where they’d parked the silver Taurus. They jumped in, and Munsch drove too fast to his Cadillac.

“I thought there wasn’t supposed to be no guard,” Morrie muttered.

“Why the hell did you shoot him?” Munsch asked, running a light. “There were three of us. The guy didn’t even have a gun.”

“I thought I saw one,” Garraga said. “Just shut up and drive. Forget about it. Just get the money, Munsch, and we split.”

“The buyer’s not going to be happy there’s no frame,” Munsch said.

“The hell with that,” Morrie said. “It’s the best we could do. It was too big. Dumb bastard, shooting the guy.”

“He won’t be happy,” Munsch repeated.

“Who?”

“The buyer. Maybe he wanted the frame, too.”

“What do we do with the Taurus?” Morrie asked.

“Just leave it. Do I have to think of everything?”

Munsch dropped Garraga and Morrie where they’d met up with him at the DeSoto Plaza and the fountain.

“How about a lift home?” Morrie said to Munsch.

“Call your cheerful blond chauffeur. I don’t have time.”

Munsch handed Garraga and Morrie envelopes, each containing two thousand dollars in cash.

“When do we get the rest?” Morrie asked. “I got bills to pay.”

“When I get back from L.A. Cool it till then. And keep your mouth shut, huh, especially with your bimbo.”

“I’m outta here,” Garraga said, leaning through the open driver’s side window, his long, thin face inches from Munsch’s face. “You bring the money back, Munsch. I’ll keep in touch with Morrie. You bring it back, understand?” Munsch thought Garraga was about to draw the gun again but the Cuban left it in his waistband.

Garraga and Morrie watched Munsch drive off.

“I never liked Munsch,” Morrie said. “What’d you shoot the guy for? You’re nuts. You’re one crazy Cubano.”

“Forget it. It never happened. He better come back from L.A. with the loot. You want a drink?”

“No. My sinuses are still killin’ me. It’s all this humidity, and the rain don’t help. I ought to move to Arizona or some other desert.”

“Yeah, why don’t you do that, Morrie?” Garraga said. “Stay in touch.”

“Yeah, do that, Garraga. Enough art appreciation for one night.
Hasta luego.
” He disappeared into the rain.

2

“Mac, it’s Annabel.”

The five o’clock rush hour within New York’s La Guardia Airport was as busy as the roads surrounding it, thousands of people moving methodically and with purpose, many running, jackets flapping, glasses sliding down noses, narrowly avoiding knocking each other over, leather briefcases in hand or slung over shoulders, the constant stream of flight announcements over the PA fueling the mad scramble to leave New York.

“Mac, I’m at the airport running for the shuttle. I—I’m losing you. This cell phone is … Oh, there you are. What? … The meeting went very well—I’ll fill you in tonight…. What about the doctor?—Excuse me—No, not you, Mac, I bumped into someone…. Surgery? Really? Are you okay? … No, I—I’m losing you again…. You’ll pick me up? Great. See you in an hour—love you.”

Annabel Reed-Smith dropped the tiny phone into her oversized bag and picked up her pace in the direction of the Delta Shuttle gate. Senator Menendez, with whom Annabel had spent the day at the offices of
Civilization
, the magazine published in concert with the Library of Congress, had already checked in.

“Reach Mac?” he asked.

“Yes. He’ll pick me up.”

“Good.”

Richard Menendez was in his third term as United States senator from Florida. His position of political power, coupled with a reputation, before running for the Senate, as a champion of Hispanic-American causes, thrust him into the role of leading spokesman of that large, and growing, constituency. He was rakishly good-looking, sword thin and erect, on the tall side of six feet, with senatorial gray at his temples, the rest of his hair coal black and precisely cut. His expensive suits draped nicely on him; this day he wore a gray one with the unmistakable look of English bespoke tailoring, the whitest of shirts, and a muted gold tie splashed with dozens of tiny replicas of the Spanish flag. But what people usually remembered about Richard Menendez’s physical presence was his smile, a warm, wide, genuine one that said all was well, or would be.

They settled in adjacent seats on the 727.

“What did you think of the meeting?” he asked.

“I thought it was useful,” she replied. “You?”

He ran his tongue over his lips. “I was pleased to see the level of enthusiasm for the theme. From what I’d been told by the library’s public affairs people, there was some resistance to devoting an entire issue to Columbus.”

Annabel smiled. “There’s been a lot of consternation at the library since this new publisher started publishing
Civilization
for them. The conflict is evidently over whether the magazine is publishing enough articles that reflect the Library of Congress.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that,” Menendez said. “Of course, there’s always a debate when a magazine is published on behalf of an institution or organization, balancing the
need for a ‘real’ magazine with it being used as a public relations vehicle for the sponsor.”

“I got the feeling from the new editor in chief that he’s capable of handling that balancing act.”

“An impressive young man.”

“How do you feel about being
Civilization
’s guest editor for the Columbus issue?” Annabel asked.

His laugh was low and gentle. “I should be flattered, being in the company of such notable guest editors—Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Julia Child, Jules Feiffer—a heady experience for a humble U.S. senator.”