The Quality of the Informant (16 page)

"In other words, you are a completely fulfilled person," she said. "You are satisfied with your life. Is that what you're saying?"

"No," Carr said in a low and serious tone. "It was about a year ago when I faced myself for the first time in my life. I woke up one morning and went to the breakfast table. It was cold in my apartment and I was alone. I thought about the fact that someday I was going to have to retire. And do you know what I said to myself?"

Sally sat up. "What?"

"I said,
It
's time to start taking yoga lessons
. I never got around to taking them, mind you, but I thought seriously about it, and as a matter of fact, later that day I bought a quart of yogurt and mixed it with some bran flakes."

"You're making fun of me," Sally Malone said. Angrily, she threw the covers back and got out of bed. She fumbled with cigarettes and matches on a dresser table. "I'm sorry for having brought up anything more serious than a Dodger game," she said.

Carr reached out and grabbed her arm. He pulled her back into bed. As she protested, he covered her mouth with his.

In the morning they grabbed a quick breakfast and headed back to Los Angeles.

The airport was a swarming arena; everyone dragging trunks, suitcases, and children from place to place, shouting instructions to one another, waiting impatiently in lines.

Paul
LaMonica
dialed a number on the pay phone. He put a finger in the other ear to keep out the noise. A secretary connected him with Omar T. Lockhart. "I've spoken with my client,"
LaMonica
said without introduction. "I'd like you to meet me at the Houston Airport, in the bar, as soon as possible. I'm waiting to catch a flight."
That will give you a chance to have someone follow me, you pig-eyed
sonofabitch
,
he thought.

There was a silence. "Okay," Lockhart said. "I'll be right down." He sounded annoyed.

LaMonica
hung up the telephone. He went straight to a ticket counter, stood in line, and bought a ticket to San Diego. The clerk handed him the ticket and a boarding pass.

"You're all checked in, Mr. Ross," the clerk said. "We'll board in an hour."

The bar, situated on a balcony overlooking a maze of ticket counters, had few customers.
LaMonica
waited behind a bank of rental lockers until Lockhart picked out a table and sat down. A minute later a husky man with a shaved head sat down at the bar itself. He and Lockhart exchanged glances.

LaMonica
strolled over to Lockhart's table and sat down without a greeting.

Lockhart spoke first. "My company doesn't like to involve itself in this sort of business," he said. A short-skirted waitress wearing a cowboy hat came to the table. They ordered Bloody
Marys
and the waitress walked away. "We're not jumping into anything half-cocked. You're going to have to give me some background details before we go any further."

"Be happy to,"
LaMonica
said. "My client was the girl friend of Freddie Roth, a well-known counterfeiter. I say 'was' because Roth was murdered about a year ago in an underworld dispute. At the time of his death he had just finished printing two million dollars' worth of your precious traveler's checks. Apparently he had a European buyer for the whole batch. Anyway, my client is sitting on the checks, all of them, right now. That's the story in brief."

A wave of perspiration was evident on both of Lockhart's chins. He avoided looking toward the man at the bar. "Now I'll ask you the prize question," he said. "How much will she settle for?"

The waitress brought drinks. Lockhart took a healthy gulp and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"Ten percent,"
LaMonica
said.

"A hundred thousand dollars? You can go back and tell her flat out that she's not going to get it.
Flat out. No way,
" Lockhart said.

LaMonica
sipped his drink. "The amount of money she wants is not even the hard part," he said. "Freddie Roth's last printing job was contracted by the Mafia...yes, the actual honest-to-God Italian Mafia. If you check on Roth you'll see he was well connected. After Roth's murder, she tried to peddle some of the checks. They found out about it and sent some hoods to take the checks from her. My client heard they were coming, grabbed the checks, and went into hiding. She had planned to live by passing a few of the checks now and then-as you can see, they're of very high quality, easy to pass-but she got cold feet."
LaMonica
smiled "I don't know whether she was more afraid of the Mafia or the police."

"And just how did you get involved?" Lockhart asked.

"I do investigative work for her attorney,"
LaMonica
said. "He asked me to check out her story; she owes him a sizable legal fee." He wiped condensation off the outside of his glass.

"We're not going to pay ten percent," Lockhart said. His chin dripped sweat. It seemed he had nothing else to say.

"I'll certainly relay that message to her,"
LaMonica
said. "I just hope the Mafia won't pay ten percent either. She's negotiating with them, too, as you may have already guessed. As I understand it,
their
distribution problems are minimum." He looked at his wristwatch. "I've got a flight to catch."

Lockhart nodded dumbly.

LaMonica
got up and they shook hands. "I'll be back in touch," he said.

"I want to meet your client. I have to speak with her in person," Lockhart said as if mouthing his one and only line in the school play.

"I'll tell her that."
LaMonica
headed down an escalator and made his way to the boarding gates. At the intersection of two busy corridors, he hid behind a ticket-counter partition. Moments later the man with the shaved head rushed past him like a hound after a rabbit.
LaMonica
checked his watch once again,
then
trotted to a boarding area at the opposite end of the airport. He approached a gate and gave a red-suited boarding agent his ticket.

"You just made it, Mr. Ross," said the man. "Please hurry. The flight is ready to depart."

LaMonica
rushed down the boarding ramp and onto the plane. He found his seat and fastened his seat belt.

The jumbo jet was only half full. In the seat next to him was a bespectacled young woman wearing designer jeans and a cashmere sweater. She was reading a thick book. Her gray-streaked hair was pulled back smartly. As the plane lifted off
LaMonica
leaned back and took a deep breath.

After a while, the woman put the book down and stretched.
LaMonica
smiled. She smiled back.

"Live in San Diego?" he said.

The woman shook her head. "Business trip."

"I love your sweater," he said. "In fact, I bought my wife one just like it. I was in New York at a medical convention and I missed her birthday. I feel lust awful about it."

The woman smiled. "She'll forgive you. I take it you're a doctor?"

"Yes, I'm a neurosurgeon. My name is Bill Adams." They shook hands.

"Carol Williamson," she said. "I'm a buyer for a department store."

"I just hate to travel," he said. "I guess I'm kind of a homebody."

"I don't mind it so much," she said.

LaMonica
closed his eyes. Later, he slid back in his seat and allowed Carol Williamson to step into the aisle. She found her way to the front of the cabin and entered the lavatory.

LaMonica
looked around carefully. With one hand, he opened her purse and dug out a wallet. His fingers flew to the money pouch.
About fifty dollars.
Not worth the risk. He pulled two of the ten or so credit cards out of the wallet and pocketed them, then shoved the wallet back into the purse and shut it. He leaned back and closed his eyes again. When Carol Williamson returned and stepped gingerly around him, he acted as if he were asleep. As her leg brushed his he imagined grabbing her crotch with both hands and squeezing until she cried. She wiggled back into her seat.

When she tried to initiate some small talk, he ignored her.

Over the intercom the pilot announced the weather forecast for San Diego. By midnight
LaMonica
would be back across the border and at the safe house. He visualized himself lying on the cot-naked, secure and comfortable. Women (he recognized none of them) stood by the bed clutching rattan baskets overflowing with money. They nodded to one another and emptied the baskets over his body. Some of the money fell off the sides of the cot and onto the floor. He was immersed in crisp, rich greenbacks, unable to move, unable to touch
himself
.

****

Chapter 15

THE FLOOR of the huge jai-alai auditorium was a carpet of discarded betting tickets and empty beer cups, the refuse of a seedy-looking crowd (at least half were Americans) that milled around the betting windows. The electronic tote boards at either end of the fronton flashed changing odds on the Perfecta,
Quiniela
, and
Trifecta
combinations, gambling jargon designed to avoid the use of the word lose.

The court itself was an enormous well-lit stage shielded by fine netting. On its left side half a dozen bored-looking Mexican men sat in a
cagelike
affair waiting to compete. They were dressed in white trousers and colorful shirts.

Paul
LaMonica
found Sandy sitting alone in the reserved section. He plopped down in a seat next to her. "They want to meet you," he said.

"Are they suspicious?" She turned the page of the program she was reading.

"A little. You can't blame them. There's a lot of money involved,"
LaMonica
said in a confident tone.

Sandy closed the program and stared at the court. "I don't like showing my face. It scares the shit out of me to show my face," she said.

"No U.S. soil, no U.S. crime,"
LaMonica
said.

"But they could put us together behind a conspiracy."

"So what's another grain of sand on the beach?"
LaMonica
said.

The players marched to the middle of the court and bowed to scattered applause. Two of them strutted to the service line while the rest returned to the cage. The game began.

"They're no better than the greyhounds
who
chase the mechanical rabbit," Sandy said, her eyes on the court, "or racehorses. They just come out like slaves and perform. Sad, don't you think?"

"I'm sure they're not too sad in the locker room every night when they sit around and cut up the side bets,"
LaMonica
said. "Racehorses with brains."

"I hope they don't ask me too much about this Freddie Roth person," Sandy said.

"If they do, you just play it by ear - keep everything vague."

The
pelota
slammed against the front wall like a rifle shot. It bounced back full court. A player was waiting. He caught the ball and
roundhoused
it
back
.

"Mr. Cool keeps asking me about you," she said. "He's afraid you're going to rip me off." Sandy gave him a funny smile.

"Your
main man,"
LaMonica
said sarcastically.

"We're just using each other," Sandy said. "Just like you and I always have."

"I don't like him."