The Border

by Don Winslow

  “I want to take you back to Kingston,” Cirello says. “You turn yourself in.”

  “No.”

  “Listen to me now,” Cirello says. “You turn yourself in. They’re going to ask you questions and you tell them exactly what you told me. They’re going to ask you—because I’m going to tell them to—if you were afraid for your life, and you’re going to tell them yes.”

  “Will I go to prison?”

  “Maybe,” Cirello says. “Maybe not. But if you tell them you acted in self-defense, you won’t go for long.”

  There’s a knock at the door.

  Cirello hears, “Domino’s!”

  “Did you order pizza?” Cirello asks.

  Jacqui shakes her head.

  Cirello gets up and opens the door.

  It’s a kid.

  With chipmunk cheeks.

  They see Cirello’s car parked on the street.

  The junkie back in the park, the one they watched him talk to, told them that he was going to see another junkie.

  It’s perfect.

  Dirty cop gets shot in a drug shakedown.

  The door opens.

  A hand grabs Nico by the neck and pulls him in. Then the guy turns him around and locks a thick forearm over his throat. “Don’t swallow, you little prick. Do . . . not . . . swallow.”

  Nico has no choice.

  He couldn’t swallow if he wanted to.

  He’s choking.

  “Spit them out,” the guy says. “Spit them out. You speak English? Escúpalos, pequeño imbécil.”

  Nico spits out the balloon.

  The guy shoves Nico against the wall. “I’m a cop. Hands behind your back. Manos a la espalda.”

  Nico puts his hands behind his back, feels the cuffs go on.

  “How old are you?” the cop asks.

  “Twelve, I think.”

  “You think? What’s your name?”

  “Nico.”

  “Nico what?”

  “Ramírez.”

  “What are you, a paro?” the cop asks. “With who?”

  Nico knows better than to answer that one.

  He shrugs.

  “You think the shot callers would do a minute of time for you?” the cop asks. “They wouldn’t. That’s why you’re out here instead of them. Do something to help yourself here.”

  Nico knows how he can help himself.

  Keeping his mouth shut.

  Cirello turns to Jacqui. “Did you call him?”

  She looks at the floor and nods.

  Ashamed, jonesing like hell, flashing like hell. The noise, the motion, the yelling . . .

  It’s too much.

  She needs a fix.

  Then she hears footsteps coming up the stairs.

  Waiting outside the door.

  Cirello cusses himself out for trying to rescue a junkie.

  Now he has a jonesing addict to haul back up to Kingston and a dope-slinging kid to deal with.

  This is what you get, he thinks, for being—

  The door flies open and slams against the wall.

  The guy has his gun out, shoulder high, aimed at Cirello’s head.

  I’m dead, Cirello thinks.

  The blast is deafening.

  The guy drops the gun and staggers backward out the door and then slumps against the wall.

  Slides down, leaving a smear of blood behind him.

  Cirello whirls around and sees Jacqui standing there.

  A gun in her hand.

  The barrel pressed against her head.

  This will be our secret . . . our little secret . . .

  “Don’t,” Cirello says. “Please.”

  Cirello takes a step toward her.

  She points the gun at him.

  He reaches his hand out. “You don’t want to do that.”

  When Jacqui was little . . .

  when she was little . . .

  when Jacqui was a little girl.

  She hands him the gun.

  Nico stares up at the cop.

  “What did you see?” the cop asks.

  Nico doesn’t answer.

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing!”

  “That’s right,” the cop says. “Now get the fuck out of here. Run!”

  Nico runs.

  Cirello hands Jacqui his car keys.

  “Go sit in the car, I’ll only be a minute,” Cirello says. “Do not run on me. Go on, go.”

  Jacqui walks out.

  Cirello stands over the shooter’s body and puts two more rounds into his chest.

  Then he calls Nyack PD.

  4

  The Reflecting Pool

  For death remembered should be like a mirror . . .

  —Shakespeare

  Pericles

  Washington, DC

  April 2017

  Spring, Keller thinks, is Washington’s best season.

  Famously, the cherry blossoms bloom in April, and he hopes he’ll have a chance later today to walk along the Mall to see them.

  Crosby is pessimistic about that; she’s warned him that the hearings will probably take all day, probably more than one day, that the senators will have many questions, speeches disguised in the form of questions, and that there will be much time-consuming grandstanding.

  Keller is nevertheless hopeful.

  After all, spring is the hopeful season, the season of rebirth and optimism. (He recalls that grass grows up through the bones of skeletons.) He wants to be optimistic today—it could be either a beginning or an end.

  For the country, spring hasn’t been a time of regeneration but a season of chaos. Dennison’s firing of the special counsel has triggered the “constitutional crisis” the pundits feared. The Democrats are screeching for impeachment, the Republicans shouting back that Scorti exceeded his authority and deserved to be fired. The liberal and conservative media are yelling at each other like bad, angry neighbors across a fence.

  In the center of the storm is Keller.

  Dennison takes every opportunity to excoriate him—Keller is a liar, a criminal, he belongs in jail, why hasn’t the Department of Justice charged him and arrested him, locked him up?

  “That’s a real possibility,” Crosby has warned Keller. “In the absence, now, of a special counsel, the attorney general’s office could file against you. God knows the president is pushing him to.”

  Pressure also comes from the other side, the media and Democrat politicians demanding to know why Keller doesn’t come forward with the evidence he claims that he has.

  Crosby went on “the shows” to respond. “What mechanism is there now for Mr. Keller to release this information? The president shut down the special counsel’s investigation. Is Keller supposed to turn it over to an attorney general who already, by the way, recused himself—for potential bias? Or to that AG’s deputy?”

  “He could turn them over to the attorney general of New York.”

  “We’ve been down that road already,” Crosby said. “Unfortunately, Attorney General Goodwin did not think that the evidence was sufficiently corroborated. We think he was mistaken, and our understanding is that he is now reconsidering, in the light of recent developments.”

  The attempted murder of a key witness, Detective Bobby Cirello.

  The story was leaked that Cirello was present at a meeting between Lerner, Claiborne, and Mexican bankers allegedly representing drug cartels. That Cirello was asked by arrested drug trafficker Darius Darnell to provide security at that meeting, but was actually working undercover and planted microphones—the source of Keller’s alleged recordings.

  “Scorti wanted to interview Cirello,” one television correspondent reported, “and shortly before that was scheduled, someone tried to shoot him. And we’re expected to believe that was a coincidence?”

  The conservative media fired back. “Sources high in the NYPD tell me that Bobby Cirello was a dirty cop, he was under investigation by Internal Affairs. He has a gambling problem—he owes
money to the mob—and was working those debts off by providing security for drug deals. The shooting had nothing to do with ‘Towergate.’ And what was Cirello doing in Nyack, far from his jurisdiction, in the company of a heroin-addicted young woman?”

  But Goodwin launched an investigation into the Cirello shooting and also reopened the Claiborne death to determine if his overdose was accidental.

  A witch hunt, Dennison tweeted. A disgraceful attempt to reverse the democratic decision of the election. Goodwin is weak, a dupe. Should be fired. Cirello, Keller, all of them should be locked up. Throw away the key!

  “Despite Mr. Dennison’s apparent belief to the contrary,” the governor of New York responded, “only the people of New York can fire the attorney general of New York. That would be in an election, by the way.”

  But Republicans in the New York legislature started a recall action against Goodwin. Petitions were circulated around the state, supporters sitting at card tables outside supermarkets to solicit the requisite number of signatures.

  “This is Watergate,” Senator Elmore said to the microphones. “A sitting president has, at the very least, participated in a deliberate cover-up to subvert the workings of justice. It’s a disgrace. He should resign, or failing that, should be impeached.”

  “There is no evidence whatsoever,” O’Brien responded, “that President Dennison attempted to obstruct justice. Only that Art Keller says so. Just like there’s no evidence that Jason Lerner or anyone connected to Terra—and in that I include the president—had any idea that the banks they were dealing with did business with drug cartels. If Keller had proof of that he would have brought it forward by now. He hasn’t, because there isn’t any. Case closed.”

  Which is, Keller thought, O’Brien thinking he has called my bluff, that I’m tanking to keep Ruiz from testifying.

  But the case isn’t closed.

  All through the winter and early spring it remained an open wound on the body politic, tearing an already polarized society further apart. Protesters and counterprotesters clashed in violent outbreaks. Congress was “paralyzed,” the administration “crippled” in carrying out its agenda.

  Something had to happen.

  Congress stepped in.

  A Senate subcommittee, chaired by Ben O’Brien, was quickly formed to investigate the entire “Towergate” matter.

  On the witness list—

  Jason Lerner.

  John Scorti.

  Robert Cirello.

  Attorney General David Fowler.

  Denton Howard.

  Art Keller.

  And Eddie Ruiz.

  The gun, Keller thought, at my head. O’Brien scheduled him after me as a threat.

  Lerner was first.

  Keller watched on television as Lerner said, “My company has done business with any number of lending institutions from all over the world, including HBMX. We can’t possibly trace all the sources of their funds. We rely on the banks to police themselves and to adhere to national and international law and oversight. If the oversight was negligent in this case, I refer you to those agencies.”

  O’Brien asked, “So you had no knowledge that the funds you acquired in the Park Tower loan came from drug money.”

  “First,” Lerner said, “I still don’t know that for a fact. It hasn’t been demonstrated. Second, I certainly had no knowledge of that at the time.”

  “And if you had?” O’Brien asked.

  “I wouldn’t have accepted the funds,” Lerner said.

  “I apologize for asking this,” O’Brien said, “but did you have anything to do with the death of Mr. Claiborne?”

  “Of course not,” Lerner said. “I liked Chandler, we were friends. I was terribly saddened by what happened.”

  “And the attempted murder of Detective Cirello?”

  “I know nothing about that.”

  Elmore took the microphone next and walked Lerner through Park Tower’s parlous financial condition and Lerner’s indebtedness, and established that if Park Tower had been lost, Terra would have gone down with it. Then he got Lerner to admit that President Dennison had a fifteen-point equity share in the company.

  “So President Dennison has a direct financial interest in the success or failure of Park Tower,” Elmore said.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “And therefore was directly threatened by any investigation into Park Tower or Terra?” Elmore asked.

  “No, I don’t think he felt threatened.”

  Scorti went the next day.

  The former marine was stone.

  In his opening statement he said, “You need to understand that I can offer no definitive conclusions here, as my investigation was arbitrarily truncated. As per the Senate order, I have, under protest, produced the documents and evidence that we have developed to date, but I warn the senators to likewise draw no conclusions from these, as the products of an incomplete investigation might be misleading.”

  So, Keller thought, he’s deliberately pissed all over any testimony he might give.

  The senators tried anyway.

  “Did your investigation reveal any criminal activity on the part of Mr. Keller?” O’Brien asked.

  “My investigation indicated that possibility.”

  “But you reached no conclusion?”

  “I wasn’t given that opportunity.”

  Elmore took a whack. “Did your investigation lead you to any opinion as to criminal behavior on the part of Terra?”

  “My investigation indicated that possibility.”

  “Did your investigation,” Elmore asked, “lead you to any opinion as to criminal behavior on the part of the president—to wit, obstruction of justice?”

  “My investigation indicated that possibility. Again—”

  “How do you feel about your firing?” Elmore asked.

  Scorti looked at him like he was an idiot. “How do I feel?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Do you feel that your firing is, in itself, obstruction of justice?” Elmore asked.

  “I believe that is no longer my determination to make,” Scorti said.

  It went on like that, Scorti stubbornly refusing to give any substantive answers based on the fact that he hadn’t concluded his investigation.

  Attorney General Fowler testified on the same day.

  “Did you offer to let Mr. Keller keep his job if he would end the Towergate investigation?” O’Brien asked.

  “No, I did not.”

  “Did you instruct anyone to make that representation?”

  “I did not.”

  Elmore took over. “Why did you recuse yourself?”

  “There was the appearance of a conflict,” Fowler said.

  “The appearance or the substance?”

  Denton Howard took the chair the next day.

  O’Brien ran him through the same questions, and Howard denied that he had made any offer to Keller.

  Keller watched the testimony in Crosby’s office while preparing for his own.

  “Is he lying?” Crosby asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t have tapes of that.”

  “I’m not Richard Nixon.”

  O’Brien asked, “Did the president instruct you to make an offer to Mr. Keller?”

  “No.”

  Keller watched as Elmore asked, “Why have you refused to continue the Towergate investigation?”

  “Because there’s nothing to investigate,” Howard said. “There’s nothing to it.”

  By this time, the hearings had become a national obsession, with ratings higher than at any time since Watergate. Audiences were tuning in like it was a celebrity murder trial or a hit miniseries. People picked heroes and villains, they debated what was going to happen next at the office, they eagerly awaited the next installment.

  Bobby Cirello was a star.

  He testified that in fact, yes, Darnell had asked him to provide security for the
hotel meetings, that he had, prior to the second meeting, planted microphones and had a warrant to do it.

  “What did you do with those recordings?” O’Brien asked.

  “I gave them to my boss.”

  “What did he do with them?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

  “Do we need to subpoena him?” O’Brien asked.

  “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

  Cirello has been on the witness stand many times, Keller thought.

  “Do you know why,” Elmore asked, “Darnell instructed you to provide security for these meetings?”

  “He wanted to make sure they were safe and that there were no recording devices,” Cirello said.

  “I guess what I’m asking,” Elmore said, “is if you know why it was a drug dealer who asked you to perform that service.”

  “Because another drug dealer asked him.”

  “That would be Eddie Ruiz?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do you know Mr. Ruiz?”

  “I do.”

  “Under what circumstances?” Elmore asked.

  “I muled millions of dollars to him,” Cirello said, “on behalf of Mr. Darnell.”

  “This was drug money?”

  “It was payment for heroin.”

  O’Brien took over. “Do you know if Mr. Lerner had any connection to Mr. Ruiz?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

  “Well, you do know the answer to that question,” O’Brien said. “The answer is that you don’t know that there was any connection, do you? Do you know of any connection between Mr. Ruiz and Mr. Claiborne?”

  “No.”

  “Any connection between Mr. Darnell and either Mr. Lerner or Mr. Claiborne?” O’Brien asked.

  “I don’t.”

  “Who tried to shoot you?” O’Brien asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “The deceased hasn’t been identified yet?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “You might not even have been the intended victim, isn’t that right?” O’Brien asked. “It might have been Ms. . . .”

  “The gun was pointed at me,” Cirello said. “I fired back.”

  “What were you doing there, Detective Cirello?” O’Brien asked. “Far from New York City, in the apartment of a young female?”