[Jake Lassiter 03.0] False Dawn

by Paul Levine

  Sheldon grabbed both of his wife’s hands. “Honey, that’s what it might have been. . . .” She dipped a shoulder and shook him off like O. J. Simpson shedding a tackier.

  “We’ll get the best expert witnesses,” I continued. “Now if we’re talking the whole honeymoon, or better yet, continuing to this very day, we’ll get you into therapy, counseling, sex surrogates.”

  “Sex surrogates?” Marilyn Berger cried out, crushing her cigarette in a Miami Dolphins commemorative plate, circa 1973.

  “Sex surrogates,” Sheldon repeated, hitting a high note, nodding in my direction. Here was a man who understood the legal process.

  “You didn’t videotape, by any chance?” I asked.

  “The ceremony?” Marilyn asked, still dazed.

  “No, the honeymoon, if you get my drift. A lot of newlyweds these days get a camcorder as a gift and find a real quick use for it. But not too quick, eh, Shelly?”

  Marilyn Berger was straightening her dress and shooting sideways glances at her husband. “Darling, I think we should leave now.”

  He seemed to want to discuss the case further, but he stood up a split second after his bride.

  “Sheldon,” I said, pointing at him, “you might want to keep a bedroom scorecard if you’re serious about this.”

  “Scorecard?”

  “Balls, strikes, errors, that sort of thing.”

  “Sheldon!” she commanded, and he followed her out the door.

  ***

  I could have used the work, but I prefer cases that I believe in. Best is to have a client you like, a cause that is just, and a check that doesn’t bounce. Two out of three and you’re ahead of the game. There are a lot of frivolous suits these days, and I didn’t need to add to the bunch. I used to think that the courthouse was the little guy’s haven, the place where the multinational corporation stood on the same footing with Joe the shrimp fisherman.

  In the past, lawsuits have righted some wrongs. Product safety, civil rights, and consumer protection cases have all expanded individuals’ rights. But the pendulum has swung the other way. An inmate who killed five people including his two children sued the state for denying him rehabilitation after lightning knocked out the satellite dish that carried public television. He claimed the programs on commercial channels were too violent. Then there was the man who sued his father for failing to attend his grandson’s communion. He asked for one hundred million dollars for anxiety and depression.

  Parents whose seventh-grader came in second in a school spelling bee sued, claiming she had correctly spelled horsy, or is it horsey? And, in the time-is-of-the-essence department, concertgoers sued Latin heartthrob Julio Iglesias, claiming he was two hours late taking the stage. Maybe Julio and the rabbi were having drinks together.

  The courts are not equipped to handle all of society’s problems. They have enough trouble with a simple breach of contract to sell a hundred widgets from the Acme Corporation to the Zebra Company. So when I have a choice, I try not to add to the mountain of silly suits. Besides, today, I had a dinner date.

  ***

  I was dipping the crunchy Italian bread into the olive oil when he sat down, drew a vinyl notepad and a ballpoint pen from his suit pocket, and started talking.

  “Do you have it with you?” Robert T. Foley asked.

  “The antipasto is very nice,” I answered. “I’m particularly fond of the cold eggplant.”

  “Where is the rabbit?”

  “The veal porcini, too, and the pasta is very good. But no rabbit on the menu.”

  “Don’t jerk me around, Lassiter. Where is it?”

  I laughed and took a bite of the oiled bread. Foley removed his wire-framed glasses and cleaned them on the napkin. He was still wearing the gray suit, or its twin brother. Maybe they’re standard issue for federal agencies. He was in his late forties and looked in shape, a lean body and a creased, outdoorsy face. He stared hard at me. “The rabbit,” he repeated.

  “The rabbit jumped over the moon,” I said.

  “Do you find this funny?”

  The waiter brought the menus, but Foley waved him off before he could tell us the specials. I said, “You’re a spy, right? Like in the movies. A spook? And here we are at Domenico’s in Coral Gables, but the waiters are speaking Italian, so maybe it could be some place in Rome, and you ask, ‘Where is the rabbit,’ like it’s some code. So I answer . . . Oh, never mind.”

  Foley didn’t crack a grin. Maybe it wasn’t that funny after all.

  “I’m not a spy,” he said with apparent boredom. “I compile reports on subjects of concern to national security.”

  “Like a Marielito killed in a trailer park?”

  “I am not at liberty to tell you the parameters of the investigation.”

  “And I’m not at liberty to show you my gold bunny rabbit.”

  The waiter returned and I ordered the antipasto and the veal with mushrooms and pine nuts. Foley asked for coffee, black. When the waiter left, Foley lowered his voice. “You’re withholding evidence in a homicide.”

  “Out of your jurisdiction. That’s Socolow’s problem.”

  “I’m going to be your problem, pal, if you don’t cooperate.”

  “I’m willing. I just want to know what’s going on. That’s why I called you, and that’s why I told you about the rabbit.”

  He gave a little snort that was supposed to be a laugh. “That’s all you want? Information is my stock in trade.”

  “Okay, so deal with me. Who killed Crespo?”

  “Who gives a shit?”

  “I do. And so do you, or you wouldn’t have shown up at the scene.”

  He shrugged. “Crespo murdered a Russian national we’d had under surveillance. It relates to an ongoing investigation of an international criminal conspiracy.” Foley grudgingly peeled off a piece of Italian bread and took a dry bite. “That’s all I’m going to say, got it?”

  “Crespo didn’t do it. He was set up to take the fall, and for a while, he went along. When he didn’t—”

  “Not my jurisdiction, remember? Go tell Socolow.”

  “But Crespo was innocent. Somebody else killed your Russian. Doesn’t that interest you?”

  The waiter brought the antipasto and Foley’s coffee. I sliced a piece of buffalo mozzarella that was relaxing on a sliver of juicy red tomato.

  Foley sipped at his coffee and said, “I’m more interested in what he was doing while he was alive.”

  “Then you should be investigating Yagamata. He called the shots. You’ve got to know that.”

  Foley looked at me over the rim of the cup. “Like I said, I’m through talking. You have something for me, give! If not, I’ve got other things to do.”

  I was nibbling at the marinated mushrooms when it dawned on me. “I get it. You are investigating Yagamata. That’s what you can’t tell me, right?”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of an ongoing investigation.”

  “Then I can’t tell you about the bunny rabbit . . .”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Or,” I said, dropping a line into the water, “the priceless artwork that should be in Russia but is showing up right here in Mia-muh town.”

  They may train them not to show emotion, but the central nervous system doesn’t always listen. His eyes gave a little blinkety-blink behind the glasses. “What art?” he asked, a mite too delicately.

  “A Fabergé egg that’s supposed to be in Moscow, not in a mansion on Palm Island. A Matisse that’s in the Hermitage according to the guidebooks, but is hanging in an exilado’s study in Little Havana. Not to mention the trinket I told you about, the gold rabbit once worn by an empress.”

  He screwed up his face, adding some new lines. He drained his coffee. “Okay, Lassiter, let’s take them one at a time. Did Crespo give you the rabbit pendant?”

  In a manner of speaking, he handed it to me, I thought. “Later. First, tell me what’s going on.”

  He sat
there thinking about it. Finally he said, “You know anything about art?”

  Now where had I heard that before? “Sure, I’ve been taking a crash course.”

  “Yeah, well, it better include some arithmetic.”

  I gave him my big-dumb-guy look. It isn’t hard to do.

  “Dollars, Lassiter. Very major dollars. At Christie’s in New York not long ago, a Japanese industrialist named Ryoei Saito paid eighty-two million dollars for Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Cachet. A few days later, at Sotheby’s, he bought Renoir’s At the Moulin de la Galette for seventy-eight million. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah. Vinnie and Pierre must really be pissed.”

  “Two paintings, Lassiter. A hundred sixty million dollars! And legitimate sales are just the tip of the iceberg. You know anything about the international trade in stolen art?”

  “Only what I read in the papers. There was a story about a guy on a tour in a Paris museum who cut a Renoir out of the frame, rolled it up, and walked out. Then, there was that soldier from Texas who picked up the German stuff during the Second World War.”

  “Child’s play. I’m talking about the organized theft and distribution of two billion dollars a year in art and antiquities.”

  “Billion with a ‘b’?”

  “Everything from a Roman sarcophagus that was on loan to the Brooklyn Museum, to the Decadrachm Hoard, two thousand Greek coins that date from 500 B.C. Plus classical paintings by the masters.”

  “Who would buy that kind of stuff? It doesn’t sound as marketable as a stolen CD player or a set of steel-belted radials.”

  He looked at me as if I had cut a few too many classes. I had.

  Foley said, “The museums buy stolen art all the time. Sometimes, they know. Sometimes, they close their eyes. Once in a while, they even give stuff back. The Getty did it recently with a sarcophagus of Hercules. The San Antonio Museum was loaned a marble statue of the goddess Demeter that was smuggled from Istanbul to Munich, which is the headquarters of the stolen art trade. Private collectors like Yagamata don’t care where they get the stuff, as long as it ends up in their house.”

  “I still don’t understand the CIA’s involvement,” I said. “Why isn’t it the FBI, like with stolen securities?”

  “When a foreign government asks for our help . . .” He let it hang there.

  “You’re not talking about Roman antiquities here, are you? You mean the Russians.”

  He managed to smile without breaking his face. “One of the ironies of the liberalization in the Eastern bloc is the increase in Western-style crime. Before, with travel restrictions, smuggling was virtually impossible. Now, Karl hides priceless paintings in his suitcase when he goes from East to West Berlin to visit his cousins. There are criminals with shopping lists from Western collectors. Do you know Table with a Goblet by Picasso?”

  “No, but if you hum a few bars . . .”

  “A couple of months ago, thieves broke into the National Gallery in Prague. The security there was laughable, simply no experience with sophisticated, organized crime. Anyway, the wiseguys made off with four Picassos, estimated value thirty million. In Czechoslovakia, there were over five hundred burglaries of churches in the first twelve months after the Communists fell. Chalices, paintings, candlesticks, Stradivariuses, everything that wasn’t nailed down. In East Germany, it’s just as bad. You’re probably not familiar with the sixteenth century statues of saints at the Church of Saint Nicholas in Prenzlau.”

  “Not intimately.”

  “Well, don’t go looking for them, because they’re gone. Same thing with the bronze nymph and seahorses from the gardens of Sans Souci in Potsdam.”

  “Russia,” I reminded him. “What about Russia?”

  Foley looked around the restaurant. If there were any KGB agents, I didn’t see them. Just the usual suspects—expense account lawyers, overweight accountants, and real estate developers entertaining members of the zoning appeals board. Foley seemed to be trying to figure out whether to say anything else. Finally he sighed and said, “The biggest enchilada of them all. With the market economy, some of the new Russian capitalists are petty thieves, and some not so petty, including a helluva lot of government officials. After the failed coup, then the fall of the Union, it got worse. Corrupt old bureaucrats were replaced by corrupt new bureaucrats who didn’t fear the KGB anymore, now that it’s been reorganized and renamed, and morale is worse than the Pentagon’s after ‘Nam. The new regime looks good on paper, but it’s no controls, no holds barred for the wiseguys.

  “In the past, the Soviets had five main exports. Oil, weaponry, gold, platinum, and diamonds. Now, some smart Boris figures there’s hundreds of museums stuffed to the rafters with uncountable fortunes in artwork. The museums are run by low-level functionaries who can be bribed with a set of snow tires for their Lada. You wouldn’t believe what they’ve got—classical Russian stuff plus all the Western art that was accumulated before the Revolution and whatever they could steal during the war. Plus, of course, precious gems, sable pelts, church icons, and historic treasures. They’re being stolen and smuggled into the States and Japan. They slip past customs without paying duties, so the federal government has jurisdiction even if we didn’t want to do the Russkies any favors.”

  “But you do. Our government is doing what the Russian government can’t.”

  “If word got out—the piracy of Russia’s precious art—it would be a major embarrassment to the reformers and the new republics. So as a favor from the highest level of our government, we’re tracing the goods back to their source. It’s not much different from what the DEA does with drugs from foreign countries. What you’ve done, Lassiter, is get in the way. You’ve stepped on some toes. Matsuo Yagamata has been under investigation for a long time. So has Severo Soto. They pose as respectable businessmen, but they’re both dirty and ruthless. If you have a problem with either of them, it could be serious, and we’re not in a position to protect you.”

  I dipped a piece of crunchy bread in olive oil and took a bite of the veal. “Who killed Francisco Crespo?” I asked.

  “Who do you think?”

  “I don’t know, but whoever murdered the Russian murdered Crespo to cover it up.”

  Foley shrugged. “It’s possible.”

  “Because Smorodinsky knew something. He was your informant, wasn’t he? A whadayacallit, a mole?”

  “Lassiter, this is way out of your league. Go back to your torts and contracts, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. I knew I was lying, but did he?

  “The rabbit,” he said.

  Oh, I almost forgot. I reached into my pocket and drew out the pendant. It rolled around in my hand until Foley plucked it out. From his shirt pocket, he produced a small plastic bag with a Ziploc top. He dropped the bunny into the bag.

  “Hey,” I said. “Just lookee, no keepee.” He ignored me and started to put the bag in his pocket. I reached across the table and caught him by the wrist. I have a good grip. There’s nothing more embarrassing than having a skinny wide receiver pull out of your grasp, so I always worked hard on forearms, hands, and wrist. And now I was squeezing Foley until his fingers unclenched. So I never saw his other hand slip cleanly inside his jacket and go beneath the table.

  “A Glock nine-millimeter semiautomatic is aimed directly at your balls,” he said quietly.

  Various intimate portions of my anatomy tightened, shriveled, and tried to make themselves invisible. “The Model seventeen?”

  “No, the Model nineteen Compact. Fits easier under the jacket.”

  I nodded. “Watch that pressure on the trigger.” I let go of Foley’s wrist and sat back in my chair. “Perhaps I should donate this unique piece of jewelry to my government,” I said. “Do you think I’ll get a deduction for a charitable contribution?”

  He scooped up the rabbit, replaced the gun, and stood. “Watch your ass, Lassiter, and stay out of my way. Your problems have nothing to do with me.”

&nb
sp; He walked out of the restaurant, leaving me sitting there, wondering whether I should have the tiramisu for dessert.

  15

  RIPTIDE

  I dialed a number on the cellular phone, and a gruff voice answered, “Alpha here, over.”

  “Where are you, Alpha?”

  “Identify yourself, over.”

  “Hey, Charlie, we’re on the telephone here. This isn’t Operation Burma.”

  “Security violation, over and out.” Click and dial tone.

  Damn.

  I dialed the same number. “Alpha here, over,” Charlie said again.

  “Baker here, you cantankerous old goat.”

  “Alpha traveling north on Ponce, subject vehicle turning east on the Trail.”

  “Good job. I’m stuck in traffic on Salzedo. Stay with him.”

  It’s not easy tailing a guy when you’re driving a Dodge pickup with slabs of Everglades mud protruding like frozen slush from the wheel wells. But Charlie Riggs was doing the best he could and having a blast.

  I had stayed behind at Domenico’s to have dessert, figuring Foley might have somebody watching me watching him. So Foley had a ten-minute head start by the time I reached my Olds 442, which was parked at a meter on Aragon. Now, headed north toward Tamiami Trail, I looked in the rearview mirror. Best I could tell, no one was following me while I followed Charlie while he followed Foley.

  When the cellular phone rang, I pushed the right button and gave a friendly “Yeah.”

  Silence.

  Okay, okay. “Baker here,” I said.

  “Alpha here. Subject headed north on Twelfth Avenue.”

  Toward downtown. He could be returning to the federal building on Flagler Street. The CIA maintained a small office there. But it would be quicker to stay right on Tamiami Trail, then take the 1-95 flyover. Where was he going?

  It had turned dark, and a breeze from the bay brought temperatures down to manageable levels and also blew some of the mosquitoes back toward the Glades. I had the top down on the convertible and listened to the sounds of salsa as I drove east along the Trail—Calle Ocho—in Little Havana. I passed city parks where old men hunched over their domino games sipping espresso. And I thought about Robert Foley and the little gold rabbit I had begun to think of as mine. What I didn’t stop to consider was exactly why I was doing this. To fulfill a promise to Emilia Crespo, or to mend a broken one. To prove something to myself, maybe. Just as I decided to ponder all of that, the phone bleeped again, and after the obligatory preliminaries, Charlie, a/k/a Alpha, told me Foley had turned his four-door Chrysler northwest onto South River Drive.