Dolan and Ike silently watched him pace for a full minute and then Dolan said, “What exactly is missing?”
“My videos from the whore house!” Leo yelled. “The one’s I need to keep people in line!”
“Okay, Leo. Okay,” Dolan quietly said hoping to calm him down. “Is it all gone? Who could have done…?”
“That little weasel tech guy, what’s-his-name, Andy. Go get him,” Leo said looking at Ike. “Find his ass and bring him to the warehouse. Call me when you find him.”
“How the hell am I supposed to know…?” Ike tried to ask.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care! Do something useful and find him! Now!”
Without another word, Ike went out the back door to begin his search. Dolan walked around the desk and sat down on the couch hiding his relief that Leo was in a rage at someone else.
“When I get my hands on that little junkie cockroach I’ll …”
“Stop! Don’t say another word,” Dolan said. “I don’t want to hear what you’ll do to him.”
Leo stopped pacing, looked at his lawyer and said, “When did you get so squeamish, Bruce?”
“Calm down, Leo. You’ll give yourself a heart attack,” which wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen, Dolan thought to himself. “Tell me what happened.”
Leo took a chair opposite Dolan who remained seated on the couch. He quickly told his lawyer what he had discovered or, more accurately, what Ike had found. Ike was going to indulge his voyeurism and the first file he opened was empty. Ike told Leo what he found and Leo had then gone through all of the files and DVDs and found a total of eight that were emptied. Eight of the most useful and prominent ones he had.
When he finished telling Dolan about the theft, Dolan asked him if he had gone over the security videos. Leo told him Johnny Czernak was doing that now but so far had not found anything.
“Let me get you something to drink,” Dolan said as he rose from the couch and walked toward the door. He went out into the bar, flagged down one of the bartenders and ordered drinks for himself and Leo. While they were being prepared, Dolan took a moment to calm his breathing, wipe his brow and gather his thoughts.
When he went back into the office, he handed Leo his scotch and soda and sat back down on the couch. He then asked Leo, “Is Prentiss one of the missing files?”
“Yeah, he is,” Leo replied.
“How are you going to keep him from going to Washington, now?”
“Oh, I know how. If you really want someone to cooperate, there’s a trick I learned a long time ago. Go after his family. Don’t worry, he’ll get the message.”
The next night about 10:30, Leo walked into the office of the warehouse complex he owned in Arden Hills. He passed through the dimly lit office, through a door and into a small room off the main floor of the space Leo reserved for his own business purposes. The forty thousand square foot complex had been deeded over to him several years ago in payment of a gambling debt owed to him by its former owner. Leo had kept four thousand square feet for his own use and leased the rest of it for rent which helped make his tax returns look good.
In the room were Ike, Johnny and Leo’s tech guy, Andy Somers. Andy was tied to a chair while Ike and Johnny stood by watching.
Leo walked over to the mumbling, incoherent Andy, lifted his chin with one hand and looked into Andy’s dilated, unfocused eyes.
“Has he said anything?” Leo asked.
“No, he’s pretty stoned. We found both cocaine and heroin in his apartment when we got there.”
“Fill the washtub sink with cold water,” Leo said looking at Johnny. “We need to sober him up and I don’t want to wait.”
While Johnny stood next to the sink as it filled with almost icy cold water, Leo picked up a chair and walked back to Andy. He turned the chair around, set it in front of Andy and sat down on it leaning on the back of it facing Andy. He sat this way watching Andy for twenty to thirty seconds while Andy continued to roll his head, blinking his eyes trying to see who Leo was and still mumbling incoherently.
Suddenly, Leo reached back and with an open palm, slapped the young man as hard as he could, knocking Andy and the chair over. Leo watched his prisoner squirming on the floor, still tied to the chair, trying to get to his knees. At that moment Johnny informed Leo the sink was full.
Leo stood up, pointed at Andy and said, “Untie him and let’s see if we can’t get him to come around.”
Ike and Johnny untied the stoned techie and each took one of his arms. They half dragged, half carried him to the sink and plunged his head into the water. The two men held him there, Ike’s hand on the back of his head, while Andy thrashed about trying to breathe. After thirty seconds, they pulled him out and let him drop to his knees.
While his two thugs held the young man in a kneeling position. Leo grabbed his soaking wet hair and jerked his head back. Leo looked him in the eyes which seemed to have become more focused and said, “Tell me about the files you stole from my computer.”
“What…? I don’t. I don’t know about files. What? Stolen? I don’t…” he said gasping for air.
“Again,” Leo said.
The two men lifted Andy up onto his feet, bent him over and plunged his head into the cold water again. Ike held his head down and for the first thirty seconds, Andy again thrashed about and even started kicking his feet. Then, very suddenly, he arched his back, blew all of the air out of his lungs and went completely limp.
“Pull him out!” Leo yelled as Ike and Johnny jerked his body backward. Andy collapsed to the floor on his back with his sightless eyes bulging out and staring up at the ceiling.
It was Leo himself who understood what had happened. Without a word, he dropped to his knees next to the younger man and began hitting and pushing on Andy’s chest trying to get him breathing again. While Ike and Johnny stood helplessly watching their boss, Leo tried for more than two minutes to get Andy’s heart pumping again. Finally, accepting the futility of it, he stopped and stood up. He looked down at the dead man and said, “Shit. Now, I won’t be able to find out who he was working with.”
“What the hell happened? I mean, shit, we’ve done this a hundred times and no one ever died before,” Ike said.
“Heart attack,” Leo calmly replied. “Between the drugs and the cold water, his heart couldn’t take it. You guys take care of the body. I don’t want him found, ever.”
“Sure thing boss,” Ike said relieved to know he wasn’t going to be blamed for the screw-up.
FIFTY
Conrad Hilton was a very worried man. In fact, Conrad was pretty much scared shitless and was considering packing his bags, loading up his van and running for his life ever since the phone call. Conrad had received the call from Bruce Dolan informing him that Leo had discovered his missing files and disks. Despite Dolan’s assurances that everything was still under control, all Conrad could think about was the grim face of Leo Balkus and that sadistic little bastard, Ike Pitts getting his hands on him. And if all of that was not bad enough, so far Conrad had not seen any of the money Dolan had gotten from Prentiss. A half a million dollars, half of which was supposed to be his and so far, all he had received were excuses.
Conrad was currently seated in the back of his full-sized Ford Econoline. He was wearing headphones and listening to the bug he had planted in the bedroom of a young woman he was monitoring. The woman, an attractive legal secretary and her boss, the managing partner of a thirty lawyer law firm, were in the midst of what sounded like a hot afternoon tryst. Normally Conrad was not above enjoying this type of work and the images it brought forth. Today, though, he was not even paying attention as the older man and younger woman bounced around the bed.
He leaned forward to check the controls of his recording equipment and while preoccupied with doing that, listening to the sounds of sex and thinking about Leo, he heard several sharp bangs on the van door. Conrad literally jumped up several inches, let out a short squeal and held his chest from the fea
r the unexpected noise made. He swiveled in his seat to look at the door just as it opened and the beautiful head of Madeline Rivers appeared through the opening.
Maddy climbed into the van, slid the door closed behind her, took the other small chair, sat down and said, “Hey, Conrad, how’s it going?”
“Damnit, Maddy,” he said still holding his palm against his chest, “you just took five years off my life.”
After their meeting at the motel which Maddy’s good friend and sometime mentor, Tony Carvelli, had arranged, Maddy had used Conrad on a couple of jobs. There was a large and growing demand for investigations into potential boyfriends and girlfriends, more than ever with the advent of on-line dating. Many people, especially professional women, were carefully checking out the backgrounds of people they were meeting just to be cautious, certain and safe. Maddy was carving out a pretty good business for herself taking on this type of work.
Her current target, the high-priced corporate lawyer, was a job she was doing for his wife by way of the wife’s lawyer. The lawyer, a well known female divorce lawyer, had been a valuable source of business. The lawyer would be able to use the pictures and recordings to eviscerate the husband and turn the man’s secretary into a very expensive concubine. Maddy didn’t really like this type of work. It was all a little too tawdry and always left her feeling the need for a long hot shower. The background investigations into her clients’ potential lovers were much more preferable. Cleaner, easier and more rewarding. It actually made her feel good to be able to report back that the man was a decent, honest, genuinely good guy. And there had been a few times when she was able to save her client from a lot of potential grief, heartache and probable financial loss.
“Give me the headphones,” she said as she reached for them. She took them from Conrad, placed one to her left ear and listened for almost a full minute.
“Wow, sounds pretty good,” she said, “Man, I can’t listen to this. It just reminds me how long…” she said as she handed the headset back to Conrad. “Okay, we’ve got enough for what we need. Stick around and get some pictures of him or them coming out.”
“He won’t be too much longer,” Conrad said.
“At his age you’re probably right,” she replied and they both laughed. “Anyway, get all the pictures, recordings and your report together and I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
Maddy was wearing tight-fitting designer jeans, a sleeveless, light blue silk blouse and black leather ankle boots with three and a half inch heels. She swiveled in the chair toward the door bent at the waist and slid the van’s door open to leave. As she started to climb out of the van she said, “I’ll call you tomorrow and stop looking at my ass, Conrad.”
She stepped onto the asphalt of the apartment complex parking lot, turned, and with a sly smile, closed the door while Conrad pretended he was busy with his work.
After taking several photos of the wayward cheating lawyer, Conrad had packed up his van and was heading home to finish the job. Before he reached his destination, his cell phone chirped. He looked at the screen and to his relief saw that it was a call from Tony Carvelli. Tony needed a favor from him and asked if they could meet. Fifteen minutes later, Conrad walked into a Perkins in south Minneapolis, spotted Tony in a booth and slid onto the bench seat across the table from him.
“What’s up?” he asked Tony while tasting the coffee Tony had poured for him.
“You worked for the FBI, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, over twenty years, the last eight here in the Cities. Why?”
“While you were working with them, did you ever have anything to do with witness protection? Hear anybody, talking about Leo Balkus and Witsec?”
“Not really,” Conrad said. “Besides, Witsec is run by the U.S. Marshall’s Service. The FBI can put a guy into it but once he’s in it, the Marshall’s Service takes over. Why? You think Leo’s in Witsec?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. There’s something going on and I want to find out.”
“Let me tell you something,” Conrad whispered as he leaned forward. “If he is in, you’re better off leaving it alone. If the government put him in Witsec and is protecting him, he knows some pretty big players and the feds will come down on you like a ton of bricks.”
“I don’t care about that. The government doesn’t scare me. I need a name, an agent who I can talk to who would know about this stuff. I need to get to the bottom of this shit and find out what the hell’s going on.”
Conrad looked straight at Tony, silently thinking over his request. He contemplated this for thirty or forty seconds, sighed and said, “Okay, it’s your ass. But you didn’t get this from me.”
“No problem.”
“I guess the guy I would recommend you try to talk to is Bert Trumbull. He’s a special agent…”
“I know who Bert is,” Tony said. “I’ve met him a couple of times.”
“Bert worked organized crime back east for quite a while and then switched to counter terrorism.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know. I remember hearing his wife is from here or something like that. Plus, sometimes, the Bureau looks favorably on people who volunteer for places that aren’t the most popular. Anyway,” he continued, “if anyone would know about Witsec and who’s in it, he would.”
“Okay, Conrad. I’ll check it out.”
They spent a few more minutes talking about Leo, Maddy and other mutual subjects. Conrad made a foolish remark about Madeline and Tony reminded him that she could kick his ass without breaking a sweat. For a brief moment, the thought of coming clean to Tony and telling him what he was up to with Bruce Dolan flashed through Conrad’s mind. Tony sensed this and asked Conrad what he was thinking about. Conrad denied it and that was where they left it. But Tony was too experienced as an investigator to buy Conrad’s denial. He knew something was bothering the surveillance expert. Tony put it into the back of his mind knowing there was something more to find out at a future date.
Later that evening, Tony was nursing a vodka tonic while chatting with two FBI agents. He was in Shelby’s, a small downtown bar not far from the federal building in Minneapolis.
After meeting with Conrad, Tony had contacted an MPD cop friend who Tony knew quite well. He met with the cop and the two of them spent an hour discussing the FBI, Witsec, Leo and Bert Trumbull. Tony’s friend knew Trumbull quite well and described him as a standard, straight-shooter, no BS FBI agent.
He did have one little tidbit that might prove useful. The cop knew a fed who knew Trumbull and talk around the shop was Trumbull’s marriage was in trouble. Most nights he could be found at Shelby’s in no hurry to go home.
While Tony nursed his drink and talked cop gossip with the two feds he was with, he kept one eye on the door hoping Trumbull would show. Shortly before eight, both of the feds Tony was with left. A few minutes later, Trumbull came in by himself, took a seat alone at the bar and ordered a whiskey and beer chaser.
Disdaining subtlety, Tony walked over to him, took the seat next to the FBI agent and introduced himself.
“Sure, I remember you,” Trumbull pleasantly replied shaking Tony’s hand. “You’re a P.I. now aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” Tony replied. “Look, Bert, I won’t bullshit around about this. I know you’d see through it in a minute anyway. I’ve been waiting to talk to you about someone.”
“Okay,” Trumbull said with a shrug. “Who and what do you want to know?”
“Leo Balkus.”
At the mention of Leo’s name, Trumbull’s back stiffened and his eyebrows raised for an almost imperceptible second just enough for someone with Tony’s experience to notice and raise an alarm in his head.
“I’ve heard of him,” Trumbull said a little too quickly, too casually, as if Leo was just another punk. “Why, what about him?” With that question Tony knew he was now the one being interrogated.
“I’m just looking for some information about him for a client,” To
ny replied. “I just don’t quite get it. The guy reminds me of John Gotti. He practically has a billboard up that reads: ‘Dear FBI and Justice Department, here I am come and get me.’ And you guys never bother him. I’m thinking he’s Witsec or something along those lines. I mean, shit, the guy’s had people killed and…”
“Look,” Trumbull said, interrupting him a little too forcefully, “those are just rumors. Besides, that kind of stuff would be local, not federal. I gotta go,” he said as he stood up, looked at his watch, downed the rest of his beer and tossed a dollar on the bar. “Nice seeing you again, Tony.”
Tony sat watching the man’s back as he walked to the door. Obviously he had touched a live wire within the FBI and Special Agent Trumbull knew a lot more than he was willing to talk about.
The next morning at precisely seven o’clock, Tony heard someone pounding on the front door of his small house. Fortunately, he had been up for a few minutes and was at least awake and alert. He padded to the front door, barefoot, wearing old gray sweats and a white T-shirt carrying his first cup of coffee. He peered through the front door’s peephole and immediately recognized the two men for what they were. Two FBI agents in matching blue suits, white shirts and dull ties were standing on his front steps.
He opened the door and quickly said, “I’m already a good Christian. I don’t need you to introduce me to Jesus. Thanks anyway. Have a nice day.”
The two men gave each other a puzzled look, lifted their credentials up for Tony to see and the older of the two said, “We’re with the FBI. We would like to talk to you. May we come in?”
“You’re not here to sell me a Bible or save my soul? How disappointing,” Tony said.
“Very funny, Carvelli,” the younger one said. “You going to let us in or not?”
Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Vol 1-6 (Marc Kadella Series) Page 72
