I felt a small arm reach around my left side, across my chest, and with surprising accuracy a hand pinched my right nipple through my shirt. I flinched from the teasing pain and turned around to see Cheri standing behind me grinning. She asked, “Do you two want a private booth? Looks like you two are kissing.”
I laughed but T-Red didn’t. In a slow, liquored voice he said, “Screw you, bitch.”
Cheri and I were both surprised because he usually joined in the teasing. “Is he drunk? He likes his brew, but I’ve never heard that tone out of him,” Cheri said.
“He’s halfway there,” I said while rubbing the nipple that still smarted. “Be sure he doesn’t get any more to drink or you’ll have to take him home.”
Ritmo walked in and went straight to work behind the bar as Cheri returned to waiting tables. I motioned him over and he leaned over the bar a few inches from me. I told him I’d be gone for a day or two, and to let Frank Duplessis know that if he asked for me.
“I know he pumped you about me, Ritmo.”
“Yeah and I gave you the okay, Tony. So did Cliff. I don’t want to know what that’s about. Look . . .”
“You won’t,” I interrupted. “And I know what you’re going to ask. When I get back I’ll be in a position to deal with Cliff. I’m going out of town to line up some finances.”
Ritmo nodded with a pleased look. “Can I tell Cliff?”
“Whatever makes you happy.”
“This makes me happy, Tony.” Ritmo lifted his beefy hand from under the bar and drew a small marijuana cigarette to his lips. He took a deep breath from the joint and stuck his arm across to bar for me to take it. I had smelled weed in the place before, but up to now Ritmo had been cooler than this. The move was unexpected and I had only a split-second to react. I grabbed the joint from him and took a long, deep hit from the thin hand-rolled joint. I held the smoke in my lungs for several seconds and felt the fuzzy bee stings inside. I gave my best imitation of a pot smoker and exhaled slowly while handing the joint back to Ritmo. He took another hit, then threw the roach down and stomped it like a regular cigarette butt and got back to work.
The weed incident was another reminder of the little things that can sabotage an undercover role. If I refused the joint I would need a plausible excuse, and have only a second to come up with one. And that would only stave off the problem until the next time the situation came up. I took the hit to get it behind me. I could now make excuses in the future with little fear of suspicion. The incident also brought me into focus about my relationship with Cheri. I had made a series of excuses about why I hadn’t dated her and it was wearing thin. Nobody thought I didn’t have interest in women, but if I didn’t pursue her, some people might wonder. The last thing I needed was people wondering about me. She walked past me on her way to the tables and I stood in front of her, blocking her way. I took her drink tray and placed it on the bar. I grabbed both her hands with mine, gave her a peck on the cheek and told her that when I returned in a few days I would take her to dinner. Her face brightened. She bounced up on her toes a couple of times, then grabbed her tray and walked away to the tables. Without breaking her stride she turned her head around to me and shouted, “It’s a date.”
I grabbed T-Red under the elbow and lifted him off the barstool. I reached in his pocket for his keys, then walked him out to his pickup truck and shoved him into the seat. “Go to sleep, Red. When you wake up Ritmo will have your keys.” I didn’t want him driving in that condition, but more importantly I didn’t want any of his drunken words to be about me in The Gallop.
* * *
CHAPTER 18
I sat at the small table in my room and tried to prepare for whatever the meeting with the ATF brass in just a few hours would bring. I shrugged off the notion that they were coming to New Orleans just to party on Bourbon Street. I knew there was something important involved beyond the serious matters at hand. Trying to sleep was useless so I decided to make the trip early. The two-hour drive was tense. My mind wandered, trying to figure out if I was on the carpet. Some of my expenses were unorthodox but not illegal, and besides, the bosses dealt with creative writing on expense reports every day. I usually covered my ass well from training and instinct, but there was always the possibility of something that wasn’t done by the book that could come back to haunt me.
Upon arrival in the city, I enjoyed again seeing some of the familiar landmarks. I drove past the cities of the dead, the unique cemeteries where people are buried above ground in small house tombs or mausoleums. I saw the tourists and their guides, familiar sights in these cemeteries. The French who colonized and ruled New Orleans in the eighteenth century, learned so many years ago that the shallow water levels of a city situated below sea level necessitated the novel gravesites. Normal underground burial resulted in the coffins literally popping up out of the ground after a hard rain, so they devised the raised tombs that are still used. In France only royalty and the wealthy were buried in such ornate tombs, but here the paupers and rich were all afforded the same elaborate resting places.
I arrived downtown around six-thirty. The morning rush hour traffic had not arrived. The federal building wasn’t open yet so I parked the Camaro in a metered space and took what I thought would be a short nap. An hour later there was loud, rapid tapping on the car window my head was resting against. I looked up to see a large, round, ebony face peering at me only inches away from the other side of the glass. His head was covered with a uniform police hat with a silver frontispiece bearing the word Patrolman. He tapped loudly with his nightstick until I rolled down the window.
“I’m okay, officer.”
“Is that so? Get out!” he ordered.
I stood outside the car as the morning traffic hustled by. The cop was alone and there was no police car nearby. He was huge, built like an NFL player and he towered over me. He wore the familiar dark blue uniform pants and light blue starched shirt that I had worn on the NOPD. Above his silver star-and-crescent badge were several service medals and the hash marks on his sleeves told me he had at least sixteen years on the job. He reached into the car and retrieved my coat, which was lying on the seat. He removed the identification from the wallet, and turned his head toward the radio mike that was clipped to the epaulet of his shirt. He called in the codes along with my name and car information for record checks. A female voice came right back over his radio and read a list of arrests for Anthony Parrino.
His eyebrows raised, and he made me assume the routine spread-eagle position against the hood of the car. He kicked my legs out to a stretch so far that I was almost horizontal. He patted me down for weapons and found six hundred dollars in my hip pocket. He folded the money and put it in his shirt pocket. “You mind if I search your car?” he said, more in the manner of a statement than a question.
We both knew he had no warrant, but the slightest permission gave him authority to take the car apart. I couldn’t afford the complications of his finding my firearm under the front seat. The radio check told him I was a convicted felon and the gun would put me under arrest. How nice for me to be in the slammer while the ATF bosses waited for me to show up for the meeting. I gambled that his being a veteran would stop him from overreacting, and I replied, “Fuck you.”
By now, a small crowd of onlookers gathered, most of them on their way to work. I winced when the officer put the end of his nightstick squarely in the middle of my back. I started to say something when I noticed a husky figure wearing a tan suit approach the cop. I stretched my neck from the spread position to see Lyle flashing his badge. They talked quietly for a minute, then Lyle grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to the sidewalk. The seasoned cop looked hard at me, then dug into his shirt pocket for the cash and stuck it in Lyle’s hand. He walked away slowly, both hands clutching the ends of his nightstick behind his back. He swaggered a few steps in the manner of foot patrol cops, then turned his head toward us and barked to Lyle, “Keep his sorry ass off my beat.”
Lyle loc
ked my car and whisked me off into a coffee shop in the next block. “You come back to the big city for one day and get rousted? Maybe you’ve been in Acadiana too long.”
“How did you keep my cover with that cop?”
“I told him we busted you last week and you were appearing in court this morning and we wanted to question you. I think he only half-assed bought it, but since I took responsibility he’s got better things to do. By the way, didn’t I tell you to get cleaned up?
“I did.”
Lyle laughed. “You look like a stone criminal. And you should have stood a little closer to your razor.”
We walked to the federal building and I realized what Lyle meant as we rode the elevator with government employees dressed in their typical button-down office attire. My ultra-suede sport coat and Bally shoes didn’t fit in with the gray flannel suits. When we arrived on the ATF floor, Lyle guided me to a rear conference room away from the general offices. Seated at a thirty-foot mahogany table were Paul McKinney, Jim Fenton, and Jim King. King was the special agent in charge of the New Orleans office so he was responsible for anything going in his territory, but I knew this show was McKinney’s. I was always glad to see Jim Fenton, and welcomed the humor he usually added to things.
We shook hands all around and got down to business right away. McKinney led the meeting. He had a dour look on his face. I knew of his reputation as a standup guy but also a company man, so at first his demeanor didn’t signal anything unusual. Jim Fenton packed a fresh wad of scented tobacco into his pipe, held a lighter over the bowl, and drew several strong puffs. He listened with the rest of us as McKinney spoke.
“The FBI and NOPD have turned up the heat on us. Interpol wants to know if we’re in possession of those bank notes. They’re all threatening to go to the Director’s level if we don’t give them something soon. The bank robbery and cop killing we came across as a sidelight to our investigation is a top priority for them. We can keep the NOPD at arm’s length a while longer, but if the FBI pushes we could have a pissing match between the Departments of Justice and Treasury.” McKinney paused for some kind of reply from me.
“What’s new about that?”
McKinney raised his voice and said, “Here’s what’s new about it. It’s not going to happen on my watch.”
“I know that’s important, but we’re already aware. And you’re not here to debrief me since we’re still on the ground. So why did you really bring me here?”
There was silence from everyone. I looked at Lyle and he shrugged, as if he was just as puzzled as I was. Fenton puffed on his pipe and Jim King squirmed a little in his chair. McKinney reached into his briefcase which was sitting on the floor.
“We got this through legal channels and it’s our duty to serve it on you.” He handed me several legal sized sheets of paper. My eyes went immediately to the citation in the upper left-hand corner:
State of Florida
Dade County
Gina DiMarco Palumbo vs. August Palumbo
Petition for Divorce
Of all the reasons I may have imagined for the meeting, this was the last I expected. I didn’t read past the citation. My eyes bugged. Rage and confusion swept over me. I jumped up from my chair and clenched the conference table. I felt like I was in a time warp, in another place. I pounded my fist on the table so hard that the men seated around it flinched. I was hurt and mostly angered at the same time. Anger at Gina, anger at ATF, and unexpected, uncontrollable anger at Lyle Melancon. He was my contact agent, the personal representative to my family. Even though he had never met them he was my surrogate for anything they needed. Surely he knew this was in the works. He must have known, but kept it from me.
Lyle, who was seated next to me, leaned over to look at the legal papers. My anger exploded. I swung my body towards him and from a leveraged position hit him square on the chin with a strong right hand. He was like a boxer leaning into the punch and his large frame toppled on to Jim Fenton who was seated next to him. Fenton’s pipe and its contents flew out of his hand and skidded across the waxed floor. Jim King lurched from his chair and grabbed my arms from behind, to keep me from Lyle, whose chin was split wide open. Phil McKinney pressed a handkerchief over Lyle’s lower face and it filled with blood.
McKinney and King pushed me back down into a chair. King motioned Lyle out of the room and everyone else got back to their seats. Nobody spoke for a minute or so. I breathed heavy and my heart raced. I picked up the legal papers and studied them more closely. Gina had filed the papers three weeks earlier.
“Why did you wait so Goddamned long to tell me?”
Jim Fenton spoke up. “First of all, Tony, Lyle Melancon knew nothing about this until today, I assure you.”
“He’s my contact with Gina. He had to know.”
“That’s between you and Lyle. But he didn’t find out from us. Nobody did. Our office in Washington did get it ten days ago. We had arguments about when to notify you, and decided that a little more time in the cold might nail down Duplessis and the other things you have going.”
“You didn’t want to piss off the FBI so you left me out there in the dark like the village idiot, not knowing that my wife had filed for divorce. What kind of balls does this outfit have?”
McKinney’s countenance grew angry for just a second. “It was my call, Tony. This case is no chicken-shit sting operation. We’ve got a lot invested and lives at stake, including yours. The deed was already done as far as the divorce being filed. What you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you or interfere in a way to jeopardize your life...”
“Or your fucking investigation,” I scowled. I knew that I needed to talk to Gina immediately, to find out what happened, to square things away. “I’m getting on the next plane to Miami.”
“We’ve already got your ticket for this afternoon’s flight. But there’s more.”
“More?”
McKinney took a deep breath and looked over at Fenton and King. He then turned to look me in the eye. “The return flight on that ticket is tomorrow afternoon.”
“Twenty-four hours to fix a marriage? Is this a sick joke?”
“Look, Tony. Bureau policy is not to force any agent into an undercover situation. You can bail if you want, but you can’t be replaced, it won’t work. If you don’t continue we’ll have to shut it down. Four months down the tubes. Duplessis will find another hit man, whoever is out there making silencers will stay in business, the FBI will be on their own with the bank job, and the NOPD will have to settle for our leads to find their own cop killers. We’ll fade the heat. Do what you have to do in Miami, but if you’re not on that return flight tomorrow we’re pulling the plug.” McKinney did a masterful job of putting me on a guilt trip. Then they all slouched back in their chairs and gave me a sympathetic look, putting the ball in my court. We sat and stared at each other for several minutes. McKinney and King had been in similar circumstances. Fenton was a lawyer by training with no undercover background himself, and I sensed that he had come to the meeting mostly because of his affinity for me. I appreciated that, as well as his legal advice on how and when to answer the divorce petition, in the event I couldn’t get the situation straightened out. He finally found a place for a weak joke and said, “Remember, this legal advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.”
A rookie agent drove me to the airport. We didn’t speak along the way. I studied his crisp, clean shirt surrounded by a well-cut suit and his polished shoes. He also studied me, glancing over several times, and probably wondered what in hell I was involved in and where I was going.
* * *
CHAPTER 19
Because of flight delays it was almost dark when I arrived in Miami. Since I had no luggage, I made my way quickly through the travelers that milled, sat, or slept on the floor of the crowded gate areas. I grabbed a rental car and made the usual twenty-five minute drive to my house in less than fifteen.
An old Volkswagen Beetle that I didn’t recognize was parked in the driv
eway. Apprehension turned to anger when my keys didn’t fit the front door locks. I knocked quietly on the door, and noticed someone peeking out at me through a front window curtain. There was no answer so I knocked louder. I heard the security chain slide inside the door before it opened. A teenage girl’s face appeared through the small opening.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Where’s Gina?”
“At the market. I’m babysitting.”
“What’s your name?”
“Shannon.”
“Well, Shannon, I live here. Let me in.”
“Gina told me not to let anyone in.”
My first reaction was to push the door in, but that would only aggravate the situation. I didn’t want to frighten the girl or make a scene. I showed her my driver’s license I.D. through the door.
“You don’t know me Shannon, but I’m Mr. Palumbo. I’ve been away on a trip. It’s okay to let me in.”
“Your driver’s license says your name is Parrino.”
“Shit. Wait a minute, please don’t close the door.”
The girl was puzzled, and I went back to the rental car and got my ATF badge and credentials. I showed them to her and she hesitated for a moment, then closed the door. I was planning my next move when the chain slid again, and the door opened.
Once inside, I went to Nick’s room and found him asleep. I joined Shannon in the living room and sat on the couch. I felt awkward, like a stranger in my own house. There were several pieces of new furniture I didn’t recognize. After a few minutes of quiet conversation with the babysitter, the front door opened and Gina appeared with grocery bags under her arms. I stood up to help her, and her face went pale.
“Shannon! Didn’t I tell you not to let anyone in?”
The teenager became upset and tried to find a reply. “Well, he . . .”
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