JM01 - Black Maps

by Peter Spiegelman

  I hadn’t seen Fred Pell in over three years, and those years had not been kind to him. Not that he’d ever been a great beauty. He’s a big guy, almost as tall as Tom Neary but a lot heavier. There were easily thirty more pounds of him now, most of it in his egg-shaped gut and wide hips. He had upgraded his tailor, though, and his navy suit provided effective camouflage.

  The fringe of dark hair around his blunt, bald head was thinner than when I’d seen him last. The contours of his skull, the ridges and dips beneath the tight, bare skin, were more pronounced and Neanderthal. His face was still broad and bland, and pasty slabs of flesh still hid the bone structure. But now there were deep lines around the meaty nose and the large mouth. The skin around his black doll’s eyes was pouched and shadowed. He smiled nastily and came toward me. I saw a lot of big, crooked teeth. Apparently no one had knocked any out in the last three years. Too bad. His chin and jaw disappeared into his fleshy neck. I knew Pell was in his mid-forties, but he looked much older.

  “That’s real nice, Killer,” he said, pointing at the side of my face. “I like it. You been out making friends again, huh?” His laugh was wet. “See, Vincent,” he said to the guy who was with him, “somebody’s been whaling on Killer’s head, here. Somebody beat us to it.” Pell laughed some more. Vincent didn’t say anything, but he moved behind me, close. “But, hey, that kind of thing happens,” Pell said, “when you fuck around in a federal case.” He tried to jab me in the shoulder with his thick finger. I swatted his hand away.

  “Keep your hands off me, you fat shit, and tell your boyfriend to back off. He’s making me nervous.” Pell grinned wider. The other two feds had gotten out of their car and were crossing the street, headed toward us.

  “Watch out, Vincent, Killer’s getting all wound up, and he has a bad temper. It’s like I told you up there in the woods, Killer. Remember? I said you’re not cut out for this work. You think you’re so much smarter than all us blue-collar types, but you get in over your head and get things all fucked up and, who knows, maybe get somebody killed.” He paused for a moment and looked me in the eye. I felt the blood throbbing in my temples. “Even the shit-kickers up there were too much for you. You stick to finding those rich brats when they skip from rehab, or tracking down those lost polo ponies—that’s about your speed.”

  Then he pushed me in the chest. Pell was faster and stronger than he looked, and I staggered back into Vincent, who had all the give of a brick wall. “And I’ll put my hands on you any time I please, jerk-off, and don’t you fucking forget it,” he said.

  Pell came up close and straightened the collar on my jacket. “Shit, he tagged you a couple of good ones, didn’t he?” he said, looking at my face more closely. “But I hear you held your own. Busted his nose, I hear.” Pell laughed. “See, Vincent, Killer here will fool you. You may think he’s just a fucking arrogant rich kid, playing cops and robbers—and you’d be right. But he’s a tougher monkey than you’d expect. Takes a serious whipping to get him to stay down, doesn’t it, Killer?”

  Pell wanted me to light the candle, and he was doing a good job of goading me into it. I was halfway there already. I needed to dial down my adrenaline some. I took a few slow breaths, and managed a laugh. “Is that why these guys are here? You needed a lot of help last time, too,” I said. Pell’s face darkened.

  “When I come to kick your ass, motherfucker, I’ll come alone, and you’ll wish somebody else was around to pull me off.”

  “Come on, Freddy, you’ll need somebody else just to help you carry that gut around.” I heard Vincent snort a little behind me. Pell heard it too, and his face got darker. Poor Vincent. A career-limiting move on his part.

  “You spend all these taxpayer dollars, staking out my place, two cars, four guys, who knows how much on doughnuts and coffee—all just to warn me off? You could’ve picked up the phone and called,” I said. “Be a lot cheaper.”

  “For an old pal like you, Killer, I like the personal touch.” He poked me lightly in the chest. “I want to know what the fuck you’re doing, messing around in my case, you and your buddy Neary. And don’t think I’m not going to tear him a new asshole, too. Boy Scout’s not on the team anymore, and he’s going to find out just how cold it is on the outside. Make him think twice about his choice of friends.” He poked me in the chest again, harder this time. “So how about it, Killer, tell your old pal Special Agent Pell what’s up. What’s your interest in Gerard Nassouli?”

  I laughed again and shook my head. “Sorry, Freddy, no can do. Attorney work-product, privileged communications—you know how it goes.”

  Pell smiled. “I know how it’s going to go, Killer, and I can’t wait to see it. Monday morning, nine o’clock sharp, you be at St. Andrews Plaza, Shelly DiPaolo’s office. You bring your pal Neary, and you two can explain to Shelly just how it goes. She’s kind of green—doesn’t know much about how the world works. She’ll love having you explain it all.” One of the feds behind Pell snickered. “Oh yeah, you may want to bring some legal counsel along, just in case Shelly doesn’t see things quite the same way you do.” Shit.

  Pell laughed, and so did the two suits behind him. “See you Monday, Killer, you have yourself a great weekend,” Pell said, and turned away. And then he pivoted and drove his fist into my ribs, just above the cracked one. There was white, searing pain, and I doubled over, gasping.

  “Shit, Killer, after all that talk about you being so tough, don’t make a liar of me. Straighten him up, Vincent.”

  Vincent took a step back. “Hey, Mr. Pell, sir—wait a minute. I . . . I didn’t sign up for this kind of thing,” he said. His voice was young-sounding and scared.

  “You need a hand, sir?” one of the other suits piped in.

  “Yeah,” Pell said, “fucking Vincent’s a little weak in the knees here.” Someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me upright and locked my arms behind me. All the muscles in my side were in spasm. Pell’s face was dark. His black eyes were even smaller now, and his nostrils flared. He looked like a demented pig. “This is for being such a fucking wiseass,” Pell said, and drew back his fist.

  I stomped down on the instep of whoever was holding me and snapped my head back, into his face. He cursed and his grip loosened and I got off a kick that took Pell in the knee and crumpled him. But it put me off balance, and the guy behind me got his bearings back and jabbed me in the ribs. I doubled over, and he got a better grip on me and pulled me upright. Pell got up and dusted himself off. He looked down at his knee and the torn flap of fabric hanging from his pants. He had his gun out.

  “Motherfucker,” he said, softly, and hit me with the gun butt just above my right ear. I saw stars and felt blood down the side of my face. He wound up for another one.

  “Hey! You get away from him. Leave him alone,” yelled a voice from the corner. “I called 911. The police are on the way. You get away from him.” It was an angry voice, and a scared one, but more angry than scared. It was a woman’s voice. Jane Lu.

  The guy behind me stepped away. I staggered a little but stayed upright. Pell’s gun disappeared, and his ID came out.

  “Federal agents, ma’am.” He flashed his ID at Jane, and so did the rest of the suits. “Nothing to worry about here.”

  “Like hell there isn’t.” She walked quickly from the corner, carried by her anger. She was wearing jeans and a thick, black sweater and she was brandishing her opened cell phone like a weapon. “I saw what happened.”

  “What happened, ma’am, was this gentleman—who is armed, by the way—assaulted two federal agents who were questioning him in the course of a federal investigation.” Pell puffed up into full, self-important government official mode. “What you saw was two federal agents using appropriate force to defend themselves.” Jane ignored him. She took my arm and looked me over.

  “Jesus Christ, John, look at you,” she said.

  “Jane,” I said softly, “it’s alright. Go inside now. The cops will be here in a minute. I’m fine. Go inside.”
She ignored me too.

  “Jesus, look at your head,” Jane said.

  “You know this gentleman, ma’am?” Pell asked, sounding sly and more hostile now. I heard sirens approaching.

  “He’s my neighbor, Agent—what is your name? May I see that ID again?” It was Pell’s turn to ignore her.

  “Well, your neighbor is lucky we’re not running him in for what he did. And by the way, what exactly is your relationship with your neighbor, Miss—what’s your name?” Jane shook her head and looked at him like he was a new, but particularly disgusting, kind of cockroach. An NYPD blue-and-white rolled up the street, lights flashing. It stopped by the two fed sedans. Two uniforms got out, and one of Pell’s boys flashed an ID and buttonholed them.

  Pell grinned with his big, bad teeth. “I’ll take care of these guys, Killer, unless you or your sweetie have something to say.” Jane was about to speak, but I put my hand on hers and she stopped. “No? Okay, then, Killer, I’ll see you bright and early Monday.” Pell turned toward the police car but then turned back. “In case you are more than just a neighbor, honey, you might want to ask Killer here what happened to his wife. Word to the wise, babe.” And he walked away, laughing.

  “Christ, that hurts!”

  “Hold still, I’m almost done,” Jane said. We were in my apartment, sitting at the kitchen counter. Jane was washing the gash on my head with alcohol. “Just a little more. There you go. Now we’ll put some of this stuff on.” She tossed the damp gauze pad on the floor, on top of my bloodstained shirt, and took a tube of antiseptic ointment from my first aid kit. Her hands were strong and her movements quick and sure. “You should get that thing looked at,” she said, as she daubed the ointment on. “That thing” was my side, which was more painful, swollen, and angry looking than ever. She was probably right.

  “I will. But I’ve got to make some calls first.”

  “Go ahead and make them, and I’ll make us some tea. Then I’ll take you to the emergency room.” I looked at her for a moment. She had insisted on coming in with me, and I hadn’t put up much of a struggle. I was impressed by her composure and her competence, and by the ease with which she took charge. She hadn’t yet asked a single question.

  I walked back to my bedroom area and called Mike Metz. No one was home, and his cell phone was off. I left a message for him to call me ASAP. I tried Neary, but again I had no luck. I left him a message too. Neither of them would be happy with my news. Getting read the riot act by a cop—even an obnoxious federal one like Pell, who mauls you in the process—is one thing. It comes with the territory sometimes. Getting hauled in front of a federal prosecutor is another thing altogether.

  U.S. attorneys on high-profile cases are dangerous beasts—ruthless and relentless, with broad investigative powers, and vast and scary resources at their disposal. Dealing with one is perilous and unpleasant at best; at worst, it’s something like being smacked in the face with a two-by-four and dropped into a deep, dark pit. Shelly DiPaolo was rumored to be a particularly nasty example of the species. If she really wanted to know why we were interested in Nassouli, she had the where-withal to find out. This was one of the risks Mike and I had warned Pierro of, a risk I’d tried to avoid. Tried and failed, apparently.

  I put on a clean shirt and sat on my bed and thought for a while about what Pell said. I’d known from the start that running afoul of the feds was a possibility. The surprise was that I’d been anywhere close to showing up on their radar. But Pell had known about my run-in with Trautmann, down to my bopping him in the nose. Had Trautmann dropped a dime on me? That didn’t seem like his style. Did the feds have him under surveillance? Possible, I suppose. But Pell had known I’d been talking to Neary, too. How? Had Neary’s source in the investigation been telling tales?

  Fucking Pell. He was the same bastard he’d been three years ago, only more so. His feelings for me seemed as warm as ever, and he still knew which buttons to push. The bruises on the side of my face were throbbing, and I realized my jaw was clenched tight. I took a couple of slow breaths and worked it loose.

  Jane Lu had found tea bags, mugs, milk, sugar, and chocolate chip cookies in my absence. She was at the kitchen counter, just pouring the water, when I came back in. It was fully dark outside, and she’d flicked on more lights. I took a seat at the counter.

  “You make your calls?”

  “Nobody home. I need to wait for calls back.” She nodded and passed me a mug. She added milk to her tea, dipped a cookie in the mug, and took a small bite. She’d taken off her black sweater. Underneath she wore a gray MIT T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. I watched the muscles in her arms move as she fiddled with her tea bag. “How are you doing?” I asked. She thought about it for a minute.

  “I’m alright. A little shaky, but alright. I haven’t really seen anything like that before, much less been a part of it,” she said. I nodded. She didn’t seem shaky to me, not even a little.

  “Calling 911 was the right thing to do. Wading in there to break things up with your cell phone wasn’t. You were lucky—those guys are feds and more or less play by the rules—some rules anyway—but it wasn’t smart. You yell, you scream, you shout ‘Fire,’ but you stay far away.” She nodded and drank some tea. “But thanks—a lot. You saved me from what was shaping up to be a very bad evening.” She looked at me and shook her head.

  “Is this an everyday event with you—getting into fights, getting beat up?”

  “Would you believe you caught me in a slow week?” She just looked at me. “Actually, I’m running my holiday special on beatings—goes on till Christmas.” She looked some more. I looked back. “No, it’s not an everyday thing. It happens sometimes, but not often,” I said. “And I’m usually not the one who gets beat up,” I added.

  “That’s good to hear,” Jane said, smiling. “Are your relationships with the authorities all so friendly?”

  “Some of them are good, and some are not so good. Pell is a special case,” I said. Jane swirled tea around in her mug and said nothing.

  “He didn’t pique your curiosity?” I asked after a while.

  She was quiet for a few moments and shook her head. “Lauren told me about what happened upstate. It . . . it must have been awful. I can’t imagine.” She shook her head a little more. I watched my tea darken in the mug.

  “What else did Lauren have to say?” I asked.

  Jane looked at me for a long minute. “She told me you went through a bad time afterward. Very bad.” She sipped her tea. “She worries about you.” She looked away, out the windows.

  “Why does that man have it in for you?” Jane asked after a while.

  “He thinks I ruined his shot at being the next FBI director.” Jane gave me a quizzical look. “He thought the case was going to be a career maker for him. It was very high profile, a lot of media interest. The trial would’ve gotten a lot of coverage. And Pell was the special agent in charge. He would’ve been the star of the show, at least in his mind. But when the guy was killed . . . that was it. There was no big arrest, no perp to parade in front of the cameras, no trial, no CNN. There was barely a press conference. He blames me for that.”

  “Why? Because you . . . shot that man?” I nodded and finished my tea.

  “What does Lauren worry about?” I asked. Jane thought about it before she answered.

  “She worries that you’re still going through a bad time, only now you keep it to yourself,” she said. Her gaze shifted. “You’re bleeding again.” She tore open another gauze pad and came around the kitchen counter. She stood in front of me and pressed the pad on the cut, the palm of her hand resting on the side of my face. “You’re going to ruin all your shirts if you keep on like this,” she said softly. She was very close. Close enough, I was sure, to hear my heart hammering in my chest, and to feel its pounding through my skin. Her dark eyes were huge, and her scent seemed to fill my lungs. Her pulse was beating quickly at the side of her neck, and her face and neck were flushed.

  We both j
umped when the phone rang.

  I took the call in my bedroom. It was Mike Metz. He was silent while I ran down what had happened with Pell, and he was silent for a while after.

  “Fuck,” he said finally.

  “Well put,” I said.

  “This is bad, John. DiPaolo’s a real piece of work, from what I hear.”

  “I’ve heard that too.”

  “She can make life very unpleasant for us if she’s so inclined. We’ll claim your case notes are attorney work-product, but she can push on that pretty hard if she wants to. Fuck.” Mike sighed heavily. “Well, we knew this was a possibility. Nothing to do now but deal with it.” I heard Mike pour something and swallow some of it. “But this came out of the blue. Pell knew about Trautmann and Neary, both, and he knew you were interested in Nassouli. How?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “You figure Trautmann called them?”

  “I guess it’s possible, but it doesn’t seem like him. And I’m not sure why he’d do it.”

  “To get you off his back, I assume.”

  “Maybe. But it’s a chancy thing for him to do. He risks drawing federal attention to himself, which is not something I’d think he’d be interested in. And he’s also got to know that if I find out he’s the one who called Pell, it’s going to make me look at him all the harder. Trautmann’s smart enough to figure that out.”

  “How would Pell find out, if not from him?”

  “Could be the feds have Trautmann covered. I didn’t see anybody, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”

  “I thought Neary said they’d looked at Trautmann and decided to take a pass.”

  “That’s what he said. But they could still have him staked out, maybe to get a line on Nassouli.”

  “If that’s the case, it would make it hard for him to be our guy, no?”